Mainland value, after adult content moved...

I'm disappointed with Pie's post, but I can understand it, the openspace issue made me tired with LL, very very tired, although I didn't reach the point Pie is at, we all have a point where we say f*ck it.

I've only been in Sl for two years.
I recognise that SL society has changed a lot in that time.
It'e inevitable.
There was a time when a resident had a certainty that any other resident was into tech / open / explore. The way the thing has to grow is into consumers as a significant force in society. It's a percentage thing.

Everything that was open to me when I joined is still open to me.
It does not matter that there is a greater percentage of people here who do not share my tech or creative ( creative -- I'm bragging here! ) interests.
I can still do what interests me. There are sill as many people here who reciprocate. No amount of demographic change in SL can take that away from me.

Well said, Sling.

Its a numbers game that everyone wins...

It boggles my mind how fast the nay sayers jump on these things in SL and reality. Hmm reality a word that doesn't seem to hold much weight around here

If SL can exponentially increase their userbase over the next 5 years, everyone who is in SL now, as a creator, artist, merchant, land baron, whatever will benefit. If it means change in policy to get more people into it then so be it. I see no intentions of freedom of expression ever being affected by LL announcements. Early adopters who are getting bored of it.. well so be it, but don't undervalue your contributions. If you are still in SL now, you obviously have some patience.. i think a little more is required here.

Adult material is not being outright censored like in films etc, Corporate America isn't going to move in overnight, especially not mainland. Any policy that opens new doors and eyes to SL in a good light is OK in my books. I think for every WOW gamer there is a creative / social type of player who could appreciate Second Life who has either not heard of it yet, or has heard some bad press and is scared away.. Now how would several million concurrency affect your SL business, be it sex related or otherwise..


-why

Many of the nay sayers don't believe that this particular policy will increase the userbase (at all, let alone exponentially). The first thing a new user sees is one of the PG welcome areas, which tend to be full of griefers, flying genitals, piick-up artists etc. If they get past that, they may try to search for somewhere quieter, uncheck the mature tickbox in search to avoid unexpected content, and yet still get back explicit adult results. Anyone offended by mature content will leave SL at this point before they've even attempting to find mature content on the mainland (which those of us who have tried wandering the mainland at random have found quite difficult to do).

Both of these situations are flagrantly against the current TOS - if LL actually enforced the current rules for mature search entries and activities at PG welcome areas, then far more newcomers wouldn't run from SL after the first five minutes.

On the other hand, a lot of people stay away from SL because of its reputation for both technical and policy stability. Whilst technical stability is improving, policy stability is no better as illustrated by this latest shake-up.

The other factor is opensim - whilst this is not anywhere near ready for primetime at the moment, in five years time it may be another story. Also one of the features about opensim is that anyone can run up a sim and connect it to other sims or even connect grids together - or run completely private grids.

Matthew

Matthew

Why do you think that this change in policy will have that effect?

I think just natural increase in computer performance will be a bigger factor than any kind of policy.

People never win numbers games. Numbers win.




Reality isn't what I came here for. I came for "My World. My Imagination" not "Thier World. Corporate Reality"



I've wondered why the primary focus has always been on drawing more and more and more people into this platform. Why not, as a corporation, make your primary focus and goal to be pleasing and appreciating your current customers and letting thier enthusiam and excitment about your product be the thing that brings you more business. It's worked for me IRL. It looks like it's worked for Desmond here in SL, too.

Had LL been focused on making their platform work reliably for it's exsisting customers, if they had provided clear and consistent business plans and policies, maybe I would feel more patient. But I've got 5+ years here, longer then almost anyone left working for LL, and I'm all outta patience. I think it disappeared in a server asset bug.



PG, Mature, and Adult all seem like film ratings to me. And I would hardly call the influx of residents after the latest SkyNews report ok in my book.

My opinioin is that a million concurancy will destroy most of the grass-roots, casual hobbist/creators' businesses. Because with several million concurancy the platform will be large enough for true Corporate Advertising and Product Placement. Big Business will thrive, your little business won't. Ask small town American what happens to downtown commerce when WalMart moves in and tell me I'm wrong.

