I tried it too. I heard you could convert the in game money to real money so I was curious if any of my computer art skills might translate. The in game modeler is pretty horrible. Legos would have been a better choice. As Bagga says the engine is pretty badly programmed. If I can see from one side of Ironforge to the other with 50-100 people in the way, why can't I see 20 feet in this low poly, low interaction, badly textured... thing? I dont think it's unfair to compare it to WoW, both are online worlds with tons of people, and each person has a unique avatar. You take out the mobs and instances and replace them with shops and dance clubs, and you'd have a better running Third Life

The reasons to go there for most people aren't the graphics. It is low population but on the other hand, everyone is on the same server, unlike Warcraft which has half a million servers to divide up the population, so the population density is pretty similar. They're just going to find themselves looking more and more (and more) dated since a sequel is pretty unlikely. They wouldnt want to divide their small population and people have invested in businesses there so losing that isnt really an option for the company. They'll have to find some way to completely update the engine without losing the content already built or they'll alienate their customers... so it will probably never look or run much better than it does.

I quit after the building didnt work out. Fortunately you never really have to pay a penny to play if you don't want to, so I guess its worth checking out if you dont mind walking amongst a bunch of very plastic looking (and somewhat deformed) people.

That's actually a really good idea. I'd play a Lego MMO.

Looks interesting but I don't really see much description of the game itself. (No, I didn't delve into the forums, just the developer-supplied content.)

Sorry, the combinations of items are what make the uniqueness. You can't customize the attributes of a dwarf, but since you can go equipped with several thousand possible items, Im sure it's all the same to the processor.

Edit: I can see what you mean about downloading custom content vs pulling from content already downloaded though. Im still positive it would be possible to make Second Life run MUCH smoother if they gave it another shot, or a new team went after it.

I load up SL on a fairly regular basis. I have to admit that at first I was thinking the same thing... bad graphics, slow load times, clunky interface. The more I got into it though, the more I started to like it. It's by no means perfect, but there is a lot I really like about it. The load times are actually fairly decent for me, especially when I take into consideration that everything in that world short of the land water and sky textures is player made. Textures, geometry, avatars, scripts.. all loaded on the fly.
I also find the social aspect of the world very interesting. (Maybe because I work so much that I don't have much time to socialize in my RL)
As for the furries... yeah, there are a lot of them there, but far more humans. It all depends on where you go. I'll admit, even though in SL I'm a 6'2" tall rabbit... I have never, nor do I now consider myself a "Furry". Maybe I'm just weird. Oh, and believe me when I say that I've seen people in human avatars doing FAR more disturbing things than I thought would be allowed. I'll leave it at that.

Feel free to message me with questions. I'd be happy to answer what I know.

I'm by no means a SL devotee, or even all that regular a consumer, but I think it's pretty damned cool if only for it's economic model. The single biggest problem the game has is the "finding something to do" problem. The only solution has been the proliferation of out-of-game magazines and directories. People have built some unbelievable things -- amusement parks, games, myst-like puzzle games, etc... -- but finding them is impossible for all of the porn and gambling.

Of course, if you LIKE porn and gambling.

And then there's: free.

At the moment, Folds has no shows in my area for the remainder of '06 and I've yet to see him this year. Just in case things don't change, I'll check this out. I'll post here about how it went. I'll include any encounters with furries as well.

And I wish I could read a calendar. I thought it was pretty lame to have a virtual launch party on a Friday. But it's Thursday.

That's only 3 hours away from here, though I don't have a guitar, and I can't think of any Ben Folds songs off of the top of my head....I know I've heard some Ben Folds Five stuff, I just can't think of it right now.

Didn't he do Rockin' the Suburbs?

I can play Dwarf Fortress but not Second Life...

Whether you mean the album or song (both versions), the answer is yes. Yes, he did. As for Over The Hedge, he did 5 for that including a child appropriate version of Rockin' The Suburbs.

My Second Life experience:

I signed up, downloaded the client, and installed it. I was about to start it and remembered there was a part of the flyer about signing up for instructions about participating in the event. Receipt of these instructions required giving my email to a third party. Nuts to that, so I checked a Folds forum to see if anyone posted the instructions. Well, turns out there were limited spots for the event and if you didn't sign up with that third party you couldn't get in. So, I didn't go and uninstalled Second Life. I never even dressed Chuck Werribee.

Going back to the Folds forum today, there's a transcript of the event and some pictures. From the looks of it, I think I spent my Thursday evening better by not going.

Whoops. Where are my manners?

Streaming version of (semi) new album
Q&A
Text Chat Transcript
Second Life Pictures