Would you play SL classic?

[Selene Gregoire]

36 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

that guy is cray cray... I just say "pulse jet bicycle"

Cra...wha? 

Oh!

You mean the nitro.

Always check under the hood.

[Caerolle Llewellyn]

6 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Cra...wha? 

Oh!

You mean the nitro.

Always check under the hood.

You have Aliens in your car motor????

[Selene Gregoire]

7 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

You have Aliens in your car motor????

Nah... just a little nitrous oxide.

Just a little.

[Caerolle Llewellyn]

16 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Nah... just a little nitrous oxide.

Just a little.

Wow...

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

When I read this earlier today (I cannot get on the Second Life site at work, and of course LL does not support mobile), I thought there was a question in there for me, but now I am not so sure, lol. If there was a question and I missed it please let me know, and I will have a go at answering you.

Well, it was a sort of open question, really. Rolig and a few others have opined on it above, but it was actually addressed to you. What happened to SL? What changed it?

4 hours ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

Really, though, some parts of what you say are exactly my point: the difficulties of finding communities around my interests, partly caused by the move to IM instead of using local chat (except for chat spam, which still seems to thrive). If you don't already know the people at a club somehow, you are not going to get to know them. In the past, though, I had a lot of people IMing me when I went to clubs. For the last few years it's only occasional random guys when I happen to go to coed places (guys who did not bother to even read the first word in my profile, which would save us both a lot of annoyance). My personality did not change, and I only got better looking, so I think it was SL that changed, and not me.

Going to a club where there is no open chat is . . . well, I hate it. One of my favourite blues clubs from maybe 6 years ago or so, which used to be a really great place for social chatter, has just gone silent now: everything is in IM. And the problem, to some extent, is that the nature of chat in IM tends to be different. When you are in open chat, things can get a little wild or even flirtatious, but it's still public, and so there isn't that feeling I sometimes get when a guy I don't know IMs me, and I suddenly feel, for want of a better word, trapped. Without public chat, I tend to feel lost: for whatever reason, I almost never initiate IMs with someone I don't know (I'm not sure why: I'm not generally a wallflower), and as a result I rely for conversation on those who IM me. And they, almost invariably, are men who are chatting me up, which I am just totally not interested in. So, basically, the only kind of conversation I get offered in such places is of a nature that I frankly hate.

I've found two clubs where there is still a fair bit of public chat. The problem is that I'm not big on the kind of music they play there.

4 hours ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

It isn't just that, though, it is that places like I loved just don't exist anymore. A lot of what I found exciting was stuff that I feel pretty sure would not interest you, but there was that wild anything goes atmosphere back in the day, and places for it to exist and even thrive, and all that is gone, or at least I personally cannot find it anymore. To me, SL kind of gentrified a long time ago, maybe when they started applying ratings to regions, I don't know. But I miss the old days and get very sad when I think of them.

I'm not sure what kind of places you are specifically referring to, but I'd agree generally that SL was weirder, and more interesting, and just more fun. Has anyone ever produced anything as whimsical and strange and cool as Greenies was?

Even the really gorgeous sims that people produce now, and generously open up to the public, tend to fall into 4 or 5 recognizable categories. I swear, I don't need to ever see another charming and beautiful "rural setting with abandoned sheds and rusting vehicles" again. Or the beautiful Mediterranean fishing village. Or the dystopian post-apocalyptic urban setting. I've had my fill.

I wouldn't say I'm necessarily "saddened" by the way SL has changed: there are compensations. There is a lot more beauty here than there once was (a point pushed home by a recent scooter trip on the mainland that took me past a lot of vintage 2009 eyesores.) But I certainly do miss the spirit of experimentation and general weirdness that used to be a hallmark of this platform.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Scylla Rhiadra

[KanryDrago]

57 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

 

Going to a club where there is no open chat is . . . well, I hate it. One of my favourite blues clubs from maybe 6 years ago or so, which used to be a really great place for social chatter, has just gone silent now: everything is in IM. And the problem, to some extent, is that the nature of chat in IM tends to be different. When you are in open chat, things can get a little wild or even flirtatious, but it's still public, and so there isn't that feeling I sometimes get when a guy I don't know IMs me, and I suddenly feel, for want of a better word, trapped. Without public chat, I tend to feel lost: for whatever reason, I almost never initiate IMs with someone I don't know (I'm not sure why: I'm not generally a wallflower), and as a result I rely for conversation on those who IM me. And they, almost invariably, are men who are chatting me up, which I am just totally not interested in. So, basically, the only kind of conversation I get offered in such places is of a nature that I frankly hate.

