Second Life Forums Archive - Pop Sci disses SL, praises There

Lordfly Digeridoo

Prim Orchestrator

Join date: 21 Jul 2003

Posts: 3,628

11-10-2003 21:36

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown/2003/article/0,18881,536714,00.html

As a counterbalance to the slashdot link.

Not everyone likes us :/

LF

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James Miller

Village Idiot

Join date: 9 Jan 2003

Posts: 1,500

11-10-2003 21:42

Yup, I just showed that to Hikaru, however, there is a very logical answer to all this madness. They're morons.

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Jellin Pico

Grumpy Oldbie

Join date: 3 Aug 2003

Posts: 1,037

11-10-2003 22:15

From how the srticle sounded, I'd bet money that the author spent no more than a few hours in each.

Chip Midnight

ate my baby!

Join date: 1 May 2003

Posts: 10,231

11-10-2003 22:31

I don't think that was a diss at all. Sounded pretty accurate to me. Their point was that There appeals more to people who don't want to get their fingernails dirty under the hood while SL is much more complex and therefore not as easy to jump into. If I didn't know anything about SL or There, reading that blurb would have sent me off looking for SL. I'll always take greater control and the ability to tinker over something dumbed down for the masses...

"offering a more complex set of controls and tools, and an almost completely customizable experience"

Sure sounds like a compliment to me

"its world is far simpler for most people to jump into"

The thing I love most about the SL playerbase... we're not "most people"

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Brad Lupis

Lupine Man

Join date: 23 Jun 2003

Posts: 280

11-10-2003 22:38

Yeah, Chip beat me to it. If anything, Pop Sci is dissing the people who actually play There, on a regular basis. SL players have A LOT more technical controls over the game than the players in There. That's because SL was made for the players to be the ones who control and create the world. There is a game that was already all set up, and gives it's players limited opprotunities to place an object or texture into the world that they created.

If anything, this is still praising SL over There, as most people who are interested in playing a game for more of a creative experience will tend to lean toward SL, and people who aren't techinically suave, nor really want to be creative, tend to sway towards There.

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Hikaru Yamamoto

Oldbie

Join date: 10 Mar 2003

Posts: 895

11-10-2003 23:30

yeah but they still didn't do a review on SL

Loki Pico

Registered User

Join date: 20 Jun 2003

Posts: 1,938

11-11-2003 04:37

From: someone

We admire Second Life, but we're partial to There, because while it constrains your abilities slightly, its world is far simpler for most people to jump into.

First thing I thought of was AOL. AOL makes it simple to get online, but then look at what you got.

Huns Valen

Don't PM me here.

Join date: 3 May 2003

Posts: 2,749

11-11-2003 04:48

After watching the videos, it seems to me that There is a sort of cartoon fantasy land. The avatars look kinda like sunday comic characters, whereas Second Life has very realistic human avatars. What physics I saw seemed more advanced (there was a buggy with four independently-suspended wheels) and it looked like they had a bit more atmospheric control (i.e. real fog). Terrain loading seemed very smooth even at very far distances, although I'm guessing they probably used a nice fast rig to record that demo.

What I don't see is any information on their scripting language and modeller. I have no idea how those compare to what we have in Second Life. Do they let normal users do stuff like modelling and scripting right there in-game? Do you have to buy a house someone else developed, or can you just start building it from scratch right then and there on your land, as you can in SL? Can you modify it easily? Are there hard-points where you have to put furniture etc? Can you terraform? One of the big plusses of Second Life is that you can literally watch people mold the game, changing the land and building and tearing down and scripting and so forth. I also wonder if you can have an IRC-like deal where chat scrolls along the bottom of the screen, rather than having a bunch of tiny text balloons strung together like a rope with multiple knots. SL would be wierd with those text balloons.

I also understand they have a wierd economy where you have to buy Therebucks (or whatever their currency is called), you aren't allocated any on a regular basis.

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Loki Pico

Registered User

Join date: 20 Jun 2003

Posts: 1,938

11-11-2003 05:07

I guess its just the company you keep Regnar. I have found the opposite to be true as far as griefing. I dont really have a desire to trash There, but my experience with that game was far from welcoming.

