Immersion among resident is seen often among furries and others whose SL behaviors emphasize roleplay

Well….. Yes and no. It’s at this point we hit augmentation of immersion, so to speak. In furries, take Luskwood or Furnation. You’ve got two incredibly viable commerical entities that have established their business practices on creating deeper immersion. Which then turns this into a crazy circle of more augmentation leading to more immersion.

Wow. That kinda makes my head hurt.

Now, augmentation is the minority compared to immersion, but it’s not quite so black and white, it’s just who sees what, where, and are they first to it.

I understand why people might want to project, or role-play, and I certainly think it is useful and there is a lot to be learned from role-play. However, I don’t think role-play would be useful unless the person playing were able to bring something back from this experience into their real self. By working on Second Life I hope to create a tool which helps make people more confident and aware of themselves, and widens the real world reach of those who use it.

Let me buffer this with a little real life story, and how I used to love and adore human interaction. My life before retail.

I used to stand in the middle of the mall and look up at this magnificent stained glass window that was located in the roof, so the sunlight would cascade onto the floor below. I’d stare at it for a few minutes. People would walk by me and generally think I was a little weird and some would be curious as to what I was looking at. After a minute or so passed, one person would keep his distance from me and look up to the ceiling. After another minute, or so, one or two more people would join in. At this time, I was able to view my surroundings and see these random people staring at the stained glass window. It was as if they had never really noticed it before.

Once you get enough people looking up, more people will come to find out what’s in the sky - some place they’d never thought to look before. I believe this phenomenon occurs in Second Life as well. If you mind your own business in a sandbox ’sim’ and just one person comes to see what you’re doing, you’ll attract more people. Green dots on the map represent centers of activity and possibly creativity, or even festivity, which many people strive for.

It is at this point in time - when you’ve gathered more than four people around you - that you can start a rather nice group conversation. This is where you begin meet people and create new friendships. This is what I came to love about Second Life. It doesn’t matter who you talk to or what common grounds you have with another person, if you can build to inspire another resident, then you are one step closer in adding to the community of Second Life; adding to the creativity of Second Life.

For some people, user to user interaction is tough. The people who walk by and think nothing of what I’m doing in the middle of the mall, and generally think I’m weird usually have a very taciturn relationship with people they’ve never met before. Likewise, in Second Life, many people hate being alone, yet they choose to stay secluded from the community in a very, “I don’t know you, I don’t want to talk to you,” approach. This is part of the general antisocial environment that people feel safe in.

To sum it all up, I would guess that many people come to Second Life without even thinking about what kind of social environment Linden Lab has set up. Those that can adapt to the social nature of Second Life will learn to enjoy and even love the world they play and build in. It’s the social immersion that keeps many people so attuned to the environment that surrounds them.

I tended to lean toward immersion more often than not, but I praised augmentation. Again, adaptation to the social environment is key to success in Second Life. As you meet other people, you need to learn where they stand on the Immersion and Augmentation line. If you adapt to them, you can talk to them on a level of sophistication that you never thought possible before. Get out there and talk to a random person, create an interactive and social environment, and build on top of that. You can’t go wrong, but on the off-chance that you do, restart and learn from your mistakes, that’s the beauty of Second Life.

Meh. It’s both, it is not either/or, and it is like moving through cold and hot currents as you swim in the ocean. Some people are tethered to the real world; some aren’t. Those making money off this platform rely on those green dots to be their server load tests, however, if nothing else, and often want them to serve as the colourful peasantry in a country they like to take other people on trips for, getting high consulting fees for the experience.

The problem with the Magic Circle at SL is that it has the game devs and the early adapters in it — they made a world, played in the world as sandboxers, made it their world/their imagination, then opened the doors, and when other people wanted stability, householding, and civilization instead of constant sandboxing and letting script-kiddies crash the grid and run war games and security robs, they pissed on them.

Now this same Magic Circle is making a fortune as Metaverse Consultants, stepping on the world that they’re now bored of. It’s not a pretty sight. However, worlds want to be made. They get made, inspite of those who step on them : )

I’m curious why you would feel that furries or other groups are “gone from the headlines”. They are the largest, organized groups in the world and pay its bills. SLCC wouldn’t exist without them.

Back up, fly around some more please Henrik.

>I understand why people might want to project, or role-play, and I certainly think it is useful and there is a lot to be learned from role-play. However, I don’t think role-play would be useful unless the person playing were able to bring something back from this experience into their real self.

Donavon Linden has the usual Calvinist-style view of virtual worlds. Unless they are “useful” and can prove their worth in terms that pay off in “real life,” however that is understood

What I’m really not liking about this entire discussion is the way Lindens shill for droves of people to come in and world it up, waterskiing and making villas and having fabulous experiences as beautiful people in exotic places, meanwhile privately looking down on them as has-beens who have no lives. Nice work if you can get it.

Intellagirl, I’m puzzled why building is augmentation. It’s immersion, because most people building are making *a world to inhabit and living in it*. You aren’t doing that perhaps, but I think probably the dirty little secret of the augmentation camp is that they made a world without noticing it — a world which is about the social scene and virtual interactivity of augmenters who have somehow persuaded themselves or their bosses or their spouses that they are doing something useful online that’s different and better than playing WoW. Is it?

Societies and communities have their own “backgrounds”. Although Second Life® does not have equivalent concepts to “skills”, “levels” or “experience”, commonly found on massive multiplayer online games …

Yes, it’s true — I’m thinking of doubling or even tripling the total amount of land I now own, even while I’m constantly bitching about performance issues these days. Here, a detailed explanation of why, along with lots of photos of various plots o…

Now this same Magic Circle is making a fortune as Metaverse Consultants, stepping on the world that they’re now bored of. It’s not a pretty sight

Can you develop more your subject pls?
Pol