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

But it IS the point. You keep making the assumption that every "special person" is so simply because of circumstance. There's no barrier to entry in SL that is so high that no one else can get into it. EVERYone can, if they try hard enough and take advantage of the opportunities they discover.

Sure, if everyone ran a "club" AT THE SAME TIME AND NOTHING ELSE, no one would go to "clubs". So? Don't run a club --OR-- run a club LATER, when there is a niche you find to fill. Not all clubs last forever from the instant they are created.

That's why your argument falls flat on its face.



SL isn't meant for building graphics, either, it is meant to create interactive games/entertainment using 3D graphics that have already been built, too. Just so happens that you can build SOME graphics in it; well, you can in Unity3D, too.

If you put enough unoptimized crap in a Unity3D scene, you'll get lag. Trust me.



Really? So everyone who's ever purchased a copy of Unity3D (it only recently has a "free" version) has gotten full value for their money? Really? You KNOW this for a fact?

If I buy land, I MUST be buying it for something more than that? REALLY? How can you even deign to know me (or anyone) so well? I bet it will interest you to know that there are MANY sims out there that are PRIVATE, where ONLY the owners and a very small number of people can get onto them. What are they used for? Playing and experimenting, pretty much.



..and not all cons involve money.



No, you're the only one talking absolutes here. I said, for all PRACTICAL purposes, it is the case. PRACTICAL means it is PROBABLE, or "you can bank on it". That there is a singular example out there where it happened ONCE is irrelevant. No business is going to shoot for that as a goal, because it isn't PRACTICAL. Thus, LL isn't going to look to please every one of its users the way YOU want on a constant basis, because it isn't PRACTICAL. More than likely, any attempt to do so will anger more people than they are trying to make happy. Some goals are mutually-exclusive of others, and some people simply cannot be pleased, no matter what you do. Some people are just terminally unhappy, and there is NOTHING ANYbody can do for them.

No, I'm saying that circumstances HAVE to intervene because of the limit on the number of special people there can be.

You seem to believe that if person A is in a position, and person B would like to be, that person B should have made the same effort as person A and then they would have it. But that is not true. If person B had made the same effort, nobody would be in that position because the competition would be ongoing, and the effort bar to win would keep rising and rising until one dropped out. Or perhaps, a convenient circumstance breaks the deadlock. Most often, it's a circumstance that affects ability to make effort (eg, B has a day job and A doesn't).



So how long are you expecting them to wait? Why should they pay while they wait?



I'm really sad if this is the new perception of SL as a result of sculpties being added.



And if you put a single cube in a SL parcel, you'll get lag.



Yes. They have paid for the tools, and gotten them. On SL, the tools are given away for free, so it is not those for which you are paying.



Are there any that ONLY the owner, and nobody else, can get into?



Well, visiting other people's farms to "help" them and earn some extra coins and XP is completely optional, widely done, and AFAIK nobody has ever objected to doing it or felt cheated as a result. How can that be a "con"?



Right, but again, people are not going to remain in SL and paying for land even though they aren't getting anything they want, just because "it wouldn't be practical for LL to give it to me".

You .. keep .. missing .. the .. point.

Games CAN NOT make up for the people skills that people are missing. They can't. They don't have "brain insertion" cartridges that enable people to perform complex behaviors without prior knowledge, talent, or experience.

That's why there is no "game 1" in existence. SL isn't even a "game 2". It is a "game 1" with a slight difference: It allows ANYone to get involved and do things and receive positive feedback IF they do something that EARNS them that feedback. I have no idea even what your "game 1" would look like. Well, I do, but I usually try to explain such things away as nightmares.

Sandbox games should provide platforms and tools open and accessible to everyone, NOT crutches.



I live the proof EVERY DAY that it is WRONG. I am not alone.

No, I am claiming that "requiring an audience" isn't an intrinsic requirement to doing anything in SL and enjoying it.



