Why is help often so half-hearted?

Yes if only I had the mind of a wizard, but too unrezzed and too distracted by the doodling.
Everyone has different interest and capabilities, not everyone here desires to create in same way.
Maybe the OP can create blog and their own role play fantasy adventure inspired by SL of
what they want and share it with friends, develop their own RP game of wandering travelers or perhaps their is something else they will think of providing they are open for it?
I always thought when I had a moment away from the usual to do something like that with a alt myself.
I sort of did that in my own way when I wore a child avatar until I got intimidated by others.

The truth of what this thread is about really is in the subject line.

Why is help so half-hearted? Because we don't have the time to give everyone a guided tour or be a personal tutor on building. We all have access to the same tools. Search all might be particularly useful if you are looking for a particular kind of roleplay.

There are plenty of roleplay groups, but you have a problem with your time zone. Maybe in your search, you should also include the word European, or Asian and see what comes up.

I have no interest in it so I do not have an answer for you beyond what has already been mentioned. But you're going to have to do the work to find things in your time zone.

Truthfully I do try to help others, I have offered people help numerous times, experience
and advise but if you been around a while it does seem like some people aren't interested.
People can only do so much.
Sometimes truthfully like any "life" it just sucks.

To help those of you asking what this thread is really about I have extracted the above quote.

Yumi, your answer does not lie in what anybody can tell you, but in your apparent (in)ability to interact with the world. Have you checked whether you are autistic to some extent? Your postings have obviously failed to communicate your feelings effectively as evidenced by the number of posters here who have not been able to understand what you want, and if you are having the same problems inworld then I am not surprised you are suffering from ennui.

I don't have an answer for you. I know a couple of other people that frequent the Cartel Hangout that have similar problems, whose response is generally anger or disdain for those who don't understand their meandering utterances, but I am not sure if putting you in touch with people with similar problems will resolve or magnfiy your problems.

Pep (Half-hearted? What do you expect for free?)

I suppose I have had trouble communicating while I was a bit upset yesterday, so I'll try and clarify a bit, and one thing that was said earlier is something I can relate to very much..

Magic.. it's a wonderful thing when it happens.. but a curious thing about magic: it can only be done by other people.

For the magician, they've rehearsed two hundred hours, then another hundred to make it look natural; and they know that, if they move their finger a centimeter to the left, they would be a laughingstock. For their audience, it's magic; but for them it's their daily grind. To become a magician is to abandon all magic. It's why online magic stores routinely have warnings saying "don't buy our tricks just to find out how they work, you will feel ripped off". And they do. It's the moment when you realize that paying US$50 to learn how to levitate is actually paying US$50 to learn how to stand on tippy-toe wearing a cloak.

And.. well, that's how I feel about things on SL here. Someone can write that the scripters are the magicians, but I am a scripter and can tell you - when you are one, that isn't true. I feel that the builders and the showpeople are the magicians - but I don't doubt that, if I was one, I'd know why I was wrong about that, too.

That's what the comment from Imnotgoing made me think.. I mean, I like similar styles of anime as well, and I like her avs whenever I see them at NCI, and even feel a bit jealous sometimes I can see her "magic show". But then, I think.. well, if I had that.. they'd just be inventory items and I'd remember how much I'd paid for all of them.. and basically I'd just be hanging out at NCI the same way I do now. Oh, except I'd have an extra risk of being unjustly ARed. Nothing is magical to the magician.

But... the problem is, I mean.. take those last four paragraphs and add a big ol' editor's note: I don't know that I'm actually _right_ about any of them. And that's what really bothers me. Because if I _am_ right, then SL is truly a devastated place, and I should be warning others about it. But if I am wrong, I have to get into wondering, where I got the wrong perception from - which would include, why others allowed it to persist. (Not others on this thread but other people I met way back, probably who are gone now.) Maybe it was because they hadn't realized yet either and when they did, they moved on. Or maybe not. Even when people tell me that I'm wrong, often they are content creators, and I'm afraid they're saying so simply for financial benefit. After all, pretty much everyone who has been here any length of time seems to agree that SL grossly oversells itself. It's the uncertainty that's so upsetting.

