Imagi Nation?

My question was the first one she answered, Claire - it just didn't explain any better what she wants to avoid. I am genuinely interested, because SL remains something that you can make totally what you want it to be - and when you figure in a private island into the mix, I don't understand how anyone else can impede upon that.

Again, Cat will be posting later today - this is my personal opinion.

Sure, we both have private islands that we can do anything we like in, invite anyone we want to. But neither of us enjoys making clothing much, sometimes we don't feel like making furniture or accessories, and sometimes we just want to go OUT.

But when we do, we're slapped with streaming audio full of commercials. Sure, it can be turned off - and when you move into the next parcel, it's right back on again. And then there's the billboards, tons and tons of billboards and flying ads and well, we've all seen them. All we're asking for is a choice. Everyone should be entitled to that.

Erm, you do of course realize that if the net hadn't gone commercial that SL wouldn't even exist, right?

Not *was*, *IS* an artists society, although it is much more than just that.

However, I think of it more as a community of super-smart and highly capable people rather than just a community of artists (although the creativity of most members certainly is very high).

I live in fear that they will get tired of my parenthetical ramblings, realise that I am just "passing," and throw me out.



I am joking a bit of course, in that there are actually no entry requirements, re: creativity or intelligence, and Neualtenburg is certainly the opposite of an elitist society.

I think a lot of people live there just because they want a beautiful, peaceful, decent and civilised place to live.


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http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2002/12/22/article_01.htm

And if you don't feel like reading the whole thing, this is a quote which I feel is relevant -

"THE first modern computer game, Spacewar, was created in 1962. The game's objective: fight off asteroids and enemy spaceships. Countless similar games eventually followed. When more powerful personal computers became widespread in the 1970's and 1980's, computer games became increasingly common. There were adventure games, quiz games, strategy games, and action games. One type of strategy game, for example, requires the player to plan and manage the growth of cities or civilizations. Many games simulate sports, such as ice hockey and golf."

1962 - way before there was even a hint of commercialism. I personally started being online in 1986, also way before commercialism. Q-Link had a game called Club Caribe, which was very similar in theory to SL, as far as having avatars and being able to interact with others real-time. Again, way way before commercialism. If Club Caribe existed then, then sure SL could still exist today without commercialism.

Well I think hraashng on Catherine for her idea is a bit uncessary. I think its a good idea, though maybe not a practical one.

Of course this issue hit hard at the heart of the "what is SL debate." I find it very interesting that there is a strong anti-casual player bias, and yet people pursue commercialism as a positive thing. The easiest way to facitilate commercialism is to radically increase the size of your market, and you do this by bringing casual users into the game. The internet boomed when casual users werr able to get on. I recall when AOL went from an hourly service to a flat monthly service. In 1992 I can recall times when there were 40 people on AOL late at night. On the whole system. Then AOL went to a flat rate and almost overnight there were always millions on.

Did this ruin chat? Not exactly but it mean our nice small happy edicated club grew and in a month the entire community changed, to the lowest common denominator. Once the market grew and the net became commercialized, then the quality of chat in the chat rooms went down, the porno companies came on with their sex bots. The vocie and video made being fucntionally literate an opinion and the internet was "dumbed down."

Corporations came in and wanted to protect thier rights and implement regualtions to the keep the intert safe for protecting the corporate environment and government went nuts.
Sure its nice to be able to buy almost anything over the internet. But what was envisioned as a place where you could read books became a place where you could order books.

Instead of have access to vast sources of public data, the urls are in place where you can, for a price subscribe to services that can get you data. And the free stuff is buried among ten million people selling you links to stuff you could get for free.

So commercialism is a fact. It has good points and bad points. I for one would never want SL to become just another internet. But right now it works because it is small. If we decide that SL is the next model for cyberspace, then the corporations will come here and the SL economy as it is today will be squashed.

Q-Link also charged by the hour ($6.95 I seem to recall). Club Caribe went on to become Habitat on Compuserve, and was in fact commercial - you could buy tokens for additional stuff. There were also sponsored areas. Club Caribe was a commercial venture to make money. It still exists today in the form of Dreamscape and VZONES. All have commercial content in them.

SL could not exist as it does without some form of commercialism, as the entire thing is user created - and commercialism is the driving force behind making content. People don't make it out of the kindness of their hearts endlessly - there is real time and expense spent in creating high quality content. SL would not have grown the way that it has without that incentive. If there were not a potential for profit, Linden Lab would never have gotten the venture capital that they did. How is all of this supposed to be paid for if there is no commercialism?

BTW, Q-Link went on to become a little company known as America Online.