 

While I am certainly not claiming this is mostly true, in fact I have no doubt it is mostly true. I wonder if sometimes maybe you are a little quick on the trigger. I don't mean that nastily but I am a guy and if I am dancing in a club on my own I will profile perv. If I see something in a profile that interests me I will open an im and strike up a conversation. Not to flirt because I am not currently interested, merely to chat. I have found some good friends that way. However more often than not I have to fight my through everything I say being filtered through a "He is flirting with me in the hopes of getting me in to bed" mentality. Not every guy that im's you is going to be flirting sometimes its just curiousity and it would be nice sometimes if people waited to see before assuming so I dont have to spend the first 20 minutes of conversation trying to convince them that no I really am not trying to get them in bed merely trying to find out more about what caught my eye

[Scylla Rhiadra]

25 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

While I am certainly not claiming this is mostly true, in fact I have no doubt it is mostly true. I wonder if sometimes maybe you are a little quick on the trigger. I don't mean that nastily but I am a guy and if I am dancing in a club on my own I will profile perv. If I see something in a profile that interests me I will open an im and strike up a conversation. Not to flirt because I am not currently interested, merely to chat. I have found some good friends that way. However more often than not I have to fight my through everything I say being filtered through a "He is flirting with me in the hopes of getting me in to bed" mentality. Not every guy that im's you is going to be flirting sometimes its just curiousity and it would be nice sometimes if people waited to see before assuming so I dont have to spend the first 20 minutes of conversation trying to convince them that no I really am not trying to get them in bed merely trying to find out more about what caught my eye

No, you're quite right Kanry. Not that I'm "a little quick on the trigger" -- I can generally tell pretty rapidly which way a conversation is going, as can (I imagine) most women -- but that there are men who are mostly interested in, well, chatting. I did say "almost invariably." And in fact, I have two good (platonic) male friends I met in clubs within the past half year or so. They are both interesting conversationalists, and I value their friendship muchly.

That said, I really do have to say that about 90-95% (at a rough estimate) of the men who IM me in clubs are looking for a hookup. Not necessarily for a quickie (although god knows that's pretty common too), but certainly for more than mere intellectual stimulation.

I really do think that this has more to do with the medium than it does with gender and pickup culture. Where there is public chat, you can really get to know someone well, by observing them interacting with others as well as yourself, and because the conversation isn't almost immediately about "me and you." In IM, the chat is nearly always, at the level of subtext anyway, about your relationship, or potential relationship, with that person.

[Rolig Loon]

6 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I really do think that this has more to do with the medium than it does with gender and pickup culture. Where there is public chat, you can really get to know someone well, by observing them interacting with others as well as yourself, and because the conversation isn't almost immediately about "me and you." In IM, the chat is nearly always, at the level of subtext anyway, about your relationship, or potential relationship, with that person.

That's a decent point. At a very basic level, it's why we don't typically use our "outdoor voices" for private conversations in public in RL.  If you have something personal to say, you lower your voice.  The corollary is that when you hear someone start talking to you in a whisper, you know that the words are not mean to be heard by anyone else.  Those simple cues tell you let you make some important inferences people's motives and concerns.  Among other things, they are telling you how much control each speaker wants to have over the flow of the conversation, and how much a speaker wants to share about himself.

Of course, those cues can sometimes be misleading.  As a card-carrying introvert, I cannot count the times when I know others have characterized me as "aloof" or "standoffish" because I tend to speak softly and don't enjoy crowds.  Except among friends in SL, I often prefer to converse in IMs because I feel less comfortable opening up a quiet conversation to everyone within earshot -- even if we are just talking about the weather.  I can certainly fake being more extroverted than I really am, but then I start to take more care with my words and I start to sound stilted, even to my own ear.  It's hard to explain that to a crowd in a club, so I tend to stay out of clubs or stand in a quiet corner.  🐭

Edited July 17, 2019 by Rolig Loon

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

The corollary is that when you hear someone start talking to you in a whisper, you know that the words are not mean to be heard by anyone else. 

And then there’s Loud Howard.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

38 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Of course, those cues can sometimes be misleading.  As a card-carrying introvert, I cannot count the times when I know others have characterized me as "aloof" or "standoffish" because I tend to speak softly and don't enjoy crowds.  Except among friends in SL, I often prefer to converse in IMs because I feel less comfortable opening up a quiet conversation to everyone within earshot -- even if we are just talking about the weather.  I can certainly fake being more extroverted than I really am, but then I start to take more care with my words and I start to sound stilted, even to my own ear.  It's hard to explain that to a crowd in a club, so I tend to stay out of clubs or stand in a quiet corner.