That's fine. Competition is good and healthy. As I said, it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THE BEST AT EVERYTHING, and trying to do so would more than likely be counter-productive.

As for the social momentum of WoW.. who cares? Not all WoW players are part of its "social momentum". That, and it is a drop in the bucket in the overall market.

No, it's a matter of using yours.

llStartAnimation("eat_pie";

But they CAN make the people skills unnecessary by providing what is wanted without people needing to be involved. Or they can insert the people skills by editing chat.



Except that, as I mentioned, the nature of the "something" reflexes until _not_ everyone can do it, because if everyone could then the society would be worn out trying to give everyone else positive feedback.



In an RP sim that you have built and have control of. You have an audience.

Why would I imagine a product I've paid for to be better than it actually is?

It is if they want to participate in it.



The whole notion of "I'm special and you're not" (or whatever) IS a "psychological experience", by definition.

Wanting to have people at one's house doesn't make one "special", even if they show up. Today, you can come to my house. Tomorrow, we can go to yours. Big deal.

What's the real point of having a SL house if nobody ever visits? Maybe it is simply to putz around in and play with the virtual building tools. Maybe it's a personal space for relaxation. Perhaps it is an escape from angsty attention-whoring people that one has to endure on a constant basis. How many reasons do you need to accept that there IS a point to having such beyond your limited understanding of things?



It is HIGHLY relevant to your entire argument.

Here you are, on the one hand saying that it is POSSIBLE for everyone in a movie theatre to 100% enjoy the experience, then on the other saying it ISN'T POSSIBLE for EVERYONE to have "that experience". Self-contradict much?

I'll even borrow one of your idioms: It is "perfectly possible" for EVERYONE to have that experience.

Now, will EVERYONE actually HAVE that experience? For all practical purposes, no. How do you know who will and who won't? Well, the only ones I know for sure WON'T are the ones who refuse to try because they fear failure. Of the rest, many stand a good chance of success.



There's that "I can't" again.

How people treat you is INFLUENCED by the choices YOU make. Yeah, they can ignore your work as easily as they ignore anything else, but they can ALSO pay attention to your work as easily as they pay attention to anything else. The glass is ALSO half full.



Because you've exuded failure. You have embraced it. You have given up trying because you can't see yourself succeeding. Ever. Therefore, now LL must reinvent SL to make up for your failures because "you can't" succeed. LL must make SL such that everyone HAS to LET you succeed. Otherwise, it is LL's fault and a failure of SL, and that's why LL/SL will ultimately fail.



Yeah, but they can't control the PEOPLE.



Yeah, chat and "bbposts" HAVE to be relayed verbatim. Beyond the fact that I don't want ANY tampering with my words AT ALL, and I LOATHE the idea of someone using an AI bot to chat with me, the TECHNOLOGY isn't there.

LL isn't "god". At best, they are custodians. They don't create the vast majority of the in-world experience, WE DO. So, no, THEY are NOT responsible for everything, or even MOST things in SL.



You obviously have a lot of suck-up friends. <.< Plenty of my friends will be more than happy to tell me how much my farm sucks, and vice-versa. I even require my friends to not sugar-coat criticisms that are important to me.



"Good builds" that are seen/see-able by people almost always draw an audience. Sure, there are a few "good builds" that are ignored, because no one knows they are there. Nothing wrong with that.



SO? GOOD FOR THEM! If they don't make the effort, they can't cry later about not getting attention, then, can they?

Besides, you keep assuming that everything is black/white. That someone "loses" because someone else "wins". If I see a good build in SL, it doesn't automatically make me never want to look at any other build in SL. The fact that one place draws an audience this moment in time doesn't mean that another place cannot draw an audience later.

Case in point:



Even as unlikely as such a circumstance is, as a spectator, I would visit and wow over each and every one. Why limit myself to only one positive experience when I can have many?



