Selling the World... (for possible use in NWN!)
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Hamlet Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 9 Apr 2003
Posts: 882
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01-16-2004 13:38
I know there's been a slew of topics created in General about Fizik's island, pro and con, but I wanted to create a NWN-centric topic in my forum for it, too. I'll be covering the controversy all next week, and if you'd like to be quoted in NWN, please post here with the assumption that your writing may be excerpted next week. Basically, my main question is:
- Have you had any change of opinion about the island, since the auction? If so, what did you think then, and what do you think now?
Or feel free to expostulate on what this island means to you, what you'd *like* it to mean, what you think it'll mean to the future of SL, or anything else you'd like to say. Here's your chance to jump into the discussion as it'll be read by the world outside!
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TinaStar Dawn
Registered User
Join date: 23 Dec 2003
Posts: 249
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01-16-2004 15:50
This is a great topic and one that people can go on and on about. I've had a whole range of emotions about this topic, ranging from annoyance, to concern, to a sort of acceptance. Now that I can put emotion aside, I think my bottom line is that I'd like to see future auctions based only on in-world money i.e. L$. There is still something really troubling about people, even if they are well-intentioned, using real life money to buy a huge chunk of our SL world. L$ has to be earned in world and to buy something like a full sim you'd have to be one of the top people who contribute to SL or be part of a group working together.
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Selador Cellardoor
Registered User
Join date: 16 Nov 2003
Posts: 3,082
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01-16-2004 17:03
I've never had an problem with a small-scale commercial interest getting involved in SL. Because in my view it has the potential to make this world a better place.
When the plans came out about the island, I thought they sounded reasonable, and in the spirit of Second Life society. I hoped that anything that took place there would not only take advantage of having a complete sim, but would also use our creative talent to produce something really out of the ordinary and impressive. Having visited the island recently, that is exactly what I found, and it pleases me no end.
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si Money
The nice demon.
Join date: 21 May 2003
Posts: 477
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01-16-2004 17:25
I, personally, believe that commercial interest could be a great benefit to SL. Any addition of professional quality content to the world is not a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. There has been no indication of any 'evils' associated with the activity of any corporate entity within Secondlife, and I think should there be an indication of such Linden Labs would take appropriate action.
As far as having commercial products come in to the game, I really can't see a problem if Levi's decides to come in and provide some clothing maps for sale/free in the game world to promote their sales in the real world. To me, this just means a greater level of quality content available to me in world, which is never a bad thing.
One concern that was raised to me when I made these comments to another was that the influence of professional content creators would force the current individual residents out of their professions. To that, I can only say that a lot of these individual residents ARE professional content creators. On top of this, SL gives you a perfectly level playing field from a business perspective. A commercial entity doesn't really have any advantage here, as you're not going to greatly benefit from millions of R&D, or cheap factories. The content which comes from them will be on part with the content we already have, and I don't see any reason why there would be no place for either individual or corporate content in the world at any given time.
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Like a soul without a mind In a body without a heart I'm missing every part -- Progress -- Catherine Omega: Yes, but lots of stuff isn't listed. "Making UI harder to use than ever" and "removing all the necessary status icons" things.... there's nothing like that in the release notes. 
