Second Life: The Official Guide

Second Life: The Official Guide is the perfect book for anyone interested in Linden Lab's fascinating Second Life metaverse. This book explores in detail every aspect of Second Life's rich and multilayered virtual world, explains how it works, and offers a wealth of information and practical advice for all Second Life residents. The first part of the book, Getting a Second Life, acquaints potential and new players with the Second Life world. It describes the metaverse's geography as well as its society, explaining the written and unwritten rules. The second part, Living a Second Life, deals with the practical and economic aspects of Second Life: creating and customizing an avatar, building objects, scripting, and making money. The third part of the book, Success in Second Life, discusses ways to enjoy Second Life more. This section includes profiles of successful Second Life residents, discusses fascinating in-world events, and examines how some are using Second Life for business, training, and other purposes. The book closes with a glossary as well as quick-reference and additional-resources appendices. The accompanying CD-ROM features special animations, character templates, and textures created by Linden Lab exclusively for this book. The disc also guides new users through installation and includes a code that grants a special object their first time entering the metaverse.

Michael Rymaszewski is a veteran writer who has authored more than 20 strategy guides. His Age of Empires III: Sybex Offi cial Strategies and Secrets was named a Best Computer & Internet Book of 2005 by Amazon.com. Michael's other published work includes reviews, strategy articles, short fi ction, coffee table books, and video/TV movie scripts. He is also a video game writer and designer for City Interactive. Michael authored Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10. Wagner James Au writes New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com) and covers the culture and business of high technology and gaming for GigaOM.com, Kotaku.com, Salon.com, and Wired. He's also written for the Los Angeles Times, Lingua Franca, Smart Business, and Game Developer, among other publications and websites, primarily on game culture and the game industry, along with politics, fi lm, and pop culture. He's also a screenwriter (his script Future Tense was optioned by Canal Plus in 2001), and as a game developer, wrote for Electronics Arts' groundbreaking conspiracy thriller Majestic, and was a designer on America's Army: Soldiers. His work as the embedded journalist for Second Life has been featured in the BBC, the Washington Post, NPR's All Things Considered, CNN International, MSNBC, Wired magazine, News.com, New Scientist, Popular Science, and the San Jose Mercury News, among many other publications. He's also a consultant for businesses and nonprofi ts developing a presence in Second Life and is a part-time coordinator/promoter for Creative Commons' efforts in Second Life. He's developing his work in Second Life into an upcoming book of his own. You can contact him at wjamesau@well.com. James wrote Chapters 11 and 12. Mark Wallace is the editor of 3pointD.com, a widely read blog covering virtual worlds and other 3D online technologies. His writing on virtual worlds, video games, and other topics has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, GQ, and many other publications. He has written regularly on online games for The Escapist (www.escapistmagazine.com), and since January 2005 has run the Second Life Herald (www.secondlifeherald.com), a popular online newspaper covering virtual worlds. With Herald founder Peter Ludlow, he is coauthor of the forthcoming Only a Game: A Cyberspace Murder on the Bleeding Edge between Real and Online Worlds. He played his fi rst video game, the text-based game Adventure, in 1978 on aPDP-11. He lives in Brooklyn. Mark wrote Chapters 3 and 13. Catherine Winters is one of the longest-tenured residents still active within the Second Life community. In 2003, she cofounded the LSL Wiki, the collaborative Second Life programming site that has grown to become the defi nitive reference manual for LSL scripting. A prolifi c scripter and content creator within Second Life, Catherine is one of the few SL residents to have made Second Life her primary source of real-world income. In her fi rst life, Catherine lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She enjoys cycling and downhill skiing, as well as curling up with a good book. Her personal web log can be found at www.CatherineOmega.com. Catherine authored Chapter 7. Cory Ondrejka: Cory Ondrejka is chief technical offi cer at Linden Lab. He leads the Second Life development team in creating and leveraging such technologies as distributed physical simulation, 3D streaming, and real-time, in-world editors. He also spearheaded the decision to allow users to retain IP rights to their creations, helped craft Linden's virtual real-estate policy, and created the Linden Scripting Language. Cory coauthored Chapter 8. Ben Batstone-Cunningham is a Linden Lab programmer and scripting expert. On a brisk morning in February 2002, while cutting a Quantum Physics class, Ben read in the paper about a virtual world where anything was possible. He signed up for the alpha test of what was then called LindenWorld and quickly became addicted. Several months later, having become profi cient with the tools, he was invited to work for Linden Lab in creating the freshly renamed Second Life. Several years later, he is still happily addicted, and still creating scripts for Linden Lab-including example content for residents to learn from. Ben coauthored Chapter 8.