Drama and Neighbor Wars on the Mainland
By SL Blogger Joan Kremer
http://www.writersinthevirtualsky.com
Article suggested by Wildstar Beaumont (http://wildstarbeaumont.blogspot.com/)
(This article is part of the Blogger Mix-n-Match 2008!)
For the better part of the year that I’ve resided in Second Life, I’ve been to the mainland probably a handful of times. So what kind of “drama karma” of mine caused me to draw the topic of “drama and neighbor wars on the mainland” for this SL Bloggers MIX’nMATCH?
By sheer luck, I’ve hung out mostly at private estates. Both places I’ve rented have been on serenely private islands, though I have heard a lot of third-hand stories about the neighbor wars on the mainland. But I’m not one to back down from a challenge, so I put on my hiking boots and headed for the mainland.
And did I get an eyeful and an earful!
I hate to say it as someone with a libertarian-kinda bent (a la Thomas Jefferson) to my politics, but I finally understand the purpose of zoning laws in real life!
After exploring multiple areas of the mainland, I began to imagine how even I, a pacifist, could be drawn into a mainland drama! Here’s how it might go:
1. I sign up as a Basic Member and begin exploring. I use SL’s Showcase and other Web site lists of cool places to visit in SL. After just a few days, I’m dazzled and decide I must upgrade to Premium and buy some land. I want to be a “real” citizen of this virtual world.
2. Because I’m not exactly independently wealthy, I decide I can only afford the minimum 512-meter parcel. I meet an avatar who tells me about a great piece of mainland that’s for sale: a big open stretch of green land. I grab it.
A nice mainland parcel
3. After paying the money, I discover my parcel is about one peanut-sized chunk of that parcel, but I just take a deep breath and move on: I’m an SL landowner now!
4. I go shopping. I buy this cute little house (and I do mean little!), figure out how I’m going to landscape my yard, and all that. I work hard, arrange my tiny parcel just perfectly, and move in. Ahhhh…..
5. Things go just fine for a while. Other parcels get sold, and everything from an igloo to a tiki-hut-style house go up within view of my backyard. A little unsettling, but I can manage it.
6. All of a sudden, all the parcels around me have been sold and are under construction. My little parcel has been my “wilderness retreat.” But now there’s a fish market, a hobo house, a run-down trailer park, and (god forbid!) an ad farm surrounding me. Next day, the sky is full of wildly colored rotating ads that block my view of the beautiful blue sky. On top of that, the owner of the hobo house has filled his lot with obnoxious sound scripts, and the trailer guy is shooting toilet-paper-roll particles into my sky.
Glorious Mainland
7. I try to talk to Mr. HoboHouse, but he blows me off. Same with the ad farm guy. When I return the rotting fish that got thrown into my house from the fish market, I get an angry rant back in an IM. I turn in the last remaining direction and see that the already-rundown trailer got a new coat of rust overnight.
8. I find some megaprims and surround my parcel with plywood boards on which I put forest textures. Suddenly Ms. FishMarket and Mr. HoboHouse are at my front door turning red with rage. I’m told I’m a blankety-blank newbie moron for not using the Totally Transparent texture on the back sides of my megaprims. I’m ready to admit I need help in that regard, when a grossly rotten fish carcass lands right on top of me.
9. That’s it, I’m not gonna take this abuse anymore!
A nice plywood megaprim
And so the (fictional) war has started.
I certainly don’t know the best solutions for preventing drama and trauma on the mainland (or anywhere else, for that matter), but I do understand now that we don’t leave our human flaws, vices, angst, and pride back in real life when we enter Second Life. It’s like that saying: “everywhere you go, there you are.”
As for me, I’ll stay with my island rental (though that doesn’t qualify me as an official SL landowner) and suggest to my friends that they:
* Check out the neighbors (near and far) very carefully before they buy a parcel on the mainland; and/or,
* Wipe out any expectations they might have of being in total control of their environment on the mainland; and/or,
* Acquire a non-expiring prescription to the most powerful chill-pills they can find; and/or,
* Invest in a graduate program in mediation (or meditation) methods; and/or,
* Finally, if they really can’t stand the idea of having the view from their lovely beach house disturbed by green-and-pink glow-in-the-dark gigantic billboards, or a 40-meter dropoff between their land and their neighbor’s land, they should buy an island or move to the moon.
