New Users are the real Feted Inner Core

Actually SL's population curve is unlike any other MMO to date. Most spike early, rise to a peak, and then drop off steadily until only hardcore is left. The downward slope is usually almost as steep as the upward. SL is two years old and still curving upward in a nice steady line.

Your comments about how the "FIC" takes over every MMOG you've played is interesting. Do you ever stop to think that maybe your demeaner and worldview are one of the reasons? What purpose is served by harping away about these supposed inequities? There's nothing wrong with looking out for the little guy. It's a good thing for people to do. The problem is that by constantly complaining about people you perceive to be a different class than you, you only serve to alienate yourself from them even more. You actually create the problem. Worse, people who are new and feeling overwhelmed by this huge place and its already existing community read your unsubstantiated rants and believe them. They think "well crap, what's the point in trying if no one new can rise to the top?" You've just done them a huge disservice... you've done the whole SL population a disservice. Anyone can rise to the top here. It just takes some drive, talent, and not making an enemy of half the population just because they got here first. You and Prokofy like to think of yourselves as freedom fighters trying to speak on behalf of the helpless, and that's admirable really... you're just both too thick to figure out that instead of helping you're actually doing damage, and you're not even fighting against things that were real problems in the first place. It's incredibly self serving, careless, and tiresome.

nice post chip.



blaze, your point about the Well was not pointless. Your posting the graph was not pointless, even if i see different things in that graph. Nor do i think responses to you have been pointless.

Triple dare me all you want. Lots of people disagree with my views here. It's the nature of discourse. I make my point, i try to clarify it, and I stand by it until someone convinces me otherwise. Oh yes, I also try to listen. Don't be so quick to write everyone else off.

SL is an experiment that is quite different from other online games. So much so that they are probably a lot of naysayers in the Valley saying..."shoulda created another Everquest, dummies." Well, we shall see. But it is inherently a different model. Not only that but Linden Lab has been smart not to try to grow too fast too quick. The technology needs to get more fully baked, and mass market computer systems need to improve, before SL is really ready.

interestingly enough, for what could be argued as a "social site", SL has already broken through the size barriers that have hamstrung so many community attempts. SL doesn't try to be one thing, or one community. It is a complex world.

For the last time, it's "Fretted Inner Chord"!

*sweeps his hand across his V-shaped neon green dual-necked guitar and plays his power fretted inner chord*
Brrraaaaaaooooooaaaoaoaoaoaoaoaoaowwwwwwwwooaowowowowowowwowowowonnnnnnnngggggggggwoooaaaaaaoooooooonnnnggnnnggnngggngngngeeeeeeoooooooovrrrooommmnnnngd!

*Smashes drum set*

*Shoots amp with a 12 guage*

Fender Instrument Collector = FIC

The Fetid Inner Core and their Activities!........

Once again, thank you for your wisdom, Chip

Well, hey, you could try asking . . . a New Player! . . . like, say, me! It's always interesting for me to read these forums and find my ilk discussed as if we weren't reading them too. Though of course, I know it's always that way in game forums.

So here I am to give my impressions of this issue. First, let me say I would have been here from the start - I KNEW about SL from the start - if I had had DSL or cable. In fact, I would be on the game right now, if the cable I have had since February were actually working.

My observations:

1. Where there's smoke, there's fire. Y'all can put down the original poster and various others as much as you want, but generally, when someone or several someones complain about something at length, it means there is a problem, whether or not you personally see it as a problem. So I mark it down as a problem in my mental list of the problems of a game.

2. Notice by that chart that this game still has only 20k players or fewer. That makes it a very small game. Not that that's appropos of anything in particular; I just toss it out as a sort of reminder.

3. My experience with Lindens has consisted of three occasions: One, when I first got on the game, I got some sort of helpful message from Nova Linden, I think it was, which I ignored. But I HAVE kept that calling card, because I figure he/she is "my" Linden, in case I ever need one. So there ya go, I've got a Linden of my own.

Two, I went to a town meeting by Robin Linden, who was extremely polite throughout. The discussion was somewhat freeform; even so, I had some difficulty getting my newbie concern answered (wanting more prims), but he/she did finally answer it. At that meeting I felt pretty much invisible, but then even an old player can often feel invisible on an online game around strangers.

