Dissertation: What is the attraction of this Virtual World?

Now you're just teasing me.

Addition to my previous post.

Although I don't do this sort of thing often, some people like to be things that they would never (or could never) be in Real Life. What would it be like to be a hooker? Or a sex slave? You can be a vampire in SL. Or a dragon. Or a humanoid fox, or a tiger or any of a number of nonhuman creatures.

Sometimes it's more than just dress-up. There are roleplay areas where you can be a part of a "Lord of the Rings" type world, or walk the corridors of Babylon 5, or wield a lightsaber and the Force. There's a meat market where you can sell yourself into slavery.

Linden Lab's motto is "Your World, Your Imagination". We make fun of that sometimes, but really there is a lot of truth to it. We can be whatever we imagine here.

I have just got off bonking my satyr partner so I can assure you teh sex is great - and you really can eat paint chips

NSFW

http://uncensored.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=427541

/me does a double take at Kelli's sig line and cracks up.

Happy to amuse It sounds like one of Stephen Wright's, but it's actually a paraphrase of something from a Terry Pratchett novel.

The attraction of SL depends on who's eyes you view it from - no forum post can even begin to cover all the ways people find SL attractive.

Whatever you seek, you'll find it somewhere on these servers. SL is as open as your mind can ever be or as closed - it's your choice.

Two words: Detachable Penis.

It comes off???

/me made one.

Base your study on the price of virtual land, that will be far more interesting

King Missile FTW!

I think I'll start this one with, "I was bored sooooo....." Which honestly is why I joined SL. I stay because of the pie and cookies!

Okay, insanity aside, it's because I love creating things. It's a challenge, if you will, to make SL bend to your will long enough to KEEP the size of the prim you just adjusted for the fifth time. And don't get me started on one idiotic prim's inability to keep a freaking texture.

Really, go to Sandbox Island and you'll find out why people stay in SL.

I think their new motto is "What we say, when we say it. And you'll like it."

I dont play games unless you count pocket billiards. I use SL to build content and to then sell said content.

Can you build me a pocket billiard table?

I've got plenty of 'wood' for a spare table so no problemo

Careful, or I'll tell everyone you "felt" me up.

I'll take that as my 'cue' to leave then.

I was going to say something flippant about yet another survey, but Kelli's post humbled and intrigued me. I never thought of us as like a Michael Moorcock novel before, and I couldn't possibly have put it more eloquently.

And yes, Realsam, try not to think of it as a game, but as a virtual world where anything is possible. It is one of the most amazing sociological experiments ever.

I actually make art and show it where I can, I subscribe to in world groups that actively inform me of new builds, in the past year there have been some amazing places to see, however, with the open sim farce, that may happen less next year, you notice I went off on a tangent there, yes SL is for going off on a tangent, do this, do that, see this, WOW!

Since I started SL February 2007, I have been preparing to buy a full sim, but so far, decisions by LL have stopped this from becoming a reality, but I am still here. There is SO MUCH to do. I spent nearly a year working with prims alone, I can do so many things to prims now, torturing them is fun, I usually give a prim a Linden name before I do this though.

So I am pretty good with prims and building, I am also pretty good at texturing having a graphic design background, but I'm too impatient to make amazing textures and too busy in RL too, so there is also scripting, well I've looked at scripting enough to know I really don't want to go there, although I am pretty handy at bastardizing freebie scripts to get them to do what i want, sometimes. SO what else? oh yes, I have to learn how to do poses & animations, I have to learn how to do Machimina (spelling?) and I hav to start looking at how sculpties work too.

One thing I find sad is that virtual worlds should be about freedom, but I read about so many residents coming in here and the first thing they do is build walls, buy security orbs, AR anyone who may IM them, imo that's the saddest part of SL, people who have no freedom in their real life and the first thing they do is replicate that lack of freedom here. Get out there have fun, make Second Life great, make yourself great!

Bluntly, whenever I hear anyone say that they're doing an academic "thesis" or "dissertation" about SL and then see them demonstrate that they don't know the first thing about undergraduate-level research, it makes me see red.

If you really *are* doing a dissertation, then I'm appalled (or maybe amused at the thought of your committee's reaction to such a line of "research". If you're just doing a term paper or research project, then say so.

I play SL because THEY tell me to. If I don't play then THEY will do bad things.

I just visited a sim with a virtual Alice in Wonderland world.

Imagine your imagination in 3D. Imagine things you can't even imagine - but others can - in 3D.

There you have the appeal of a virtual world.