EliseAnne85

Yeah, it is. But, I also read just a few days ago that Russia is growing very weary of continuing because it's been badly financially hit. Also, SL would have been going during the time of The Great Recession and still made it and was kinda very successful during those years. But, many, at that time, got jobs in SL. I know I had to get a job in SL to afford it during The Great Recession. And, my SO and I in those days rented movies. We did have to cut back on entertainment but there are ways around that in SL and RL involving jobs. At least jobs were plentiful way back then in SL.

Me too. Computer dummie extraordinaire. I think I knew how to copy and paste, and I can't remember what else as it was a long time ago. I had to get the courage up to ask SL friends how to do things and many people back in the old days would friend noobs like me AND they did help with 'how to's' a lot. I built a little bit and I was already building when sculpties first came out and that was soooooo exciting getting things down to so many fewer prims or even 1 prim. Learning mesh, well, it's like selling your soul to the devil it's so much work plus the main creator's here are millions of years ahead of me or went to school and I'm a hobbyist. I could never be that good on a hobbyist's time. I wanted to add there are so many affordable things in this thread as was mentioned by others. Use the keywords as they suggested - free, gift, dollarbie. The reason I quoted Rowan's post about us computer-illiterates who come to SL, I've often wondered if we are good self learners or not. I think I am good at self-learning, whereas someone like my sister won't make an effort to learn anything electronic or digital in nature and always asks me to teach her how to use it.

I've read there is a lot of money waiting to come into the metaverse in the next 5 years or so. However, with some of the new metaverse stuff I think they just want to make money because SL creations are light years ahead of the 'new' sillier looking metaverses, such as Decentraland. Yet, there is still institutional and retail "money" and yes as somebody suggested in this thread it's about crypto metaverses, not SL, where the new money wants to go. I believe the above is talking about 'virtual assets', most of which are too expensive such as owning virtual land for five thousand and up plus outrageously priced NFT's for thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't believe this book would be talking about the assets we have in SL because most are not resalable nor will they increase in value like Decentraland land or NFT's which are the buyers own personal property. I got to thinking this because most of the shoppers of the world are women and only rich women or investors think in the ways you high-lighted above. I buy all kinds of things in RL and SL but am not into status symbol type of clothing. I like what I like period. I don't care who made it.

I, for the life of me, cannot remember my first ten minutes here in SL. But, I do think it was more affordable back then when we had the Classic avatars. I didn't even know about buying a skin for my Classic avatar until about a month or so later and the cost for a skin was about 10 dollars on average for a Classic avatar. And, then later I found about AO'S for the avis and bought one of those. And, so on and on. I didn't expect everything at once as Lindal suggested in this thread. I took it slow and was fine with it. But, today it is a different world with tons of video games that do deliver swiftly. I wish I had some insight as to what turns people off in the first ten minutes because I am wondering why or what it is myself. What's kept me here is the virtual art created by all these amazing people here that work for SL, and the music and meeting people from all over the world.

It's impossible to help on a forum because it could even be physiological in origin, that's why a doctor is needed for blood work and tests, etc. Since you've had medication, it would seem though your doctor does know about it. There are some good suggestions in this thread anyone could try or all of us could try as life has it's challenges. Therapy and support groups is what I would suggest. You need to define what is making you depressed/anxious by talking about it. You could have situational depression and anxiety; i.e., living situation, job stress, relationship stress and that is best handled with a therapist. Doctors don't have time to be a therapist but your doctor should have referred you to one. Don't give up!

I've come to realize in my latter years that men and women really do have different brains. I do not think adding or signaling violent content is a bad idea at all, especially for newbies. I was a newbie once. I still remember the shock of the rap---- sims. It upset me, to be quite frank. I wouldn't want to be teleported to one of those either where they have r--- activities. SL, overall, imo, has an essence of honour in that it asks if you accept or decline for almost everything. I think an alert to violence follows in that line of SL hospitality.

