Is Second Life too big now?

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Bellisseria is also, in itself, an attractive environment to explore by foot, motor vehicle, horse, plane, hot air balloon, boat, train, flying dragon or whatever. 

Indeed. I own my own private estate, which I share with a friendly gang of SL friends who have been in SL as long as I have, so I have no need to move to Bellisseria. It's great fun to visit, though. I have been wandering in Bellisseria since the first regions were launched and have had fun posting occasional travelogues in the Linden Home forum. I know quite a few people in my age bracket who live in Bellisseria and many who don't.  And many who just like to explore.

All of this has nothing to do with whether "elderly" folks in general may be conservative or have different housing preferences in SL than anyone else.  I can't say that I have noticed a pattern, myself.  If someone's gathering statistics, though, all but two people in my small circle are retired and remember the 1960s well enough to be fairly liberal.

[Jaylinbridges]

15 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Bellisseria is also, in itself, an attractive environment to explore by foot, motor vehicle, horse, plane, hot air balloon, boat, train, flying dragon or whatever.    I'm quite content, for the time being,  living on a plot tucked away on the regular mainland, Athetis, but I'm really enjoying myself exploring places by road, air and water, now that I've got so much more space to play with my toys.

Yes, I enjoy the solitude of Bellisseria also, with two homes there.  I navigated 55 regions on a long trip from the north to the south Belli last week by boat, and never saw another boat or person.  But that was the whole complaint from the OP of this thread, nobody's here, we are too big.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

1 minute ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Yes, I enjoy the solitude of Bellisseria also, with two homes there.  I navigated 55 regions on a long trip from the north to the south Belli last week by boat, and never saw another boat or person.  But that was the whole complaint from the OP of this thread, nobody's here, we are too big.

 

The various Bellisseria residents' groups always seem to be arranging events of one sort of another.     I'm not particularly into events, but when I attend them with friends who are, they always seem pretty well-attended, too.

But then I've been around since 2007, and most of my friends joined at least several years ago.  Most of them, though by no means all, are content creators of one kind or another, too, so I guess my experience isn't particularly typical.

 

[Jaylinbridges]

13 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

But then I've been around since 2007, and most of my friends joined at least several years ago.  Most of them, though by no means all, are content creators of one kind or another, too, so I guess my experience isn't particularly typical.

I was in Belli the first day it opened, with a houseboat near the open sea lanes.  I went to the early events, and still do when the time slot is convenient for me.  But it is mostly Europeans throwing the parties, so for someone living in the SL time zone, it is really dead there socially.  At least I work during US prime times in SL as an entertainer, but not in Belli anymore.  Everyone is sleeping in Belli at 10 pm SLT.

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Rolig Loon]

10 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Yes, I enjoy the solitude of Bellisseria also, with two homes there.  I navigated 55 regions on a long trip from the north to the south Belli last week by boat, and never saw another boat or person.  But that was the whole complaint from the OP of this thread, nobody's here, we are too big.

Luck of the draw, or timing.  If I look at the map of Bellisseria at any specific moment, I don't see population density that is much different from anywhere else. It's pretty low, on average, true, but .... There are almost always some regions that have a pretty good crowd on them. Depending on the time of day and day of the week, the scatter of individual people and the number of people in each of those crowds varies dramatically. (The same is true on my own private region, BTW. Most of the dozen or so people who live there are not logged in at any given moment, but we are all there for an hour or two several nights a week.) I find it hard to draw a line and say when population density is too low, and certainly can't generalize to decide whether SL is too big.

[Arielle Popstar]

On 8/27/2021 at 7:31 AM, Sid Nagy said:

SL is mainly to big for the activities that are taking place.
Somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 people online on any given time and more than 54,000 sims.
That means a sim per person online available.
And because people tend to go places where others go to as well, it means a lot of sims are empty. Running idle.

According to http://www.gridsurvey.com/ the total regions is 27,179 which is the sum of 8832 +18317 Linden and Private regions, not 54,000. Unless I am missing something?

[bigmoe Whitfield]

7 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

According to  http://www.gridsurvey.com/  the total regions is 27,179 which is the sum of 8832 +18317 Linden and Private regions, not 54,000. Unless I am missing something?

I've never seen even that high in SL's hay day. I remember 44k at most.  

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I've never seen even that high in SL's hay day. I remember 44k at most.  

not sure it got that high.  I think it was somewhere about 32-33k in 2008, then it got close to that again in about 2010 as I remember

[Sid Nagy]

5 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

According to http://www.gridsurvey.com/ the total regions is 27,179 which is the sum of 8832 +18317 Linden and Private regions, not 54,000. Unless I am missing something?

I think I had some numbers mixed up.
But still, 27,000 regions for 40,000 people online, doesn't make most sim exactly crowded places.

[AnnabelleApocalypse]

I would guess at least 70-80% of those sims are purely residential with no significant events ever happening on them beyond private gatherings or desolate mainland that nobody has visited in years.

[Arielle Popstar]

6 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

But still, 27,000 regions for 40,000 people online, doesn't make most sim exactly crowded places.

No but really it isn't that important considering that Groups and IM make the grid quite a bit smaller. Consider that Opensim as an example has close to 100,000 online regions with significantly less people online and yet, we can still interact within a moment through IM with friends or groups.

On 5/5/2021 at 7:28 AM, Sid Nagy said:

SL is said to be a social platform, but there are a lot of introverted people using the platform if you ask me.
People who dream about socializing every now and then, but hardly do. Just like me.

Personally I wish there was a way for a parcel owner to block IM's and maybe even Voice for the residents within its boundaries. Might actually start seeing some socializing.

I spent a number of years on one of the larger Opensim grids as a greeter/chatter in the Welcome region and I found that often it just needs someone to initiate a chat in local to get others to join in and start socializing. Even introverts will contribute if a topic is interesting enough and they have a strong enough opinion on it to share.

[Doris Johnsky]

I'm not sure why it even matters.  I mean most people who start a why/what/who/when thread have a reasonable reason for asking a question.

 

Not sure this is one of those. 

 

[JeromFranzic]

As a relative newbie... IDK. I still come across people in 2021 who either say 'Is SL still a thing?' or WTF is that... even amongst devotees of VR and other virtual worlds.

I wish I joined a LOOOONNNGGG time ago (like, maybe in 2008 or 2009 at least), that is certain.

[Maryanne Solo]

Don't know.
Truly I have.....

[RangiUtu]

On 8/29/2021 at 4:27 AM, Alwin Alcott said:

You world, your imagination ... nowhere social 

Before the FB generation walked in, SL was more social than ever after that time.

Post of the year but I think you meant to say it was social before the farcebook generation.....

Classic spots like Midnight Reflections, LP (crowds 24/7 and always a hoot), Bora Bora, Sleek beach, all poofed round the same time and for the same reason - along with 5000 other private estates and the people who owned them almost overnight - which I shouldn't have to say. Remember the coffin campaign? LL doomed their own platform with awful corporate decisions, too many to mention since most are common knowledge. Now, almost everyplace is empty. Yeah, "it's dead Jim" as far as a social platform compared to what it once was.

Advertising the epic fail of Sansara as "SL2" was the final nail. That was merely an attempt to copy the failed Blue Mars complete with "special" creators and no physics. Anyone else notice the lack of variety on MP compared to the pre-mesh days? Not that mesh is bad, but SL lost heaps of creators and thus the variety and imagination of those creators who chose not to learn the new fashion tech. I've never seen so many ugly patterns and textures as I do now.

/rant over

Edited September 9, 2021 by RangiUtu

[Eggy UwU]

i'm surprised this thread is still alive.😆