Shocking news regarding "There"

Lol, I beta tested TSO a while back and after about 1 hour of play I was still confused and lost as to what to do. While the online aspect of the Sims is appealing to some people I like the ability to create new objects when inspiration strikes.

From a week's stint in There I wasn't at all impressed with the lack of an in game tutorial system. While it seemed the same it just wasn't what I was used to.

During the short time I was able to beta test Second Life (no thanks to my town's lousy broadband service *d**ph*a P***r**nk I wasn't able to connect to SL as often as I would have liked. After nearly a year and a half with SL I'm still pleased with the experience.

Hmmm ...

I'm going to have to offer my two cents on this one, as I'm also a Therian, and none to pleased to watch my world die.

You see, both SL and There have their pros and cons, and I can be objective in analysing them both. I came to SL a few days ago and was indeed amazed at the open endedness (?) behind both code and clothing modeling. The fact that you could turn into a slavering radioactive glowing tentacular werewolf/3 year old girl hybrid is pretty cool, too.

But moving on ...

There was indeed limiting in many (many many) ways, but its simplicity was also its beauty. If you wanted to relax, you could, knowing someone wouldn't pop in on you with his latest SRGTW/3YOG hybrid avatar. They were just people like you and me. It may sound strange, but that's awfully comforting.

I'm also a wanderer. I'm the kind of guy who loves to hop on a hoverbike and ride around for hours ... and There offers me that ability. I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but There is a real planet ... its a sphere 12000 km in diameter (albeit 99% covered in water ... errr ... blue concrete). I know I could hop on hoverbike on Nata, the southernmost island, and ride northwest for an hour or more at roughly 90kph till I reached the northern island, then hop on a hoverboat and ride over the ocean for 2+ hours to reach the impressively dark island of Tyr. A whole slew of us took track of one guy who, for the fun of it, flew his hoverboat out of his funzone, due east, and didn't stop until he got back home, a three week around the world trip. During that time, I could also spend some time chatting with some geek friends in the ISS, a space PAZ 152km above sea level, in low orbit ... you could walk to the edge and look down and see the curving blue sea or drop off and fall for nearly 90 minutes before hitting the surface.

It's a very social atmosphere, and has tools specifically designed for personal interaction. Yet, has plenty of open areas if you wish to be alone or just ride a buggy with a friend, climb a high peak, and look out and see the world for miles around (without lag). In SL, virtually every plot of land is owned by someone ... pretty, creative, fascinating to the extreme ... dangerously claustrophobic.

I love the full duplex voice and chat bubble system. I don't mind the IRC style interface too much as I myself used to spend my days on IRC a few years back ... but for this, it is lacking.

I love the extremely natural movements behind the vehicles and the avatars. The fact that they're the only ones who work on the physics of a vehicle is indeed restrictive, but it also means they have all the time in the world to perfect it. And the avies in SL need work, guys, seriously. I heard avie animations will be customizable in version 1.4 and I hope someone takes the time to create a good walking and running script

There's major flaw is that they were too posessive of their creation and didn't feel they wanted too much input from their members, as far as I'm concerned. Either that or whoever took over management of the business focused much more heavily on the business side of things than on the customer end, and hence felt the backlash of people crying out for constant change and a need to take control of their world and its economy. For that, I commend SL in major ways ... you guys have a waaaaaaaaaaay better rapore with Linden than we did with There inc., although many of the staff had close friends among the membership, and even now are working hard to find a solution to preserve There's future as a virtual hangout.

Honestly, I think in the end, they likely saw a lucrative opportunity that did not demand they cater to the seesawing needs of thousands, and instead of following a path of better communication, they bailed and focused on building up the engine and everything surrounding it for licensing purposes.

I'm still testing the water in SL, so to speak, and so far, I have found many things I really like and many things I dislike, compared to There of course. Two different worlds, two different target markets, two different feels. One allows you to do anything you damn well please (thumbs up, guys), the other wishes to solely offer a few things of their own creation ... but does these things very very very well.

So yeah, I would dearly miss There ... wasn't perfect, far from it, but it was very immersive and very comforting, truly a home away from home.

I'm now hearing rumors that EA might pull the plug on TSO, becuase of not enough subscribers to keep it running.

A good rule of thumb: Any massively online game published by Electronic Arts will go belly up within a year or two (exception: Ultima Online). Examples: Majestic, Motor City Online, Earth and Beyond, and now TSO.

They simply do not know how to run an online game without stripping out all of the fun. They try to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

LF

Oh, while we seem to be on the subject.

Cybin I agree with you, with one simple change.

Sl is a beast of its own, but I prefer to call it a 3d operating system, because thats just what it is, a 3d operating system with a chat program, a 3d modeling tool, a text editor, and a compiling program. And sometimes these come together to form video games on your harddrive.

ryen, you're dangerously close to calling sl a tool. it is not a tool, operating system or standard of any kind.

it is a self-contained world. that is all. it is metaversal because it is. not because it will ever be distributed like operating system or used as an internet protocol. that is not the plan.

it's fun; it's a game. that's all there is to it. don't try to make more of it than that.

Khamon, that was not my intention (as I think you see), my intention by calling Sl an OS is because of the creativity. Anything you can do with a standered operating system and its tools is possible in SL.

I agree with Marel. Quick back-of-an-envelope calculation shows that SL can support 6.4 staff, not including VC repayment, bandwidth, hardware and land.

Back-of-an-envelope calculation:

SL's income comes predominantly from land, assuming many people are on Basic accounts.

There were 100 sims last time I looked, and income from a sim is about 215USD/month, allowing for Linden land, so total income to SL is, back-of-an-envelope:

215USD /month * 100 = 21,500 usd/month

If you assume a typical non-managerial entry-level salary of 3500usd/month, SL supports:

21,500 / 3500 employees = (I dont have a calculator) about 6ish

Thats not a lot. This is not a big-bucks market.

SL could benefit significantly by incorporating the ability to create persistent game-worlds within it, since this could tap into the huge market that is online gaming.

Azelda