Where to find PEOPLE in the steampunk world?

I've been to Port Babbage and Rivet Town more than few times... I like it there, and I've checked out a few other steampunk locales, but...

whenever I'm there, I'm all alone!

I know that a lot of SL is empty, but supposedly SL is a hotbed of steampunkery.

So where are the steampunks? Am I going to the wrong places? The wrong time?

Paging Desmond Shang

try the sauna

After cooling off from the sauna, try searching for a wee little place called "Caledon"

Hey, I've been to Caledon, and I like it a lot, but it's equally empty, at least the parts I've visited.

Incidentally, in some other thread someone pointed out that Caledon Oxbridge is a great orientation place for newbies, so I checked it out. I have to say that I think it's the BEST orientation to SL that I've seen.

And, duh, I almost did a search for "sauna" but my brain clicked on in time...

I want to say that I understand that if I want there to *be* people in those places, I have to hang out there myself, so I do... but there's only so much shopping and walking that I can do in a day.

Usually during the US afternoon/evening there is more traffic on SL. If living in Europe (like myself) you may want to work on requiring less sleep.

It really depends also on the type of activity you wish to do. Is it hanging out or rpg? Dark Gothica has a great stempunk underground, but it is in an rpg setting. Where drow and many others survive.

I've visited Caledon many times. But I never see anyone there unless it is for the few moments before the weekly horse ride which gathers at a stable in Caledon. Except for last weeks ride, we ride elsewhere. And the only people I saw in Caledon during that ride were others on that ride. I have the sinking feeling that I am incoherent today.

When is this event? Is it open to the public? I live in Caledon and I've never seen this place. I'll bet all those fine mounts create a bit of lag.

Caledon is actually one of the more active SL communities. Their group chat is even more nonstop than the Forum Cartel's.

However, anyplace in SL is likely to be empty much of the time, because we avatars are spread so thin on the ground. Let's say there are 60,000 on line. There are more than 30,000 regions, so if we were evenly spread, there would be less than two avatars per region.

But we aren't spread evenly...we clump at sales and hot spots and events. And about 10-20% of us are bots anyway.

So, there are a lot of empty places. This can get a little lonely, but in many ways it is a good thing, because large groups of people mean large amounts of lag.

Join some groups that interest you, so you'll get notices of events and such. That's one good way to meet up with folks. Add people to your Friends list and make your own little impromptu gatherings.

Friday nights, open to the public. Rides occur all over SL, sometimes the same place twice, but rarely (I have the vague recollection of one group notice saying something like "return to . . ".

I can never remember the time. Even the day of the event I'm nervously waiting for a group IM asking if anyone wants a teleport over.

And lag? Yes, lots of lag. Need to have a well built horse, and do everything you can to lower the stress on your computer as all those horses are going to stress your computer as it is.

I thought most of the residents were up on their Steam Blimps that's why it's empty. So look up.

I usually see green dots in the Steelhead sims, often over a dozen. It's much smaller than Caledon but quite popular. Also they've got some nice free/cheap steampunk gadgets.

Ohhh well that as got them one extra visitor today

I'll check it out.

I honestly don't know what I'm looking *for*, I figured I see what there was and try to fit in.

Yes, you scoffer! I will go!

I did mean myself LOL

(laughs)

Well maybe I'll see you there, then.

At the risk of being self-serving, I would urge you to visit the Caledon Library, in Caledon VictoriaCity. Run by Mr. JJ Drinkwater and Miss Scandaroon Beck, it features works and exhibits put together by IRL librarians, as well as offering many free (public domain) works from the Victorian era.

They also sponsor many events including lectures, book groups, and story-telling sessions. The rumours of unnatural orgies in the catacombs of the main Library are simply not true, by the way. Not remotely. Definitely not true.

Check in-world search for Caledon Library activities. Once you meet a few people, you'll probably find similar souls and be able to generate a crowd when necessary. The Firth (the water sims in the center of Caledon) are excellent for sailing and flying. For gadgetry (including the infamous Bee Gun), visit Miss Ordinal Malaprop's shop, lighthouse, and champagne dispensary in Caledon, on the south coast, looking up and out at Caledon Steam SkyCity (where there are also no orgies.)

Thank you so much, both for the facts and the rumors. I'd been the library, but didn't realize it had either events or catacombs.

I DJ at a steampunk club called Gaslight Gizmoteer once a month. Contact me or Omen Crow inworld for event times or group tags.

Otherwise, most of the steampunk communities seem pretty empty. I've looked, too.

Hi all - finally saw this thread.

There are a *lot* of things going on - the magic is timing, really.

Caledon is nearly three years old, solid full of residents and many of them 'founders' of the regions they began in - many of whom have never left, or just moved a region or two over. Some are, how shall I say, 'comfortable' in real life, have gobs of land and maybe log in only once a week or something. That can make the countryside a bit quiet. But for every parcel in Caledon (there are roughly 650) there is an active participant who logs in, pays tier, does stuff.

Hence, lots of oldbies - and as such they tend to log in a little bit less than say, a 2 month old, hyperaddicted newbie. Or not... some of us are still pretty bad... anyway, the events can easily and regularly hit 50 people, the Caledon group chat has been nearly 24/7 since... late 2006? I don't really remember when it all started to blur together.

Look for events, watch the blogs, and so forth. Another thing to point out is that even though Caledon is fairly old and sizeable, there is a lot of spillover into other communities - Steelhead, Babbage, the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, many many others, to the point where these communities are almost a separate 'world'. Lots of late night, Euro and Aussie participation - mid morning SLT can sometimes be some of the most active.

Steampunky type people may also like to check out Make Magazine. They post several projects every day to their blog, and there's often some steampunk projects sometime during the week. The search there will bring up several that can be good inspiration for things to try to make in SL.

http://blog.makezine.com/

you know, I went and looked for the catacombs...

There are secret tunnels in Steelhead. I've never seen any orgies in them, damn it.