What's the point to all this?

Well, it took me a few months to find a purpose in SL. I found a niche that hadnt been filled. Now my graphics tablet & Photoshop gets more use than it ever did. And when it all gets boring I just do like others said & pick a random place on the map to explore. Theres some new islands on the map & I've been checking them out lately. The neat thing is, maybe by next week, what was there has changed! Nothing stays the same in SL. In RL, and in standard online games, it doesnt really change that fast or at all. Its fun to see what comes from other peoples imaginations, no matter how twisted some are!

So my comments are crap Jimmy? yeah nice..and here I thought it was encouraging gaming on SL in anyway you desired..

And here I disagree - why should it matter to the world as a whole? The world as a whole will never be interested in a singular aspect created in Second Life - the only appeal it needs to have is appeal to those who play your subgame.

Your 'reward' should suit the theme of your game - and if your game is sufficiently interesting it will gather users and support.

You will *never* create anything that will appeal to everyone in the world.

Having LL create a 'subgame' and grind will only create one thing: Animosity.

Precisely, it's just like currency. It has to have a value everywhere in order to be meaningful.

Siggy Romulus, you forget that games must have a built in resistance that provides a challenge, something to overcome. All games have this. In fact, it's what makes it a game. If the rules of the challenge don't apply to 98% of the game world (i.e it follows different, much more favourable rules), the game itself becomes pointless.

In other words, you're right that anyone could take a sim and establish a gamey system within its (highly constricted) bounds, but it would nevertheless become a useless gesture.

And don't give me that "SL is not a game" stuff. SL has its resistance and challenge too, albeit on an extremely rudimentary level. It consists in $L's and the difference between possessing Lindens and not having them. So, SL is a game. At least, it's a game too.

There *is* a subgame and grind in SL. It's called making L$. And it *does* cause animosity.

So, let me get this straight, from those who feel SL needs a "metagame", for lack of a better term before I purge the last of the blood from my caffeine stream.

Because a group (and not a huge one, from what I've seen) wants to have their existence mean something, all of SL, many of whom (again from what I've seen) are not interested in making SL into a more traditional MMORPG should be forced into something that holds little to no interest for them?

No thank you, I'll pass. If there's an incentive to make me want to upgrade to a premium account (so far there's not been an incentive that makes me desire to pay for an account, but it may well just be that I haven't seen it yet), the above is one of the farther points from that incentive. As I said before, if I wanted to play a traditional MMORPG, I'd play one (and any of the traditional MMORPGs, like UO, EQ, AO, and so forth, are far better suited to supporting a metagame than the hodgepodge that currently is SL).

Many people come to sl thinking first shooter....then after awhile the get bored and leave. There is so much to do and see on sl, things are not always the same at times. and the exploring alone is endless. I done alot of exploring and moving in sl, and when i think I am done i have to start all over again. SL is endless as the mind can never reach the end of its imagenation.

No I beleive that SL is more like a lego set. And overall I treat it as a game - in the same way I beleive that a MOO is a game - and like a MOO the contents of that are definable by us - but before you say how 'useless' it is I suggest you go around and see how many people enjoy things such as various role playing sims - including DarkLife, which is a complete selfcontained 'beat up the monsters' game such as everquest.

It's hardly a useless gesture. it's what SL is all about at its most fundamental level - creating the world you wish to see.

No, of course not. What would be needed is to find something that's a bonus, that you can get by playing the subgame, but one that nonetheless matters to the general SL experience.

"Respect among peers" would depend upon the subgame having a large number of players.. and it wouldn't get the first few players, because at that time the only reward it could offer is the respect of.. nobody.

For the reason you've mentioned above, it has to be a bonus, not something taken away. As long as it's a bonus, it's fine; it wouldn't be "forcing" anyone. That'd be like claiming that SL "forced" people to learn to build houses, because people who can build houses get to live in nicer houses, better matched to what they want, than anyone else. Ok, that's a natural dependancy and for a subgame the dependancy would probably be artificial, but the idea is the same.

