SL5B - a little disappointed

So basically I am some sort of prim-whore who has no validation to back their own claims because you have obviously made your judgements here. Sure, call me a prim-whore, I really don't mind.

I really do think it to be ironic that you slammed me for being a snob when clearly you have just as high a level of distain in your posts as I do. At least I am being honest here, you are hiding behind this facade that may be well constructed, is making you seem just as snobby as I am. As for resorting to name calling and quote mining, pretty low tactics really. Before you start analysing myself, you may want to take a long look at yourself as well.

As for being the punching bag of the day, sure why not.

Atom, the business people should have made a bigger effort to develop engaging exhibits and less effort to make a visual sales pitch. Like the guy with the Narnia's Wardrobe was selling hats - but he created a exhibit where you entered a regular closet and was transported to a snow-covered Narnia landscape where you could find his hats in the snow. And take the ones for free that you wanted.

Stricter mandates on exhibitor's designs and better over-sight by people who are familiar with the creative process would have helped.
Surely a man with all of your talent could have taken the time to dazzle us unstead of just sell to us.

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I actually didn't submit anything to the festival. I am working on a project that wasn't ready on time. Either way it was a ride based on Alice in Wonderland. Which is now public domain, for all those copyright enforcers. I realize the point of this string was to cheerlead the people into thinking that commercialism is bad, free content is good. So of course the first person to differ is going to get slammed with a bunch of negative posts. That being me.

As for free content, I have a large freebee lot in my park, as well as donate things to Yadni for free fairly regularly. But I am obviously not here to defend myself, as that is a meaningless endevour, obviously so. I know that I live a balanced secondlife. Sure I may run a few businesses, but I also am involved in various charities. But nobody seemed that to be a worthy quote to mine. In fact I am a sponsor of both the SLPride, as well as the ACS Relay for Life. Love me or hate me, take some time to support the American Cancer Society this coming few weeks. And feel free to quote mine my rants and post them wherever, hey even bad press is still press.

No, it's because you kind of bragged about being a snob. You post something like that, and people will respond to that. Whining about the responses by claiming, e.g., that people are "quote mining" is simply that: whining.

But back to the topic, demand drives the economic system. Supply arises to meet demand. Demand is the lynchpin, not supply. So you need to get over yourself in thinking that you and other content creators are the backbone of SL. The large market of consumer demand is the backbone. Sure there are talented creators supplying product to meet this demand, and you may be one of them, but the driver is the demand, not the creators of the supply that meets the demand.

Well I surely wasn't the only snob in that string. Maybe the only one to claim to be, really after a lifetime one just accepts things like this. I never said I was great at everything, just graphic arts. And maybe breakfast as well, I make a mean eggs benny from scratch.

We can all argue about which is the dominating factor inworld all day. But I really don't care to. But I will say this much. With my background in marketing, as well as looking to the models of companies like Calvin Klein, Coke, American Apparel, etc... the list goes on. The concensus is this. The secondlife economy is not representative of reality, at all. I think we can all agree on that much. I learned very quickly that the rules of the real world business do not apply inworld. So maybe in reality it is a consumer based culture. The customers demand things, but I really don't think that to be true either. Does anyone really need some 10 generations of i-pods and now 3 generations of the i-phone in the past year? Ah no, that would be a marketing scheme.

K take a look around your home and note the things you need out of necessity. And then look at the things that you purchased out of comfort and the push of the advertising world. Just a tad unbalanced. I really am failing to understand the reasoning to deny that we are all consumerist culture vultures. And I am not excluded in that either. Maybe advertising really is so effective that it programs society to the point where they all think that they make these decisions of their own accord? Maybe I just know better working in that industry. Hey advertising is a lie, I won't deny that,

I am quite happy to say that I do not believe that you are a snob at all - I believe that you may be confusing snobbishness with arrogance and self-importance.

Returning to the original topic rather than Mr or Ms Burma, in any case, one thing that did strike me this year was the lack of strong central themes and planning in that way. This may not be an entirely fair judgement - I was involved in SL3B planning, but only briefly in SL4B at the start and did not really attend the latter. But it strikes me that this year the "theme" as it was really just amounted to "communities", which is a bit redundant as obviously "communities" will usually put together something reflecting themselves anyway, and other people will be a bit left blank. So, given a lack of theme, it isn't any wonder that people fall back on their day-to-day practices, in many cases commercial one. Does this sound reasonable or is it rubbish?

