Walking through the ghost towns

My advertisements are more along the lines of "Come get naked and party with us," so not everyone wants solitude. But I might be in the minority.

However, I think we agree that residential areas have a tendancy to appear deserted most of the time no matter whether they're successful or not.

I also think that stores can look deserted even if they are doing fine. I just can't speak from experience since I'm not in that business. (except for my crappy little tiki-torch store that is there more for ambience)

What strange is another game I play is the same way, the neighborhoods are always empty.

The ratio of land to avatars is large - maybe 4 avatars/1sim. And only a fraction of active avatars are on at any one time. And lots of them are not at home, but congregating with other avatars at social venues. Travelling the roads is strictly for people with land vehicles wanting to drive them these days. You want people? Use Search for affinity groups/places, or scout Map for clusters of green dots. I would recommend the affinity groups/place myself, but that's just me. Depends on what you're looking for.

There is a sim for every 4 avatars?

I think it's purely the fact that every member of the population of real life has no choice but to be somewhere at all times. We then apply this expectation to a virtual world and label it a "ghost town," when in fact virtual worlds just don't work that way.

And as Cristalle points out, they really can't work that way.

Not necessarily. I enjoy walking them. I like the ghost town feel. Some of the roads even have weeds growing up through them or the pavement is broken or missing completely, but you can still tell where they were. This and the howling wind add to the post-apocalyptic ambiance.

I do get lonely sometimes though, but I'm disappointed chasing clusters of green dots on the map. It often turns out to be campers or sex clubs. I have nothing against the latter, but it would be nice to wander into a group of people chatting about a cool movie they saw or a book they read. Of course, in this respect SL is just like RL. The stuff I really enjoy must be a little esoteric. I can't seem to find it anywhere.