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Zana Feaver
Arkie
Join date: 17 Jul 2003
Posts: 396
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01-17-2004 09:36
When this first came up, my major concern was primarily about how this might change the way the Lindens interact/deal with the average player. I know that the Lindens haven't made any special deals with businesses to come in and set up land, which I think is a good thing. But at the same time, there's still the possibility that the "influence" of a 200/month player won't outweigh the say, 15.00/a month player. I don't think SL is a utopia nor do I think it's meant to be, I'm just concerned about business overshadowing the "little guy" in general and thus, I'm concerned about it here. I'm not anti-business in any form really, I own my own small businesses -- in FL and in SL. And both do ok and I'm glad to take my customer's money  . However, I'm one of those business owners who doesn't want my status as a business owner to give me any special considerations -- I actually want to work to get my customer's trust in both "places" by interaction with them, by giving them a good product, and by letting them know that they have my ear. Not all business owners are like that -- Fizik does seem to be doing a lot of community service. Not every company who may see SL as a way to sell their products will be so nice. I admit that because the first business to come in and make in roads into SL is a marketing company, my internal warning bells went off like crazy. I'm not saying this is the right, or fair reaction, but there you go. After the full discussion, I'm willing to let Fizik prove himself and I'm less concerned about his company's project "bleeding" into the rest of SL. A lot is yet to be seen. I'm going to reserve my final judgement for a few months hence and after the second full sim goes up for sale. But I do stand by my stance that allowing full bore marketing of FL products within SL is going to change the way we play this "game" and there's no way to predict how exactly. Not all will be beneficial to the little guy -- who made SL what it is, really. Not all will be bad either. But it's a good thing for those of us who might have concerns to be able to express those concerns, no matter what they happen to be. The whole argument was a good thing in and of itself, because it created an important dialog among players. And talking is always a good thing. Zana
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Zana's Dressmakers' Shops: Medieval, Fantasy, Gorean, and period clothing for men & women. Great little party dresses and lingerie. Home of the Ganja Fairy.
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Hamlet Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 9 Apr 2003
Posts: 882
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01-18-2004 12:53
Thanks for those posts, folks-- anyone else wants to jump in with further thoughts, please do so by the end of today, when we Go To Press...
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Hamlet Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 9 Apr 2003
Posts: 882
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01-19-2004 22:19
So the story of Fizik's island is up now, and since it's so long (4000 words!), we'll probably leave it up until mid next week: http://secondlife.com/notes/Thanks for all who offered quotes in this topic, and feel free to throw in more comments, conversation, and controversy here...
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Oz Spade
ReadsNoPostLongerThanHand
Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 2,708
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01-20-2004 02:33
Great job Hamlet.  Looking forward to the follow up.
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"Don't anticipate outcome," the man said. "Await the unfolding of events. Remain in the moment." - Konrad
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Fred Noir
Registered User
Join date: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 5
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Re: Selling the World... (for possible use in NWN!)
01-20-2004 02:47
From: someone Originally posted by Hamlet Linden
Or feel free to expostulate on what this island means to you, what you'd *like* it to mean, what you think it'll mean to the future of SL, or anything else you'd like to say. However else virtual worlds develop, one direction just has to be towards incorporating more and more RL stuff, from dinner parties to politics to community meetings to the full range of commercial transactions. I don't think all these activities will pop up on SL, and no doubt some virtual worlds will always remain as utopian alternatives, but over time surely the center of gravity in the metaverse will ever more closely reflect the real world. The way the web did.
