SecondLife THEYR world YOUR imagination
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Torley Linden
Enlightenment!
Join date: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 16,530
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06-06-2005 11:31
From: Cindy Claveau
If you've read Alvin Toffler (Future Shock ), he predicted this over 40 years ago.
CINDY SPEAKS TOFFLERESE! YAYZERAMA! That's one of my fave books... Alvin and Heidi also made other stabs at the possibility of multi-player online games (wanting to feel connected despite physical distance, and people movin' around and all that shiznit) and look where we are now... so many subcults.
It's lameduck how many peeps scoffed at the Toffs many years ago, but as piece after piece locked into place, the lovely couple became increasingly influential. Thank goodness paper clothing never took off, however.
One thing I find refreshing is to go around with different cultures and see what's popular, their kind of trends... it's like the whole "THE JAPANESE R WIERD!!!123" thing, but they see Americans the same way (generalizing of course). All sorts of crazy perspectives, it's like a lot of people wonder why I like watermelons -- well, it's perfectly natural and intuitive to me, it's like walking to me.
My needs+wants are admittedly a unique case to me, but isn't that the way it should be for each of us? Sure, I indulge in pop culture, but I enjoy traversing the fringes too. |
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Forseti Svarog
ESC
Join date: 2 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,730
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06-06-2005 11:35
From: Cocoanut Koala Kyrah, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Besides, all anyone ever needs to do to get the acclaim and the biggest money from a wonderful new idea is to be FIRST with it. lol cocoa -- so called "first mover advantage" very often doesn't pay off at all. Sometimes you have an idea, but the technology (or manufacturing capability) isn't quite there yet. Or you have an idea but cannot execute on it well enough (including marketing/selling it). Sometimes you have the idea and the technology, but the market isn't there yet. Then a few months or years later, you see the same idea return and become enormously successful. |
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
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06-06-2005 12:34
True - I have read those history notes about how the discoverer or inventer of something wasn't REALLY the first; someone else was, who just lacked the technology or money or whatever and the time just wasn't right.
For that matter, I have seen a few of MY ideas done by other people! Course that's usually because someone else would have eventually thought of it anyway; and someone who could actually do it.
coco
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Seth Kanahoe
political fugue artist
Join date: 30 Jan 2005
Posts: 1,220
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06-06-2005 13:04
Then there are those things in first and second life that are really creative, and really on the bleeding edge, and really unique and thought-provoking and genuinely feeling - and few people notice them and few people think anything of them beyond a vague shrug and an "oh, that's kind of neat." And it makes you want to hit your head against the wall, because you know the person who created it is two/five/ten years ahead of the time.
If it's innovative enough that most people want to copy it, there's probably a hundred things out there that are way more innovative and few people see it.
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Forseti Svarog
ESC
Join date: 2 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,730
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06-06-2005 13:11
From: Seth Kanahoe Then there are those things in first and second life that are really creative, and really on the bleeding edge, and really unique and thought-provoking and genuinely feeling - and few people notice them and few people think anything of them beyond a vague shrug and an "oh, that's kind of neat." And it makes you want to hit your head against the wall, because you know the person who created it is two/five/ten years ahead of the time.
If it's innovative enough that most people want to copy it, there's probably a hundred things out there that are way more innovative and few people see it. LINKS please!  i want to see! if you don't want to post them here, IM or PM me  lately, I've found some really interesting things through Torley's blog and sluniverse/snapzilla |
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
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06-06-2005 13:14
I want to see them, too. There are things that make me go "wow" - like the rocket ship at the Touchstone Fair - but there are probably a lot of things that are just as amazing but I don't have sense enough to know it, so please tell me what some of them are.
coco
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Jeffrey Gomez
Cubed™
Join date: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,522
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06-06-2005 14:19
From: Cocoanut Koala And now, to Jeff's ideas.
"This is all interrelated, really. The "old" system worked with the old userbase; the old system is not working with the new userbase of consumers and socialites."
What new userbase of consumers and socialites? Where the heck are all these supposed one-dimensional parasites? True, I have found several people who enjoy what you might call "playing house" - by using their boughten Lindens to buy goods to decorate their sims and relax in them, and really don't build things with prims and scripts themseves.
But I would tend to call them "regular players." In fact, I do call them regular players - meaning those who like running around in the game, but find the learning curves for building and scripting too hard, too tedius, or too dull. My theory is that those are the very players who don't hang around long enough, and LL needs to give them something to do.
