Why can't scripting be done via a "gui"?

Right. But we don't expect people to "deal with" them in the same way they "deal with" real life - that's just silly.

The major design problem with SL is that if you look at all the things which SL does best - and which it ought to concentrate on - almost all of them require being the "special" one in a social group. That is a disaster because it means that access to those features will chase an endlessly shrinking minority.



No, but you can manipulate the environment so that, by being people, the behaviour eventually emitted is more beneficial. I already gave an example of that - the technique Farmville uses to make sure that it's possible for _every_ player to have visitors to their farm, no matter how badly designed it is.



So.. what you're saying is that, sitting in EVERY single movie screening, EVER, there is at least one person who doesn't enjoy the film?



Sure. But games of that type are not "what SL is best at". There are many competitors in that field which SL cannot ultimately beat without changing its model to no longer be SL.

Why?

You keep saying that, but it's just not true. And I can't believe you're still bringing up Scamville as a counterexample.

I'll bet that there's a significant percentage who don't enjoy the film as much as they'd have enjoyed doing something else, and are only there because someone dragged them to it.

Well, because most of the operators of these commercial services realize that people will not "deal with" not getting what they want from their service, in a way that involves them continuing to pay.



It is certainly true that those who are socially "special" get much more value for money from SL than others, which can leave others feeling a bit cheated. And whenever I ask you for an example of something that doesn't require it, you give an example of something which is not a forte of SL. Just plain building, for example - many programs can do it better.

I only bring iup "Scamville" to show that you _can_ manipulate the environment to alter people's behaviour without requiring them to be "not human". WoW to some extent does the same, as do many other online 'games'; their examples are just a bit more distant.



So... at the Star Wars epic overnight screening of all six films back-to-back, come in your own cosplay.. there are people who don't like Star Wars.... ??

Then why don't MMOs have a "duffer course" for people who just want to "hang out at the clubhouse"? The last time I tried an MMO, I couldn't get out of the training area. Why don't they try and figure out how to get me to pay?

Maybe it's because different products appeal to different people?

Second Life doesn't appeal to you. World of Warcraft doesn't appeal to me. The difference is I don't get on the WoW forums and try and drum up a movement to open a "hang out at the clubhouse" game to try and MAKE WoW appeal to me.

And how does that differ from World of Warcraft, or even Farmville? Sure, you get people looking at your farms, but if your farms suck, then your farms still suck. That half a dozen people looked at your farm doesn't change that.

Please don't pull that selective memory thing again. NO programs do cooperative and interactive building better, and none let you do as much with what you built, and I'm not going to explain why again because we've had that discussion.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this.

You keep misrepresenting my point of view this way. I don't think SL needs to please every single member of the real world population. I do think that SL needs to be able to please every single member of the SL population at any given moment. That can't be done if you need to be special, and have social extra attention paid to you, in order to realize the benefits of SL.

From my point of view, I would like to have the experiences that others have described here, and I do like SL in that regard. But at the same time, people choose socially not to offer them to me, and I acknowledge that that's fine, that is their choice, and that they cannot be required to do so for everyone. However, that creates a problem for SL as a product because it leaves LL having to make sure their product remains valuable when they cannot control that key aspect of its value.



Ah, but it does! The fact that your farm _did_ get looked at means that YOU _ARE_ GETTING SOME VALUE FROM HAVING YOUR FARM BUILT ON A SOCIAL PLATFORM. Even if it sucks, at least you might find that out, you might get some help or tips, etc. If nobody ever looked at your farm, you might just as well have drawn a picture.



Right. And most of those things require you to be "the special one" in a group. Why am I cooperating to help you do your building rather than vice versa? Why are we all paying attention to what you built instead of what I built?



You claimed that in every single movie screening, somebody was in the theatre who didn't like the picture. I gave an example of a possible movie screening in which that seems unlikely. Remember, if it is true that everyone who went to that Star Wars show likes Star Wars, then it _IS_ possible for a film to please everyone in the theatre.

I'm not misrepresenting your point of view. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it, or maybe I'm just showing you what it looks like from the outside.

Prove me wrong, tell me what you like about SL. Not what you think you'd like if it happened to you, what you actually like.

I don't think ANY product or service can do that. Everquest couldn't, when my wife was in it I was (briefly) a "member of the EQ population" and, well, it sure as hell didn't please me.