I've said no such thing. I don't know why you're in SL; in truth, I really don't care why you're in SL. The only thing I am saying is, IF you're looking for success, "being special", social acceptance, etc, START doing the things that lead to those goals, and STOP doing things that don't.

I am starting to sound like a broken record here. <.<

I would. *nodnods* There are some artists who play EXCLUSIVELY in SL. If was a fan of their work, I would most definitely stick around in SL to partake of it.



O.o

I think that's the first time in a VERY long time that someone has caused an assertion fail in my context parser. Congrats.

Nope, that makes it a problem with teh product.



Who said it had to be a big deal? It still makes you "special".



Well, a reason that proves it isn't just a dodge of the overall argument? And some proof that people who DO use their houses that way don't end up just churning in the end?



It is possible for everyone in a movie theatre to 100% enjoy the experience.

It is NOT possible for everyone in any situation to be "special".

That remains true even if being "special" is earned via effort.



No it isn't. People can choose to close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears, and ignore anything of mine that might influnce them. Or they can choose to just not turn up. Which is what they do.



Nope! You're putting those misunderstandings again. I don't want LL to make everyone let me succeed. I want LL to make it so everyone can succeed all at the same time. If that means making it so that you can succeed without other people needing to be involved, so be it.



Nope. Who said it would be an AI bot? All my chat could be passed to a socially skilled human assistant in a call centre somewhere who could rewrite it. And maybe you don't want any tampering with your words - well, that's fine; you just don't check that option box.



Yes they DO create the vast majority of the in-world experience. Their server and code could edit ANYTHING.



Ah, so you have come to a deal with your friends that you aren't offended by being told that your farm sucks, and therefore they do so. Great! So they will.. but only because they know it won't offend you.



Yes there is. There are quite a lot more than you think.



Right, but you keep talking about "making the effort". Again, that's a straw man - in an effort race, ultimately only one person wins, no matter how much effort the others made. But ultimately, there's still only one winner, and all others fail.



How long do they have to wait?



Because by the time you've wowed over the first 9, the tenth has left, thinking he/she must not be all that amazing because you ignored them.



Nobody has said what those things are, and - most importantly - nobody has said how that's possible, starting from where I am.

Ok. If I'm doing subconscious things that push people away, then the other people are presumably doing something else instead. If they could tell me to do that other thing, then I would naturally stop doing whatever I'm doing, because I can't do both at once.

You're not using your imagination.

To you, it makes no sense at all, and that is not surprising in the least.

Sure, they are likely wanting to keep it that way. Wouldn't you? What is the point of seeking attention if you aren't going to like it and want more?

That is, if you are actually SEEKING attention, rather than just enjoying it as a happenstance, and not concerned if you ever get any again.



So? SL server "emulators" don't have to render avatars. You can even turn them off client-side as it is with the REAL server.



No, it simply makes practical sense, because the argument you were making does not.

Um... you're just confusing the issue now. Argent complained that he couldn't visit his build if it was offline. But if he was using a server emulator, he would have an avatar and could. Why would he turn them off?



Practical or not, possibility and probability are not the same thing.

Counterquestion:
Why can't we script with a good & reasonable language?

Also anyone could build a GUI that would output a LSL script, right?

Absolutely, we should use Forth or Lisp! None of these heretical C-derived languages for THIS ferret, no siree. Might as well be coding in Perl!

Or just what any game seems to use: lua

Or C#, or anything. Oh yeah and some more functions and more memory would be nice too
But uh, SL needs 3 years to implement a textbox so I guess that could take more than a lifetime

Given the memory limitations of LSL and the memory overhead of dynamic objects, I doubt you'd be able to take effective advantage of Lua over LSL. No siree, we need something like Forth, designed to run multi-user development systems with only 12K of ROM and 4K of RAM. That's K, not M, or G. Or a lean, mean lisp variant like Scheme. None of this newfangled flabby web-era stuff, no siree.

