What keeps you in SL?

some days I just want to toss it all in, sell the land, fold the business and walk away.

But I stay....

I have no idea why I stay.

I know I enjoy creating things, but even some days that grows old and tiring....

I find myself playing other mmorpgs as of late, and I don't know if that is a sign that SL is starting to lose it appeal... or if I just need a break.

That being said... what keeps you in SL?

Why do you stay? What is the appeal that keeps you coming back?

Also....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

(wonder what 2009 will bring us in SL)

I like this quote from sable Valentine on another thread...it gives me food for thought during my own "throw the towel in" days:



From that quote, one of the "take away" messages I got was to identify some things in SL I want to take ownership of, or do a bit better in.

Since I've begun slowly developing my little business, that has given me new goals and a different way to look at SL. It has also brought wonderful new people into my life.

On the days SL starts getting to me (or I allow it to), I just stay out a few days, read, watch TV, etc.

Happy 2009 to you, Rha, and the entire RA readership!

During the first year, I spent too much time in-world & felt like a junkie needing a fix. Now I spend far fewer hours and SL feels more like a pair of comfortable worn-in shoes. Perhaps at some point the worn-in feeling will turn to worn-out and you'll just fade away into the virtual night.

I was reading a fascinating SL history paper (see link) and it talked about the beta users memorial in Plum. Built back in 2002-2003 by Ryan Linden, it has over 1500 names of those who helped in pioneering SL during it's beta period, and supposedly only about 300 of those are still listed in the SL search, and who knows how many of those are actually active.

http://nmsua.edu/documents/GeogHistSansara.pdf

Truthfully I have been in bit a funk myself about this whole SL thing recently I go through phases since 2003 around SL.
No one really knew my alt from 2003. He is still around though.
What keeps me here mainly is my friends and ability to show of what I create.
Yet truthfully sometimes I just don't want to deal with hassles of SL and don't want to login when too many problems are occurring.
I don't know sometimes I think this will be my last year renewing but sometimes I think it's just cause I am in funk about my health and personal career situation.

1. Mistress.
2. Hunting for Linden bears.
3. Exploring neat sims.

I would leave SL and never look back except for a few things ...

1. It's a fun way to keep in touch with a couple of Real Life friends who live far away from me.

2. I'm still having fun exploring some of the new builds that are always popping up.

3. I'm still enjoying dabbling in scripting and building.

4. Shopping in SL is a heck of a lot cheaper than shopping in RL and I LOVE to shop

May I ask if you are/might be a little creativity fatigued from photoshop itself? I know I've been through that at times with my altered art from time to time in that most of my first projects were the best and then the altered graphic art started to become more of the same and became a chore rather than getting that "magical feeling" about what I created.

You may be going through a creative lull and that is very normal, especially considering all the hours one can put into photoshop.

Next, maybe you are going to different places to get a refreshing in your creativity or to look at a different type of creativity.

What lies ahead for SL in 2009 might depend on the economic slowdown as the reality, but you can still try to start small groups of things you always wanted to talk about on a more real level or teach which might be a little more intimate for you then just "small talk". Small talk gets old for me very quickly because half the time people say they are "fine" but I always wonder if they really are and/or to a better point I'd rather know "who they are". But that depends on if they enjoy being a real person or just roleplay.

What lies ahead for me in SL? I don't know? The club scene seems pretty dead and it's the same old music everywhere or music I can't stand such as rap, trance or country and the same songs played fifty million times every week and the same songs since I've begun SL for almost six months!

So if I can't find better music clubs, I'm sure I'll leave 'cuz there isn't anything to do.

I'm trying to make a list of things I'd like to do in rl. Right now I'm enjoying the Silent Film era and my rl bf and I are having a great time enjoying this "hobby" together. SL would be better with him, but we are discussing and/or just thinking about joining another game together. He's not interested in SL. I also have lost a considerable sum of monies from lost altered art projects such as calendars, greeting cards, paper dolls due to one internet fan club hacking into my computer and ruining it. I haven't lost heart altogether that some day maybe I can start over, but with my eyesight being a losing battle (I have an auto immune disease), I think I'm dreaming and not in reality about being to do alterted art again.

Happy New Year to you and may all your entertainment and creativity dreams come true.

I keep meaning to do that!

/me puts that in my dayplanner

I am an estate manager for a sim that caters to deaf and disabled. Once you have seen the joy that a person who is wheelchair bound feels, being able to walk, fly, jump on a trampoline, dance, when coming into SL for the first time, I know that's my answer to this question. I've been on SL for almost 2 years now and I really believe that I'm doing some good there. Sure I have a cute avi and I like to shop but that's not important to me. It's helping new, deaf and disabled avis get their start, help them to understand how SL works, so that they can fly on their own that keeps me coming back.

