SL, A Sleeping Beauty and Blue Mars

Yes. It's true. This woman has no dick.

happy in sl and am not migrating to "that"

*dabs coke off keyboard* That was for revenge, eh?

Point of information: By "user driven", do you mean that the person who buys the city will be responsible for creating/finding the content for it, setting the rules, effectively creating the "average user" experience etc. ...

OR

do you mean that "average users" will be able to interact with the environment in some ways that drive the city content, visually, somehow? I don't mean choose between sets of content provided by the city, I mean like "Make this building taller" or "Get rid of this tree" or "Move this wall over there".

Ouch. This is getting a tad heated, and that's unfortunate. Really, I see the whole question as "What sorts of things will the future bring for those of us who like playing and creating in virtual worlds?". I think Blue Mars has a great potential to be part of the answer to that question, as does Second Life (if it continues to evolve).

It doesn't make you a better or worse person if you prefer one platform over the other. That's just silly. But it's also silly to pass judgments on a platform that is still in development with those who actually are working on it literally sworn to secrecy.

But for all the rancor here, I think this discussion is a good thing. LL ought feel a bit of heat from time to time. As users, we can only benefit from innovation and competition.

well said Virrginia

It's ok to love SL. Despite alot of my scorn for it, I'm obviously still here.

My point being, the SL structure (more often than not) pits one resident against another.

This neighbor doesn't like that neighbor's build, one resident spams another with notecards, invites, inflated traffic numbers etc, adcutters exploit the good will of astheticists with extortionate pricing, infohubs and sandboxes stink of selfishness and abuses ..... need I go on?

Everquest used to rule the MMORPG world. Kill stealing, boss camping, cockblocking, zerging, death penalties and a whole host of other shortcomings were addressed by developers at Blizzard Entertainment. As a result, mobs are "locked out" on attack, opposing factions cannot communicate with each other and the rewards are "quest driven", not experience based on rotational slayings. World of Warcraft rules the roost, because they "learned the lessons of the past".

Blue Mars has a similar objective.

Thing is - would you go to the house of one girlfriend, and rave about how great the other one was?

Would attempts to justify it sound believable?

Marks your account paid in full.

interesting post Dave.

The mass migration from Everquest to WOW was a fascinating phenomena. These things can happen quick and fast

This is why I have some concerns for the future of SL

The companies in VW development now are learning and observing SL

My original post was about a slowly down, a sleepiness in SL, a touch of ennui.
A feeling that SL is going into some dormant phase - no buzz !

Is this because LL have abandoned this version of SL and are working on V2 instead - just patching and fixing what we have, as necessary, to keep it going until V2 is ready ?

We all kind of know that this current version of SL won't scale in to the future

It would be refreshing and calming if LL were more open and transparent about a V2

quite so Clarissa. I know where you are coming from. I wouldn't dare say a word !

The former will be the likely outcome. The best analogy would be that of your ISP. They are motivated to profit by providing you access and bandwidth. Your participation is two-fold. Firstly, you can use it to access anyone's public sites, and second, you can provide a service (ie) website, forum etc. Provided what you do is not illegal, broadly offensive or technically excessive, the ISP has no interest in your content.

Blue Mars is aiming for these goals. Initially, SL had these goals, but shortcomings in the developmental structure have caused them to break away from "arms length" service provision. Much of SL's manpower is a "workaround" to these issues. Let's face it, Linden Lab is way too irrepairably involved in the whole social engineering aspect of the virtuality. Supply Linden dumps tens of thousands of real dollars into the LindeX for profit under the guise of economic stability, the G-team spends thousands of hours monthy dealing with griefers, scammers, extortionists etc. The whole "adult" thing is yet another patch on a dog's breakfast of a platform.

Blue Mars' aim, is to provide state of the art technology to those who have bigger plans than simply roleplay or content creation. Although these things are not discouraged, they are leaving it up to city owners to provide that service and to enforce community standards.

