Bring Back Feelings Of Community

One of the biggest thrills I had when I entered Second Life was settling into a neighborhood that was filled with enthusiastic and friendly people. I am filled with regret that I made the decision to leave that neighborhood during the "Land Collapse" in January. After the collapse, I floated around for a bit not living anywhere until I was kindly given land from a friend for 4L/m2--a price that even now makes me wince.

Now I'm reading that the neighborhood I once started out in is falling apart by land speculators and the like. And I know of countless other communities are burdened with this as well, among other problems (unfathomable lag by the black box club next door, land barons who are terraforming land to hell or heaven, etc. for example.)

True, I am lucky, some of my closest friends in Second Life live nearby (sensibly, because they gave me the land I now live on). On the other hand, I don't know any neighbor besides my land donors, and from what I hear, the feelings of community in Second Life are phasing out. Many of us cling to the hope of change in our favor (take that in any way) but the fact is, a change everyone can be pleased with is so far out of reach right now, many of us are forced to live in neighborhoods that are corrupt with the things we hate and the things we never wished to be a part of from the start.

So, move out, right? Is it really that easy? Where do we move to? How is it possible, nowadays, to collaborate with friends and live near one another? Is it possible--SHOULD it be possible--to live with friends without having to sniff the butts of land barons or find oneself in a region bound by clubs and casinos?

Private sims require a down payment of 1000.00US and maintenance fees of 200.00US a month. Don't go there. Many of us have limited ourselves to the tier we are at, many of us lifetime members who have 4000m2 for keeps, and yet many of us no longer feel welcome on our plots of land. There's very few with the means to fork out a grand just to end up on a private island that's off the mainland.

I want there to be a way for people to pool their tiers together to purchase land on a grid collectively and in a manner separate from auctioning. Specialty sims for groups really need to come back if we want to recreate a sense of community and a sense of regionalism in this world. If this happened, there would be countless new landmarks and hot spots (why is it that "The Town Of..." has never made it to the hot spots list? because there is no system that caters to this notion). People with a distaste for lag could collaborate and create no-casino no-club sims.

Current residents "stuck" in painful sims right now should be able to sell their land and use that money towards land that won't be such a let down. I'm convinced that paying L$ to LL as a tradeoff for community sims would benefit everyone. I know I'm being sketchy about the method to all of this, but I really think that the reason why so many people are upset with land barons, casinos, etc. etc. is because it's SO in all of our faces 24/7. You can't escape them!! So we should have a way to create that escape, without having to pull out our credit cards.

This was a 5:45AM ramble... pick through it; if any of it makes sense, go with it or refute.

As a disclaimer, I have to admit that my idea is kind of far fetched and requires more work to put together than probably anyone wants to put into... but if you have an alternate plan with the same kind of benefits, please post that instead of a refute (or explain why for sale signs and laggy sims due to casinos, clubs, and the like are perfectly acceptable in SL).

Hmm, well, community sims usualy fall for two reasons...

One, people lose interist sometimes, however this is avoidable if its a tight knit group of friends or a group of people who believe *really* strongly in a goal, or a ever changing group of people who believe in the same goal.

Two, funding. I'm not sure what kinda funding you had in mind, but you still need to pay for the land you have in some way (unless you're a 225 life timer with 4096 to spare, poteintaly a large group of people could buy an entire sim and not pay for it through that way, but I don't think its yet to be done), so you still have to take in to account how to pay for the land. I don't know how kind LL is feeling but I doubt and wouldn't really expect them to hand over a sim for community development with the past track record alot of the communities have had. But you never know.

I'm all for more communities myself, I think its nice to see like minded people get together toward a common goal, even if its just to have a nice comfortable place to be.

... By killing off all the fun forums.

MM