Blue Mars beta

Well, it is fair to say that we all are God then, since we are the Creators, by definition?

WOOHOO! Love peppers and am enjoying the discussion. New York Times has a piece today on James Cameron's upcoming movie; Avatar. Very interesting reading and I am looking forward to December the 18th:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/movies/25avatar.html

Of course life's a game.

Pep (No-one's satisfactorily worked out the ToS and Guidelines yet though)

PS Nor what happens when we log out

Hmmmmm. Argent and I were talking about repairing and customizing and building and growing. I guess everyone has planted a seed and seen it grow. For me personally, creation starts 2D and becomes 3D in the real world and it really is amazing. Spend months designing a piece of machinery and doing all of the calculations and triple checking yourself. There is always a nagging doubt as you watch the pieces be cut out and welded together. Drilled and machined and bolted. Nervous system put into place, wire by wire and sensor or servo. Never really know for sure thou until the ON button is finally pushed.

Guess we really create even if we just buy stuff, both RL and SL. Buy a home and pick out just the right curtains and couch. Plant the row of bushes and water the lawn. We keep on until it is our own personal space that reflects our personality. There is the same sense of self satisfaction and it doesn't matter if our guests walk up to the door or teleport in

/me prefers the natural creation process . . .

Pep ( . . . and practice makes perfect)

If my creation starts to evolve into a new species, then I would say that is the true definition of Virtual World

speculative fiction according to some. definitely unevidenced. but who knows (although taken literally the only people likely to go to heaven are deathbed repenitents)

Have an apple... the lovliest decides log out protocol...
[img=http://freelunch.doesntexist.org/images/eris.jpg]

It looks like the main objection to calling Blue Mars a 'world' is that its residents should have the right to build (ie alter their world). If I read the latest clarifications correctly on Rock's blog it appears that all city (for this read region) owners and the tenants of their stores will be able to create and upload, and they are currently working on the tenants of homes having the same rights too.

So, all residents will be able to create and upload, and the only ones that will not be able to are the non-residents, the casual visitors, which is what a lot of people have argued should be the case in SL too.

And, OMG!! Have you seen those shoes?? http://avatar-reality.com/newsroom/download/gimgl3.jpg

I just hope I will have feet to match those shoes, instead of the ugly featureless things I have now. Has anyone actually seen an avatar yet in the pixel flesh in Blue Mars, or is that still a closely guarded secret, or have they not finished the avatar software yet?

How Discordian of you, now all we need to do is find a simple shepherd to make this "fair" =)

If you want to disable building on your own land, you can do it. Most people don't.

Say, wouldya like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?

Pep (Would I lie to you?)

Hey!, I didn't say I agreed with that TOS. But sometimes you do have to accept it if you want to get in.

I just know what I see, acres and acres of eyesores left behind by newbies and (presumeably) absent land owners, so none of the mess gets cleaned up. It's making SL look awful. But that is not the worst of it, it is the griefing.

I read somewhere that the vast majority of griefing attacks come from people who have free accounts and no payment info on file. As a victim of some of these attacks in the past I would prefer that newcomers to SL be allowed to look and no more. If they want to build, script, whatever, then they should be premium members or at least have payment info on file.

That would get my vote.


http://forums.secondlife.com/images/icons/icon14.gif

So now you're complaining about people building things you don't like on their own land?

You hear about a lot of that, but I've been here almost 4 years and only had one incident with a stranger griefing me on my own land. Most of the griefing I've seen has been from neighbors.

Yes, griefing took a big bounce back in June 2006 when they opened up the grid to unverifieds, but it's not a huge problem these days... and it's a herring incarnadine. They don't need to caponise everyone, they just need to enforce the ToS.

No, please read my post more carefully. I was not talking about "people building things you don't like on their own land" I said quite clearly "acres and acres of eyesores left behind by newbies and (presumeably) absent land owners, so none of the mess gets cleaned up."

It is the problem of newbies, with no premium account, and no payment info on file, who leave their rubbish lying around all over the place. If a landowner is around he can return it, but when a landowner is absent there is no-one to clean up the mess. This is the case with several of my friends, and one moved only for it to happen again. I have seen many posts in these forums about this problem.

As far as griefing goes you have the right to your opinion, of course, but you state things as fact, rather than opinion "but it's not a huge problem these days" where do you get that info from? Please, I would like to know.

I was griefed, and when I talk to my friends about it they all have stories about griefing to relate too. I am not sure if females are singled out for these kind of attacks, and I am not talking about neighbor to neighbor disputes either (I would not call them griefing attacks).

