I've been here for awhile. What now?

I have no idea where to go or what to do in this game.

I've been in and out of Second Life for approximately a year now and I still have nowhere to hang out or anything to do when I log in, except for work on private projects when a creative mood strikes me. Which is difficult to do when you can't find a sandbox that has not been hit by a strange weather of physics-set penis-rain or equivelant; which, while hilarious initially, makes it really difficult to build anywhere.

I am not interested in replacing my real life with a virtual one, nor in online sex. And I'm not particularly interested in turning this game into a job. It bothers me how commercial everyone is. I see so many private islands that are nothing more then storefronts when they could be so much more interesting.

This game could be incredibly interesting. I used to play MUSH's, and spent the majority of my time programming, building and designing interesting things. SL has allowed me to take that even further, giving objects a visual scale and dimension. So much more could be done with this, but all everyone seems to think about is either feeling powerful, getting pretend-laid or making money, or odd combinations of the three. I am not interested in those things.

So my question is, where do I go? What do I do? Given that the majority of the playerbase seems to be interested in things I am not, where do I find my niche?

I like to build, script and design. My college background so-far has gone from english to art to graphic design to computer science and will probably stretch further as I continue courses. I am a decent builder and a very compitent scripter; I would absolutely LOVE to work on a group project just for the sake of making something complete, perfect and unique. For the sake of the idea itself, rather then the money to be made afterword. I am not against selling products; giving something a value makes it more valuable to the end user. But it's not my sole purpose. I like to design for the success of the project itself; for making something and making it WELL. The true definition of art. The old definition, before expression and cubism and nonsense mistook emotion as skill.

I'm working on a project involving morphable objects that could have some interesting uses in-game. Find me in-game sometime and I'd be glad to show it off, though I'm still working out the kinks. And I'd love to start up an A-Life project, and have a few ideas of how I could accomplish this in an interesting fashion. I'd love to build some DIY kits (transformers and such) and offer them full-perm and free, just to see what people would do with them. Like the Lusk furries. See what people would do if they could design their own Mecha and Transformers.

I am interested in Role-playing, assuming the world was consistant and the players interesting. SL's lag is not entirely conductive of a fully active-combat-system, and I wish people would understand that when they build their combat systems. I'd love to see a good Mecha RP game in existance. It could be done well, given the right people in charge. Something blending Armored Core with an online action-oriented tabletop-type game. Both in and out of Mecha. I am also a big fan of Steampunk, and my original avatar was a clockwork steambot. Though, I'm flexible. To me, RP does not equal moody; RP equals fun, and should be played that way. My favorite system was BESM, though I'm still waiting for that stupid third edition to come out. (Damn you GoO!) I may make something to use that system in-game if it is actually as interesting as it's been made out to be.

Default SL animations look incredibly dorky to me. Avatars equally so. As such, I lean more towards full-prim avatars or something close to them, though lately (due to my morphable system) I have been running around as a human. I wish there were free or at least inexpensive animations available for running, walking and standing that did not ALSO look dorky or effeminate. Or like a columbian drug lord. Common fashion in SL just looks bizarre to me.

So that's me. About half a year ago, I used to hang out in the Island Sandbox (back before it got an extension), just to be around other builders. These days it's just a litterbox. I know of no interesting places to hang out and build, or anywhere to hang out and RP or just talk to other people who aren't interested in selling me nonsense or trying to convince me to sell my creations on their new private island that will make tons of money for no describable reason.

Does anywhere exist that would interest me? Can someone help me out here? Anywhere I can build and hang out with like-minds? Anywhere I can RP in an actual controlled setting? Any projects I can work with that aren't just trying to live off of a SL/$ exchange?

What am I supposed to do in this game? Where is my niche?

SL is Limited ONLY by your Imagination, so, Take a Little time, and Think about it. If you have "writers block" read a Few Books on general subjects. Something Will come to you.

From what i have read in your post, you already Seem to have Great potential ideas. Go with them. Read, Learn, and develope, If you don't see what you like, or can't find a group close to your tastes, Make it Yourself, Don't wait for others to do it For you. Once you Do, you will find people of like interests Seeking You out. You become the person Others look for when they say "Ok, what do i do next, Where is my Niche?".