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Catherine Cotton
Tis Elfin
Join date: 2 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,001
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01-20-2004 11:17
The major concerns I am left with.... Auctions. How am I the average player going to be able to ever obtain a sim? Where is my motivation to continue to work very hard to succeed in SL? I have come to the realization that regardless of how hard I work this may now be an unobtainable dream. Lets just say for the sake of argument that I do really well in SL and I am able to cover the monthly $195.00 per month with my in world L$. So I decide to bid on a full Sim. I go to the auction start bidding and low and behold another company decides they want said sim. I am the average player, I have a RL job and I spend a lot of time in SL BUT there is no way in hell I have the resourses a company would have. Lets say for example my RL$ cap is $500.00 US I do not honestly believe that is also, the RL$ cap of a company. They have much more RL$ to invest in the bidding. In a nut shell; Regardless of if I can afford the monthly fees or not its the final bid against any company that I feel will never be won by the average player. This concerns me a great deal. I feel this is an unfair advantage against all average players in SL. If Auctions are to continue, I feel it would be in the best interest of the SL residents to create separate auctions for commercial and non commercial use. Without the residents there is no SL and that is the bottom line. To ignore the needs but more so the future dreams of SL residents would not only be a mistake in my opinion it would indeed be the early demise of SL. If I have no motivation to continue to do my very best in SL then SL is no more than a marketing tool to get me to purchase RL merchandise. I don't believe that for a minute. LL has done nothing but try to be the very best in every possible way. I have never seen a gaming company with so much support for their players. This sets LL apart from even the biggest online games in the industry, today. Today I have the ability of 100% total creative freedom, I look forward to what the future holds LL has encouraged and inspired me to create more than I thought I could back in April when I started. What will the next year hold? I don't know the answer to that. I do not mind commercialism in SL anymore, as long as they continue to be on a distant island apart from the mainland. If people choose to go more power to them. Hell I probably will too just out of curiosity and a free t shirt LOL. I love knowing that I wont be flying into a coca cola billboard anytime soon. It is my hope that my in world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me. I am not their customer, I am a SL resident It is also my opinion that LL did not expect a company to buy the island. Now that they expect it what will they do in the future? Thanks; Catherine Cotton
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Fred Noir
Registered User
Join date: 13 Dec 2003
Posts: 5
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01-20-2004 11:33
From: someone Originally posted by Catherine Cotton In a nut shell; Regardless of if I can afford the monthly fees or not its the final bid against any company that I feel will never be won by the average player.
This concerns me a great deal. I feel this is an unfair advantage against all average players in SL. But you're not an average player. You're a better than average player. I'M an average player -- I have no design skills and lack the time to invest in becoming a useful tour guide or anything else in the service end. I'm never going to earn a serious dollar here. Why should I continue to play when I'm always going to be surrounded by people who are more talented and harder working and better looking and more dedicated and who therefore get everything? I dunno. But I don't think the Lindens should set up a separate island just for average people. Altho maybe I will come to that opinion eventually.
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Catherine Cotton
Tis Elfin
Join date: 2 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,001
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01-20-2004 11:38
I was like you back in April, never thought I would be where I am now. Like many.  Time has a way of changing all of us. So yeah I am the average player. Well at least in my mind Cat
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Eggy Lippmann
Wiktator
Join date: 1 May 2003
Posts: 7,939
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01-20-2004 19:49
As an anti-capitalist, and a fervent one at that, what I have to say about the Island is... I DONT CARE! I couldnt care less if Coke bought the island. Or McDonalds, or Nike, or whatever. It's just a game people, zoom out and put things into perspective. It's all inside your computer and it's called Second Life... which should probably give you a hint on where it ranks with regards to your First. After spending most of my "life" here whining and trying to fight the onset of capitalism and commercialization, I concluded that it was probably inevitable. People are greedy, nothing I can do about that, unless of course I snap and start shooting random bankers =) Beta is over, people. It was our little world, and it ruled, but now it's business. LL needs money. Your "land" is actual server resources, and monetary costs, to the Lindens. It's entirely fair that LL pass on the costs to the players. Would you rather see LL hold on to an unsustainable business model, and eventually bomb? If you dont like the way SL is going, then go play something else. One man cannot fight a crowd 
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Catherine Cotton
Tis Elfin
Join date: 2 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,001
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01-22-2004 05:55
Eggy if you dont care then dont read the posts reguarding this. Some of us arn't as jadded as you appear to be, and still do care.
Catherine Cotton
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Catherine Cotton
Tis Elfin
Join date: 2 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,001
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01-22-2004 05:57
Hamlet;
Well dont I sound like a loon, roflamo. That was an interesting read today.
Catherine Cotton
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Jellin Pico
Grumpy Oldbie
Join date: 3 Aug 2003
Posts: 1,037
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01-23-2004 13:28
After reading this whole weeks NWN, I'm truly amazed that such a hotly debated, emotionally charged situation could be boiled down into such a thin homogonous virtually tasteless, and easy to digest paste.
