A Little OT Poll

Here's a little questanaire for those who want to participate, totally OT. PLEASE NO HIJACKING OR MAKING UP YOUR OWN QUESTIONS! START A NEW THREAD FOR THAT, OR PM ME IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A COMMENT. Thanks.

1) If you could run your own private, virtual island, not realated to SL, where you could build and do anything, would you? It would be totally yours to terraform, script, build on, what-have-you. You could password protect it, sell access to it, or allow anyone on. (if you say no, just post no to #1 and ignore the rest of the questions, for they're based around this, hehe)

2) What would you use it for? Remember, you could use it for anything. Meetings, vacation, communications, games, whatever.

3) In order for you to use this product, would the controls for it HAVE to be easy to use and work with?

4) What would you like more:
A building system where you can use any 3rd party program to make buildings and import them directly, that being your only option.
A building system where you could select from a list of 1000s of proffesionally built models and download them.
A combination of both where you could sell your models on that list.

5) What would you make your island look like? Remember, it's not connected to anything, it's completely by itself.

6) How would you set access for your island? Free for all and publicly listed, free for all but not listed, password protected where you only give the password to those you know, account-enabled where you make an account for everyone and give it to them, or a system where you sell accounts to those who want it? You can change these options any time you'd like to, but what would you do the majority of the time?

7) How much would you be willing to pay to get a hosting plan (per month) for this service? State your absolute maximum, por favor What you'd be getting is a piece of a P3 server to run your world on. About 30 people could be connected with this plan. This is reccomended for people who don't know how to use FTPs, as I'll probably have an app to do it all automatically. Note that only ONE application running on ONE server is needed for the whole thing. Or even better, would you rather host it on your OWN server for only one upfront cost? Let's say around 10 bucks for the software?

Gee, I wonder where he's going with this?

I may be a small minority (but don't count on it):

(1) Yes, if the price was right (cheap). (***)

(2) Chatroom for whoever wanted to show up.

(3) No. (***)

(4) Combination.

(5) My island would look like an island. But I can see the need for other themes, office building for example.

(6) I'd do free for all, unless bandwidth costs got to be an issue.

(7) That would depend a lot on the capabilities of the system. (+++)


(***) To some extent, Atmosphere meets the specs here. Since HTTP is used to download everything you can house your entire content on any web server. The catch is that you need a "chat" server, but they give that program away, and several people (I think) are running public ones already. One chat server (which controls what name you pick for yourself, in-world chat, and avatar positioning info among users) can act on behalf of any number of "worlds", up to CPU and bandwidth limitations of course. You can't run it (the chat part) on a generic web server however, you need something that you have more control over. I'm not sure how far you could get running this on a home DSL connection, but such would probably be adequate for a few users at a time. The other catch, is that now that they have gone production you either have to pay them for the building softare (which is the only "product" they are interested in dealing with) or jump through some hoops to get a free copy. In other words, its the Adobe model.

(+++) In Activeworlds people routinely paid $20 and up per month to host various sized "worlds" but their pricing was totally F'd up considering that you had to pay AW a huge amount for just authenticating user logins (a pretty low overhead activity), then you had to pay a separate entity for chat and positioning (hi-bandwith) and conceivably another entity for object hosting (any web host would do for this). The irony is, that unlike SL, everything was static, i.e cache intensive, so a 32,000x 32,000 main world, and several smaller ones actually ran on a single server (although is was a kick-ass Sun server). Another couple of servers could have easily run all the user generated worlds. But they had this grand franchising scheme in mind and so they actually encouraged people to host elswhere. The problem with their price structure was that too many people knew what their costs were, and didn't like being ripped off, especially after it was clear that they were not going to be "the next big thing". Most of the worlds sit empty most of the time.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you have in mind. The more 3D-VR stuff out there the better. Eventually it WILL be as commonplace as the Web, and Microsoft will be kicking themselves (again) for not getting in sooner. Of course that won't stop them from trying to jump in and put everyone else out of business... but maybe a few will get sweetheart deals in the process.

Edited to clarify

1) Yes

2) General chat and building and expirementing.

3) Moderatly easy. Nothing command prompt, but doesn't have to be as easy as say There.

4) A combination of both.

5) Well it'd be island shaped terraformation wise. Probly either Penguin World or futuristic city.

6) Free for all, publicly listed, unless there was a private event going on, then I'd switch it to password for that time and switch back to Public after it was over (if that was an option).

7) I'm cheap, so probly the wrong person to ask, depending on how good the service is you could probly get by with a couple 100. Me, myself, would pay 10-20 bucks a year.

Some comments:

The more options you give the greater your reaction will be, such as, temporary ability to set the island passworded for an event, and stuff like that.