Regnar Bell

Senior Member

Join date: 11 Aug 2003

Posts: 84

Loki

11-11-2003 05:41

Loki,

There is good and bad in every group of people . I dont Know why but when I first signed on here i seem to have unfortunatly met some of the undesirable players . I will tell you this . I am not perfect. No one is . I have yet to Dis this or any other game on any other forum . It is ok to say I don't like this or I dont like that but there are several people both here and on other multiplayer games that just love to post HATE messages and that i don't like . In fact posting hate and obsecene messages here violates the TOS. It should ! and People should be punished for doing it . I have seen so much profanity on Sl forums its disgusting and on the general forums that ANYONE can read . A Sad Story indeed. And from ADULTS that should Know Better !

Dave Zeeman

Master Procrastinator

Join date: 28 Jan 2003

Posts: 1,025

11-11-2003 06:35

From: someone

Originally posted by Loki Pico
First thing I thought of was AOL. AOL makes it simple to get online, but then look at what you got.

Ditto on that! A great reason to not make fun of people who have AOL is the fact that, if they had anything else, they'd probably never want to use a computer again!

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Cienna Rand

Inside Joke

Join date: 20 Sep 2003

Posts: 489

11-11-2003 07:28

I dunno... from a game mechanics standpoint I found SL a lot easier to come to grips with than There, due to Prelude. Lindens give us a trail to get to know how to run the interface. There drops you off in the middle of one of the most populated areas. When I first logged in I spent half an hour looking for the resolution setting, before realizing "low as dirt" was the only choice. ;)

A friend of mine from a MUCK used to be a There developer (A real one, working for There, not a guy makin hoverboards). We've had some conversations about it and SL, and his perspective is pretty much the same as mine about each game trying to appeal to different audiences. I think that over time features will cross-pollinate as it were. We've already seen the Talk To feature as a basic implementation of a There conversation, and will probably see more in the future. And from what my friend told me, they are (were?) looking at adding more customization/building features to There. Of course, this was months ago that he was there so the "give me money" side might be more active.

Discounting my opinion on the people in There (the ones I've met have been very.. vacant), my biggest gripes are the 800x600 fixed resolution, and the fact that people get charged for content twice. I think the second is too ingrained now to make it less of a money grab.

</ramble>

Mark Busch

DarkLife Developer

Join date: 8 Apr 2003

Posts: 442

11-11-2003 09:14

Well like most games:

Simple games are more fun at the beginning, but if you take the time to fully understand a complex game like SecondLife it's way more fun in long term.
My little brother who is 14 now and not quite the computer-expert (yes I HAVE a social life so don't call me nerd) as I am; well he LOVES second life when I play it because I can do so much things and he keeps asking me "can you do this, can you do that?" and most of the time I can! But when I let hem play for his self he doesn't really like it because It's too complicated for him to figure out how to do the things he wants to do. Also Second Life stays a game for creative minds, and my little brother is not like that.
As for the writer of that article; he doesn't dislike SecondLife, but he chooses There because he probably didn't play long enough to learn how to do all the things you can do in SecondLife. Or he does not have a creative personality (such a shame if you don't have that)

Oz Spade

ReadsNoPostLongerThanHand

Join date: 23 Sep 2003

Posts: 2,708

11-11-2003 20:27

There does not have a scripting language, they claim they are implementing things such as card-game scripting, but nothing as advanced as SL has.

Building in There is very restrictive, you can only buy objects premade, and you can't build a house from scratch, you buy a premade house, pay rent on it, and buy items to place inside the house, the houses are in set locations on set islands, and cost alot of money.

Uploading custom made things costs alot of money, you can only texture most things not customly shape them, of what you can shape you are restricted to a few polygons.

Everything costs more and you get less than what you would in SL.

I've come to find alot more greifers in There than in SL, I dunno, I've yet to find anyone who repedeatedly hits me with a vehicle in SL as they do in There, and/or shoot me over and over as they do in There.

I don't really think this article really says anything bad about SL, its nothing compared to the other article, heh.

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Darwin Appleby

I Was Beaten With Satan

Join date: 14 Mar 2003

Posts: 2,779

11-11-2003 20:47

IMO, There IS a money-making scheme. To me, it is so obviously marketed to shallow, materialistic Americans simply because there are more shallow people in America than there are creative ones. It's an effective business plan. Then again, Sadam Hussain is an effective leader.

