SL Smaller Than It Ought To Be!

" I think the suggestion by the poster above is probably THE most important change LL could make to the game. Maybe that person could bring this suggestion to the attention of the Lindens through the voting proposition portion of these forums."

appreciate it - haven't posted a prop yet; i'll look into it.

Many users (international AND americans) do schedule events at times that are doable by both international and US customers. I was talking about LL-Events in my post. As it seems many US-customers are more than one step ahead of LL.

I am well aware of the fact the world in RL is round and turning, so there really will never be THAT ideal time for an event, but why LL is unable to follow the example of many of their american customers in setting up more than one event, or choosing compromise times is beyond me, sorry.

The only exception to that were the meetings set up by Jeska for the LiveHelp-meetings. So maybe there is still hope

Till Stirling

"Art" is in the eye of the beholder. And "good" or bad is equally nebulous. The issue was creativity. And ripping off RL content is neither good nor bad art; and doesn't require creativity - only technical skill. Swapping words (creativity <> art) and posing it as a pseudo-question isn't an answer. But afaic, LL allows this to happen because it's in their interest... for now. It does however appear to pose a catch-22. They want more user content to draw in more (active) users, but how to get it when such a large part of the economy is based on stolen content?



Please read my post more carefully: "Filtering out the non-creative stuff, I see two types of content creators" (within SL which is the subject of my post), and the definitions are (again) what "I see" in SL. More generally, I see those who are creative and create for the joy of it, and those who do it for some kind of gain (anything from money to prestige). Those in SL who do it for the joy of it "seem" to be short-lived; pressured by such issues as paying tier on SL land (yes, they could be creative in a sandbox, but then most of us wouldn't see their work - in which case they could create content at home in private without a connection to SL at all... free from lag).

This is just like real life. Having spent 5 years full-time in art school, I made alot of acquaintances: ceramicists, glassmakers, painters, sculptors, aso. Those that learned both the creative and the business side of art are creating things still. Most of those who eschewed the idea of making money are working unrelated full-time jobs and finding little time or energy to be creative. That's what it is to live in a capitalist society.

"You're lovin' gives me a thrill
But you're lovin' don't pay my bills".




Then there's a good chance (not 100%, but a strong likelihood) that you will create for a time until you're unable to justify the return. The thrill most often only lasts so long. I see it in students who would design products for free, just for the chance to see it on a store shelf. But that thrill doesn't pay the bills as they find out quickly enough when mom & dad aren't paying their way anymore.

Most often people are driven by more than one impulse. What drives almost all of us to an overwhelming degree is our well-being. Rarely will someone place their creativity ahead of eating. And unless you're a farmer...

[btw, this could quickly go off-topic, so you're free to have the last word.]

ah, i see. i thought you were speaking of events generally, linden and all others.

Perhaps the lack of population (if there is any, last I heard there was some 40k accounts and a growing number of logged in users) is stemming from a sort of ambiguity about the product, SL.

See, LL marketing seems to sway from different perspectives on WHAT their product is. First it's an entertainment product and they stand behind that. Then suddenly it's an education product and they focus on that.

Really, I don't think LL is doing a bad job at all. If they want to try for a multi-purpose product, it's going to be a tough road to travel. It's not impossible however -- I just don't feel like they've got on angle on it yet... and yes, it is slow coming. Most tech products reach a maturity at 2 years... or so.

Give LL the benefit of the doubt. They're doing a pretty job considering the circumstances.

To wrangle this back into the subject of the thread, and to reference your original post, which was in reponse to my comment about needing more in-world content...



It's like that old quote which runs along the lines of "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." SL is the worst 3D community around, except for all the others.

What you describe above is an absolute nightmare. Do you think Microsoft, Sony, or any other corporate behemoth is going to give you a better creative environment than SL? One where you own your creations outright? Where you can create your own market if your perceive a space to fill? Do you really think anyone is going to want to compete with those low-priced, high-volume Asian skin shops you posit (or for that matter, the player base of hundreds of thousands who are also creating skins)? Is spending your time making the 3D equivalent of cellphone ringtones really your idea of creativity?

If you're talking about an environment that is friendly to creative individuals, SL is simply better than the alternatives.

To answer your questions:



Yes, because afaik all they're doing is providing the medium. The game developers provide "the creative environment".



They don't own the creations of developers today. An id game and its IP remain the property of id. I see no reason for them to change their policy in this regard.



Yes. I believe the market will be dictated more by the tools that the platforms give developers, and whether developers opt in to using those tools. Of course MS and Sony will get their transaction fee not unlike eBay, so why would they care so long as they get their cut. Does eBay care? (rhetorical).