To be honest, I'm not sure that there will _be_ an SL6B, or at least, that it will be an event of any real significance. All of the impressions that I have been getting as to the reactions to the Linden involvement in this one have been so negative amongst residents who might be interested in helping organise, and there has been so much interest in "alternative" events, that I would expect to see those rather take over and the "official" one be a bit tangential. But that is just my opinion.

This was my biggest problem with it as well. Too many faux stores, that we're just carbon copies of their actual stores (not really anything "special" for an event) and not necessarily very well done. :-/



The theme fell apart with all the changes in management and other issues that came up. A shame, because if it had been truly "cultures and communities," it might have been someting.

I also felt the arrangement of the land had some play into limiting the overall "flow" of the areas, but dat's me.



That's my feeling as well. We hall see what, if any "SL6B" emerges.



No exhibits were to be selling anything onsite.

Mari

It seems like I'm gonna be the rare one on this thread to say that I enjoyed it. \(^_^)/

I love a good museum, and I like to see exhibits, builds, pictures, and any other kinds of creations. Yeah Yeah... I know... I'm too noobie to understand SL and "what it's about" and I'm just a consumerist sheep. But, I've already seen the comments that SL5B looks just like mainland... Well... Arguably... Mainland is a lot of what SL REALLY IS, and I don't mind. I still log in and look around every day. Most of you do too. (^_^)

If you don't go for anything else... Totally go and see Loki's exhibit. It's a beautiful presentation of a nice interactive story that you can walk through and experience with nearly full immersion of your avatar. (^_^)

Yeah... There's commercial stuff. SL has commercial stuff. I didn't want to be swept under the carpet, and I think it's fair that they're not either. (^_^)

And, all the role play exhibits. Gotta see them. Each one had a good collection of descriptive posters giving information of the culture of their RP and they had a lot of hangouts and greeters to chat with. Even the combat RPers were a blast to hang out with considering how much I dislike that stuff. (^_^)

And the pagoda! I looooooved the pagoda! Gimme a minute to gush and swoon over the pagoda. (^_^)

Now for my naughty side. (=_=)

I see people showing true signs of addiction. You don't like what you see, it's a negative aspect of your life, you complain-complain-complain, yet you keep coming back. (>_<

I have a question to all the cynics about SL5B... What did YOU do to improve it? How much work did YOU put in representing YOUR community? If you didn't do anything, what was stopping you? Is everything supposed to be spoon-fed to you? I'm sorry, but that's what WOW is for. Can I have your stuff when you're gone? (^_^)

Has anyone heard "Be the change you want to see in the world"? (^_^)

Look at the SL Kid community for example. We were [respectfully declined] but we fought back. Through the efforts of people willing to WORK for representation, we returned every push and shove until we were allowed in the door. And, here we are. Not only were we not hidden, but we took the opportunity to create our own side-event that was a huge success in and of it's own. (^_^)

So...Take it from one of the childish ones. I'm seeing a buncha boo-hoo-crybabies here. There is no spoon and the cake is a lie. Get over it and do something about it. (=_=)y

I did very little to improve it personally; I publicised the more blatant examples of discrimination that were taking place, along with many other people, and discussed what was good and bad about the organisation of it as far as I was aware, but mostly did nothing. There is a reason for this - SL5B doesn't actually mean very much to me at all. I suppose it might have grown to mean something had it been different, but it was no skin off my nose whatever it turned out to be, as I never felt that it was representing me or anything to do with me in any real way. This is not something that I felt about previous SL*Bs.

The issue with certain groups being deliberately excluded by LL was something I felt strongly enough that LL should _not_ be doing that I was prepared to act in some small way, but as for the overall event, I really felt that it had nothing to do with me. I was far more interested in, say, Caledon and Babbage's contributions to RFL. Criticism of SL5B is rather academic to be honest, more on the basis of analysing it and using that information for future, different, events.

Quite how it should be to be honest; if there is "spoon-feeding" it is expecting the Lindens to organise things and provide sims and all that sort of thing, and that the result actually reflect the grid.

