New Users are the real Feted Inner Core

Awww *waves*

Just in case anyone doesn't know it yet, Pathfinder is really my Linden alt!

So really, my joy is an orange to my tangerine. Um, his tangerine I mean.

I burst out laughing when I read this. Organized? Most poeple, Prokofy, just saw the new sims on the big map or heard about them from the forums and headed up there to check them out. Then there's you, who feels he needs a personal invitation to go there, otherwise it's a conspiracy to lock you out. And yes, *everyone* else could fly up there without problem while you were bouncing off the sim wall, unable to figure out how to fly around the sim corner like everyone else.

By the way, do you really know what Kabuki is, or are you just throwing that word out to impress people?



Couldn't you? You make false allegations, insults, and try your best to sow the seeds of discord and *of course* someone's going to refute you. Are they doing that because they don't like the way you talk? No. They're doing it because what you're saying isn't true. I guess that makes them "fucktards", huh?




This has all come from your paranoid imagination, Prokofy. When has anyone said any of this? Quote please? I've never heard anything but positive feedback and excitement over something new, and potential for new builds. But I think you'd rather stick to your victim complex. Hey, if it gives you a feeling of importance, who am I to object?



Maybe if you want to be taken seriously, you should leave out the hyperbole and discuss things on a realistic level. Leave out the hyperbole and definitely leave out the satire -- it isn't what you think it is.






OK, I'm confused here. When you started in SL, you invented the term "content baron" because you objected to content creators selling their wares to other players. You've also objected to content creators giving their stuff away for free and thereby somehow damaging the game. Now you're complaining that when they give stuff away for free, it's not free enough because they don't give full permissions.

Ignoring for the moment that all three positions contradict each other, I have to point out that if I personally didn't protect my work using the built-in permissions system, eventually another player would claim my work as theirs and profit by it. That doesn't seem fair to me. A great many SLers have accepted this risk and have given their stuff away with full permission regardless. Of course, then they're damaging the game by stifling competition, aren't they?

In place of criticizing every possible action, can you suggest specifics of how to create things? Constructive criticism is much more useful than destructive criticism.



This is laughable. It sounds a lot like witch hunts. The chief characteristic of a witch is that they deny they're a witch. If you burn them and they die, then they're not a witch; if they survive, then they should be executed for being a witch!

Denying an accusation isn't proof that the accusation is true. Let's test that... Prokofy is a space alien, and denial of that is proof!!



Sure, it's a fact that some people know more (or less) about using computers than others. Nobody's debating that. However, in a game like SL, where users create content, the geeks supply the non-geeks with entertainment. That's nothing to deride. And for the geeks, it's only a source of enjoyment. Different kinds of entertainment for different players. Producers. Consumers. Both need each other. Why do you want to suppress one in favour of the other?



Wow, you're cynical. OK, everybody hates each other. Let's try hard to fuck each other over and see who wins.



There have been many incidents that have convinced me that the no-mod permission is necessary. Sometimes it's not. There's a reason the permission is available, and it's not just to piss off new users.



There's also good reasons why some things *have* to be "no-transfer". Take vehicles, for example. They absolutely have to be copyable because of the problems border crossings and sim crashes, among others. If something is copyable, it has to be no-transfer to prevent the first buyer from ripping off the item and selling it as their own, thus violating copyright.



Ah, so in TSO, *you* were the content baron and lorded over the newbies, arrogantly crushing them underfoot by waving around your fetid creations? Well, no you weren't, of course. You were creating things for other users of a game you enjoyed... just like everyone in SL. I wish you'd come to see that.



SL has the most even playing field of any multi-player game I've ever seen. Newbies can drop in and get to know anyone they want, and make anything they want. Those who don't like to build don't have to and still have fun. The disdain you claim to see doesn't exist. You repeatedly claim that older players hate younger players. That content creators have a "fuck you" attitude to everyone else. And not once have you provided examples to back up these claims. THAT is why your forum posts draw so much fire. It's because your claims are unfounded.

I'm going to regret replying to this, aren't I?

Doh. I just never learn, do I?

But... but... Prokofy said that the chief characteristic of the FIC is the denial that it exists. So by denying it, you're revealing that it *does* exist!!! Ha!!!!

I'm sorry, I have to resurrect this...
(Uh it's the F.I.C's!)
(Uh here come the F.I.C's!)
Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core! (Feted(id) Inner Core!)
They won't let your items render

Nah, nah, nah,
The good guys dress in watermelon, remember that,
Just in case we ever face to face and make contact.
The title held by me...F.I.C
Means what you think you saw, you did not see.
So don't blink,
Think what was there but now's gone.
Black suit with the black prim shades on.
Fly in shadow, port in silence,
Guard against extra-conspirital violence.
But yo we ain't on no Linden Lab list.
We straight don't exist,
No names and no listen scripts.
Saw something strange,
Watch your back.
Cause you never quite know where the F.I.C's is at,
Uh and...

Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core!. (Feted(id) Inner Core!)
The simwide elitists (uh oh, uh oh)
Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core! (Feted(id) Inner Core!)
They won't let your items render. (won't render)
(uh uh, uh uh)

Now from the laggiest of the lagging of sims,
On the telehub, slim prims in the trim skins,
Cameras zoom, only impending doom.
But then like da BOOM oldbies fill the room up.
With the quickness talk with the witnesses,
Hypnotizer, noobilizer.
Vivid memories turn to fantasies.
Ain't no F.I.C's!
Can I please,
Do what we say that's the way we kick it.
Ya know what I mean,
I say my noisy Hamlet get bloggin' on ya.
We're your first, last and only line of defense,
Against the worst scum of the Metaverse. ** (Willow, how'd you miss this obvious one?)
So don't nag us, brag us.
If you ever can tag us, don't lag us.
We're the lagless.
F.I.C's! rezzin' up all the store.
What's that stand for?
Feted(id) Inner Core!
Uh, M-m-m-...

Feted(id) Inner Core!
(Uh uh uh)
Feted(id) Inner Core!
(Uh uh uh, ah ah ah)

Let me see ya just rez it with me.
Just rez with me.
Just rez it with me. C'mon,
Let me see ya just script with me.
Just script with me.
Just script with me. C'mon.
Let me see ya Photo-shop with me.
Photo-shop with me.
Photo-shop with me. C'mon,
And make your script work.
Money please!

Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core! (Feted(id) Inner Core!)
The simwide elitists (ooh ooh)
Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core! (Feted(id) Inner Core!)
They won't let your items render (uh no, no)

Upload and rez it.
When we're making hoochie clothin'.
I know we might seem imposin',
But trust me if we ever show in your parcel.
Believe me it's so you join our cartel.
Cuz we see things that you need not see,
And we be places that you need not be.
So go with your life,
Forget that Linden crap.
Show love to the black suit.
Cuz that's the Feted...
That's the Feted....

Here come theFeted(id) Inner Core!(Feted(id) Inner Core!)
The simwide elitists (simwide elitists)
Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core! (oh, here they come)
They won't let your items render (won't let you render)

Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core! (Oh, here they come)
The simwide elitists (uh oh, uh oh)
Here come the Feted(id) Inner Core!
They won't let your items render

Hiro, you're a man of talent.

Willow did draft 1, I refined it (hence the Willow comment in there... she had Universe, I changed it to Metaverse)

Um, why do you have to do something *special* just to fly some place? I fly around sim corners all the time -- I call it doglegging and mentioned that numerous times. I constantly get stalls over the void, and today, even regular crashes. This happens with a portion of players. If it doesn't happen to you and your balloons, well, bully for you, but it doesn't mean they are idiots, there are just a compilation of factors causing this, and not all on the players' side.


I don't know where to begin to answer your post, because I can see you are completely confident in your absolute objectivity and can't part with your point of view. It's kind of pointless to keep having these times of he said/she said quoted posts and responses because the point utterly gets lost.

Hiro, your tekki slip is showing when you yammer on and on about space junk. One of the fables people tell themselves, starting with scientists, is that they got all these neat things like aluminum foil or whatever because they explored in space, like these interesting gadgest and by-products justify all the billions spent flying to cold airless rocks. This is just one of the stock arguments.

I've responded to your name-calling claims in the thread about the gay attack. I don't think saying someone is the product of a limited, American, and tekki-type education is an insult, it's a fact, because the lacunae in their knowledge are visible, and accountable.

One thing is certain about the FIC, they pull their wagons in a circle. The ferocity with which they go on attacking me and defending themselves really has to do with that sense of themselves as special, feted, and at the core or "where it's at". They are doggedly determined to protect what they perceive as "the SL community" and "their" game against all detractors and "people who don't contribute".

The very notion of those who "contribute" or "don't contribute" is fascistic or communist at the core. That kind of utilitarian utopianism has no place in a free and liberal democratic word. This Randian notion that those who didn't make something or build a skyscraper are crap, or that those who did deserve some kind of special feted status, is just bollocks. You can't run a society that way and have it grow and change and remain free.

Probably the most amusing thing about the FIC is that they think we're talking about them, when in fact, they're really irrelevant to the whole issue at hand.

I. think. I. get. it. now.

Beam. me. up. Scotty!

*sings* You're so vain ... you probably think this thread is about you, don't you? don't you?