Interesting, Eggy. It has taken me less than four months to figure out exactly that. And to do exactly that. You've practically described me to a T, and it is not what I intended when I first came here, and not anything like the way I am in other online games and places.

Too bad, too. I am sure there are many, many people I don't meet because I now do what you are doing. But it is really the only way to go, the only good use for this platform. It's every woman for herself, and I figured that out. Being on the forums - trying to get support for events and other good, artistic-type causes - taught me that. That's okay - I like making things and participating in the selling items economy. In fact, I LOVE making things. More than than socializing or entertaining, in fact.

But it's also understandable that people would be disappointed that this is how it's turned out. I wasn't even here to see that it was ever any other way. The only thing I've seen since I've been here are good places like Spitooney closing, and others who have done similar builds complaining that the cost of doing them isn't worth it. Things disappear in the night, so that what I was going to show a visiting friend is gone by the time they get here. It's too expensive to run these good things.

What I am saying is that eventually this model won't work. Because the idea that 5% of people can be productive in a game and the other 95% will be happy just "consuming" or "viewing" is a fallacy. It's true that the creative stuff will come mainly from only ten percent of the people, as Will Wright once said. That doesn't mean, though, that the other 90% don't need something to do, and a way to feel productive themselves, and express their own creativity, even though it may not be best-selling.

What will happen eventually, I believe, will be the most of the gaming world will already have come in here to have a taste and left. Then those 5% of people making a buck off them will be back to where they started. Which, being as it will be as it used to be in the beta days people fondly remember here, may be a good thing.

Assuming the platform is still around. Otherwise we will have a bell curve, and in rather short order, too. We may be closer to the peak of that curve than most of us realize now.

coco

Chip said that he didn't feel SL would exist today if the net hadn't gone commercial. I posted that I disagreed with that, and gave data to support my opinion. This posting of yours doesn't comment on that aspect at all - would you like to give it another try?

And yes, btw - I do know that Q-Link is now a little company called AOL. I've said that myself here in the forums several times now.

None of those games cost millions of dollars to produce. You don't honestly believe that that you'd have the MMO's we have today if not for profit and venture capital, do you?

Okay I have an idea. I thought about this long and hard. A separate grid might solve the problem but it seems that it would be hard to implement. Would people going over to the Imagi Nation grid lose their name or have to get new names? Would they have to get new accounts? Would this cause confusion? Would people spend most of their times there instead of with the regular SL? What if the artists made something really cool, would anyone in regular SL be able to buy it or get it for free (if commercialism is forbidden)? Or would they have to recreate it over here? Or would all the cool things over there be just for there and hence the appeal? Sorry if someone already bough that up.

So I was thinking about a temp solution until Imagi Nation could be implemented. First, some sim owners of like mind could ask to be attached. I know this can be done. One of the sims I was on in Dreamland was moved to another location and attached to other sims. Second, a director of sims or parts of sims dedicated to non-commercialism could be created. These areas, similar to themed sims, could be set up for non-commercial stuff only. That way Cat and others like her could fly around and not be exposed.

This isn't a complete solution, but it could be an interim one until Imagi Nation can be realized. Of course I could be wrong.

Club Caribe was on a private subscriber network, it did not utilise the Internet so using it as an argument about the commercialisation of the internet does not fit or make sense - you are comparing apples to oranges. Club Caribe was a very expensive service to use, and had no user created content in it at the time, so it can't really be compared to SL anyway (the forefather of SL is really Active Worlds). I do think it is impossible to speculate what would have or would not have happened without the commercialization (or even existence) of the Internet, as it is all just conjecture anyway.

April, I would guess (and it's only a guess) that the division lies in artistic and architectural differences. Are Sanctum, L'Utopie, Nyterave and Gypsy Moon commerical or artistic sims? I would say both. All display items for sale in stunning settings. I genuinly think that very few find this type of commercial use to be offensive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I think it comes down to the difference between the gift shop at the museum and the strip mall at the intersection.

So what do you typically do when you go out?

Wow so many excellent replies so far thanks folks!

First let’s tackle the question of why don’t’ like minded ppl just form their own continent. Well first the obvious those that shun new ideas in these forums would also shun that continent . Secondly we would still be subject to what happen on this grid, things. The very things we are trying to escape from. As I read threw the replies I cannot help but wonder if those who are against this idea are really afraid they will lose a huge customer base if this idea is passed.

Ideas are what built SL idea’s of the community first started by one individual namely Philip Linden. I am sure he heard a lot of negative input about his ideas also. Did it stop him? Apparently not. Good Job Philip, and Thank you.

