Second Life, the popular online role-playing game, went offline last night during scheduled maintenance. It then should have come right back up. It didn’t.

At 9 p.m. PDT, a Second Life grid status report was posted saying that they were currently experiencing login and in-world issues. An investigation was underway and the folks at Linden Labs asked for everyone to avoid resurrecting no-copy items or making monetary transactions for the time being.

By 11:23 p.m. PDT, the login issue had not been corrected. Linden Labs did their best to keep everyone up to date on progress as they fixed the issue, but it was slow going. As of 6:15 a.m. PDT, the logins had been restored, but only 30% of the affected regions were back online. Transactions still haven’t been cleared.

A little explanation for those unfamiliar with Second Life: Second Life is basically a hybrid between a table top role-playing game and an MMO, only without the actual battles. You create an avatar, making him or her look however you want. Your avatar interacts with other avatars, but while you are the pilot, you can create a whole other persona for your character.

While in SL, you can purchase Linden dollars with real cash so you can buy items in the game. Purchasing $1000 Linden dollars usually costs around $4 American. Some of the items you purchase can be copied and/or transferred to other avatars, but many are yours only. If you use them, or “rez” them, they can only come back into your inventory if you return them. Once deleted, they’re gone for good.

The general consensus on the forums is that folks who play are pretty irritated, but the majority are doing their best to keep their cool. That’s the major difference I’ve seen between Second Life players and other MMO players — the people are genuinely nice more often than not. I hope the login’s ready by this evening since my avatar’s going to a concert at the Thistle Hill Airship!