Really. Where are all the Merfolk? What are you doing?

Why do I always find the abundance of mer-themed locations and shops  on the grid empty?

Why is almost every group I find dead or inactive (save for the occasional announcement)?

You’re clearly out there. What are you doing?

It’s getting frustrating being a mermaid in SL. Mermaids are social creatures too. As fun as it is to swim and explore new places, I do it with the hope that other seafolk will find and enjoy those LMs, and perhaps even share that enjoyment with me, and around that, community will form. There is no mermaid community in SL. Maybe there are pockets among friends, but nothing unified.

I used to think that one never found many mers around SL because there wasn’t enough to do as a mer. Then I watched Solan Nightfire open Aquaria, who spent tireless hours creating creative events and activities for merfolk only, only to see it fizzle out after about a year. Aquaria was teeming with merfolk in its early days, but then they disappeared. Where did they go? There was always plenty to do. Aquaria is closing now mainly as a victim of the land-upheavals, but also due to a lack of interest and willingness to participate in the community.

Other commitments have kept me away from my exploits in Second Life in the past months (though I do plenty of swimming in my FL, just sans fins . . . /me sighs), but when I do rez in, I get bored fast unless I’m exploring a new place. When I do come on, I usually send out a message to the three big mermaid groups (MERGE, Mystic Mermaids, and SL Mermaid Community) inviting others to come swim with me. Despite lots of names being on the chat window, I’ve rarely had more than one or two replies.

So, what are you all doing? Really? I want to know. Do you feel my frustrations? Do you think I’m out of touch being only a casual SL user? What am I missing? Where’s the party at? Please leave a comment.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with The Mermaid Problem, and for all its liberties of imagination, Second Life does present us sea-folk with a few “mermaid problems” of our own (one of which being The Problem proper, but we’ll discuss that another time). Any new mermaid will quickly observe that not many of SL’s waterways are merfolk friendly, and sometimes you want to swim near the surface of the water rather than comb the bottom of a sim. Obviously, the only way to do this is by flying (Dear Linden Lab: Why can’t there be an option for swimming? You’ve got animation states for it—animation states which I’ve never seen, because we can’t swim, mind you). But flying is exactly what one does, right out of the water on any extended stretch of swimming. Thus, the process of swimming is constant tedium; move, adjust depth (altitude), repeat.

To solve this SLMP™ (Second Life Mermaid Problem™), one needs to employ the use of a Swim Assist. The idea of the swim assist is simple: keep the mermaid in the water. The implementation itself is a bit trickier, though. In this article I’ll explain a few of the commercial solutions out there, and let you make the choice of which is best for you.

Erluen Twin’s SwimGem HUD • L$XXX

One of the older, and first swim assists by Erluen Twin, this keeps you in the water while you’re flying. You can control the depth at which you swim/float via the HUD. If you stop flying with it turned on, things will get a little wacky.

• Pros: Minor height adjustments, activation and deactivation very easy
• Cons: HUD is large, ugly, and cumbersome
• Purchase SLURL: Sirens MerMall

Mer Betta Floater Device • L$250

This is actually a neat little script that you can place inside any mertail, most likely in the tailfin. Much like SwimGem, it keeps you near the surface, and you have to be flying in order for it to work correctly. Touch the prim it’s in to turn it on and off. Opal Lei’s fin-a-licious Mer Betta tails come with this built-in, but I believe you’ll need to purchase the floater separately to add it to other tails.

• Pros: Light-Weight and Low-Lag
• Cons: Not Height-Adjustable
• Purchase SLURL: Mer Betta Mainstore

Mer-Float 1.0 • L$150

Imzadi Giles’ Impulse Designs’ Mer-Float is the newest assist on the marker and takes a different approach than the previously mentioned assists: It works by creating an invisible prim beneath the avatar. When you move, the prim goes with you. Interestingly, this only works when you are walking, and not flying, but it does work quite well. I have suspicion that this could create a lot of lag, too, but things seemed to work smoothly when a friend and I tested it out. The floater is configured using a HUD, which is nice-enough looking for me to tolerate, but still a bit large for something you really only need to set once.

• Pros: Flight not required (so you can see your AO’s regular ‘walking’ and ‘standing’ animations); very precise height adjustment
• Cons: Doesn’t work in no-build areas, setup does require basic building knowledge
• Purchase SLURL: Sirens MerMall

Is there a “one true” Swim Assist to solve this Mermaid Problem? It’s really a flavor of what works best for you. Each solution gains something, but sacrifices something too. The Mer Betta HUD is great for minimalists, but you can’t adjust your swim height. SwimGen allows you to do this, but the adjustments are minor, and you have a large, unnecessary HUD. Mer-Float allows you to adjust, but relies on creating prims beneath you so that it will only work in sims with building allowed. Still, I applaud all of these creators for their excellent work and for the diversity of solutions to this SLMP.

Of course, the best solution would need to come from Linden Lab in the software itself, to create a true “Swimming” avatar state, much like flying. I’ll be looking into adding a feature request to Second Life JIRA issue tracker, or, if someone already has, please let me know!

EDIT 7/8/08: The creator of Mer-Float should be credited as Impulse Designs