Well SL is kind of like that. I've been in SL since about 2003, Torment's birthday is in 2004. I started out as a child because I had a boyfriend and didn't want anyone to hit on me. I had a lot of fun as a kid back then and my first items I made were kid things that still sell today and actually make me most of my money in SL. Then I got tired of being a kid and grew up. I found Gor and played for a few years in it before moving on to other RP worlds. I did the drow thing for a bit and then tried again to do some Gor stuff. And now we're looking at Vampire and Dark Hunter RPs.
A lot of the problem isn't the world or the builds. It's the people. As we traveled around Gor now after being out of it for nearly a year it's depressing how it nearly has nothing to do with the culture that is outlined in the books any more. You think to yourself when you go to the cities how totally unlike Gor they really are, that is if you have any clue what the culture really is. It like I've noticed most of the RP worlds in SL are full of what we call WOW kids. They simply want to run around hacking and slashing. There's a lot more to role playing than the hack and slash. Finding it and finding those who are interested in it is the difficult part and even more difficult is how to deal with the hack-n-slashers who insist on coming to play with you even though they have no clue how to RP.
My biggest problem with Gor before was all the fighting, now it's all the fighting and the complete disregard as to what the culture actually is. The Drow and fantasy worlds I was in, same thing, who can we fight next. Sit around waiting for someone to pick a fight talking out of character and then jump into the battle screaming about valid hits or not and then stand around afterward talking about it out of character.
I'm not sure what the answer is but some days I really miss the old text role playing where you had to actually paint the picture of what was going on and most people didn't spend all day fighting because there was so much else to do.
Well we're looking at starting an RP world with a casino and strip club to see if that will do anything since there won't be a lot of battle and hopefully more role playing. We could use some doctors and a blood bank for our night crew. heh