Competing Virtual Worlds

We're all moving from SL forums to competing third-party forums. What I want to know is when can we move to a competing third-party virtual world? I personally think LL would welcome the change if their user base migrated.

So what's out there now? What's coming soon? I heard there was a distributed 3D world shown at the convention. Does anyone know anything about it?

I guess Habbo Hotel or Puzzle Pirates might suit your personality much better.

Uh, if you're referring to SLCC, the only "other" program shown was Lindenworld, circa 2001.

As far as competition, there's Activeworlds (ancient technology, abandoned), There (social world, economically a mess, no creative freedom), The Sims Online (a game without any fun parts, on life support), Habbo Hotel (for the kiddies), Sociolotron (if you like rape), Seducity (if you like sex), Furcadia (if you like isometric furries), and... that's about all i can think of right now.

That's what your father said while he was scarfing down his Spaghettios with a toothbrush.

That's what I thought. This kind of customer service and mistreatment of the community could only take place in the presence of a competition vacuum. I for one will welcome with open arms the next big thing and squeal with delight as the competitor's forum welcomes me into its warm embrace.

Well the truth of the matter is there isn't a mmorpg or social game out there with good customer service. Never has been probably never will be. They can take our millions of dollars but damn if they will spend a few hundred thousand taking care of those people paying them millions. Or listen to their desires for that matter. We own it we will do as we please is always the motto.

There is or was Cybertown. Havent checked it out for ages but it is probably the closest you can get.

Theres always furcadia... No WAIT!!... *gunshot*
Nairrator: Don't listen to this rambling wolf.

It all boils down to the bottom line. Money talks and customer service and eventually customers walk.

I used to play Cybertown many, many years ago. Though it seemed as if no one was signed on to actually chat with. Maybe a max of 100 or so people in the entire world.

True in a sense but really enough suck up to them or plain just ride with the flow and don't complain that there is no lube that these companys never have to care and they know it.

Although, i i'm against the original OP's motivation for posting. Here's another:

Blaxxun

More like Activeworldsl; uses user based content, but with approval, separate servers/shards and allows teens.

The only one I know of close to Second Life is Cybertown, the Blaxxun virtual world, although I don't know whether it's still going.

However, when I was there (over three years ago) it was a nightmare fascist state. Second Life seems to be heading in that direction, so if you want to see how things could be, give Cybertown a try.

You might find it interesting, because it has resident-run government and security forces, and is the reason I have always opposed self-government in Cybertown.

Dunno about Blaxxun. The avatars look a bit naff. However I like this idea: http://tinyurl.com/m8k8y

And this type of idea for offline building: http://tinyurl.com/qtqbv

How about LL taking this kind of approach for 3-rd party hosted sims?: http://tinyurl.com/qrw6x

Yep, comeptition *IS* good. It keeps people on their toes and helps products get developed in response to customer needs and such like. The only downside is that they seem to hit you up for cash at every turn. US$30 just to upload your own avatar? Hmmm... even if alot of people in SL spend that amount or more on their own av it's done after they get in the door.

Ok - now THAT was funny

Why dont you perhaps make your own?

Imagine the fun you could have Uma! Competitions to see who could throw their toys out of the pram fastest, maybe events like Flaming Thread Destruction Derby.

All fun and games.

There is also Moove which is allllllmost good.

I don't know any other good SL alternatives where you are not always limited to a human(can also be a robot, alien, whatever) but I guess this opensource metaverse project I ran across may be a good one for me but it's not quite active and might become vaporware.

However, feature wise especially for avatar, nothing really beats secondlife because you don't always have to be a human avatar.

The Croquet Project is available to anyone, is open source, and you can host it yourself. I'm unaware of any current "worlds" though.

Croquet sounds deeply interesting to me... unfortunately it wasn't quite as cool to actually run. Promising though.

Hehe

I will too, but I also know from experience that a year into it, we will be facing the exact same issues with corporate management vs customer service. I haven't had an online experience yet that didn't go through it.

Fascinating. What is it about these games that leads to such poor customer service?

They do not think of themselves as customer service organizations, they think of themselves as developers/game makers.

Therin lies the rub.

hmmm....