We have IMO reached a point where if you don’t think like the collective you are no longer welcome in the collective. Some call that a community, I call that an end to creative free thinking.

The very thing I am against is being told my only place in SL will be to build malls or stores or virtual store fronts or to leave if I don’t like it. I am needed in that respect, I am the content creator. Did anyone ever stop and think that perhaps I have no interest in creating that type of content? No they assume I will accept the fat paycheck and create on the spot. Commercial artists are like that. I am not a commercial artist. I create what I want to when I want to, my best work happens that way. Of course I can still do that if I want to against everything the Metaverse “supposedly” stands for.

Who has really taken the time to look up Meta and Verse besides me?
Meta: later, beyond, change
Verse; group of song, numbered division, poetry

As for those who will then point out the book Snowcrash for a different version of Meta Verse to which SL is “suppose” to be based on. I would like to point out that the ending sucked according to most critics.

I am not asking for “MY” anything. I am asking for input and opinions and open discussions. In this metaverse that now exists those things are disallowed. A metaverse is not a collective IMO. It’s this collective I would love to distance myself from. Make the main grid completely www.3d.com with virtual sales ppl selling RL cars. Just don’t expect me to say that is “OK” with me, it’s not. Yes we are far from that point but we are at a cross roads apparently set by the collective.

I asked if it were possible to make a separate grid like they have for the kiddie grid. I seriously doubt it takes millions of dollars to do so. As the kiddie grid is on the main grid but for the most part ppl don’t even know its there. I think its more a kin to a large continent constructed of many estate sims that continent is not visible to the rest of SL. Do the same for this new Continent that’s all I am asking. Just give ppl a real choice and let them decide which part of sl they want to play. As with the kiddie grid when an AV turns 18 all of their money and inventory is moved to the main grid. So moving those off that want to go would be no more taxing on the existing system in place.

My very first post in this thread explained in detail to the best of my ability what I am asking for. This post is to make those points even more clear. If you don’t understand what I am saying now I cannot and will not explain it to you like you’re a 2 year old. We are all adults here take my words as they are I have no hidden agenda.


On a side note: Yes Kris you did shock me! Thank you very much for your kindness.

As for those with the mentality that if ppl like me don’t like it we should just leave. Well your now talking about throwing away revenue that is also sustaining your grid. Think hard before you wish that, please.

As for those in support of this idea I thank you very kindly for your support but more so it’s really lovely to know that there are like minded ppl in SL and I will always be grateful knowing that you took the time to say how you felt. Not long ago I didn’t ever think this day would come. Hugs to you all.

I hope everyone knows that I will back your right to speak your opinion good or bad as long as it's on target and the context of this thread. Do not squelch the rights of others while trying to make your point clear. Listen first, hear what they are saying second. Digest it 3rd and reply last.

Thank you for making this an adult discussion

Cat

PS if your looking for a pissing contest you already won, I don't have a wiener lol

The interesting question though, is what defines creativity? Am I not creative because I assistant manage a club? I don't create, I play with prims here and there, but it's not my niche. Do I feel uncreative? Hell no. You try planning events that will draw people in, you try organizing all of that and then tell me it's uncreative.

Or how about djs? I know quite a few of them now, and you can't tell me they're not creative, just because they're not creating with prims. They have to find music that will keep people somewhere, that the majority of people will like and that fit the theme if necessary.

I think that's the thing that irks me the most sometimes about reading forums, is the implication (not stated in so many words, just my feelings) that creativity is all about prims and photoshop. And it's so not.

I don't care that people don't like clubs, that's fine. It's just that it is work too to work one and to do well with it. *shrugs* that's all I'm trying to say. Comments like only 5% of the people are productive, implying that only the creators are productive seem false.

As Second Life grows, job opportunities grow with it. That's what Second Life has going for it. Even in the few months I"ve been here, I've seen different jobs opening up. Are some of these jobs going to make someone rl rich? no. Are most of them going to provide money in game for people to make and use to buy more content? yes.

I dont think that necessarily follows.

There is no reason I can see that something very *like* SL would not exist. 3-D over the web has been proposed many times by many people from the early days of the web I think.

It would not been exactly the same, another "time line" and all that.
It might be terrificaly more geeky or have a self organising political structure like Neualtenburg.

1. Interesting, Catherine.

IRL, I accept the fat paycheck and create on the spot.

Here, though I do it for the pleasure of it, primarily, and at a far distant second, “out of the goodness of my heart,” for anyone who enjoys it.

I think the Tinies is probably a good example of a creation which – while being sold – was done primarily out of the goodness of their hearts, because it’s so apparent when looking at them that you know they wanted us to love them. (The fact that the prices are affordable to many is another indicator.)

