The 5 Stages of Greif In SL

"Realizing that there is no alternative, that no other system gives the power of creativity in a virtual world like SL, you stick with it and stop complaining."

While some people are involved in creating new "objects", the vast majority of SL residents are here as a form of social recreation. The things they create are intangible (friendships, events, experiences, emotions). They mix and match objects (props) others have made to play a sophisticated game of dress-up to help them create those intangibles. We write our little dramas nightly, using whatever props are at hand to carry the story forward. When you understand SL in this way, you will see immediately that SL has plenty of competition, even today. And if a platform comes along that has prebuilt housing options and zoned plots, a multitude of AV options, animations, and clothing options numbering in the thousands, all in a pre-rendered hand-crafted beautiful world with a variety of locales (avoiding most framerate, lag, rez issues of SL), I think that would be enough for most SL residents, including myself. I think we'd be ready to exchange a laggy broken unzoned world filled with props other residents have made for a stable world filled with props made by developers. Most of us just want a beautiful place where we can socialize and create those intangibles. 90% of the "objects" people build in SL are fairly homogeneous.....and a considerable part is also fairly ugly, as the blighted landscape of a random flight over mainland will attest.

Benjamin Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanack, 1741, wrote:

Beauty, like supreme dominion
Is but supported by opinion

Touche However, I think the point I made is worth considering.

I have to say, I don't agree. I think a world without user created content would be a far duller place for all concerned, not just the content creators. SecondLife has given people the power to create their own world, to live their own secondlife, whatever that may be. For example, if every item in SL had been created by LL would there be any furries? Would there be any Gor?

What SL reprisents is staggering. A whole little world, albeit virtual, entirely created by it's residents and driven by all the things that drive people in the real world without the real worlds restrictions.

I'm always amazed by watching the people in this world. It fascinates me being able to see what people really want to be and how they would live their lives if they were free. I don't think any of the achievments of the residents of this world could have ever been imagined by the corporate world.

Vale

I agree with this, what is the point of a second life if you can't do what you can't do in your first life?

But he also said "Fart Proudly." My favorite is "Beer is proof God loves us, and wants us to be happy."

Which may be one of his greatest, and yet most ignored by society, pieces of advice!

i joined march 7 2007. i have made over 1k usd cashed out to my bank. i've never had many problems. tp's work most of the time. store sales are brisk. things i've built while being crappy as im still learning are coming together nicely. made alot of friends.
sure its buggy at time, but i think the MAJORITY of users who have 'tech diffaculties' is because the pc they are using can not handle the truth. i rarely crash. i spend 5 hours plus a day in game, everyday since i joined in march. this is a very fun game. i've never lost inventory. i've never had a 'land sale' go wrong.

This place works for me, and after my 2nd or 3rd week in game i made enuf to buy a 22 inch wide screen monitor it made the game even more fun. if your not playing in wide screen you miss so much

Well I saw someone commenting about their computer. How would you feel if you just recently bought a new one and it crashes constantly while on SL. I'm totally aggravated, but totally addicted.

my pc is not TOP TOP TOP of the line, its 1.4GHZ 1GB RAM GeForce 6600 w/ 256MB of ram


works flawlessly

Wow, that's a really apt list there. Except I progressed in a slightly different way.

First there was the Naive stage. I thought that all the bugs and lag (as well as griefer attacks) were actually kinda funny. The irony of "fixing" something only to break 20 other things was hilarious. Plus it was fun to sit on the grid during a griefer attack while they shut logins down and you could huddle into little refugee camps and laugh at all the people who were stuck on the outside.

Then there's isolation, then anger and theeeen...

Then there's the Escape stage where you go, "this is totally pointless. Why am I wasting my time? I have better things to do." That's when you cut yourself off from SL and try to find other things to do. But eventually you start missing your friends and the ability to create anything, to shape your world... Then you consider going back. In the end the pull is just too much.

There might still be some anger and frustration but it goes away.

FINALLY there's acceptence. After being cut off from your friends you start to understand what it is that's REALLY important about SL. It's not the latest and greatest features or total immersion that makes you think you're somewhere else. Honestly technology just isn't advanced enough yet to provide us with those things... Well it is, but it's not within the affordable range of the average consumer. SL will grow and get better as technology does. I've already seen it get significantly better in the time I've been there. Heck, I can average 30fps when I'm in a well built/scripted sim.

What brings a lot of us into SL, what keeps us here, is the people and the community. The SL community has its own culture because of the type of world it is. It appeals to the people who like to socialize, or build or program or whatever. It lets us all be innovators. It let's us interact in a more realistic and concurrent way. We're no long isolated and disembodied as we have been on the internet. We can shape and define ourselves and the world. Even the real world can't give us that much control.

So despite all of its problems, whether LL is doing a good or a bad job, I'm fine with that. There isn't any other world out there like it. SL is completely unique. I personally haven't heard of any other world where the content is completely player driven, if there is someone tell me cause I'd like to go investigate. I'm a patient person. I'm prepared to sit here and wait for improvements.

Like my above title states, please excuse me, I'm writing a phil paper and everything I write lately seems to start drifitng towards my thesis. There are probably some other points I'd make, but I think my post is long enough as it is and I don't think y'all want me to write a whole paper here...

I think I'm somewhere between #234 Egg Salad Sandwich and #237 Tuna Sandwich.

I agree. I buy a lot of stuff, and because the money goes to regular people for the most part, I enjoy it. I wouldn't want to buy Cookie cutter, bland middle of the road crap that LL would wind up putting out. They can't dedicate enough time to keep the grid running properly, what time would they have for any real creativity in content? I definitely am not interested in patronizing any of the RL Corporations that may invade our world. User created content is a big reason why I put in as much time and money into SL as I do.

im at stage 7: the sacrificing of the fanboyusannoyus

Step 7: squealing at the thought of sculpted prims and passing out.
Step 8: Regaining consciousness, remembering seeing the video, squealing again and collapsing.

I wrote this two and a half years ago to be amusing. But seeing it now is just depressing. The 5 stages of Grief have not changed for me. Have they changed for you?

change comes from within.

Oh I'm just so happy and excited. I'm gonna open a club, get some camping chairs, throw a free freebies around, sell some stuff, buy some land and make a pile off this place. Did you hear you can really OWN virtual land??? Hey I rezzed my first cube today too!!!

5 points for proper spelling of "grief" after all that time.

Post of the year.

(of 2007...)

Those stages of grief are something I would apply to something serious and life altering. Not SL.

Very clever thread concept - and I love the user name, too.

My answer would be, all at once? Lol.

What keeps me in so far is, it still engages my mind and creativity. In short, it is the other people and what they have done with the place that makes it intriguing.

Also, I *like* the Lindens; it's company policy of late that has me mystified.

ETA: Necroposting has spread like the plague. It's Night of the Living Undead Post around here...!

Yeah That

SL became something of a game to me a few years ago. I no longer have any expectations at all. It is what it is.

I was getting ready to say Hi and Welcome Back to Walker and a few other people - and then I realized that their posts were over 2 years old.

There's grief for ya.



Personally, I've always liked option #1 for many things in SL and RL.