A Base Game - RezzieCity

SL is an amazing game to someone like me: a place that is created by a portion of it's user base, where we can do anything we can imagine with more or less work. It caters to the acquistion hungry (eg: the person who finds land speculation and the compiling of "money" a virtue unto itself), the graphic artist, the sculptor, the programmer. While I may lament the obstruction that scripting provides (there needs to be some form of it that is as easy to use as the building tools, and inversely, a form of building that would allow for the same sort of shape control that pure scripting allows for behaviors) I can see it someday being clear. I am also a seasoned traveller, so sightseeing and exploration are highly satisfying goals in of themselves. It offers the rp hobbyist a fully customizable environmnent to make their roleplay exactly what they need it to be - from sex to swords.

That's more or less me. Then there's my mate. She's been gaming for..well a number of years - from MUD's to MMO's. She works as a hospice nurse, so her day is worse than probably most people could understand. She comes to a game wanting to be entertained, which to be fair, so do I to a certain extent. I don't pay for cable to have to go set up lights and actors and write a script every time I want to watch TV (that's my 9-5 already). She has enjoyed the flexing of her creative wings, but it's more of a novelty for her than a driving ambition. She's done some sightseeing with me and thinks it's all swell, for a time, but before long starts looking for something to interact with.

Still and all, our MMO experience, our creative energies, and my winning way of talking to just about ANYONE, saw us settled in pretty fast. Then a short while back, a young guy, very new, wandered onto our lot and asked what ways someone could make money here. Had to laugh - we still haven't solved that, and we've got 3 shop locations. I explained about the making of things - he doesn't. I also explained that some folks make money via camp chairs/dance pads, however, that's very little and it means you're stuck in one place for the whole thing. In jest, I mentioned the escort services. He perked up at that - because sex is something anyone can do. Immediately gave me a sick feeling, and I got to thinking about the world. What is there for someone who doesn't create, and lacks contacts to point them towards the more interesting things in the world? Outside of the fun but largely unfocused Help Island, where can newbs go for direction? Sure there are a number of newbie areas, but I've very rarely seen them visibly staffed (eg; if they were staffed, I couldn't tell). Above and beyond that, once in the world, where can a player find a way to make money? Sure - go into business making/selling things - IF anyone notices your masterpieces, if there's a market for them, if anyone actually buys them. And while you wait for that to happen.. what? These are rhetorical - not actually looking for answers to these, so please don't itemize and list your one exception to each of these - this IS a problem that your lucky find isn't addressing to the populace at large. I have no numbers on attrition, but I've invited a number of old guildmates from WoW and CoH who spent a day or two but couldn't really find an objective, and left.

The game needs a base game, a place to get your feet under you while you learn about the wider world. A centralized place to learn, gather with fellow newbs and mentors. A place where newbs can begin to identify their place in the universe, and expand out from. A "city" of sorts - doesn't have to be a city city, but a stable place where information can be dispensed in a reliable way - as in the info is always in the same place maybe with a recognizable visual coding system. Something like Lum's Ivory Tower, but for basic aspects of virtual life. Someplace to learn about acceptable behavior ( non-griefing, not morality), someplace that points to something other than strip joints and casinos and the rapacious clutches of Chungians. The Help Island is very nice, but it's haphazard, and really geared to the short term - a lot of rezies could use a bit more support starting out. Someplace to help guide them in earning money... somehow (I reallly hate the presence of this flat economy with nothing to support it - in a real economy there are a wide range of jobs surrounding everything from services to retail workers to manufacturing labor - here, the creator of an item creates it, manufactures it, and sells it completely on their own, cutting out the labor force entirely). Maybe a Path System - as in entering a non-binding curriculum that prepares you for a certain aspect of life here, and a system where you "earn" lindens - possibly through community service of some sort. I know - this is going to go against the grain of the Trekkies...er Objectivists (hey both lifestyles center around the philosophies of hack writers) but my objective is to help integrate residents more effectively than "survival of the fittest". Maybe it it's just my generation, but I was raised by folks who made it through the great Depression, and the tremendous burst of progress that came from helping get folks back into the system. Folks who might not have had all the slick survival skills, but who had amazing things to contribute that would have been lost if they'd been left to the sink-or-swim system.

They really need to bring back reputation bonuses and some kind of dwell, both of them re-targeted for this purpose.

Rep bonuses would time out, so that you only got money for recent points and the money never added up to more than the rep points cost.

Dwell would be shed by premium accounts (and maybe other kinds of "paying accounts", and shared among the players on the parcel as well as the landowner, as a bonus for being part of the paying customer's world.

That sounds like a start, but there still needs to be some sort of base interactive portion to the world, since most folks who make things are getting their interaction in making the things - anyone coming along afterwards just sees the item. Aside from some very noteable exceptions, most things inworld don't really offer satisfying interaction - the world ends up being essentially a huge museum exhibit. Museums are fun and all, but they're not a lifestyle for most folks.

The money part is just a sad part of the fact that we've had an economy forced on us. Can you wander the world without money? Sure - myself I could explore happily without it. However, so much of the world is keyed to fiscal exchanges - cool things to use or wear have pricetags, hence a need to make some sort of income. I sell the odd item through my various Second Thoughts outlets in Neualtenburg, our home lot, the Freaker's Villa Mall, and now in Lumiere Noir's mall in Noyo, but certainly not enough to call an income.

Cheerio.
Solivar

That's true. There's not nearly enough items that actually do things, even scripted items tend to be "passive". We can work on that. You and I and everyone else.

On my build in Avalon Lagoon (LostFurest d'Alliez) I've got one of Cubey Terra's skydiving pods, my own skydiving platform (one of my toys that uses llPushObject), a modified "inner t00b" that drifts in a programmed "current" flowing from Sables d'Alliez, three guest sailboats that people can sail around the sim (and I've convinced some of the other residents to sink parts of their own land so everyone can enjoy the water), and a half-kilometer tall experimental antigravity skyhook. When I had Avalon II in Centering Place I had a combination volcano-hot-tub-river-rapids ride... but that's probably overdoing it. There's also a slow and easy bayou ride using my modified t00bs at Coonspiracy Cental on Noonkkot.

One thing that keeps me from doing more is that once an object goes "physical" it can still be pushed, regardless of the push settings. I just got a notice that my Cubey Terra pod had been pushed off-sim again, and when I had a killer whale in my lagoon it was routinely returned.