SL, A Sleeping Beauty and Blue Mars

Don't feel bad. There is only one topic I can claim any semblence of Geekdom on and that is The Trek.

That newest movie was the best one I've ever seen, by the way.

It was quite good, wasn't it? I can't tell you how many non fans I know have seen it and enjoyed it.

Being a Trekkie then, I hope you can enlighten me on something.

Ruben was bombarding me with stats about his Starship, and although I have watched most episodes, and most of the films, he was talking about the Omega Particle, which he was saying was responsible for 90% of the energy in the Big bang, and using a molecule of this stuff for a drive enables Infinite Speed, ie the ability to exist in two places in the Universe at the same time.

I do not recall ever seeing or hearing about this. Was this from an episode, a movie, or is it likely to be one their team's extensions to the saga?

Rock

It was mentioned...

Now, stop that, Brenda, or I might start developing a major crush on you!

Does anyone know how the in world economy will be structured as I heard that only certain people, city owners will be able to cash out and creators if unable to buy server space will have to rent from city owners to sell their stuff so the general public whilst being able to buy the currency will not be able to cash out of the game?

Am I right or wrong?

I think this may be the most inclusive public info Lord.

http://npirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-answers-and-more-questions.html

both cashing out(or not) and space rental is touched on.

I would suggest signing the NDA and contacting Jim directly, if you want current info.

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.

Speaking of demographics, what about men playing as women, or folks who prefer not to be gender-specific? How will that play out?

It will be a matter of how they registered. We aren’t going to verify gender.

If you are Sony Pictures and creating a virtual Monaco and it is a black tie-only space, when a user gets there, the system can prompt that user to let them know that this is a black tie-only area and provide information about the only costumes that will be available in that region. You don’t want people running around in Speedos in your James Bond world.

nice post Rock

I think it's important for people to understand the shear scale and grandeur of what's possible in the cryengine.

I'm also a BM beta developer. I'm very well aware of the Cryengines capabilities and basically there are almost no limits to what could be done.

I love SL ( as you all know by now ) but I fear the small sim sizes are it's achilles heel and once BM is running with economy in place etc, etc,

There really is the possibility of mass migration from one virtual platform to another.

I can only hope there is an SL V2 with super sizesd sims.

Clarissa's term, and I think she meant it to be pejorative. It is, however, inaccurate. Nobody is being screened on the basis of race, colour, religion, creed, orientation or excessive posting on internet forums. You do have to ask to be part of the beta and sign an NDA, but that's standard for beta releases. I will admit that you could make the argument that all virtual worlds are gated communities in the sense that they have control over who gets to use them. One can be banned in Second Life just as one can be in any other game/virtual world.

Comparing SL to Blue Mars is likened to comparing McDonalds to the Waldorf Astoria.

If all you expect is burgers, don't look at Blue Mars for a quick meal. By the same token, don't walk into McDonalds and expect chateaubriand.

SL is trailer trash, while BM is a gated community.

BM is not about inept blingtards, it's about innovative developers.