Angel.

First, you could join the vaudeville troupe that is rehearsing acts to be performed in the spring (make up your own act or join in with others who need people). Second, you could enter my themed photo contests (now: UI Abstraction) and probably meet a lot of like-minded people). Third, get involved in machinima (I've got 3 projects going right now and they are all different).
These are all things I'm doing - none for money, just for creative fun. There are tons of things to do.

I empathise with this view. Still searching . . .

I build in Explorers Rangeland. Well controlled mostly by Aussies, it suits my timezone. Cannot vouch for what happens at other times.

Very much agree with this.

Showing my ignorance here, googled for MUSH's and still don't know what that refers to. I like to make a little money, but only enough to pay my rent.

You need to find a group to suit you.

Sounds like you are a candidate for Open Source projects. The most obvious one would be Eddy Stryker's libsl project.

I feel that if you set yourself up on a sim somewhere and advertised this, people might come to you.

Sorry, don't do roleplay. I try to be me.

Wait for mono and puppetry. I believe that will make a major change to the way SL is played. It will become much more interesting and lagfree. I just hope I live long enough to see it!

\with over a thousand islands sold in the last few months, there must be heaps of island owners who would welcome a person with your skills. Just advertise!

Unless you want to put a lot of money into SL, you do need to consider the financial side and find a way to earn some Lindens.

I am still trying to find out!

What do you WANT to do?

Find friends to hang out with.

Use the "search" function, but don't expect it to get you what you're looking for. It will get you somewhere where somebody knows somebody who will be perfect.....

Be wiling to explore.

When something looks interesting, TP over and check it out. Introduce yourself to people hanging out.

Search for Events that sound interesting. You have to do some manually filtering to get past all the casino and sex club effective-spam in any classified or event listing, but once you have, you might find something that's along the lines of what you're looking for.

-Rob

I could have written your post. At the exception that I did not, because I immediately started tons of projects (too much, indeed). I'm not here for money. Not here for mimicking First Live. A lot of what I see here, I have to admit do bother me. But the potential is incredible. I'm team-building a welcome island for foreign people, on a private island. I've done some networking protocol, and i'm now on a mail system. LSL has very severe limitations, but we have HTTP and RPC to play with. SL objects can communicate with RL ones, tap into the computing resources of the internet. We are also developing the equivalent of an Open Source SLExchange, a searchable repository of Open Source objects. SL needs public communication and archival infrastructures. Objects are just code. Ultimately, they will be dematerialized (derez) a second time, handled as symbolic representation rather than graphic. I suppose you know «the universe is a computer» theory.

The sandbox problem. Yes, we hit it very fast. I've upgraded to Premium after a month a bought 580 prims. Do it. Terraform with water and build a sky platform. Very high. You won't suffer client-side lag. You will suffer script lag, when multi-gadgets houses and clubs will come, as we all suffer. We should think to share an island betwen builders and scripters, with strict covenants. Thou should wear less prims and scripts than the sim. Perhaps a non-profit organization, the Open LSL Fundation or whatever.

About dorky or effeminate (sic) appearence. Forget appearence. Your av is your computer session. You need not to identify yourself. The standard skins, standard hair (or no hair, wich i've finally choosen being tired to tweak the cursors), standard clothes do it. Don't walk. Program. There are many fun and efficient ways to move. To get the full potential of SL, forget your human habits. A vehicle need not to be a car, a boat or a spaceship. It's all code. Grasp and analyze every script on the scripter forum, on the web. They are full of imaginative ideas.

If you can't find things that interest you, and you think SL is lacking in the kinds of things you'd like to see, find like-minded people and create those things. That doesn't mean replacing your first life with your second. It simply means that since SL is completely created by its residents, complaining that you don't care for what other people are doing with their second lives but not putting in the effort to fill the needs you think aren't being met, isn't particularly useful to you or to anyone else. I don't mean to be snarky and it's not my intent. All I'm trying to say is that you can't sit around waiting for someone else to do what you think should be done or to create what you'd like to see. If you think people aren't using their private islands to their potential, then get yourself a private island, gather like minded people, and get busy

Your world rour imagination, or lack of it.

