Has Teleporting killed the SL community?

However, what I do not understand is this: are all those empty private islands actually being paid for by somebody?

SL used to de-emphasise teleportation. You could only teleport to infohubs and you had to travel to your final destination in world. That didn't increase communications... people would arrive at telehubs and immediately fly up high enough to avoid buildings, then head straight to their final destination. The biggest complaint about particular infohubs was the existence of prims that kept you from doing this... roofs on infohubs, and spammy malls with scoop-shaped entrances to catch avatars trying to get away from the infohubs.

If you want to talk about what's been trashing community in SL, let's start with voice.

If you want to talk about what's hurt travel and vehicles, let's talk about sim crossing issues.

Actually I think what it did hurt was the flyby traffic to new businesses. When you made that commute from the hub to your destination you often saw some neato builds and shops and just popped in.

If you want to talk about what's hurt travel and vehicles, let's talk about sim crossing issues.

Actually I think what it did hurt was the flyby traffic to new businesses. When you made that commute from the hub to your destination you often saw some neato builds and shops and just popped in.

Well, you might have. I don't recall ever seeing anything at ground level rezzing soon enough to make it worthwhile stopping.

I did a lot more sightseeing after they got reliable P2P teleporting up, and I could just zip around the grid.

But I only rarely have had rezzing issues then or now.

Everything claims to have killed SL.
How about something that you like about SL.
BurningLife will be starting soon, and that is always the highlight of the year of me.

One thing I used to really enjoy was rezzing my helicopter, selecting a destination on the far end of the continent and sightseeing along the way. Making sure audio was turned on and hearing little snippets of whatever stream that landowner had chosen. Classical, country, rock, blues, just a smorgasbord of station surfing.

A small part of the fun was flying into a no object entry parcel and crashing in someone's backyard. Then walking until I could find another build parcel and starting over.

High enough not to offend anyone, but low enough to sightsee.

My first home had a helipad and I was tickled at the thought of having to fly everywhere. But I'm one of those strange people who enjoys the trip more than the destination.

I remember well when there was only 1 continent and if TPs went down I used to fly my carpet from one place to another to get where I was going.

Hehe, me too. I used the hell out of my Cubey Terra Magic Carpet back in the day.

It was also great for taking a group of newbies on tours since it seated 6.

I'd like to see TV series where SL style teleport was the normal mode of transport, actually lots of time characters on TV get from one place to another without actually showing them travelling so maybe it's already the norm

Watch the hilarity ensue when your Mother can just drop in anytime!

Well I think that private estates and homestead sims did not do the foor trafic much good.

Not only is 80% of the grid not really available for casual exploration, but also most of the good stuff is on islands, so exploring the part that *is* connected isn't very rewarding. Islands may be necessary to make SL attractive to the most spendy customers, but they also doomed it to be pretty much just like the 2D web: connected only through search, landmarks and blogs.

Whilst wondering around the many deserted areas of SL, I was trying to work out what was wrong.

And there's definatly something wrong (or could be better) and I'm not sure what could change it.

Like in RL, we jump in our cars at home, and get out at work or the shopping mall and drive home again. Not engaging in the local surroundings or even speaking to neighbours a lot of the time.

SL seems to be like that, just on a grander scale.

Before joining SL, I kinda had an image that streets would be full of people (avatars) walking around, looking in shops, people would be driving cars, flying planes, boats etc etc.

And now and again, you do see someone "having a go"

Heck, I even WALKED along a road to get to a friends house over 2 sims away !!!!!

Sitting in your SL house, watching all this going out, outside your window would b fantastic, but we don't get it 99.999% of the time.

We sit at home, TP to a shop, TP back again.
A friend calls us, we TP to their home, or the TP to our place and then the TP back again.

It's all very sad an Un Community it seems, when it could be so much better than this.

Imagining a RL world with TP's the streets would be deserted, the local parks empty. Shopping malls would be almost empty also, you;d TP to the shop. but 1 item and TP back again.

Fantasticaly convinient I grant you but cold and total community break down.

I did try and think how it could be altered to bring back the human (avatar) life to areas.
But I can't come up with anything workable.

I don't think we'd be happy Walking, running catching bus's everwhere.

Yet it seems to sad, that you have an area full of houses, and yet barren of life.

It's not really what I expected SL to be like before I joined and I think it's a bit sad.

Last year, renting an island on a private estate I moved in and introduced myself (very friendly people) bought a boat to sail around the islands, kinda expecting others to do the same, but no. Even speaking to the Estate manager, she agreed, all most seem to do it TP home, do something and TP back out again.

Like a lived in and yet desserted area.

I wonder what could change this, to bring life back into SL ?

Any thoughts, and do you agree it would be nicer and more interesting if (somehow) things were different, or do you think the way it is, is the way it should be?

Any thoughts, and do you agree it would be nicer and more interesting if (somehow) things were different, or do you think the way it is, is the way it should be?