Say it ain’t so, Torley
by Alphaville Herald on 19/06/05 at 2:57 pm
Looks like our friend Torley Torgelson has punched out of SL, at least for the forseeable future. As dedicated Herald readers will recall, Torley figured in our august pages on several occasions, including here and in the vastly less prestigious but still notable New World Notes here. Not sure if anyone keeps stats on comings and goings of high profile players, but it does seem to me that the burnout rate is very high. There is a kind of fatigue that sets in where even logging on is just plain exhausting. I would say more, but I’m exhausted.
marilyn murphy
Jun 20th, 2005
i dont find anywhere in torleys announced leaving a reason for it. i am curious about that reason. as to older player burnout being something to note. i dont think this environment is producing any more people leaving than any other environment does. people come and people go just like any other site on the internet. although this individual was a cute character and fun, they really were not a beta/old timer. the vast majority of people who stayed from 2003 to 2005 are still with us it appears to me.
marilyn
Prokofy Neva
Jun 20th, 2005
Why? I couldn’t see anything on Torley’s website about her actual reasons for leaving and the link given in the article leads to her helpful comments about ROAM. And I think it would be superficial to describe Torley and her role in SL as merely a “cute character and fun”. She was a much-beloved person that nearly everybody could relate to and felt positive about and who epitomized SL and its creative possibilities. She was not just a “character” in SL with her watermelon colors and launchers, she worked very hard to promote projects like Bedazzled’s “Chinatown”. There are people who become “icons” and dispensers of genuine good feel and cheer everywhere, and Torley was one of those people. To give you an idea of what Torley meant to me, she was the only person in SL I could trust on some subjects — that says everything about Torley, and much about SL, too.
I can’t help thinking that the same processes that led to the expulsion from the forums of the most hated character, Prok, are somehow realated to the voluntary departure of the most beloved character Torley. That is, my banning per se may not have had anything to do with her leaving, but the same factors — punitive policies from a company that once seemed very tolerant and even lenient; a nasty jeering chorus on the forums from the FIC types; incidents in the game like the World Trade Center parody, rampant greed and griefing — even game performance issues. It’s a cruel game, and it becomes increasingly harder to find good moments in it. I don’t know if Torley also reached her own personal threshold of wondering whether the time spent within SL which seems so compelling while you are doing it, is worth the time spent away from RL. I can’t imagine SL without Torley, and that’s why I’m hoping her departure is a kind of silent protest of sorts and that she might come back when the atmosphere changes.
Ardith Mifflin
Jun 20th, 2005
Prok,
Don’t taint Torley’s memory with your bullshit.
marilyn murphy
Jun 20th, 2005
prok, you are right. i stand corrected on the cute character fun comment. of course she was more than that, i was just writing along and said first thing that popped to mind when it was time to describe her character.
apologies to torley.
marilyn
Prokofy Neva
Jun 20th, 2005
Ardith, you let us know all we need to know with a comment like that. Prok
radu
Jun 20th, 2005
Prok, your “it’s always about me” viewpoint is truly stunning.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 20th, 2005
Radu, I didn’t say it’s “all about me”. Can you read? This is what I said again, let me bold it up for you:
I can’t help thinking that the same processes that led to the expulsion from the forums of the most hated character, Prok, are somehow realated to the voluntary departure of the most beloved character Torley. That is, my banning per se may not have had anything to do with her leaving , but the same factors – punitive policies from a company that once seemed very tolerant and even lenient; a nasty jeering chorus on the forums from the FIC types; incidents in the game like the World Trade Center parody, rampant greed and griefing – even game performance issues. It’s a cruel game, and it becomes increasingly harder to find good moments in it. I don’t know if Torley also reached her own personal threshold of wondering whether the time spent within SL which seems so compelling while you are doing it, is worth the time spent away from RL.”
There, can you see that this is not about me? It’s larger? And that’s why you should care about it, and not think it’s about me, because it’s about any of us.
marilyn murphy
Jun 21st, 2005
prok.
what you have done here is injected musings about why torley left that reflect your own disgruntlement with sl. not torleys. you are speculating that it is possible torley left for the reasons u listed. in other words, simply put, u state torley might have left because/ list prokofy complaints.
well, sure she/he might have. why not? since no one appears to know why she/he left anybody can speculate endlessly as to a reason. i can speculate he left cuz he was dissappointed over a pair of pants he bought from a designer he liked and the seams didnt match up and in a fit of despair he left sl. or, that he decided to go to another on line community because he skips to others now and then. or, that he just wanted to not sit in front of his computer for hours and hours every day for a while.
i dont take his departure as some message to anyone. as some protest or some slap at anything at all. frankly if torley had meant for us to read something into his departure, i think he would have told us what it is we should read into it. but then again, of course, you could be right. anyones speculation has as much validity as anyone elses.
marilyn
Prokofy Neva
Jun 21st, 2005
I disagree, Marilyn. I think that if she wanted to make sure there was some one specific reason like the clothing seams being off or the other online communities being a greater draw, she’d have said that. The great thing about Torley is that she was free enough to mean different things to different people.
