Second Life Native Linux client Released 49
strredwolf writes "Linden Labs has opened up the native Linux client to all users. This is an alpha version, though -- it has a lot of bugs and many hard edges. Prelim reports on the Linux client forums include: NVidia cards are better supported over ATI; get the latest drivers working in 24/32 bit color; some file editing to tweak settings is worth it; no sound; no file uploading; no texture downloading."
Lower TCO (Score:2, Funny)
Sweet. (Score:3, Funny)
So... does Second Life have killing people with swords?
Re:Sweet. (Score:1)
Re:Sweet. (Score:1)
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:1)
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, sorry, I guess you've never been in that section.
(kidding!)
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:2)
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:1)
It's not even really a game.
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:2)
Actually...
would that work? that would be just about enough to get me to join. A programmer's MMORPG, the better code wins!
-nB
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:2)
Re:There is a real life out there too, you know? (Score:2)
*goes to hand in his resignation
Just in case (Score:2)
Booooring! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Booooring! (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, it's almost nothing like WoW, except that both games are online. It's not even really a game per say, more like a toy. One of the biggest differences is that Linden Labs (who makes Second Life) actually encourages people to try to make real US dollars from stuff they do in SL. There is a built-in system for converting in-game currency into US$ and everything.
On the other hand, if you want to see numbers fly over the heads of bad guys, then SL is definatly not the game for you. There is a little bit of PvP combat, but given the nature of the game (anybody can build anything) it's horribly unbalanced and basically nobody does it outside of limited events where the rules can be locked down some more. Actually, that is the biggest strength and biggest weakness of SL: It has almost no rules. This makes for a prolifiration of sex clubs and whatnot, but it also means peopel are free to build whatever they feel like.
Re:Booooring! (Score:2)
Re:Booooring! (Score:2)
So, is the Half-black, half-japanese Pizza delivery boy with samurai swords already taken?
A reply for most comments thus far: (Score:4, Informative)
That's the objective, non-negative stuff I could say about the game. Anything else would be modded troll or flamebait.
Re:A reply for most comments thus far: (Score:2)
Re:A reply for most comments thus far: (Score:3, Insightful)
Real Life (Score:2)
Re:Real Life (Score:2)
Second life? (Score:2)
I've looked at that game, but as far as I can tell, it's not really a game as much as a graphics creation site -- and with a rather dated graphics engine too.
So, can someone in the know tell me if there really are gaming elements within this thing? Doesn't have to be slash 'em and loot 'em style, but any gaming element at all. Is it a moo, a mush, a rom, what?
I'm not getting the point of this thing, in case you can't tell, so help me out.
Thanks.
Re:Second life? (Score:2)
Re:Second life? (Score:2)
The games are all "in-game", and user-created. There are FPS areas, RPG areas, air-to-air combat, and so on, all implemented through the built-in scripting system. That said, most of the world consists of shopping malls, casinos, clubs, and people's houses. I happen to enjoy getting on every few months to just walk around and take screenshots of the incredible crap that most people like to build when given total cre
Re:Second life? (Score:3, Informative)
The second thing is as a sandbox. The closest other thing I can think of would be Gerry's Mod for HalfLife, although there are some significant differences. Most of my time online there that isn't spent
Re:Second life? (Score:2)
Happy weekend to yous.
Too commercialized (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Too commercialized (Score:2)
Re:Too commercialized (Score:2)
The "free" membership (Score:1)
I'm sure they gotta make money somehow. Too bad they feel like they need to trap people into spending it rather than doing it honestly.
Use a cellphone feature and not credit card. (Score:2)
Re:The "free" membership (Score:2)
Every new account gets some "Start-up" benefits (L$, cheap land, etc.). Somebody with a lot of time on their hands could create a lot of accounts and dump all these benefits into a single account (or just sell them outright).
Also, there is a LOT of nudity and sex in SL! They need to keep minors out and using a CC# is a (not foolproof) way to do this.
Works better under WINE (Score:1)
I just tried running the windows SL client under wine (on a gentoo box with a fairly recent NVidia card) last week. I'm able to hear sounds as well as view textures (didn't try uploading any files), and the 3d hardware acceleration is definitely working.
Best bet: stick with wine for now, until they get the linux client functionality fully worked out.