Effectvie /=/ good

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Touche.

Soren Romulus

Senior Member

Join date: 5 Jun 2003

Posts: 159

11-12-2003 07:57

From: someone

Originally posted by Darwin Appleby
IMO, There IS a money-making scheme. To me, it is so obviously marketed to shallow, materialistic Americans simply because there are more shallow people in America than there are creative ones. It's an effective business plan. Then again, Sadam Hussain is an effective leader.

Effectvie /=/ good

Your soo right Darwin,

When I heard about There, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Now as I would often do with TSO I would make a bunch of names and make a sim according to the name I picked. When I went to There, that sim happened to be a female. Now I was only interested in seeing what There had. Now in my opinion, there is not for the creative, it is for the perverse. Yes there are a few here in SL that act the same way, but, at least you can see it coming. I was in There for 5 minutes and was hit on by guys and girls...I was so annoyed with that, that I went off to far off locations to explore. Dang if I didn't attract someone wanting hot one on one chat. Now I took care of that with, "Hey I am really a guy just checking out There and this was the Av I picked." Well I was called FAG and a bunch of other stuff and then they ran off. Well I play games not to meet people for a hook-up. I play for the creative part. As far as There, you have no creativity, only a endless stream of RL cash going into a non-RL game. Plus you are asked to sign up with a fee after live, and still have to pay for the stuff you make or buy. One big money making scheme it is, filled with rude kids and lots of prejudice. Oh and I reported the kid for his comments, never got an answer either.

Soren

Jack Digeridoo

machinimaniac

Join date: 29 Jul 2003

Posts: 1,170

11-12-2003 08:36

rofl. They said Their has less features which makes it better? uh... ok.

Garoad Kuroda

Prophet of Muppetry

Join date: 5 Sep 2003

Posts: 2,989

11-12-2003 08:48

Well notepad is better than word sometimes....

rofl

So SL is a powerful application, and There is....notepad.

