Scylla Rhiadra

This could be the Avatar of the Future. Think how low lag it would be!

Well, as others have already said, yes it impacts me emotionally, in a way that is similar to the experience of nature in RL, but obviously not the same. I think that the part of us that responds to virtual reality simulations of things is more or less the same part that responds to the experience of literature, plays, movies, and even two dimensional art. When we watch a movie, or read an engrossing novel, or admire a landscape painting, we are always at some level conscious that it's not "real," it's a fiction. But we make a sort of tacit agreement with ourselves to "believe" it sufficiently that it still affects us. It's what Coleridge called "a willing suspension of disbelief." The "willing" part is important: we consent to the illusion, and remain always conscious at some level that it is illusion. It's not that we're being "fooled" in other words. Imagine if our responses to, say, a horror movie, or a particularly bloody play, were the same as the real thing. We'd be traumatized by art, and by simulation! This is kind of what happens to Don Quixote, who comes to literally believe the romance novels he is reading. He becomes deluded and mad. The "willing suspension" protects us from that kind of response, so the emotional impact is like a simulation of the emotions we would really feel confronted by the same thing in RL: what T. S. Eliot called "art emotion." I'm not much of a beach girl, but I love forests, and I love gardens, and being in these in SL gives me real pleasure. It's not exactly the same pleasure as a real garden or forest would produce -- but it's a sufficiently good imitation or simulation of it that it produces many of the same effects, such as a sense of calm and peace.

Question from a mutual friend. Did anyone check to see what body Patch was wearing? Was it NUX?

But whose lifetime?

Don't forget to enable damage, and include a wearable shotgun by the door.

I could, but "wide eyed" to me has nearly childlike connotations of awe and amazement and surprise. It's the sort of thing C. S. Lewis might have said in his Narnia series. I'm hoping the build will produce that kind of feeling. As I say, I'm really a pretty simple girl. 🙂

Yeah. I haven't been yet -- I'm hoping to have time to drop by tonight, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. I still think that the concept is a pretty cool one, and I'm hoping the implementation doesn't disappoint me. In the "big picture," it's the shift in strategy, and indications that LL actually maybe has been listening, a little, to complaints (here and elsewhere) about the new user experience, that is most important. I'm not skilled or knowledgeable enough to catch many of the issues that Drayke notes: I'm more likely to wander around muttering "Shiny!" under my breath while looking around wide-eyed. (I'm a very simple girl, really.) But things like low quality builds I probably would catch, as would most new users: I think these are more likely to have an impact on new residents than whether or not your cursor changes when you hover over something. This is, hopefully, a prototype, and they'll learn from it. And possibly they'll change some things at the existing build as a response to criticism? But on the whole, I'm pretty excited about this, and, loathe as I am to be out of step, I think LL and those who put this together (esp. the moles) deserve credit and thanks.

Thank you. Arielle is most definitely one of a kind, and a unique and distinctive voice here. We would be poorer (and I mean this very genuinely) without her. I think the same can be said of Drayke. And I think critique, including his, is valuable and even necessary. But I do think that, to be effective, it needs to be couched in ways that don't make it sound merely like grousing. We're very good at grousing here generally, and perhaps not so good at constructive criticism.

Yeah, it's just you.

/me flutters her eyelashes at Sid in a particularly winsome fashion

..that's handy to know! In my day, we just called it "Back of the bleachers, behind the dumpster."

As one does. That's fine, if so. But the entire premise of this discussion has been about changing the way in which LL promotes the platform, in practical terms, including comparisons with other virtual worlds and games. If this is really about "sex gets no respect in SL," we can agree or disagree, but it changes the entire dynamic of this thread. I've been arguing that there are potential costs to a shift in advertising. Need I have bothered if we're all convinced, including even the OP, that that's not going to happen?

No, but I AM trudging into SL because I want to hear music, or go dancing, or buy something nice for myself, or build something, or take a picture . . . I have no doubt that, at the front of many people's minds as they hit the "Log in" button, is the thought "I want some nooky." I am equally certain that for a whole lot of us it is not even being entertained as a possibility. Even if that is, in fact, something that we DO end up engaging in during the subsequent session in-world. Then why are we even having this conversation???

I've had men try to pick me up on Twitter. On Twitter, for God's sake, presided over by a guy currently in the running for Unsexiest Man of the Year. No one needs to be told that there is sex online, anywhere. They already know.

