There's No Place Like Home.

So that other thing I was going to get to.

Why, when we can only afford a 64 x 256 metre of mainland, would we want to continue. When everyone (who belonged and RPed in more than one sim) had a place to go, why would we even bother trying to keep the dream alive?

I have asked myself this a lot. The only thing I did know is I felt a nasty gap in the place my Second Life once was. While everyone else was moving on, I had never felt so alone in-world. You would think I would log out and do something else. But when something has been part of your daily life for so long, it isn't so easy to do. Home is a complicated issue for me in both on and off the Grid, and I admit that this is factoring heavily into my real life at the moment.

So I went looking, at all the many fantasy sims that I could find. (Fantasy is the only thing I am interested in when it comes to Second Life) I found plenty of good RP sims, maybe a couple where we could fit. Either with alts or with seriously modified story lines.

But the reasons I couldn't settle was more than my snobbish frowning upon sims with furry and child avatar hatred. The reality is, I don't have any alts so crucial to my happiness that I could depend on them solely. And editing people out of our main's joint storylines was sort of like erasing parts of their own character's core personalities. Basically, making them different characters.

I don't think it is a secret that the conception of The Seven Isles and it's vision predated me, nor was the philosophy of family and acceptance my own. Except I knew when I found it I had found home. Because I knew when I found it, that this is what I would do, if I were to start a community in Second Life. You could say, that is why I joined up on staff when the opportunity was offered to me. The Seven Isles wasn't just the perfect sim, it was practically my real life dreams of Utopia.

A simple life, something no one has in the real world. Epicurus called it Ataraxia. Ataraxia is very important to me in my personal life as well. I have mentioned before that RP was my Ataraxia.

What I have learned is that out of all of these good RP sims, We actually did provide something unique. No classes, no cliques, no guilds or factions. Instead we had equality, families and trades that helped us express and celebrate our individuality. I have always known that we were never a big and as bad ass as a lot of these other sims, I never really wanted to be.

Uniqueness is not what people usually want, no matter what they say. People want familiarity and mainstream for a reason. One knows what to do and what to expect in those situations, and that is understandable. People like structure and leadership. But for me, those are "chains" in a way. there is a Jim Morrison quote that sums it up for me,

"People are terrified to be set free – they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their security"

What he is saying here, is people can not always feel safe enough to do something with out some firm parameters. Perhaps that is why our community in itself, was unique people without parameters. I can not speak for anyone else but myself, but this is why I felt so lost.

So I guess you could say, our very humble (and perhaps doomed) desire to rise from the ashes are for selfish reasons. However knowing that we had something that others did not, I can not help but think there are others out there seeking what we had. Perhaps it *is* a minority (and Gods know lower numbers don't pay the bills) but I think it is a minority worth at least trying keeping alive.

I just need a world where things made in imagination are flesh. I need a world where children play and explore. I need a place of growth, and intrigue, and peace. If I want to beat the shit out of something I'll play Dungeon Siege

An Avatar By Any Other Name, Is Not The Same.

Not so long ago, A Real Life and Second Life friend of ours successfully converted his lady friend over to the grid.  It was fun, all of us sitting around my living room, watching as she went under the same initiation process that we all go through, chosing both a first, *and* second name that she would have to live with for the rest of her second life. With much wailing and gnashing of teeth she was eventually successful.  Little did we know that we were on the cusp of the end of an era.  The Era of surnames in Second Life.

Now, if you look about the sims,  interesting last names on people with recent rez dates have been replaced with "Resident"  This is all part of the new display name system that allows users new to Second life to create a user name, while enabling them to use a different display name.  Don't get me wrong,  I was in favour of the ability to change one's display name, even with my reservations that it would be a way for people to try and grief by appearing to be someone else, a time and tested trolling technique used all over the internet since the general public was allowed access to it.

But I also understand people who greif, are not detured or encouraged by anything other than their own intentions to cause grief. And even in the group of people who do create alts, those who do so to start shit are in a minority.  People who want to cause trouble will do so no matter what measures or features are in place... but I digress.

I know that being able to change a display name, could have made my life a little more... singular. Rather than having a few alts I need in order to be different people in Second Life, I could use just one, change my clothes, my skin, and a display name, and presto! A new character all in one avatar. This would have reduced my need to try and shuffle transferable items from inventory to inventory, and would save me a ton of money in the process.

However, this feature, (in my personal opinion,) was not worth the loss of a very special and distinct feature of Second Life. The Surname.  Sure, the selection sort of sucked at times, but with determination, one could scour SL Name watch, and then hit the "Change name" button until a desirable name came up for them.  Hell, it was this ability that took one of my alts out of an unused table top Dungeons and Dragons game, to the grid, allowing me to define what they looked like, and how they behaved, without a sheet of paper or a table full of other players.

Thanks to surnames in Second Life, the members of my Second Life Family were all able to obtain the same surname,  like a real family has.  That's a special sort of thing, because the surnames are eventually retired.  I'm now just thankful, everyone got the surname they needed for us to be a proper clan of Tauruses.

And so what if some random stranger also had your last name.  This is the way it is in the real world, isn't it? I have a very common last name in the real world.  It doesn't bind me to strangers with the same last name, but it does with my family.

Now, with the last name "Resident" the value of family or individuality in the username, is lost.  Gone are our delightfully pretentious last names, and our ability to use a first name to make a pun, a joke, or something poingiant.  In comes the generation of "Amanda resident" soon becoming "Amanda1975 Resident" because their desired first name is already taken, A thought I had not considered until a good friend pointed it out. When so much of Second Life is about being immersed in a virtual reality, we will now be constantly reminded by cold usernames, that this is just the internet, and now we are all reminded to go and check our email account, with the similarly formatted, dreadful username.

I really hope that the Lindens will reconsider this move (even though I won't hold my breath).  I really hope that there is outrage among new and old "residents" about this special little thing that has been taken from them. I really hope this new feature is the "New Coke" that spawns the revival of "Classic Coca-cola."

But as I said, I won't hold my breath.  For as much love as I have for Second Life and all it does for me, The Lindens do not have a great track record of listening to the masses.  We can't fool ourselves in believing the grid is a democracy. Those who have to worry about paying tier every month know that better than anyone.  If you have ever had to call Linden Lab in order to fix something gone wrong with your sim or account, you find out pretty quickly that they are interested in being paid for their free service.

Because, regardless of our first or last names, we are all still assigned a number.  Names aren't as important to the Lindens, as they are to the users. The users who have literally created this world with the tools that were given to us. Because we are numbers to the system, there is no reason why people should be denied their first or last names, or the ability to change their avatar names completely. Which is another little cause I support.

So not having faith that this will change, I am left mourning the loss of a special era, that new comers will not have the ability to share. Sure, we can all look at their profile and see how old their avatar is, but they will forever be a little bit left out, and will have a glaring reminder before all,  that they are late comers, the new kids, and I bet you, they will be marginalized and taken advantage of.

There is no point to this blog post, other than to express my feelings and thoughts on a major change.

I wish I had not told our recent convert, that she could start a new account with a better name later, if she grew to hate the one she chose.  Even if she was one of the very last, to sign up just in time for the last named avatar era.