Playstation 5 vs XBox Series X : Which is Better?

Many Second Life users, probably most, don't spend all of our screen-time here, but will occasionally play games. Some of us will play them on the computer as well. Others prefer game consoles. Two of the most popular brands have been Playstation and XBox. Playstation recently revealed their latest in their line, the Playstation 5. XBox's latest, the Series X, won't be around until later this month, but some information about it has been revealed. So which is better? Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich) takes a look at the two and compares.

Read Cyfir's story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

SL Video: "Second Life VS VRChat - What Are The Differences?"

(Click here if the video does not play)

From Luca on Feb 17, "A video infographics showcasing the differences between Second Life and VRChat, for those of you who might be wondering what the differences are!" VR Chat does have a *few* advantages a user of Second Life might find appealing, notably less lag. But the older virtual world remains much more versatile.

Reader Submitted: Relaying in Real Life and Virtual Life

 By Bain Finch

My first Relay was in SL 2011. In 2012 I helped bring Relay to IWz. In 2014 I join my local real life Relay group, and been involved with all 3 groups, every year, since. This year, I've pulled back some, and will be the first year, I will not hold any planning group role.

For the most part, both RL and VR Relay are exactly the same. We joke about no bugs, weather, parking, but we do have lag, and we do have sim crossing parties. For the uninitiated, lag is just want it sounds like, so many people are on one sim (server) the system can't keep up. Sim crossing parties slightly different beast. Each sim is a different server, so when moving from sim to sim, your avatar and all you are wearing, needs to be handed off to that new server. When that fails, people pile up at the sim boarder, trying to enter, hence, sim crossing parties.

But you want to know something, the challenge of keep walking the track and dealing with lag and sim crossing issues, pretty much equals the challenges of dealing with weather, and temperatures, while walking, all night long.

The one thing VR Relay has over RL is our campsites builds. Most campsites are season themed, reflecting the Team's reason for Relaying, filled with advocacy information about cancer, health choices, mission messages and more. The biggest uniqueness for Relay on virtual grids is ability to communicate locally, within groups, group notices with tie-ins to social media, blogs and more, right across the whole grid, with the same abilities of using the fundraising dashboard, is virtual Relay's greatest strength. Virtual Relay transforms ones advocacy's signage, into a portals, able to span the world, free of language barriers.

The one marked difference, from the virtual Relay I noticed, was during and following lighting of the Luminaria. Wasn't until my second RL Relay, that I noticed it. Once the Luminaria are lit, the track begins to stratify and have distinct lanes. The outside lanes are for the runners. The middle lanes are for the walkers. But that inside lane, next to the Luminaria, that for the Luminaria shufflers. Moving one step at time, reading each and every Luminaria as they go. Silently advancing, bit by bit, read, step forward, reading the outpouring of love, all mindful of each other, while the walkers are pacing their laps, further out. After a bit, I find myself on that divide between the Luminaria shuffle lanes and the walkers coming at me, just looking at all their faces. Right there, I could see it in their eyes, that quiet, unspoken connection of the heart.

In the wee hours of that night, when I found myself sheltering from the cold and light rain, alone with my thoughts, I found my thoughts bouncing back and forth between all my Relay experiences, that I now realize, Relay's greatest strength is it's sense of community it creates, it's sense of belonging. As an individual, I can build a house. But get a bunch of folks together, and we can move mountains, build a pyramid or a coliseum in short order. Together, we can help each other, each doing our part, all adding together, all the while, reaching our goals.

Lite one candle, you push back the darkness on a space, lite a bunch of candles, you brighten up the whole night.

Bain Finch

One Early User of Sansar's Comparison to Second Life: Tourist Park To A Home

"It's like the difference between Disneyland and your hometown."

From the very beginning, Second Life residents have wondered what experiences in Sansar, or "the next generation virtual world" as it was called at first, would be like. At first, we had only the word of Linden Lab, whom were basically saying the place would be "so good, you will gladly give up Second Life for it.." More recently, they began saying this new virtual world would not be for all residents, and there were some screenshots. But it was only a few days ago in which the viewpoint of someone other than an employee of Linden Lab was available.

In New World Notes, Hamlet Au wrote about an interview with a "longtime Second Life user and professional developer" whom was willing to talk with him about his/her experiences in Sansar.

SL and Sansar are different animals. Neither is better than the other at everything. There are things that I wouldn't dare to do in SL that might fit in an Experience or set of experiences in Sansar (especially ideas that in SL would require severe tier upkeep because of land requirements), and there are things I could do in SL that I probably will never be able to in Sansar if they opt for a conservative toolbox of functions. It's like the difference between Disneyland and your hometown.

Why did he/she describe the difference like that?

Sansar is Disneyland. Great attractions, shiny things all over, modern technology seeping out of every Experience in the hands of competent Creators... Potential for a vast range of sized Experiences ranging from intimate comedy club settings all the way to potentially a small stadium, without the restrictions of altitude or sim width/breadth of SL. If Linden Lab keeps putting their nose to the grind and makes reasonable decisions, the worst that can be said technically of it is that it was a competently executed system for supporting creativity. 

But living there might be tricky: Experiences currently seem very locked down, with interactions with physically enabled objects in an Experience the only way to leave any sign you were there. Unless you publish an experience, you're basically stuck as a tourist. Whether you're okay with being absolved of all creative power outside of a reserved sandbox that nobody else can interact in by your side at the moment is really a personal decision (I honestly hope that some work is done to allow for collaborational Experience design by the time Sansar goes gold - it would allow for teams and larger-scale experience builds, and might take a little of that issue away.)

Second Life is your hometown. The posters on the wall that are still there are kind of tacky, your fellow residents are occasionally problematic, perhaps to the point of blocking and booting. Every step and gaze will always feel clunky with what few tools you have to move yourself and the camera. The rent (if you have land or adverts in-world) is potentially insane if you have more than a quarter sim. And occasionally you will look out the window of your diner and be greeted by disembodied dongs flying past en mass chanting offensive memes. 

But every sandbox is a potential explosion of creativity when the right residents are standing it it, even if they only use canned sculpties or parametric prims for building, and unlike Sansar right now, it's a lot easier to find a community to belong to in-world at most times of the day.

So from the point of many older residents, Sansar seems like a great place to visit, but without being able to build they wouldn't want to live there. It seems Linden Lab is trying to attract a different crowd, more interested in bells and whistles than taking the time to build things.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life vs. Entropia

Second Life is not the only virtual world around. There are other freeform virtual worlds, such as InWorldz. But some are a little different. Entropia, designed by the Swedish-based company Mindark, is much like a Massive Multiplayer Online Game with it's options for combat, resource gathering, and quests. But players can trade resources, as well as socialize. In the past, the game has made real life news for the selling of locations for thousands of dollars. Hearing about Entropia, Wesley Regenbogen decided to see for himself how it was.

Read Wesley's article in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.