Create an audience and builders will come

Yeah, what he said!

No doubt. Still, it's content and they're developing it.

You answered your own question.



LL builds the landscape and a few newbie areas. We do the rest.

Personally I'd be upset if LL made too much content, because they don't have follow the same rules as us. For example, they have all the free land they want! Not to mention they can issue themselves L$! If LL wants to get into the content creation business they should form a completely new grid with no interaction with the original grid.

I totally agree blaze. Rhysling, when he says "wiki world" he doesn't mean just "creating documentation collective" he's referring to my invention of a term called "tekkie-wiki" which means creating a world of highly-skilled and elitist content-creators, programmers, designers, etc. who work collaboratively to create the world. I've argued that this inevitably spawns a guild-type, closed society which is death to the effort of growing the Metaverse, but then as some have pointed out, the Metaverse was supposed to be an elitist, restricted-access enterprise all along.

Yesterday at a Digital Cultures discussion, someone talked about "collaboration" as if it were almost a sacred enterprise, and implied that those of us who didn't "collaborate" on the "group project of making SL and its content" were crap. I reject that concept utterly. No one should have to collaborate to make a "contribution" or be forced into that guild-mentality that only "contributors" have worth and the rest are useless wastes of server space. The smug guild craftmasters' mentality will be death to this world.

LL has put *some* intention into bring the masses in the door, sometimes by just doing nothing and sitting back, or attempting to fix the log-in problems that always happen in games that are "oversubscribed".

But the very word they use for these "audience members" -- "casual players" lets you know their elitist attitude. There's nothing "casual" about people who log on for 4-6 or more hours a day in a "game". So they may be "casual" in that they don't build or create content or program or script, but they are necessary for the world's economy.

Countries that have tried to maintain slave or campesino or serf or peasant classes usually fail in this enterprise in time, after extracting riches off their labour for a time, because they aren't free and can't encourage innovation and pluralism.

This has been my constant refrain about SL, that whatever the amazing content creation they've got going, they can't keep stimulating it without the practicality and utilitarian side of customers, their feedback, their democratic shopping habits, their voting with their feet, etc. So often, customers like that are viewed as just the profit centers, the cash flowing into the vendors that some content barons just log in and cash out. But customers and their feedback and their needs and wants are what can drive innovation as well if you pay attention to them.

What customers are going to need are jobs, safe homes, stability, freedom from terrorism/griefing, etc., as in any state/country.

Although I'm prone to be very caustic as you know, I wouldn't go as far as blaze in slamming this new marketing Linden, I'd give him a chance for a few more months. I know, like most important people, he probably doesn't read the forums anyway I have already expressed my dismay, however, that he focused on content creators once again, and just bringing more and more of them in, as if he didn't have to have an audience in this movie theater. The "comfort level" in the movie theater for the patrons is a very important factor and their discretionary purchasing dollar should never be ignored.

Wow, that sounds like a seditious thought, it's a wonder you haven't been banned, with thinking like that LOL> Seriously, the Lindens ARE in the content business as you can see not only from them building fine bridges and dams and raising property values wherever they declare land "protected," but if you see them scurrying around to produce all these things like the in-world residences at Ambleside, activities at WAs, etc. etc.

I mentioned this in another post but I guess Prok ignored it because he didn't want to hear because it makes sense... but David Linden said he will be focused on targetting content creators until the end of 2005. After that point, presumably there will be enough people making content to be able to support the influx of new players they intend on acquiring when they begin to advertise to a broader audience in 2006.

You need to have cool things, LOTS of cool things available for people here to buy if new players are to become hooked.

Um, Ingrid, I didn't ignore it the first time I heard it from David, nor the second two times I heard it from you. But the end of 2005 is a really, really long time away. In the dog-years of SL, it is an eternity. Will the game even be here at the end of 2005, some 6 months of RL away? I guess so, but honestly, my point holds.