And, no, WoW and EQ don't please every member every moment. Just read the boards.

You have to be able to learn those skills that provide positive feedback in SL. That's true of all games, all services, all "worlds".

You chose to behave in a way that pisses people off. You do it here and I'm pretty sure that you're no different in game. That's not the fault of SL, and it's not the fault of the people you push away. You have to change yourself to change that. I don't know how you can. I used to try and give you hints and suggestions that might lead you to doing something about it, without coming out and saying you're being a jerk and maybe that's the problem, but that doesn't work.

Maybe you would. I sure as hell wouldn't.

I have never been to a convention or other "event" where there weren't some people who were dragged along by their spouses, friends, lovers, or peers. Not even a midnight showing of Rocky Horror (I know that because it was me). But even if there was such a perfect show, it's sure as hell doesn't mean all or even most shows are like that.

You can't please all of the people all of the time.

I like the general idea of it as a platform and a world. Beyond that I can't say much more because of the lack of experience. I have to refer to what happens to other people because so little happens to me.



Right, but that's just a question of it not pleasing everyone in the world. There IS an issue if it can only please, say, 70% of the people who are active at any given time, no matter what all of them think about it.



Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that if four people who all have the same such skills meet up, not all four can have positive feedback.



And that's fine. Yes, maybe wanting what those others have _does_ make me a jerk. If that's your opinion then that's ok! But again, now look at it from an LL point of view - a person wants to have the full value their product can provide, but can't actively state it without being seen as a 'jerk' and denied it for that reason!? Not a good business model.

What I mostly notice is that the way people tell me to change comes down to either giving up and settling without it, or embarking on a lengthy period of work that will likely fail in the end but at will at least keep me quiet while I'm doing it. Both of those are social platitudes that are used to cover flaws in society. Yes, it's a kind of "jerky" thing to do to reject them and keep pointing to the flaws. But I reserve the right to do that, because I'm _not_ pointing out the flaws in the society. I'm pointing out the flaws in the entertainment product, Second Life. The fact that it is designed in such a way that it inherits all the flaws of a society is purely the choice of its designers.



So.. you would really rather pay (let's say) US$75 a month in tier for a build that nobody ever looks at, than to simply use an offline server emulator and make it for free? Even when, since nobody looks at your build, the results are exactly the same either way?



It only takes _one_ example to break a "can't". Yes, it can be done. Hey, I'm pretty sure that all of the people who attend my Show and Tells enjoy them. I don't think I've discovered some magical secret.

You're not listening at all. Typical.

The fact of the matter is that these games EXIST in "real life"; i.e. they use real resources: namely, computers, software, developers, power, air conditioning, etc, AND have "real people" using/playing them. Thus, the problems they are plagued by have to do with the REAL limitations of not only the platform, but of the people themselves using/playing them. So, as far as the issues that reflect the same real life mechanisms of LEARNING CURVE and SOCIAL SKILL CULTIVATION, yes, we SHOULD expect people to "deal with" them in the SAME WAY the "deal with" real life, because those factors are the EXACT SAME ONES they deal with in real life.



Oh god, not this shite again.



If Farmville is going to be held up as an example that is better than SL or any other MMO out there, then I will take SL and ANY OTHER MMO out there. Thanks, but no thanks.



In all practical terms, YES! There is always someone present in just about every movie audience who doesn't like something about their theater experience. You're chasing perfection, which simply is not reasonable to consider. Try for, sure, to all PRACTICAL extents, but NOT obsess over.



It doesn't have to be "best" at them for people to enjoy themselves. Not everyone is looking for the "best" of everything. Many times a combination of "good enough" factors is what matters. WoW certainly isn't the "best" in many categories (personally, I hate that piece of crap game, for MANY reasons, but I digress), but a whole heapin' lot of people play it, don't they?

That's not a fact.

No, that's not the problem.

That's how you interpret it. As long as you interpret actually doing what other people are doing as either giving up or being made to go away, you're going to be stuck in the same hole.


Yes.

But they're not. Even if nobody else does, at least I can visit my land in SL. I can't do that with an offline building program, because there's no "me" there.

Except, apparently, for you. Every time we say you can, you come back and tell us you can't.

