Still pluggin'

I attempted to get on and explore Secondlife over break. I logged on from home this time and discovered that I didn't have enough bandwidth/speed to load clothes (even the body parts). So I was in a world of ghosts. It was pretty funny. I found that I could move around much better (without drowning myself) because the lag wasn't as bad. Unfortunately my DSL over WiFi wasn't fast enough for Secondlife to work properly and so I had to give up. It appears that I am going to have to directly plug my computer into a high speed connection to get it to work right. The set up at my apartment is not conducive to do this - the only phone jacks I have are in the kitchen (and there is no place to put the router in my kitchen) and my bedroom. So I have the box in my bedroom behind my bed and to directly plug in I would have to sit on my bed and unplug the vonage box (because the dang router has one port). Consequently, I'm going to try to find a way to plug in directly on campus sometime this week.

This week was spring break which meant I used it as an excuse to spend too much time playing Neopets. I accomplished the large goal I had of purchasing a honey potion (a bomb) for the battledome. I also purchased a smaller ticket item, a golden compass, the week before as a backup weapon. All my weapons now do 9-11 icons, which I think is a decent amount for an intermediate battler. I remember a time when an six icon weapon was pretty standard - now I don't even have 6-8 in my lineup.

The guild was in party mode with St. Patty's day. I had no luck and won nothing in any of the competitions and games. :( I even ended up missing a few games entirely because the start times weren't announced. Oh well. Our guild leader's goal is to have 50 active members and so there have been a number of people who were kicked out because of lack of activity and at least two new people in the last week. The sad thing is I can't even tell you who was removed (which I guess shows they have been really inactive) but I'm sure I would know them all if I asked for a list of those who were removed for lack of participation.

I guess this just shows the transiency in the online environment. Because of the lack of being able to see each other it is easy to not notice when people stop showing up unless they are extremely active in the community. For example I am aware that player "R" is only around occasionally these days because she use to be around daily. She doesn't have a connection at home anymore but she manages to get on certain days a week for a little bit at a time. I would notice if she disappeared, but I'm not sure if newer people would because she hasn't been super active in months. However if a newer person left (and some have) I don't notice unless someone makes a comment - for example one of the new members left and the only reason I found out was because I read someone asking why she left. I suppose just like a F2F community you have to become involved before people will notice your absence beyond the "welcome back" that you get when you haven't been around a F2F community in a while. For people to call, write an email or start widely enquiring about your welfare you have to be missed. It is hard to miss someone on the periphery.