My sl has changed
No two ways about it
My rl is busier. And my SL is spent mostly on my own building.
Chatting in IM I hear from Xavier and Jayleden. I listen to ISC and throw in my few bobs worth at random, but I am not where I was 12 months ago when I felt myself in the depths of good friendships.
Is it my fault? have I isolated myself? Is it just the nature of things? Is it a change throughout SL?
I don't know, but it isn't the same anymore.
I miss the people who used to pop by to say hi.
The neighbourhood feeling of Winterfell has never eventuated in Caledon.
It seems the Southend corner is being visited often enough by strangers looking at my homes. But not my friends looking for me.
No two ways about it
My rl is busier. And my SL is spent mostly on my own building.
Chatting in IM I hear from Xavier and Jayleden. I listen to ISC and throw in my few bobs worth at random, but I am not where I was 12 months ago when I felt myself in the depths of good friendships.
Is it my fault? have I isolated myself? Is it just the nature of things? Is it a change throughout SL?
I don't know, but it isn't the same anymore.
I miss the people who used to pop by to say hi.
The neighbourhood feeling of Winterfell has never eventuated in Caledon.
It seems the Southend corner is being visited often enough by strangers looking at my homes. But not my friends looking for me.
Not about to launch into a valley of tears as there is so much more going on in my life besides SL but I do pause and reflect and hanker for some aspects of the good old times. Only some mind you :P
6 comments:
The neighbourhood feeling of Winterfell has never eventuated in Caledon.
I think you missed it. Caledon is a vast city not a small village any more. In times gone by I would physically (well as physical as you can with an Avatar) drop by friends' houses in the Cay or in Mayfair. I can remember people standing around near the gazebo in the middle of Victoria City because that's where people would appear. Chat didn't happen on the group, you went out to see people in person.
As Caledon grew bigger and bigger, so the number of green dot clusters dispersed and the names became unfamiliar. The issues with group chat I've commented about elsewhere but I think Caledon has become *too* big.
While my house is in Edison, I find I'm spending more and more of my time in New Babbage. There are social cliques as any group has but it's small enough that you know the people in the town. People will actually arrive in one of the pubs for a chat rather than waffle on in group chat, so the interaction seems friendlier.
Winterfell had started to spread but the collapse of the Void sims hit it harder than it had Caledon. It's easier to have a sense of community when you only have a small group.
I know what you mean. I arrived in Caledon 20 months ago even though i didnt own land til later in my first year, and in that times it has changed a lot.
I think Edward hits the nail on the head - and that's the reason I chose Steelhead to be my home. Again, social circle exost as they do everywhere, but the place is small enough to know most of the folk.
Although I never lived in Caledon, I visited quite often in its heyday and knew names, knew storylines, met people at the gazebo. Everytime I've been back since it's not somewhere I recognise.
And don't worry too much - I've always said SL moves at least 4 times faster than RL so that friendships that would start & blossom & die in 4 or 5 years in RL, do the same in months in SL.
I agree with HeadBurro, Edward has hit the nail precisely on the head, Caledon is now a vast state. Well judging by the map it is because I am still not able to wander it's streets or patronize it's merchants. Fortunately many have stores outside Caledon.
Audrey I read your closing para "Not about to launch into a valley of tears as there is so much more going on in my life besides SL but I do pause and reflect and hanker for some aspects of the good old times. Only some mind you :P" and wondered if I was the "Only some mind you" I hope not.
I suspect also many of the "characters" of Caledon may have gone ISC was an interesting thing, indeed one often heard someone in ISC decided they where interesting and/or eccentric and popped over to meet them. I recall a young lady doing exactly that to see who the typo enabled Wil Beaumont actually was.
Speaking of the characters of ISC - gone are the Zealots, the Wil (Typo Mater) Beaumonts etc who always could be relied on for some lively interjection.
I also think Edward has mentioned another vital point with "the names became unfamiliar". People come and go and the "Old Caledonians" are I suspect now well outnumbered by what myself, as a Caledon Eyre Founder would consider the "New Caledonians".
However some of these "New Caledonians" would have been in Caledon for over a year and thus hardly consider themselves new.
SL and with it Caledon are living , dynamic things in which change is a constant. Philip has finally totally passed the leadership baton to M Linden and with a change of leadership so will come a change of leadership style.
Perhaps what you feel is only what happens to all us "old avatars" we talk about the good old days and discuss life without sculptys or felxi-prims or voice or copybot or OpenSource or BlueMars etc etc and we forget the uber-lag, the telehub to telehub only TP's, etc etc
For what it is worth I think we all should remember the good of the old days and rejoyce and embrace the here and now and be proactive in shaping the future.
In closing could I Audrey ask if you would be so kind as to help spread the Step UP campaign word.
Step UP! is a campaign centred on a special day of action that everyone can become involved with, and that can empower and inform people about the problem of content theft, and what they can do about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGXuH25qA_M
Rory has a very good point there - nothing in SL, as in RL, can be pickled in aspic - I'm a 2006 baby and have seen huge changes, as we all have, and they'll keep happening. As long as we move with them, it's not so bad, but everynow and then changes occur that are very painful - it's funny how a made up place can mean so much, but it does :)
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