Three, I somehow managed to hide my events thingie beneath my very bottom line thingie on the screen. I sent a message to the in-game help thing. Nothing happened for about a half-hour. Then I got a Linden, which I didn't think anything of. He/she eventually apologized for the delay, mentioning there was no other help (what do you call them? I forget) and he had to get around to answering himself. Oh. I was in no hurry, anyway, and was grateful for the help. He eventually told me how to make that very bottom bar go away, and the events thing was hiding under it.

4. Of course there is favoritism, and there probably should be some favoritism. If I were working on a game, I would often want to ask my older players, who knew the ropes and the problems, for their valuable opinions.

5. Of course the core workers will be less available as the game grows. Nonetheless, I think it is good advice for the Lindens to make a conscious decision to seek out new players, if they haven't already, as the original poster advised.

6. I am probably somewhat different from your run-of-the-mill newbie, in that I feel just as entitled to the Lindens or anything else as any player, no matter their age. I feel just as entitled to comment in these forums, for example, as the rest of you, even if they do progress in conversation as if no newbie were even in earshot.

I just don't have much to offer right now. When and if I do, you can be certain that the Lindens will be as aware of who I am and what I think as they are any of the older players and their opinions.

coco

Sorry, couldn't resist posting the picture I made lol. I caught them in the act!

Since someone I respect felt the need to praise Chip for his pointless remarks, I feel compelled to reply:

Chip.. just because I express a theoretical opinion doesn't make me a 'freedom fighter'.

You're attributing personal characteristics to me for proposing a thesis based on a body of evidence that I have experienced both personally and objectively.

Addressing my personality does not help your argument that linden sanctioned elitism is wrong or does not exist, it just makes you look like someone who doesn't know the first thing about 'discourse'.

I could be Philip's ALT for all you know. If you have opinions about the issue, then feel free to provide your thesis and your evidence. I would be very very interested because, well, guess what...

.. I could be completely wrong!

And guess what else: I'd be *HAPPY* to be proved wrong. It happens all the time and I personally get really jazzed about learning something new.

But all you're doing is proving how obsessed you are about blaze spinnaker and not about the existence (or lack of) special interest group influence has on the potential innovation in SecondLife. Which, btw, you may have missed it but is what this thread is about. It's not about me!

Anyways, this is the last time I am going to reply to your personalization of the issue. Feel free to continue to bump my threads, though. I can use all the recognition I can get.

This one's so funny, blaze, it's making my signature.

Yikes! That could get me banned

I'm telling you, in one year, SL will be dead! Prepare, for the end is nigh! Trust me, I've seen it before!

Nolan, I really believe you represent those who hold similar opinions to yours quite well.

Jedi mind-tricks aren't going to get you into the Honeycomb Hideout!

You got me there!

But, I don't want you!

Perhaps it's time for Pathfinder to lock this thread, otherwise Nolan is going to bump it ad infinitum.

(honestly folks, I'm not paying him)

*coughs*

seriously though, it amazes me how we see a cyclical constant rehash of two types of contradicting rants: about how Lindens are unfair to large property owners and veteran players being griefed, and about how veterans and large property owners are played favorite. Which is it? Heheh

blaze,

How many players, old or new, do you think do not want the Lindens to interact with new players?

How many Lindens do you think do not want the Lindens to interact with new players?

It's not rocket science. We all agree.

Where the opinions are diverging is when claims are made that they are not in fact doing just that. Claims that instead, they are spending their time favoring older players or, as Prokofy claims, with the "wrong newbies".

Claims that simply cannot be proven, unless the folks making these claims are clairvoyant and are able to somehow track all the Lindens at any given time and know what they are doing and who they are with. Does that sound possible? Not to me it doesn't.

Well, that's great.

I am wrong .. The Lindens are and will be spending the majority of their time with new rather than old players.

I couldn't be happier

I don't know, and that is my point. No one but LL really knows unless they spend all their time in-world tailing Lindens with a team.