2. There are audio ads? I never hear them because I rarely have audio on; it lags me. Glad I don’t hear them.

3. “We have IMO reached a point where if you don’t think like the collective you are no longer welcome in the collective. Some call that a community, I call that an end to creative free thinking.”

I agree.

4. Katia – exactly. Ditto everything you said. I’ve spent oodles of time saying all that myself. I call it “non-physical content.”

My gripe has been that non-physical content gets no game support. People argue that if it’s good enough, people will pay to come. Not so, overall. People will buy a couch or a new hairdo, but you can’t charge for virtual drinks.

I say – and have always said – that without game support (or maybe a grid like Catherine envisions) – this and all the other types of non-physical creativity, as well as role play, can’t flourish.

Anyway, I just don’t get it. If I wanted SL to be essentially equal to the Internet, why be here? I already have the Internet. Plus I have a lot of other entertainment choices that don’t pretend to be the Internet and all about making rl money. Any plans which limit the ability of anything besides building and scripting for personal profit or buying and selling virtual land for same are narrow-visioned.

5. Katia – I joined the events group in order to make things better for entertainers. (I was an entertainer in TSO, where we did receive more support, so I empathize greatly, though here I prefer to make things.) I spent a couple of months speaking up for the needs of those who provide non-physical entertainment. it was my major cause at the time. A rather lonely trudge.

I haven't spoken of it much lately, because it has now been supplanted by far more important and pressing issues about freedom of speech, people getting banned from the game for what they say in the forums, inclusion for everyone in the forums and the game without fear of intimidation in either, and equal opportunity for all (which, by the way, does include a plank requesting more support for providers of non-physical content).

When Will Wright said the best content would come from only 10% or 20% or whatever it was of the players, I considered that to include me, as providing non-physical entertainment content that was the best of its kind in the game. And there's little question that he did consider that content.

Here, though, perhaps because there are better tools than ever before to actually create physical content of almost infinite variety, the physical content creators get the idea that that's all that really counts.

coco

*nods* I get ya coco, and that's the type of post I am more used to by you. You explain yourself very well.

I don't necessarily always agree, but I am that way with everyone

IM me sometime in game if you want.

Kat

Well since we're both speculating... I think without commercial interest in the net there likely would be no such thing as broadband. There wouldn't be enough on the net to interest the average person so there would be no ISP industry... at least there'd have been very little incentive for anyone to evolve beyond dial-up services. We'd still all be playing MUDs Of course I could be completely wrong. I imagine the truth is somewhere between our two extremes.

Cat, I think Imagi Nation is a great idea. I also think it could happen on the current grid. You just have to think of the rest of SL as the big city that you go into once in while and come home thinking “I am sooooo glad I don’t have to live there”. With enough residents, there could be group forum and you never need look at this one (and let’s be honest, none of us NEEDS to read this forum).

Most of us create our own environments. If I ask you to look around the room and make a mental note of all the blue objects, and I then tell you to close your eyes, and then I ask you to list off the GREEN objects, you will struggle because you weren’t looking for green objects in the first place. We see what we are looking for; someone who is looking for blight, confrontation, conspiracies, etc…will certainly find it. If you are looking for creativity, ideas, and inspiration, those are everywhere in SL. The point I am trying to gently make is that if you focus on the negative, you allow something unproductive to take up valuable energy and space in your head that could be used for dreaming, imagining and dancing on the beach by moonlight.

Here’s to hippies, artists, free pot, Volkswagens, Smores Schnapps and creativity

I would certainly pay for this product/service if the above were implemented.

Here here!

Cat, I've been right there with you about feeling sad that there's seemingly less and less room for pure fantasy in this world. I would like to hear a little more specifically what it is you feel would be accomplished by setting up a realm that doesn't allow people access to the larger grid.

Is there some particular intrusion that you think needs to be eliminated? I don't mean in the general sense of "commercialism". That's an encompassing term used to include a wide variety of social ills and benefits.

What exactly is your ideal world?

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I think being able to do something like the above - having direct links between favorite sims - would be a great first step in getting away from the endless-surburbia feeling of SL. In terms of addressing the problems of the grid, so many of them have to do with the static nature of it, and the way we've just picked up the whole concept of real estate, right or wrong, and plopped it down on this world.

If SL is going to evolve into the "Metaverse", I think at some point we'll have to add in the old concept of hyperlinking. It's nice to be able to fly across some neat scenery to visit your friends, but there's no reason you should have to, or that you shouldn't be able to just link your house directly into a common neighborhood with them.