Look at Starax's wand subgame; that's a good example. It's something that's a lot of fun and is difficult or impossible to get any other way (because very few people can build as well as Starax). The only reason it's not perfect as a subgame is that it costs a lot to join, and the reward goes to your friend rather than yourself.

Great idea, but ONLY IF ITS OPTIONAL.

Here's why I say optional. There are two sims on SL that are dedicated to simulating a MMORPG. Combat, treasure, the works. One is very simplistic (Darklife)...the other (Minerva) has a working tradeskill system...looks to be FUN...but it makes you eat or your life level goes down (of course, this doesn't happen to hostiles). And you run into the catch 22 of spending all your time fishing to get food, only to BARELY replenish the health you lost over time to hunger. I played Minerva for a couple days, got tired of all the useless crap I had to do to eat...spent most of my time trying to get money for food or getting food...and not adventuring. Regardless of how cool the rest of the system was, I went back to Darklife and never went back to Minerva due to the tedium added to make it 'realistic'.

While such things as eating add 'realism' done to the point of overkill, ala Minerva RPG sim, they just drive folks away. (note to any Minerva admins out there. Ditch the food and I'd be back in a heartbeat. I LOVED every aspect of your lands but that one...it ended up literally driving me away. I RP to adventure, not to grub for food).

A reward for the players? Gee, when I play role playing games it's my character that gets the rewards. Not me.
Well, that's a problem for the people who think a "grind" is a good idea. I don't, so I'm not interested in solving that.

Have you thought about getting a Jogauni avatar at Lusk and going on the Jogauni quest? The staves you get look pretty cool. I'm not into "grinding", but if you are there's an opportunity for you...

Which is why money is the most popular of the many goals in the Second Life game.
Well, you could gp for the Linden Card goal, or the Linden Bear goal or the Jogauni Quest sub-game. Or you could set up your own game for people to play who want to play that game.

I play the get-people-to-use-my-scripts game. Which is why I sell 'em for L$1, so I get an idea of which ones people are interested in.

My current quest is to save enough to buy the wand. Doing a sorry job of it too.

Your character gets a reward, but as a player you get rewards too. Hopefully, you enjoyed yourself in the process. You also get the feeling of status above players of lower level.



Well, it's not just that. For example, it would be nice to have a special reward for buying L$, because then more people would do it.

you do have a special reward for buying L$

You have more L$.

Just a thought: Rather than a quest or a grind, maybe the answer is an overarching story-line or theme.

What's impressed me about Second Life in the very short time I've been here is the unfinished clutter and chaos, the lack of thematic direction or purpose - either in structure or in player behaviors, the inability of players and the company to define a common purpose - in short, how much Second Life resembles the first one.

I have to ask: Why would I want to pay USD to live a second life that is in many respects less diverse, purposeful, and aesthetically-pleasing than my first?

Yes, I can fly and I can twist cubes in amusing ways, and there are Gorean sims where a relatively-complete RP experience exists if I were into that sort of thing. But I think a lot of the ennui and lack of purpose might be overcome if deeply-complex and involved thematic structures and overarching story-lines existed in which the players themselves fleshed out details, set directions, lived their second lives, made decisions, and brought tales to their anticipated and unanticipated conclusions.

I've read that the company has left it up to the players to do this sort of thing. That's an interesting approach, but I'd say that few people have enough time or resources to devote to creating, maintaining, and upgrading immersive global infrastructures - that's what professional developers are for, after all. I guess the question is whether the clientele can actually support the open-ended approach that the company has tried to create here, by developing something really new and different from real life or other online virtual worlds. After wandering around for awhile, talking to people, and reading the forums, my take right now is, "almost, but not quite."

