VR Chat: Second Life For People Who Have a Meta Quest

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Lately, or, for the past few days, I’ve been messing around in VR Chat, the virtual world that aims to be Second Life, but with a strict, “Keep the NSFW stuff in private” sort of … uh, place.

You’ll find out why that is pretty much as soon as you join any public world that is simultaneously PC and VR compatible. Parents … offloading their children into a Meta Quest so that they can terrorize (I’m being sarcastic) the virtual population.

Jokes aside, I’m not really one to call kids squeakers, but if you don’t want to deal with them you can just as easily jump into PC only worlds.

It is for sure a much more immersive experience if you put on your headset, but if you’re not really feeling the whole, sweat and face marks vibe, you can just load it up as if it were Second Life. On your computer. And hey, it works on Linux too … although, you have to verify file integrity pretty much every single time, because their anti-cheat will disconnect you if it detects issues.

Also, why is there anti-cheat in a virtual world?

Anyway, I’ve jumped in and out of VR Chat over the past couple of years, mostly using random default avatars the game offers. But, I felt like I wanted to make a deep dive, or deeper dive, and so I browsed Gumroad for a bit.

And I bought an avatar.

Back in 2013 when I rejoined Second Life on a secondary account (not sure why I made a new account back then), I sort of immediately fell in with the furry community. I paraded around in a female anthropomorphic fox avatar pretty much at all times.

I tried to find some screenshots of this avatar, but for whatever reason, they’re nowhere to be found. I’m sure they’re around somewhere, though. I just don’t have the patience to search for them.

This lasted for about a year or so, and went on through a relationship I had going on within Second Life, and then … well, we broke up. And, things felt kind of sour for me. My interests took a major shift, and I became an Asari (Mass Effect) avatar, and then a human, and then a human vampire, and then a vampire human cybernetic being, of sorts (it’s a long story).

Needless to say, I kind of lost track of where I came from in Second Life, and, funnily enough, my initial shot at taking VR Chat seriously has landed me back into the exact same position I experienced a decade ago. Except I’m much worse at meeting people and making connections.

That aside, I wanted to share some really neat places I found. You should absolutely check them out if you need a break from twelve year olds screaming Tiktok memes at you.

(You have to make an account and log in to see these world links)

ORGANISM (v 1.5) :: This is a really cool world. It’s not a game, it’s not filled with mirrors: It’s a liminal experience, much like the backrooms, but not the backrooms, at all. It tells a story through exploration, and I don’t know, dude, you just have to go there and experience it for yourself.

Beyond a Bit :: This is another immersive sort of experience. It lasts around 10 minutes or so, and is mostly what I would call a visual musical experience. Go give it a look!

The Backrooms :: When I first loaded into this world, I expected some cheap version of the Backrooms where it’s cartoony chaos. But! That’s not what this is at all. Or, at least not entirely. There are some, or at least one of the ridiculous entities that I think kind of break the actual scary vibes of what Backrooms is really supposed to be. But, if you want to take a load off and literally wander mesmerizing, seemingly endless halls of the Backrooms, this is that place.

I haven’t really given myself much of a chance to really explore, but this is what I’ve found so far, and all three of these places are far away from the usual experience you get from joining random worlds.

If you’re in there, give me an add! My username is cmdr_nova.