Reflections on Second Life through World of Warcraft

Every now and then I still get asked when I am taking a long term hiatus from Second Life? what I am doing? will I ever be back? why I left? and so on and so forth. The easy answer was that I just burnt out on Second Life and needed a break after having spent the majority of the past four years in the spot light for one reason or another. It is sad for me to admit, but co-founding and running the Second Life Community Convention from 2005-2007  is one of my biggest regrets. If I could turn back time, I would never have gotten involved with it. That is not to speak negatively of those who have been and still are involved with the convention. In a lot of ways the negatives vastly outweighed the positives of that experience. I’m not overly bitter about it, just reviewing it with my usual pragmatic criticism. If I can’t learn something from these experiences, they end up being kind of pointless.

One of the reasons I left Second Life last summer was that I realized that I was too deeply emotionally invested in all things Second Life. A lot of things effected me much more than they should have or than I ever wanted them too. Since July or August, I’ve gotten really into playing World of Warcraft and it has helped me in so many ways to detach emotionally from gaming and/or virtual environments. I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, but stay drama free on all fronts. I’m not emotionally invested in the people in my guilds or anyone else around me (well accept for the few RL friends of mine who also play WoW). Playing WoW is something that I enjoy doing, but it is not all encompassing the way Second Life was for so many years.

Now, I am starting to try and figure out how I can approach Second Life in the way that I have approached World of Warcraft. I do want to get back into Second Life again at some point in time. I just need enough time to let the past be buried and to not be emotionally attached to any aspect of it. I’ve considered retiring Jennyfur Peregrine or at least not using it as a primary account when I return. I’m not sure whether or not I want to get back into content creation or if I want to explore something new. I’ve considered doing something with the music scene in Second Life, well not the existent one, but bringing more bands into virtual worlds. as I continue my explorations of music and new media.

I’ve been keeping up with all that has been going on and am interested to see how web on a prim, mono integration and Havok 4 affect the Second Life client. I’ve also been keeping my eye on the Open Sim project and all that.