A difficult business question

Well, because it's sort of avoiding the question. If there is an issue about people buying things based on false expectations then deciding to "chill out" and not think about it will not make it disappear. And it's a double problem, as it's a moral issue regarding taking the money, and also a marketing issue because it will create an impression of SL that may be passed on to others.

I mean.. if I'm feeling bad about that problem.. then just saying "yes, that problem exists, but you should just ignore how you feel about it" isn't satisfying. Especially since, if my feelings are justified and the problem does exist, it's an issue for everyone, not just me. Saying "well, if it makes you upset, you don't do it, even though perhaps you actually wanted to, and by the way everyone else gets to continue to do so" isn't very satisfying

But that's not what people are saying (for the most part anyway; I'm sure there was one or two other opinions in this thread.) People aren't saying "yes there's a problem but ignore it," people are saying "there's no problem so stop worrying so much." If after all those responses you still feel the way you do then fine that's your business, but continuously arguing with people who are simply answering your question is silly. It's like you aren't actually interested in people answering your question, you're just waiting for someone to agree with you.

Have you been checked for asbergers? You're stuck on an issue that is probably very unlikely and something that you should not even be concerned with.

If your problem persists... eat gluten free and do not sell anything on SL.

I think you are feeling bad about hypotheticals that have occured to you as possible but which you don't know are even occuring.

I'm not going to have false expectations about a trap door. 99.9% of people are not going to have false expectations about the usefulness of a trap door (largely for amusement and versimilitude in SL).

I'm not going to have illusions that buying a castle will turn me into a princess. (Who would?) I have the expectation that buying a castle will help me PRETEND I'm a princess. (If that is what I want.)

This notion of deciding what is going on in other peoples' minds, deciding they might have false expectations about a pixel product in an online game, and then deciding they will experience this horrid let-down from their $2.42 purchase, and THEN deciding that you shouldn't sell the item because that might happen . . .

. . . means you'd better not sell anything at all.

coco

But that's exactly my point - honestly, it won't. As I mentioned above (and you imply) prims are no realer than anything else that is not real; their only real value is in the fact that you can show them to other people. Thus, if you want to pretend to be a princess on your own, save your money, lean back in your chair, close your eyes and imagine (it's lag-free too!)

If you want to pretend it with other people.. then, well, you can't do it on those terms. Other people aren't going to come to you just so that you can pretend to be what you want - they're going to come to you because you entertain them. And if you want to do that, you're in competition with all the other entertainers on SL, and the idea that "you want to pretend to be a princess" hamstrings you in that competition because it means you have an ulterior motive and thus are not putting 100% of your effort into entertaining others. If you honestly believe that anyone would be interested in playing princess with you when they can go to a 5-sim professionally-build fantasy role-playing area where there are ten times as many people and where _they_ get to be the princess, then.. well, I have a trapdoor I'd like to sell you.

So your post demonstrates exactly what I'm saying - that you *would* expect it would allow you to pretend that in some way, but in fact it doesn't, because if you pretend on your own it has no value (no better than just imagining) and it won't allow you to pretend with others.

But building or buying a castle will help you pretend you're a princess, and if it's a good castle and you do a good princess act then people will come and will play along with your pretending, and will pretend to be princes or wizards or serfs or whatever they daydream of being. That's what roleplay IS, it's pretending, and if your setting and RP is good enough, people will come and join in.

Personally I'd be far more likely to RP with people who were just doing it for fun and to explore their own fantasies than I would in a professionally built setting that was there to get people in and make money.

Yes, it would exactly, allow me to pretend on my own, and in a much better way than closing my eyes and just imagining. And playing on my own has value, of course.

And I can pretend with other people on those terms, too. Plenty of people do just that.

Prims are more real than just imagining, the same way as playing with dolls is more real than just imagining playing with dolls.

Of course it allows me to play with others and pretend with others. And of course it doesn't have to be "professionally" done to count; otherwise the whole huge economy of SL is totally meaningless, along with everything created.

Which is kind of what you are saying, isn't it.

coco

I think the typical use for something like that would be Roleplay or as a joke. If someone seriously thinks they can actuallly 'trap' someone, they are delusional.

But I would agree, if you aren't comfortable selling something, don't do it. There are many things that I could sell in SL and be quite profitable at, but I don't for my own personal reasons.

Just saw this thread. That Collider thingie was a blast! I have passed it on to several people. Thanks for the pics!

I have no desire to be a princess. I just generally have little interest in long-term roleplay, but I would get a kick out of pretending to be a warrior in an army that defends the princess.

