Want a baby in secondlife? Be careful

In real life, as well as second life, there are always going to be people who will make fun of others, no matter the reason. I have to admit, having gone through a RL miscarriage, the OP did not give me much reason to feel sorry for her virtual "loss". I will also admit I was extremely tempted to respond snarkily - still am. It is a shame if she was ripped off, and it's a shame if she is bad-mouthing the creator due to her own error.

This is all buyer's word against creator's word. He said/she said. I tend to believe the creator, though. Must have something to do with the use of paragraphs and mature language, but that's just me. Those things do tend to sway me.

Yes this is a roleplaying game. But we are on the message boards. You open yourself up to far more ridicule and derision when you post complaints such as this on a forum such as this. The responses here were actually quite mild compared to some that I've seen on these forums.

I think the majority of the 'flaming' (I put that in quotes 'cause frankly, it's barely even warm in here) and joking is the result of the OP treating this as if she'd lost a RL child. I can understand getting upset about someone failing to deliver (... no, I didn't intend a pun, there...) on an order, but going into mourning over a prim baby is extreme by just about any sane human's standards.

Personally, I was assuming the OP was either joking, or roleplaying within the forum, but from later posts defending her I have to assume she was serious. In which case, the best possible advice I could give her would be to step away from the computer. Yes, you lost a couple bucks, and some time... you're absolutely entitled to being a tad miffed. If you're genuinely experiencing grief, you need to back out of SL and reassess your priorities. And by 'you', I do not just mean the OP... any time an MMO fills you with rage/grief/guilt/lust/overwhelming desire for fried pickles, any time you find yourself reacting to an imaginary situation with the same degree and duration of emotion as a real phenomenon would have provoked, you need to stop and think about just what the heck is going on.

I do roleplay, and have done so for quite some time, both tabletop and MMO. And I've had some pretty intense experiences, positive and negative, applied to my RP characters. And if I ever, ever wake up the next day after, say, one of my characters has died or lost a child or what have you, and start wearing black and moping about it, I fully expect someone to tell me that I need to bloody well snap out of it. It's a game, a diversion, a bunch of colorful pixels moving about and entertaining you. At most, at the extreme, SL is an engrossing hobby that one can potentially make money while indulging... like collecting stamps, or blackmailing priests.

In short: I'm sorry you had a bad experience with that merchant. You did not lose a real baby. If you are experiencing crushing grief because you lost a baby that wasn't real, then SL and/or roleplaying might not be a good idea for you. I really hope that I've misread some of the posts within this thread, and the original post actually was a mixture of complaint and RP, and if that is the case, more power to you.

What I mean is you can't rip a baby apart and create a "new one" in real life, so that's not really role playing....

I'm going to start a SL CS.

Say you ordered a custom [any item you want/value (we'll us a dress)], and you paid upfront for it, and told a date when it would be ready. So you planned a huge party with all of your friends in SL to be invited, and you and your hubby/BF(?) would be the main couple. Then you learn that you won't get your dress for a few days after the party, so you think, "It's ok, I'll ask my friends to reschedule (which is rude anyways)." Then, on the new date of the dance, you still don't have your dress, which you paid for, and was told you were to get 2 weeks earlier, how would you be feeling?

I'm reading this thread from work at the Child Protective Services abuse hotline. I'll let the internet reports unit know about this.

like i should rip my prim baby to pieces and lose 2 more prim babies of course =)

you know, making a SL CPS would be so funny.

Just barge in peoples home, demand to see their baby, and if they aren't making any Linden$ take thier prim baby away and give it to a "foster" SL parent

I wonder if she buries her dead prim babies after they've been ripped apart and disassembled? (Johnny number 5!)

Head stones in the back yard?

"Here lies Object One - Ripped apart by dear old Mum"

Ma'am, I from the Prim Protective Services. I hear you have been tortuing prims.

Lets make a partnership. You build it, I'll take the babies and slap the bad mothers upside the head.

I'm going to take away their babies if I see them using the "acid trip" animation too!

I'd be terribly upset.

I would not, however, dress in mourning clothes and sob apologies to my fictional hubby.

