Beta Night

So, Eris and I have been working on the Diversionarium for several weeks. Last night, we had a houseful of friends over to try everything out. And it was great! I took a few pictures (below), and Eris took more, which I'll post later. We'll post more after opening night.



So as to our success, don't get me wrong: not everything worked. Some scripts weren't in root prims where they needed to be (if you build an object out of more than one primitive shape, one is always the root, or main, prim, and that's the one that usually should have the programming in it). The Avisleuth game ate most of its question cards once, and the Improvistation was refusing to hand out improvs. But all of the games and activities worked, and most things worked with no trouble. Everyone seemed to be having fun, and conversation sprang up effortlessly. This is the kind of place we wanted to build!



And several of our friends had improvements to suggest, like making some wing-friendly chairs and having the audience guess the premise for the improvs to get more audience participation.



We still have details to take care of and things to fix, but we'll be ready and eager to play this coming Friday at 7:30 SLT when we have our grand opening. Our next event after that, we expect, will be a "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" night on our improv stage. And after that, who knows?

^^^\ Kate /^^^



PS - Here's a press release we wrote up for the event. If you know anyone who might be interested or might be interested in posting it on your blog or know of an organization that might want to see it, please copy it and pass it around! Thanks!



New Second Life Venue Aims to Get Strangers Talking

Kate Amdahl and Eris Fallon, known to friends as the Sylphs, will open a new kind of Second Life venue they call the Diversionarium, or "the Div" on May 25th. The Div will be dedicated to word games, social games, and creative play.

"There's no place I know of to go in Second Life where you can depend on getting in a conversation with new, interesting people," says Amdahl. "There are lots of places where interesting people go, but those people aren't always going out to socialize. We decided to create a venue for people who want to play with words and humor and personalities and creativity, a place where the activities actually *require* conversation."

The Div will host Div-only activities run from objects devised and scripted by the Sylphs: comedic improvs done by audience volunteers; a game where groups work together to solve clues to words that form a quotation; a "prim charades"-style game in which a builder tries to get other players to guess a word by building within a time limit; group-written limericks; and Avisleuth, in which players are given anonymous notecards with other players' answers to unusual questions and try to sleuth out whose notecard they have.

Amdahl says that in addition to these 24/7 scripted activities, the Div will host periodic creative and playful events, and that they expect to add more scripted activities down the road. Visitors will be encouraged to submit more material to be incorporated into the existing games, such as quotes for the quote game and tasks for the prim building game.

Amdahl says that the Div will not offer dancing, gambling, fighting, sex, shopping, "or any of the other things you can already do at other fun spots in Second Life."

The Diversionarium is a free, not-for-profit venue, although the Sylphs say they'll make a donation box available to help defray costs. Notices are available through the "Diversionarians" group, which can be joined through a groups search or by IMing Eris Fallon or Kate Amdahl. Opening night is scheduled for Friday, May 25th, at 7:30 PM SL time.

The Diversionarium, Noul, (26, 14, 402)

So, Dryke (of whom I know nothing more than his name and that he made kind comments about my post on seduction) suggested I post about some places in Second Life where a person can meet other intelligent people. I've been giving the same question some thought, because at those rare times when I'm in-world and not with a close friend, it's sometimes very difficult for me to find places to go to interact with new people whose company I really enjoy.

I did post some months ago on ways to make friends in Second Life, but in terms of going out and having an expectation of meeting someone fun and new--especially if you're looking for a Second Life relationship or fling--it's a very difficult, even sometimes impossible process unless you keep at it.

And I will say that if you want to meet someone interesting to go off and have private time with, you're probably better off looking for interesting people without expectations than for people who are willing to go off into the bushes. You can always find people willing to go off into the bushes: just search places for free sex or terms like that and you'll find convocations of barely-literate club male avatars and newbies brandishing freebie genitalia wandering around half clothed and abbreviating blunt requests for sex to each other. That's fine if that's your scene, but I think the chances of meeting someone intelligent and sensitive and funny and interesting there are...well, they're not very good.

But back to places to meet intelligent, friendly people. There are definitely some great places to dance that have that kind of clientele: the Boathouse, the Bothy, the Elbow Room...there are others, too, but those are the first ones that come to mind. Sometimes you can find good places like this by looking at the Picks in the profile of a person you admire. In terms of meeting people, though, the problem with those is that it's often hard to connect with someone new and interesting at those places. A lot of people are dancing and IMing and only occasionally contributing to the general chat, if at all. It must be a bit of a nightmare if you're a wallflower, but even for people like me, who plow right in, the chance of making a new friend with whom you'll really hit it off at a place like this on any particular night is dismally low.

And there are all kinds of wonderful clubs and groups. I have friends and acquaintances who make friends through virtual churches or virtual theater groups or role playing groups. This is a longer commitment too, though, and in the end it seems to me a lot like the dance club problem.

So for now, the short version of what to do, I think, is to keep going out and looking for things that interest you, be as outgoing as you comfortably can, and be yourself, and sooner or later you'll start finding friends.

But I've also been working on a solution to this problem for some time. I think there should be at least one place in Second Life where whoever you are, newbie or veteran, male or female, PG or mature, you can go do something fun that requires you to talk to other people and them to talk to you, and that tends to attract friendly, clever people. So yes, I'm finally giving in to that ever-present lure of opening your own venue. First the store, now this. What will I do next, open a casino?

Anyway, back to this place: Eris and I are going to open a little venue that will have things going on where people talk to each other and are creative all the time. It should be a place where you can go alone or with your friends and always find something to do and usually find someone new and interesting to talk to. Last night I brainstormed with some clever friends about what kinds of activities would fit the bill, and now I'm armed with a whole list of good ideas. So what are your ideas?

Do you feel any need for a place like this? Do you think you'd go there if you had fun doing the things we were providing to do?

Is anyone interested in hosting events for us sometimes? It would only pay tips, because this won't be a money-making venue, but it could be a lot of fun. What do you think?

^^^\ Kate /^^^

(Someone asked the very good question of what kinds of activities we were talking about. Here was my answer:

We're still deciding, but here were some ideas: grown-up games that require talking (Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit are First Life examples), group creative activities like paintings or limericks, improvisations or role plays where people were given a situation and went up on stage to act it out, teleport scavenger hunts, profile scavenger hunts, and trivia games.

I'm sure we won't do all of those and that we'll do some things that we haven't thought of yet, and I don't know at all how many activities will be available at first, but that might give some idea.)