Are you curious? Or do you think SL is crap? What is SL anyways and what does it offer?

SL is a 3D virtual reality, it’s an interactive graphics chat world, SL is a game and a playground, it’s all about sex, it’s a role playing game, people in SL have relationships and families, it’s an online community, it’s all about money, SL players spend real money, people with various skills make real money, SL can be experienced for free, SL is for geeks, SL allows the “socially handicapped” to connect, SL supports charity (e.g. Relay for Life), and that’s just a small selection. Maybe something caught your attention and interest here. Curious now?

Getting started in SL takes some time and patience. The initial learning curve may appear steep, but isn’t that true for everything new you try? With a bit of common sense it’s not that hard. The following Second Life step by step how-to guide should help

1. Start Slow!

Go to the Second Life website, sign up, download the client, install, and log in.

Your first login will take you to Orientation Island. Take your time to go through all the tutorials and get familiar with the software. It will help you tremendously in your future Second Life experience. You will also have to pass some tests before you may proceed to Help Island.

Help Island is restricted to fellow newcomers and mentors. Pick up all the free stuff you can find and play with it. Don’t hesitate to chat with passers by or ask for help from a mentor. You never know, you might as well meet your first SL companion. In any case remain open-minded.

2. Drop the Newbie Look!

Everyone starts out looking more or less the same. There are different female and male avatars to choose from when signing up. These avatars are only good for the first couple of steps and are frowned upon by advanced residents.

To blend in you should demonstrate individuality in shaping your individual character. Start by editing your appearance and sculpt your avatar until you like what you see.

In the store at Help Island you will find a few alternative outfits, try them on and also browse the public Library, which is part of your inventory, for more clothes. Later I will show you where to find more free stuff, including shapes, skins, hair, shoes and clothes.

3. Work on your Profile!

Your profile gives everyone an impression of who you are. It’s part of your character. Leaving it empty doesn’t make you mysterious, it makes you look like the noob you are.

When in SL, right-click on your avatar and select > Profile… from the pie menu. Go through the different tabs and fill in some details about yourself. To view the profile of another avatar, just right-click on their body or name-tag and select > Profile… from the pie menu.

4. Work on your Skills!

Help Island offers tutorials on building and inventory management. You’ll find a sandbox, an area where you can drop items from your inventory or start building. Use it to get familiar with the tools you have, it’s free!

To start building, right-click on the ground and select > Create from the pie menu. From the menu that comes up you can select the type of object you would like to create, then click onto the ground again and the item will apear. Now go ahead and play with it.

5. Know what is Expecting you!

On Help Island you will also find a lot of posters. Some give out information in the form of notecards. Just left-click them, accept the inventory offer (blue menu in the top-right of your screen) and keep the notecard that is being given to you. All of this is valuable information that you should not pass up on. My advice: read, read, read!

6. Explore

What is the first thing you would like to see in Second Life? A club, a park, people, a shopping mall? Whatever it is, by now you should know how to find it.

Use > Search button in the bottom of your viewer, jump to the > Classifieds, > Events or > Places tab and proceed to discover your first destination. > Showcase features some of the hottest locations in SL.

When you think you’ve found an interesting destination click the > Teleport button to leave Help Island. Alternatively, you can use the Exit at Help Island which will send you to a welcome hub on the mainland.

In the next hour or so take some time to explore. Visit the landmarks you received on Help Island or find other adventures. Walk, run, and fly, collect impressions of land and people, and don’t worry too much about still looking like a newbie.

Remember to keep a landmark (> World > Create Landmark Here) of the places you might want to check out again later.

7. Collect Free Stuff

After seeing what is possible, you might want to pick up some new clothes and a nicer skin. Search the > Classifieds for “free” stuff in the > Shopping category. Many stores offer freebies for L$0 or Dollarbies at L$1. For now you don’t want to spend any Lindens, so go with the L$0 stuff.

Many stores have special offers for newbies 30 days old or younger. This is your chance to lay your hands on high quality apparel and body parts for free. So watch out and take advantage of this opportunity.

In > Groups search for lucky chairs or dumpster diving to find groups dedicated to sharing places where you can pick up free stuff.

8. Collect Linden Dollars

Search for “money tree” in the Classifieds or even better the Places tab. While you are 30 days old or younger you can pick up Linden Dollars hidden in money trees. Other residents leave them there for new players.

9. Get Involved

Talk to people around you, make friends, if you have some more time browse the events calendar (> Search > Events) and visit a party, join groups and try to have a good time. Meeting people and making connections or friends is the best part of SL. You never know where these encounters may take you. In the end you might open a SL business.