The spin is practically invisable though, so I'm sure it's good for business, job well done!
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Catherine Cotton
Tis Elfin
Join date: 2 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,001
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01-24-2004 06:47
on second thought I think I will say nothing more
Catherine Cotton
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Beryl Greenacre
Big Scaredy-Baby
Join date: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 1,312
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01-24-2004 08:36
From: someone Originally posted by Catherine Cotton Once bitten twice shy Hamlet. Catherine, this is exactly why I told Hamlet I didn't want my name used in this story. He talked me into letting him use my quote anonymously, and now I wish I hadn't acquiesced. (In all fairness, since I posted what he used in a public forum, he probably didn't need my permission.) This reminds me of when we lived in a small city where the biggest, richest family in town basically owned the controlling interest in the local daily newspaper. IMHO, truly objective reporting cannot be achieved when the person/organization your stories will most impact pays your salary.
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Catherine Cotton
Tis Elfin
Join date: 2 Apr 2003
Posts: 3,001
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01-24-2004 09:32
Beryl;
I am inclined to agree with you. So I will tell the rest of the story...
Hamlet you work for LL correct? LL stands to profit in RL $ from any commercial co. buying a sim correct?
Without the SL residents there is no SL.
Definatly Correct.
Catherine Cotton
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Hamlet Linden
Linden Lab Employee
Join date: 9 Apr 2003
Posts: 882
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01-26-2004 14:17
Hmm, some very interesting implications, in the last few posts. I take my role as a journalist in SL very seriously, so I want to make sure these points are addressed. I went back and looked at my six entries on Fizik's island, and counted the quotes I got from community members, and it breaks down like this:
Residents with Anti-Island/anti-capitalist opinions: Astarte Valentino, Corwin Weber, Unnamed Resident, Catherine Cotton, TinaStar Dawn, Ryen Jade
Residents with Pro-Island/pro-capitalist opinions: si Money, Bhodi Silverman, stampshady Grimm, Faerie Muse, Fizik Baskerville
Residents with Neutral/mixed opinions: Oscuro Valkyrie, Mickey Roark, Phaylen Fairchild, Persig Phaeton, Catherine Cotton
So if you actually read my NWN entries on the Island and everything it stands for, there are 6 Anti-Island, 5 Pro-Island, and 5 Neutral. After reading these last posts here, I was afraid that my stories had been unbalanced, but in terms of a pure objective tally, that's simply not the case. (In fact, it leans numerically somewhat *against* Fizik's project.)
Far as my position in Linden Lab, I'm a contractor, not an employee. This is a fairly important distinction, because my contract assignment for NWN is to cover socio-cultural issues in the SL community *as a journalist*. There's nothing in that assignment requiring me to give a write-up to any particular project in Second Life, and anytime I do that, it's always at my discretion. In the case of Fizik's island, it was the controversy that brought me to it, and had nothing to do with the fact that LL was suddenly $1200 richer. (It's not as if Philip Linden goes through the office, divvying up that cash-- and I'm not usually in the office, in any case.) Indeed, if the island was not as interesting as it was, and didn't attract well-regarded, talented residents like Darwin and Bhodi to it, the story would likely be about the controversy, period.
That said, it's true that I have a vested interest in Second Life succeeding. I love writing New World Notes-- indeed, it's the best writing assigment I've ever had, and I want to continue working on it for the forseeable future. I want to see what you do in here, and I want to keep telling the world about it.
But in order to do that, Second Life has to thrive.
However, for that very reason, I'm not tied down to any particular business decision made by Linden Lab. If Second Life thrives as a virtual staging ground for non-profit and educational projects, that's good for me. If Second Life thrives by becoming a place where some commercial projects exist alongside residents' non-profit projects, that's also good for me. Either way means I get to continue writing New World Notes. So I don't have any particular stake in what direction SL takes, and if you give a fair reading of New World Notes, I think my entries validate this. I've written very little about projects with for-profit aspects-- these last six, and a handful of others, among *hundreds* of entries, and I expect that ratio will continue in the future.