The least ammount for ActiveWorlds you can pay for your own server is 10$ a year, which I do, just incase they do suddenly change (hey i'm a dreamer), what they did is different sizes, 10$ will get you the smallest sized "world" meaning you can only build in your world to a certain distance (i forget the measurement right now), also it limited it to a certain amount of people you could have in your world total, 10$ gets you 5 total at a time(only 5 people can be in the world at the same time). You could go upwards and pay more the larger you wanted an area to build and more people you wanted in maximum total. Something like this is great for people like me who are cheap but still want the possibility to do that.

There are also several free object paths to use for ActiveWorlds, so I only pay 10$ a year, then host the server software on my own computer and everything else is free.

Thanks, both you guys!

Oh, and edited to clarify again

Bump, just to be annoying.

One last bump. Anyone else?

A Little OT Poll
Here's a little questanaire for those who want to participate, totally OT. PLEASE NO HIJACKING OR MAKING UP YOUR OWN QUESTIONS! START A NEW THREAD FOR THAT, OR PM ME IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A COMMENT. Thanks.

1) Yes - IF I could actually afford the cost of doing so... see answer later.

2) I would create a game world, sort of like a graphical MUDD, because I'm just that nerdy.

3) All of them - I'm incredibly inept!

4) A combination of both where you could sell your models on that list.

5) What would you make your island look like? I'm not sure... I would want to do this with some friends, and it could be anything from Cyberpunk to High Fantasy to just plain old goofy...

6) How would you set access for your island? Free for all and publicly listed

7) I would definately need hosting services, but I have no idea what the value of something like this would be so it's hard for me to set a price. Rather, the price would determine the number of people I asked to "partner" with me to help cover it.

Thanks for your response, Bhodi!

1. Yes, if the net cost was reasonable.

2. I would use 1/2 of it for my own space.. a nice place to hang out with friends and have a large, flexible space that could be used to host various events. The other 1/2 would be used as low cost housing, focusing on the new citizens.

3. No, but not extremely difficult either

4. A combo, so I can create my own (I *am* picky) and sell/give them to others

5. low-lying shore on one side with cliffs on the other and a peninsula

6. Free and listed...

7. I don't know... I would need more info on this.

1. yes.

2. I would use it for my idea, "The Well".
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3.The Oil Well (copied from my post in projects)

"The Annon Corp are a cross universe, cross world, cross platform, oil company. That’s right, virtual crude, Pixel oil that is!

We’ve found through extensive geological study of your world, the grid, that there is hardly any oil. None to be found from the most northern sims or to the farthest reaches of the south. We had given up hope completely of exploiting your little world for our own financial gain. We were about to leave without even saying hello. Then it happened. Our scanners detected an oil deposit off of the mainland on a tiny little isle in the west sea. We finally found it, we almost missed it, but there it was, waiting for us all the time.

This island was no paradise. Its surface like a desert covered in sand to the sea. The landscape dimpled with many dunes and hills making it hard to see far. There at some time were people who lived here, or tried to. A couple of ramshackle homes and a barn can be viewed on the horizon. On the side of the barn there is a sign that reads ‘New Town’. Now this is all that’s left of the dream about a sim called New Town.

It didn’t take us long to find out why New Town had been abandoned. The island sim is prone to constant sandstorms that cause damage to all avatars unfortunate enough to be caught in that blinding wind. Most people can only stand about 20 minutes before they de rez. Then there are the nasty sand snakes. They come out of the ground in seemingly random patterns swirling here and there in and out of sight. If they smell you though, they will chase you for a good 5 minutes. When they bite, you lose half your life and have to decide whether to stay or escape. The worst thing though, and I shudder to tell you about them, are the Roamers. I don’t know a lot about them. They seem to be the first monsters in your world. There are two of them and they fly around the island looking for avatars to eat. It’s best to just avoid them since they can kill on contact. They seem to attack whoever is moving the most.

There is hope for New Town! Although not much really, at least not for you, or any of its residents. We at Annon Corp have found tons of oil under the very center of New Town. We have set up our oil rig in the middle of the island and we claim all rights to the oil there, forever! About once every 40 minutes our oil ship will appear in the sky over New Town and dock with the oil well to transfer our oil from the sim to our ship. It’s a breathtaking sight really and I suggest you see it for yourself, but be warned. There are many natural dangers on this island. It’s getting more dangerous everyday in fact.

Oil spillage is occurring at the location of our oil transfer each and every time. We are losing oil on the ground around the oil well. The amount varies each time, but sometimes it’s quite a bit. We decided this loss was unacceptable, so we brought some needy avatars to the isle of New Town, to stand at the oil well. We instructed them to collect the extra oil and deposit it in a nearby machine for payment. Everyone was happy, at first.

Oil pirates soon moved in and took over the isle with sniper rifles, machine guns, and other more foreign looking weapons. They killed everyone! They wanted to control the oil collection for their group. The pirates didn’t seem to care that every now and then one of them was eaten by a roamer or that they had to leave their position guarding the well to keep from dying in the storms. They guarded the well against nature, each other, and all outsiders. They proclaimed themselves the New Town Pirates!

