that housed a dance party.
Most of the discussion revolved around dancing.
As did the dance party we found on the second island we visited...
and the third...
and the fourth.
The fifth island was a little different, as there was no dance party in the information center of this building. And the fish tank was nice too.
Our event, Mix and Mingle, was located at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wengen/22/211/86 and took place on 12/4/08. The original intention of our event was to allow people a chance to meet new people and get to know others but turned into something more. As it turns out, there was another group of people, who all seemed fairly familiar with each other, already assembled at this location.
The scene was near a lodge on a snow capped mountain. A large group of people already gathered on the ice, having an unusual conversation.
Here, several of the characters were naked and the discussion was a heated debate as to who was the prettiest. Hardly any of the characters moved, as the discussion, which took place both as text and voice chat, was the primary function of the gathering.
During our travels we encountered countless and constant problems with lag and disconnections which made it very difficult to keep up with one another and communicate. One thing we noticed was (aside from almost every place being a rave) that people are friendly, generally, but unless you have put in the time to be one of their usual friends they are mostly uninterested with you. This is probably because so many people are always passing through and eventually they stop playing or find another group of friends. Something else we noticed was that many people (like the ones at our event) had taken a good deal of time with their appearance and hardly moved. In essence, SL is like a visual chat room.
Second Life as a whole's primary function is to give people another tool to communicate with. It adds another dimension to conversation that you can't get from any other type of communication. With regular speaking, face to face, verbal language is the only means in which to convey a thought or idea. As someone trying to communicate to others, you are limited to just spoken words. A similar limitation is present for text based discussion, as in text messaging, instant messenger, or a chat. The thought is limited by the words that are used. Programs like Second Live add another layer of expression to the communication. Not only can you speak and type to other characters, but the virtual world allows players to create objects and places to fully represent what words may not be able to describe. This type of communication really allows a person to be as specific as the program allows, to convey their ideas and point of view. This is just not available anywhere else than the internet.
The true meaning of this freedom, it seems, is passed over by the average player. They are simply looking for a place to kill time and talk to other people about, seemingly, unimportant things or trying to be as outrageous as possible in an attempt to shock or dismay another player. It seems, from out experience, there are three types of users; those that play with dolls, social butterflies, and serious users.
Those that play with dolls, like to dress up characters, build houses and really get into accessorizes of their characters. It gives them a chance to expand their minds and use their imagination.
Social butterflies like to hop from group to group, make friends and meet as many people as possible.
Serious users are a mixture of the two previous groups with a touch of addiction. They are the ones that spend real money to enhance the experience of "meeting" people in the online world. They are also less likely to separate the online and off-line worlds.
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