And this is an excellent point. It can be difficult to account for different personality types and communication styles when generalizing about a culture, understood in a broader way. I think in most cases, hopefully, verbal cues within an IM will send some signals as to how it ought possibly to be read "differently." So, to give a slightly different example, one of the male friends to whom I referred above initiated his IM communication at the club by referencing Canadian politics, and the elements of my profile that indicate that this is something upon which I have opinions. That's not the kind of approach that someone who is trying to connect romantically or sexually will generally take; moreover, his language didn't leave the impression that he was trying to establish some level of interpersonal intimacy. Instead, he talked about ideas and ideologies, and the reality of the public politics of my country. So, I was put at ease pretty much right away, because he was signaling that this was not a generic first step in an attempted hookup.

Probably we don't, as a whole, taken individual styles enough into account when we analyze the way others communicate. I don't think I'm in any sense a classic introvert -- I'm very much at home in a freewheeling public conversation. In fact, I sometimes worry that I may look to be trying to dominate these. But, as I mentioned, I also find it enormously difficult to initiate a conversation in IM with someone else, male or female. And, although I'll sometimes take the plunge, I also have to push myself to say anything in public chat where there isn't an existing conversation already in progress. I'm not sure if there's a recognized category of personality that I belong to, but I suspect that it's easy to misread me as a result: when I'm contributing to public discussion where it already exists, I probably sometimes seem more extroverted than I actually am, and because I don't initiate personal communications, or am hesitant to venture into public chat by myself, I may sometimes conversely appear more introverted than is really the case.

Interpersonal communication is difficult and complex: I guess that's the main takeaway.

[Caerolle Llewellyn]

7 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Well, it was a sort of open question, really. Rolig and a few others have opined on it above, but it was actually addressed to you. What happened to SL? What changed it?

Going to a club where there is no open chat is . . . well, I hate it. One of my favourite blues clubs from maybe 6 years ago or so, which used to be a really great place for social chatter, has just gone silent now: everything is in IM. And the problem, to some extent, is that the nature of chat in IM tends to be different. When you are in open chat, things can get a little wild or even flirtatious, but it's still public, and so there isn't that feeling I sometimes get when a guy I don't know IMs me, and I suddenly feel, for want of a better word, trapped. Without public chat, I tend to feel lost: for whatever reason, I almost never initiate IMs with someone I don't know (I'm not sure why: I'm not generally a wallflower), and as a result I rely for conversation on those who IM me. And they, almost invariably, are men who are chatting me up, which I am just totally not interested in. So, basically, the only kind of conversation I get offered in such places is of a nature that I frankly hate.

I've found two clubs where there is still a fair bit of public chat. The problem is that I'm not big on the kind of music they play there.

I'm not sure what kind of places you are specifically referring to, but I'd agree generally that SL was weirder, and more interesting, and just more fun. Has anyone ever produced anything as whimsical and strange and cool as Greenies was?

Even the really gorgeous sims that people produce now, and generously open up to the public, tend to fall into 4 or 5 recognizable categories. I swear, I don't need to ever see another charming and beautiful "rural setting with abandoned sheds and rusting vehicles" again. Or the beautiful Mediterranean fishing village. Or the dystopian post-apocalyptic urban setting. I've had my fill.

I wouldn't say I'm necessarily "saddened" by the way SL has changed: there are compensations. There is a lot more beauty here than there once was (a point pushed home by a recent scooter trip on the mainland that took me past a lot of vintage 2009 eyesores.) But I certainly do miss the spirit of experimentation and general weirdness that used to be a hallmark of this platform.

IMO, the people who were in SL changed. Maybe they changed due to some structural reasons caused by the evolution of the system, but I don't think so. SL had not evolved *that* much when the places I loved died, though mesh was starting to become a thing, It just seemed like the out-there people left SL and the people who stayed or who replaced them were more staid or something. People seemed to not spend more than a year or two in SL back then. Perhaps they don't now, either, but it is hard for me to tell, as I have no friends or acquaintances. It used to be extremely common to have people I cared about leave SL. People got more interested in something in RL and just moved on. I still really miss those people, and feel the loss.

Another thing, at many of the places, the owner got burnt out, and closed the place. Or the awesome DJ got burnt out and quit. Each of the clubs I loved only lasted a couple of years. A few places I loved (not clubs) are still around, but are tame and boring now, with smaller, less interesting spaces, far fewer people, and little conversation.