*Applauds* You know - I'm really starting to like him

Hiro, it is kind of tedious to be lectured and kindly condescended to every time I make a post, usually with all kinds of assumptions about how I feel about something or what I know about something.

First thing to realize is that I don't dislike SL. I play it much more now than TSO.

Just because I pop in to add another perspective on your list of what SL is (and other games aren't) doesn't mean I'm championing one game and putting down the other, or that I'm totally clueless. I may be new, but I'm not clueless, and my observations are meaningful. Various games have various strengths and evils.

1. By "all the possible content and then some," I mean the TSO players have done every possible thing with the tools available, and then some, and for a long time. What they could do with the stuff in SL is precisely why so many of them are in SL.

2. I don't need my mind opened to possibilities. I don't need my mind opened.

3. Your use of the phrase "the goal of being anything more than a game" implies that there is as much game as other games, and then some. I'm pointing out that while TSO has been criticized for not having enough "game" to it, SL has even less, so your implication (as I read it) doesn't stand. If you want to call it a world, or a platform - as you did after my post - I would agree with you. I would not agree that it is a game and then some.

If SL is "not a game," as you say, it can hardly be "more than a game." It is, more accurately, "not really a game" or "something different from a game." That was my reading of it, and that is why I responded as I did.

4. Everyone keeps misunderstanding my concept of Something To Do. I know about all those options you and others keep listing, and I do them. (Except for dancing at clubs.) No problem with that. But I like to keep BUSY, at something productive. There are times when one doesn't feel like studying, or building, or socializing, but one still wants to be on the game. The short-lived gnome factory was perfect for that. THAT'S the kind of thing I mean. When I was eligible for money trees, I could spend my aimless free moments doing that and feel productive.

What is needed is a specific way to DO something and make a few (certain) Lindens while at it. Especially when you are new and have a long learning curve ahead of you. I'm surprised more of you old-timers haven't offered more of that sort of thing, for the many aimless newbies who are used to other games. Sometimes people like to be led around like sheep, as you put it, at least for part of the time, and there's nothing wrong with that.

5. It is not a matter of what I just don't see and what I do see. I know what all there is in SL. It's more a matter of many of you won't listen to what I'm saying is MISSING.

6. I also don't need the advice about making friends. I came into this game with friends already in it, and make new ones all the time. When I point out what I consider to be flaws in a game, it doesn't mean that I'm lonely, or bored, or don't know what I'm doing, or don't understand what SL offers, or what it's supposed to be.

7. "Have you ever used the grid option? Have you taken a basic / advanced building class?"

I don't know what the grid option is. I have taken classes, and I have finished through level two of Prim University or whatever it's called. I'm telling you it is difficult to grasp. Once I figure out what this grid option is, maybe I will be better off. The system is not, however, particularly user-friendly.

8. "I don't see how you can say the tools are hard to use, and then say it doesn't require intelligence or talent. Regardless, I agree with you about the beach chair analogy. I also pose to you this: How many different beach chairs are there in TSO, mm?

I didn't say it doesn't REQUIRE intelligence. I said, "I don't think intelligence or talent is as requisite for using these tools as are the traits of patience and an ability to tolerate frustration it." AS requisite. I know I'm not stupid, and it's a heck of a thing to learn. It's more mechanical than creative. Hence my greater appreciation of the finished product as opposed to learning to wield the tools.

You don't need to pose to me how many beach chairs there are in SL compared to TSO. Why do you think I'm here?

9. Despite the sound of all the foregoing, I do appreciate your responding to my post.

coco

P.S. Edited to add: I think because I mention money, and ways to make a few Lindens, people misinterpret that as greed or miserliness or envy. The money part iis really less important than the keeping busy part. The money part is mainly important so you don't feel guilty about "wasting your time."

I have doggedly amassed enough money for myself in this game, basic membership notwithstanding, and certainly friends have given me plenty of wonderful free things, usually over my protests not to give it away, lol. So it is less about the money than it is about the concept of productive busyness..

When I was on TSO, there were many, many of what I called "worker bee Sims." It was hard to provide entertainment to them, because they would feel so guilty about leaving their work ethic behind long enough to have fun.

The work ethic in SL might translate to "building and scripting things" for the most part, but it doesn't matter - the concept is the same. I'm one of those worker bee Sims, not in the sense of amassing money, but in the sense of doing something productive. In the Sims, that something productive for me was entertaining other Sims with game shows. To make Sims attend, however, I offered prize money. CERTAIN prize money, because there were consolation prizes as well.

Providing productive goals for other players, especially new players, is important. I know I need them. I hope this helps make clear what I'm trying to get at in terms of what SL is missing.