If they do, it is only because they put more into it than others. Much of what people "feel cheated" over is a misperception of the fruits of the efforts of the "special *cough* people", mostly due to not seeing the efforts they made to achieve their "special" status. People often envy what others have legitimately earned because they are too lazy or afraid themselves to bother trying to earn the same, often just assuming that those they are envying had the fruits just given to them.

Very FEW programs do building as easy as SL. Try out Unity3D sometime. Try Garry's Mod. Then come back and tell me that SL is too hard for many people to get into and be successful at. I won't believe you.



Sure, you can CON people into doing anything with a scam. However, once they figure out that they have been CONNED, they tend to react much more negatively overall than before.



That has happened, sure. I got taken to a Rocky Horror Picture Show "screening" by some friends one time. ONCE. We did the whole bit; the bic lighters, the throwing of toast, etc. Yeah, the heckling was funny, but the experience overall was just.. stupid. The movie is beyond awful; it lampoons B-movies in a worse-than-B-movie way. The heckling was all rather unoriginal and trite, almost on cue. Half the time, I didn't get the jokes until someone explained the weak innuendo behind them to me.

And I think it is. As soon as one of those people is paying attention to any of the others, they have given up their own positive feedback.



I do not believe it to be what other people were doing.



If it includes a server emulator, then you have an avatar there just the same.



If I give you one example of a show pleasing everyone, then it is possible for a show to please everyone. To prove that I could do something, you would have to show one example of me doing it.

If that was the case then nobody would ever enjoy seeing a movie.

People are telling you what they themselves do, and you don't believe them?

It's not "me". My avatar in There never was "me". My avatar in Blue Mars isn't "me" yet. Until I make that connection with THAT avatar, it's not "me".

Whether or not it took effort to get to where they were isn't the point, though; nor is whether or not they deserve it. The point is, we have to make sure that the key competitive value of SL doesn't require people to be an that "special" position, because not everyone can be. No matter how much work you say would be necessary to "earn" to run a club, not everyone can run a club even if they all did that work because if they did nobody would be actually GOING to any of them.



I've used both of them. Unity3D isn't really meant for building graphics, it's meant for creating interactive games using 3D graphics that have already been built. Is it better than SL at that? Yes, with one fell swoop: it doesn't have lag.

And what about "success"? With Unity3D or GMOD, you get full value for money when you can just play or experiment. On SL, you can do that in a sandbox for free, too. If you buy land, you must be buying it for something more than that.



And the aspect of Farmville that gets people to visit other peoples' farms is NOTHING to do with any of the "scam"s. It is nothing to do with the Farmcash system at all.



Right. But you're saying there's an absolute cast-iron rule that there is one person like that at EVERY SINGLE Rocky Horror screening?

Watching a movie is enjoyment, but it isn't "positive feedback". It also isn't a forte of SL.



I don't believe that they are telling me what they themselves do. Not maliciously - I believe there's a whole lot of other subconscious stuff going on behind the scenes, which they maybe aren't even aware that they're doing, but that's still critical.



What needs to be displayed on the screen for you to make that connection?

Right. But again, business! If game 1 allows everyone to get involved and do things and recieve positive feedback, whereas game 2 doesn't but says that those who lose out just have to deal with it because that's how life is, then which is going to have more players and get more money? People are not going to stay with game 2 just because "we have to deal with it"!



If it were "shite", wouldn't it be easy to prove wrong? You're claiming that nobody ever does anything in SL that requires an audience.



Yes, that's true. But SL still has competitors that can outcompete it for those markets. And it doesn't have the social momentum WoW has.

That doesn't happen in RL; why would anyone expect it to happen in SL? Again, that is a PEOPLE problem, not a PLATFORM problem.



If you have a "need" to be special, then likely, you have psychological issues that need to be worked out in RL first. I bet it will surprise you to know that many "successful" or "special" people don't have any such need to be "special". An extreme example of this: Grigory Perelman. The man simply IS "special", but he certainly has no "need", nor desire to be so.

People become "special" (to the extent that they have extra social attention paid to them) through their own efforts, and realize the benefits of those efforts. Those who are unwilling to try will fulfill the self-reinforcing failures they set up for themselves. Beyond that, there are MANY people who do just fine in SL without "needing" to be the "center of attention".



Then get out there and HAVE those experiences. WORK towards your goals, don't expect them to be handed to you on a silver platter.

