Autumn reflections

It's quite ironic that in my last blog, I was celebrating the return of Nocturne, whereas here I'll be observing its closure on 11/11/10. Its owner, the ever-talented Nedria, is pulling back from SL significantly as she migrates toward InWorldz. She will likely recreate Nocturne there, as IW is now growing w/ SL ex-pats. I will probably not be joining the staff there, however.

There are many who love IW and are proclaiming it to be the successor state of SL as the pundits proclaim the approaching demise of Linden Labs's experimental little world we have here. I will admit I do have an IW account, and have had one for a while, and I will agree it's essentially SL 4 years ago. Kind of. It's actually less stable than I remember the old grid being, but it DOES feature the crappy graphics and crude blocky builds from back before I got a decent computer able to keep up w/ the demands of WindLight.

I have invested far too much in SL, not just in terms of inventory, but in the purchase of actual hardware to finally get to see the SL everyone else was raving about and taking those great pictures of. Besides, I flat don't get the appeal of going back to inferior performance. In my visits to IW, I did not recapture that sense of wonder that SL had back in the early days. All I found was frustration and annoyance.

Similarly, I have an account in Blue Mars, and for all the (empty) hype about how squee-tastically fabulous it was, frankly, I thought it sucked. I checked in on it a few wks ago. It still sucks. The only change is my utter loss of respect for the squee-ing bloggers who were raving about it (Iris, Hamlet, really? I thought you guys had taste). SL was my first experience w/ virtual reality worlds and was sort of my gateway drug to MMORPG's, but when, IF, Second Life does expire, well, I'll probably get busy reclaiming my First Life. I will still be active with Guild Wars, and the upcoming Guild Wars 2, but neither IW nor Blue Mars are interesting to me. There is, however, a great world just beyond the window to my study that probably deserves more of my time.