How Do You Play This Game?

If you have read my previous posting, this is a typical newbie question that Second Life residents hear nearly everyday. I may put this on a notecard and hand it out to newbies. I might need to give it to some of the older Second Lifers too.

A game? No, this is not a game. You can play games here, but this is a virtual world. I live here (at least part of my time) and my friends live here. We are all have different reasons to be in SL. Some of us run businesses. Others are gamers. Still more are builders, and thank God for them. They design our clothes, our homes, all the HUDs and attachments we use. The main thing is that Second Life is a community. This is my community. I live here.

Any time you put people together the need develops for social order. Some people think Linden Labs just arbitrarily made up the TOS, but the Terms Of Service come from the need for people to interact in a fashion that is acceptable to the group as a whole.

So in a PG area you are not allowed to run around naked. Vulgar and obscene language is not tolerated. What you say in IM is one thing, but in Local Chat and Voice Chat anyone and everyone can hear you and frankly dude, I don't want to know how big your pixel dick is nor do I want to see it.

Mature areas of SL have different rules and they are much looser. So if your vocabulary is so limited that you have to used profanity as an adjective and verb in every sentence, then go to a sim where that is acceptable and cuss to your little, slimy heart's content. If you want to try out those new sex poses your found in the freebie shops, try them in a mature sim not in the middle of Morris Welcome Area.

Funny thing though. If you go to a mature sim, one of the first things that often happens in the landing zone is you get a notecard of specific rules. I don't think there is anywhere in SL that is completely lawless. I may be wrong, but if there is, I don't want to go there.

But back to the SL community in general. Like I said, we residents live here. We have invested part of our real lives here. Most of us just want to live in peace. We are tolerant of others and put up with newbie questions. We all come here with different religious and political beliefs. I might state mine from time to time, but I don't expect you to agree with me. I hope I can learn something about your background and culture while you are learning about mine. The fact that, on a daily basis, I can talk to Americans. Canadians, Brits, Scots, Aussies, Kiwis, as well as people from Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, and Japan is fantastic. We come from different places, but we all have the same human needs and we frequently discover that we have some of the same interests and share the same fears and hopes for our planet. Second Life is not a game. It is so much more. We live, and love, laugh and cry. I am here to enjoy life. I hope you are here to do that too.