I'm About to try There

Actually Eggy I have a couple of time - more often than I've chatted to Philip here, in fact. His Av's name is Tom, and I was very impressed by how friendly, accomodating and willing to listen he was. I also mentioned that I'd started playing SL and was fishing a little bit for his reaction: he had absolutely nothing but good things to say about SL, said that he'd met some of the team, liked them and wished them nothing but success.

All of which means that I won't be joining any recruiting drives in There, despite the fact that I've basically given up playing (I absolutley hate the economic system for designing and buying clothes).
A lot of people have worked very hard for a long time to make a world that a lot of other people enjoy, and I don't feel it would be right to try to sabotage that.

Incidentally, almost everyone I've talked to in There are already well aware of SL and have even tried it out but haven't liked it.

By recruiting (which I havent yet since we havent set a date/time) in There I don't think anyone is wishing There ill will. I know I dont want them to fail. There is a variety of games and an audience for each. I just want to help spread the word so that SL will benefit.
Heck, I found out about SL by someone posting at TSO about it.

Not everyone There has heard about SL. People should be aware of their options .

I've decided that "There" isn't instant death, as I had been warned, BUT... it's still not SL. It's just a good place to hang out if you're feeling especially uncreative (or your connection hates you).

Either way, I set up a group called "SLers" and I invited everyone who gave their name in this thread (I also put you all on my buddy list). If you want to use it for mass recruiting runs, go for it. The system is going to be down til Wed though, I think.

But, with my connection as it is, I don't know what I'm going to do til then...

Okay, I'm coming out of the closet on my checkered past: I played in There from early February (in one of the first beta tester groups, they let us in weekly) to June 24, when I joined SL. I spent the most insane amount of money I've ever spent on something this value-less in my life. And I did have a good time, for a while. When I first joined, I met nobody under 21 years old for quite some time. By the time I left, it was a lot of 14 year olds spewing swear words, and on voice chat that you can't escape if you've got that feature enabled, no less. It was mainly the people who kept me coming back at first, then it was a drive to have the the newest outfit for sale (at a premium cost), then I just lost all desire to play in There once I saw SL. (Gwydeon Nomad posted something in There forums about SL going public, and that's what got me in SL, thank you once again, Gwyd ).

There has a terrible retention rate of it's beta people (most of the initial friends I made are gone), but they keep shuttling new folks in by the thousands each week, and many do like the interface enough to stick around, at least for a while. There's main strength which facilitates its successful marketing to the vast, unwashed masses is its ease of use and homogeneousness - which is precisely what makes it unpalatable for the average SL user who likes things more complex and unique.

Yes, There has cool vehicles, but you can only drive a buggy or fly a hoverboat for so long before you're looking around for something else to do. And There will become an advertiser's paradise; Nike and Levis are already in There, and I feel it in my bones that they are attempting to line up more major brand names. Mark my words, people in There will eventually be sipping virtual Cokes from McDonald's and driving Ford buggies.

I have tried to recruit a number There players to SL, and all of them, with one exception (a RL programmer who likes SL but will stay in There because her SO loves There and can't get SL to load on her computer for some reason), abandoned SL after a few tries. There was even a bunch of There players who came into SL a few weeks back when There was down for 5 days. SL got mixed reviews on There forums as a result, some of the people liked some of features of SL, others hated the whole look and feel of SL. The primary complaints of There people who try SL are that 1) SL people are unfriendly and it's harder to socialize, 2) the avs are ugly, and 3) the world looks strange and they don't like the darkness. (Don't ask me to defend these statements, I'm just repeating what There people say.)

I have made several posts on There forums defending SL and telling about all the great features of this game, and at least one other There convert to SL has done the same. I'm pretty much done actively recruiting people from There to SL, it seems to be fruitless. I know that Randra_Loqqet and Deathany, two long-time beta users and very successful There merchants, tried SL and liked many of the features, but are committed to seeing There through to its release. In fact, their approach to checking out SL was "what are the best features of SL and can we get There to incorporate them?"

