This Is A Very Sad Day fo SL

Well:

Now that the "heat" will soon be coming off of Linden Labs as a result of the impending Forum closures, the quality of gameplay in SL is likely to decline even further.

Having been a hard-core gamer for many years, I have witnessed over and over again major improvements in on-line games come only as a result of the issues raised by the outcry of the gaming community on the general forum of the developer's website. The step that LL has annouced today, is prior to today, unheard of in the gaming world.

In additon, the steps announced by Linden Labs today ignores what any experienced gamer will tell you is one of the basic functions of the game site forum: namely an outlet to vent frustrations with the current state of the game. Where and how will these frustrations be expressed now? Within the game? By leaving the game and thereby weakening the player base?

Whether or not you perceive it as such, depriving the gaming community of its collective voice is an affront to every resident of SL. We should all be incensed.

This is a sad day for the community and for the prospects of the game.

[In RL I have been the comic/jester/clown all my life so I have nothing against humor. But I view this as a very serious development and ask that you take your jokes to another thread.]

/signed

The forums are going to close? OMG After i auctally start trying for 1000 posts?

Where are the forums moving to?

They aren't moving... they're shutting down completely, bit by bit. LL seems to think that third party website forums can take their place. I think it sounds more like LL can tell the forums have gotten way out of hand, and they don't want to bother to do the work to remake them.

As far as the above, I agree completely. Third party forums are fine, but there needs to be an official forum... closing them down says to me that they don't want to hear our complaints or feedback anymore, they want us to just shut up and go away.

I'd like to see some of them kept... the classifieds, for one, because the New Products forum is still the best way for a lot of smaller, less known designers to get attention for their products. Without it, they'll all have to just buy classifieds in world (which, from my experience, are hit or miss in terms of usefulness) or hope to be found via search. Most likely, a lot of products will get overlooked, and people will just check the big names every week or so to see if anything's new. It's taking a useful resource away from designers, and it sucks.

I'd like to see some sort of announcement forum kept, as well. If we didn't have a place to discuss in world issues, the recent multi-page discussion about Starax's whereabouts could not have taken place, and a lot of people wouldn't know about it, or wouldn't have been able to share memories or vent feelings.

This is a bad thing to do, so close on the heels of open registration. If LL is trying to piss off as many residents as possible, they're certainly on the right track.

Absolutely not signed.

This forum has very little to do with "game play" at all. After monitoring New Posts here for about a month now, I'd say that very few residents rely on this for any sort of information at all.

I am sad to see Land Management going away in the first cut, that was a very useful area that accomplished a real task.

I do/did. ahh well...
hopefully they come up with another SL answers type system.
maybe limit it to 1 question per person per month(some people abuse it badly)

The removal of a forum is not unprecedented.

Sony and Verant shut down the official EverQuest forum in 2000. Their forum had become much like what Second Life's has, a pit of trolling and vehemence. Any user looking for more information about the game before starting EverQuest would have a cesspool of false information, negativity, and harassment shoved in their faces before they could ever experience what the program had to offer.

Closing the forum was the best thing that ever happened to that community. The troublemakers had their soapbox pulled out from under them. User managed communities on the web and IRC sprung up to service legitimate community building activities. The development team was able to get feedback by becoming a part of those third party communities. The pressure of official response on a company run system was removed and the development team became much more open and accessible.

This may be a sad day for people who view Second Life as a game, but it is a bright new sunrise for those of us that see it as a platform. Removing the forum is a step toward putting Linden Lab in its proper role, as a hosting provider. I'm glad they have finally realized that it is not their job to build the community, but to provide a 3D virtual space for users to do it themselves. Their time and resources can be spent on projects that increase the capabilities of the platform, instead of babysitting.

Are you(s) finally going to come out from behind the curtain? What's the point of hiding behind the Editorial facade now? An alt by any other name is still an alt.

\


YOU SAY: "Sony and Verant shut down the official EverQuest forum in 2000."


For how long did that shut down last???/ There certaintly exists an official Sony Everquest Forum today. If the shutdown was such a success as you describe, why did Sony reopen it????



.

Obviously your monitoring didn't include paying attention as it is "Land and the Economy" that is being cut in the first round. "Land Management" isn't even referenced in the blog.

Many people have come here for help, fun, new information, and I've seen the results in-world first hand.

/not signed.

I work in a medical school. I don't need the forums. I can watch people hyperventillate here anyday of the week.

An invalid comparison, contradicted by your comments below. EverQuest was a structured game, with specific interaction and flow characteristics that obligated these companies to maintain a pattern of development and order. By contrast, Second Life is an open-ended virtual world that depends on a community of social and commercial entrepreneurs, developers, service-providers, and consumers - with each resident fulfilling more than one of these roles. It's far more complex, and requires diligence, tolerance, and trust on the part of the parent company - and much more subtlety to control. LL's extreme reactions to control issues - a hands-off technical approach to commercial, social, and political problems, followed by a fairly abrupt EQ-type turnabout - indicates their initial failures in understanding, concept, and nerve.



Again, your example is irrelevant, for the reason explained above. "Troublemakers" and "soapboxes" are essential parts of any healthy, viable, long-term human community. Think harder about what a community is. LL must do the same.

(And are you really implying that the EQ model is a good one, given subsequent events involving EQ2, the early WoW model, and the problems WoW/Blizz have been having lately?)



