I’m an adult, so I get that Second Life is basically a sex chat room with props. I get that people are partnered because they love each other. I even get the Gor thing.
What I don’t get is how people are so mean and hurtful to each other. Why in the world would someone go to cyberspace to get drama? I’ve been playing for a while and I’ve been partnered to the same person for over a year. We have scheduled times and if we come online at other times, we don’t yell at each other if we arent’ sitting home and waiting.
If my partner is busy, I send him a hello and kisses message, then go off to do other things. Its just a game. Not only that, its not a combat game, where not having fighting partner will get someone killed.
I really don’t get the drama that I see in my Second Life friends lives. I’ve seen other drama at battlenet and WOW, and didn’t get that either.
I know that there are other people on the other side of the web, but holy cow, I’ve seen people go from loving to hating in seconds because one person crashed in the middle of something.
So, can someone explain to me why/how it happens? Its just a game for crying for outloud!
Thank you. I wasn’t sure where to put it, because I’m not asking about the game, but about opinons about the drama.
Now that we are in games, if anyone wants scripting/building advice, I’m your girl. well…not. I don’t build. I have minions for that. I’m a scripting goddess, tho.
In my view many of the people playing long hours on online games like this are to some extent doing it because of how they’re experiencing the outside world.
Neuroticism anxiety or depression are more common, so molehills can be mountains pretty easily. Its all pretty similar to the days of paper and pencil RPG’s, just in a new medium.
I explored it briefly a few years ago out of personal curiosity as well as a possible venue for marketing/exposure for my better half’s music. I ended up meeting a couple of other lesbians who had spent who knows how long building a huge virtual dance club that they and a small handful of their friends hung out in. That was kinda awkward and sad to me, as they said they actually lived together but spent a significant amount of time sitting at there respective computers building/updating their virtual (and pretty much empty) corner of their virtual world, but who am I to judge.
In contrast, also during that time period, I participated in a virtual session of Q & A with Marlee Matlin via the L Word presence in Second Life, and that was really cool and showcased the equalizing potential of the medium. No need to for me or the rest of the audience to understand sign language, no need for her to use an interpreter.
I only installed the game long enough to discover it was still loading objects half an hour after it let me into the game world, but my first instinct would be to blame the moderation direction. I get the impression that it’s a “hive of scum and villainry” type of game, like Eve is for griefing but in a more general sense. Combine that with a heavy time investment, and things are going to go pear-shaped.
Darn odd game. The few times I gave it a try the place, the whole freakin’ universe was just about empty. It had to do with with time zones I guess. It seemed sad, like C S Lewis’ description of Hell.
You could be very right about the long hours. Most of the drama I see comes from people who seem to live online. Thinking more about it, most of the people I know who live online also seem to have messed up lives in the outside world, but thats the same in other online games I play.
One of the places I stumbled on was an informative place for people with autism. I learned a LOT there.
I know of several people who use Second Life for business. I’ve ordered some pretty rare books from just such a vender. (rare in that nobody in their right mind NEEDS a 1939 pulp magazine that features The Call of Cthulhu, so there aren’t a lot of copies available)
The business people I’ve met seem to not go in for the drama.
I’m not defending the game or questioning your word, but this seems really odd to me. There is a counter on the log in page that shows how many people are playing at that time. Depending on the weather, I play 0 to 30 hours a week. While 3am logins aren’t normal to me, they have happened. I’ve never seen the counter showing fewer than 40,000 people.
So…the counter might be rigged to make the game seem more popular, hence more attractive…you might not know how to search for places you like…or I might just be in a rut, going to the same sorts of places over and over.
I’d guess you tried to do that on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve not played Eve, so don’t get the reference.
I am leaning more to the time thing as the reason for the drama. The money thing is there as well. Some people spend insane amounts of real money to buy second life land and toys. I don’t get that either.
Maybe I’ll never get it. Sometimes I think the only sane people in the game are my partner and me. There are times I wonder about my partner as well. (in his defense, English is his 3rd language so oftentimes what he types isn’t really what he meant)
No SL discussion can be complete without bringing up the best conversation about it ever.
Dwight : “Second Life is not a game, it is a multi-user virtual environment. It doesn’t have points or scores; it doesn’t have winners or losers.”
Jim: “Oh, it has losers.”
Unlike many other MMORPGs that have rules against griefing, or players stealing from or killing other players, it is sort of encouraged in Eve.
Though I do baffle guys in Eve, I just almost had a shop popped this morning, and they were surprised that it didn’t bother me, and I considered it just losing electrons and no big deal if I did get popped. Losing a cargo of other peoples stuff bothers me because it is other peoples belongings. Ultimately though it is all electrons and not real life. Electrons can be replaced.
I just looked at Eve. Nice game, the graphics are really nice.
No thanks, I pretty much stick with EVE, I can pay my accounts with in game money - I am unemployed scum and need to pinch pennies until the dead president screams =)
They are having some sort of trial account offer [like always =)] if you want to play I go by Aruvqan in game also =)
I play Gor in Second Life, the variant known as Gor Evolved, which has women warriors, and which also has a LOT more combat than what is called by-the-book Gor. The combination of combat and roleplay in Gor is what REALLY rocks the place AFAIC, well that and the incredible builds that SL Gor is famous for (check out this detail from a vanished build called Brundisium). There are over 300 Gorean sims in Second Life, many of them very underpopulated … apparently, wanting to build your very own sim is a fairly intense attraction for a lot of people.
There is also a powerful sense of community that you dont get in other games … SL Gor is built by the players, not some soulless corporation like Blizzard. Nobody OWNS SL Gor, it’s a product of the shared dreams of its players. VERY different from WoW or HALO.
There is OOC in SL Gor Evolved just as in any other roleplay game, but they’ve had a lot of experience fighting it and are pretty good at it, some of the sims in Gor have been up since 2005. It still tears experienced groups apart, however. In my experience, the people who cause most of it are the ones for whom it is not a game, really, so they just can’t STAND it when things don’t go their way. Hey, sometimes your little hat winds up on the Go To Jail square in the game, you know, but they don’t see it that way, the little hat is THEM and there is NO WAY they are going to jail!
Plus, of course, there’s an in-game economy where at least one player (Anshe Chung) has become a millionaire and many others make a nice living, and many, many others spend thousands on the game – combine the reality of making and spending money and virtuality of the shared dreamscape that is Second Life and you’ve got quite a fertile ground for OOC drama. It’s a wonder there’s not more of it, and that it’s not more intense.
