The other day I logged into SecondLife and was making a concerted effort to try and have fun. I needed to update my avie look so I went shopping. Found a leather jacket and some shoes. Bought some glasses that look like the ones I wear in physical life.

Cool, my avie looks better. Okay, now what? Where do I go? Yeah sure, there's people on my buddy list from There and I could IM them and go hang out. I got a teleport request from a friend and accepted it, arrived in the middle of a very dark club on the dance floor. Everyone had clicked on a disco light ball that activated a dance script and thus took control of their avatar making them dance together.

I don't much care to have my avie controlled, especially by a group script. Not much into being a follower. Kinda do my own thing, so I walked off the dance floor and stood there looking at the people.

Some people said, "Is that Thumdar from that site?" Or, "Is that Thumdar from There?". They were all nice enough and seemed to be having a nice time.

It was very dark. It was hard to know who was saying what (I later turned on chat bubbles ~ much better). It was like a bunch of bees in a hive following scent commands. I was standing there and it felt cold, my avie following the stand script I had implanted in his animation override. Yay.

I MISS ZONA!!!!!!!!! I miss being able to login into There and go to Fisher Island or Cosmo or Zephyr and be able to run up to a group of people and speak "Hey all, what's up?" My avatar moved fluidly LIKE A REAL PERSON DOES. People interacted. They didn't activate a script, they typed 'hole or 'giddyup or 'hi5 or ''laugh or 'tu. It was truly interactive.

Yep, there are central gathering places in SL, true. I've been to them. It's usually one or two people voicing and making sure everyone knows they are experts of this or that while everyone else is standing around trying hard to look fabulous and just listening. Man ~ that just rocks.

Okay, okay, I'm just another disgruntled Therian PO'd that he lost his online world of choice, I know. SecondLife is actually really cool, but the interaction between peoples isn't (in my opinion) anywhere near as good as it was in There. I'm sure many, many, many peoples disagree with that, but I'm entitled to my opinion.