You're making the same mistake LL made, and is now tacitly admitting. This isn't a retreat into some nostalgic and misguided view of Second Life's potential as a developer's platform on which some sort of utopian-libertarian technical community can be superimposed by users. This is an attempt to eliminate the problem of diverse and contentious community and creative development by structuring Second Life according to company prerogatives - in effect, to turn it into more of a game.

Still, it's interesting to read alternative Linden points of view - yours and the blog's.

Apparently they reopened them in 2004. I was not aware of that, as I haven't used EverQuest since 2003.

Shutting down their forum opened the gates to serious third party solutions. Their opening of a new forum four years later certainly does not detract from the basic idea. Community building should be the responsibility of the users, not the hosting company.

SL is a game. Until we get rid of mickey mouse last names and monopoly money and allow players to meaningfully enforce intellectual property rights and contract..SL will remain a game.

Very well written link about alts in your profile.

My belief is that alts are useless clutter and should be dis-allowed. Many of their uses are laudable, however the vast majority of alts serve no positive purpose whatsoever.

You want to RP? Hang a text tag over your head.

/end thread jack

I like these points. Yes, SL has always been a platform first and foremost. It's a platform where we are able to build anything, including games.

http://secondlife.com/developers/

My main problem with seeing the forums go is the ability of the community to communicate with LL regarding new features and bugs.

I found the forums most informative, but I agree also that newbies are going to see that cesspool you described. I'm no newbie to forums so I know my way around to find the things I need. Most newbies are not as lucky.

Decentralization is an obvious and necessary step in the development of the SL platform but I still feel the forum decentralization is coming too early. That is unless they can fix some of the feature and function bugs and reduce the lag a little bit before the month is over.

@History Rust

Alts serve a very important purpose to scripters and businessmen: testing stores, scripts, and permissions without involving a second person who might later wind up stealing stuff. I have an alt, and that's his only function.

Wholeheartedly signed. I see this as nothing more than a move on LL's part to hide the outcry at how immensely bug riden and unstalbe SL is becoming. Kinda hard to sell new accounts when people can read what crap they are geting into.

I'm going to miss the classifieds section. That was the best way to announce new products and now its going to more difficult lesser known content creators.

/signed

Ok now im fucking leaving SL... This is about the ONLY communication i have.

Me too.

/Signed.

/signed


really, the total removal of forums strikes me as completley asinine..
given the nature of sl. given the community, the help networks.. it's a huge loss, imo.

/annoyed she just bought a chunk of land and upgraded tier about 20 min before learning about this.

LOL
Can I use this as my signature?

Actually, moving the forums to 3rd party sites is kinda like the USA moving their prisons to other countries. That way they don't have to follow the TOS (USA: constitution) and don't have to get any flack when the 3rd parties start banning people they don't agree with. Believe me, I'm actually someone in that position of being previosly banned (not totally undeserved, but both sides were at fault and those with the most administrator powers and Linden influence ended up winning). The Lindens hang out at those 3rd party locations, and your only ability to hang out with them to chat about developments in SL is to hang out in those areas where Lindens hang out. Ever tried talking something technical to a Linden inworld? They are all Liaisons, not the Developers.

Frankly, I'd like to see "forums" inworld. Forget outworld communications. SL is supposed to be the 3D internet or the metaverse, no? And forget about censorship. If people want to duke it out inworld, say something, let them do it. The only time that you need to step in and do any kind of adminstration is when somebody is harassing somebody directly so that they can't continue using the world.

You may recall (or you might not, but I do) when I changed my mind and decided you were right, after all, that the forums should be closed, this was about something over a year ago, when I realized that no forum reform would ever be forthcoming.

If nothing else - I am EXTREMELY grateful that the forums will no longer be a vehicle to repress and punish individuals, by suspending or banning them arbitrarily. (Though I do predict more in-game repression as a result.)

But as for your platform ideas, I say to hell with the platform. You know what the platform means? To me it means American Apparel, Nissan, Harvard, etc. And more and more and more of it. Maybe if they get a virtual scrapbooking store, I might come in and visit it for a minute or two.

But it bodes very ill for anyone actually living a SECOND LIFE in Second Life. (Doubtless time for a new name. AND motto.)

Phillip said not long ago that he made SL fun in the beginning, on purpose, to get the numbers up, but that those days were over. Well, the opposite of fun is - no fun.

And as for this "Your World, Your Imagination" business, forget it. In fact, you could forget that when GOM was Gom'ed.

Bright new sunrise, indeed. I never have been fond of places that are full of nothing but ad pages people buy and take out and then forget.

IF you are Macy's or Georgia State University or the American Heart Association, and have deep pockets, and wish a "cool" 3-D presence in a world you don't actually intend to be in much at ALL, then the platform is for you.

The coming of the platform could quite literally be the end of the world, in the sense of a world we live in for our Second Life.

coco

That's Just dispicable. Not only general players use this forum to chat, but businesses use it to advertise, sell land, look for workers, look for Jobs, Exchange hints and tips and much more!

There's also the people like me who can't be in-game all the time and certainly don't have the time to socialise while in-game, so I spend all of my time here while waiting for the other PC that SL works on.

They cannot do this to us. Where else am I going to go when not in-game? Habbo Hotel? Gaia? How about no.

/signed