The Need for Evolution?

I was just wondering...
I have seen many adds up saying office space for rent etc. but do these spaces ever get filled and used in an actual constructive way? Personally I think offices would be a great idea if there was an actual need for them, but as it is, you can have a meeting anywhere and even if a block of offices was built and used often, it would not be practical as people would hear your converstaion in a room beside you or whatever.

I also think that SL or perhaps us as SLians should be more open to businesses setting up in SL, instead of doing everything ourselves. Yes there are groups of people who are skilled at specific things and if you need one of them for something you im a memeber or the group owner. I am guilty of building, making my own things as I hate to have to pay for somethign I can sort of half make without anyone else getting a cut in it.

But imagine it (without the lag and texture loading and bad geomety AND bad scripts lagging the elevator ) you drive down the road, crossing sim borders from the TH without ne lagging in your inhanced scripted car similar to THERE. You take a right into a car park, park your car, get out without standing on the roof of the car when you 'stand up'. You walk though the revolving doors into a clean crisp entrance foyer, call the lift and watch as each floor number flashed on its way down from the 13th floor. PING (slidy doors open), you get in, select your floor, doors close and you begin to rise, rise rise and rise some more (i mean the elevator, nothing else rises, at least i hope not!) PING, the doors open again and you walk out.
You have a quick peak out the window and you can just about see some poor new player who is amazed at the enhanced vehicle scripting, driving into the back of your car which can of course take damage! Ok, you arrived in tmie for your appointment. you approach room number 54 and knock (of course, you have to be polite!). You are welcomes by an employee and you both sit down to discuss your need in SL.

Yes, it all sounds a bit sadistic that a person might get some enjoyment out of having to do a 'chore' like that but is that not what makes a game a game? It gives a point to the whole thing, the owner is employnig many people, lots of people are using your service, its like a mini quest getting into the building and sorting out with the person what you need etc.

I suppose my point isnt 'build loads of big square buildings and employ people'. What im getting at is that THE ONLY THING that we do in SL now is build a shop, house or attraction with a few simple prims. I am beginning to feel a slight repetition occuring in my SL. Appart from building buildnigs or making clothes there isnt much else you can do. Art gaklleries? nope cant do that, someone could just take a snapshot of your art couldnt they and sell it then... this could be fixed with a 'take no snapshot' fuction for your land. But then a person may say, it wouldnt be a good business as not many people have a house or enough prims in their shop or wherever to put the art up. <<< another restriction.

If Philip Linden thinks millions of people will play SL then I think SL will need to progress A LOT further than what it is currently. Dont get me wrong, i love sl, infact most people do that play, but atm it is just a simulation genre... to get the millions of player philip is thinking of; SL needs to be more flexible providing pieces of all genres to attract more and more different people. Yes, one can build this that and the other but the quality of the finished product is quite poor. EG a race track is pointless, it would involve several sims = muchos mulla which im sure no1 is willing to fork out to get a few racers visiting an odd event. RPG's whilst a great idea, we cant create an npc unless its made from prims. This then adds to prim no. and basicly no manuverability if say it was a monster chasing you.

So, the aim of this post has been to see what the rest of you think about the quality and state SL is in atm.


PS. I'm sorry about the spelling mistakes and poor punctuation, im tired and keyboard is sticking

I like jello.

I like Jello Puddin Pops

It's an interesting point, however:

Unless you are modelling RL for a reason (experimenting with things you want to do in RL), there is absolutely no point in duplicating the artificats that you find in RL.

If you are simply building in SL and not modelling things you want to do in RL, then you should be thinking about communicating ideas instead of overcoming physics or sheltering yourself from the elements.

Building offices or cars or things which have no real purpose in a virtual world is a step backwards. We need to be developing artificats which are recognizable in the VR world but are not a slave to absent things, such as the elements and nature of the real.

But then the question is, and we need to start answering this - what are we trying to communicate? And why are we trying to communicate it?

Ah, but when a new player comes to SL, they are (or where with the old webside) greeted with 'what do you want to do today, business person, evil genius etc'. People want to do things in a game that they cannot do in real life IE start a business, but in order for that employees are needed and most people in RL are an employee which would cause this to be a low demand sort of thing.

I suppose the question to ask would be to ask everyone what they actually would like to do in SL and work from there.

Yeah, absolutely. This is a fundamental, but problematic point:

SecondLife marketing.

On one hand, it is totally deceptive. On the other hand, it has to be. Making the mental leap from RL existent to SL existence is not a simple thing.

A lot of people have been in here for more than a year and they are still stuck simply modelling the real world. They are still held back by a lot of their real world prejudices and beliefs.

SL, is in many ways, way beyond its time.

Well, the problem that I see is that the whole "Meta"verse idea is still too young to pull itself out as being a viable place for companies to hold their meetings in and Invest money so that they can do these things. The product itself is still too young. Sure, worlds have been on the internet for a long time, look at Active worlds, and Palace. But this is the first one to take that extra step in letting the residents design and build the world, to take steps towards the game being run by the residents and not for the residents. This is the first one that will let the players "rent" out a server for their own use (sure, it's still in the SL grid, but technically any private island can be used as exactly that, a "private" sim.) Hell, we don't even know if there are any buisnesses who have actually rented out an island, and are using it for nothing but meetings and buisness, because they can hide the sim from the rest of the community. I do believe that Second Life is a great step forward toward the Metaverse, and has the capabilites of becoming the metaverse, but it is still too young to completely move forward. I don't think the step toward will be anytime soon, unless there is a major turn in the world and in the technology. But in the mean time, sit back, enjoy the ride, and build something that come completely from your mind

Well, if we can't model the real world, then what do we do? Can't make buildings, cars, chairs, lifts (elevators), hot dog stands, or planes. All of those are from the real world.

So, we are supposed to make what then?

I think we should make whatever makes us happy.

We have to model what makes us happy, that is exactly my point.

So build a roof and a wall because a roof and a wall will make you happy, not because you think a roof and wall are necessary because that's what you saw in a world of wind and rain.

I love how you can model anything from complete fantasy to the most mundane thing you could think of. And it all works together. You can fly your hover-dragon to your white stucco corporate headquarters complete with non-working water coolers, if that's the thing you want to do.

So what would it take to get SL to another level? Vehicles will never be as necessary as in RL, they will, at best, be around because they're enjoyable (Havok 2?). Roofs and walls won't be necessary unless privacy features are introduced (i.e. "soundproof" prims, or limited speaking range, etc.). So I don't think we'll ever get a mirror of RL, because SL can be so much more.

As far as coming to work in SL, in your own office (or private corporate island), hoo boy, I'd love that. Eight hours a day in SL, you call that work? Bring on the millions--with enough population comes customers for your business.

Some day.