For years, social media and online communities have existed that give their users a chance  to create an avatar to interact with other individuals in the game. Platforms based on role playing games, or RPG’s, have been popular on the internet for over a decade with games with cult followings such as Diablo, World of Warcraft, and others. However, a recent surge of massively multiplayer games has risen such as Second Life, where users can create an avatar that is representative of themselves, or even an avatar that is drastically different than their real life personas, which creates some sort of appeal in certain individuals.

Creating an avatar on Second Life was relatively straight forward, and the navigation of my character is similar to other online games that I’ve played. However, the world that Second Life takes place in seems unpolished and lacking in interaction, leaving me wanting more out of my experience in the program. Maybe I entered Second Life thinking that it would be much like The Sims, another game where users assume the role of a created avatar, where I would have more control of the environment and the character, but this was not the case with Second Life. Hopefully as I spend a few hours in the Second Life world I will find something with the level of interaction and feedback that I was hoping for, because at the moment I’m having a hard time finding a desire to go back into Second Life and explore on my own free will.