Sorry, it wasn't my intent to condescend. It's hard to convey tone of voice on the 'Net. I was aiming for 'whimsical'.


Of course. And people are allowed to dispute your observations.


Okay, misunderstood you. I thought you meant that they've done everything possible with SL and then some.


I disagree. I don't think "anything more than a game" necessarily means 'game+'. I meant that a game is limited in scope and purpose, and that SL goes well beyond that. I think we're clear on that now.


Life doesn't give you a map of what to do, either. It brings up an interesting point, though... so many people don't know what to do with themselves when they are given the freedom to really choose what they want. I think it's a symptom of society being trained growing up: you have to listen to your parents, go to school, make friends, get good grades, enjoy sports, etc etc ...

Seriously, though, back to the issue at hand. What do you enjoy? Race cars? Karate? Star Trek? British Literature? Really... anything... pick something and make it, script it... whatever.


I do think the learning curve on SL is harsh. You certainly have a point there. They keep us Live Helpers busy, for sure.

You have an interesting idea - L$ incentives for basic classes / training. Really, the incentive is already there through the economy, but I can see what you mean about noobs needing a little extra hand-holding and encouraging. Why don't you start another thread on that subject and we all can discuss that specifically out of the scope of the FIC thread?


I doubt you know what all there is in SL, because I doubt if anyone knows what all there is in SL.


I just meant that friends are a source of free stuff and support, not that you were lonely / etc.


Edit window -> "use grid"
Pull down menu -> Tools -> Grid Options


Sorry, that was just a wordy sentence. I reread and understand.


werd. As I appreciate your reply. I misunderstood a few things you said... I guess when I see longer posts I tend to skim more.

The simple fact of the FIC issue is this:

If Lindens keep buddying themselves up with old members and surrounding themselves by old members, they won't realise the simple truth that in order for SL to remain effective it has to dramatically change in a way that every single FIC member will scream out in pure existential pain.

That company saving change, the idea of that change, the demand for that change, will come from wild and crazy joe random newbie.

It will *NOT* come from the FIC.

That's because FIC is business as usual. FIC is status quo. And business as usual and status quo aren't getting us anywhere.

Slowly growing from 20K? This is not a rocket going to the moon folks. This is a rocket going to idaho.

There's a word that fits very well here.. starts with an "h", ends with an "e" and is usually the first word to come to mind when someone CRITically shoots themselves in the proverbial head and somehow, miraculously, fails to notice it.

There is another, less common phrase that applies as well -- cognative dissonance.

I wish you well, Prof. Truly, I do. But you just completely wrote yourself off with the above comment... for me, anyway. Do you ever wonder how many people you've lost from 'the cause' simply due to comments and attitudes like the one quoted above...? Perhaps you should.

To those who truly believe in the FIC. Please seek help. You scare me.

as one that is not even sure who or what the FIC or old guard is, i often talk to Lindens. And they generally talk back to me. When i have a problem, i ask politely for help. And if help is available, i generally get it or an explanation why i didn't. I do my best to be gracious and friendly when chatting or thanking them - as i would with ANYONE- not just a Linden. This is not kissing Linden ass or being feted- just being a decent human behind the AV. And i have found with minor exception- Lindens respond in kind.

And if any Lindens are "buddying" up- can't that be viewed as a mirror to RL social interaction? You just naturally gravitate to those you are most familiar with. Does it mean that if Noob A has a problem and seeks Linden help, they will be ignored? i don't think so.
My point is, the Lindens respond the same way any person would to how they are spoken to- maybe because they are people too. (they are right?)

So if you act like an asshat, don't be surprised and/or indignant when you get treated like one.

We should have a rule, you can't participate in this discussion unless you first carefully study the history of the Well.

Study or been a part of it? I suspect you would yourself fail on the latter.

Well, now I guess that's why I said study, huh?

If you're going to discuss the pros and cons of marxism, I don't think I'd ask you first go live on a commune.

Why is everyone so adverse to doing their research around here?

And BTW, Cienna, I checked gamasutra. I found nothing about Microsoft backing any MMOs. Perhaps you could send me the link?

Don't you mean "unless you agree with my premise"?

No, I'd rather anyone who wishes to argue my premise alongside me knows what they're talking about and does it in a polite and respectful manner.

Personalizing this subject in a way that encourages everyone to respond irrationally certainly doesn't help me make my case..

http://www.megagames.com/news/html/pc/microsoftmmogpromisesmythicaprofits.shtml

I see it was slated for a 2004 release, I will have to dig around a little bit and find out if it was cancelled or is delayed.

Nolan - Mythica is the one they dropped unexpectedly.