That sounds fascinating what you are talking about. I just wanted to counter in my first post that only Roblox could have large numbers of people, although large is subjective plus I believe SL is restricted to 90 avatars per sim. However, with Dinkies and tinies we had two sims once so we had in the hundreds of people. Also, back in day, we could have lots of avatars when we were Classic. Also, with Dinkies, tinies and humans mixed in as well, we rent large sky platforms with just grass, a stage, some bales of hay (a few props) but it's out in the open with no buildings nor shops and we can have a lot of avatars and have music festivals on SL. So, it's like what would people rather have? People and fun or a club building and shops? Not having a club building and shops makes for lots of avatars to attend. Yeah, I know it's not relative to the pr problem(s). There are people like Vitalik of Ethereum who thinks he will be the future of the metaverse with his Decentraland and Mana which I also find looks about 50 years BEFORE SL and pretty horrible and that his Decentraland will be the metaverse. The metaverse has been here near 20 years now. I think Vitalink of Ethereum (a cryptocurrency) is speaking about a decentralized metaverse. However, those Decentraland graphics are not very good. The truth is though the money is looking towards Ethereum and a new 3.0 metaverse that probably will happen. How SL can tailor it's pr over that, I'd have no idea. I rarely see any SL pr.

Regarding your last sentence, people have difficulty with the human mesh avatars and I'll explain why I think so in a minute. But, regarding Roblox and no fun in SL...that is not true for tinies and Dinkies in SL that only Roblox can do a large number of people. We can have huge gatherings at Raglan Shire with near 80 to 90 plus tinies and Dinkies and have had a ton of fun. Even a few humans mix in our large events. The difference between the tinies and humans I believe may be scripts in clothing and hair. Dinkies/Tinies make a lot of their own items and most Dinkie/Tiny clothing/hair is one color each - no huds, no scripts. So, yes, in SL, there are large events that run great. Roblox is stupid, sorry...but it is. I remember back in the olden days of Classic human avatars we made a copy of each color as we tinted it or something like that, plus once we made a color of an article to wear or hair we liked, we were directed to DELETE SCRIPTS in each item but keep the original so we could color it again. People don't do this now, plus it's a lot of work. Back in the day it didn't seem to be that much work for some reason. It was just easier. HUDS and SCRIPTS are preventing large gatherings, imho. Or, it's just the human mesh avatars haven't found the right work for a proper viewer yet. By the way, I agree with Chin Rey who spoke in this thread (and I'm not saying this is a mean way) but I don't care. Second Life has never been sad to me but it does need better pr.

Thank you. I think I will go BENTO. I can't find a static head that suits me. So, I'm going to go the full modify route with a head. I have it narrowed down a bit but still looking.

*What are some of the free heads? *With Catwa static heads, what one sees is what one gets as far as shape. I thought it said one could wear their own shape but it doesn't so I must have gotten it confused with another product. I looked up one of their links and it said the following, so you are correct: -The head is Not modifiable, but you may stretch it by editing your shape [head stretch, head length], other sliders are locked by second life. -The head has double layers, the inside layer is for skin to be applied, the skin can have hairbase on it and can be bald, also it can have eyebrows or can be browless. Just like the SL normal skins, means you can never clean/remove the hairbase or brows if there were made directly on the skin layer. -The second layer which covers the skin [Covers the whole head] is a makeup layer. Which is divided into areas. lipstick area, blush area, brows area, eyes makeup area, neck tattoo area, and hairbase area.

Well, I may finally get time to make a mesh avatar but I have one question regarding Catwa and their heads. Are Catwa Static heads copy and modify regarding their shape? This may sound confusing but some mesh items (bodies) say copy only but then are copy and modify for the shape so I was just wondering if the Catwa Static heads are modify too? Going a bit cheaper as a starter mesh avatar is kind of appealing to me so I can see how I like it with hairs, skin and learning to work make-up, etc.