Do you not also socialize and consume? Me, I like to build things, and do. I like to create, and do, both here and irl, where I create for profit, and hope to profit from it here, too. But I also like to have my house in Azure Islands, and I also like to socialize. I would be more of a consumer, except I lack the money. Restarting from an odd Firefox bug that ate my post... First of all, playing at the sycophant does not interest me, so please speak to the issue and not the people involved. Second off, consumerism to me does not imply people are "just being parasites;" I simply am acknowledging that the system does not work in the current phase brought on by it. When I joined roughly a year ago, the community was a bit different - thriving largely on strong events, classes, and content. I feel this represents the old guard, and buying and selling itself is not an ill. However, the focus has shifted, and the Lindens in part are responsible for this. Instead, we pride our community less on "what we can do" and more on "how much we can make," and I feel this is noteworthy. Nor do I live in a bubble. I have developed this view as both a creator and a passive consumer. I do try to watch market forces - but the fact remains, I'm not very interested in them. I feel we, as a community, can do so much more than be concerned about our bank accounts. And, as Kyrah stated, this is not the point of the thread! Yar.  I'll get to the rest later; I'm low on time presently.
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
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06-06-2005 14:25
Well, I have a little time right now, lol, and I agree with you that the focus is too much on making money.
"First of all, playing at the sycophant does not interest me, so please speak to the issue and not the people involved."
What do you mean?
coco
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Jeffrey Gomez
Cubed™
Join date: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,522
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06-06-2005 19:35
As to playing at the sycophant, I was refering to this post. I feel it speaks volumes, but you're welcome to your opinion. From: Cocoanut Koala Oh, Prok, I do so agree with your every sentence in your first post here, and it is oh, so saddening.
coco
P.S. And your second post.
P.S. - as I read through this, this is really astounding. First I read Jeff's analysis and object to several primary assumptions therein, and plan to rebut them later. Then I read Prok's analysis, and agree sadly with most of it, particularly the history of the game portions. Then I get to Jeff's next post, and lo and behold - IT IS AMAZING! I didn't realize that when I was reading along so nicely and soberly Prok's post that I was . . . in fact . . . READING A RANT!
Wow. ---------- Moving happily along, I feel that most of the points I have addressed need no further support at this time. However, I will touch on a couple issues that you've asked about directly. Those I do not address I feel I have covered thoroughly; read them again if you're confused. From: Cocoanut Koala Game shows and money balls and club contests will NEVER evaporate. A vision of only a certain sector of business being valid (building and scripting), while all others aren't, is ridiculous. What people want, people get.
...
And what is this attitude against dwell? What's wrong with dwell? Dwell is part of the game.
* Removed Attacks Dwell is an example of an artificial system. It is not us "trying to ruin the success of the entertainment class," but rather to undermine the "entitlement factor" begotten by them. Dwell is a system turned "free lunch" in the eyes of many - even though it doesn't realistically pay much. It is a form of incentive seen as funding soft-money bribes in many ways. The reason I rally against such a structure? It is simply unrealistic. It was a good idea at conception, but over time it has become a form of entitlement again, and again, and again. As yourselves: In present-day Second Life, would you go to a club if you had to pay a cover charge? This is what I'm getting at. I also feel that these artificial systems are liable to fall as Linden Labs shifts the burden on us to "run our own world." From: Cocoanut Koala What Sim is this that is already in existance now? Who lives on it? Is it yours? Faded Reality and Reality Faded are two good examples - some friends invited me there. Rose and Game Dev 3 are also close; these are two places in which I hold land. Feel free to visit. From: Cocoanut Koala What is the noted nuisance you have cut off from view? The copycat culture Kyrah envisioned to begin with. From: Cocoanut Koala That's why you WANT things divided into scripters/builders and consumers. That way, nothing ever happens here but a few people making sofas and scripts and everybody else buying them (lining your pockets) till they of course get bored and head off to another game. Get off it. Please. This horse is dead, rotting, and defiled. Stop beating it. This argument conveys a sense of ignorance, both in who I am and the world we wish to create. Let it rest in peace. --------------- I am going to happily leave conversation to its own devices at this point, because I can already sense this is turning into forward accusations. For now, we will have to agree to disagree. If you wish to have a decent argument, settle first to preach ideas and not people. Then we'll talk.
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
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06-06-2005 20:17
"If you wish to have a decent argument, settle first to preach ideas and not people."
This, I don't know what you mean either. But I appreciate the answers to my questions.