If or when BM flourishes, there will invariably be a global environment based upon a grid of communities, where common standards are developed. Undoubtedly, there will be "simplistic" tool sets for those who are less inclined to learn/use/buy/own high end applications. I don't know a single person who is objected to offline building.

It's pay to play. Like electric power or gas, you will be metered by CPU usage. There will be free accounts, but if one chooses to be a "blingtard", then they will have to pay to do so. In SL, those who pay tier, subsidize those free accounts so they can wear hoochie hair, laggy AOs and bling bling.

This is where Philip and Cory had their falling out. Cory was the innovator, Philip was the visionary.

Remember RealPlayer? It used to be the leading edge of network technology for trasmission of high volumes of data. That's where embracing technology ended and bloatware entered, making it a cash cow until it was no longer scaleable.

RealPlayer was Philip's baby.

Despite shiny, H4 and a few other new features, SL remains a cash cow and little else.

The rest is just PR BS.

In SL, I'm pretty sure a lot of my tier is paid by blingtards, many of whom own multiple islands and spend quite a lot of money.

Sure, but not entirely. They can also reneg on payment and still have an active account (possibly leaving you high and dry until you find a suitable replacement), where a premium member gets locked out for missing something as simple as a $9.95/mo payment to LL.

It's funny you bring up World of Warcraft. It so happens this week I reactivated my WoW account after 5 years of not playing. I expected after such a long time, the game would have evolved a lot. However I was a bit disappointed to see not much of anything changed. The sounds, animations, graphics, low-rez models, even the little icons for spells, completely unchanged from the day I stopped playing 5 years ago. SL has done more to change in the last year than WoW has in 5. Think about that. Of course it's probably wrong to compare WoW and SL, since their goals are very, very different. Same with SL and Blue mars. By your own admissioin BM is not interested in the social aspects like SL is.

Seems to me WoW has taken a page from Rosedale's playbook, and are 'cash-cow'ing the hell out of that MMO. Anything new always has a potential to steer participants to it, and away from something else. But don't pretend there is some nobler goal. The goal is always the same, grab market share, and make profits. And do as little as you can to get that. Blue Mars will be no different in that respect, Any claims to the contrary are simply marketing 101.

I am waiting for it to go live and see the pricing structure but on what I have heard you are probably right If it is a viable project I might get involved I will have to wait and see for now

Not if they own estates, they can't.
My tie is paid by people buying stuff at my shop, many of whom are blingtards (I've seen them) and who own (in their own name) multiple islands. There's plenty of premium blingtards, for that matter. Being premium, or even rich, doesn't mean having taste.

Just for clarification Dave, are you an employee of Blue Mars or are you just a beta developer? I'd love to hear more about the Blue Mars development.

By the way in the interest of full disclosure, it's probably right I point out that Dave Herbst is also known as Weedy Herbst. May help one understand the attitude.

One need only go to the Waldorf to see that.

I agree, WoW has evolved in much of the same way. They did however, add some interesting new things. Have you played a deathknight yet? I very much enjoyed the "instanced" inititiation, where your deeds and quests effect the surrounding communities. The impending war and betrayal by the Lich King in Eastern Plaguelands was very cool and new. Likewise the Wrathgate and Dark Vault quest chains are really cool, and you can do them with any class. The cinematics are certainly immersive, especially in Northrend, by occasionally encountering the Lich King himself.

Being Alliance, I'm not sure what the Horde equivalent is to some of these quest chains.

Many SL content developers are deeply invested in SL - time, effort, money, emotional, psychologically and many feel cut off, abandoned information-wise by LL.

What's going on LL ?
What's the long term plan ?
where are we heading ?

It would be helpful and healthy to know if LL are working on a V2 and what that might mean to content creators and end users.

I mentioned in an earlier post, a beta dev.

We are not the same person although we are related.

Let us not get into the disclosure rules, lest you might find yourself needlessly in hot water.