The New Town Pirates caused so much terror that we decided to shut down the well in hopes of them dispersing back to where they came from. It seems they mostly have gone and New Town sim is quiet except for the howling sand storms, the sand snakes that make the quietest little clicking noise, and the mysterious Roamers. Everything is quiet, quiet, quiet….

We are not making any money off of our well are we? Nope! It’s not running, nothing is active, and that’s not good for business. We’ve decided to turn the oil well back on soon, and since all your residents over there on the main grid have been so vocal about needing money we’ve decided to let them come to the island and pick up some oil for themselves. So if some of them get eaten, poisoned, or drowned in sand you know what has happened. Who knows, maybe history will repeat itself and some group or another will take over the well like the New Town Pirates once did, maybe, maybe not!

The Oil Well is my Idea for a game in Second Life. One sim is turned into the desert island like the one described in the story. It would be set to no fly, all rezzed items would be temp, view would be set to 64 meters only, no set as home, no sit, and no landmark. The entire sim would be no limits PVP. There would be weather, a sandstorm that would constantly inflict damage. There would be creatures that have various attacks. In the center of the isle there will be the focal point, the oil well. Every 40 minutes it will “spill” oil in the form of oil cans on the ground. People who are lucky can get those oil cans and deposit them in a machine that would be located at the edge of the sim. The machine will pay them dependent on that day’s oil value and how much they deposited.

I think this game will lead to several things. Large groups of people gathering around the oil well waiting for the expected oil spill. A lot of activity each time just before the oil spill. Expected emergent behavior would include some well armed group claiming dominance over the well. This of course would prompt others to fight for the well to be the top group or just to grab a little oil for themselves. Basically a lot of fun for all!"

3. It would have to be as easy as SL currently is.

4. A combination.

5. See answer for 2.

6. Probably a one time daily sim entry fee.

7. I really would not pay much to run "The Well". Maybe up to a $100 a month.

Thanks Juro and Angel!

Wow Angel, that's quite a plan you have there! Gaming as a possible use for this never even occurred to me, but now that people are mentioning it, scripted "game-like" objects will have to be something to be considered. It would certainly be quite cool to let just anyone make a multiplayer, persistant game, eh? And with a WYSIWYG interface, too.

1) If you could run your own private, virtual island, not realated to SL, where you could build and do anything, would you? It would be totally yours to terraform, script, build on, what-have-you. You could password protect it, sell access to it, or allow anyone on. (if you say no, just post no to #1 and ignore the rest of the questions, for they're based around this, hehe)

Yes I would do this.

2) What would you use it for? Remember, you could use it for anything. Meetings, vacation, communications, games, whatever.

I would get a grant and set it up to use as a way to facilitate the teaching of writing. A virtual writing studio if you will, but more interactive and relevant than many web-based writing studios out there. I think it would be fantastic for online-only courses of all types but for online writing courses I think it could be especially interesting, because it allows the teacher to appeal to all learning styles in a real-time way.


3) In order for you to use this product, would the controls for it HAVE to be easy to use and work with?

Yes. They would have to be absolutely idiot proof.

4) What would you like more:
A building system where you can use any 3rd party program to make buildings and import them directly, that being your only option.
A building system where you could select from a list of 1000s of proffesionally built models and download them.
A combination of both where you could sell your models on that list.

Both, please.


5) What would you make your island look like? Remember, it's not connected to anything, it's completely by itself.

I'm not very sure, if I got a grant to set up a learning environment like this it would most definitely require some kind of committee input. I would not mimic the "classroom." Depending on what I was teaching for a particular class, I might have different environments. For instance, for my World Literature students I might have sections of the island that represent the time periods of the various texts we read, "library" type areas for things like criticism, etc. For a composition class it would be different.

6) How would you set access for your island? Free for all and publicly listed, free for all but not listed, password protected where you only give the password to those you know, account-enabled where you make an account for everyone and give it to them, or a system where you sell accounts to those who want it? You can change these options any time you'd like to, but what would you do the majority of the time?

If would have to be account-set up with access only for the class/teachers/administrators.

7) How much would you be willing to pay to get a hosting plan (per month) for this service? State your absolute maximum, por favor What you'd be getting is a piece of a P3 server to run your world on.

Well, if I got a grant to do something like this, I would have to budget the cost of that within the grant plan so it would depend on funding sources. I'd say that if I were a company/university using a system like this and needed several servers to run it -- I could cough up maybe 500 or 1,000 a class per semester for the access. As an individual, unless I was doing something business related with it, the max I would spend on anything like this would be probably 100 a month.

Hope that helps.

Zana

that's a nice cause, Zana!