What or Who brought you into SL?

[Jaylin Wytchwood]

Invited by a friend i met in another MMO. Thought it horrible at first, and quickly left, as my friend didnt mentor me at all.... But returned 2 years ago, to give it another chance and "learned".

[Jessika Rang]

I was watching the "Today" show one morning in 2007 and the host was interviewing Phillip - they did part of the interview in world.  It looked interesting and at the time RL work was slowing down and I found myself with too much free time.  I logged in and in some ways it feels as if I never logged out...

[Cali Souther]

Friends talked me into it.

I had tried SL on my own twice before,  but found it difficult to navigate ( I kept flying into walls and getting stuck)....

3rd time is a charm I guess...   with friends to help me get over the initial hump (so to speak)  from a 2d virtual world to a much more interesting but also more complicated 3d world ... and I was hooked. 

 

[Yeso Kidd]

I had heard about SL a few times before in magazines and news reports.  It finally got my interest and decided to give it a try.  I was so happy I was able to get the name that was my nickname during my college years.  I was know as the Yeso Kid lol.

My first impression of SL was not very good.  I looked around a while and logged off and didnt come back for serveral months.  Then I came back again and I was hooked when I realized I could build stuff.

[Holocluck Henly]

I was participating in Blaxxun VRML based communities (virtual 3D cyberculture's been around since Win95 and 32 bit in the mid-1990's; I was a late bloomer in 2002).  These followed a template of experience and jobs and a management hierarchy to maintain blocks neighborhoods and colonies.

In 2004-2005 many participants began a dual life there and here in SL, but only those with NT-based systems like Win2000 or XP could register.  Many friends who came in at this time now own islands or mini-continents. Suffice it to say it's been easy for them to never look back on the game/rp based social structure of those old communities. Phillip was wise to avoid that road...

In 2006 my friends and I escaped to Toontown Online (an MMORPG game), which a couple of us still enjoy from time to time.  When I upgraded from Win98SE to VISTA in 2008, here we came!  It was nice getting back to building again.  And exploration was on such a grander scale. This place still boggles my mind. It truly is the most successful of its kind, and there have been  so very many of its kind since the mid-90s.

[Jazleen Raynier]

@ kascha : its wonderful that this amazing place helped you through a really bad time, and that you came through it. I would imagine a lot of people came here for the same reason, to escape and heal themselves. 

 

[Kascha Matova]

 

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Jazleen Raynier wrote:

@ kascha : its wonderful that this amazing place helped you through a really bad time, and that you came through it. I would imagine a lot of people came here for the same reason, to escape and heal themselves. 

 

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Thanks so much. It's true - there are a lot of people here who are needy, for something. Like I was. I needed to build a paradise, you know? Somewhere where I could go and just "be", in exactly the surroundings and with exactly the ambience I knew I could heal in. And I was able to create it in SL.

I built the hedge maze and park area you see being built in this first pic to play and sit in, but by the time I was finished, people would just go in and sit there all the time, or play on the Merry-Go-round or swings. It covered that entire area, plus wrapped around to the front when it was done. It had fountains and a gumball machine and all kinds of stuff. It felt great that I could create something that made others feel as relaxed as it made me:

 

I built a bridge that crossed over from this property to my original one. You can see it just between the trees in the top middle. And on the other side, I set it up this way:

 

 

There was a gazebo and the entire property was heavily wooded and I had the sound effects for each area set up perfectly, even varying the birds and insects you heard based on time of day. It was very effective. Later, I put in a weather system too, and the waves off the beach, and a whale, because I love them. I'd sit on the upper balcony where you see me and play my harp, or my digeridoo and just close my eyes and listen. And float away.

I wish I still had the pictures of the finished property that I used for my landscaping brochure. These were in the creation stage still and don't do it justice.

That's what Your World, Your Imagination means. This place and the people in it, and the experiences I had. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. :womanhappy:

 

[Bec Sadofsky]

A friend brought me in.  She is has since left SL but I stayed.

[Carole Franizzi]

Well, I arrived initially as a way of understanding how VRs worked and to see how they might function from an educational point of view. Got caught up in the visuals and the creative activities they spawned and stuck around. Never quite got into the "life-style" thingy. Always stayed solidly "it's maybe not a game but it certainly isn't reality or a substitute for reality". It may have run its course for me - at least for the time-being - but I have to say, it's been an interesting ride and has stimulated me to go do more creative pursuits in real-life, which I'd rather neglected over the last few years.

[Quinn Morani]

I initially joined for work to explore whether SL might be a viable vehicle for employee job training, and I stayed because I was personally fascinated by the beauty of SL. I eventually created Quinn to distinguish my personal time in-world from my work time.