RIP Twilight Forest

The news didn't came too surprising, but still leave an odd feeling: Twilight Forest - my old hunting ground - is closing its gates on March 31th.

In its best days Twilight has been a synonym for a thrilling and funny hunting- and bdsm-roleplay place where simply everything could happen.
And this "everything" made it so interesting. Unlike similar hunting sims like "The Village" or the countless stupid Gor-places, there was real equality between the genders: No weaker weapons for women, no bonus hitpoints for males.

It was a place with a decent degree of anarchism - in the best sense of the word. Unlike many role-play-communities with their rules carved in stone, their dresscode and their restraining obligation to stay in a defined character you could do your own thing there. As the only restraints were the ones enforced by RLV.

But sadly there was significant decline of visitors over the recent months, together with a stronger growing bias towards Gor, which I think is the main reason for the closing of Twilight Forest.

Free anarchic hunting doesn't has much in common with the sexist and rule-obeying, closed down world the goreans live in. It is in fact the total opposite. It is just not fun for the average gor male to encounter a woman wearing clothes and not a "prey"-tag and who - to make things worse - capture them even!
Perhaps it is a compensation for 1st Life shortcomings for the Gor males that they envision themselves as grim, fearless and invincible warriors in SL, who only feel safe if a woman is naked and on their knees. Oh and don't get me started about women tribes like the Panthers - they are different than the males, but in no way better.

For me as huntress with tendencies to switch it was surely no fun in dealing with goreans as the usual reaction to a lost fight against me was a total denial of participating in role-play or claims of cheating. Needless to mention that they usually have RLV turned off anyway. Where is the fun in winning if you have nothing to lose?

So it came down to a few Twilight regulars (mainly switches of course) as worthy opponents as the forest became more and more quiet.
I don't know if the end was inevitable. I like to believe it was not. I like to believe the place simply failed to attract the right people, that it could have been a striving community if the circumstances would have been better.

Anyway... the story of Twilight Forest ends soon. Hopefully not the story of hunting-roleplay itself. It can be fun if you feel switchy - believe me ;-)