Yep. I've sent everybody to that exhibit who shows even the slightest interest in SL5B. (By the way, it may not be apparent to folks who haven't scripted a lot of spatial audio, but the exhibit is also technically accomplished. Considering the challenges of tremendous download lag in those sims and tight proximity of different sound environments, it used the right functions when there are many more wrong ways to have done it.)Fair enough. I can't even figure out what to do for Burning Life, an event about which I actually want to care. My Muse has been exceptionally fickle lately, even by her low standards. God help me, maybe I'm ready for retirement to WoW assisted-living. *shudders*

people used WAY to much of everything. texture sets that were designed to take up a majority of a SIM, and just so many other stuff like that.

I learned a few things while I was there. Second Life supports an amazing number of virtual photography studios it's like 5 studios per non-bot idividual(sarcasm). and that the lindens are literally buried in 600 something meters of unresolved bugs(an impressive build listing a majority).

Unfourantly the SIM crashed before I got to the education SIM, and sadly I had to leave to get to my family reunion(4th of july is a better holiday for it than chirstmas trust me on that).

Loki's build: absolutely! Two thumbs up on that one!!

Commercialism: a bit too much for my tastes but I learned to ignore it pretty quickly. /me shrugs.

Discrimination: never a good thing and it was a MAJOR screw-up for them to have done it. That said, LL did reverse the decision and the issue's over, at least IMO. At some point, it'd be nice if the communiity also put it behind them.

Overall, I liked SL5B. Aside from Loki's build, the statues at red rocks, Greenies, the whole tinies area, Katier's ginormous cake and, of course, Caledon stick in my mind as being really well-done. The Lindens areas were nice, too.

I really hope the "zomg, glow is COOL... must... use... on... every.... prim!" phase is over soon .

Oh, I love the RFLs! So interactive, so wonderfully done!

The feeling I got with this years SL*B was that LL stepped in and then on those that were organizing it. So, the theme never got fully hashed out, or if it did, it got lost in the Linden shuffle. By the time it was ready to host, tempers were flared and enthusiasm was shot. Some of the exhibits weren't even FINISHED. So, it felt badly rushed.

So, announce the theme of next years now. Set the deadline for accept applications and submissions for January. Assign plots then and let the builders have an idea of what they can expect in the way of shape/size of plot. Then let them build based on that mapping, so that by the time the event is close to live, all the builders have to do is tweak the exhibit. This is how the major annual parades/events (Rose Bowl being an example) do it.

But this is LL, so that's likely to never happen.

Yes, too many boring commercial builds is the problem. I really don't have a problem with commercial, but make it engaging. The photographers put out some really lovely art. And I loved the Asian Culture display. And I thought it was important for the roleplay communities to put themselves out there, so that was good.

But stuff that seemed like a simple storefront... I had to wonder, really, how it made it in.

Yes there were many boring builds and there were gems amoung them. This is the same as going to any rl arts and crafts festival. There will be rows of boring cliche stuff and there will be a few actual artist. And the actual artists are well worth seeing, for me anyway.

I make both 2D and 3D art and I love looking at what others do. I saw three exhibits at SL5B that blew me away with their 3D artistry. I got to chat with one of those creators. I saw maybe six or so more exhibits that were lovely or charming or cool. The exhibition hall by Cadroe Murphy is stunning. For me that is a worthwhile way to spend my time.

If you didn't find what you like, then create it for next year.

SL5B was exactly as i expected. i wasn't disappointed. there were some really clever ideas... maybe not made the way i would have done it (different techinque/more detailed, etc), but overall most of them were pretty good.

places with "just store" type displays i meandered right past and went right for the flashy stuff. i even bought something.

I'd have like to have seen exhibits by the Hipihi, Novoking, Meet-Me, and other Asian virtual world companies in the Asian Culture section.

I love it. And not just because it's a topic that near to my heart. It's quite beautifully done.



I did all I could to improve it, and while my little build might not win any awards, I'd proud of it, and feel it did a fair job of highlighting my community. I couldn't do everything, though :-/

Mari
(But I am doing fireworks there tonight)

I quite liked it, except for the lag issue (so much could have been helped if the islands weren't connected, or at least had voids in between, so that we didn't have the problem of everyone viewing the main stage having a 'child link' - that they would never use - to 9 of the exhibitor sims).