The main reason I see that people choose to not offer you opportunities (for example) is because you constantly telegraph "epic fail here" to all those around you. I have to admit that I would be loathe to offer RP opportunities to you, just from my experiences with you in this forum, because you exude negativity and failure. It certainly is NOTHING for which LL SHOULD be responsible; they can't control you, and they can't control me. From what I gather from your point of view, the only way they could is if they did something like take my hard-earned work and gave it to you to reap the benefits. Sounds pretty socialist to me. <.<



Forcing people to look at crap isn't value to the crap creator. More than likely, the so-called "value" is going to be a plethora of comments to the effect of "this is crap". Well, yeah, I suppose if you're looking for feedback, you'll get plenty of that; it simply won't taste all that good.

If my builds are crap (and they are, as far as I am concerned) and, as a result, they draw no audience, then that is nothing more than motivation for me to learn to make them less crappy in the future.



Would be cheaper, that's for sure. <.<



No they don't. We've had plenty of examples of someone we've never seen before show up at our sandbox and start building something truly amazing from scratch. Yeah, they get plenty of attention after the fact, but they were FAR from "the special one" in our group beforehand.



Why are you cooperating with someone to build something if you aren't expecting some form of compensation for it, either via economic or social currency? Does everything you do require you to be the center of attention to make it worthwhile to do? What have you built?



Even in your most contrived examples, which are FAR from representative of the VAST MAJORITY of such, there are still commonly people who do not have a good experience, for one reason or another.

Because SL is an entertainment product. It is not something that people "just have to live with" in the same way that society is.



I'm not referring to any psychological experience, I'm referring to the value of SL. If you want to have people around to your SL house, then you are being "special" (because why are we at your house and not mine?) But what's the real point of having an SL house if nobody ever vists?



Again, that's a straw man and an irrelevant point. Yes, it takes effort, but NO MATTER whether it takes effort or not, it is not possible for EVERYONE to have that experience.



I can't "work" towards having people treat me differently; how people treat me is their choice, and they can ignore my work as easily as they ignore anything else.



And that's a domino excuse - of course I'll exude failure if I've failed in the past. But why did I fail in the past?



They control both our avatars and the world. Chat and bbposts don't have to be relayed verbatim, and what you see on screen only has to be _some_ kind of visualization of their database - it doesn't have to be geographic, because there isn't really any geography. When you're God, you're responsible for everything, whether you like it or not.



Right. And Farmville solves that. Do you know how it solves that? Have you done research? I will tell you: it solves it by using Facebook to ensure that most of the people looking at the farm will be the person's RL friends too, and will probably not have any interest in making a comment like that.



You're assuming that good builds always draw audience. That's not true at all. I've seen plenty of really good builds be ignored because the builders weren't interested in playing the marketing game. And before you say "well, that's their choice not to make an effort", bear in mind that if they had won that game, someone else would lose.



Right. Now what if 10 people you've never seen before all arrive at once and build something amazing?



Because you're saying I should be doing it because it's the reason why I'm in SL.

Hell yes it is.

It's proof that most people don't actually need to be the rockstar to enjoy the concert.

I'm pretty sure there's stuff you're doing that you're not aware of that's sabotaging you. People who don't do that stuff don't get sabotaged... but they can't tell you what not to do either.

I can't tell you that, because you'll misinterpret it and we've already got enough confused feedback loops in this thread.

Yes. But if you want to enjoy a concert, then you can do it by going to an ACTUAL concert, or watching YouTube, or.... SL's unique features are only coming into play if you're the rock star.



Sure. So, you have agreed with me that people are indeed NOT telling me what they themselves did in sufficient detail to help.



Well, in that case, let me tell you that there are two possibilities.
a) It's something that doesn't require the participation of other people. In this case, any other program could display it, too.
b) It's something that does require the participation of other people. In this case, it depends on you being special because why are people participating with you instead of me?

I have enjoyed a number of concerts in SL without being the rock star.



They're telling you everything they did. They bloody can't tell you what not to do, because they don't know. The only one who does is you. Until you accept that you're doing it wrong, you've no chance of doing it right.



(c) Use your bloody imagination.

And that's good. But would you stay in SL if all you ever did there was to attend other people's concerts?



If they were telling me the subconscious things that they did, then I would have to stop doing the ones I'm doing, because I could not do their subconscious thing and my subconscious thing at once.



