Do Groups of Players Influence Lindens?

Do groups of players with strongly-held views manage to influence the Lindens? This is the question we need to ask and discuss.

On the one hand, my first reaction would be to say "no," because the Lindens seem pretty much to sift through a lot of stuff from players, sure, but kinda do their own thing -- in my brief exposure to them, that's what my take-home is. They are 180 percent more responsive to players than any other game in the universe but there's got to be a limit. And I would suggest that when they were in their beta-test love-fest stage, with a handful of hardy technologically talented and savvy pioneers, it was easy for them to have a lot of give and take and make the entire enterprise of Second Life itself kinda like a utopian commune of selfless and creative individuals working tirelessly for the common good.

I imagine that as more people poured in the doors from There and The Sims Online, however, they began to want to step back and tune them out a bit more. These greater unwashed masses aren't technically inclined, most of them, and when they try to get the game devs ear, it's usually to say something that a game dev can only say sounds stupid like "my game lags" or "my game crashes to the desktop".

When questions like that came up in the hall yesterday with Cory -- and Jeska was wililng to entertain them -- they met with universal derision by all the tekkies on the sim where I was hearing the repeater.

And I began to try to crystallize in my mind how much any one group of players really does influence the Lindens -- if at all. Are the Lindens biased because only one group has their ear? I'm going to say NO. But I am going to put it up for discussion because I think it merits a look-see.

I'm troubled by what I see as a general tendency for Lindens to lurch into doing things because they think the "community" wants it, when in fact the "community" isn't anybody but 6 people on the forums who are in the 20-something, computer/IT category on the polls held here. I do know that the Lindens know better than that, however.

Let's look at Anshe's list of economic downturns in the last weeks and see how much, if any of these factors were caused by Linden intervention, and whether any can be ascribed to a small group of clamouring players with the Linden's ear:



A number of leading tekkies and high-end architects and designers are on the record and expressing their ardent hatred of clubs, malls, and Tringo. They've all sounded off scornfully and regularly about "too much Tringo" and "too many malls".

The bare fact that malls, clubs, and Tringo are all hugely attended by droves of people means nothing to this elite.

They lobbied the Lindens, either actively by actually collaring Lindens, or passively just by sounding off here, and lo and behold, the Lindens -- despite the clear will of the masses -- took out the events-listing freedoms. We've never gotten a clear story from start to finish about the Lindens reasoning for that. But the fact of the matter is on this issue, the Lindens went against the masses' will, and went with the elite's will. Why?

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Tekkies and other sophisticates regularly snort about "Dwellnor" and the "Dwellopers' Award". I'm thinking dwell wipes were only a technical glitch. They could be "up" to something, of course, preparing the masses to get rid of dwell points all together. Whad to you think?



I think the Lindens are working overtime to fix these problems.



The Lindens seem to want to control anybody getting rich off the land market by constantly flooding it with their own land. I'm not sure how much consciousness goes into this, to be honest. It might be they innocently just tie land production to subscription growth like they say. But we all know that a significant and very vocal minority in the game hates landowners and the land business, and complain bitterly to Lindens at every turn. So do Lindens response to this complaining by dumping land into the market to keep land barons off balance?



The Lindens' decision to make the New Continent, and put a huge legend on their website around it, upped the value of this land. They can't be surprised that the themselves created a land bubble LOL. What did happen though is that there was furious debate about telehubs. The Lindens were amazingly coy about this. We might never have found out there was a telehub coming in Iris, despite rampant speculation that there'd be none at all due to "popular sentiment" if it hadn't been for Xenon happening to mention it in his talk about the Linden builds.

There still isn't clarity about the issue of telehubs and Linden-sponsored vs. player-sponsored transportation. This has affected the telehub -- some are buying in the belief that things will be "normal" and more telehubs will come in. Others are buying because they think this is going to be a wilderness prairie. A small and vocal minority pleaded with the Lindens not to sell off the land around the Iris telehub.

