Open Simulator

I have been in Second Life for quite sometime now. I come and go, sometimes I visit old friends and party with them, chat for a while, clean my inventory, then leave.

I was telling my husband, it would be great if there was an open source software or application that poeple could use to start a virtual world just like Second Life. He told me, “why don’t you research for it.” Well, I did…

I fould out that the platform that Second Life is using is Open Simulator, and Good News! IT’S FREE…

Don’t be too excited now, there are things that you have to do first in order for you to enjoy it. A few applications to download, one thing that you have to remember…FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!

There are a few websites that are very informative and very clear on what you have to do in downloading these apps and the instructions after that. But first let me lead you to Second Life. I f you have been there and is familiar with it already, you may move on the next paragraph.

Second Life (SL) is a Virtual World developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003 and is accessible via the Internet. A free client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world, which residents refer to as the grid. Second Life caters for users aged over eighteen. Second Life has an internal currency, the Linden dollar (L$). L$ can be used to buy, sell, rent or trade land or goods and services with other users. Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, and works of art. Services include “camping”, wage labor, business management, entertainment and custom content creation.(Thanks to Wikipedia)

You may forgot about this page already. I would figure you are registering in Second Life as of now…Hehehehe. I don’t blame you, it hooked me up for a while. I even payed to become a premium member which my husband dearly admonished me!

Now that you have an idea what Second Life is, let’s move on.

In January 2007 OpenSimulator was founded as an open source simulator project. The aim of this project is to develop a FULL OPEN SOURCE server software for Second Life clients. OpenSIM is BSD Licensed and it is written in C# and can run under Mono environment. The community is fast growing and there are some existing alternative Second Life grids which are using OpenSimulator. (You might not know the terms that is used here, but bear with me!)

By now you probably will forgot to come back to this page anymore. I know that there is a bunch of stuff to read and understand about Open Simulator, but if you would just browse around and try to understand the basics…that I think would be good enough for a beginner. In fact, OpenSim would be a perfect place for you to practice your skills in making objects if you want to make a little money in Second Life.

In my next post, I will be writing about the experiences I had going through all the Grids of Open Simulator.

Keep Playing ya’ll….

Virtual Games

The first time I heard about Second Life was when I was pregnant with my youngest son. I was home bound and I did not have anything to do except clean the house and take care of my family…For some, it’s a whole days work, but when the kids are at school and I’m done doing everything else-I tend to be very irritable.

My husband most of the time work from home-I would bother him often enough that he told me about Second Life. He said it would be great for me- for my “free time.”

Sure enough I became a member. It was so exciting at first…to be able to go about “virtually” in a world that everything is possible. I went to different places…met some people, a few of them are great friends now! Of course it takes a lot of your computer’s memory!

A week after my husband came home with a surprise for me. The Sims! A virtual game where people can make houses for themselves and get married, make babies, work…etc. But the most exciting part is the player being the god of everybody in the game!

I would play…play…until early morning, it gets so addicting! Another week came by, we went to Frys, I venture emmediately towards the simulation games. Got my husband to buy Civilization for me…played it once and then stopped, never touched it up to the present!

I was 8 months pregnant with my youngest, after getting tired of playing those virtual simulation games, I would sit beside my husband in the livingroom and watch him drive in GT 4. He urged me months back to try it, but looking at it-I swear I could never do it. I tired with the wireless controller, it was darn hard!

Daring me, my husband said I would never be able to learn how to play GT 4. I like taking photoshoot in different places, in GT 4 but I would always use B-spec. So I tried driving with the wheel. Soon I was racing with my husband and my kids too! We had a race game…and my oldest son and I being in the same team- WE WON! Hahaha….

Now, I have a collection of convertibles in GT 4…and I love to drive them, I just wish I could one in real life too…until then, I will keep on playing!