Yes, as you say, there are probably some clubs where there is conversation, but I don't like the music. Part of the problem is that the music I like isn't in vogue anymore. I *have* gone to clubs and just listened to my own music, but that isn't really what I want to do. Another part of the problem is that I want a certain atmosphere, which is also hard to find. Multiply the low odds of finding the music I want and the atmosphere I want and you get *really* small odds! I think the problem is that I found exactly what I loved in my first week in world, and want that again.

I also rarely initiate IMs. I can be very outgoing and tend to talk far too much in chat, but I don't like to bother people. I figure they are are already doing their thing, and if they want to talk to me, they will IM me. That used to happen *a lot,* a long time ago. But not for years now. I also agree that having conversation in open chat allows you to get to know the people and make connections, and *then* it is easier to go to IM. At least for me.

Other than clubs, I won't mention the places I used to go, as that might be something that people wouldn't discuss with elementary children and their grandmothers. Suffice it to say I have not led a vanilla life in SL, and have probably done things that would shock and disgust a lot of people.

I agree on the highly-produced sims. Yes, quite impressive, and beautiful! And I do still like to explore. OTOH, my interests in SL have less to do with wandering through stunning graphics and more about interactive experiences with people and music. I do admire and envy the people with the talents and skills to do those things, though.

Personally, I am very saddened by the ways things have changed. Sure, I understand things always change, especially electronic things. And I do love looks that can be achieved now; I keep my graphics one step below the highest setting! But to me, far more has been lost than gained. I actually kind of liked the old graphics, and standard bodies and prim clothes were far easier than mesh stuff, to me. I used to change several times a night, and could find a lot of clothes that gave me the look I wanted. Now, not so much. The bodies do look far, far better, though. The real loss to me is the places and people I knew that are gone forever. I have spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to find something to replace all that with really no lasting success. I fully admit that problem is me, plenty of other people find lots of compelling things to do in SL, and I am glad they do. But honestly it is a hollow, depressing place for me.

Caerolle

[Rolig Loon]

   Wait a tic... blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

57 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

IMO, the people who were in SL changed. Maybe they changed due to some structural reasons caused by the evolution of the system, but I don't think so. SL had not evolved *that* much when the places I loved died, though mesh was starting to become a thing, It just seemed like the out-there people left SL and the people who stayed or who replaced them were more staid or something. People seemed to not spend more than a year or two in SL back then. Perhaps they don't now, either, but it is hard for me to tell, as I have no friends or acquaintances. It used to be extremely common to have people I cared about leave SL. People got more interested in something in RL and just moved on. I still really miss those people, and feel the loss.

Another thing, at many of the places, the owner got burnt out, and closed the place. Or the awesome DJ got burnt out and quit. Each of the clubs I loved only lasted a couple of years. A few places I loved (not clubs) are still around, but are tame and boring now, with smaller, less interesting spaces, far fewer people, and little conversation.

I'm actually surprised by how many of my old friends are still around. The communities of which they were once a part have mostly dispersed, of course, so the nature of my relationship with them is different. Also, I've found a fair bit of conversation tends to revolve around "the good old days," which is nice at first, but probably not an ideal way to sustain a friendship.

But of course, a lot of people are gone, including a few I knew mostly from the forums here. I worry about a few of them who disappeared without a word or trace.

And I've made some new friends over the past 8 months as well, but they are mostly not connected to particular communities, so it's a different kind of dynamic.

I think burnout is real, and probably has a lot to do with why people leave. It's why I left in 2011, and, to a lesser degree, why I left again after coming back with an alt for a year or so in 2013-14. SL can be very all-consuming if you let it be. But I've also seen a lot of old friends recently who, like me, left and then came back.

57 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

Yes, as you say, there are probably some clubs where there is conversation, but I don't like the music. Part of the problem is that the music I like isn't in vogue anymore. I *have* gone to clubs and just listened to my own music, but that isn't really what I want to do. Another part of the problem is that I want a certain atmosphere, which is also hard to find. Multiply the low odds of finding the music I want and the atmosphere I want and you get *really* small odds! I think the problem is that I found exactly what I loved in my first week in world, and want that again.

Yes, I spent a pretty fruitless first week or two back looking for clubs that played the music I most like (mostly alt/indie). The one really excellent place I used to hang out is still there, but it's a desert now. Another place I frequented 4 or 5 years ago is still there, and pretty vibrant actually, but the focus of the music has shifted from what it used to be to a more eclectic mix.

And also, something I've complained about here before: can we talk for a moment about how awful most clubs look?

Well, ok, maybe not. But really, who wants to dance and socialize in a place that looks like the common room of a frat house, or a really tacky second hand junk store?