I said what she meant to me, from the times I encountered with her, interacted, and also read what she wrote on the forums. She epitomized to me that fun and exploring spirit of SL that was playful and colourful and not arrogant. She could be involved in those content-rich projects like Chinatown but not be condescending about some technical expertise in being able to produce it, as so many content queens are. And she often said more by saying less– I remember in one flame war, she just wrote “This thread makes Torley sad : (“. How eloquent! I think that’s exactly what Torley was about — being many things to many people — that’s what it means to be an icon of a place like SL. I’m describing what she means to me. To me I feel a great intuition that there was a great sea change in SL when at one end of the spectrum, if you will, the forum’s most hated poster, Prok, is expelled, and at the other end of the spectrum, Torley, the most beloved, leaves of her own accord. I feel strongly there is a connection between these two simultaneous events. There is no way that one can show the usual tekkie-wiki logical-positivist linear scientific proof connection between these two separate events. But I believe in my heart they are related. I have no idea why Torley left, she didn’t tell me or say much. Sometimes, you say more by saying less, as I mentioned. I know what she’s said to me, silently. Let her say whatever she wants to say to you, too. But don’t step on me in doing so.
Jade Lily
Jun 21st, 2005
Sometimes people do things without reason. It was nothing that the Second Life community or Linden Lab did to cause Torley to leave. One thing is certain, however. Torley is still here, buried among the pixels, and inside every person that was touched by her existence. <3>
nerferder
Jun 21st, 2005
Maybe one should read Torley’s blog before trying to speak for her motives.
She states she had a dream about it, and is following what the dream told her to do, aka, “rippleshock”.
Prok, highjacking Torley’s decision to take a break from SL just makes you look like a bigger fool.
1. Torley states she will be back. So she is not quitting.
2. Torley never states that she is upset at SL or anyone in SL, so playing detective as far as her motivations go is idiotic, especially when she GIVES THE DAMNED MOTIVATION in her blog. There goes Prok again, shooting off his mouth without doing his homework.
3. You got banned from the forums, Torley didn’t. Torley’s hiatus is self-imposed, you on the other hand had fist of god smack you down because you don’t know how to share the sandbox.
4. You haven’t said you were taking a voluntary break from SL, either in game or on the forums.
5. Any parallels you may draw between you and Torley are absolutely laughable. You have nothing in common. Speaking nicely of Torley in public to leverage your position is SAD.
Damned pesky facts getting in the way of another half-baked theory!
Prokofy Neva
Jun 21st, 2005
I had a dream too, that’s all I can say about it now. Sometimes things are connected in ways you cannot imagine in your limited perspective, sometimes things happen on earth or in our earthly cyberspace that could have some higher meaning elsewhere. If you are unable to read, if you are unable to pay attention, then you can’t see what I am saying. It was already said. I’ve read Torley’s blog, and I’ve talked to her. She didn’t have a comment about any of these matters because it’s not what it is about. She said the future is open and she is taking each day at a time. It’s a good thing to feel that the future is open, and when you are inside the enshadowed cave of SL, you can come to feel there is no future except the dark future that it drives one toward.
I’m not hijacking anything, that’s silly. I’m stating my feeling and impressions. I’m sincere in doing so. You’re just interested in unloading another tub of bile and spite on me from whatever place you need to do that from.
No, I don’t share that sandbox. And sandbox indeed is what it is. As one older and wiser player said to me, someone who actually makes rich content and is a greater sandboxer than any of us, he hopes some day the Lindens will realize they need to make a game for grown-ups and not let the game be just the personal sandbox of the early adapters — the ones I call the FIC.
Torley’s and my situation are at opposition ends of the spectrum for all the reasons you stated. What you fail to see that opposite things can sometimes have their own invisible connection in a world you seem unaware of.
Zmajrpw
Jun 3rd, 2007
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