I stand by what I said; if this event has effected her this deeply, then she has become too emotionally invested in a game. Second Life is not real. There was no baby. There is, in point of fact, no husband, nor house, nor land upon which to build a house, nor clinic, nor doctor. All of this has almost exactly the same degree of reality as mass-murdering police in whatever killfest Rock Star has most recently released. I say 'almost', in that the environment can be somewhat configured to match our desires, and there is a virtual economy (represented here by an approximate $2 US loss on the part of the OP), and there are (presumably) human beings on the other side of the game who are pretending to be the doctor, or the husband, or that odd looking fellow on stilts who keeps shooting you with watermelons.

If we accept as given that the OP's every statement is true, then yes, she had grounds to be upset. I also believe, if her post truly represents her reaction to this situation, that she is overreacting to a monumental degree. Hence my suggestion that she step away from the computer. SL is a game; if something this minor upsets you this terribly, then you have a problem.

you watch too many episodes of dragnet

acid trips are good for you! (mushrooms are better tho)

I think brownies are better
heard the mushrooms make you sick

Tell a paralized man that you will take flying out of this world. See how emotional he gets. Heck tell the RL walking here that flying without vehicles will not be done and see how bad they flip out. Be it RP or not we have no idea of situations and frankly either way even with the "it's a baby" aside. Maybe those that flame should look into what is being talked about. A man that makes a prim item on contract doesn't even have the courtesy to tell someone the item will be late in being sent to them.

Even past all that...here is a business where you pay up front, buy "addons" (furniture etc), and then later find out after you paid this mand for the item and addons that he will be late or can't deliever the base product?

Oh, deep dark memories of "The Sims" are stirring within me...

peyote makes you sick for sure

mushrooms maybe 20% chance, maybe less

although, i must say you have never felt so good after puking on shrooms. its like a snake shedding its skin, or a butterfly coming out of a cocoon

acid won't make you puke but it lasts about twice as long a shrooms (12-14 hours) and is often more intense than some people are comfortable with. Shrooms are mellow and groovy

of course, i just read this in a book, no 1st hand experience mind you

Yeah, with acid you'll be wanting the "acid off" switch....

heheheheh.

ummmm I don't think telling a paralyzed man that you are going to take flying out of SL would crush him. Telling him his av will from now on be confined to a wheel chair might.. it also just might make him leave the game. Comparing apples to oranges isn't getting us anywhere. I agree it seems that the OP is rather engulfed in SL and might need to step away from the computer. Take a walk. Go get some fresh air.

The creator has responded in this thread. Sounds to me like he tried to appease his customers. It also sounds like he has many customers who are extremely happy with his service. The ones who badmouth him (again only going by appearances) did not follow the procedure he set out for his customers to follow. I wonder how many notecards he has in his inventory that are just called "New Note" or how many items in his objects folder that just say "Object". I know I have an overflowing inventory - and its just the stuff that I've bought plus textures I've uploaded from my computer. I'm pretty sure if I was receiving random "new notes" and "objects" from people, it would be difficult to figure out what was from whom.

uh huh.. suuuuure

acid can make you puke if you got a heavy dose of strychnine instead of the real deal... or so I've been told

1: I am not flaming.

2: I have stated more than once that not receiving something I had paid for would upset me.

3: If a paralyzed man were to become so dependant upon SL that he responded with protracted and extreme grief or anger at being deprived of (clumsy and awkward) in-game flight, then I would suggest that the game was no longer therapeutic for him, and would try to persuade him to take up another hobby.

Once more, with feeling: I am not saying the OP has no reason to complain. I am, however, saying that reacting to the loss of a fictional baby with her apparent degree of emotion is alarming, and that she might want to rethink how deeply she allows this game to effect her.

It is certainly possible that the OP is a woman who cannot bear children, and was/is using SL as an outlet for her maternal instincts. If that is the case, then while I certainly have sympathy for her, I am still going to say the same. Thing. I've. Been. Saying. All. Along.

'You are overreacting. This is not healthy. Step away from the computer.'

... I'd probably add 'Think about adopting a kitten', though.

Hi Ang,

Just remeber that most people that post on forums and play on SL are like 12.

Also, not all businesses are like that, hell, almost every business and business owner on SL tries to run a respectable, likeable business.

As for people being attached to things that are "pixels"... If that didn't happen then they wouldn't need internet addict support groups. And the form of attachment can be numerous things. Hell, look how many posts go up when SL crashes? You don't think that's an attachment to pixels??

This thread is boring now. Lock time?

How many dead prim babies does it take to lock a thread?