57 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

I also rarely initiate IMs. I can be very outgoing and tend to talk far too much in chat, but I don't like to bother people. I figure they are are already doing their thing, and if they want to talk to me, they will IM me. That used to happen *a lot,* a long time ago. But not for years now. I also agree that having conversation in open chat allows you to get to know the people and make connections, and *then* it is easier to go to IM. At least for me.

YES! This, exactly. Which is probably a stupid way to think, but there you are; that's me all over.

57 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

Other than clubs, I won't mention the places I used to go, as that might be something that people wouldn't discuss with elementary children and their grandmothers. Suffice it to say I have not led a vanilla life in SL, and have probably done things that would shock and disgust a lot of people.

Well, I think you might be surprised by what people do or do not find disgusting, but this is a PG forum and all . . .

I was never really into the hookup/sex scene here, although I did (to my own surprise) find myself in two relationships here between 2008 and 2011. Not the same thing, though, I know.

One community I did spend a few weeks at very early on in my first days in SL was an Adult LGBTQ place (at a place called Gunfunk, I think?). It was set up as a sort of Japanese bathhouse, and the place was littered with various interesting combinations of pink and blue pose balls, but the best thing was a sort of campfire area with a dance pole. And, although you'd occasionally trip over a couple or trio (or quartet) going at it on the pose balls, it was around the campfire that people congregated. The community was really lovely: warm, welcoming, and inclusive. People would sit around the campfire and the dance pole, and take turns dancing, and, amid the general chat, everyone would compliment whoever was dancing. Although it was, putatively anyway, a "sex place," I was never in my time there propositioned or hit on. It was just full of really lovely people.

After probably about 2 or 3 weeks, I found other places to hang out, which in a sense is a shame in hindsight.

57 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

I agree on the highly-produced sims. Yes, quite impressive, and beautiful! And I do still like to explore. OTOH, my interests in SL have less to do with wandering through stunning graphics and more about interactive experiences with people and music. I do admire and envy the people with the talents and skills to do those things, though.

Your priorities are pretty much mine, although I do enjoy visiting art sims (and for a brief time, blogged on them). One difference for me from the "old days" is that I'm interested in photography, so I tend to look at the beautiful places from a slightly different perspective, with pics in mind.

57 minutes ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

But honestly it is a hollow, depressing place for me.

I wish I could "convince you" otherwise, but of course I can't, and won't try. I can only say that, from my own perspective, one of the things I've done that has, well, not replaced the things and people that are now gone, but at least provided alternatives, is to try immersing myself in new activities and communities I hadn't really payed a lot of attention to before. One of those is certainly photography, which provides a creative outlet that I was missing (now that mesh is the new standard for quality creation), and also has its own large and pretty sociable community.

That said, I'm still exploring in the hope of finding new and other things that I'll find exciting here. It's one of the reasons I'm interested in Bellisseria: the suburban aesthetic is not my first choice, but it is an objectively beautiful place, and it seems to be developing a community. So that's a good thing. Maybe, at some point, LL will come up with a new, more urban theme for the homes, in which case I'll be jumping in with both feet.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Henri Beauchamp]

On 7/14/2019 at 6:57 PM, DilliDallagio said:

Actually, there are two remaining V1-based viewers that still create those fabulous clouds. Singularity and Cool VL Viewer. And, as retro as they are, the are equally as retro for rendering those clouds only on the region you are in; they will not render them for the surrounding regions.

AFAIK, the Cool VL Viewer is the only viewer to still be able to render ”classic clouds” in SL, for I added local (viewer-side) cloud data generation shortly before LL shut it down on their server (I basically reverse-engineered their cloud data generator, and when the said data is not sent by the server, the viewer uses its own data generator and injects the result in the renderer): the only difference with server-generated data is that every Cool VL Viewer user in the same sim gets a different cloud coverage (since the data is not shared between them all).

Also, classic clouds are generated for *all* *rezzed* sims (i.e. if you increase draw distance enough to see them, you will have them rendered in the neighbouring sims as well).

You may also change the classic clouds rendering altitude (it defaults to its normal 192m average altitude).

Singularity, on its side, is able to render classic clouds when the server sends the corresponding data (i.e. OpenSim non-var-region sims).

[usedcars]

you could go down to one of freebie areas to get one of the freebie avatars then get some of the free clothes then the god awful  AO to remember “the good ol days”

 

[kiramanell]

On 7/13/2019 at 4:16 AM, Fionalein said:

Err, ... how about ... "NO!" ?

 

In a remarkable turn of events, LOL, I actually agree with you here.  Even seeing older prim-builds, with no ambient occlusion, already looks off to me, these days. I'd maybe fire it up, once, for laughs, but, as @Fritigern Gothly said, the novelty would wear off pretty fast.