Complaints About Dwell/Money Chairs

It's a little like Schrodinger's cat -- maybe it's there, maybe it isn't.

I hear what you're saying. I guess the perceptions are better illustrated as:

- Assuming that life is about getting back up off the ground every single time, hell with the pain

- Assuming that no matter what, you'll always end up on the ground, so there's no use talking about getting up each time.

Without making the effort to get your product polished and out there and of interest, there is no success at all. It's not all one side or the other though, there's a mix of both. Look at the Tinies success, that happened because it was something original and well made but also because people got enthused about it and talked about it. I've seen a similar thing with my skates, but at the end of the day, you can only be successful if you're offering something that people want. Success isn't a given but you can go a long way to giving yourself a fair shot at achieving it.



Sorry, that was just my general sigh. I felt you'd twisted Enebran's words and were finding meaning that wasn't there and I kind of just splurged my thoughts at the end of that post.

There seems to be this fine moral line over which product creators musn't cross before they're labelled rampant capitalists, and pilloried as such. I thought I knew where that line was, but I'm not so sure now. People seem to be expecting an awful lot from the product creators on this thread. Some of the comments have made me feel pretty unhappy for the first time ever about bothering to put the effort in to make things.

And as for Lynn's comments, she basically just seems to have a downer on anybody that makes products for a profit and will happily discount what they do as not being content because of that. The whole content creator, not a content creator thing is probably the most confusing, irrational and down right strange thing I've heard lately. Still, after thinking about it all day, I cannot see how on earth a product is not content. In fact my brain hurts from trying to twist it around in some way that actually makes me see what she means. But nope, my mental agility has failed me on this I'm afraid.

Oh mans... success and failure? SL is a game to a TON people. Succes and failure don't even enter the equation. People want to be entertained. Making and selling content is loads of fun to me and you obviously. But the bottom line is that LL will continue to lose people if it isn't a tad more interesting to the thousands of people who never want to make a thing. I'm not even talking about money now. I'm talking about interest. Until LL comes up with a platform that appeals to the masses, it will never be more than a cult game inhabited by people like us.

Enabram, I completely understand that you don't care. Those people can take a hike. Are you willing to wave bye bye to SL as well? Because if it's not interesting to more that creative types like us, we can kiss it goodbye.

That would be dependant on if there is a hottie on the ground next to me , perhaps I wouldn't want to get up anyway

Oh, dude, that's the time when you need to get up one way or another!

</double_entendre>

Question though on this, Can you connsider being entertained pretty well for an evening a sucess? With that in mind, so not being entertained the whole evening could constitute a failure? I can see what he is saying to the extent, success and failure have different meaning to different people. Heck, I consider being logged into SL for an entire evening with no lag a success. If you peceive success = money than his view could be right. By definition, success does not = lots of cash, it's primary definition is the acheivment of something that is desired or planned. So if you desire to be entertained and are entertained then you were successful.

OMG! I totally didn't see myself setitng this one up!


** dashes off to find the local ginseng supplier **

I really don't agree. SL can't be everything to everyone. It can only be what it is: A way for people to make a 3D representation of whatever they're willing to create. As it grows, more ecosystems will develop to engage people who only want to use it casually. But I don't know what to tell you about all this fatalism about how Second Life is going to die because Uncle Jimmie can't log and be SLjesus in the first five minutes. SL is a means to an end. It's not capable of being an end in itself.

What does success have to do with anything? I can see that it's priority number one for Enabram and probably othere. His game is about being a successful business man in Second Life. Fine. That's great.


What about everyone else who logs in hoping for something else? Those people are bored silly, sitting in money chairs. You know why? Because it's completely boring to them. And then they split.

Okay. So this is exactly where we don't see eye to eye, because I think it can and could be more. (Just don't ask me how)



I'm really hoping you're right. And I wish that this was starting to happen now. Tringo was a start. Although it's not something that appealed to me in the least, lots of residents seem to love it. Beyond that, I have no clue.

Actually quite a lot. I get a lot of satisfaction out of having a successful product, not because it rakes the money in (because it doesn't at the prices I sell at, with an island to pay for and stuff) but because it gives me satisfaction after putting the work in. And I enjoy building. In fact the ice skates are probably the first time I'll make more in a month than I spend in SL and, until this thread, I was actually feeling quite good about that. I've made something easily accessible through their price and they're fun and people and buying lots of them and getting enjoyment from them. For some reason now I feel like others consider me a rampant capitalist and, at least one very vocal person, not really creating something with much worth.

Other people get a sense of success by winning at Tringo. Others on winning a show and tell. Others by managing to get their first prims to come together to look like a house. Still others get their hit of success by getting newbs to come and sit in their camping chairs and make them top of the popular places list and get mucho dwell. It would be pretty boring, both in RL and SL, if we never got to have the satisfaction of feeling a success that was important to us.

I know Moopf, me too.. I'm talking about people who don't care one whit about being successful. Folks who just want to chill and be entertained.


Guys... not everyone is like us.

Do you know why you don't know, Ingrid? Because none of us can, except broadly.

