Strange’s Second Life Blog

On November 1, 2006 I joined Second Life, after having a discussion with a friend about how a certain person I knew had talked a lot about it. During the discussion we were having on Skype, my friend said, “You’ll never guess where I am.” A few minutes later, Strange Ranger was born.

— In The Beginning —

I don’t remember too much about the first day I was in SL. I do remember that I had the urge to own land, right away. The “First Land” program was still around at that time and we managed to find a couple 512sqm. plots, right next to each other for L$512 each. We both signed up for premium accounts on that first day, even though we had no idea what we were going to actually “do”.

First, we began throwing out freebie houses that we managed to find, just to see what they looked like. Of course, not understanding how prims worked, right away, we soon learned that 117 prims each just wasn’t enough to do much with. After a week or so, we decided to take a shot at building a club. We joined the lots together, bought some more, so we would have more prims available, and put up a large (open floor-plan) pre-built house. After decorating, we had the grand opening, which had a great turn-out. During the two hour event we had more than 50 people show up, most of who were there the whole time.

After the grand opening, we realized that the building we had, just wasn’t big enough, so we tore it down and threw up another. Right after this, my friend mysteriously disappeared from SL. For a three week period, I couldn’t get in touch with him on Skype or by telephone. During this time, I decided to sell the land that we had bought (since I had paid for it, anyway, including the cost of his 3 month membership), and buy land in a different region.

— Changing Location —

We realized that we made a bit of a newbie mistake by buying land in a PG region, and trying to make a club. I sold the land and bought even more in a “mature” region. By this time, I was familiar with building, so I built a pretty good sized club with three levels. Even though the club was completely done and ready for business for quite a while, I never opened it or had any events.

By the beginning of January, I realized that even though the “club” had been ready for quite some time, I had lost interest in actually “running” the club. I tore the building down, had a “yard sale” for a few days (to get rid of most of the “club” items), and set the land for sale.

— Becoming a Landlord —

A few days later, most of the land sold, and I bought a beach-side parcel in Gawain, and decided to become a landlord. Over the next few months, I bought more than half of the Gawain region and some land in the neighboring region, to protect the beach front. At one point, I had 18 rental houses that were always, at least 90% full. Even though I had met a lot of great people and enjoyed being a landlord (not to mention the amount of money I made), the business started to make SL feel like more work than fun.

— Looking Ahead —

In mid-July, I decided that it was time to get out of that business and sell off the land that I “owned”. The “not much fun, anymore” factor was not the only thing that helped me make up my mind. News of a new mainland continent had been released, and knowing the laws of supply and demand, I knew that the time to sell my land had come. After sending out notices to all of the tenants, they moved out, and I sold the land (very quickly, actually).

Right after my land sold, Linden Lab decided to ban gambling. Not only did I sell my land “just in time”, but I also knew that the time had come for me to “cash out” of the game, and convert all of the Linden dollars that I owned into US dollars. I cashed out everything except what I needed to keep as a US dollar balance, to pay my last tier fee and one more month of membership.

— The Future —

At this point, I will continue to log into Second Life from time to time. I will definitely not be in-world as much as I had been, in the past. I am still on the Board of Directors for SL Reports, and will continue to be, as long as they’ll let me. I am also involved in the SL Reports web site, and have an interest in making the site better and growing the traffic to the site.

I had founded a few groups, over the past year, one of which I have already handed ownership over to another person. I had founded and am still an owner in the SL Landlords group. I gave ownership status to Prokofy Neva, after talking with her, for a bit. She, however, is pretty busy with other projects, and I’m still looking for another person to take a more active ownership role in the group. Until I do, I will remain an owner.

This blog was started at what might seem like the “end” of my time in SL. I never plan to own any land again, and I do not have any plans for becoming a premium member, again. Even still, I do have a lot of interest in what happens in Second Life, and I plan on keeping in touch with the major topics and news that happens in-world (and in RL).