Consistent Message: SL is/isn't a game

might actually be benificial for the Lindens to create an unlockable forum section for battles - so they dont have to enter every possible thread in the general forum.

Is that a RL pic of you Kris?

yus. wanted to show off mah funkeh hat

Second Life IS a pie, clearly.

A pixellated tasty pumpkin pie.

That's WHAT IT IS, by gum, and I won't have anyone tell me differently.

Panda's not around today but I'm glad to see everyone is picking up the slack.

*waves*

Wrestling motif-how fun.

Well I love you all in my compassionate buddhist sort of way. But I have to agree with Coco on this. Sorry. But I find her position consistent and not repetitive, and really no worse than the knee-jerk critiques of divisiveness and inciting disharmony. Again it looks to me like there are accpetable points of view, and points of view that will bring the shout down. Call SL a tool and you will be exalted by the mercenaries, call it a game and you will be self styled martyr seeking attention. And presumably all the negative personal attacks you could ever hope for.

Perhaps a deeper understanding of the term game would be beneficial, but whats the point, I'd just be told I was wrong and put on the slate to be the next prokofy. Because really to me, no matter how tiresome one person is in stating their opinion, its less tiresome than thirty people attacking them.

SL is a game, not a tool. I am wise, intelligent, creative, thoughtful, and sometimes well ammnered and considerate. But I am right on this, you are wrong. Period. End of discussion. Don't bother correcting me, because any response which contravenes my logic in SL being a game will simply be ignored as the Whinggin of the teki-wikiati FIC. Rememebr that everyone is entitled to my opinion. Thank you for playing, come again.

Yeah there is humor in this somewhere. So if you think its a personal attack, you are wrong about that too. Refer to the above paragraph for further instruction.

I second this, and further, in re: to your post quoting my post....

All of the games you mentioned? There were some sort of goal within them. In There, you figured out what you wanted to do, but There.com AWARDED a status to you for doing it. If I wanted to buggy race day in and day out, eventually I would become a high status buggy racer. If I wanted to teach classes, eventually my profile would reflect a high status of teaching classes. Each level awarded you something free from the game. There was a reward system in place.

Second Life does not have a reward system in place, other than a weekly allowance for getting people to rate you. Any rewards you get, come solely from you, NOT from Linden Labs.

This is the core difference. This is what allows them to get away with saying it isn't a game.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the opinion in this case. Anyone can consider it a game, they can consider it an intarweb chat thingamajiggy, they can consider it TSO 2, and declare that proudly. I understand why people don't want SL pigeonholed as a game - to do so is a disservice to what SL is, and can affect its growth and success.

It is easy to pretend that is what this is about, but it's not - it is about the relentless drumbeat of a particular theme. People often give lipservice to keeping things about the issues - well if it is about the issues, then keep the personal out of it - including regaling the forum once again with how personally wronged someone has been for the umpteenth fucking time.

Another core difference is in addition to a reward systems, games have content provided by the game creator that is the game itself. SL has none of that - it is up to the users to provide the content.

And to think you once suggested a swear word filter for the forums. You have come a long way.

Katja, without getting into the question of what constitutes rewards in this game (dwell, rl money, leader boards, ad infinitum), let me just reiterate that I have no problem with SL calling it a game or not calling it a game.

They do, however, avail themselves of all game-like entities, including gaming web sites, and gaming articles in the media.

Given this, they are in no position to correct their members for calling it a game, and neither are we.

Cristiano, you don't get to write my posts. You can write your own posts. These forums don't exist for either (a) your critique of my writing style or (b) you to teach me how to write. You don't get to tell me that I can't use examples, or mention any experience I have had.

Moreover, there is no rule against citing something that happened to oneself as an example. In fact, it should have long since proved illustrative to those who would just rather not HEAR it.

There is, however, a rule against personal attacks.

coco

Ok here it is, from Webster, because there is a very dangerous assumption that games have to look like world of warcraft, or they are tools.

So we have Game:

An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime.


I think SL more than qualifies as a game under this definition. As I have said all along it comeptes for entertainment dollars and not tax write-offs as a business expense.