Well aslong as it comes with physics, text-on-a-prim, and some other functions i'd even go with tcl/tk

Blue Mars uses Lua \o/

Your "treatment" is a result of your presentation. You're not "wanted", precisely because you don't want to be "wanted". Your self-fulfilling prophecy in full bloom.

Even still.. so what? Try anyway. You might surprise yourself and everyone else at the same time.



..and you were still wrong each and every time.



Yes. It is the observed basis for your point-of-view. That you believe it is necessary confirms it.



The "churn rate" confirms nothing other than SL isn't for everyone. Assuming any specific reason why is just that -- an assumption.



Well, if people leave SL because their supposed need to be "special" isn't fulfilled, which had to precede their arrival in SL, not being part of SL to begin with, how will removing ALL forms of fulfilling that need make them want to stay any more?

Or are you saying that there should be an army of roving "audience bots" that constantly give every resident "attention"? I mean, if you can't force anyone else to do it, then you'll have to provide it another way, right?

Or what? HOW do you expect LL to accomplish this magical utopic goal you have propounded?



That's right, *YOU* keep saying that. That is because it is YOUR mindset. I don't have that problem because that is not MY mindset. YOU believe that paying attention to someone is always depriving someone else. In the most instantaneous sense, that is true. It is also true that we can't be in more than one place at one time, fully experiencing the totality of it. That is part and parcel of RL that SL can't "simulate away". However, in all PRACTICAL senses, it isn't true, because *YOU* can be the center of attention one moment, and *I* can be the center of attention the next, then someone else the next. If someone is too impatient to wait their turn, or isn't willing to do enough to earn that attention, whose fault is that? Should we now expect LL to warp reality for us so that we can be all places at all times, both being the center of attention AND audience FOR everyone?

THAT is what we're trying to get you to understand. Your argument isn't logical OR practical, because the means to resolve it requires something utterly ridiculous and impossible to achieve.



Well, it is an aspect of reality that LL simply cannot alter, because the control of it is simply out of their hands. You already said that you don't want to force people to do anything, and LL really can't do that anyway, but what other choice is there? If people are going to be allowed to pick and choose where to spend their time, money, and attention, then there will always be an "earning race" where not everyone can be the first winner. It doesn't mean they can't be the second winner, or the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth, but it does mean that people will have to learn patience and tolerance, and perseverance. In addition, SL isn't the do-all, end-all of games/virtual worlds/whatever. Maybe you or I or anyone else won't be successful here, but 1) it doesn't mean we won't be successful at all, and 2) it doesn't mean we shouldn't try and keep trying until we are.



Is whose decision? LL's? Not totally, or even majorly. There are many significant aspects of avatar behavior reflecting user behavior that LL simply cannot affect to any great degree. Nor, I believe, should they. To do so would make the platform unpalatable to many people, myself included.

Sure, LL has control of what they provide as an enablement to such, but they should stringently avoid disablements.



Seems to be scalable so far. Maybe it won't be in the long run. Maybe something else will come along that does it the way you want it. Doesn't mean that people like myself will like it enough to bother, making it no more scalable than SL in that regard.



SL is an ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT *AND* a SOCIETY, so that reasoning MOST CERTAINLY DOES APPLY. Yes, absolutely the product's dependence on society is down to the design of the product. Otherwise, it would be a single-player sandbox, like Unity3D or GMOD. It most CERTAINLY would NOT be SL. There are people here. You CAN interact with them. LL INTENDED it that way. Issues dealing with them are between the people involved, and not the platform.



No one is sabotaging you but yourself. If your behavior influences their perception of you to the point of sabotage, then that's YOUR problem as much, if not more, than theirs. If you do everything right, and they STILL sabotage you, at least you can claim that you tried.



Because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You are making extraordinary claims that the current situation is controllable by LL, and that they should do something about it.

Not only that, but simply complaining about deficiencies in something or someone without providing alternatives or suggestions for improvement can hardly be considered "constructive".



