Saddened buy SL changes

When i first came onto secondlife a year and a half ago SL life was a lot different.
I like may SLifers spent much of my time chatting, surfing profiles and traveling around the most popular locations.
The main dropping in points were Freebie Island, freebie beach and the Morris, Ahern hub. Freebie island was my personal favorite as it was allways humming with new and old residents.Alas Lindens saw fit to turn it into a music store and it died. Freebie Beach became a hangout for maybe 8-10 trouble makers who tormented any noob who landed and it basicly died as a point to interact. After they killed Freebie Beach those people left and destroyed Waterhead and Ahern / Morris. Making both of those places not noob friendy. This was followed by Lindens altering the searches so that they no longer showed the visitor numbers to a sim but put them in order of who paid the most for their ad. So that now you have hot spots.... a hot spot is some where that there is usually no avitars they just paid for it to be called a hot spot. These changes in my opinion have taken away much of the pleasure in SL ... lets face it who wants to TP from empty HotSpot to empty HotSpot in search of social interaction. Noobs ask me what do you do on SL ? How do i meet people? Where are all the 65000 people who are logged on ? i say i dont know................ .

Uhm... My experience had been quite opposite. For one, welcome areas have always been rotten. Ignore the lack of traffic numbers in search. They were faked anyway. Find places other than freebie malls and infohubs. Find places with a regular crowd. They're out there. You just have to seek them out. (^_^)y

) my comments related to the changes in sl as i see them. You may have a different view and i respect that how ever i still say where are the 65000 people? Most noobs will come on and ask how do i find sims with lots of people to interact with? I have been on quite some time and do have places i frequent and many "real friends" but i believe that SL is not helping people find these places by not showing honest traffic numbers to the different sims )

Mine have never, ever, been faked.

I'm usually with 20 people in Kuula. 10 to 15 people in The Doll Works. Or hiding out with my closest friends. (^_^)

I can easily find a crowd of 40 to 80 by searching for a live performer. Solo acoustic music usually draws a good civil crowd. (^_^)

65,000 people... Like a large pile of laundry on the floor... Is best approached with the articles you can reach first. (^_^)

Parcel traffic was a lie. The highest rankers were usually freebie zones with camping pads, bots, and not much in the realm of nice conversation. If you want traffic based results, you can still use the "Places" tab. (^_^)

This is the funniest part, though. New people coming on and asking where they can find people to talk to. Well... Who did they ask? There HAD to at least be a person there. We get this all the time in NCI. There will be a crowd of regulars there, usually around 20 or so, and someone will come in and ask "Where can I find people?"... Uhm... 20 people HERE. Mission accomplished, right? (^_^)

Do yourself a favor... Quit relying on traffic. Ignore statistical analysis of a place to determine how social it is. (^_^)

Start with events. REAL events. Live music, building contests, Question & Answer, Show & Tell, classes. Just be in the audience, mingle. No need to pry your way in. Ignore cliques. Say "Hi!" Follow word of mouth to find other places. (^_^)

Check out successful and friendly places like The Shelter, NCI, Help People Institute, Dreams, The Forum Cartel Hangout, The Jittery Junco... I can keep going... Ask people for landmarks. (^_^)

This is how SL always worked. It didn't change as much as you think. You just focused on a cold statistic that was being abused from the beginning. Try out what I said. Enjoy. (^_^)y

Aha... Good deal... Toss Was a LM and show him a good time. =^-^=

If Was was interested in my sorta place, he (he?) would likely already know my name.

The point was just that some high-traffic places don't fake traffic. Some do, some don't. Saying "all fake traffic" isn't fair.

I hope its ok to post here,without getting flamed.I am a 2 mo noob,and when I find a small group of people and try to interact,it seems they just act really cruel,I get embarrassed and leave.I prefer World of Warcraft,I think,to SL.I mean,ok,this world is free,and you can make yourself look any way you want,but,..theres not much else you can do,without a lot of money. Just like in the real world,and if we dont have a lot of money to spend for an online world,we're screwed,basically.We can just walk around,looking cool. I have found only two places where people are real nice.Ones Faery Crossing,and the other is about Medieval Roleplaying.WoW lets you have homes for free,too,without having to buy the land first.
I have heard of changes within the SL world from others too.I wish I had come into it a year ago too.

Heya Shiloh, There's plenty of cool people around... and a lot of asshats too, but nevermind them. Maybe try joining a few groups that you are interested in, and you'll probably make some new friends in no time. You don't have to spend any money to enjoy SL, but you might have to do a little more hunting for good free stuff or be more creative.

Thanks a lot for replying.Its just that,well,..we have to place to put things after we get them,but in our inventory.I feel kinda like a homeless person just wandering round hoping for a nice word or two.Lol. I have learned a lot though,and when a newer person than me asks for help.I try to give it to them. Most guys just want to call you 'baby',and hey,can I be your friend.Calling me baby wont get you a friend request,And,..I dont wear revealing clothes either.In fact,I'm a pretty offish looking avatar,really.I have white skin,goth makeup,and pretty tough clothes too.And,yet,they still attack.(said with tongue in cheek)
Perhaps I'll just keep SL for chatting,and use Morrowind or WoW for building and living inworld.(We Elder Scrolls people call it that too)You might check it out.WoW is online,and though you do pay a monthly fee,anything you add,(a mod) is free,anything you live in is free,and you can find money in just about any cavern or crate,etc.In other words,there are a lot of incentives for those two worlds.
Take care,Smif!
ps,
once you buy Morrowind,all the add ons created for it are free(of which there are literally thousands),you can build anything you want with the construction kit included too.Even races,or just another person.No prims,nothing .like that.No land to pay for,its all free.Anywhere there is nothing you can put something,freely.

LOL, I understand. There are really cheap newbie apartments out there if you look. But I warn you that might be slippery slope towards owning land



I apologize on behalf of all males here in SL... baby )))) (I kid!!!)



I've never heard of Morrowind, I'll have to look that up!

Everything in SL can be free if you work at it. I pay $72 per year for my premium membership, and that's it. LL gets no more of my money. That said, I both make and spend about $40 U.S. in SL... Without using a drop of real cash. (^_^)y

WTF where's MY house Blizzard

Try visiting the Forum Cartel Hangout.

If you go and no one's there, wait just a bit. There is a HUD you can pick up free in the back room that tells you when someone's there.

There is A LOT you can do without money. If you follow the freebie blogs, you can look *amazingly* good without having to spend anything but time.

http://fabfree.wordpress.com/
http://bakingcupcakes.blogspot.com/
http://karlascorbal.wordpress.com/

are just a couple. I'm sorry, but I don't know whether you're a man or woman, so here are two freebie blogs for men:

http://ffform.wordpress.com/
http://freefindsformen.blogspot.com/

There have been other threads about places to go, I'll see if I can hunt them up.