Yes, Viola, I've talked with Tom Melcher, the CEO of There, as well, and he is a nice guy, but he just says all the right things a CEO is supposed to say to the players of his game. I've never talked to Philip Linden, but I see him in SL a helluva lot more than Tom was ever in There during the time I spent playing.

Virtual_Vikki in There is a nut job. Period.

*sigh* Don't hate me because I actually like There for a while, I've come to my senses.

I've decided that SL is "There" for intellectuals.

I still laugh at Therian's (ok, I laugh at that name, for one) excuses for disliking SL. I saw a new one... "When you say something in SL, your avie put's it's hands out if front and mocks typing. It completely ruins the realism" And to that I say... Hmmm... so you talk in text bubbles in RL? Like I said, There is good to pass the time, but little else.

Oh, someone else whined about there not being enough items. That amused me...

(P.S.: I like AV much more than "avie" Avie sounds like a food.)

Is anyone else getting INUNDATED by spam emails from There? Sheesh... I was in There once, and I've gotten 11 emails since then. That's more than one a day...

Seems so insecure to be constantly begging players to come back...

Yes, until I took myself off the spam list I was getting about one email a day - some days 2 or more, some days none.

They are trying to make you believe all these wunnerful things are happening in There. They have an overactive and over-optimistic marketing team, to be sure. I've shown up for a couple of the events over the course of my beta preview. Yawn!

-J

I just got There's pricing for beta testers. Here's a quote:


Seems cheap...until you realize you have to pay real money to buy stuff!

seems like a lot til you realize you cant get pants and a hairdo for 10k

The thing i most hate about there is how their website isnt very compatible with mozilla...

But but but... you get an explorers pack (walking stick) and a Music upgrade (I dunno what that would be...) and a voice upgrade (hmm... do they send you a new voice box?)!!!

ok... That was funnier when I first thought of it...

Uh huh. Nice dio, good dio, go with the nice men in the white suits, they are your friends, they are here to help you.
They have a gift for you, look, a pretty jacket! We like jeckets, dont we dio?
Yes we do! Good boy, let the nice men help you try on your new jacket

Hmm... it's kind of a tight fit... well... I guess "snug" is more like it... boy it's dark in this truck...

lol dio you rule =)

The new Don Ho Collection, maybe?

Ok, so, we get a walking stick, the new Don Ho collection, and something voice related... come on guys... we need to brainstorm

How about a TARDIS?

Actually the "personal space" they are doing sounds a LOT like a tardis-type space; not hard to do when you make people teleport just to go through a door.

I'm sorry. the "Jacket" upgrade isn't free, you have to purchase that one... (I don't think $T 20000 is gonna do it...)

=SV

So i was in There last night, and all I really did was customize my lil AV (as much as I could). Then I got into a conversation with someone about the game. I kinda asked him why he played and stuff and it just boiled down to.....he liked it cuz he had some damn good cyber session. Humm k lol.

So you guys still going over to recruit? I joined the SL group I think. or I tried to anyways. I'm Honeybeeelahhhs over There.

HB

Yeah... Sorry about that... You'll be in the group as soon as I get back in There... I haven't been this week...

No worries, I'm hardly ever There myself, so whenever you see it lol I think I am getting someone into SL today, yay, hope he likes it

Well.. I've SEEN the request (It's sitting in my inbox, still), I just have to be in There to do it... I tried outside, and it was being difficult.

While a lot of your complaints about There are valid..I have one thing I would like to dispute......

There is not full of prejudice, racism, or underagers.....That is down right hate mongering and lying......I am a minority on a couple different levels and have never experienced this in There....So lets keep it real Darwin

Well, let's keep it real indeed. There are no underagers in There because the minimum age is 13.

As for griefers and prejiduce... it happened to me, and I don't know what else to tell you beyond that. Surely you don't claim to know everyone in There, so it's kind of silly to be so certain it didn't happen.