/FD sends hugs to Yumi if you want it.
I really feel your frustration and pain.
I don't why understand someone would AR you but there seems to be rash
of people AR happy these days for really odd reasons sometimes
not grounded on very fair reasons.
I would miss seeing your post because I have enjoyed reading your
thoughts and I bet you have friends who miss you here in and in-world
but maybe you're just burning out and need to do something else for a while?
I make things too that rarely sell, I got friend who makes lot of money
here but he said once to me there is only so many people that are possible
customers at tops maybe 10000 Residents who will buy anything at any given time.
For some Residents its easier to profit here, for some it isn't.
I don't know why, because there are indivuals I have met who are very talented
who rarely make a sale but others sell stuff that take very little creative efforts,
resell products and make a whole lot more.
It isn't fair.
I don't know why this happens any more then there some then humans in first life world who have no money, constantly struggling, sometimes starving and suffering, while others
have numerous resources and squander it on whatever often are wasteful.
I do know we all can find things we enjoy here or any other world regardless of what
we have if really allow it to happen.
But sometimes Life sucks, so does Second Life.

Yumi, I'm still not following you. I've read your last post twice and there's a logical-leap in there somewhere that I'm missing. I do believe you are correct about magic being in the eye of the beholder - to the 'magician' it's just hard work. But this is true anywhere. In RL I am a programmer, and people think it's magic. No, it's hard work. My sister does cakes (like that Ace of Cakes guy) and I think it's magic. She claims it's just hard work. In SL I build and script ok, but I'm bad at animations and textures. So I'm in awe of the great animators and texturers. (Not to mention the DJs, the hosts/hostesses/club owners, landscapers, architects, etc etc etc.)

So ok, if there's no magic, just hard work, how does that spoil anything, how does that make SL a truly devestated place? If you mean, suddenly you realize SL is the product of lots of hard work and no magic... yeah, ok. I guess?

Yet, it still looks magical? I mean, we all know the magician isn't really levitating, or pulling coins out of thin air or whatever, but we suspend our disbelieve and enjoy the show. Ditto for watching movies - we know that the actors are just acting, they aren't really doing the amazing things, but we hang up our disbelieve and logic for 2 hours and enjoy the show.

I think to an extent, SL is the same idea - yeah I know we can't fly, can't be nekos or robots or demons or whatever, we can't build wonderous floating houses and etc etc - but for a couple hours, hang your logic at the door and just enjoy the show.

And I guess, if you can't enjoy the show any more, then change the channel and find a show that you do enjoy?

-Atashi

I get it and there is no answer.

I understand where you are coming from in your feelings..
i blame a lot of it on the pace of the world these days..things moving much faster and it's hard to find just one thing we love to do when soo many options keep popping up..
there used to be a lot of things i loved to do or that fascinated me until i got to a point where i knew everything about them..

what you are going through is what i call Adams apple..
everything was so amazing about the garden of Eden until you bit into the apple and gained knowledge of it's secretes..
over time it just became another garden and the shine that drew you to it dimmed more and more each day.

i think a lot of people get bored with what they do at times but there are still a lot that never fall out of love with what they decided to learn and master..
it just depends a lot on how many doors keep opening to keep the learning going..

i think SL still has a lot of doors that will take a long time to open for a lot of people..
but if you stand in one spot too long you get stuck in a rut of seeing the same things..

No, there is one one. If someone is finding absolutely nothing in SL that gives them cause to log on, be it artistic, social, business, fantasy, or just plain fun, then they should just move on. While SL is very special and meaningful to a lot of people, it is just a computer program the we use for our purposes, whatever they may be. If it no longer meets that purpose, then we should find something that does. Moving on from SL is no character flaw or failure of any sort. The majority of people will never hear of Second Life or ever spend a day in it, and will get along just fine with their lives.

The Wizard of Oz tragedy: Nobody ever pays attention to the disillusionment of the man behind the curtain.

I'm reminded of Garrison Keillor's self-proclaimed status as an elaborate liar, and Mark Twain before him. Shall we fault all storytellers for not telling the truth? Novelists? Playwrights? even the cursed magicians?

Yes, there was wonder (or better, "enchantment" in Bettelheim's sense) back when I didn't know how any of SL content worked behind the veil. Lost innocence: tragic, but just part of the deal.

So is it permissible fun to perpetuate the lies? To elaborate and refine them?

That's a way to give others a fleeting glimpse of enchantment.

If one can no longer sustain the burden of being an ever-better liar (the challenge? or the guilt?), SL becomes just another platform for social applications. For some, that's enough to sustain interest.

Not for me, though. The lies and lying are still too much fun.

Magic? So totally looking at things the wrong way Yumi. I LOVE building and scripting my builds, nothing magical about it, but watching a build take shape, watching it mature into completion is a wonderful feeling. Yes one build will grow old after a while, but then you move on to the next challenge.

As for actual roleplay, well you can choose to do that everywhere, you know the... *Shudders* Bloodlines people do, and they get a different reaction, usually hate and disdain, or you can find a themed roleplay area they are out there and some good ones to. I found one loosely based on GuildWars, went in to investigate and ended up chatting up a pair of elves and a dragon still wearing the visitor tag, so it is out there.