Actually, the best thing I can do for the future of Second Life is to continue portraying it in all its diversity. Fairly, comprehensively, and accurately. Where commercial aspects are but one part of a much larger tapestry. That maintains my credibility to resident and non-resident readers alike, and depicts Second Life as it really is, controversies and all. That's what makes this place compelling to prospective residents and the average curious bystander. (Indeed, the NWN entries to get the most attention in the outside media were "The War of the Jessie Wall" and "Tax Revolt in Americana"-- hardly the stuff of commercial promotion.)
So let me turn the point back to Catherine Cotton, Beryl Greenacre, Jellin Pico, and anyone else who cares to comment: do you think my coverage on this story was unbalanced or incomplete? And if so, please tell me how, as explicitly as possible.
(For possible quotation, of course.)
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Jellin Pico
Grumpy Oldbie
Join date: 3 Aug 2003
Posts: 1,037
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01-26-2004 20:12
There's just simply no way I can really debate the issue succesfully with you Hamlet. You've overwhelmingly stated your position in terms both mathmatic and lyrical. Nor can I slice a sentance so thin as to find the final definition of 'the'.
So I admit here and now, in the terms you've stated, I can't come closs to explaining my point.
I do understand tone however. When reading a story or article, it's simply not that difficult to see where the writer is taking us. And I do apologize, but yes, while you did center it around real world (ok, virtual world) people and events, it read very much like a promational piece.
I'm not so concerned about Starbucks or McDonalds or whatever, there just isn't that kind of draw here yet, and probably not for quite some time. My concerns are more of a general cheapening of the atmosphere of what we've come to love. Sorry, no mathmatically precise sentiments there.
What I do worry about is a huge influx of parasites out to make a quick buck off of our world. Yes yes, I fully understand the need to succeed as a business etc, etc, but what happens if (big word if, I know) a year from now half the online population is only here to make RL$? Does anyone honestly beleive it would be as nice as it is now?
I'm sorry I can't be more explicit than that Hamlet. Part of my problem with the story, was that it's pretty obvious there really can't be a story truly negative about LL. Tha's just the way it is no matter how you look at it. And then to read a story that, by the very topic, touchs on what many think may be a wrong move by LL? It's a little like knowing who's going to win the horse race before it starts.
I can only speak for myself, but it left a sour taste.
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Eggy Lippmann
Wiktator
Join date: 1 May 2003
Posts: 7,939
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01-26-2004 20:19
Jesus, the nerve of some people. Leave the poor man alone.
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Jellin Pico
Grumpy Oldbie
Join date: 3 Aug 2003
Posts: 1,037
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01-26-2004 21:46
The nerve of some people. I'm allowed an opinion Eggy, even if it's dissenting. Is there some rule that says everything written -must- be praised? Or perhaps no one is allowed to disagree with a particular article?
Thanks for the opportunity not to speak my mind, but no thanks.
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Moleculor Satyr
Fireflies!
Join date: 5 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,650
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01-26-2004 22:00
Ok... None of what I'm saying is an attack on the writer of the article(s), nor in preparation for an attack on the writer of the article(s).
1. I can see where people are saying the 'article' (or whatever) puts an unbalanced positive spin on things. The reason is because it started out about negative stuff, and kept getting better. First impressions are well and good, but in a symphony, you never left with the impression of the FIRST note played, you're left with the climax, the end of the piece. Same with writing. It went from bad, to good, as if it were trying to convince the reader that "See? It's not all bad!"
2.Were those quotes from Catherine Cotton REAL? (Option Two.) Seriously thought it was a CULT?! Or was that a little joke that was played on the reader?
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Eggy Lippmann
Wiktator
Join date: 1 May 2003
Posts: 7,939
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01-27-2004 09:14
Jellin, if you dont like the message, dont shoot the messenger.
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