These past months I have been playing games in a virtual world called Second Life. It’s not exactly a game because there is no goal. It’s mostly a platform where users can create anything they want with the tools provided. I signed up at the beginning of this year and have been satisfied with it. I am on their free account which allows you to log in as much as you want, use anything in the game except for owning land. If you want land then you must pay for their premium account which is $9.95 per month.

It’s hard to explain how much you can do inside the game unless you try it. Here’s an article from business week about second life. It will explain a lot to the new users. Some of the games I have played inside second life are, Slingo, Tringo, Blackjack, Slot machines, War and Quintzee. All these games have been created from regular users. There are plenty of other games that I haven’t played yet and more are being created all the time. You can also buy cars, planes, clothes, furniture and gadgets for your avatar inside the virtual world. The one thing that makes this world different than others is you can buy Lindens(game money) with real money and you can sell Lindens for real money. This brings in some business minded people. Some ways of making money in the game is creating objects that others would buy, making scripts for games or vehicles, buying lindens at a low price and selling them for a high price, buying land to place games on and making money from them when people play and escorts or stripping. Yes this is a mature platform and can be used for anything that is legal. No one under 18 can sign up and use second life unless they use the teen grid which is not connected to the mature grid at all. In  the mature grid there are PG places also so not all of it is adult.

I’ve been using second life for entertainment. There are some singers and musicians who play live in certain places. These aren’t wannabe singers. They are very professional and give a great entertainment value. I also play the games for fun too. I haven’t found a business plan for myself in the game just yet but still thinking all the time. I use the name, JohnnyRS Hoggard, in the game. Join up and have fun for free or pay for some nice privileges.

Technorati Tags: second life, games, gaming life, virtual world

I love Role Playing Games and free games are the best. I remember being on a boy scout camping trip and some of us played dungeons and dragons. That was the first time I ever learned about role playing games. Then I found the Internet where MUDS were the big things. These were text based only. No graphics at all. When I found a local BBS with a very good RPG I knew I was hooked. This one was called Tele-Arena and spent days leveling up my character. The best part of most of these games is the fact you can join others to play. But sometimes I like playing by myself like Diablo.

I recently found a game called runescape. Played it for days also and have a good character now. It’s a fun game with plenty of adventures. Some of these online games have added features by paying. I like that very much. I haven’t bought a Online RPG game or payed monthly for one yet. Everquest would probably be fun but paying monthly to play it will just make me addicted and less willing to stop. I rather play the free games and when I find one that I love then I can pay for added benefits when I can.

Here is a link to some free RPG games. I still haven’t tried all these games but I will try them soon. Maybe I’ll write some reviews of them later.

Check this link out for a funny clip of dungeons and dragons

Technorati Tags: Role Playing Games, dungeons and dragons, MUDS, RPG, Tele-Arena, Diablo, runescape, Everquest, johnramirez

   Couple of times I’ll go into the yahoo chats and see what is up. Recently the user created chat rooms have been down. This action was probably because of a report on a TV station about chat rooms geared to pedophilia. I feel it is good for them to pay more attention in this area. They let things go for way too long. I remember noticing those chat rooms many years ago when my nieces were looking to chat on the internet. I’m glad the sponsors finally pulled the plug but they should have checked where their ads were in the first place.

   The only sad thing about this is other non sexual chat rooms were shut down also. It’s been over a week now and haven’t seen any changed yet. Hope they will bring the chat rooms back. Was a good place to chat with others instead of going through IRC. IRC has been around for years, ever since the internet was born. It’s a good chat interface but not a lot of every day folks find it. When the MSN chat rooms closed a couple of years ago, everyone went to the yahoo rooms. They are perfect because it’s on the Yahoo messenger. Easy to access. That was the problem because it allowed children easy access and the predators came as well. Yahoo should just have a couple people checking rooms all the time. People who create bad rooms can get banned. It’s easy. I use to help out on a family oriented board and had to be always aware of who is who. I’m sure Yahoo can hire some people to check the room names at least.

Technorati Tags: chat rooms, IRC, yahoo, chat, chatroom, johnramirez