I don't know I see magic when I able to create something or learn something new,
when a friend and I have good time, when someone does something kind when they didn't
have too. when I see something very impressive.
I see magic even here in forum when we laugh or encourage each other.
Yes there is also crappy stuff too that happens but there is also fun, pleasant and happy stuff too.
Yet sometimes taking break is good thing, going and doing something else outside of SL.
There is first life too.

One thing I find ironic is that this means the Bloodlines system is functioning quite correctly - that _is_ how vampires would be reacted to in the real world. Myself, I don't mind too much being bitten by a vampire, but then they don't get to complain when I zap them with my fairy wand afterwards



But that's exactly the thing. The idea of a virtual world isn't to be a show you watch.. or at least, I don't think it is. If it _is_, it's competing against the movies and TV for the entertainment buck and will realistically never beat them. But the key point of a virtual world is that _you're_ in it.

But if it's true that there's no magic but what others do.. then that's all annulled. Devastated. You can see others around you doing magic, but you can never do it yourself, because the moment you try the veil pierces and it becomes hard labour. All the "your world, your imagination", all the costumes, all the dances, all the sets, fall apart. There is nothing but working, or watching. "Your world, your imagination", but it's nothing more than breaking rocks.

And if that is true it means SL is a self-sustaining loop of broken expectations. The newbies come in, see the apparant "magic" that others have, try to get it themselves, but by the time they are standing in their OWN character avatar they always wanted, they realize there is only work and spent money. But in the meantime, they're seen by the next generation, who see the same thing as magic because it's being done by someone else.. and it rolls along, seemingly succeeding, but actually failing every person it rolls over.

I don't know. Maybe it really is like that, but it doesn't fit with people's attitudes here, for it to be. It just doesn't match up with how people here would work, but at the same time, there's nothing in it that seems incorrect. And I'm stuck.

I wonder if the 'obstacle' here is due to the viewpoint. When a magician pulls that infamous rabbit out of the hat, neither the rabbit or the hat is magic, it is the action that is deemed to be magical. For the magician, surely the magic is in seeing the delight and awe from what is a mundane action (knowing the secret). For me, SL is part of a journey, which takes me along many different routes, technical stuff like building, which I delight in, and challenging stuff like social interactions, which lead me into stressful situations. But the magic is in experiencing these episodes, regardless of any personal feelings about them at the time.

SL still has as much magic as it ever did. Nobody said magic wasn't hard work. If there's no magic in llSetPrimitiveParams() or llApplyImpulse() for you, I'm sorry.

The magic is within you...yourself, how you interpret things. It is not up to someone else to provide it for you. You have to see it from your own viewpoint.

Ashe

Hmm. That sounds like a very passive-aggressive sort of solution. Just sayin'.

Ok, so what do you really want it to be then? Seriously and honestly?

I make "magic" with lots of hard work and rock-breaking, that other people enjoy. And I enjoy the "magic" that other people produce by hard work and banging the rocks together. Are you looking for a Utopia where we all just wave actual magic wands to get everything we want and no hard work? That would suck hard, it would be boring in under 2 hours, there would be no magic. The magic is in the fact that someone does take the time, put the effort, into making things.

If everyone was a kick-ass builder/scripter/animator/texturer/musician/artist/storyteller/etc then not a single build/event/story would have magic or value.

And just because something is hard work, and I know it's hard work, doesn't mean I can't enjoy it myself - even my own hard work. At the risk of blowing my own horn a bit, I made a motorboat over a year ago because I couldn't find one that worked just like I wanted it to. I worked hard at it to make it do just what I wanted. The hard work doesn't make it any less enjoyable to me -- to the contrary, I still get a kick out of it every time I use it. And I still tinker with it now and then to improve it. And -- I get people telling me that it's the best boat they've ever used in SL! That's kinda nice. Or this flying machine I made last spring. I worked at it for something like 2 months. It was a ton of hard work. But I'm incredibly proud of it, I like it better than my boat now. I use it every day, sometimes I log in just to fly it. The hard work spent does not, IMHO, detract from the magic of it.

If all you see is a bunch of hard work -- and you don't want to work hard yourself -- then I don't know that there's any hope, really. Either ignore the hard work and enjoy the result, or get the nose to the grindstone and make some of your own magic.

In the end, it actually comes back to you -- and only you. "What do you want SL to be?" Only you can answer that question, and only you can really make the answer come true for you.

-Atashi

Aha! A valid point, one I understand.
Yumi, in one sense this is true. And it's true of EVERYTHING. I listen in wonder to music tjhat I cannot make...but the music that I CAN make is not magical or miraculous to me...though it may be, to someone else.