Thank you all for replying, it is nice to know I am not alone in having these feelings...

Avawyn, nope, it is not creative burn out. I am still enjoying creating things in photoshop.. that is one thing that never gets old for me

I have so many things I have made but not put out for sale, that I could start another store LOL

I don't know if SL is starting to lose it's appeal, or if it is the time of year (I always disliked xmas, and SL tends to overload us on xmas stuff)
I even tried to get into the spirit by putting out special things for xmas, and even though a handful of ppl purchased them, it just felt like a flop, a failure

maybe that is my problem, with sales being at a major decline, I am feeling very much like a failure.

maybe when the new year comes and I start holding my classes and teaching new players how to use SL, maybe I will feel less like a failure *shrug*

as for the other games, no, it is not to give myself ideas or anything like that... it is more because I enjoy them, I play them with hubby and his RL best friend, and a few others we know in RL, and heck, face it, without me the party is a lot weaker (I play a high damage output char hehe)

*the other game I have been playing is warhammer online, a table top miniatures game that hubby has been actively playing for about 15 years with his RL best friend, this is the online mmorpg version of it and it is loads of fun if you like mmorpg's hehe (and it is nothing like SL....)

maybe I just need time away from SL, after all 10 hours a day nearly every day for almost 3 years is.... well... a lot of hours

I would love to find a way to see total logged hours (for just me I mean)

would either scare the hell out of me, or make me realize I spend too much time on SL hehe

Rha, I think it's normal for one's interest in SL to ebb and flow.

For me, running my cafe ate up so much of my SL that it stopped being fun for a while. For a month or two I spent almost no time in SL at all - just coming in to do minimal cafe business.

Then I dragged my alt out of mothballs and started developing her. She now has her own personality, her own very active (um, maybe a little too active!) social life, her own home ... and I am spending a lot more time in SL again - but not at the cafe, and not on my original account.

Now my two worlds may be about to collide. Someone I met while playing as my alt is now likely going to get involved in the cafe in a major way. My SL is poised to be transformed again and I'm not sure how things will change. I am more than a little nervous about it because keeping my two second lives separate has been very liberating to me. I have brought many friends from Madhu's life into Carter's life, but I've never done the reverse before and I'm not at all sure what it will be like. I'm not even sure I want to keep the cafe going at all, much less make it Carter's responsibility as well as Madhu's. So it's a weird and scary step. On the other hand, if it all goes well, it will make the cafe so much better ...

For you, Rha, some time away, or at least a reduction of attention, is probably not a bad thing. Your heart will tell you how much time and energy you want to give to your SL projects. When you start to miss them, you'll know it's time to come back. And if you don't miss them, then that's useful to know too.

in no particular order

1.beats playing video games
2.meet interesting people
3.mental exercise (I'm a scripter)

Oh, and as a quick addendum that is actually a specific answer to the question, it is unquestionably my friends that keep me in SL. I have lots of friends I enjoy talking to, and a handful that I would make a real effort to keep if they, or I, ever left SL for any reason. Frequent contact with them is a major reason I keep coming back.

I recommending wandering Linden village.

I went almost two years without bears then finally found Lindens with bears the other day. So got two that way. Also I think I complained once too often in group chat about my lack of success, and people started donating bears to me, heh (thanks again ).

Then, and getting back to Linden village, I wandered around the sims Linden's live in (Beaumont is one that comes to mind as it was the one I started in), and expanded my bear collection quickly.

Because I like it! Like everyone else I get days when it all seems a bit flat, and other days when I'm totally absorbed. You grow into your Second Life and it becomes part of you.

I stay because of the friendliness, the social venues, the creativity and it's fun, it's escapism. Also I like my home, I like building and I like just watching the development of the grid and SL features. I know some people will disagree, but I look forward to seeing new features - we haven't had many recently - but when we get proper shadows and if they work properly I'll be over the Moon!

I probably spend a bit less time in-world these days as I've got my place how I want it and I don't want to go up to the next tier level. But I have been spending more time just exploring - less time visiting my old familiar haunts.

I do not know if they still are active, and it is too late to use them to get all those hours in from before, but there is a website that logs your hours (SL Profiles), and another that logs the sims you visit (can't remember ). They involve attachments and I kept accidently detaching them, so I haven't used either in a long time, but such things exist. Out there. Somewhere.

