Sunday, August 17, 2014

Another Midian Revival?

Despite not really being much on SL for a while, I still have been able to manage to hear the rumors about Jade possibly starting up 'Classic Midian' again.  There's talk that the Pack and the Catwalkers will return.  But then there's also talk that it might be human only, which makes no sense, considering that the Pack and Catwalkers are both famous and notorious for being hybrid groups.  In fact, I remember long before I came to Midian the first time back in 2007 this talk in clubs and stores about some sim that had a gang of cats, of nekos.  It intrigued me, being that I had already grown accustom to Ioh's leopard spots back then, wearing the Jungle Voodoo Golden Leopard skin.  My concept of what a kitty gang might be back then was something like Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats musical, and, I don't know, maybe Heathcliff?  So the Strays, Catwalkers, and Pack brought about some pretty cool experiences in developing RP that had its fun moments. Sure, there were ups and downs, but overall there were some memorable moments worth their while.

But what about reviving Midian... again?  I don't know. Can't re-create the past, but can't wipe it out completely either. But certainly, we have to define what it was to people to have any idea as to what it ought to become. For despite that classic progressive liberal angst against looking back on the past, even science has to remember that they would not be able to see as far as they could without standing on the shoulders of giants. That is, even progress has its predecessor that helped mold and make the progress better be able to move forward.

But I'll keep it basic. So the first question to ask, though can be the most difficult is:

1. What is Midian?

This is a two-fold question, really, since the two questions being asked are:

1a. What is the owner's vision of Midian?

and:

1b. What is the vision that the players have?

The first part of it may be easy for the owner, but the difficulty comes because, if you want a sim to flourish, especially if you want vibrant RP with great storytelling, you have to consider what the players bring to the table.  Yes, they come to the house as guests.  But even in real life, people visit friends and family for a variety of reasons. Or with a business, you don't just open a coffee shop to sell coffee, you also sell an experience. And that experience is not, and will never be the same for any two people.  Similar, true, but not the exact same, and no one really wants that sameness. If they wanted the bland atmosphere, they wouldn't go out to a coffee shop or to a restaurant.  And even at home, no one wants a dull home experience either. Peaceful, yes, but not dull.

The other question is:

2. What are Midian's limits?

This relates with the vision, which is the internalized concept of what one wants or believes they want to see.  However, this poses the question of the outward projection of how the concept is actualized in real time.

So here, the twofold is better asked:

2a. What does the owner perceive to be the goals and expectations for what happens in Midian?

and:

2b. How do the players that go to Midian perceive these goals and expectations.

At the moment, it seems that both concept and perception are not coming to any common ground between the owner and the players.  Without such ground to found the RP on, it's not going to lead to a healthy, nor successful atmosphere for the RP, and it will most likely choke and die again.  And if you're going to put thousands of dollars on an RP sim in SL only to see it go bust again because neither the owner nor the players can come together and find that fertile common ground to plant the RP in, well, I'd say save your money.  I'd also say it would be a much cheaper venture to take it onto an Opensim grid, since, at least if you don't get a lot of traffic there, you wouldn't be pissing away near as much money and, in some grids, little to no money at all.

But you know, I do agree that concepts and perceptions change over time.  The things that interest me about RP have matured a bit, and I'm not looking for an RP sim what desires to be 'hard core' or 'hard and nasty'.  There's plenty of sex sims out there for that, and even many of them have pretty slow traffic at times.  Maybe sex doesn't always sell, or maybe people want more out of their SL experience than just sex.  The same could be said about meter battles, which are becoming less compatible with certain changes that have happened with the way direction and jumping function.  For some reason, SL seems to be wanting to go away from the more FPS style and experiments with the click and move aspect.

But anyways, I digress. What's important is that common ground gets established between owner and players.  If this doesn't happen, there's really little point to investing in Midian.