Second Life

If you’re unhappy with your current life, perhaps it’s time to get a second one. How? By joining the Second Life community. Admittedly, that sounds creepy and kind of cultish… and maybe it is. Odds are that you’ve probably already heard of Second Life, but I just found out about it today [thanks, Yuhwei!], and now the morbid curiosity compels me in a way I cannot express in mere words. The allure is further strengthened by a powerful, difficult-to-ignore fact: the game is free. FREE. Or at least the basic account is. I figure once they suck you in, they’re guaranteed your money, right along with your soul, time, and whatever remains of your sanity.

What is Second Life?

Second Life is a virtual world – a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others.

An incredibly detailed digital body (’Avatar’) allows a rich and customizable identity. A powerful physics simulation running on a backbone of hundreds of connected computers and growing with the population allows you to be immersed in a visceral, interactive world that as of April 2005 covers more than 12,000 acres and 20,000 owned plots of land. The ability to design and resell 3D content, combined with the ability to own and develop land and a microcurrency, which can be exchanged to real money means that you can build a real business entirely within Second Life.

You can get all the details at the about Second Life website.

I maintain that it sounds cultish. Gonna go grab my cloak and get to downloading.