Opting in has a number of advantages that are not easily dismissed by game developers. Unless the developer is going procedural like Will Wright, they'll be looking for ways to extend the game's lifespan. And modding games with new content is one of the best options available. It's quite possible the developer's will either develop content in-house or outsource it. We don't really know how they'll do it, only that individual content creators may be able to tap a huge market. For reference, here's how one company is doing it: BW article .




For those who aren't aware, this has already happened to real design firms developing manufactured goods. The North American market has been decimated by "free" design services provided by Asian manufacturers. Many of the firms I knew have closed shop. I may not "want to compete", but that reality has already hit the manufacturing sector. This is no different to me.



There is plenty of creativity working on saleable content. If you're suggesting that creativity has an exclusive province, I'd disagree. Creativity is not imo exclusive to the "arts".



This sounds suspiciously like a fact. But my preference is still for creating game content where I can leverage the power of my skills... where I can UV map the weapon model and apply a continuous skin and where I can use shader scripting to modify vertices and animate it with tags. Furthermore, the gaming community is still generally hostile to branded items, so my content would have less unfair competition. Assuming for a moment that SL is better, it may only be better than existing alternatives. Sony and Microsoft haven't yet shipped their new consoles. And I have yet to try Croquet, which is itself very interesting.

My wife had a quick look at SL and canceled quickly.

She didnt like the look of the avies.. very cartoonish.

She didn't like the weird slow way the characters move after being an MMORPG player for so long. I must admit it took me a while to get used to it.. the navigation really is completely different to anything else. The controls are very sluggish.

The lag annoyed her.

Graphics slowly appearing and starting blurred and changing to hi-def.

The fact that even on a AMD 2500+ with 1Gb RAM and 128Mb graphics card everything renders and moves slowly.

Probably my main beef is flying around and bumping into building which arent there and having to sit for 10-20 sec or so waiting for it to draw so I can see how to back out and go around it. Very annoying. Even if I try to fly high above it all, there's always something up high to bump into. Sometimes I find myself trapped inside a building I can't get out of. It'd be nice if you at least didn't get blocked until the graphics have appeard on the screen.
Oh. I'd like to be able to strafe sideways too
We were playing in Australia on a 512k adsl connection and that was just too slow. Now we're on a 1.5Mb connection and SL is usable, but in no way sleek nor fast.

I think if you have the time and patience to wait for SL to catch up to you, it can be enjoyable.

But for the newcomers whom have no friends already in the game and are probably looking for a 'excite me! I need instant gratification or fun' Sl is not for them.

The noob training areas at the beginning are a good start, but there is still so much to learn about SL even after I've been here a couple of months.

Getting into a trade is difficult as well. Nobody is interested in your new outfits or vehicles, etc until you have lots of experience and can make sleek replicas of RL objects. (this is not a personal rant, just what ive noticed). Sure you can pay to advertise your stuff in the FIND dialog, but there's not really any great way to advertise your location and show examples on what you have to offer. Most noobs wouldn't know where to go to do so anyway. You really have to work hard to establish yourself anywhere and do it for a long time before anyone will take notice. I think this will also put a lot of new people off.

Since a lot of people require their instant gratification, I doubt any of those will find SL particularly interesting. It's more for the casual laid-back person whom is looking for a social arena to make friends and have a bit of fun. If you are looking for explosive entertainment, you need to go elsewhere. I don't think some people realise that when they sign up and hence leave soon after creating their avie.

Another thought just occurring to me is the lack of centralisation for events and entertainment. I can search in the FIND dialog for 'slingo' and then port around and fly around to find a game. This is good for individuals whom own sims, but there's no set areas to find something to do. I know SL is more diversified in each sim as to what you can do, but I can't go to one area to do all my shopping nor go to another area to find games to play nor another area to ride on a jetski. Everything is all over the place and this possibly puts people off as well. Maybe LL can put together a "Shopping Mall" sim and a "Gaming area" sim and a "Water sports" sim or suchlike.

Since there is no such offering from these companies so far, all we can do is speculate. However...

Because Linden Lab honors a form of the Creative Commons license, when you create something original in SL, you own it (as did the creator of Tringo). Based on their track records, I don't have a lot of confidence in Microsoft, Sony et al doing the same thing in their theoretical virtual communities. Large companies tend to be heavy-handed when it comes to intellectual property.

Sure, they can find ways to make money. Microsoft is good at that. But expect their offering to be PG-rated, with tightly-controlled tools. Ebay does care, BTW...they remove inappropriate listings all of the time. It's their way or the highway.

So the creators of Kart Racer are making money selling their customers some stuff. Where is the entree for user-created content?

