An alternative?

I'd seriously considered HiPiHi from an economic standpoint.

When worlds are new, there is basically an 'opportunity phase' where those with experience can pretty much pwn *any* market and get the critical first start.

That's not to say it can't be taken away by competitors, or that the market may be nerfed or GOM'ed later, but facts-on-the-ground experience and showing up early is pretty tough to beat.

Add all that to a fairly high level of name and brand recognition in a prior world - that's a good economic opportunity that doesn't come along every day.

But I for one am not going over there in any significant economic way.

* * * * *

Sure, I may pop in to grab my name, have a look around, and understand the scenario.

I don't speak Chinese myself, but I deal with mainland Chinese businesses in first life, have been over there plenty, and I have no prejudices.

But I'm not going to skip out on the Company here, or the people in the Second Life community I call home, and change my major focus (or even a significant fraction of it) to far shores.

"What, are ye mad? Customer loyalty to this crashfest? Don't you realise you sound like a total fanboi?"

Yes, I can already hear what many of you are thinking. But sit back, do the math.

As uncool as it may sound, I'm going to give our Company here a fair shake, based on the good faith that they have shown over years and years.

I don't care if anyone thinks I'm a fanboi, or a kissass, or whatever. I've probably lost out more than most of you, in terms of inventory glitches, downtime, crash frustration. I do *not* like all the decisions made, and some of them will cost me more than what 100 typical accounts may lose.

But I've also been dealt with in good cheer, enthusiasm under hard times, and good faith. Having 'seen it all' from sims phasing in and out every 30 seconds to account lockouts and inability to transact business when I had to - all the critical issues have been fixed, all the truly lethal glitches have been dealt with one way or another. On balance, it's deeply positive.

* * * * *

Deandra, Suezanne... gently, I suggest that active promotion of a competing service is fine and appropriate on blogs and so forth... but... here?

I understand and value what limited free speech we have here, in these official forums. But mentioning HiPiHi here in official forums is very much like enthusiastically mentioning a competitor in the livingroom of the home of a business owner. While it may be allowed... it's icky.

I'd gently suggest saving HiPiHi commentary for secondcitizen or elsewhere. Perhaps I'm the only one feeling this way, perhaps not. But like sphagetti sauce on a white dress - please appreciate the fact I had the guts to mention it, rather than otherwise. It's a friendly gesture even if it may not seem so.

I'm not affiliated with the Company here in any way, and I've equal ability to 'skip around' to other worlds as anyone else - I'd probably rock HiPiHi's world pretty hard if I went over there. Anyone doubt it? grin

But, that said, my comments here are based upon personal principles, which trump economics sometimes.

Well even if HiPi Pwns i dont plan on ditching SL. I think creating for here AND hipi would be a ton of work definitely. My business here is already full time between customer IMs and just releasing new products.

I dont think SL will be left baron, if I notice some type of significant drop in sales I will turn more attention to hipi. If not then I think ill kind of stick to what im used to. Though I just dont know for sure, not til i test out hipi, how it runs, pros and cons.

As I said, I am defnitely going to catch "the bus" over to the next virtual world, but ive come to know and love SL (minus the constant grid problems), i definitely wont leave for good. In the future will I begin playing less and less? Who knows. Only time will tell.

Your comments may be based on your principles, but sometimes my principles may trump yours.

My principle is: someone asked a straightforward, polite, and answerable question in Resident Answers. I answered the question.

When a land dealer objects to discussion of what they perceive as competiton to Second Life , the principle that I would suspect as being likely to motivate them is fear of losing money if their customers move to a different platform.

I think your view of companies like Hipihi and uWorld and Shanda as being competion to Linden Lab is misguided. They aren't competiton, they are companions, colleagues in the process of creating a 3D internet, a shared virtual reality and telepresence sytem that brings people together in a visceral way, that lets them make friends and do business and see and feel in their gut that people from far away are aren't really that far away in spirit, that will let us experience our common humanity, in a way that can change the world for the better.

I think there's more at stake that who makes a little money renting houses in video game worlds.

I didn't promote it, Desmond. In fact, I asked if anyone else had seen it or tried it.

I didn't name the thread "Get out of SL while the gettin's good", nor did I suggest anyone go there.

My question was just that; a question.

*ears perk up*

Never heard of these ones, must check them out.

Wow, I finally understand the reality (?) of what that ("we`re there in spirit" means.

Jesseaitui,

This is so off-topic, but I just noticed your Location vs mine and busted out laughing.

*where it came from: my brother and i were out one night tossing back a few dozen beers and got to talking about tourism. we decided that would be a great thing to have in windows of travel agencies for our neck of NYC (laughing like loons the entire time)

figured i'd share lol

oh and um, on topic... I hear Hawaii rezzes really fast... but I can't figure out how to d/l it.

"Every typo will be quoted." ~SuezanneC Baskerville. "Uncorrected" ~ditto

The phrase "People from far away are aren't really that far away in spirit." should of couse read ""People from far away aren't really that far away in spirit."

===========================

Anyone that wants to talk about Hipihi or any other virtual world may do so in my forum in the Second Life group forums, so long as they strictly adhere to the Big 6, the forum guidelines, etc. The url for my forum is



The group forums link is not the most obvious thing in the world.
The group forums link is down below the Korean forum link and above the Archive forums:



My forum in the group forums is called SuezanneC Baskerville and was formed just so I could see what the forum moderation system worked like. Once you take the group forums link my forum is a ways down toward the bottom.



I have several threads there on Hipihi already.

This looks interesting. I shall investigate further I think.