But guess what! They did. And businesses are springing up all around. I was pleased to see that Ayalah Hope has made a very tasteful and effective row of boardwalk stores on the land she bought at auction right outside the telehub. They are in the same style of the Linden atoll buildings out there already. It shows me that if you give players a little sketch -- like an atoll kit in their library -- and set a good example, you can get good compliance voluntarily with making things better. Some typical ugly malls might go up there -- but I actually see people trying to make things that fit. I know I am, whatever certain White Towers of Death might think about my efforts, which are more about helping ordinary people do ordinary things than they are about creating great edifices.

So the tiny clique of tekkies on their off-hours in pastorial utopian ideal communities here didn't prevail on this issue. Some even turned a Thinker's meeting into a session about how direct democracy on the Linden's website could now be used to overturn the Lindens on things like their plan to put the telehub in Iris, etc.

How far will such direct democracy go? And how direct will it be? And how subject to a small clique?



Not Lindens' fault and irrelevant to them.

Which lead to:

- Some small land barons liquidate

--Important to note that at least one smaller baron liquidated because his entire build on his entire sim disappeared never to be retrieved due to new patch issues.



While this is the end result of a process begun by the events decision, I suppose we'll never know if "too much Tringo" would eventually backlash, especially in springtime when people tend to go outdoors more!

But there's no question that the tiny minority who hate clubs, malls, and Tringo are rejoicing mightily in the land. Meanwhile, however, the Lindens are scrambling to fix this up, upping the events number again, and talking about how they can filter the lists better for the next version. I credit the Lindens with turning around really quickly on this. But I do want to understand their *motivations* which I've never, ever been clear on.

Is it because they need to listen to a small group of elite players who hate clubs, malls, and the land business? But why?



This is where the tekkies now may begin to scream that in fact the Lindens, if anything, listen to land barons too much! Why is there even such a thing as a normal land market, etc.

I honestly think the Lindens are doing a good job and trying to cope with a very demanding situation.

I don't think they intentionally play favorites. They turned the whole FIC thing into a joke on April Fools, making everybody a FIC, because they wanted to show they don't play favourites. When there are egregious examples of favoritism, like the Lindens card dispensors on private islands, like the purchase-price waving for at least one special project, they respond credibly -- they remove the favoritism.

While there is all kinds of clamouring for the Lindens to adapt somebody's special Welcome Newbs Island and give a fasttrack to it, while there are calls to adopt just one player's FAQs, I'm confident that the Lindens aren't going to fall for this obvious favouritism gambit.

Though you've got an interesting thesis, you fail to adequately defend it with evidence. In hurrying to cite a hundred tenuous allegations, you fail to ever fully prove a single one. In the future, I suggest fleshing out your ideas on paper and doing further research before moving onto the writing stage. Ask yourself, "Have I demonstrated the truth of my thesis?" It'll greatly help the quality of your work.

Grade: C

1. Events listings borked due to outcry of many who hate too much tringo, mall, clubs (listened to some tekkies and artists)
2. Telehub put in Iris despite treehuggers (listened to landowners group)

Just to cite too very obvious cases.

Hey, I found something in your tome that I agree with!

To the rest of it, I say, so what?

You have some valid observations, but I think you attribute things to motivations that aren't there. To most of what you point out, I have to say "how else would you expect it to be?"

Buster

The one group that I'm fairly confident isn't being given much credence or consideration by the Lindens is the pompous, long-winded fools.

- Ace

Gee Prok, you have a regular fan club out there. lol. I found your post interesting as you speculated the possibilities. Best of luck in your endeavors. Do groups of players influence the Lindens? They should. The monthly subscribers who are financing the operation. These are the people to listen to, the ones who call their friends and say " hey check out this game!" Give the players of the game what they want and hopefully success will follow.

Prok - lastime I was in SF, i took Phil, Robin, Cory and Ramzi to breakfast one day, then lunch with Jeff, Catherine, Char and Jeska a few days later, cable car hoping with Lee, Pathfinder, and Bub - had a new 15 speed Mt. Bike delivered to Daniel, new roller skates for Adam, Deana, and Jesse. Throughout all this I reminded the Lindens our group has been in the top 5 for months, the top 10 for the remainder, and my face is STILL not on the website!!

So I guess you're right.

Extra Extra, read all about it, Merwan involved in Payola scandal!!

Details at 10.