And as I said before, it certainly doesn't make competing with them particularly attractive, and is one less reason to leave SL for so-called "greener pastures."

You had specifically made a comparison between the market for ringtones and the market for user-created content. If the best we can hope for is the 3D equivalent of creating ringtones, we're in bad shape indeed. Creatively, at least.

3D modeling is a very creative pastime, and there is artistry to UV mapping, etc. If that's all that SL was about though, I wouldn't be interested. What is excellent about SL are the things that make it different from a game. In the meantime, if we agree that SL is better than any existing competition, I guess we can call it a fact and go home.

When I create something for a videogame, I also own it (assuming my content is entirely original). I can create a world object and import it into many different games. They obviously can't all claim ownership!

The confusion appears to be over how LL makes a big deal of IP ownership. It helps to remember that they're really comparing themselves to other "games" wherein the players create content inside the game using tools provided inside the game. It's not an accurate comparison to modding imo.

Furthermore, we're not talking about Sony or Microsoft "virtual communities". To my knowledge they're not creating anything like SL. The issue is content creators having the opportunity to create mod content for games developed by other companies (id, Epic, Rockstar, etc) and sell that content via the virtual commerce tools provided by the console makers. This is no different than what Steam could do (and I'm wondering why I don't hear about people selling content via Steam, to be honest - probably has to do with security).



Again, this seems relevant if MS or Sony are creating virtual worlds similar to SL. But that's not what I'm saying and not what I expect. If Rockstar Games creates "GTA: Rio" and uses the micro-payment tools available in the console to allow user-created content, I would expect "Mature" content. Neither MS nor Sony need be involved in any way other than in providing the infrastructure. Furthermore, I'd expect that if you owned a "Mature"-rated game, then it would allow access to content for that game. I'd certainly not expect to be playing "GTA" and have to wade through content for other PG-rated games to find something I can purchase!



I believe Bioware is doing it now with "Neverwinter Nights". That article was simply a recent one I'd read.



On the contrary, because it's new everyone has a more or less equal opportunity to establish themselves. And the potential user base is far beyond that of SL. Furthermore, if you are in the design community and have read some of the articles on design in China (here's one), you know that there are some things not so easily exported. It's one thing to copy Western designs - many of which are dictated by RW constraints - and another to create original content for Western buyers. You'd be amazed at how confused they are about distinctly American products - like the PT Cruiser. The real competition imo would come from Japan and then S. Korea, but they don't work for the same wages as the Chinese.



I made that comparison for a reason. Does anyone recall when 900 numbers were in all the news stories? How kids dialed up huge bills on their home phones. And when ringtones started making the news, did anyone expect a ringtone to actually place on a music chart? Apparently they have.

Now take the kid in that article (the one who bought all those skins and kinda did the 900 number routine) and mate that with the whole concept of ringtones as a huge business. Mod content, imo, has that kind of potential. That's pretty compelling imo.



I've not tried There. Nor have I experimented with Croquet and a few other 3D worlds. Until I've tried something, I tend not to make comparisons and factual comments regarding them.

I guess then we're talking about 2 different things. If I understand correctly, you're talking about creators leaving SL to make money as modders for traditional MMPGs. Whereas I'm talking about the creative opportunities SL affords. We could no doubt bat this back 'n' forth all week.

I guess Merwan's original subject got a tad lost. The simple idea that I was trying to get across was that SL needs more of everything (is that all?). The basic pieces of SL are great, we just need more of it. More active citizens would be the best, but until then, more things to do when no one is around would be great as well. The -ingo variations suffice for some, so probably more games of that ilk would not go wrong. I'd like to see more interactive objects in SL (not being a scripter, this is easy for me to say). Automated tour guides and transportation, for starters. Rudimentary NPCs (robots!) and pets would be nice. But really, anything that you can take some time to explore that isn't another lovely empty building would be peachy.

I'm mostly responding to what was originally asked and to your comment regarding SL needing "time" to generate content. So I've referenced the Linden comment that content is needed to draw in more users and pointed out the possible drain on SL's creative community. The potential exists afaic for some (not all) content creators - from skinners to coders - to leave SL in search of "greener pastures"... not just with MMPG's, but any mod'able videogame.

It'll be interesting to see how things develop over the next year.

Well, I have to disagree here. I've been in business for three months now, and my vehicles sell very well -- well enough to pay my premium account fees, my land tier on 2500 meters, and still have a pile left over for advertising and custom work. None of my vehicles are what anyone reasonable would consider "sleek replicas" of RL objects. My best selling vehicle, the Marlin Tinie XR-1, resembles nothing I've ever seen before.