Re the interest in A-Life, I was going to suggest that look for groups like "Artificial Life", "alife", "Ecosystem Working Group", "Svarga", "Artificial Second Life Institute", and such but I see from your profile that you are already in several groups of that nature.

Do you use the group chats to discuss your interests? Do you use the groups to sponsor meetings? Have you held events related to your area of interest?

Do you have a blog? You might get a blog for your avatar name, include a link to your blog in your profile and in your forum signature, then do a search for posts in the forums related to areas of interest, and post something in the thread, thus increasing the visibilty of your interests in the forum, and post in your blog about your project ideas, etc., and get your blog listed in sites like Worlds of SL (http://worldsofsl.com).

Putting a copy of your initial post in the resident sites forums.sluniverse.com, forums.sl-forums.com, slexchange, etc., couldn't hurt.

If you've made any items related to your interests you might try putting them up for free or a price low enough not to make you feel like you are being overly commercial at slboutique and slexchange, including as much info about your interests in the product descriptions and anywhere else they let you fill in a blank as possible.

This all sounds very familiar. I have no interest in commerce beyond that it entertains people who buy my products and pays my rent; I have no interest in seedy affairs. A few months ago I was pottering around, scripting firearms and fireworks and physics simulations and sitting on my own in the mainland, somewhat bored.

What I think saved me from simply not bothering to log back in at some point was community; first, a political group, and then, as that was beginning to become frustrating, meeting with Steampunks and neo-Victorians, originally at Withnail Academy (though tragically that is no longer really the home of such things). I found this a marvellous imaginative tonic; the ideas and projects that I had were suddenly more widely relevant, I was able to discuss them with others, find inspiration for new gadgets and widgets and all manner of things, tell tall tales of derring-do and so on.

You mention an interest in such things; I would certainly advise you to at least look around Caledon, where most of us reside or at least congregate. Do drop me a line if you wish.

Edit: oh, and Suzanne's mention of Aethernet Journals is pertinent as well, I find that mine is a spur for activity, both so that I may have things to write about and also that I may fulfil promises made there.

I'm still kinda new, in the grand scheme of things, being here since February of last year (Oh my goodness! My rez date is next month!), but what I've found is things kinda go in cycles. You'll have some really exciting, engaging stuff for a while, then it might hit a valley. Favorite builders might leave the world, and great places will go away. I'm seeing some of these great wintery places going away an it makes me a bit sad. yet I know dat, right around the corner, is going to be new designers who will excite me, and new places that will be loads of fun.

Last month, I was worried that everything in my (SL) world was at risk of falling apart. This month, so far, everything is better than ever. It takes exploring out new places, learning new skills, and gettingto know people -- but it's worth it.

Mari

Oh, I forgot - for scripters there is of course the constant challenge of dealing with New And Exciting Undocumented Features! (Either introduced in the latest update, or ones which have been around forever but are so arcane that nobody has ever posted regarding them.) That is always something to keep one occupied.

I would like to second Miss Malaprop's recommendation. Caledon is filled with those of the easily bored persuasion, yet a thronging flock of same seems to alleviate the humdrum tedium of existience to no small degree.

Or you could invent a new kind of 4 dimensional cybervagina.

Just saying.

Why are we here, and what are we supposed to do here? The old pointless question in RL as well as SL. Just find out what's fun for you and try to maximize that experience.

I find that sometimes, one just needs a break from SL. Go do something else for awhile, explore some things in RL, challenge yourself someplace other than SL. Log in often enough to take care of IM and other things, but don't feel like you HAVE to be in SL. Maybe what you need is ....a vacation from your second life

I'd suggest some non-profit artistic project. Something interactive. A place that attracts a lot of people. See how many people u can attract. Get feedback on your project. Improve from the suggestions u get. Or make it evolve by itself? Make people come to you!

Or why not a living ecology? Prims that meet prims and make baby-prims Just for fun. It's doable. How would it look like in a month, a year? God I have so many ideas I don't know where to start.

Use your talents, you seem to have a few

I met with Vilkacis last night and we had a fascinating conversation. His morphing creations are delightful. We decided to form a group. Please see my post at:

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-Sylvia