1. If I understand the sycophant part right, you think I'm kissing up to Prok, I suppose. Nope, nope, never have done so. Not anymore than I kiss up to anybody else, anyway, lol. I just absolutely didn't consider what I read by him as a rant, but rather as an analysis, so I was surprised that you considered it a rant.
2. "As yourselves: In present-day Second Life, would you go to a club if you had to pay a cover charge?"
No, and most other people wouldn't either. Which is why we need dwell.
3. "This is what I'm getting at. I also feel that these artificial systems are liable to fall as Linden Labs shifts the burden on us to "run our own world.""
Now this, I think, is the whole crux of our differences of opinion. It is taken as gospel that LL intends to eventually have us run our own world.
But what does this mean? (Remember, I'm relatively new.) Do they intend to eventually sell off the game entirely, in pieces, maybe, to individuals to run? And then go on to create something else?
If not, do they intend to still have it as "their" game/platform/whatever you want to call it? If so, there are limits to how much they can turn over. My feeling is that as long as they control it at all, they need to bear in mind the limitations of the virtual medium, and see to it that fun is never lost. To that end, they need to support entertainment.
4. "Get off it. Please. This horse is dead, rotting, and defiled. Stop beating it.
This argument conveys a sense of ignorance, both in who I am and the world we wish to create. Let it rest in peace."
The horse isn't dead to ME. It's a brand new one to me, only three months old; even less, since it's taken me most of that time to try to figure out what's going on here.
I am completely ignorant as to who you are (my use of "you" was, again, unfortunately, meant in the sense of everyone who believes as you do - I need to be more careful with my "you's" in future), except that I know you as the premier scripter in the game. (I could be wrong about that.)
As for "the world we wish to create" - are you telling me you are a Linden?
If not, then "we" includes me, and apparently I don't wish to create the same world you do.
Thank you for responding to my post.
coco
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Prokofy Neva
Virtualtor
Join date: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 3,698
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06-06-2005 22:38
Social Darwinism. Ugh. Jeff, you know, most people that actually belief in these old 19th century horrific ideologies of totalitarianism try to dress it up more than that, they don't actually "advocate" it in polite discourse. From: someone Niche behavior does not imply isolationism. My view still allows for a larger, "main grid" if you will, but I see this area reserved more for socialites. Really, my idea is no different than what's going on now, plus exponential growth, so leave the ranting at the door please Uh, yeah. Uh-huh. "My perception of reality is reality." Sure, Jeff. Except...then I showed up. And I said "this is tripe". People splintering into a million pieces which the Lindens just let go is actually NOT what is happening. They are hanging on hard -- possibly too hard. Anyone can see that. With their Tringo allergies and busy events planning groups and tweaking of lists and game features and even voting. My God. That's not letting go. That's letting God. Hahaha. "My perception plus exponential growth." Trust me, if you notion prevails, there won't be the growth. So no, Jeff, I won't be "held back at your door" by being told "you're ranting". I'll say "uh, why do you get to make a door that locks?" There are different schools of thought. One says that to get a genius, you need the class of 40. You support all the kids with equal education and hope one or two will turn out to be brighter. You need that 40 though to interact, challenge, create. Another school of thought is more like the failed society of the Spartans, with rigorous training of only an elite cadres to create the geniuses by fiat. It's a brittle system that doesn't work. And what Coco said: From: someone
I also feel that these artificial systems are liable to fall as Linden Labs shifts the burden on us to "run our own world.""
Now this, I think, is the whole crux of our differences of opinion. It is taken as gospel that LL intends to eventually have us run our own world.
But what does this mean? (Remember, I'm relatively new.) Do they intend to eventually sell off the game entirely, in pieces, maybe, to individuals to run? And then go on to create something else?
If not, do they intend to still have it as "their" game/platform/whatever you want to call it? If so, there are limits to how much they can turn over. My feeling is that as long as they control it at all, they need to bear in mind the limitations of the virtual medium, and see to it that fun is never lost. To that end, they need to support entertainment.
What you're seeming to say, Jeff is, "The Lindens are going to be relinguishing this world soon and my way and the highway are going to be where's it at so check your rant at the door". Baloney. I see them trying to create ways of bringing some order and sanity out of the chaos, not getting read to throw it to the dogs. I wish they weren't so present and interfering but before they relinquish it I want to make damn sure they don't just relinquish it to people who will make of it a fascistic utopian ideal. I think there's a terrible danger they will do that and I see all the signs. Those who think there's beauty in a million fractured pieces can also find there's beauty in the strong totalitarian needed to bind up this Balkanized mess.
