General information about Second Life

General and basic information about the virtual world Second Life, what it is, how it works, and possibilities there.

Second Life (SL) is a 3D virtual world run by Linden Labs (LL) which, although containing much basic functionality, is more of a platform for building applications and games rather than a finished game.

Users are represented in SL by graphical avatars (AVs), which can interact and may take and alter between many shapes, concerning gender, age and size, human or not.

Users can walk, fly and teleport (TP) in SL, and communicate by text chat (chat), textual actions (emotes), instant messages (IMs), group messages, notecards, voice chat (voice), visual signals and animations.

SL consists of geographically sculpted, tiled regions, each 256x256 meters, called simulators (sims) grouped into continents and islands.

SL mainland continents are groups of sims owned by LL but partly rented as parcels, ranging from 4x4 meters to a full sim, by users or groups.

SL islands are single or grouped sims, owned by LL, but rented and run each in full by a single user or group, allowing them more control.

Items and systems can be built in SL by combining geometrical building blocks called primitives (prims), textures and in-world scripts allowing interactivity and functionality.

Items created by users in SL range from cloth textures and simple, inactive prims worn as attachments by AVs, via vehicles and scientific models, to complex battle and role-playing systems.

Items can be sold or given to other users in SL, with different permissions (perms) on how the new owner can handle them, e.g. make copies or not (copy), transfer them or not (trans), and modify them or not (mod).

Users can get money in SL (Linden dollars, L$) by exchanging from real life (RL) currencies, selling items or services, e.g. being present to seemingly enhance popularity of an area (camping).

Paying (premium) users get a weekly allowance from LL (300 L$/week) and can own parcels on mainland to create and keep buildings and other items on.