Knowing how it works takes away one form of magic, yes. It's no longer mysterious, puzzling. But knowledge is power, as they say. It brings with it another sort of magic, the ability to understand, and to do. It is every bit as satisfying, to me anyway, to show someone something I have made and have them go "ooh, ahh...how wonderful!", as it is to be on the other end of that exchange.

But that's exactly the point... if it's nose to the grindstone, it's not magic any more, it's a sore nose. I always liked the magic wands other people made, and wanted to make one myself.. until I realized that what that actually came down to, was hours tweaking fiddly numbers in calls to llParticleSystem. And then, if I wanted anyone to use it - more hours, and a couple hundred US dollars, on marketing. And then... even then, I wouldn't be in any of the RP groups, and I couldn't be - because I was spending all that time scripting, and would have to keep doing so, or the product would be displaced.

Sure, I know for some people it's "magic" to have an audience, but most people can't. That's simply because of numbers, if there are to be more people in the audience than on the stage, then by definition, only a minority can be on the stage. And the "foreign labour" problem comes up. You can compete to be on the stage, but after a while, it's not on quality any more, it's down to "whoever will accept the worst life wins".

(Although, I am feeling a bit of an urge to combine llDetectedTouchUV and llParticleSystem. If you've ever had a go (IRL) on a Chaos Pad you know why! )

I confess I still don't quite get your point Yumi, but it's sort of coalescing a bit. Brenda has listed the most common reasons why people are here. I'd add this to her list: being the person you wish you were. Having experiences you wish you could have in RL.

Yumi, It's impossible to generalize, but I would say that the big four are socializing, creating, business, and wish fulfillment.

Each of these major aspects are enjoyed by people differently. Really! Take creation, for example. Some people like to make buildings or other objects, some like to make skins, some want to buy a prefab, some trees, furniture, and build a nice plot. Others want to design the perfect look for their avatar by shopping! Some people, oddly, make sculpties (now *that* is magic, and a dark one at that, but I digress). But if someone tells you that to them SL means making the perfect avatar, and you challenge them on it (like suggesting that they'll still act the same way with or without it), they aren't going to be able to justify it to you. You'll either get it, or you wont. Creativity is like that. So what you perceive as "half hearted" is a "brick wall" from their perspective.

Similarly, socializing is a personal thing. You might look at everyone from the outside and think, wow, everyone's all doing the same lame thing. But to them, they're having a unique, engaging, and emotional experience. Again, how can someone prove to you that they're really engaged? Especially when you yourself aren't feeling it? You either have to take them at their word, or not.

My suggestion to you, such as it is, is to forget about creating things or running a business, and just get out there and socialize. If you've ever wanted to try something in RL, or be someone you're not, create and alt and give it a try! Stop over-analyzing the situation, and just try to *feel* what's happening.

I really think you have some form of wish-fulfillment need. You are looking for RP to fill that void, but it isn't there. How could it be? Forget about RP. Be what you want to be, but be YOU while doing it.

And I have to say, you clearly think rather deeply about SL and why you're here, why others are here, it's implications as an environment, and all that, but you have to realize, most people don't. You ask questions that they have never bothered to consider - probably because they're too busy having fun.

You say "if I want..." a few times. But you don't seem to be clear on what exactly you want. If the part of my post that you quoted is actually 'exactly the point' then I guess the point is "it's hopeless".

In my case with the motorboat, I wanted one and I was really picky about what I wanted. It took me almost a month of work, but I wanted it bad, so I was willing to put the effort in. On the other hand, I'm not driven by profit or fame, so I haven't spent any money in advertising (other than the generic L$50 classifieds I have running). Certainly not hundreds of US$. It is gratifying that other people use and enjoy the boat, but my goal was to make a boat I wanted, not to make a boat that would make me rich.

So if you want to make a cool magic wand, make it! Don't stress over having to commit time and money and energy to marketing it. If you're fussing over money, then fuss over money and don't worry about a magic wand in SL.

Maybe I'm just an incredibly fortunate individual, in that I can (and do) make my own fun. I don't mean that just literally in SL that I build and script objects then play with them. I mean, in RL, in life, period. When a particular 'thing' stops being fun, I put it away and go play with something else. Sometimes I'll revisit something, and other times, I won't.

So I'll ask it again Yumi - What is it, exactly, that you want?

Odds are nobody can give it to you, but we can try and point you in the right direction. Just remember, until you know what you want, you probably won't find it.

-Atashi

Nobody really wants a drill!

Pep (They want holes)

QFT.

Thinking is good...don't give it up entirely. But it can be counterproductive to think ALL the time. Feel. Experience. Be!