Living in a Residential Area

[Nalytha]

I've played Second Life off an on for a few years. There's something I've struggled with though and that's finding a good residence. I do have a Linden Home, but of course it's on an island of empty homes. There are no people. Like, ever. This doesn't feel like a home at all. So I started looking at apartments. I think they are called skyboxes? Those are fancier but even more secluded than my Linden Home. If I understand correctly, I'm basically in a box in that situation. 

Are there any residential areas where you can actually have neighbors? A place where you can pay rent to ensure the area is actually lived in (as opposed to these empty Linden neighborhoods). 

If you could drop some names of such places, I'd really appreciate it. 

[Alwin Alcott]

there are for sure, mostly themed, neighbourhoods... but if you will find real actual neighbours at home while you'r there too?...

SL is a place for 24 time zones...and a lot more countries.

Most neighbourhoods are just themed areas, people come and go, like any other region.

Residental areas have mostly no shops... no clubs... no events or exciting things to do, so people go tp around, and you'r stuck without neighbours again...

Most Linden homes are occupied but because of missing the things above, people use it a home base, but live everywhere on sl where the fun things are.

[ChinRey]

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Nalytha wrote:

If you could drop some names of such places, I'd really appreciate it. 

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Is this where I can do some shameless promotion of my own place?

Greater Coniston is a Northern English themed corner of mainland SL with a varied landscape with big and small houses, stores, a cafe, a bar, a children's playground, two ports and just about everything else you'd expect to find in an RL village/small town. There are still a lot of vacancies there (never had time to promote the place properly - always too busy building) but unlike much of SL there are nearly always people at home and the residents tend to be quite social.

The area has two Linden Waterways and a Linden Road. The Northeastern Yavapod route runs across it with a pod stop down by the port, making it a great base for anybody who wants to explore SL Mainland.

The area I own and maintain covers a bit more than two sims worth of land, spread across five sims, but I've always worked with my neighbors to harmonize our builds and we now have an area spanning more than 20 sims (including the nearby Linden Village) with hardly any of the eyesores or other problems so often found on mainland. The main residental areas are in the Keswick, Langdale and Windermere sims. The Buttermere part is still to be developed and the central Coniston sim is mainly assigned to stores and public space for everybody in SL to use and enjoy.

[Magnus Brody]

Another shameless promotion!....   Come and join us in the Highlands of Scotland in either Urquhart or Inverness City, not just a residential area, but a community with something happening at the Loch Ness Inn every day.

edited to add... most of our stuff is done for British time, so CET -1, or SLT +8, as the organisers of the three sims are all Scottish.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

The key is to find a sim where the neighbors are in your time zone or within an hour or two of it.  It also helps if the emphasis of the sim is on community, with planned events so you can meet your neighbors.

[Nova Convair]

Don't confuse RL and SL. They have far less in common than it looks like.

A residential area in SL is a place where avatars rez and change and sometimes they have fun decorating their home.

But they don't live there! That's why you have no neighbours. And your neighbours in RL don't live in different timezones - usually - in SL they do.

You look for a community that holds meetings and events. That can but not has to be at a sim that holds residential areas.

[ChinRey]

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Nova Convair wrote:

But they don't live there! That's why you have no neighbours. And your neighbours in RL don't live in different timezones - usually

- in SL they do.

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Yes but they're not always at home in RL either. ;-)

If you want a place where everybody is one big family, sharing everything, I guess you'll have to join some sort of clan and you certainly can find that in SL.

But if you're looking for a neighborhood where you can meet and say hello to a neighbor or two, go shopping (or window shopping), take a walk in the park, enjoy a cup of digital coffee at the local cafe... just like you'd expect in RL (except I have to admit RL coffee tastes better). Yes, there are such palces in Second Life too.

 

[Seductive Dreamscape]

I'd love to add my community to the mix... we're a very friendly and active village of hippies and freethinkers, we welcome all to our varied events - live music on Wednesdays and parties every single day with our fun DJs. The village has one vacancy at the moment - twelve simple huts with a central mingling area! Search for Commune Utopia and meet your new family <3

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

Hi,

All my communities have real people in them, some have been there for years, and they talk to each other and visit each other.

I do this by having open rentals unlike anyone else on the Mainland so that people aren't in bunkers with access-only and security orbs on the ground and lock-outs for the rest of the world. The fear of griefing and the belief that maximum security bunkers are needed for privacy are two myths I don't subscribe to have 12 years in Second Life. 

But trying to deliver a socializing experience that people have an ideal about is very hard and even a landlord with 24/7 presence capacity and staff may not deliver on this, your mileage may vary.

That's because neighbours are on different time zones, people have different interests, etc. If you want to have a community that has actual get-togethers then you might want to try a private island themed community that has structured events where you can do this. There are numerous themes to pick from -- everything from furries to elves to tinies to Victorian, LGBT, Ultramodern, various language/country communities like German or Norwegian -- so look through the list with key words in both "rentals" and "places" in search.

The address for my office is below and you might try the Flamingo Court rentals area in Juanita, Grote and environs where people are neighbourly but there are no organized activities as such except maybe a yard sale or something like that.

 

[Chic Aeon]

NOOOOOOOO residences to promote. OH my!

I suggest you look into ACTIVE role play communities. You can tell by how many green dots you see. I have lived in those and there were always people there and always people to talk to albeit "in character".   That isn't really ME, but some of the role play communities are very good looking sims with very resonable rentals.   

 

If nothing else you can watch the neighborhood and eavesdrop on conversations until you feel at home with things.   

 

Note that there are also plenty of role play sims that are always VACANT, so do your homework.

[Nalytha]

Thank you for all of your assistance 

[AlisonGW]

Hi,

I'm looking for precisely the same thing.

Your post was wording almost exactly as I was thinking.

 

Please let me know if you find anywhere - perhaps we could soon be neighbours!

[AlisonGW]

Hi,

This sounds absolutely ideal.

I'm coming to check it out.

See ya soon!!!

 

[tako Absent]

If you gonna shamelssly self promote do it all the way . my god where's the LM?!

[Araxie Coeur]

I live in a small community and those who live there hang out a lot, they run a radio station and most of us are on on the weekends. It's kind of cool, I don't really want to do premium but the music they play is good and it's nice to listen to them do it live. they have a small casino in there too for freeplay only.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Osato/117/11/3006