10. Get a Job

Unless you have met someone who has offered you a job, your quest starts with searching again. Browse all available jobs in the > Employment category of the > Classifieds section and reply to those that sound interesting. Remember to tick the “Include Mature content” box if you’re ready to explore all there is to offer.

And that’s it, welcome to Second Life!

What is your experience with SL or other virtual worlds? Did you find this little guide helpful for your start into a Second Life? What’s missing? Leave your feedback in the comments!

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In any event, I did check out Roblox. Not only is it fun, it has some great features. It’s a cool, free virtual world for kids where you get to create your own character, much as you would for SecondLife or any number of other virtual world games.

In this one, the characters are blocky, and reminiscent of those little yellow Lego fellows. It’s kind of like Sims, where you get to build your own buildings and towns. Sort of like Webkinz in that you can earn points (known as tickets or Robux in Robloxian) so that you can do different things like buy user-created online goods for your Roblox character.

What really sets it apart is that kids playing on Roblox can create their own games and put them out there for the world to use.

Parent’s – take note of this site. Here are some of the uber cool tools you can use to keep your wee ones safe:

• All in-game chat is filtered for coarse language. As the parent, you can control whether they can chat or use something called menu chat. It’s a list of pre-written questions and responses. The kid’s just choose them and that’s all the communication they are allowed.
• You can control something called SuperSafe Privacy mode for the kids too. What that does is block ALL text fields from accepting any input. So your precious one cannot put any personal information out there.
• As the parent, you login for them using your email account. That keeps you in control of their playing time AND adds another layer of security from weirdos.
• Most importantly, Roblox has a team of paid and volunteer monitors who pore over all chat logs and forum discussions. There is zero tolerance for course or violent language.
• The Roblox team provides tips for online security and recommends other resources to help you have a fun, safe time online.

As a Dad, I’m very pleased to see this. But as a grown-up kid, I want the games! There are a lot of games on this site, many of them user-built. As a result, some of them are not so good and some are way cool. Area 51 was pretty cool but I’m not sure exactly what the objective of it was. I found a flying saucer and got in it, but I couldn’t go anywhere. Then,I got infected with some sort of alien virus and that’s how you die, I guess. You don’t really die, you just regenerate.

The Roblox-created game, Crossroads, was really fun, too! It’s a good starting ground to learn how to use your tools (which are really weapons) with a bunch of other players. Some of them hang out there regularly and talk to each other and team up. That was so much fun, my wonderful one had to tell me to get back to writing. I wish she wouldn’t use the cattle prod, though.

Sure, the game play seems juvenile, but guess what? It’s supposed to be. The point is that this is an online gaming community that the kids themselves can create. They can do that through the Roblox Studio. It strongly resembles the Visual Basic Studio and allows you to design your own spaces and games. Unfortunately, it’s not terribly intuitive to me, but they do have great documentation over at the Roblox Wiki.

To really get the full effect of building your own games and items in Roblox, you would need a Builder’s Club account, which does cost. Maybe give your kids a couple months of using the site in general, before commiting to that.

With the ability to build games, sell items that they make and interact with other games, kids are learning priciples of programming, design, marketing, business and Math skills. I fail to see the downside to Roblox.

Are you a Robloxian? Or maybe your kids are? What do you like best or least about Roblox? Is this your first time hearing of Roblox and you want to thank me with gratuitous praise? Are you aware of any other free virtual world for kids? Well, my fellow Robloxians, that’s what the comments below are for.

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What’s so great about these Virtual Worlds, is that they allow people to get a taste of alternative realities.

People can put on other people’s skins; the shy clerk can become an impulsive casanova. The bad guys get a lick of benevolence, and vice versa. These virtual world systems can be immense multiplayer role playing games. Release yourselves on these other worlds, and play your part in the alternative realities.

Not that there aren’t any people who remain themselves in these games. Besides the role playing aspect, these virtual worlds make for great social grounds. Meet new people, or hold a rendez-vous of friends. Have fun in a blown-up instant messaging universe, with tons of social activities.

Today we’ll take a look at the different available virtual world systems. Some are very popular, others you might hear of for the first time. One of them should certainly fit you.

Second Life

Second Life is without any doubt the most wide-spread Virtual World, and chances you’ve heard from it are close to 1.

It’s a huge free virtual experience, with tons of user-created worlds and environments. Go to the park, a pub, or even to a dancing on a colonised asteroid, the possibilities are endless.

Last year, Tina also wrote a post on another side of Second Life, addressing the educational aspect and support groups. You can check it out here.