My point here is to illustrate what others have already pointed out: different people have different desires, so for you to fret over your assumptions about others' desires is completely pointless. Not everyone wants to be the princess, not everyone minds falling for a trapdoor, etc.

It's Asperger's Syndrome, btw...

I have it, and my house is laden with traps... including trapdoors.

Um, that doesn't quite make sense, I'm afraid. If people come as a result of you doing a good act, that requires you to do the good act first, before they have come.. in other words.. to do a good act on your own.. how can you do that?

Also, what's the definition of "good"? I suspect that it's "most entertaining to others". Now, that's understandable, but the kind of person who wants to play a princess in a virtual world probably isn't going to do it purely in order to entertain others, they're going to do it as a sort of self-indulgence or fantasy fulfilment. Which means they'll lose out to those who do want to build or create things purely to entertain.



"Professional" was the wrong word to use. What I mean is that somebody who builds a fantasy castle so that they can be a princess will not entertain others as well as someone who builds a fantasy castle entirely so that they can entertain others. Maybe they don't even charge money for it, they just enjoy entertaining people.

Does it mean that the SL economy is meaningless? I'm not sure I'd go that far. But if it would, it would explain the economic downturns we've seen. An entirely unscientific open-the-map-and-look-at-the-dots survey of SL shows that at any given moment the majority of avs are either camping, shopping, or in clubs. There isn't much potential for "pretending" there, so if this is the foundation of the SL economy, it's no surprise they aren't spending anything.



That's sort of what I was saying though. Let's face it, building a roleplay environment as an individual is more or less pointless when the existing communities generally offer a better experience. Of course everyone is different, and you might not agree. But then everyone is different so why should anyone join yours when they'd probably rather build THEIR own, too?



Based on the dots, everyone just wants to dance and chat. (Even in the roleplay sims they're basically just doing that.)

Well, I think you misunderstood what I mean. A large percentage of all interaction in SL is roleplay. I'm not talking of a huge sim wide roleplay, but the small, intimate, day-to-day Roleplaying that goes on right under our noses. When a "Police officer" writes a person a 'ticket' in SL, thats roleplay. When a Domme locks a Sub in a cage, that's Roleplay. If a 'sadistic killer' lures some prey into their house and traps them in their nifty trapdoor in the floor, that's Roleplay. It's of course up to both parties individually whether or not they will respect this roleplay and play along, or not.

If two people are interacting in SL, the potential for roleplay is always there. It doesn't take a sim or fantastic building skills, or a Combat Tag to do.

I'm sure that kind of thing happens from time to time, but again - just looking around tonight, it isn't happening anywhere I've seen. Every dot-conglomeration I've visited has either been campbots or just a dance club where people are talking about RL, outfits, music, the usual things people just randomly chat about. Great for general social unwinding, but utter anathema to the "building a role" idea.

Plus, if it is just two people RPing because they're friends, then again, they don't need prims to do that. Otherwise you have a friend refusing to RP with a friend because they haven't paid for a prim object and that doesn't seem like much of a friend to me.

I know that BDSM is a special case because "subs" get a thrill from doing things that facilitate the "dom"s RP, but that doesn't seem usual. As for a police officer writing a ticket, I can't think that the ticket reciever would have any response other than laughing and that's hardly in-role

My friends and I enjoy small roleplays of the type Darien is talking about. I think it is more common than you realise. You cannot necessarily find it by looking around the way you did. Some people will only do it via IM for starters and others will only do it on land you do not have access to. Props aid roleplay, yes you can imagine roleplay without them but we are in a 3D world and it is made richer by having props. It assists our imaginations to make our imagined environment richer. Why would people bother to log to SL at all if the props do not matter? They would just use their imaginations and stay in a text based chat room. Some people do that but SL is not really aimed at them.

Well... I understand what you're saying, but the problem is, it means that the content market for that kind of thing is becoming a camel that's being squeezed through the eye of a needle. We have mall after mall after mall of 3D content, yet the only places actually providing any context for that content are small personal groups to which most people aren't invited.

Moreover - and I have first hand experience of this, because I've seen it happen multiple times - many of those same small groups are backing out of SL to text-based systems because the content is too expensive or isn't customised to what they want.

The blame for this development lies, strange but true, with camping chairs - because it was due to them than the dwell and ratings systems had to be removed, and they were supposed to encourage people to provide context as well as content. Because, after all, nobody really wants to pay out of their own pocket for context; if you want to pretend to be a princess, you don't want to pay someone to treat you like one!