The only thing that has always bothered me about "SL festivals" in general is that they are supposed to celebrate free expression and community and yet they themselves are almost always static and practically fixed in stone. Burning Life is the notable exception. But celebrating a world that's supposed to be about freeing people's creativity by having them fly into a 20-island block of read-only content seems wrong. That's also why I really take issue with the question "if you didn't like SL5B then what did you do to improve it?" - the answer is, if you didn't get picked, you couldn't possibly do anything.

This was my first time going to any of the large Linden-backed celebrations. I peeked a little at Burning Life once, to see something specific with a friend, but I didn't bother to really look around myself. This was the first time I made an effort to go see the entire thing and while there were good things, I was a little disappointed by some of it. Only a few things I can really say "blew me away" although I did appreciate many of the builds.

I would go back again, but I would hope for a better theme.

So, nothing was allowed to be sold there yet some are whining that it was too commercial?

uhh... right.

I went there hoping to buy things. Couldn't do that. The cry "Too commercial!!" only serves to speak volumes about the complainer. The 'success=evil' mindset is sickening, and it's prevalence causes me to fear for the survival of the western society.

The massive primmyness of everything did make me wonder whether LL is being totally straightforward about prim limits being a hardware limitation.

I too am quickly bored by rooms full of flat prims and even more so by waiting for text to rez on signage. These parts of SL5B I passed up quickly, but fortunately there was much more. LOTS of beautiful things (many of which I wanted to BUY ... but they were enjoyable to see nevertheless)

Comparing this with The Garden of NPIRL - wow, yes there IS a HUGE difference! Most of the SL5B event had cool stuff to see. IMO most of NPIRL is an eyesore.

I think the erudite Ms. Malaprop has pretty much hit the nail on the head with this year's birthday celebrations. I visited the sims and found it to be rather a mess, there was a lack of a sense of coherency and even gaining a sense of direction was hard (why they didn't commission someone to create a simple navigational HUD like the sort that was used in the Second Pride sims in years past baffles me, especially given the large number of sims). There were a few nice builds, but these were scattered about amongst a larger number of really awful ones. There was a prevalence of pseudo-store fronts and squat little boxes with nothing but textures in frames. I even found a few places in the art sims that were selling basically googled photos of famous paintings in rather garish frames.

I think the central theme of 'cultures' was poorly executed, but then given the Lindens barging in during the preparation period and completely changing the format around and the subsequent missteps they took, it isn't all that surprising.

My own feelings on the whole celebration have changed from an initial excitement to anger to utter indifference. The majority of this was to do with difficulties my group had with attempting to secure a plot of land to construct an interactive/reactive themed gallery space to hide a few select pieces of art in. We were all artist who had worked with 2D art, but we wanted to try and bring this inworld for the first time and construct a themed space within which to place the pieces - hopefully creating a fun place to explore and pick up a bunch of themed freebies.

Our experience from the start was one of hostility from the art directors, who had decided on the "flat art on prims" approach and that we could only have wall space. We tried to negotiate but the tone was rather patronising and dismissive, we put in an application regardless, asking for a modest sized plot with a decent amount of prims for the 10 people in our group. We were told at one point we'd have 100 prims each, which wasn't much but better than the 50 prims we were later offered. We withdrew our application at this point and decided to try and work independently. After the changes made by the Lindens, we were offered what we were originally asking for, but our group felt we'd been too poorly treated and there was a sour air around the whole event.

However, despite this, I think there has been a positive outcome to it all. As Ms. Malaprop highlighted, there are a number of resident groups now working to create independent festivals and events, something which our group is now participating in. We kept our original plan, managed to find a very supportive land owner who donated a large parcel of land to us and are planning to open our exhibit as an independent event.

The overall negative tone of SL5B has turned into a boon for us, we've managed to find a number of galleries, content creators and scripters/texturers who were also so annoyed with the event that they were very well to provide us with help, support and backing for our independent event. The bad smell of SL5B seems to be clearing into a sweeter air of more resident-based cooperation, coordination and determination to do our own similar independent events.

Our attempts to 'improve' or contribute to SL5B were somewhat frustrated, but for SL6B our group shall hopefully be in a position to contribute to the fringe, independent and resident organised events in the best way possible.

anything you saw that you wanted to buy could be inspected, and the creators profile might have led you to their storefront by simply reviewing their picks.