Pop Sci disses SL, praises There
Lordfly Digeridoo Prim Orchestrator Join date: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 3,628	11-10-2003 21:36 http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown/2003/article/0,18881,536714,00.html As a counterbalance to the slashdot link. Not everyone likes us :/ LF _____________________ ---- http://www.lordfly.com/ http://www.twitter.com/lordfly http://www.plurk.com/lordfly
James Miller Village Idiot Join date: 9 Jan 2003 Posts: 1,500	11-10-2003 21:42 Yup, I just showed that to Hikaru, however, there is a very logical answer to all this madness. They're morons. _____________________ George W. Bush hates America.
Jellin Pico Grumpy Oldbie Join date: 3 Aug 2003 Posts: 1,037	11-10-2003 22:15 From how the srticle sounded, I'd bet money that the author spent no more than a few hours in each.
Chip Midnight ate my baby! Join date: 1 May 2003 Posts: 10,231	11-10-2003 22:31 I don't think that was a diss at all. Sounded pretty accurate to me. Their point was that There appeals more to people who don't want to get their fingernails dirty under the hood while SL is much more complex and therefore not as easy to jump into. If I didn't know anything about SL or There, reading that blurb would have sent me off looking for SL. I'll always take greater control and the ability to tinker over something dumbed down for the masses... "offering a more complex set of controls and tools, and an almost completely customizable experience" Sure sounds like a compliment to me "its world is far simpler for most people to jump into" The thing I love most about the SL playerbase... we're not "most people" _____________________ My other hobby: www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight
Brad Lupis Lupine Man Join date: 23 Jun 2003 Posts: 280	11-10-2003 22:38 Yeah, Chip beat me to it. If anything, Pop Sci is dissing the people who actually play There, on a regular basis. SL players have A LOT more technical controls over the game than the players in There. That's because SL was made for the players to be the ones who control and create the world. There is a game that was already all set up, and gives it's players limited opprotunities to place an object or texture into the world that they created. If anything, this is still praising SL over There, as most people who are interested in playing a game for more of a creative experience will tend to lean toward SL, and people who aren't techinically suave, nor really want to be creative, tend to sway towards There. _____________________ Stupidity Should be Painful.
Hikaru Yamamoto Oldbie Join date: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 895	11-10-2003 23:30 yeah but they still didn't do a review on SL
Loki Pico Registered User Join date: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 1,938	11-11-2003 04:37 From: someone We admire Second Life, but we're partial to There, because while it constrains your abilities slightly, its world is far simpler for most people to jump into. First thing I thought of was AOL. AOL makes it simple to get online, but then look at what you got.
Huns Valen Don't PM me here. Join date: 3 May 2003 Posts: 2,749	11-11-2003 04:48 After watching the videos, it seems to me that There is a sort of cartoon fantasy land. The avatars look kinda like sunday comic characters, whereas Second Life has very realistic human avatars. What physics I saw seemed more advanced (there was a buggy with four independently-suspended wheels) and it looked like they had a bit more atmospheric control (i.e. real fog). Terrain loading seemed very smooth even at very far distances, although I'm guessing they probably used a nice fast rig to record that demo. What I don't see is any information on their scripting language and modeller. I have no idea how those compare to what we have in Second Life. Do they let normal users do stuff like modelling and scripting right there in-game? Do you have to buy a house someone else developed, or can you just start building it from scratch right then and there on your land, as you can in SL? Can you modify it easily? Are there hard-points where you have to put furniture etc? Can you terraform? One of the big plusses of Second Life is that you can literally watch people mold the game, changing the land and building and tearing down and scripting and so forth. I also wonder if you can have an IRC-like deal where chat scrolls along the bottom of the screen, rather than having a bunch of tiny text balloons strung together like a rope with multiple knots. SL would be wierd with those text balloons. I also understand they have a wierd economy where you have to buy Therebucks (or whatever their currency is called), you aren't allocated any on a regular basis. _____________________ [ huns? \|\| words \|\| 1TBS KREW \|\| VHI Aircraft \|\| Whitepaper on Aircraft Physics ] Make yourself and your objects immune to llPushObject().
Loki Pico Registered User Join date: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 1,938	11-11-2003 05:07 I guess its just the company you keep Regnar. I have found the opposite to be true as far as griefing. I dont really have a desire to trash There, but my experience with that game was far from welcoming.
Regnar Bell Senior Member Join date: 11 Aug 2003 Posts: 84	Loki 11-11-2003 05:41 Loki, There is good and bad in every group of people . I dont Know why but when I first signed on here i seem to have unfortunatly met some of the undesirable players . I will tell you this . I am not perfect. No one is . I have yet to Dis this or any other game on any other forum . It is ok to say I don't like this or I dont like that but there are several people both here and on other multiplayer games that just love to post HATE messages and that i don't like . In fact posting hate and obsecene messages here violates the TOS. It should ! and People should be punished for doing it . I have seen so much profanity on Sl forums its disgusting and on the general forums that ANYONE can read . A Sad Story indeed. And from ADULTS that should Know Better !
Dave Zeeman Master Procrastinator Join date: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 1,025	11-11-2003 06:35 From: someone Originally posted by Loki Pico First thing I thought of was AOL. AOL makes it simple to get online, but then look at what you got. Ditto on that! A great reason to not make fun of people who have AOL is the fact that, if they had anything else, they'd probably never want to use a computer again! _____________________ llToggleDaveZeemanIntelligence(FALSE); Philip Linden: Zeeman, strip off the suit! Dave Zeeman - Keeping Lindens on their toes since v0.3.2!
