Changes in Latitude

Reprinted by permission of VW Sands


Aloha,

They say change is the only constant. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Change is inevitable.  Well, nowhere in life are the "laws" of change more evident than in Second Life (SL). Great places come and go. Our imagination is captured, held briefly and then fades in favor of other places that capture us once more. The nice thing about SL surfing is the diversity of those places and the comings and goings that occupy our memories.

For me personally, it was the Bishara sims, Majini, Pepo, Wimbi, Bahati and Mandahari that I had to come to terms with "change". Not loss (although that´s what it was for me) but change. Once again, I have to say goodbye to an old friend, a place I spent countless hours grooming, tweaking and building into a place for folks to hang out and surf. A place we could all feel at home and comfortable like it was our own. Once again though, change found us. We found other places, other oceans on which to ride and other campfires to sit by.

This world we have created, that captures us and sparks our imagination is an expensive one. We pay gladly though because it has some special appeal. We can "hang out" with friends on the other side of the globe, surf, party, compete, drink Tequilla (get naked & fall down) all from the comfort of our Real Life (RL) home. What a lot of us don´t realize, however, is just how expensive it really is.

A couple examples: Back at Bishara it cost around 3000.00 USD per month (695.000L) in tiers to LL of which we usually scraped 2000.00 or so from rentals, shops and so on. The remaning we just sorta pitched in ourselves (Dumisani Ah in this case). An economic hardship but man, killer surf sims! Here at Mori we pay LL 750.00 USD per month in tiers (195.000L). Again, rentals, shops and so on usually cover around 125.000 and the rest we just sorta pay ourselves (Liss and I). Once again, an economic hardship but man, great surf sims!

I´ve had folks ask me a few times; "Why not just cut the sims up into xx number of parcels and blah, blah, blah" and my answer was always the same. Because that makes a great residential sim, not a great surf sim. Sure, the tiers get paid, but the surfing sucks. It´s a catch 22, folks. Some of the best surf sims ever (Flynn Sheridan's Bahia, for example) were empty of all but WAVES (and his Casa) and thereby economically unfeasable but man, what a great surf sim!

So, maintaing a great surf sim is NOT about making it a residential sim with waves but a waves sim with a few shacks. In my opinion, anyway. That has become just to difficult to support / justify and for that reason, we have to let change have her way.   We talked once about a "Support" group, more events, raffles, contests.  Hell, I even resorted to dancing in a Hula skirt (on more than one occasion) to raise funds but it seems that our collective imagination has been captured someplace else. Which is fine. Change is, after all inevitable.

It has been my pleasure, an honor and more fun than I can ever tell you all to have created and run the Mori sims. I have met the most generous, genuine and dearest friends along the way, and I am grateful for it all. I can´t thank all of you enough for your support for not only the Mori sims, but the Bishara sims as well. Without all those dollars you threw at me, none of this would have ever been possible and as much as it pains me to let go, I really have no choice.

I hope that the Mori sims will be remembered, if even briefly, as old favorites by at least a few surfers as that is all I ever really wanted to achieve. A fun place that we can take with us in our memories and remember with a smile as we sit by the campfire at a surf sim someplace in SL.

Mahalo,
/V

PS: Any and all funds from an eventual sale of our sims will be returned to the Vibers that contributed to their purchase or given to the surf sims of your choice.

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