Observations about SL..

To me, the bigger the world gets, the easier it is to get ideas from it. Being creative is just being able to recombine what you know into something new. If you know more varied stuff (bigger world), you can potentially combine what you know in more exciting ways.

I haven't stopped being creative; I have a long list of projects that I want to do that have never been done in SL before.

Carpe diem and all that.

LF

If one is going to draw from a pool of collective wisdom, one's own experiences should be added to it -- and the resulting product passed around like a joint so the experience can be further shared. Or something like that. Take what you've learned from those who have come before you, in a "We stand on the shoulders of giants" Newtonesque way... and add your own.

I have this problem a lot in techno music. There's something I called "clonetrancers", where fundamentally it's the same song repeated 100 times by 100 different artists -- yet one is led to believe they were all made by the same producer because they sound so damn similar. This strikes me as vapid and Borgish. Therefore, if I'm influenced by other artists -- and I am -- I'm going to throw my ingredients from the mix, as well as subtract what I did not relate to.

There will always be "clonetrancers". But you don't have to be one.

"Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless." -Bruce Lee (obviously, this relies on personal truths... you know the whole "one man's junk is another alien's treasure" thing)

1.
everyday i see amazing new buildings, animations, clothing, attachments, vehicles etc etc. of course to see this stuff i go to new places, talk to new people.

2.
i think people who stop making cool and amazing thing simply because they are pissed of because people reverse engineer their work are a> forgetting why they did it in the first place (fun, not $$), and b> depriving the community of thier phenomenal talent.

i think it's very sad for the community that kris doesn't make stuff anymore. i was blown away by her dance machine. yes people copied the idea but that's not the point. kris will always be the dance machine person for all of us forever. kris, you could have kept innovating it and you would always be on top. for example - incorporating new animations, a point click interface, client server stuff, etc etc. i wish you had because your skills would have probably generated better stuff than what's out there. you can't expect your product to remain the same and for no one else to make an imitation that is better.

this is why francis will always be #1. people recognize seburo as the best gun out there because every month francis will send you the latest and greatest update.

TRU DAT. And may I add, if you come across something really cool you enjoy, by all means, get in touch with the creator and let 'em know!!! Show your support and voice your appreciation. Heck, rate 'em with a nice comment along with an IM -- that's what it's there for! Some of these creators (you know who you are) work so hard in isolation and since they aren't the most social types, recognition may not get to them like it should. You won't find them hanging out at clubs because they're so dedicated to their craft, but heck, in SL, communication is just a few fingertips away!

Also, I like the people who make "cool and amazing things" who are cool and amazing people -- their warm personalities and taking the time to tell the stories behind how they came up with ideas and share their expressivity. For example, if Kris wasn't so nice and encouraging to me before I was ever on SL, I doubt I would have wanted to check out Krittannia and her other stuff, including the dance machine.

Hey! Don't tell everyone I can be nice! I have a reputation as a complete bitch to maintain!

And Jauani, thank you for your kind words. But I 'retired' for a few reasons, which were mainly related to the permissions system and the bugs therein and frankly the way people treat you with regard to support these days. I'm not willing to put up with IM abuse from strangers who can't RTFM and then call me a 'ripoff bitch' because they either didnt understand what it actually does or dont understand how to use it when they have it.

In fact, right after 1.4 I DID make a custom animation dance machine with a navigation menu and oodles of new features. It is a client/server model that requires a single (any perms) copy of an animation (rather than the uber inefficient system prevalent today ), and in fact could fit into a single prim with no theoretical limits on number of avatars it controlled. I just don't sell it!

I would rather lose out on the hundreds of thousands of L$ I know I would make from it than deal with some of the moron consumers we have in SL these days. (And thats not even including the ones that were buying them to resell them - sometimes modded - with end users expecting tech support on the products they'd just bought higher priced and broken).

From 1.1 - 1.3 I had precisely 2 support calls ever on DoM's, having sold hundreds of them. One had screwed up the notecard while programming the dance sequences, the other was the victim of some weird perms bug that rendered it no mod when it should have been.

Between late 1.3 and early 1.4 I was getting support calls for 1 in 3 of the ones I sold - and by this time I was selling FAR less of them of course, and in 1.4 I was getting 1 in 3 people demand their money back because they hadn't read the instructions (for a programmable device!), and started stuffing custom animations into the contents of a device written in 1.1 and wondering why it didn't work!

The tone of the IM's I was getting changed too. The majority were terse, rude and in some cases their first contact involved some offensive name calling. Quite why people think I'm going to give my best customer service after they start the conversation telling me they are going to neg me for being a 'ripoff bitch' is beyond me. But I digress.