One of many who do, yes.

So, if you're not "special", you must feel a "need" to be so? and, if you ARE special, you have no reason to want to continue to be? Wait, didn't you say the opposite earlier? Why, yes you did!

So, which is it?



It makes PERFECT sense in this context. You use yourself CONSTANTLY as an "example" of the very problems you bring to argument. If not you, as the most prevalent example here, then who?

I _have_ no presentation. There is never anybody there.



Yet you have yet to prove that, by giving an example of something that occurs where nobody is being "special" in any way.



Again, give me an example of an enjoyable SL event in which nobody is "special".



If SL was not for everyone, we wouldn't have the variety of people staying that we do. What do they all have in common? They wound up being special.



There is no psychological need, it's a need created by SL. Give me an example of something enjoyable happening in SL in which no-one is special.



Turn taking sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't scale. If there are 5 people taking turns, then fine. But if there are 10,000 people taking turns, then you'll have to wait a LONG while for your turn..



How is that "warping reality"? I think that's generally called "SecondLife.exe -multiple".



Nope. Suppose that SL was split up into isolated blocks of 100 people each. There just wouldn't be enough people in any given block for much of a race to get started, and if there was one, there would be plenty of other niches available in that block.



Sure they can. I've already given an example of how they could do it. And as I also said, they could be optional for people who find them unpalatable.



It isn't scalable so far. You can see that in the failed clubs.



Right. But issues where the value of the platform depends on people interacting with you in a certain way ARE an issue with the platform.



It isn't possible for me to sabotage myself; it violates the definition of the word sabotage.



It is absolutely controllable. Heck, LL could have a Linden online right now as Yumi, building and making friends for me! If they could scale up enough, they could do it for any avatar who wanted it - for an extra subscription fee, of course! They could include a checkbox I could tick to have SL wipe my hard disk if I don't build. All kinds of options.



No, I said that the only reason you don't feel a need to be special is because you are. No more than that.

Nah. It's lisp-based, but it's even more rigorously call-by-value than LSL. Too much of a memory hog. It's a great glue language but it's not designed for these kinds of constraints.

..at any one moment in time.



It is most certainly is true, because SL is not a closed, static system, like you incorrectly assume it is.

Let's take an example. 3-4 years ago, there was ONE major Dragon avatar supplier: Daryth Kennedy and the Isle of Wyrms. At that time, there were around 1000 members in the Council group. A little less than 3 years ago, Grendel's Children appeared on the scene and came out with a line of Dragon avatars (as well as a number of different ones). In a year's time, Grendel's had easily grown to 1000 members, and is quite a popular AV maker today, as much as the Isle is. Not only that, there is now Seawolf Monsters, who is attracting a following of their own.

If what you are saying is true, these others would not exist, COULD not exist. No one has "dropped out", and there are plenty of customers to go around for everyone involved, because there are more people coming into SL all the time (remember that umpity-thousand statistic you touted in the last thread on this subject?).

These people came from little to no notoriety/popularity AT ALL, and became powerhouses to the same level and extent as the "first one". There are many more, and there WILL be many more. The opportunity is always there, if someone is willing to pursue it.

The only way to guarantee failure is to never try.



I don't expect them to WAIT at all. I expect them to DO. Waiting is for people who don't want to try. Why should they pay while they do? Because EVERYONE who tries has to pay, regardless. Why SHOULDN'T they pay while they are working at it? Why would someone expect for free what everyone else has to pay for?



Has nothing to do with sculpties; it is the reality of the toolset.



No you don't. Well, *I* don't. Maybe you're doing it wrong?



Owner(s), and yup.



Heh. So someone finally invented XP/gold-farming farms? How pathetic.



So? I wouldn't expect them to; I wouldn't.

That's precisely the kind of thing that would ruin it.

Nonetheless, that means LL _can_ solve it. Yes, doing so would have a tradeoff, but that's not the same thing as being impossible.