Ok first of all, as I’m a great believer in ethics in Virtual World Blogging I will declare from the outset that I have no connection with SL Go, or OnLive. At the moment, I’m on my iMac, which isn’t new and I’m struggling to find the bloody hash symbol. This reminds me of the time I was in the United States and phoning home and the phone told me to press the pound sign, which confused the living daylights out of me as there was no £ sign on the telephone, eventually I realised they meant the old pound sign for weight, which is #. Aha alt + 3 on a Mac. Ok, so #Theonlywayisethics

Now on with the show!

I logged into SL Go from OnLive for the first time in ages. This is largely due to the problems I’m having with AMD graphics in Second Life. The results, were quite staggering on my mid 2007 iMac. Now, wait, I hear you say. A 2007 iMac won’t have AMD graphics, this is true, but I was downstairs watching Cambridge United v Manchester United in the FA Cup.

Anyway, the first thing I noticed was that my experience of the wonderful Escapades Island was vastly improved because all of the textures seemed to load right away.

Wait wait wait! You can’t save Snapshots to disk with SL Go! This is true too, the images in this post were taken on my PC with the regular Second Life client, but here’s the thing, whilst I’m waiting for scenes to rez on my PC, I see the textures loading, they turn from grey and lifeless to being filled in. This doesn’t happen when I’m using SL Go.

However I do like my snapshots. So the ideal scenario for me is to be able to use SL Go and a regular Second Life or TPV client and I’d imagine a lot of people are the same.

Therefore, for me, SL Go isn’t a replacement for the Second Life client in many cases, it’s an additional option. SL Go has limitations but it also has the ability to enhance the experience in Second Life for those who want to whizz around. However the results you experience may well vary. This is exemplified in the Firestorm blog post about their client being available on SL Go.

There are some negative comments in that post, some of the issues I simply didn’t experience, but I certainly don’t doubt that those raising concerns did experience those issues.

All I can say is that in my experience, SL Go works pretty damn well. The experience isn’t perfect, I did experience intermittent blurriness, but it’s done and dusted in no time. The way that scenes just seem to load, on far higher settings than my PC or iMac can manage, is without a doubt impressive. However if you want to sample this yourself, there’s no need to be shy. SL Go these days comes with a 7 day free trial, which is far superior to the initial twenty minute trial they offered at launch.

Realistically within 7 days you should have a damn good idea whether SL Go is worth the cost. As for the cost, it’s $9.95 (£6.95) per month for unlimited access. Whereas I’ve talked about using SL Go on my iMac, it also works on an iPad and other mobile devices, such as Android Tablets 3.2 and above and Android Smartphones 4.0 or later. There’s even more :

Did you know you can experience Second Life on your TV? If you own an OnLive Game System, you can run Second Life on your TV through the OnLive Game Service. Requires a USB Keyboard and mouse and wired ethernet. You can purchase an OnLive Game System here.

I do believe that the design principles behind SL Go and OnLive itself with their games service are the future. However I say this at a time when the senior managers at work are getting very excited about virtual desktop solutions, an excitement that is likely to die down once they see the initial costs, but this design concept really is the future. However it should be noted that the future in technology really isn’t a very large window of opportunity.

However if SL Go isn’t for you, Escapades Island might well be.

This is a fun and enjoyable build and if you look around carefully you may well find signs of Draxtor Despres and SuperFlufee.

So SL Go, it has that seven day free trial, what have you got to lose by giving that a go on your older hardware or mobile devices? Escapades Island, it’s free to visit, what have you got to lose by visiting? At the end of the day, it’s all about user choice of course, and Second Life has plenty of choice.

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