Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Passion For Second Life Or Any Virtual World?

My anwser is no. I can understand why people get protective and passionate about Virtual Worlds. It may be Virtual but the friends you make and the people you meet are real. The idea for the Virtual World started in a real persons head.

So if the idea is real you could say the Virtual World is too. All the members and people behind any Virtual World are real and their ideas are real which are being put into the Virtual World. I'm not talking about Second Life only also.

But what do you think about this? Is there such a thing as too much love for a Virtual World? For me, its no. But I can also see why some people would think its crazy and freaky to be some what passionate about a Virtual World

As mae west liked to say, you can never have too much of a good thing

I can understand being passionate about things you love. I am very passionate about programming, editing, about the things I create.

BUT - when that passion overrides your responsibilities to your family, yourself, your loved ones, then yes - there can be 'too much'.

People losing their jobs, neglecting their kids, having their spouses leave them.. these are very real things that are happening.

And lets not even go into stalkers and obsessives.

Passion is good - but with all things - moderation.... Love long, love hard, but for god sakes love smart.

Siggy.

I would say yes - and not just about an online game.

I have stepped over the line due to too much passion before on these forums, at work, with my loved ones, etc., and it doesn't make me feel very good in retrospect. All I can say is "thank you" to my parents for teaching me that the only way out when I do step over the line, is accepting responsibilty and offering an apology.

I agree, Nolan. Some of us are just more passionate than others, and all we can do if then if we make a mistake is apologize. No shame in that.

This is an interesting question, though. Leaving aside considerations such as neglect of family, job, etc., I think the reality type games are more passionate than any other. Probably because they are so much like real life, yet not so quotidienne as real life, and in some ways, not as controllable as real life, where people tend to hang with people much like themselves, never even really having much conversation with those who aren't, and for the most part live in a safe, expected routine.

The other factor is a lot of the things which cause passion in this game are actually bigger values which often don't get talked about much in regular, everyday real life. But here, in this hothouse microcosm, with people we will never actually meet, they flare up with regularity, reach high levels of rhetoric, and (usually) flare down just as quickly.

Last week's big forum issue gets all but forgotten (minus a few biggies, of course) by the next week, and we become hugely passionate over the new issue. In the game, relationships come and go similarly, with incredible speed and incredible passion.

The fact that the game is so ephemeral and speeded up, and the relationships in it often are, too, leads to a kind of temporary passion about everything and everybody. If something isn't going to be around for long, and we know we can't control it, or expect it to last (builds disappear, people disappear, relationships disappear at the drop of a hat), then that just increases our passion. Sort of getting the juice out of a thing while the getting is good.

Maybe we make up for the temporaryness of it all by imbueing it with more passion than normal.

Or maybe we just like the soap opera aspect of it all. That in itself can be hugely entertaining. As I always say, I love drama - as long as I'm not in it.

coco

I couldn't care less about the "virtual world". It's the concept. The potential.
It's more about where SL 5.0 will be, than where SL 1.6 is today.
Seriously, I have been here since Beta...
I know I say that all the time, and you people make fun of me for it.
But when I arrived, you couldn't so much as fart without crashing the client, or the server.
You couldn't use basic stuff like the LSL list functions, they crashed a lot and had major memory leaks. My av had holes in its body for the first couple of months I played.
Throughout beta and 1.0, you couldn't get as little as FIVE people together without lagging like crazy.
Only someone who has been here since those days can understand how good this is today... performance has leaped an order of magnitude, and the features are just a dream compared to what we had
Two years from now, one of you noobs will be here posting that he's been here since ye olden days of 1.6 when we still had Havok 1 and 64m draw distances

Hmmm. I assumed I was one of the very few blind who couldn't use more than 64 draw distance. You mean most people set theirs at that? Or even, a whole bunch of people do?

coco

My av has a bunch of holes too...but that could be from all my piercings hehe

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People can be addicted to pretty much anything. There are also different levels of addiction. I'll admit I'm addicted to SL as I'm sure most of us are or we wouldn't be here. It does not however restrict me from having a job and doing other things. I do get pissy if SL is having difficulties, but I'm not going to crawl into a hole and die because of it. Sure, I've thought "I'd love to just take a few days off of work and be on SL to work on my project or whatever" but I know where my responsibilities lie. Making sure to prioritize things is the key. I think there can be 'too much passion' if it interferes with your RL. If you own 4 sims and your family is starving then there is a problem. I haven't met anyone who lets SL rule their life, but then again I am rather shy and don't know that many people. I'm sure there are people that are severely addicted and it does effect them and their family/friends/job, I can only hope that their friends here care enough to notice and try to help them. The truth hurts...but it can also help...

Balance is the key.

With that said, I don't think you can ever be too passionate. The people are the addicting quality for me, and will keep bringing me back.

Certainly. There can be too much of just about anything. Someone caught up in SL, to the exclusion of RL would be too passionate about it.

I've been guilty, in the past, of becoming to passionate or excited about online activities and have let certain, far mor important issues in RL slide. That's not a good thing.

Moderation in all things, and remind yourself of the truly "important" things in life.

"Moderation in all things." - Terence

"...Especially Moderation."- Dakota

sl is such an addictive diversion i sometimes ask LL to ban me for my own good.

"Is there such a thing as too much passion for Second Life or any virtual world?"

The word is not "passion". The word is "obsession". The answer is yes, and the next question - a personal one for anyone who suffers the affliction - is why?

Since SL is completely user created it gives people a sense of ownership that's lacking in other MMO's. For me personally this is the first one I've felt truly passionate about though I've been involved in several over the years.

My passion for SL ate my baby!

No, wait, that was Chip who did that.

There was a vampire MUX that I used to game on way back in the telnet days. The headwiz was very dedicated to the MUX and made it a really incredible playing experience. Naturally as time went on we all got to know each other pretty well. Turns out this head wiz was unemployed and living off welfare and... I wish I were kidding ... 'favors' from some of the male players who lived near her.

One of the guys who 'visited' her said he had to stop doing it because of the woman's daughter. The daughter kept drawing pictures... of her mom on the computer, of herself alone, and it broke the guy's heart. I believe the MUX came to an end when we all had an intervention and tried to get her back on the right path, for her sake and her daughter's sake. No game is worth that price.

Yes there is such a thing as too much love for a virtual world. It's all too common honestly, tho usually not to the extent above.