Is this good or bad news for SL?

OpenSim lost a lot of credibility with premature hype: they've become the boy who cried "wolf" too many times now.

Remember how it was the perfect time to hop over to OpenSim just in time for its imminent success, back during the OpenSpace debacle? And how they got all kinds of press for that dopey IETF proposal? And how their hangers-on are still terrorizing Lindens in office hours, mailing lists, and blog posts about how every new SL development must be recoded in upside down mirror-writing whilst whistling the Interop Internationale?

Someday a viable competitor may arrive, but who will ever pay attention with the ground so littered by the phantom carcasses of all these purported wolves?

I been researching OPENSIM and run a standalone server for research and found some good points from it. In a developers view I see Opensim as a valuable tool for developing and testing new techniques that can be applied to SL. Its a good testbed for bringing new ideas to SL. For instance, RealXtend project has some very cool progress going on there and believe their successful tests can then be passed on to SL. After all, Opensim is strictly OpenSource and the underlying tech belongs to Linden. There are groups that abuse the OpenSource Opensim and try to make a buck out of it and I think thats where those groups lose credibility, trying to cheat the Opensource community by taking code contributions and making it theirs.

A word a warning to everyone thinking about switching to Opensims as alternative is a BIG mistake. Its not an alternative at all, its research for developers and users will find nothing compared to what is already here in SL. Simply put, its a testbed for developers and if your an SL developer there's a good reason why you should install a standalone Opensim server.

For those who didn't notice, pricing for BM cities is announced now. Makes me laugh, really. Soooooooo much cheaper than SL, of course.

http://www.bluemarsonline.com/hosting/service.html

(Yes, I did notice the "entry level" outposts for 30 US$ - I also noticed the "limited time" stamp on those, plus the 5 concurrent users limit. Quite clever, really, since I seem to recall that they adjust pricing automatically when you go over your limits, right? So just one person more pops in and you pay nine times the fee in one month.)

Yikes...what's to stop BM (unfortunate acronym, eh?) from having staff dedicated to nothing else but logging in with an untraceable account and 'popping in' to everyone's parcels?

Interesting, I hadn't even thought that far. Would be interesting to know if they really stick to the "we adjust it with your needs" or if you can choose something like, say, a setting most web hosters allow, blocking service after the purchased level is reached - something like an SL sim saying "sorry, we're full atm" when the visitor level is reached.

That would increase confidence, certainly.

Otherwise BM would have a reputation no better than that of banks (who will gladly take 'overdraft' charges for the sake of all the $40 fees that acrue....)

Yep, the Opensim people can keep at it, one day after untiring perserverance and countless hours of effort and development by hundreds of users, it will be as good as SL is now.........lol

BM pricing has been announced. This is the introductory deal.

$100 setup + $30 per month for 5 avatars concurrently in your city.
* No support other than the forums.

$750 setup + $275 per month for 50 avatars concurrently.
* Lowest deal that actually gets email support.
* This is comparable to owning a sim.

$2000 setup + $1000 per month for 250 avatars.

Also, 25% fee on all BLU dollar sales(!)

And you thought the XSL fees were bad.

And not clear so far if you'll just slip into the next "tier" level automatically when just one more person pops in or if you can block that sort of thing and keep your service level at a fixed price. (They did mention after all that "fees are flexible and adjust with your needs".)

One thing to note about their fees, it costs nothing until you go live. In second life, you have to pay land tier from the time you first hold land until you finish building whatever it is you are building there (and of course afterwards).

In Blue Mars, you are not charged during that building phase, since you are building local in sandbox mode on your PC.

I would like to see some more steps between 30 and 275 a month, though. 5 users is enough for private and experimental projects, but it would be hard for people starting small businesses to grow to a larger use level.

A counter argument is that 200-300 a month for a full sim estate has not stopped SL people from buying thousands of them.

I think they mean that you can upgrade to the next level without having to rebuild your city.

I think so, too. But I'd prefer to have this spelled out in their terms.

In other words, a 33.3% sales tax (Blue Mars collects $25 for an item that you collect $75 on). One way to get around it would be to collect $1 in-world and do the real payment offline by Paypal in US$.

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Drawback, special file format for BM only allowed if your a member, it locks and secures the model from piracy. BM format cannot be sold externally unless you sell as standard model format such as collada....However, selling externally as collada opens invitation for massive piracy on your models. On the other hand, BM charges per upload too, I believe alot more than SL....

Its a rich boys toy, hehehe

Thats is a nice bonus, build and learn BM tech offline until its all ready then you upload to their servers, but in SL wise developers already do that too, they use Opensim servers to build on their PCs offline then they upload to SL.

The BIGGEST challenge for "City Developers" is whether they really built something good to entice renters. Will renters really want to live in your city? BM versus SL, which will renters prefer? These are questions that will be answered within time to come. Alot of my SIMs I design with themed sets and alot of the times people who rent them tear them down and fix them up their way. BM may be a tough sell on trying to offer the flexibiity of being able to quickly change themed lands for resale. it simply takes longer.

Regarding SL, I have over 30 SIMs all rented out and non of my tenants liked BM at all so I could not build a business from BM at all. If there's not enough interest from public there's no business. Thats just the way it is, not enough interest there's no business so it may not be a good business model for some of us.

For someone who just wanna have fun at a high price then the rules don't apply, you just waste your hard earned money to play.

I would still stress that BM is alot different than SL, lets say its more like Sony Home MMO, simply its a mix of MMO and virtual world. For hardcore gamers who want hardcore gaming with some virtual world elements then Blue Mars is it. Blue Mars is the answer for indie developers who want to build a shootem up, role play type games with virtual world elements such as SL, so its a different type of group of players that will choose BM over SL.

Comparirng BM to SL doesn't make sense. Porbably it shouldn't be compared cuz most of SL is a whole different type of people here with a whole different preferences and goals and thats why most here don't like BM, cuz its not what they're looking for. The only people who may switch are those who are looking for hardcore MMO with some virtual world elements.

Actually, if you have city files in storage, it only takes a file name change and upload to completely replace a city with something entirely different. With intelligent use of layers and blocks, changing parts of your city does not take long.

In this early beta phase, another group who may play with Blue Mars are those who like playing with technology for its own sake. To build what they can build just to see what is possible. As a builder, I fall into that camp myself. Sure, its nice to make some money, but for some people building itself is the fun part.

That's one reason I've started the "Sandbox City" project. To have a place for people to learn and experiment with Blue Mars, with free temporary building areas (and rented long term spaces if they want it).

http://sandboxcitymars.blogspot.com/


Frankly, I dont expect a lot of regular players to like Blue Mars until they get more than 25% of the user interface features working (which is where they are now). 6 months from now it should be a different story

Happy Holidays Everyone!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/z0a2xmhhnhb/Sandbox City Flyby.mp4


(soundtrack: Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Siberian Sleigh Ride)

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