2nd, 3rd, 4th...Life - Alternatives to the Mighty Second Life

Not content with having just the 'one' virtual life to accompany my real one, I thought I would investigate the competition........

Findings so far is that there are an increasing number of 'Virtual worlds' becoming available, each with their own personality, strengths and weaknesses. These are not simply 'online gaming worlds' like World of Warcraft and Eve Online

I haven't tried Kaneva, Dotsoul and There.com yet (the latter looking very primitive!) because there seems to be one main rival to Second Life that stands out and that's Entropia Universe
The first thing of note is that the client software is a staggering 1GB download! compared to Second Life which is only 31mb. The setup for EU is similar to SL, you start by designing your avatar then enter the world (choosing 1 of 2 initial destinations) then you are usually met by in world guides.

My first impression of EU was that the graphics, sounds and music were excellent (see load up screen below) possibly better than SL.

However being faced with a barrage of complex movement controls was disappointing and a tad frustrating, maybe ok for hardened gamers but no way as instantly usable as basic arrow keys in SL

However.... now I have started to figure it out, there are a few nifty movements which can come in useful. Here's a picture of my avatar getting help from the in world guide:

The graphics are pretty impressive:

This article gives a good comparison of Entropia Universe and Second Life
From what I have found, there seems to be more activity and research into using SL for teaching and education than EU, though that's not say the potential isn't there for EU also - especially with it's flourishing virtual economy

Entropia Universe has also just partnered With Chinese Cyber-Giant to Create a New Network Capable of Handling 7 Million Concurrent Users and $1 Billion in Commerce Annually - full details here.

It's also worth noting that Anshe Chung Studios are to Link Virtual World Economies by creating the first financial market and financial services infrastructure that spans multiple virtual worlds.

Other big players are getting involved too - there are rumours about Google turning Google Earth into a sort of Second Life competitor (according to Michael Eisenberg, a partner at Benchmark). even the BBC are planning to launch a virtual world for children called CBBCWorld
who knows where this will end - maybe in the future it will be possible to travel 'between worlds' using a 'virtual airline service' ( Maybe I should set one up....) or even when cryonics becomes of age your concious being could be transferred to a Second life avatar -hmmmm