After all, Second Life is just as “human” as real life!
A list of all the blogs participationg in the Blogger Mix-n-Match 2008!
Alphonsus’s Random Drivel
Unique Needs
Ari K
The News from BardHaven
Second Life
Second Life
Boned
Botgirl’s Second Life Diary
Writing the Sonnet
Common Sensible
The blog of Danni- Christian Socialist Computer Addict
Dusan Writer’s Metaverse
Eladrienne’s Other Life
What is this crap?
Free Finds For Men
Gany’s take on (any) life
Geta
Girl Wonder Speaks…About SL
Gwyn’s Home
Harper’s Bizarre
Her Royal Highness, Princess Ivory
Ingmann Design Group
Joonie’s Journey
T I NY D A N C I N G
Wonderland Travels
One Girl | Two Worlds
Living in the Metaverse
Midcourt
Constructs of a Mind
My SLife on the D List
n0nSLensical!!
Nightflower
Tenth Life
The Poultry Report
Quirky Quaintly
Reading Radar
click heard round the world
Stories From Another Life
Samantha Speaks
Second Effects
The Shockwave Writer
SL Fashion Avengers
Socially Mundane
Second Stindberg
The Insane Life of Stuart Warf
Tempietto
The Dressing Up Box
The Winter Market
All Things Tiessa
Tiyuk’s Second Life Adventures
What the Fug?
Wild Words
Metaversally Speaking
Avatrain
JohanYugen.co.uk
Second Life of My Dreams
Vint Falken
Writers in the (virtual) Sky
Aviatrix :: Zoe Connolly
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[...] Drama and Neighbor Wars on the Mainland by Joan Kremer [...]
I’ve got some mainland land, and I love it! But then I enjoy chaos.
It started out as 512m2 of First Land back when there was First Land, and I’ve gradually grown it to 2560m2 (I think it is) by buying adjacent parcels as they went up for sale. I have a nice peacefuli park there (it’s more or less dead-center in Hughes Rise if anyone wants to visit), but I enjoy seeing the weird things that come and go around me.
I’ve had ad-farms, big ugly stores, empty land with a few plywood prims strewn around at random, woodlands, a “police station”, a huge black skyscraper, a cliff-dwelling, a Dutch street scene, and I forget what-all. Also some nice little ordinary residences. Never had any problems with the neighbors except I think once when I left some rather gaudy particles playing and forgot to turn them off when I logged; then I just got a polite “um…” sort of thing in IM.
I think your second bit of advice is the best. On the first, checking out the neighbors won’t help much because you may have a completely different set next week. The best thing is to resolve to enjoy the chaos! If you want privacy or a predictable environment, build something up at, say, 2227m above the ground.
[...] Drama and Neighbor Wars on the Mainland by Joan Kremer [...]
Hi Dale! Thanks for sharing your experience of mainland living. I have to admit that in my recent wanderings through the mainland, I got totally engrossed in the variety of sights and activities going on there, and it makes sense that those who love that kind of variety and energy would enjoy mainland life at its busiest. I should have qualified my post by noting that I’m an extreme introvert in First Life, a trait that seems to have followed me to Second Life, as well!
I wish I’d have thought of some of the great points you mention. And I totally agree with what I think is your bottom line (and mind): Live where you can enjoy living — if not, move someplace you DO like. Life (both first and second) is too short to waste time fighting with others!
Thanks again!
oops, that should have read, “your bottom line (and mine)…”
I need a realtor for Second Life that can help me out.. I like hunting around for places where i can watch bottoms and check out tan lines..
Great post!
ROFL, Jordyn!! If I find a realtor like that, I’ll definitely send him (well, it probably wouldn’t be a her) your way. Thanks for the comment!
Joan