This may be part of your problem. First, I don't know if there needs to be a need to "succeed" or "not fail" in SL to begin with, but if so, then you aren't a failure at all. You've created a lot of beautiful things, that people pay money for. maybe not in overwhelming numbers, but no matter. Your work up to now guarantees your success, if you walk away today and never come back, you will not be a failure by a long shot. You will have simply moved on.

To answer the question, I stay because SL fufills the needs I have from it, an hour or two of entertainment every so often, sort of like going to n amusement park.

wonderful people keep me interested in SL.

Yes I understand about spending all those hours creating and not receiving the reward of one's work. Mine was stolen from me out of a hate crime and just crazy people and now my eyesight is failing so badly that to think of taking on my visual dream is just plain and simple not gonna happen. Not to mention, one cannot go back to that point in time where that particular creativity was flowing. Creativity does not turn on and off like a faucet. As far as what I've found, it just "happens".

However, your situation is different. I don't think you need to feel like a failure because most people are trimming back their spending and/or going into saving mode.

Christmas blahs, eh? Those are normal for a lot of people too, and I personally didn't see the need for almost every sim I visited to have snow? It's a beautiful day here in So. California and a day wear you could wear a bikini and sit out sunbathing. Which my rl cats are doing right now, but not in bikinis, they are just out sunbathing. Also snow doesn't mean "Christmas". I was pretty ba-humbug regarding SL's Christmas spirit because it seemed commercial and nothing more if not fake altogether because my stalkers were still unkind. Christmas didn't change them, did it? Why I asked for money to spend on SL at Christmas to buy some things I had wanted for months, I'll never know? I could have saved that money for emergencies and whole lot better things. The economic slowdown is real, but no one knows exactly how it's going to turn out but do get prepared for several years at least until 2011 if not longer. During the great depression, the movie era boomed as a way for people to enjoy escapism. Woody Allen made a movie about this, but I can't remember the name at the moment. And if you don't think that depression word is real, on Dec. 23, stats were announced on CNBC that we were in the worst housing crisis since the great depression.

However, this is not your fault nor should measure how good you are as an artist. America is simply 11 trillion dollars in debt.

I used to use the slprofiles one, just stopped not sure why

what I would like to see is a way to see total hours logged from first login

always been curious as to how much total time I have been in SL

christmas for me has been a rather depressing time for many years, something I can not shake either. I try... but it doesn't happen

I thought that being a stepmom and seeing the boys enjoy christmas would help me out of the depressing part of it for me, but it didn't
(they are sooo spoiled by the grandparents it is not funny)

I remember christmas being fun, and happy, and getting only 2 or 3 gifts that I was happy to get (grew up very poor)
and each gift I opened I ooohed and ahhhed and checked it all out before moving to the next one

the boys... open gift, toss it aside, open next one... they did not seem really happy, as much as smug, they got what they wanted (ages 7 and 9)

made me rather sad to see it....

(my mom died on dec 29th, over 20 years ago, I was 21 at the time) and the last time I saw her, was christmas day... we knew it was most likely the last time to see her...

so christmas has for over 20 years been rather sad for me (I have no kids of my own to share it with, and have only been a step mom for 2 years)

sorry for rambling on... just a bit sad

as today is the anniversary of my mom's passing on
may you rest in peace mom, and oh how I wish I could just talk to you one more time.

what keeps me in SL is my SL family. my SL husband, who i now live with in RL, my SL kids, I've met some of them in rl and hope to meet more of them. my SL home, island, friends who live there with us. and also, my folk club, where musicians get to play for a live audience and be appriciated. Jeeze, i love this place : )) (for over five years now, so i'm pretty secure in my love for SL)

OH!, i better not forget the nephews, i love them to bits !!! adz and david : ))

lizzie

Ah, I see and understand. My Father died around the 4th of July. I've never been able to enjoy the 4th of July, though I try to put on that happy face for other people. I cried this Christmas because I missed my cat who died. Christmas, in a large part, is a time to remember those we have loved so much and lost. It is like visiting Christmas past sometimes and to remember being a child. As far as kids being spoiled these days, can be true. I know of relatives who lived through the great depression and their Christmas presents were a pair of socks, an orange and a few pennies. When I was a child, I thought an orange? What kind of a present is that? As we grow older, things get put in better perspective, hopefully.

1. Friends
2. Fun Events
3. In world Games (non-RP)
4. The ability to work on ides/concepts I come up with
5. NO CUT THROAT COMPITION!! (I had my account hacked in an on line RPG years ago, and they took everything I had. I will never play those overly crowded games again because of that!!)

i keep thinking i will find something to interest me. i dont really have the time though. i was facinated at 1st by the idea of a virtual world but it can be a bit boring