I was thinking back a year or so. I remember going through a cynical period with regard to SL. I was really unsure whether it would be around in a year or so. Well, it is, stronger than ever, subscriptions still climbing, slowly but steadily, which I will take over an initial spike any day. I, not unlike you blaze, have been a part of many online environments, and seen them come and go. To some extent, it's the nature of the beast in a world where many people have the world at their fingertips. However, SL doesn't fit the typical MMOE/G. There are some that are similar, but none with the oomph that SL packs. They are a very talented and resourceful group at LL, and they have proven many of us wrong before, when doom and gloom was projected. I have learned to trust their judgement. It really seems like your issue should be, if you have a valid one at all, with LL, not the "FIC".

There is also the fact that a good portion of the player base spends significantly higher amounts of money per month than most MMOE/G's. So looking at SL's total subscriptions isn't the same as looking at that of a game who has a fixed 9.99 to 15.99 a month. I will go out on a limb and guess that SL has less turnover than others as well, perhaps at least partially to do with the feeling of investment one gets with SL.

I'm an 'old' player. Well, over 15 months old. Why the fuck cant I get a Linden to talk to me? Hell, I can't even get them to answer my last dozen or so bug reports.

I've had problems tping and crossing sim borders for months, and most of my estate tools arent working. Every few weeks I get annoyed enough about it to actually bug a Linden again or report it again, and am summarily ignored again.

HOW DO I BECOME FETED ENOUGH TO GET A LINDEN TO NOTICE ME?!

Nolan, I have a different worry.

The only truly compelling thing I have found that LL does is Live2Give and Brigadoon. The rest are .. curiosities for the press to write about, but that's about it. SL is a luxury which lives off the intellectual curiosity of a select computer literati.

I believe that LL can fundamentally improve things and move beyond that 'curiosity' phase, but it is not doing it currently. And I don't think streaming porn in 1.6 is going to do it either.

I have proposed online collaborative education as being a possibility, however when I pitch it to universities I get push back (web / email already works) .And neither I (or Jarod or the other serious thinkers) get any traction in these forums or from Lindens.


Plus, to top it off the tech in 1.5 is very poor for online education.

Hopefully 1.6 will help that. I don't think it will though, because SL doesn't really show a lot of firm support in that area, if they had I'd be more optimistic. For example, when people like myself and Jarod post about this they get waved away as lunatic fringe and I get a very ill sense of ease and foreboding that this is not a great area to invest in.

I think if they had done full caching so people could have quake / doom like interaction with SL, then I think they would have really re-invented SL in a way fully cooperative with Philips belief that entertainment is the killer app. Nothing I'd want to be apart of, but at least they'd be moving forward in a clear direction.

Unfortunately, either that was too technically challenging or Philip can't make up his mind what he wants to do. Collaborative, immersive environments or entertainment - what's it going to be?

Truthfully, to segue from the current thread, the reason I think SL has a hard time breaking out of its current mold is because LL is too focused on the small potatos that the current 'old guard' bring in with its graphical version of IRC.

They see a current business model around land and it's consumed their world view in such a way that they don't realise how many new users think "guhhh this is soooo laggy compared to WoW".

But, as the old adage goes in business, you either grow or shrink. Catering to the current populace will be the equivalent to moving sideways, which I believe will end up resulting in SL shrinking at some point.

To grow, they need to re-invent SL. Re-Invent it to be something new and truly compelling.

And I don't think it's going to be a world-wide game of prim-lag assassin.

Oh, absolutely. The oomph of possibility opened to users by having so many creative options available is intoxicating to geeks like me.

It's also a reason SL is so successful in another respect -
Since everything is pretty much player created, LL has very little overhead as far as writers & artists. LL is essentially a tools and network team. So deciding if the next expansion pack's features and story will be a flop is never an issue, and LL can focus simply on bug fixing and feature adding.

Oh yes Hiro, and that -- in a world where online multiplayer experiences are rapidly multiplying -- is a terribly, terribly unique thing about SL. I mean that in the best of ways because it shows not only what tremendous motivation Residents have in SL, but the fun they have doing this with the potential of really blowing away any fine distinction between "work" and "play"!