Well, if it's just a matter of using your imagination, then why not use your imagination about the offline building program too?

More like "because I don't try to get out much due to fear of failure". Just my take on your stance...



That is MOST DEFINITELY *NOT* a "fact".



No, what makes you something like a "jerk" is a number of things:

1) You have a deep-seated need to be MADE to feel "special".
2) That everyone around you should be forced in some way to fulfill that need.
3) That you don't have to do anything of substance to EARN it, while at the same time, you envy what others have achieved, and seem to want it taken away from them.
4) Lastly, that this is explained to you time and time again, in as many ways as there are scales on my body, and it never seems to "sink in".



LL can't do anything about the neuroses of their customers. If that makes their business model "not good", then there IS no "good" one.

LL provides you the tools; YOU as the customer have to provide the rest. If you can't do that, or don't want to do that, then maybe SL isn't for you.



It's not about "keeping you quiet"; it IS about complaining over something which ONLY YOU have TOTAL CONTROL. The flaws aren't in SOCIETY, they are in YOU. Society simply is. Now, if there was a "Yumi Hate Club" out there in which a large percentage of society belonged and participated, thwarting your efforts to experience life and pursue happiness and fulfillment, then yeah, you could say such a thing. However, to my knowledge, there ISN'T such a thing (or, if there is, I haven't been invited <.< ). As such, you can't push off your own problems onto society like that.

I wouldn't even call it "jerky" so much as tacitly annoying that you keep pointing elsewhere for problems that need you to be pointing at yourself first and foremost.

You keep blaming SL for inheriting "society's flaws", yet you have not come up with a single viable alternative. NOT ONE. If there is this supposed "Utopia" of virtual worlds out there, WHY aren't you writing it up and submitting it to some VCs to get started? Oh, right, fear of failure. See the vicious circle of self-fulfilling prophecy here?



I ALREADY pay more than that for a build that very few people ever see. However, then again, I don't have a driving "need" to feel special which prevents me from even trying in the first place.



Why can't YOU be that example?

So, once you start paying attention to someone else, that's PERMANENT?!?! O.o

BS.



Well, if *you* don't believe it to be, then it probably is, since they are getting "all the attention", and you are not.



Not necessarily. You don't have an "avatar" in Maya or Blender, or even in Caligari TrueSpace's Server.



The substance of the world is comprised of probabilities, not possibilities. Exceptions don't make rules. In either case, "proof" that something is possible says nothing about the probability of it actually happening.

That makes no sense at all. What DOES make sense is that if they are getting all the attention, they are likely to want to keep it that way.



I mean, of course, an SL server emulator.



True. However, moving the objection from one of possibility to one of probability adds valuable information.

I don't try to get out much because my treatment makes it obvious I'm not wanted, so why would I? I'm probably doing people a favour by not doing anything.



And I've said several times why it is.



No. I just believe that for SL to have maximal value, it _is_ necessary. And the churn rate for the "crowd" as compared to the "special" people confirms it.



No. I don't think anyone should be forced. I think we should change SL so that either the need no longer exists, or the experience is simulated and/or manipulated so that people either choose to do it, or it can occur independantly of people's choices.



I don't want anything taken away from anyone, although that's telling, because you seem to be saying that I can't have what I want without it being taken away from someone else - that's exactly the problem I'm indicating; that if that IS true, then it's impossible for 100% of the population to have it, and shrinkage of SL is guaranteed.

I don't have any objection to earning it. I _do_ object to an "earning race", because most entrants will lose.



Untrue. The coupling between the customers' behaviour and their avatars' is their decision.



And all of that is fine, as long as it is scalable, and I believe that it is not.



Not onto society, no, but SL IS AN ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT, NOT A SOCIETY, SO THAT REASONING DOESN'T APPLY. Now, yes, SL _contains_ a society, and _interacts_ with society - but the product's dependance on the society is wholly down to the design of the product.

And as for the "Yumi Hate Club" - well, I see that a different way - if people _are_ sabotaging me (and I'm not saying they are, but if they were), then why does it matter what is inside their heads when they do it? Just because they are not doing it deliberately, does it make it any better than if they were?



Why do I need to come up with a viable alternative for my objections to the current state to be valid?



No, you just run and are involved in administration and building of a substantial RP sim that draws crowds. Nobody feels a "need" to be special if THEY ARE.



That makes no sense in context.