And yeah, I'm still trying to figure out something interesting to do/build in SL. The casinos and sex
Ah, the joys of paradigm shifting... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the late 1980s, a new "paradigm" was around: the Internet, quickly maturing and spreading around, touting itself as an alternative to bulletin boards by introducing Usenet News, and replacing chatrooms with IRC. At that time, old-time BBS veterans scorned the bright, goggle-eyed 'utopians' and 'dreamers' that looked to the Internet as the future of communication, socialization, creative expression, and even (God forbids!) business. They were scorned and laughed upon; BBSes already provided all those things and were much better at doing so than the clumsy 'Internetters' could with their old-fashioned and cumbersome tools. And the media covering the BBS labeled the nerds connecting to them as interested only in sex and games.
As a matter of fact, a whole generation of die-hard BBSers, highly skilled veterans in promoting their services using a well-proven technology, simply were reluctant to relinquish their status quo and embrace the Brave New World of the Internet.
In the 1990s, with BBSes "absorbed" by the Internet (by tying them together using the Internet as a medium, and propagating discussions, chatrooms, and early MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs to the Internet), people fought among themselves what was the best form of propagating information and providing remote access to it. Telnet-based servers competed with gopher servers which in turn competed with proprietary protocols for chatrooms and MUD/MUSHes/MOOs. There was no clear 'winner' (gopher seemed to be the best bet at the time) until an obscure scientist at CERN developed yet another model of remote access to information: the Web was born, and it was text-based. Still, gopherers and promoters of other tools scorned the 'arrivists' -- they simply wouldn't leave "their" proprietary tools in order to clumsily embrace "hypertext", which was so limited in scope and hardly used by anyone except a few freaks and outcasts on a very limited basis.
When the first graphical browser came out, the veterans of the text-based Internet frowned upon Mosaic and their ilk. People simply didn't have the required bandwidth to show 'nice graphics'; a text-based model had been in place for ages (at this time, MIME-encoded attachments for email was still a 'novelty'), it worked well and fast, and used little bandwidth. Why would people need a 'graphical browser'? The answer, of course, was clear if we read the media's coverage of the Web in the mid-1990s: it's all about sex and games.
Starting around 1995/6, something seemed to click in place, and suddenly the Internet was not only 'sex and games'. Through the Web, people could also communicate, socialize, exchange information, get access to databases -- and do business. The media was intrigued; corporations started to publish information online through the World-Wide Web; Linux and the major open source tools started to get disseminated through the Web as well. The Web, indeed, absorbed previous technologies and replaced it with new and better paradigms: chatrooms, blogs, forums replaced earlier technologies, but they're basically driven by the same needs: distributing information, content, chatting, socializing, doing business. And, of course, also sex and games. But in the 'enlighted' year of 2006, while we live with 'sex and games', almost all of us would agree that the Internet (or, better said, the World-Wide Web) is not about sex and games; they're part of it, but there is so much more than that.
People now fight to define what the "Web 2.0" is going to be, but the "new Web" is nothing new, just applying new tools to a decade-old technology; yes, w
Re:Ah, the joys of paradigm shifting... (Score:2)
The problem with sl is it is still linden labs trying to stay a float. They aren't creating an interesting technology as much as they are creating a closed system to keep themselves in buisness.
The first step really should be a 3d webser
Re:Ah, the joys of paradigm shifting... (Score:1)
I think you have it the other way round when comparing Second Life with VRML. VRML is a protocol, released publicly; what a g
Re:Ah, the joys of paradigm shifting... (Score:2)
I guess the only comment I have to that, is try to take everything you have listed and apply it to the current web we are using now.
What currency do we use? Real world money.
What do we do about IP? Lawyers.
I guess my point I was trying to make was that I completly understand what SL provides and why they charge for their services, but because of those things, it is the reason SL will not be one of the things to bring
Re:Ah, the joys of paradigm shifting... (Score:1)
Remember, we had the Mosaic browser because it was sponsored by the NCSA; actually, we had the Internet because it was sponsored by the NCSA (and similar foundations in other countries...). So "taxpayers paid for it". The Web's genesis was a pretty unusual one: from academia to students/researchers first. People with lot of free time, lots of information to pass among themselves, lots of free access to resour