Cienna Rand Inside Joke Join date: 20 Sep 2003 Posts: 489	11-11-2003 07:28 I dunno... from a game mechanics standpoint I found SL a lot easier to come to grips with than There, due to Prelude. Lindens give us a trail to get to know how to run the interface. There drops you off in the middle of one of the most populated areas. When I first logged in I spent half an hour looking for the resolution setting, before realizing "low as dirt" was the only choice. ;) A friend of mine from a MUCK used to be a There developer (A real one, working for There, not a guy makin hoverboards). We've had some conversations about it and SL, and his perspective is pretty much the same as mine about each game trying to appeal to different audiences. I think that over time features will cross-pollinate as it were. We've already seen the Talk To feature as a basic implementation of a There conversation, and will probably see more in the future. And from what my friend told me, they are (were?) looking at adding more customization/building features to There. Of course, this was months ago that he was there so the "give me money" side might be more active. Discounting my opinion on the people in There (the ones I've met have been very.. vacant), my biggest gripes are the 800x600 fixed resolution, and the fact that people get charged for content twice. I think the second is too ingrained now to make it less of a money grab. </ramble>
Mark Busch DarkLife Developer Join date: 8 Apr 2003 Posts: 442	11-11-2003 09:14 Well like most games: Simple games are more fun at the beginning, but if you take the time to fully understand a complex game like SecondLife it's way more fun in long term. My little brother who is 14 now and not quite the computer-expert (yes I HAVE a social life so don't call me nerd) as I am; well he LOVES second life when I play it because I can do so much things and he keeps asking me "can you do this, can you do that?" and most of the time I can! But when I let hem play for his self he doesn't really like it because It's too complicated for him to figure out how to do the things he wants to do. Also Second Life stays a game for creative minds, and my little brother is not like that. As for the writer of that article; he doesn't dislike SecondLife, but he chooses There because he probably didn't play long enough to learn how to do all the things you can do in SecondLife. Or he does not have a creative personality (such a shame if you don't have that)
Oz Spade ReadsNoPostLongerThanHand Join date: 23 Sep 2003 Posts: 2,708	11-11-2003 20:27 There does not have a scripting language, they claim they are implementing things such as card-game scripting, but nothing as advanced as SL has. Building in There is very restrictive, you can only buy objects premade, and you can't build a house from scratch, you buy a premade house, pay rent on it, and buy items to place inside the house, the houses are in set locations on set islands, and cost alot of money. Uploading custom made things costs alot of money, you can only texture most things not customly shape them, of what you can shape you are restricted to a few polygons. Everything costs more and you get less than what you would in SL. I've come to find alot more greifers in There than in SL, I dunno, I've yet to find anyone who repedeatedly hits me with a vehicle in SL as they do in There, and/or shoot me over and over as they do in There. I don't really think this article really says anything bad about SL, its nothing compared to the other article, heh. _____________________ "Don't anticipate outcome," the man said. "Await the unfolding of events. Remain in the moment." - Konrad
Darwin Appleby I Was Beaten With Satan Join date: 14 Mar 2003 Posts: 2,779	11-11-2003 20:47 IMO, There IS a money-making scheme. To me, it is so obviously marketed to shallow, materialistic Americans simply because there are more shallow people in America than there are creative ones. It's an effective business plan. Then again, Sadam Hussain is an effective leader. Effectvie /=/ good _____________________ Touche.
Soren Romulus Senior Member Join date: 5 Jun 2003 Posts: 159	11-12-2003 07:57 From: someone Originally posted by Darwin Appleby IMO, There IS a money-making scheme. To me, it is so obviously marketed to shallow, materialistic Americans simply because there are more shallow people in America than there are creative ones. It's an effective business plan. Then again, Sadam Hussain is an effective leader. Effectvie /=/ good Your soo right Darwin, When I heard about There, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Now as I would often do with TSO I would make a bunch of names and make a sim according to the name I picked. When I went to There, that sim happened to be a female. Now I was only interested in seeing what There had. Now in my opinion, there is not for the creative, it is for the perverse. Yes there are a few here in SL that act the same way, but, at least you can see it coming. I was in There for 5 minutes and was hit on by guys and girls...I was so annoyed with that, that I went off to far off locations to explore. Dang if I didn't attract someone wanting hot one on one chat. Now I took care of that with, "Hey I am really a guy just checking out There and this was the Av I picked." Well I was called FAG and a bunch of other stuff and then they ran off. Well I play games not to meet people for a hook-up. I play for the creative part. As far as There, you have no creativity, only a endless stream of RL cash going into a non-RL game. Plus you are asked to sign up with a fee after live, and still have to pay for the stuff you make or buy. One big money making scheme it is, filled with rude kids and lots of prejudice. Oh and I reported the kid for his comments, never got an answer either. Soren
Jack Digeridoo machinimaniac Join date: 29 Jul 2003 Posts: 1,170	11-12-2003 08:36 rofl. They said Their has less features which makes it better? uh... ok.
Garoad Kuroda Prophet of Muppetry Join date: 5 Sep 2003 Posts: 2,989	11-12-2003 08:48 Well notepad is better than word sometimes.... rofl So SL is a powerful application, and There is....notepad.

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Pop Sci disses SL, praises There