Recreation in Second Life

Second Life, while primarily serving as a social network service, also serves as a platform for competitive and non-competitive recreational activities. For example, the creative capabilities provided by the Second Life physics engine enable sports involving an object such as a football, hockey puck, or golf ball to be scripted in a highly realistic manner. This capability in tandem with factors such as total immersion region design and WindLight sky settings enable region designers to provide sports game-play experiences with new levels of realization.

Live sport entertainment

Popular forms of live entertainment have been making their appearance in Second Life. Many sports have appeared, allowing residents to watch or participate in many popular activities. Second Life residents have created scripts to enable avatars to complete the essential motions of various sports. For example, golf clubs are selected and controlled with a HUD (an on-screen "heads up display"). Sporting leagues have sprung up in Second Life for cheerleading, American football, association football, boxing, pro wrestling, and auto racing.

Golf

The capability to bring recreational and sports activities to a new realization is easily experienced by playing virtual golf. Second Life residents can play golf as individuals or in groups. There are several public golf courses in Second Life, the largest of which is Green Acres Golf Course.

Football

The Second life Football League (SFL) is the first official virtual live game play football community. Established in 2009, the SFL offers a chance for almost Madden type play in Second life.

Second Life is owned by Linden Lab. Second Life, SL, and inSL are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. The SFL is not affiliated with or sponsored by Linden Research.

Gaming

Perhaps the most widespread gaming application of Second Life is user-created multiplayer role-playing games. Each of these mini-MMORPGs is referred to as a "roleplay sim" even though some span 25 simulator environments or more, existing over several physical servers. Their storylines, players and factions, and weaponry or spells are very complex, involving hundreds of players and thousands of props. The virtual world component adds a new dimension to MMORPGs. Political strategy, secrecy, and manipulation, for instance, are as important as skill at combat in many of these sims.

Roleplay sims follow a theme such as Post-Apocalyptic, Goreans, Vampires, Steampunk, Pirates, Science Fiction, Feudal Japan, Battlefield Combat, Wild West, and Ancient Rome. Most, but not all, are English-speaking sims. Mexico Monteray, for instance, is a Spanish roleplay sim.

Roleplay sims eschew the use of the built in combat system instead and will instead use one of the several resident developed advanced roleplaying combat systems, most of which are based on Dungeons & Dragons game mechanics. These are web-enabled, using an API, to communicate data on each character. Character creation includes character classes, races, attributes, and proficiencies/spells/abilities. A system of hit points, which are reduced by damage incurred, is implemented through one of the many combat HUDs. It allows for PvP Melee Combat and Combat with NPC Monsters.^[1] It can be used to build full quests.

First-person shooter combat is also a popular gaming choice in Second Life, with many in-world military groups battling each other, vying for prestige. Combat is performed by most of these organizations through the built-in Linden Labs Damage system #LL damage and not the above mentioned third-party roleplay HUDs & systems. The Second Life military community hosts many organizations dedicated to combat, research & development, and community. Initially, the community began as a small group of individuals seeking to emulate first-person shooter game mechanics within Second Life. It has since steadily grown to span across many simulators with many participants. There also are non-English speaking groups such as CATI.

Board games, including chess, Go, and Mahjongg, also have many in-world incarnations. Card games have been implemented in many variants, including collectible card games like combat cards or LOGOS cards.

Skill games such as Dragonz, Gempuz, Gem Sorter, Letterz, Pipz, Quince, Solo Dices, Sudoku, Syzygy and XMemory have come under attack due to a prohibition on gambling in Second Life enacted in July 2007 by Linden Lab. There are still many games that mimic the appearance of traditional "casino" games, but their payouts are ultimately based on skill.

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