Molding SL To Work For Us

SL (Second Life) is a bitch. She's a wonderful bitch but she's also a selfish bitch. "OMG Otto! How can you say that?" "Oh, I know exactly what you mean bro". SL does not allow us to live a complete virtual life inside itself. What do I mean? Well, first of all, everyone is in a different time zone. Secondly, typing takes up way too much time! Sure, we can do voice communication but sometimes that's not plausible. I mean it must be awesome to hear a woman orgasm over her mic as she stimulates herself in front of a large group of avatars watching her SL boyfriend bang her brains out. It's quite another thing to try and convey that over a mic or even camera! Yes, they have web cams for that. It's called Skype.

But SL's text interface is just too time consuming. Or is it?

Text communication forces  you to be precise. It forces you to choose your words very carefully because each and everything you say will be judged upon an earlier sentence. You need to be very careful of what you say. You need to paint a picture in your recipient's imagination of what you are doing. You need to tell a story. In many cases, this story may require time consuming detail to describe. Other times it may only require a series of short and to the point sentences. One side argues, "don't make your audience wait for what you are typing", or on the other side, "be more descriptive". So it would seem that a balance is the way to go. I have witnessed both sides of the argument and I do feel that a nice middle ground is desirable.

"Guiding my fingers over her smooth, slightly perspiring skin from her excitement, I slide them over the curves of her firm tight ass. My hand pausing on the apex of her round rump, I place my palm over her bare flesh and squeeze it, hearing a soft moan from her as I pull her pelvis harder toward mine, grinding ourselves together"

As opposed to, "gropes her ass"

As opposed to, "runs my hand down her smooth back to the curves of her fine, firm ass. I give her a squeeze as I pull her closer."

The third example doesn't take much time to write/convey, yet it gets the point across much better than the second example which is sort of disappointing. So isn't the first example better? Sure! That is if you want your recipient(s) to have to wait for you to compose all that. But if that's the case, then a 'scene' would take several hours. Who has that kind of free time? Not me.

So I go for a compromise. A balance between the two methods. It seems to me that's what most of the other people I run into prefer too. I mentioned earlier that I and cat had just joined a swinger's place. They encourage public "emoting" in their group. So far, the majority of the members there use the same method I do, so that seems to be the way to go. It is also a great way to flirt.

Out Exploring Alone is Easy

Keeping groups of friends together is a bit of a challenge too, but there are a couple of reliable methods to keep in mind. The first one is the party or club or whatever. Always keep in mind the 20 meter rule: Local chat ends after the 20 meter mark. Beyond that distance, if you want to public chat with someone, you have to shout. Shouting goes out to 100 meters before it cannot be heard anymore. Then there is always the Instant Message or IM. But unless you initiate a group IM, which can often times become clumsy, then keeping your party or dance club's dance floor to 20 meters is a smart choice. That way everyone can read what is being said between everyone there. If  you want a private conversation, choose IM. They will work between two people in private across the entire world of SL.

The larger than 20 meter clubs can be annoying. You go there to have some fun and crack jokes and listen to lively chat. But the last time I was at a large club, I could only hear the conversations going on on my side of the place. Now I realize you cannot build a club large enough to accommodate 60 people without making it larger than 20 meters, but the vast majority of the clubs never have more than 25 people in the place anyway. So why build larger than 20 meters for that?

But what if your group wants to travel? Say you want to explore a sim together? Then some sort of transportation vehicle is the way to go. When you and your friends 'sit' in a vehicle, you all stay together. I have a helicopter that seats 4. A boat that seats 6. Those are usually large enough. It's very rare to have a group of people together that all want to ride in the same vehicle and communicate. But they do make them larger. There are some boats I've seen that will seat a dozen avis. It all just depends on how many friends you have online at the same time that all want to do the same thing.