Enforcing the TOS has no effect whatsoever. Griefers just create another alt, and start all over again. But you must know this, it has been stated in the forums goodness knows how many times.

That's still their own land.

That's still their own land.

That's still their own land.

If they are no longer premium, then it's not their land any more.

File a ticket with support, Linden Labs will send someone around to clean it up. They've done it for me several times.

Personal experience. I've had idiots grief me, yes. A pawful of times in four years. Only once on my own land. It's a red herring: enabling build doesn't create greifing, disabling build doesn't stop it.

Screw the forums, I've had it happen to me, in SL and in other games, and on Usenet. The first griefer I ever met was a fellow by the name of Ron Pike, who totally trashed the group net.suicide back in the early '80s with his alt "Elizabeth Bimmler". And it will happen on Blue Mars too, no matter whether they restrict people's creativity or not.

I gather that "city owners" and their tenants qualify for introducing new content, so the question becomes how expensive is it to own a "city" or rent from such an owner? I'm assuming that developer licensing is free for the asking, so can such an owner even declare that anybody and everybody can become their tenant for free and upload to their hearts content?

I think that determines in which market(s) this service will compete.

If there's a large barrier to entry for being able to introduce content created by licensed developers, it's just another pretty 3D environment like all the others, slightly handicapped by being DirectX only.

If introducing that content is free or very low cost (on the order of "owning" a 512 in SL), then they're going to be serious competition to SL (despite the DirectX only handicap).

It's got nothing to do with what percentage of SL residents create stuff. It's the difference between crowdsourcing and handcrafting (roughly the difference between modern Google search and old-style Yahoo search, long since replaced). Whether you're contributing to the crowdsourced product yourself, everyone in SL is a consumer of it. Some may be satisfied with the ever-so-pretty handcrafted environments that an exclusive 3D platform can provide for however long that exclusivity model can survive. But ultimately it will be a niche market--a CompuServe overtaken by the Internet--whether it's SL or its successor.

Blue Mars can only be that successor if it is at least as enabling of user-created content as SL. Otherwise it will succeed (or not) in a different, more established market.

When I looked at the site, to apply to own a city you had to contact them, be approved, and have a business name. That might change at release, mind you.



The problem is that neither of these things are really, in ultima, crowdsourced. On Google, it's all about the top rankings. And on SL, if you fly over the residential areas, probably 90% of what you see is made by the same (relatively) small set of users.

From what I have read the pricing has yet to be announced, and I am not sure that there is a price for a 'city'. I think what they charge for is 'resources', the city can be essentially any size, and they start at a whopping 1km x 1km! This to me is great news, having been hurt by the Openspace debacle.

The idea that I can have as much land as I want, but only pay for the number of avatars, scripts etc that I use is excellent, providing that it is reasonable, of course

Openspaces were originally a godsend. Lots of space, low number of prims (which was all I needed) and just me and a few friends. I didn't use many scripts either.

I will be watching the prices very closely when they are finally announced.

Front

It is if there's some sensible throttle.

If it means that griefers can drop 200 alts onto your city to drive up your monthly bill and/or cause your city to be taken down for exceeding its usage limit, it's very bad.

I dunno. The whole idea of Google search is that in-bound links will accrue naturally as sites reference content. That's pretty "crowdsourced" to me, but true, this all pre-dates "crowdsourcing" / "Here Comes Everybody", etc., yet I don't think the analogy is that opaque. I had thought of trying a different one:

SL : crafted content :: twitter : internet storefront malls.

Most of twitter is crap, and most users of twitter rarely tweet. But where's the mindshare? (Difference is that LL seems to have found a way to monetize SL.)

I totally don't agree that 90% of what we see in residential SL is created by the same small set of users, for any credible value of "small." Most crafted-content environments are lucky to have as many creators as are represented in the SL Library Folder.

Interesting. I rather like the idea of free accounts having no build rights, and I am with the others on seeing this as a very positive step. I don't buy the line that 'this is the way it is, just AR if you don't like it'. I would prefer a Virtual Life where I do not have to raise ARs, where a simple Policy change could obviate the need.

But, your idea that they could then create 100s of alts instead, that would depend. Blue Mars might give free accounts, but you may need to log a valid CC first, dunno, that would probably stop it.

Again, only reading what little there is out there, it appears that what you pay is just for the resources you want 'without lag'. If more avatars come to your city, or more scripts are run, or whatever, than you have paid for, then you will start to notice lag, not have your bill increased.

Don't quote me on that though it is only based on a few blog entries, and some 'filling in of the gaps' on my part

Front

Way Way Wrong.