Kaneva

Unlike Second Life, Kaneva has a more specific array of activities, primarily focussing on virtual shopping (for which you’ll need to spend real-life money, sadly) and entertainment. The game primarily covers dancings and other social meeting places.

Kaneva also tries blending the real world in the game, by implementing picture albums and youtube videos. It’s not as big as Second Life, but still covers for a more than reasonable userbase, with over a million registered members and tons of communities.

There

There, your friends are here. A great virtual world to escape real life and chat real-time with friends from all over the world. The game has a great chat system, but also enables you to participate in other activities, like scavenger hunts, hoverboard racing, and island exploring.

You can also put your own hand to There, by decorating your virtual home, or even designing new items.

And these are just some of the available online Virtual Worlds. There are tons of these, both realistic as absurd. A lot of them are alike for the biggest part, but there are small nuances that make the difference and determine their fan base.

Which do you like, and why? Tell us about it in the comments!

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There’s one question that lies on everybody’s lips; who will be the next Archlord? Who will prove worthy? The gallery of heroes can never be long enough. Chantra is in need of those ‘ordinary heroes’. People like you.

About Archlord

Archlord is an MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) by NHN Games Corporation and Codemasters. The game was also featured in the movie BenX, about an autistic boy escaping into the virtual world. You might know the guys at Codemasters from other good games like Overlord, The Lord of the Rings Online and Sensible Soccer. There is one major difference, though. Since the 18th of August, Archlord (together with all of its expansions) was released as a free download.

The Chantra Shop

Archlord gets its money from the game’s ‘Chantra Shop’; a place to buy exclusive in-game items with ‘Chantra Credits’, funded by your (dad’s) credit card. In short, you can play Archlord without paying a penny (or cent), but you might miss out on some exclusive pieces of armour.

Archlord Gameplay

There are basically two ways to play Archlord; solving quests and getting into the Archlord System. The quest solving is pretty much self explanatory. There are tons and tons of quests, widely differing in their length and difficulty. This is a more solo-aimed play, though you can team up with other players to beat that impossible village boss.

The Archlord System

The Archlord System is a bit more complicated. As you may know from the intro, Chantra is ruled by an almighty Archlord. This is one player per server (there are three in total), with exclusive powers. The Archlord has the ability to choose between night and day, rain and sunshine on the entire server. He has a personal guard and can summon powerful monsters to protect him or fight by his side.

To become the Archlord, you first need to become the head of a guild and train your ass off. When you and your guild are strong enough, you can participate in a castle raid. In this raid, you have a defending and an attacking guild. The goal of the defending guild is to defeat the attackers, or at least try to hold them off as long as possible. The attacking guild, on the other hand, needs to attack and claim the castle. A detailed guide of how this goes into work can be found here.

When you’ve obtained the castle, you need to perform a siege on the current Archlord’s fortress; The Rensphere Castle. You join this ‘run’ against the guilds of the two other castles. The goal is to fight off the monsters and each other and be the first to challenge the Archlord’s right hand; Dikan, The Dark Lord of Chaos. When defeated, you will be crowned the new Archlord.

Roundup

The game looks great, sounds great (the original soundtrack was composed by the London Symphonic Orchestra) and the playing environment is simply huge. I have played the game for a few weeks, and I haven’t even been in half of the possible places. If you were to walk from one side to another, you’d literally lose a day, so you’ll be happy to see the (pricey) teleport gates they’ve put in the game.

[rating=4]

Download Archlord Free

Archlord is freely available. The 1.3 GB download (featuring all expansion packs) can be found here. Enjoy!

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I’m sure most of you have heard of Second Life (SL) before. In case you haven’t, let me give you a very short overview of what we’re talking about. Second Life is a 3D virtual world, entirely created by its inhabitants (residents). In SL you will find almost everything you know from your Real or First Life (RL), and more.

It works much like a game; you sign up for a basic (free) or premium account, install the software (viewer) on your computer, start to form your personal character, you can explore the world, interact with other residents, play your role within the game, create things, receive things other residents have created and so on.

Yes there is role playing within SL, yes there are games within SL, yes people have jobs in SL earning virtual money (Linden Dollars or L$), yes you can go shopping with your L$ and spend real money too, yes you can buy or rent land, yes people earn real money in SL, yes there is sex, yes there is crime, and yes everything else you heard may well be true.

Let me tell you that there is a lot less of all the bad stuff one might expect. During my time in SL (over two years) I was never harassed and witnessed merely a handful of serious griefings (terrorist attacks). Surprisingly, most people do behave quite well!

More questions are answered in the SL FAQ .

So what’s the hype?