I'm going to pull a bunch of stuff out of my ass here, feel free to ignore my prognostications.

Second Life as we know it probably has its days numbered. That's okay -- this is a first step, one of many into the future.

First, the closed, Linden-managed system will be killed. Probably within five years, ten tops. Metaverse-style space will be leased out the way web space is leased currently, though by far fewer vendors. Inventory and asset space will, eventually, be decentralized. You will not use the same application to create content in Second Life as you will to access it or visit different places.

Linden Lab will shift its model to one of software licensing and support. They'll license server software, client software and development software. Client software will be either free or very cheap -- a la web browsers.

In the meantime, businesses will be flocking to SL to establish virtual storefronts, virtual showroom tours, and, you guessed it: lots of entertaining things to do with your friends. Custom versions of the SL client will be re-branded to access only specific servers and use only specified features.

Little guys like me will have increased competition from the likes of large development firms, but we will still have access to success, in much the same way small shareware developers are able to make solid profits even with Microsoft roaming the earth.

The concept of Second Life is too powerful, too useful, ever to be killed. It will change form, Linden Lab may drop the ball, competitors may do it bigger and better, but we're on an elevator just has only just begun its ascent.

Perhaps I worded the question wrong, but the core functions of SL aren't to provide things for residents to do like WoW or EVE Online or the SIMS for that matter. You are right, it is up to the residents of SL to provide things that are engaging and fun to other residents to do. On that same token you can't sit there in your money camping chair hoping that the fun fairy will rezz in front of you to lead you to something fun, you have to find that for yourself, find what is fun for you in SL. That is what the event listings are for, even though they are filled with the latest -ingo type of games. I think the mistake is, coming to SL expecting things to be all in your face ready for you to start your adventure and slay the dragons. That may be the case of MMORPGs like WoW or single player games like Baulder's gate, but it isn't for SL. Just like RL, when you enter SL you need to decide what you want to do instead of a limited list of tradecrafts to chose your path from. I often talk to noobies who I show a thing or 2 to and then they are like, "now what?" I always respond with, "What would you like to do?" 99% of the time I get back "I dunno". You can take a noob to a flying thong dance party but you can't make em dance.

OMG! I am shivering in my spot thinking of the day you will have:
SL provided by AOL....
Not only can you enjoy SL while iming others but you can also check your AOL mail account and get the latest stock quotes.....
I can hear it now, the wonderful sound of an incoming IM as soon as you start rezzing into the world, followed by "You've got mail"

Well... this sounds about right. But in the meantime, it pains me seeing people doing nothing in those chairs. Hopefully they're watching some good porn or a Hallmark movie while they're at it.

Certainly a possibility.

The point to note is that Second Life is a new and incredible channel for interaction, information and content. We're in the middle of building up a critical mass right now that is essential to proving that this is a viable method of extending the internet. This is just the beginning of a much grander experiment. What we have in ten years, based on these early steps, will absolutely have something for everyone -- just as the web does today. But you have to crawl before you walk. Let's get further down the path before we begin predicting death for this concept.

Growing pains, Ingrid.

Growing pains.

LOL thats cute

But you just keep on with them big dreams ok, after all its Christmas time a time for miracles and joy to the world...

Lynn, you're still completely missing my point. I've never said that non-skilled people aren't welcome here. I don't have anything against purely social people, or free accounts, or even money chairs per se. What I have a problem with is the entitlement mentality where people think they have some right to have everything for free or to be provided a means to get L$ that doesn't require anything of them beyond the skills necessary to earn simoleans in TSO, and all that on top of the fact that they didn't have to pay a dime to get in the door. The bottom line is that people who are unwilling to part with USD through paying tier or buying L$ on the exchange do nothing to contribute to SL's financial well-being or long term survival. That's not a value judgement. It's a common sense statement of fact.

Right now not only do content creators create all the content in the world that everyone amuses themselves with, they also pay for the right to do it, and the thanks they get? Well they get bitched at that subsidizing the grid for all the free accounts and providing them with assets and entertainment isn't enough. They get accused of being greedy if they actually try and make enough money to cover their tier, or *gasp* maybe even a little extra. 100% of SL's survival is on the backs of 10% of the population. That's not enough? They owe even more to the other 90%? I think not.

The charitable things I do in SL I do purely because I want to do them, not out of a sense of obligation. I have enough of that in my real life and real job.

Is "cool" code for thank you? Or would you only say thanks if you had been able to make something cool enough to take out of your inventory? Just asking; I've read this paragraph twice and am still unclear on the tone.

This part right here should be framed.

It's not true. They contribute less, but even freeloaders lay eyetracks on the pimpin' duds your customers are buying, and giving your customers an incentive to keep on buyin'.

If it was true, then the Internet would have collapsed under the weight of freeloaders while AOL and MSN and other "content-driven" networks would have thrived.

k. If you get to be John Galt, I want to be Francisco.

It's code for "I think that's a really good thing you did, and I wish I was able to properly thank you by using it for something that contributed back to SL in return.

I believe in paying forward. You can't ever really pay a gift back, all you can do is pay it forward by making a contribution of your own.