It is definitely true that you need to put in a lot of hard work to be successful. That is true of just about anywhere, and if it wasn't true here, I wouldn't bother with SL. I tell my kids this all the time -- Anything worth doing is usually hard.

- Jon

ah but Jon, your title says you are a builder and a coder in RL and SL. So it is going to be a little easier for you to dive into the vehicle market and make something that is worthy of selling.

I can definitely see what Vincent is saying.

For some coming from other MMORPGs, they are looking for a motive, a mission, a SOMETHING. SL is advertised primarily as a GAME, it is hard for them to look past what they already have seen and experienced. In most of those games, the motive and objectives are clear cut. In SL, you have to look for it. And if you ever spent time in the WA, sometimes that can be one of the worst places to get a first glimpse of SL.

I just can't get my friends to join, most of them have PCs that are few years old and SL looks terrible on them! I think that SL is ahead of its time. Technology will catch up, and hopefully SL will play well and look good on most people's computer.

Maybe, if it were possible to find (easily) events that aren't [B|SL|TR]INGO or "Best avatar (i.e. friend of the host) in today's [lack of] costume of choice" in the list without having to spend a week filtering...

I know there ARE other events, but seriously, they're swamped, and these days, I'd be embarrassed to introduce someone from outside to SL for just that reason. Maybe others feel the same way, or maybe not, everyone's entitled to an opinion, and that's mine. But if they do feel the same way, or maybe they stopped playing because of it, then it could explain the lack of users.

And of course, I agree about the time. Even if I were so inclined, there was no way I was going to get up at that time in the morning for that.

Excuse me, but I disagree.

I'm not anything at all like a computer scientist, tech, or even hobbyist. It took me about two months to learn LSL well enough to get a good flight script together, and my lil egg-shaped helicopter produced enough income soon after to justify a premium account.

All it took was sitting down and doing it.

As for the rest... yeah, you're right. SL shouldn't be presented as a game as that's not what it is, strictly speaking. Though I doubt there's be as large a userbase if it were advertised as an "Online Colaborative Environment". Sounds a bit dry, eh?
And the WA has drifted away some from the "Welcome" half of its name, though it still remains an "area".

I think this is the crux of the problem for many people who come to SL from other online games - they expect a path laid out for them - "follow this path and you will advance".

If you're not a self-starter, if you can't just sit down and power through the problems that come up, if you can't motivate yourself with a distant reward, you're probably not going to get very far as an entrepreneur, either in SL or in RL.

- Jon

Im learning this very quickly as I begin upon that path. One thing Ive noticed, however, is how quickly you can pick up on things in SL once you get rolling. A week ago, I was afraid to get close to the create button, and now Im starting my first vehicle. Its so much more rewarding than anything in any "game" Ive ever played.

I think the more events, the merrier.

If someone wants to find something at 8 P.M., they have a lot to chose from.

Being in TSO was so much harder. The only place to advertise or announce events was on the website, which we all know not everyone visits, much less sees that particular event.

The other way was to TELL people about it, in the game, which was considered spam.

Here though, there is the events calendar, which is one of the best things going about the game. Right there, easily accessible, and now you can filter it to the various events. If I get bored at 11 p.m., I can look on the calendar and see if there isn't something that appeals. If I have a weak spot for discussion events, I can check for those (earlier in the day).

Having been in TSO, that is a wonderful thing. And the more I have to choose from, the happier I am.

coco

A thought from David Linden...

Building an ecosystem of consumers and developers is a balance that
evolves over time. Much of it is a "chicken and egg" problem that
requires critical mass to be successful. Second Life is well on it's way
to attracting the developers interested in creating content that in turn
attracts more residents. That combined with our open platform allows
almost anything to be created and will serve our residents well over time.

Commerce based activities (making money) has become a large part of the SL
experience. We expect it to continue to grow and become more lucrative as
the overall resident population increases. And just look at our increases
in July - we added 8,000 new residents and had a record volume of land
purchases. And that always translates to increased commerce for all our
residents.

We're continuing to see double digit growth, month over month and while
some have expressed concerns about the huge growth, most agree that is
what Second Life is about and makes it different every time you go online.

As for competition, it is inevitable - it validates the market we're in
and proves Second Life is not a passing fad. We're confident we have the
right features that give our residents the best experience and
opportunities.

That's awesome. I suppose having the one time fee lifetime accounts skews it quite a lot, but two years in to have the growth curve still climbing that fast is damn impressive.

Note... in July... added 8,000 residents... to make a total of almost 4,000 active.

Since I know a few... how many old residents signed up?

I imagine the number of active residents is much higher than that, but we don't have any kind of published metric for it. It would be intersting to see how many accounts that are older than one month log in in any given month.