I think this is kinda the point. Yes, sex is ubiquitous, in RL as well as online. If I walk into a RL supermarket, probably 80% of the people there are having sex regularly! And occasionally daydreaming about it, talking to friends about it, etc. Crazy, eh? But that doesn't mean that the vast majority of them are living for sex. It's just a very important part of their lives. Just like, for a great many residents, sex is an important component of their virtual lives. For the vast majority of people I know, really, SL is just like RL in this regard. In fact, I think LL should play up the fact that sex and relationships here are rather like our "real" lives. How about, Second Life™. Join for the Sex. Stay for the Foot Rubs.

See!?!?!? THIS is why I ❤️ Second Life. Where else? Really?

I think we've established which part of the elephant you've got hold of . . . 🙃

/me throws up her hand to volunteer . . . ! Oh. Wait. Smooching? meh.

My efforts to produce some "new looks" for myself and my photographs may have taken . . . a slightly disturbing turn. OMG. What have I done????? 😮

Yeah. I think this is a fabulous idea, because Motown isn't just about music -- it was the genesis of an entire culture, with its own values, aesthetic, and so on. There's a lot there for anyone interested in music, history, African American culture, etc. It's a really rich subject. (What I'd love love love to see, along these lines, is a resurrection, in an up-to-date and better arranged form, of the old Harlem Renaissance sim. THAT was fascinating! But admittedly probably not with as wide an appeal.)

I assume you mean mesh models? I didn't know you couldn't, to be honest. I think you're unlikely to get an answer here, although @NiranV Dean does occasionally poke his head in. You might be better off taking this to the Black Dragon Discord, and asking there?

I think we're at that stage in this discussion where we're going to have to amiably agree to disagree. For me, your argument sounds like someone pulling a piece out of a car engine, and saying that it's obviously the most important piece, because the engine won't run without it. And I'm pointing to other pieces, and saying, "Yeah, sure, but the engine won't run without these pieces either: they are all important, and they need to work together for the engine to function." The SL that you describe seems alien to me (and probably would to most of the people in my various circles), not because I am unaware or even unfamiliar with what these parts of SL look like, but because you see them as central and fundamental -- the "core" of SL -- in a way that I just don't. And your statement above, that SL is fundamentally a "virtual dating game," just doesn't accord with my own experience here. It wouldn't have seemed correct to me even when I was "dating" in SL. I frankly hope that LL doesn't take the route that you describe, because I'm convinced it will either kill the platform, or transform it so thoroughly that, for me, it might just as well be dead. If they do go in this direction, I hope you are right, and that it doesn't render this platform uninteresting and unusable for me. But I honestly don't think you are. I take some consolation in the conviction that LL isn't going to attempt anything so radical. What I can see them doing is finding ways to gradually raise the profile of adult content here in marketing terms, in ways that don't threaten to destabilize the entire mechanism. And I'd be fine with that. Long live adult content! So long as it doesn't swamp and destroy everything else here.

I came to fashion relatively late in the game. When I started in SL, it was to be a hard-assed activist, and a just slightly edgy (ca. 1996) seller of women's books, and I tended to dress the part -- torn jeans, army surplus fatigues, and so on. A fashion plate I was not. But . . . I can remember my delight when I got my first pretty, floaty white flexi dress, and how I loved it when it swished as I danced. And I remember, too, how thrilled I was when my then-boyfriend bought me a really lovely Vietnamese Ao Dai. Ironically, this was the time when I was into sex here (albeit not hugely). When I really started getting into fashion and my "look," around 2018 or so, I had actually left that side of things long behind me. In other words, there was nearly zero connection between my interest in how I looked, and my interest, such as it was, in sex. I see fashion as another mode of self-expression, no different, really, than any sort of creative outlet we find for that. And of course, fashion photography is a whole thing unto itself, and adds a whole other dimension to garments as expression. I'd go further, and say that even about people who aren't self-consciously into "fashion," and just do Instagrammy selfies of themselves: it may not seem very sophisticated, but how is it really any less about self-expression and self-actualization than jumping on a pose ball, or wearing a collar? It's still all about realizing, in a virtual environment, something about who we are, and who we wish to be. So, yes, I'm with you. I don't see playing "Barbie" as some kind of slightly disturbing manifestation of latent narcissism. I see it as self-fashioning, self-expression, and creativity.

It's difficult not to feel a bit cynical -- we've seen so many of these sorts of projects fail, often for lack of thought, consultation, or needed resources. This one, though . . . feels different? It does address many of the things we've complained about before with regard to the new user experience. And apparently, this is just the first of planned collaborations of this sort. Imagine a future in which new users having the option to start in areas that highlight, say, fashion, music, art, role play, creating and building, or even sex?

I have yet to meet one who wasn't a walking, talking self-parody.