Isis Ophelia recently organized « Morning Coffee » for newcomers OpenSim Community. Lokazionel propose you to discover her background and motivations.
Who are you in RL?
« I was born and raised in Central America. Since a long time I am living in Germany. I worked many years for a non profit organization as a Director of a Treatment Center for austistic children and teens. »
Why are you interested in virtual worlds ?
« Mainly I am interested in the Opensim Community. I do not play computer games or internet games. Never did. The Hypergrid Community is interesting for me, because it offers 100s of different ways to engage. As many others Second Life was my first virtual experience. In there I was mainly a creator and merchant selling what I created. And it gave me for over 1 year a good feeling to see people liked what I created and to read their messages saying so. Also was a good way to earn money. I had worked many years full time as volunteer with no income. So earning money for my work was a new experience that gave me a positive feeling. But after 2 years I felt burned out. I realized that I was working 10-12 hours daily. Considering what I was earning made it to a 6-8 usd per hour job. »
So you stopped…
« Yes ! I took a break from SL and the virtuality of 2 years. It was a good decision. After I had ended a freelancer work in RL I returned to Second Life, but it had lost the magic for me. I looked for alternatives and found the opensim closed worlds Inworldz and Avination. Again as a creator and merchant. I still could not find my motivation to create new products. Thoug it was less stress because the land costs were much lower. I opened stores in 5 other virtual worlds. But doing the maths I saw that the sales brought me just 50% of my costs and decided to close all stores to stop paying for regions in all those grids. I displayed some products in the Kitely Marketplace and stopped creating items to sell them. There I found Digiworldz and the Hypergrid. And a new time began… »
And now, what do you do in virtual world ?
« I read in April 2015 about a very new grid called Digiworldz and that this grid is Hypergrid enable. I had always had accounts in closed grids, so an account in Digiworldz was the start point to begin to travel the Hypergrid and to find out what is it all about. It was difficult at the begin to understand what the Hypergrid is, which grids are around, how to find them, etc. But I enjoy it a lot to hyperteleport to explore so many different grids. Specially to attend the many events. Since a while, I had the idea to build a Welcome Center for new people coming for the first time to the Opensim Community. Then Tom Frost created the G+ Community called Hypergrid Welcome Center. His group gave me the impulse and motivation to set up such HG Welcome Center inworld. In RL my work had always been to develop and organize projects. This is what I am doing now with the HG Welcome Center. And finally, I am slowly starting to think about making new outfits, create new avatars etc. For the hypergrid newcomers.»
So you have a sim Hypergrid enable, Arcana…
« Yes, I rented a simulator from Dreamland. Arcana is grid independent, very small (can host a maximum of 3 regions) and has no public registrations. It is in no way a competitor for existing grids. This way Arcana can be open for everyone. No matter in which grid newcomers enter the Hypergrid, they can come or be sent to Arcana to learn about the Hypergrid. »
What is the purpose of Morning Coffee ?
« After 10 months in the Hypergrid I want to say that for me, if I would have moved only in the Hypergrid I would have not found as many contacts and would have not met so many friendly, helpful, interesting and very talented people as I have using both: the Hypergrid G+ Communities and the inworld Hypergrid. If a newcomer is in the Hypergrid looking for friends and social contacts, my advice would be to seek for the contact in both platforms. Visiting social events and being part of activities is another way. Using only the Hypergrid and visiting the many grids and regions will not help to find social groups. Mostly are regions I have visited empty and seldom found someone to sit and chat… «So, the idea with the "Mornings Coffee" Hangouts is to build a social group to meet and chat about this and that. And at the same time a regular weekday and time, when newcomers can come to Arcana and know there will be some people there, who they can meet and ask questions. Even, if no one attends the Hangouts, it makes sure that newcomers find me to ask for help on Tuesdays and Sundays from 1-3am pst and from 8-10am pst. I will give the Mornings Coffee a go until the end of March to find out, if the HG community has interest on such activity. If not, end of March, I will reduce the times to be from 6-8am pst once a week on Sundays. »