Hi Pi Hi..do you suppose that's Chinese for Hi De Hi; 'Hi De Hi' being a popular BBC sitcom from the 1980's following the 'hilarious' mis-adventures of workers in a 1950's British holiday camp, starring thespiuns such as Ruth Madoc and Paul Shane. For those of you not familiar with Britain in the 1950's, a holiday camp was a ghastly place where folks would have to go if they couldn't afford the South of France, run by organisations such as Butl*ns and Pont*ns (litigations are probably now pending).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/h/hidehi_7773230.shtml



"Hi Pi Hi everyone.." (to be read in a Welsh accent)

You totally, completely, utterly missed my point.

1. I'd be making MORE money renting houses long term, diversifying to other worlds. My comments here are completely *counter* to my business interest. Perhaps you doubt I'd do well over there, I don't know - but as arrogant as a position this may be: I think I'd do pretty darn well over there, thank you, especially if I got started this early on. Business 101.

2. You have got HiPiHi in your signature, within SL official forums. Perhaps you personally don't feel there's anything wrong with that, but... it's a bit like wearing a Chevy tee shirt and hanging around a Ford dealership, and answering questions about Chevys. No rules against it perhaps, but... ugh. Etiquette 101.


Let me explain why I'm a bit sensitive to this issue.

I have people who asked to enter my Caledon group because they purportedly liked the community, only to turn around and try to raid Caledon by putting their sim names and prices out on the group channel. This was as recent as a couple-three weeks ago. (I wasn't online when this happened, some very trustworthy Caledon residents tipped me off).

When Caledon Regency came online, it was open less than ONE WEEK when I had someone try to pitch rental elsewhere to a group of residents standing there, which happened to include ME in my own bloody sim, not knowing who I was.

You know, I may fail someday, and that's understandable. I appreciate that everyone is free to choose, come and go as they like. I wouldn't mind failing with class, to superior competition. But pimping other sims (with rates!) on the Caledon group channel? Tack-y.

Sounds an awful lot like the "resorts" in the Catskills in NY state. ("Dirty Dancing" was centered in one. If you haven't seen it... well... pass)

Thanks Suzanne.

It was a simple question. I didn't think it would ruffle feathers *sigh*

Quit SL... Play BattleField 2! IT ROCKS!

I wouldn't "quit SL" unless it became unplayable. Not to say it doesn't seem to be heading in that direction some days, but that aside...

I'll check that one out as an alternative for days SL just isn't doing it for me.

Thanks

That isn't how it looked when i signed up. When i signed up for it, i was able to make my account, and download the software. it flat out told me to log in and enjoy. O.o

Thanks suezie for your info about the regional settings. i may give it another shot today. I also want to be involved in the beta. Beta testing is one of my favorite things to do and I've helped beta test some known MMORPGs (Anarchy online - shadowlands, Irth online, EQ2, EQ2 faydwer expansion, Vanguard, Horizons, Immortals, and a few games that never came out like Wish). I enjoy the exploration and being the first to do all the things it has to offer, and the dangers of the unknown ahead. For hipini it would be more like "the dangers of glitches, and figuring out the system".

I just tested it again, following the instructions in Suezies blog and i seam to b e at the login screen now.

I can't figure out where the language settings are to begin with ... I'm hopeless

I can't even get past the login screen because when i registered it wouldn't accept any of the names i usually go by because they were too long... So i had to pick some short name which i forgot. :/ I even tried logging in as Yiffy or Wolfee but nothing worked. I even tried re submitting the registration code which i obviously already used. ;/ i guess i will sign up again with another email address. Usually when I'm put on such a runaround and my patience being tested i just give up. :/ I wander how long they will be able to carry out "only allowing short names". Once they get a huge player base people will run out of names which haven't been used yet.

I figure the short names is just for now (it'd be nuts if it weren't, given the small number of possible combinations).

If I ever figure out the language pack baloney, I'll probably try to make my name: "HUH" since that'll probably make up 90% of my chat LOL

Hi guys, I got into the HiPiHi beta tester thing.

I was wondering if anyone else who applied for it is there as well?

Don't you think Angshe will have an extra advantage on HiPiHi since she's fluent in Chinese..lol. Can't wait to see her all over it as soon as it goes on release.

Lol!

-----------
So I finally got hipihi to download (Took forever), and i can not even get on it just crashes lol

hehe well she did manage to branch over to entropia. Who knows what shes doing there since you can't own land i don't think. Shes probably got a monster sweating business or something. XD

I'm there as 'lynnewu'. Tried for some time to buy 10km2 w/o luck. The terrifyingly incomplete and amusingly translated English instructions probably resulted in me leaving helicopters wherever I went.

I couldn't get the display to look better than ActiveWorlds, so that's potentially a big minus, since I would have thought it was up to DirectX and not the application. Dialog boxes can't be resized and lots and lots of elementary UI standards have been ignored. Looks far more like Alpha than Beta to me, and don't even get me started on the installation, which took two copies of the XP cd, three reboots, and three different websites (which was required in order to discover that making any of the required language changes to the OS requires that the HiPiHi application be *completely* uninstalled and reinstalled).

Trying to select textures regularly crashes the application without any warning. I have to wonder if they're doing *any* exception handling, since the won't-run-until-various-bits-of-the-OS-are-updated problems result in the same kind of silent crash when you first try to run it.

Given that it's a Windows-only platform, these omissions seem disturbingly naive, too. Let's hope (or not, I guess, if you're a Linden rather than a content developer) they've got some aces up their sleeves.

Oh yeah, and apparently, when it's dark in HiPiHi land, it's dark. Can't see in the dark? Tough.

Did I mention the nightmare installation? Only twice, you say? Well, it's a nightmare, and the language issues have no part in it.

isnt ansche german?

anyway, i got an email from the hipi ppl, but it is nonsensical to me, i have no idea what to make of it:

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