Also, being more technical, and more in line with what I think the type of game SL is, is this, also from Webster:

Mathematics A model of a competitive situation that identifies interested parties and stipulates rules governing all aspects of the competition, used in game theory to determine the optimal course of action for an interested party.

Thus say what you will about what can be done with SL, what you can accomplish. It is astill a game. And it is a competitive situation without the leader boards, as any capitalist will tell you-a free market thrives on competition. SL is a pretty sophisticated game, and a pretty broad one in that the rules and condiotns of play are integrated into the background. But it is a game, on more than one level. It haas the potential to be a tool, but its not there yet. And nobody should be chastised for referring to it as a game.

Considering whether this "doesn't have a point, goals, rewards" thing might reflect a competitve American viewpoint in defining game, I just checked webster, too, Jake.

I got game.

<<An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime>>

I was afraid someone would resort to dictionary definitions. According to that, fox-hunting is a game. Knitting is a game. Watching a stand-up comedian is a game. Come to that, masturbating is a game.

There are other definitions in webster, but they pertain to sporting events and usage. My point is that something does not have to be WoW to be a game. And frankly dictionary defintion are relevant. If we are going to argue terms in the english language, then we should have a basis upon which to argue.

I do not that semantic arguments dominate the forums, as to writing style critiques and attacts on spelling. The relevant discussion is not what sl is, but what can and should be done with it.

Jake,

A game has a goal.

My saying that there is a point where you just let stuff go is not a personal attack. I know it is in your limited scope of what consistutes a personal attack, but that does not change it. I am not critiquing your writing style - I was agreeing with the sentiment that you trot out what has been done to you in these forums and SL so often that it is tiring. That is an opinion. You can choose to ignore it, but I am damn well going to express it. i know you like to limit speech, but it is still an opinion.

You can choose to ignore it, just don't feign surprise when it comes back to you. You can use all the personal examples you want, I could care less. The reason it has LONG since proved illustrative is because you have said the same things over and over again. Famliarity breeds contempt.

"The word ‘chicken’ denotes chickens and ‘ostrich’ denotes ostriches. We would not be better or worse off if ‘chicken’ denoted ostriches and ‘ostrich’ denoted chickens; however, we would be worse off if half of us used the pair of words the first way and half the second, or if all of us randomized between them to refer to flightless birds generally." Don Ross

I submit that SL is an Emu.

"Why is it that we are sure a particular activity -- Olympic target shooting -- is a game while a similar activity -- military sharp shooting -- is not? Wittgenstein's explanation is tied up with an important analogy. How do we recognize that two people we know are related to one another? We may see similar height, weight, eye color, hair, nose, mouth, patterns of speech, social or political views, mannerisms, body structure, last names, etc. If we see enough matches we say we've noticed a family resemblance. It is perhaps important to note that this is not always a conscious process -- generally we don't catalog various similarities until we reach a certain threshold, we just intuitively see the resemblances. Wittgenstein suggests that the same may be true of language. Perhaps we are all familiar (i.e. socially) with enough things which are games, and enough things which are not games that we can instantly categorize new activities intuitively."

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Philosophical_Investigations#Language_games_and_the_word_.22game.22

Well, I guess SL is an Ostrich, then.

The last thing I do is feign surprise when the same names pop in over and over to find whatever they can in my posts to launch yet another personal attack.

I have some opinions of these people myself, but were I to mention them here, I would be breaking the TOS, as these people have repeatedly. And even if it weren't breaking the TOS, I still wouldn't do it.

coco

P.S. Telling everyone on the forums that some has a persecution complex and is a professional victim - and saying so over and over - IS a personal attack.

And I can do more than chose to ignore it. I can report it.

Again, I agree with Enabran here. Do you want a cookie? Congratulations that you can report something, Duh, any of us can, so just do it and don't announce it. Where did I say you are a professional victim? You directed something at me - I did not attack you personally. Report away if it pleases you - I don't waste the forum administrators' time on such petty bullshit.

The potential for being a platform or tool certainly exists and it will be more than a game when LL releases it as such. But we're still at the point where one has to consider how the introduction of voice chat would impact men roleplaying women in the game, not in the platform.