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Rent stalls and walls for $25-$50/week 25-50 prims from Ravenglass Rentals, the mall alternative.
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Jeffrey Gomez
Cubed™
Join date: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,522
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06-06-2005 23:54
As far as I'm concerned, my part in this conversation is now over. I'm positing my opinion and any relevant facts, nothing more. Putting words in my mouth is not conducive to conversation, either. I've had my say, and from my take on matters, it stands. Good day. Edit: However, I just noticed Coco's polite request for additional data on said mission statement. Let me provide some quotes found here on the forums to that end. Context included. llSawzAll()From: Andrew Linden LL wasn't always a software company. It was started as an exploration into haptic hardware, but we needed a virtual world to interface with the hardware. First things first. From: Andrew Linden LL has discussed how and whether a Free Software or an Open Source transition for SL would be possible, and many LL employees are ultimately in favor of it while some are skeptical. In any case, there is a bit of work necessary to do before such a move, and we've all agreed that now is not quite the time to throw a lot of effort into it. Yet at the same time many of us (including myself) believe that SL will indeed be dwarfed eventually by an Free/Open metaverse if LL does not go that route. The main obstacle in my mind is the protocol that SL currently uses. It has evolved into something unlike what we originally thought it would, and now has obvious shortcomings that we are scheming on fixing. I'm afraid that if we were to open it all up now it would snowball into an unmanigable mess like the open Netscape project before it was scrapped and reborn as Mozilla. The only way I think Free/OpenSL would work would be if LL were to clean up and stabilize the protocol so that it was easily extensible, then release a sample client implementation, and eventually the servers (which _really_ aren't ready for a sparsely distributed system yet). An open, distributed, shared network was part of the plan from the very beginning when Philip was telling me about it over lunch that first week I came down to San Francisco, and as far as my opinions sway it is still part of the plan. My recommendation: stick around and see what happens -- it might be interesting. Incidentally, the back end of SL is becoming increasingly dependent on Free or Open Source software. Each simulator node now runs a squid, uses libcurl, and a few other FOSS components. It is possible that future nodes will be running MONO and jabber as well. It would seem a shame (it seems to me) to not contribute something back to the whole happy wonderful world of FOSS, preferably FS. From: Philip Linden I'll speak for my own gut here, allowing that I'm sure this will be a long and interesting discussion in the years to come:
My intuition is that open source and open standards are the only way to go for SL long term - for us to reach the whole world in the way that the web has will probably only happen under this sort of model.
I don't think becoming more open would be a bad business move for LL, because there are so many central services that we can offer for a fair price - once SL goes to truly global scale those charges can create a very large and sustaining business.
Pragmatically, there are things that need to happen to make this possible:
We have to preserve some sort of system to protect the rights and permissions of content. This means that in some manner the servers must become untrusted - a 'man-in-the-middle' from a crypto perspective. Today, the SL servers are totally trusted - if you owned a server you could take all the money and copy all the objects of anyone who walked into it. I can imagine that long term you get a notice on entering insecure servers, and you can choose what objects and how much money you want to 'carry' when you go in. Coding this is going to be a big change, and lots of work.
Additionally, as also discussed here, we need to make the protocols between servers very simple, so that folks can start from scratch with server code if they like. HTTP got really widespread in part because it was really simple - you could write a basic server in a few hours. Ideally something like SL needs to be comparably simple - you should be able to write a 'hello world' server and connect it to the grid very easily.
Projects like OSMP are great, and something that helps us understand what priority we should give to these changes. Ideally I'd like to see the metaverse get built as quickly as possible, which means that everyone is working on interoperable code and content. If big projects get underway that are challenging SL in scale and capability, it means that we are doing something wrong - not being open enough fast enough. From: Philip Linden Good thread.
Our desire is to balance changes with backwards compatibilty. We take content as built today very seriously, since there are so many great works in-world already. Given that, we think we've architected fairly well for allowing incremental changes. To answer Tiger's original question - we are very much behind SL expanding and retaining content - we don't see the existing version as an experiment that can be wiped out. As discussed, we think versioning and adding functions can allow expanding LSL while still retaining all previous functionality. Admittedly, this is often a challenge. We've already been able to do 'rolling' deployments, where we upgrade some sims but not others (we are doing this now with updates to the OS version under the sims, for example).
