Second Life - What you need to know

Published: 9/14/10, Last Update: 12/25/11

Before you sign up for an account, I want to point out a few things about Second Life (SL) that you'll need to know. I'll also tell you what to expect your first months while in-world.

Signing up for an account is free. However, if you'll want to own a house or land, then you'll need to sign up for the Premium account, which is $72 a year. I've outlined the differences between the two accounts below:

• It's free.

• Restricted access to areas

• No land, no house

• No weekly bonuses

• Slower response to tickets filed for tech support or in-world issues

• No ability to set a “home” location (unless you join a group that owns land)

• No access to the Linden Realms game. (Linden Realms is a game in Second Life where you can complete Quests for real money.)

• $72 annual fee

• You can set your account to have “full access” to go anywhere in-world.

• You can join an already established community and get a “ready to move in” piece of land with a house already set-up on it. All you have to do is add some furniture. (You also have other land options, which I will talk about in another article.)

• Receive a weekly bonus (also referred to as a stipend). Use this bonus to buy whatever you want. Clothes, house, furniture, car, etc. You could even save the stipend up and take it out through Paypal at the end of the year in real currency.

• Tickets are moved up the list ahead of Basic accounts.

• Ability to set a location as your “home”. Sort of like a “home” bookmark on your web browser. This feature comes in handy at times when you want or need to leave an area and return to your home base.

• Access to play the Linden Realms game. (Linden Realms is a game in Second Life where you can complete Quests for real money.)

As listed above, you can use Second Life for free (lots of people do). However, if you sign up and really like it, I highly suggest getting a Premium account. You can do so much more with a Premium account, plus you'll have your own house to hang out with your friends.

Now, you might think, “Why would I want my own house? It sounds kind of ridiculous.” I thought the same thing too when I first signed up. After you use Second Life for a while, you start to feel the need to express yourself more and have a nice space that's yours to show off to your friends, and a Premium account allows you to do that.

Taken from the new SL Terms of Service issued on Dec. 12th, 2010.

• Teens - Users 13 to 15. If you are at least 13 years of age but less than 16 years of age, you may only use the Service if you are affiliated with a Sponsoring Organization (i.e. a school), and your Account in Second Life is referred to as an “Affiliated Account.” Users are only allowed to be in areas that are "G" rated and are sponsored by said Sponsoring Organization.

• Teens - Users 16 and 17. If you are at least 16 years of age but less than 18 years of age (or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction, if it is greater), then you may only access areas of the Service rated "G" in accordance with our Maturity Ratings (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Maturity_ratings:_an_overview). If you have used the Service under an Affiliated Account, you may continue to access your Sponsoring Organization’s Teen Estate, provided that the Sponsoring Organization permits you to continue such access upon reaching the age of 16.

• Adults - Users 18 and Over. If you are at least 18 years of age (or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction, if it is greater), then you may access areas of the service that are rated "G", as well as Moderate and Adult, as provided in our Maturity Ratings. (Your Accounts may be suspended or terminated immediately without warning or any refund or other compensation if we believe that you are under 13 years of age, if we believe you are under 18 years of age and you represent yourself as 18 or older, or if we believe you are over 18 and represent yourself as under 18.)
• Adults: Age Verification for Adults. In order to access Second Life regions or listings designated as "Adult Only" Content, which Content may be explicitly sexual, intensely violent or otherwise designated as Adult under our Maturity Ratings ("Adult Only Content"), you affirm that you are at least 18 years of age, or the age of legal majority where you reside if that jurisdiction has an older age of majority. You further agree that as a condition to accessing Adult Only Second Life, you will submit to account verification as required by Linden Lab, and provide only true and accurate identification documentation to Linden Lab or its third party service providers to verify your age. You further acknowledge that you will comply with our Maturity Ratings, and conduct any activities we have defined as Adult only within regions designated as Adult.
  

The first few months in Second Life will be a learning experience for you.

When you first sign up, you are taken to a Tutorial Area where you learn to use all your basic controls, such as walking, flying (yes, you can fly!), sending friend requests, etc. After you feel comfortable with what you've learned there, you can leave the tutorial area and start to explore - but this isn't the end to the learning process. The “guide” function stays on and shows you new ways to interact and use Second Life until you have mastered all of the basic skills.

There are also a few things that I should probably warn you about.

• Most people are nice, but there are bullies (called “griefers”) that prey on others in Second Life. This is when the “Home” feature comes in handy that I listed in the chart above. For instance, if you are being harassed or bullied, all you have to do is hit the “Home” button and you are sent back to your home location. This removes you from the abuse and lets you calm down long enough to gather your thoughts and file an Abuse Report against the person.

• Lastly, since you will be new to Second Life, some more experiences users - I'll refer to them as “older” since in Second Life your avatar has an age based on the date that you signed up - do not like “newbies” or also referred to as “noobs”. What these older users fail to understand is that they were also new at one time and should treat everyone with respect. If you ask them a question, it's because you want to learn. So, if you ever experience any disrespect from an older user, just politely remind them that they were new once too. (Here's a tip – To see how old an avatar is, right click on their display name, select “view profile”, and you can see the date that they were “born”.)

(I hope that I didn't scare anyone away with the above information. It's really not as bad as it reads here on the screen. I just wanted to warn you of the potential issues that you may run into. You may never have a problem with anyone.)

You will need to download some software to use Second Life, (Don't worry! This software is spyware free!); so before you sign up, make sure that your computer meets the system requirements.

Basically, if you have a computer that was manufactured in the past 3 years and has an NVIDIA or ATI graphics card, you should be able to run it.

If in doubt, download the software anyway. If it runs, you should be set to go. If it doesn't run...it may be time to upgrade your computer. ;-)

If you'll be using a laptop, make sure that you have an external mouse to plug in and use. A touchpad mouse isn't very useful in SL.

Also, make sure your mouse has a scroll wheel.

For a complete list of the Requirements, go here: http://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/

(Note: This link says that you can't run SL on a satellite connection, but I know people that do. So, if you have satellite, try it anyway!)

When you are ready to sign up, go to www.secondlife.com and get started. Then check out my first tutorial on Second Life called "Second Life Tutorial - The Basics".