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People contribute to making OW what it is in many different ways. We consist of a wide variety of great talents, some more easy to measure than others, but none more important than the others. No amount of
programming and modelling can make people stay in the worlds if there is not a good "feeling" to the place. But the physical appearance of each world does set a mood that can influence the way we interact,
so it is all interlinked.
I am constantly amazed by the people here. The diversity is breathtaking at times. People of all ages and and many cultural backgrounds blending into a society like the one we are
forming. It is an exciting experiment that I'm sure could be worth a study or two.
I guess we are a somehow special breed of people, us who wander both the physical and the virtual worlds. A lot of people do
not understand us. "People who spend their time online have no lives. They should go out and meet real people." Are we not real then? Of course we are. In my experience people are just as much their real
selves in VR as they are in the physical world. We might not be able to see all the aspects of a person in VR that we can see "in the flesh", but what we do see through the keyhole view is no less real.
Just different. And very, very fortunate.
We have an opportunity of interacting across the borders of age, nationality and personality that too many people do not have. We have the opportunity to set
ourselves free from our physical selves that is very liberating and still for the most part we choose to be just ourselves. Or a great big walking toilet if that's what we want.
I'm sure we all get tired of
OuterWorlds at times. I for one, feel like throwing the whole thing out the window at times. It's impossible to be enthusiastic all the time. Some people leave and never come back, but most of us..., most of us keep
coming back. Back to our friends - past, present and future - back to the fun, the jokes, the building, the heated discussions that pop up. Back to the togetherness. It seems to me we must be doing something right.
What that something is, we will never know, but it is there and it touches us all in different ways.
I feel privileged to be a part of the virtual worlds in general and OW in particular. It makes me proud to
be a part of this community. Thank you all for making it what it is :)
Leylach 5 April 2000
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