Longer term, we are trying to architect in such a way that upgrades can be made progressively to some sims and not others - this should allow a balance between preserving older content and allowing more radical or non-backwards-compatible changes. One has to imagine that with thousands of sims this will become the norm. A challenge to this sort of model is to normalize the sim-sim messaging and interactions to a standard protocol that will support such changes. My aim is to present my opinion and the raw data clearly and to do my best to not confuse the two. For further reading, refer to the linked threads.
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Forseti Svarog
ESC
Join date: 2 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,730
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06-07-2005 00:27
jeffrey, i don't always agree with you 100% but that was a good post. Thank you for trying to elucidate where you are coming from.
I don't understand those who create their own servitude. They see slavery where none exists, and fail to realize that their virtual manacles in this virtual world are nothing but self-imposed restrictions.
You can cry, "you are free! what a glorious day!" and point to the shining sun, yet they would rather shuffle along, creaking aloud about victimization and suffering.
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Kyrah Abattoir
cruelty delight
Join date: 4 Jun 2004
Posts: 2,786
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06-07-2005 03:33
prok and cocoa we arent discussing about personal issues but on the topic i stated earlier so PLEASE stop deviating of the original topic (wich you seems to be good at)
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 tired of XStreetSL? try those! apez http://tinyurl.com/yfm9d5b metalife http://tinyurl.com/yzm3yvw metaverse exchange http://tinyurl.com/yzh7j4a slapt http://tinyurl.com/yfqah9u
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
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06-07-2005 03:41
I have not been discussing about personal issues.
coco
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Moopf Murray
Moopfmerising
Join date: 7 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,448
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06-10-2005 12:16
Well you know, I'd never seen anybody rip off anything I'd designed, until today that is. A year or so ago I created some Yogic Flower chairs, just fun seating really (you can still buy them in my store in Nepessing - I've attached a picture). Well I've just come across a pretty much exact rip-off design being sold by somebody else for L$50 (mine are only L$10) and, as if that wasn't enough, they're using a script of mine in them (I presume it is one of the highly commented scripts that I sell). So I take back my previous post on this thread lol  I kind of feel sorry for the person who made them, if all they can do is rip somebody else's design off. PS. Oh yeah, this person's who's ripped my design isn't new either - in fact they're a year old today! |
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Arbel Vogel
Burstin' w/Fruit Flavor
Join date: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 1,155
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06-10-2005 12:29
Steve: Looks kids, Blue found something, can you see what it is?
Bunch of Kids: A CLUE!!!!
Steve: That's right!
*writes in notebook*
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 Winter Moon, located at Koreshan/70/71/24 Visit my blog for updates! http://wintermoonclothing.blogspot.com/
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Moopf Murray
Moopfmerising
Join date: 7 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,448
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06-10-2005 12:54
From: Arbel Vogel Steve: Looks kids, Blue found something, can you see what it is?
Bunch of Kids: A CLUE!!!!
Steve: That's right!
*writes in notebook* So he's Steve in the US is he? He's Kevin in the UK you know! Yeah, but let's find another clue just to make sure Anyway, re. my post, the creator has removed them from sale which was an amazingly fast response and apologies were gushed. So all's well that ends well. |
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Beryl Greenacre
Big Scaredy-Baby
Join date: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 1,312
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06-10-2005 13:11
From: Moopf Murray So he's Steve in the US is he? He's Kevin in the UK you know! Actually, the guy who plays Steve decided a couple years ago that he was sick of being in the show and wanted to go on to other projects; so, in the story line, Steve went off to college and his brother Joe (a different actor) came in to take his place. Moopf, I'm glad to hear that your story has a good ending... even if I wasn't able to figure out "Moopf's Clues."
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Swell Second Life: Menswear by Beryl Greenacre
Miramare 105, 82/ Aqua 192, 112/ Image Reflections Design, Freedom 121, 121
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Moopf Murray
Moopfmerising
Join date: 7 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,448
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06-10-2005 13:18
From: Beryl Greenacre Actually, the guy who plays Steve decided a couple years ago that he was sick of being in the show and wanted to go on to other projects; so, in the story line, Steve went off to college and his brother Joe (a different actor) came in to take his place. Moopf, I'm glad to hear that your story has a good ending... even if I wasn't able to figure out "Moopf's Clues." Kevin's a Liverpudlian My kids haven't had to deal with separation from Kevin yet in the UK. Although us parent's have noticed that Kevin's branched out into travel shows and stuff so fear it's only a matter of time |