Second Life obviously isn't a game, or a development platform, or a chat room, or an alternative economy, or a rigorous virtual world. After what? three years? it still doesn't seem defined. That may be part of its charm, but that also explains the boredom, lack of progress, and frustration that I read about and hear about.

That's not a "special" reward, though. You could earn the L$ in other ways, or just make the items for yourself. Buying L$ doesn't enable you to do what so many MMORPG players want to be able to do, which is to stand out. In fact, it makes you "worse", because you've had to pay for your L$, knowing that others don't.

Now if there were special items that you could get when your LindeX spending crossed certain thresholds than that'd be an encouragement. For example, combat fans could choose an item that slowly heals them (impossible for users to build since a few versions back). Those who prefer to socialise could have a custom colour for their standard title, or replace the background of the LL name-box with a texture, or... you get the idea.

But I get that because I value the quest's or role's status, not because I value the reward. It doesn't matter if the reward is a specific cool-looking wand that poofs out "hero" particles, or a colored title on my name, or a gold star on my profile, or my character's name showing up in a webpage, or membership in a "circle of honor" group. What matters is that within the circle of people who play that game, the reward is meaningful.

It will NEVER be meaningful to people who don't care about that quest, so there's no point in even trying to come up with something that will magically give you status outside of that in-group. It won't happen.

If you don't find SL worthwhile, then don't play it. Play something that fits your interests and personality better.Absolutely. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be here. What I value isn't the same as what you value, obviously, because I don't find anything in any other MMO 3d games that's got any value to me at all, and you're looking for something that those games really specialise in.

EPID. Every Person Is Different.

But on a traditional MMO, everyone cares, because they're all either doing exactly the same quests, or the resources they gained from the quest count towards everything.

On SL, there are only subcommunities who care about particular things, and those subcommunities are almost always dominated by the people who create items that the subcommunity uses.

If you have to "go on quests" to get resources, you can include me out. If I can buy the resources with Lindens, then you end up with Second Life.
In the MMO community, there are subcommunities that care about particular MMOs, and those subcommunities are dominated by the companies that develop the MMOs that the subcommunity plays.

In the RPG community, there are subcommunities that play in particular campaigns, and these subcommunities are dominated by the gamesmaster who created them.

In science fiction fandom, there are subcommunities that like certain genres, and these are dominated by fan artists and writers even when professional writers and producers aren't involved in the fandom.

What if the resources that you got by questing were only one type of resource among several, and the others could be earned the same way L$ are earned?



Yes, but each MMO also creates its own community - its players - because it provides the infrastructure for those people to talk to each other. Within that community, levels and treasure are valuable. People in those communities do not talk about the game admins having "won the game", because developing the game isn't considered part of the game; nor do you see game administrators swoop into the middle of towns just to show off fancy items they've created that no-one else can get. I don't recall any case of a Blizzard developer landing outside a big town in WoW and using a unique item to kill every monster within 20 yards in one hit. The equivalent thing - except with the display done in social terms - is common in SL.

In Second Life, anyone who develops a subgame and earns money from it will be seen as "doing better" in the SL community than those who just play it, and creators think nothing of showing off unique items - hopefully, to inspire people, but it doesn't always have that effect.

I play RPGs all the time. But i always found my self hopping from one to the other out of boredom. I never kept a account more then a year. The only online RPG i have kept longer then that is Anarchy Online. I don't know why but i love the futuristic theme to the game, while i dislike the economy and the directive (uber equip yourself and be the almighty). But a year and a half ago i stumbled onto Second Life.

It completely sucked me in and changed how i feel about online worlds. I have been here every since i found this place. I do still randomly play games but i use second life as the place i can do anything. Well almost anything... Some restrictions apply do to the greifer issue and the server limitations. And the millions and billions of bugs! I hate bugs. I like to step on them with a huge boot. Expecially spiders. All those legs... Eeeww......

Naw. You don't have a clue as to what I was talking about. And besides, I'd rather stick around and try to change it. You are welcome to leave.