IMO, SL won't be more creative with a million concurancy, it will be less creative. It will be cleaned and polished and perfectly acceptable for the masses to ingest and consume with no fear of acid reflux or Montezuma's Revenge. There will be no offensive nipples on the scupltie statue of Venus de Milo, sexual innuendo will be fine but sexuality will not be, as it is now on your Corporately sponsored TV. Well, unless you over-ride the parental controls to get to the soft-core porn channels... that'll show up on your bill as ADULT PROGRAMING. You won't know how to do that but your 13 yr old son can show you how.

I am depressed. I've loved this f**king place. Maybe in a year you can all prove me wrong and giggle at how much silly ole Pie was over-reacting. I really hope you can. I really wish someone will someday make me care about SL again, I really do. But caring enough about the SL platform is incredibly tricky when it's pwned by LL and the investors who give them way more money then they are going to lose by pissing me off time and time again.

LL considers me valueless. I've just let myself see them the same way.

/me sends Pie a hug. They've tried to kill it before and failed. Here's hoping they do it again.

Well LL soon won't have their monopoly of 3D VW's. BlueMars which i've been keeping tabs on for the last 8 months, have announced their launch of a Beta version schedule for June. This is not another Opensource clone....this platform is built entirely different from the ground up and unlikely to be ever be linked to the SL Family of VW's through interportability.

I applied for creator status last night and received it shortly afterwards.
The only real downside for now, is that you must have Vista to run it becuase of the superior graphics. In a couple of years time though most people wil be running Vista as minimum OS anyway. It runs on CryENGINE™2 powered graphics
http://www.bluemarsdev.com/platform/index.html#Benefits

Pretty much everyone I know is running XP, Ubuntu, or Leopard. I doubt ANY of the people running Ubuntu or Leopard are going to be running Vista, ever.

And while Blue Mars may deliver the coup-de-grace to There.com and ActiveWorlds, it doesn't seem to have anything like the content creation environment of Second Life.

SL is a mature content game and trying to make it into a PG game at this time just doesn't make sense. I am not really one who spends a whole lot of time in adult sites, but I am somewhat tired of the watering of personal responsibility I see from, especially american producers. the key to a free and liberal society is freedom of speech and freedom of expression. it is my right as an individual to express myself however I like while it is your right to ignore me or avoid me. sure there are common sense rules that implies that I do not have a right to invade on your right to privacy with my right of expression, but that right does not extend into readilly available but non public areas. SL isn't a public area, it is a free space that anyone over a certain age may enter, but within that area you have a right to express yourself as you wish. now I haven't got an overwhelming desire to express myself by running around naked and asking random women for sexual favours, but on the other hand I don't believe I have the right to prevent other people to do so in an environment that is clasified as adult/mature.

as for children having access to such sites I just have to say, that for too long we have shifted responsibility for the rearing of kids from the parents to the society/government and thereby we have created the problems we face today with dissattisfied youth terrorising schools and communities. it is time that we stop trying to legalize and restrict our way out of the trouble and expect parents to take responsibility for their kids.

if your kid uses your computer to gain access to pornography, or to the mature sections of SL then it isn't the internet or SL that is to blame. it is you as a parent. just as it isn't the engineer who constructed the Empire State Building's fault that you die when you jump from the top, or the car manufacturers fault that you get crippled when you drive at 150 MPH into a concrete wall. wake up and take responsibility for your own life and that of your kids.

SL has mature content and if you want to show your family around SL stick to PG or the more down to earth mature sites. don't invite them to the nearest sex mall or nude beach and get outraged at seeing nude people making love.

Looking around on the Blue Mars site, there's more info than last time.

One thing is particularly telling:

In other words, if you want to create content you have to be approved as a developer, and to distribute content in-world you'll have to have a server and a store, they call it a "city" and not an "estate", but that's what it comes to... there won't be any of this business of just sitting down and making stuff in-world and passing it on to your friends, there won't be any mainland, or sandboxes, and everything will of course be no-transfer.

there will be content creation there...read their website of their proposals.
Its going to be an alternative 3d VW....don't pre-judge.