It’s tough to give a specific explanation, but in general it’s probably the diversity of options that makes SL so attractive. People live out their dreams and fantasies, they detach from the real world and their RL issues, they unwind in a game that offers a niche for almost every shade of the human character. Many residents engage in RL topics, supporting real people with real issues. Yet others are in it for the money, forming SL businesses with which they earn RL cash. Some are in it for the free entertainment, they enjoy being creative, hunting down free stuff (freebies), playing the SL version of Bingo (Slingo) or other games, while chatting with fellow residents. Many love to hit the clubs, dance, mingle, participate in a contest, play trivia, and simply explore the beauty of a thousand worlds. Employers even conduct job interviews in SL. Ask a thousand different people and you will receive a thousand different views – a thousand people, a thousand worlds.

Why the heck a post about Second Life on Make Use Of?

As suggested before, SL offers a lot more than a role playing environment. It’s a haven for anonymous support groups, discussion rounds, as well as online education. There are regular meetings supporting cancer patients (survivors) and their relatives (caregivers), people with emotional issues, and alcoholics. Discussion groups cover everything from dream interpretation to zen practice to creative nonfiction or children’s poetry.

Education is one of the most progressive fields in SL. Many educational programmes focus on skills required inside SL, which is a great way to get started for new residents (newbies or noobs) or those wishing to start a business. But that’s not where it stops. The German Volkshochschule (adult education center) for example regularly offers free courses and guided tours through museums or rebuilds of national monuments. Lots of universities provide their students with lectures and seminars held inside SL (in-world). Publicly listed educational events range from English classes, via classes on Creation vs. Evolution, project management to Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Most but not all of these events are free. Most classes are free, however some charge a small fee, for example L$500 ($1.90 or €1.30) for a one hour English class.SL is a market for artists and talented people from all walks of life. There are singers, furniture designers, fashion designers, tattoo designers, painters, photographers, scripters, managers, sales people, estate agents, teachers, doctors, actors, journalists and more, and many of them make a RL living in a virtual world.

Taken together, there is a virtual world out there that has great potential for more than just having fun. It’s up to you and your imagination and if you need a little help stay tuned for insider tips & tricks that will show you how to get started and make use of a Second Life.

Second Life runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. I hear the Linux client isn’t very stable and there are various issues with graphics cards on all platforms. Please refer to the Second Life System Requirements, the Knowledge Base, and the Forums for details, help and support.

What is your experience with SL or other virtual worlds? Why do you love or detest these “games”? Please share with us in the comments!

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

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The idea is simple, once you register you become a resident of a 5-star habbo hotel where you can roam around and visit several rooms and interact with other members. You can also get your own room and decorate it, invite people and etc. For decorations you actually pay real money(in the range of $0.20), it may sound ridiculous but on the other hand it brings more real life atmosphere which makes process even more interesting and genuine. If you don’t feel like spending you are still able to hang around, play games and interact with other hotel residents.

After registering you gain access to hotel navigator, which displays all rooms and the activity levels within them(full,crowded,empty,etc). To use hotel navigator you need to install free macromedia hockave player. There are 2 types of rooms, public (open to everyone and can host btw 50 -100 Habbos) and guest rooms(made by other habbos and can host btw 5-50 Habbos). There are bars, disco clubs, swimming pools, game rooms and much more. After, selecting a room you wish to visit you can enter it and see what’s going on insde. Check out screenshot below of me in ‘The joint’ one of hotel’s resturants.

Within each room you can; move around and talk to different people dance waive to people and do some room specific activities

Some more thigs you can do at habbo;

• create your habbo room
• join the habbo club and get extra free stuff like furniture, dance moves and other.
• send out a Habbo Body Language e-cards (this is funny one).
• get your self a pet (you will even have to feed it, lol)
• participate/create different activities like games or competitions
• decorate your room with Habbo Furniture
• play games like Wobble Squabble and Battle Bal
• meet new people
• get news about habbo hotel
• listen to official habbo radio station
• add different rooms to your favourites
• customize your personal habbo look

Each Habbo hotel has it’s own working staff, check out staff members for Habbo U.S., here.Habbo Hotel is a product of Helsinki based company, Sulake Inc. Overall I think application is somewhat fun and intresting. It also seems to be more popular among younger demographics. Person must be at least 13 years old to register and anyone below 18 adviced to consult his parents to go through Parents’ Guide.

Habbo Hotel currently available in 19 countries. If you are a fan of virtual world and want something more real and fun it may be worth checkng it out. I would also warn you in advance that these type os services are quite addictive.

Some other similar sites include Hive7, SecondLive and Cyworld. For gamers, there is a world of warcraft with somewhat similar theme.

Ok, Now I’m going back to habbo, there are some rooms I want to see.

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