My conclusion: SL has become collectively too stupid and ignorant to create content for

Ok, thats a bit harsh. But the point is, I do not play SL to make money. I certainly don't need the abuse. And since many people here on the forums told me when I 'whined' about some of this (perms, mainly) 'so don't sell stuff then' - rather than perhaps supporting my feature suggestions, or engaging in constructive discussion - I took precisely that advice and stopped creating content for sale. I still create content. You'll see it around if you look. I just don't sell it, because I'm not willing to do support. (I created something new recently that I believe there are only one or two copies of in the world, and yet dozens of people have IM'd pleading for me to sell them one. Some have said 'name your price'! But it's just not about the money)

So.... having rambled on for quite some time about stuff mostly unrelated to the thread, I'll make my point now! Which is simply that I didn't just give up making stuff only because I was worried that someone would rip off the idea (I pretty much take that as a given these days!), and as I said in an earlier post, I am all for innovation and furthering ideas in SL (which reminds me... if you didnt already, CS, release that damned dance machine... it rocks!)

Though I will admit it is certainly a factor - why should I spend weeks putting together a device, designing a user interface etc for someone to come along and say 'pfft. I can do that. and sell it cheaper'.

This is really what pisses me off the most - people who just mindlessly clone something without adding anything and sell it cheaper because they didn't have to do any thinking or the concept work that goes into it (yes, it needs scripting... but all the features are thought of, the UI is there - this is the stuff that takes time and skill).

I don't see why my innovations should line someone elses pockets, basically.

Oh, and people who create stuff but obviously don't really understand what they are doing and why, because all they have done is copied someone elses concept, extremely poorly, rather than realise that the current architecture is not scalable, and that the device needs to be redesigned from the ground up to work efficiently with custom animations (yes, this is a thinly veiled dig.), thereby making it hugely inefficient and inconvenient for users.

Oh, and in reference to something earlier in the thread... there was an amazing toy train many months ago. I really dont remember who made it, but I remember all my friends buying them at one of the early Flea Markets

I shall now shut the f*ck up.

Yes, I really was that bored.

I think in many ways SL is a marketplace of ideas more than anything else. Any new product that's original and becomes popular will spawn a fad and many immitators and then it will become a somewhat innocuous part of the landscape and largely taken for granted. I personally see this as a good thing because to stay successful in SL you have to keep pushing yourself. Resting on your laurels just isn't really an option. Hoarding methods and ideas only slows it down by a little bit and ultimately ends up costing more because everyone who's inspired by your idea and runs with it will add their own little twist that you probably didn't think of.

When I first got into doing animation professionally in the early 90's I was amazed at how open and helpful the community was. Everyone pretty much cheered everyone else on. People shared their ideas and methods and helped each other get past technical hurdles because most of the people in the community wanted to compete on talent, not on proprietary knowledge. I think SL is the kind of community that will benefit from that same frame of mind because it spawns more rapid evolution of techniques, which keeps pushing the bar higher and higher. We definitely need more robust permissions and tools to control how our creations are distributed and used, but we should be open about our discoveries. We just have to accept that the lifespan and novelty of any singular idea is going to be short lived.

Okay, you know what?

I have a list of about 30 things that I'm too busy to get to.

If anyone needs new ideas IM me and I'll give you something.

I agree it would benefit, but it doesnt happen. People aren't willing to share or collaborate, and the prevalent attitude that I see is one of keeping methods close to your chest - people are always saying things like 'oh you haven't figured out how to do THAT yet? hehe... I'm sure you'll figure it out one day'.

...But... I can't say I blame them, either. Because they know full well that if they release something into the public domain - or in some cases even if they pass it on to a single so called friend as a favour - it will be sold as is the following day by someone wanting to make a quick buck.

There is too much of a 'take, take, take... and profit' attitude here. I'll start sharing when I see it becoming common to do so. Until then, I'm not going to be the mug who gives away all their scripts and ideas so someone else can profit.

Frankly I rue the day that it became possible to convert Linden Dollars to USD, because it caused a massive attitude shift that I don't much like.

Where have you been? Not only has this always been possible through IGE and GOM, but it's in the very design documents of SL as a goal and way to encourage development.

Not completely true, GOM and IGE didn't start trading L$ untill around uhmm... 1.3.

And in fact, in past Town Hall's LL claimed they would never allow L$ to be purchased. Technicly they've stuck to that, as LL *themselves* have yet to do direct transactions... but sadly they are contimplating doing it.

I don't think it would be a good idea to try and prevent markets like GOM/IGE/ebay from selling L$.

However I also don't think it would be a good idea for LL to directly do it themselves.