Yes, its a different concept. I have recieved approval as a developer, wasn't that hard to do. It will have different scripting language...superior looking avatars, better graphics. You can't compare as like for like....if you want a replacement SL, then you'll have to hope one of the Opensource projects makes it big.

This is like starting from scratch and learning new skill sets and programs. Instead of Photoshop it will be other proggies.

I'm not saying peopel should dump SL and try something else....but if someone like Pie feels burnt out and disillusioned with SL....this could be a nice fresh challenge for him.

I don't plan leaving SL myself as much as i can't stand LL.....this is just doing something different and seeing if i can make a go of it. It might be very fruitful, it might not......it might be lots of fun....it might not! I prefer to keep an open mind and give it a spin!

I have, I've been following it for years now. Content Creation in Blue Mars is going to be like Content Creation in There.com or Activeworlds: you build content out of the world, you sell it in your store, subject to the service's approval. No free form content creation in-world, no transferrable or full perm content. No point.
Replacing SL with SL isn't something that really excites me either.

But nothing that has ANY LESS freedom for anyone, anywhere, to make anything they can manage to envision and create, has any interest for me. If there's no SL, I'll just go back to text-based virtual worlds. Because it's not the dazzling 3d graphics that interest me in SL, it's the collaboration and interaction. That's why my best stuff is the stuff I sell full perm, payment on the honor system, I'll bet you're using some of it right now.

This might be posted elsewhere but why not make some mainland sims PG and some sims Mature? Why does the shift have to be complete?

You mean like they are now?

I've been watching this poll since it's creation. It's wavered from between 33 to 40% in one direction since it began, and then today I find it at 26% or so all of a sudden, in less than a day.

Looking at the names, well, I'm no genius or social butterfly, but the recognisable names seem to no longer be distributed very equally.

Alt stuffing of the ballot box?

You guys decide. Personally I don't think anyone would care that much about my poll, but this was a huge, sudden change. Look at the names.

I'm actually surprised its not 85-90%, which is where i would expect it to be if everyone in SL were to vote including all those non-english speaking users who are still unaware of LL Adult content proposal. Certainly the largest user base "Europe" has far more liberal views towards adult content! Can you imagine which way the Brazilian community would vote for- rofl

i just checked, and none of my alts have voted. (the sway would be MUCH different if they'd had)

Thank you for leading me to that lovely area to explore, though at Petaccio 179,166,18 (PG) there is a clear case of starfish sex... won't that piece of the build have to move to the Adult Continent? lol

i think part of this is ll is hpeing ppl will more opt to buy an island....because islands wound be more and will have 'freedom' its bull that there wanting to move 'adult'content to a new content ...because of those rightwing nuts complaining...hey heres an idea...how bout if u don't want to see that stuff then don't go there

I never thought I'd see the day when Desmond pouted over a forum poll. I daresay there are probably 100 people who read the forums (and vote on polls) for every person that posts. So just because you don't personally know someone who voted, they must be ebil alts who are out to ruin your poll....

C'mon Des, you're better than that.

/me throws Desmond a 'More' vote and flashes a pair of wardrobe malfunctions at the ebil alts.

I voted less - Certainly in the short term the supply of Mainland will increase as some people move to the new Adult continent, bringing down prices.

That coupled with the fact that it looks like LL have just dropped last July's moratorium on rolling out new mainland, LL brought online 17 new Mainland regions in the past 24 hours . They aren't currently ready for auction but are accessible and form part of the Newest Northern Mainland continent to the North of Corsica (I call it Little Willy ... on account of it looks like ... a Little Willy)

http://www.tycheshepherd.com/images/map_004.jpg shows the new regions in bordered in red . The names are Untersberg Pilatus Rimpfischhorn Sciliar Erindale
Langholm Todi Schneeberg Weissmies Traunstein Morgan Larose Wetterhorn Titlis Baturyn Riel Blinter .