They have people who would come now out of TSO and other dying games, but they will have to think about how to make them comfortable. And if they don't want to do that, but the people come anyway (and they will), then they are burning their future audience for 2006.

There's no reason to serial-process this the old-fashioned way, they could be parallel-processing all these interrelated goals of building audiences/customers/"livers in the world" along with content kings.

They are now. "livers of the world" are here now. They get stipends that they spend. Tons of people login to chat and just hang out. They're doing that now... this very second. Lots of them! Are you saying they don't enjoy themselves?

To heck with the quality developers then, Blaze. I want the user-friendly tools.

coco

hehe.. I suppose more user-friendly tools would help make more quality developers. So this statement has my vote too!

Ingrid, you often take what I saw very literally in a narrow context, and I will ascribe this problem to the medium in which we are communicating, and not your lack of intelligence.

Sure, there are livers in the world. Tons of them. But they struggle and have many complaints. I tend to hear them more than you, perhaps, but they are frustrated. You can read a little bit of it in the forums.

I often run into new people flying around. The first thing they say is "how can I get a job?" "Hey, I've spent all my money on a vehicle and clothing -- now what?" This is the "what to do about people with no talent" issue, as you know. So they need more to help them stick. That means they need jobs, freedom from griefing, freedom from even things like annoying bounce scripts.

As you know, FDR conceived of the "four freedoms" -- they're what any leader has to consider in making not just a "New Deal" but a new world:

Now that I've read the thread:

Of course I agree that players - "casual" players (I would prefer to call them average players) - need something to do. That was my very first epiphany about this game. Until this changes somehow, the main thing to do here, for anyone, is to create.

Another problem is the things to do cost the people who create them so much to maintain, they don't last as long as we'd like. (Spitooney being the latest example.) So, unlike in other games or online activities, the audience can never get comfortable knowing their favorite activity will be around next week. The activities stay around only at the whim of or the pocketbook depth of their creators.

Another problem with nothing productive for the audience to do, or a way for them to become engaged long-term, is that they will look around and then leave in a relatively short period of time. So the "audience" is constantly leaving to go see another movie. There's a lot of turn-over.

I don't know why people seem to think this "audience" is a stable thing. No one stays in a place very long just to consume, or watch something. Now if SL were an easy place to get to, and to use, for a whole lot of people and not just a few dedicated souls used to computer-type foul-ups, and with cable or DSL, and willing to founder around in a world without structure, then there might be enough people flowing in and then out again to make it worthwhile. But I believe that audience flow is limited by the factors I noted in the previous sentence.

Since I, average player, came in and immediately copped to the fact that the only thing to do is build and create, I want user-friendly tools. Creating can be fun for everyone. Everyone is an artist; everyone loves to create, just to different degrees and in different ways. If that's the main draw of this environment, then make it work for everyone.

If the ability to create in a game where there isn't much to do BUT create isn't made as user-friendly as possible, we no longer even have a world of creators, we have a world of computer-programming professionals (who often lack much creativity and/or a savvy grasp of what the public really wants) messing around hoping whole bunches of people will happen by to enjoy it for a brief while. And doing that costs them money, for the most part, rather than making them money.

And even if it made them oodles of money, their audience is going to resent that, sample the goodies briefly, see nothing in it for them (no "game", etc.), and wave adieu. They will go give their money to people who are actually in the online entertainment business to provide them with serious entertainment. Unless you hook them into creating themselves.

Now I said all that in a black/white either/or manner, but the kernel of it is true. People need something to do. If SL is bent on providing nothing except building/scripting (or selling land), then it must be as user-friendly and easy to learn as possible so that more people become intrigued by it and hang around.

coco

You won't get quality developers until the developers can make the things they want. The fact that you can only use prims is very limiting. It makes skinning hard. LSL is kind of clunky and slow. You get a lot of lag and slow rendering times when you're in populated areas. A serious developer would choose another engine.

Well more typically the audience goes and sees another movie