What is the difference between WoW, Second Life, and Simcity? Arent they all life simulation / virtual world games?
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M$2 Answers
Second Life is an online social space, that people go to, to hang out. Second Life lets you do quite a lot with creating objects, environments, animations, all on your own, the game's user created content is quite prominent in a lot of areas. Also you can pay real money for Linden dollars (the in game currency) and give other people money for the content they generated.
Simcity is a game that you're supposed to derive enjoyment out of, from managing a city. It has little to do with the other two games on the list here. You build and run a city, by yourself, and that's about it.
All 3 of these games require downloads/installation processes to be able to run on your comp. There are plenty of browser based MMORPG's and online spaces/flash games that attempt to do the same things but for free.
Fusionfall's a good example of a browser based MMO (Run by cartoon network).
http://www.fusionfall.com/
Habbo Hotel is a free browser based online virtual space to hang out in.
http://www.habbo.com/
Newgrounds and Kongregate has many MANY different flash games that you can play for the same reasons as SimCity
http://www.kongregate.com/
http://www.newgrounds.com/
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M$WoW is an MMORPG that you pay for to play.
Second Life is a Virtual (Chat-type) World
Simcity is a simulation in building and maintaining a city.
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M$
Which of these need to be downloaded and installed and which of these can be played online without downloading anything?
All 3 require software to be installed. WoW has a trial for free, but there is a huge download first.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/trial/
Second life has a smaller download and is free.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/
Simcity (the latest version) is a boxed game and needs to be bought and installed to play.
http://simcitysocieties.ea.com/index.php
If you are looking for something like WoW, but is free, try this list - http://www.onrpg.com/
