Does the SL Economy rule?

Does the economy of SL rule the user experience? In other words, is trade the dominant aspect of SL? You can hardly go 50m without tripping over a mall or store. So, is economy the driving force behind the SL experience?

After all, you do need to buy, sell, and trade in order to get property, build, etc.

Is the rating system another bizzare extension of the economic system in SL?

How so? Yes, if you want land you have to buy it. Yes, if you want to own stuff you have to buy it. But if you want to create stuff you can do it out of thin air and even sell it.

And I still maintain you do not need any L$ to enjoy Second Life. At all.

The ratings system needs a big fix.

But we are not at all shackled to the economy.

For $10 a month you can build all you want and you never have to work for another L$ again. In fact, they give you L$500 (US$2) a month, and if you pay quarterly or yearly you get a lower monthly rate, so you're really only laying out like US$4 a month to build, go to parties, make your own clothes, hang out with friends, explore everyone else's builds, etc., etc.

Unlike RL, most of the SL economy is an opt-in thing. You don't really have to get anywhere near it to have a fulfilling SL experience.

A slight correction....for $9.95 per month you get $500L per week.

How so? How do you avoid the economic scene without being anti-social?

I dont see the connection?

You get into second life, you have 500 sims worth of land to roam, and hundreds of people to talk to. You have zero requirement to spend Linden dollars.

But how do you avoid it? How can you have a “fulfilling SL experience” without getting smacked in the face with the economic aspects of the game? All of the popular places to gather and socialize are highly commercial areas. They usually center around mall areas, clubs, and activity areas. The owner of that land is specifically attempting to attract as many avatars to that property as possible. Why? The answer is because it helps the owner financially. The more popular a particular piece of land is, the more Linden dollars the owner accumulates. Therefore, even if a user has purely social intentions, the user is actually participating in the economic system by being on another avatars land.

But what does it matter? You can ignore the shops. You don't have to buy. Yes, there isnt a lot we can do about the dwell system, its an integral part of the game as it stands, so short of standing on Linden land for all time, then no, if you want to be that picky about what constitutes the economy then of course you can't get away from it.

The fact still remains you have precisely no NEED to spend Linden Dollars.

Yes..there may be no NEED to spend Linden, but then what type of experience does that leave the user?

Assume that user has zero Linden. How would that person rate another avatar? Or express his gratitude for someone who generously aids them in building their first home from scratch (which by the way would have cost them $$$ to get land in the first place)?

You may think I am being picky about what is an economy...but this is the definition of what an economy is. It encompasses more than just the monetary system.

You do not have to rate other avatars (I dont as a rule because I don't believe in the system). You do not have to express gratitude with money. If you don't think that you can have a fulfilling SL experience without it, I guess that's your opinion. That I believe its more than possible is mine.

Anyhoo, I was simply answering your original question, not trying to get into a philosophical debate about what constitutes an economy. And I'm beginning to sound like a broken record keep saying that you don't need money. But you don't. So once again; no, the economy of SL does not rule the user experience. Certainly not for this user!

true dat.

TLuskie flex that brain a lil bit. you can talk to people, hang out, make friends, race each other around (funner than you might think), try to make an avatar pyramid, explore, look at awesome builds, build some awesome builds (sandboxes anyone?), make clothes (you don't have to upload textures to do this), go to events, dance in a club, take a class, give a class, fly into sl outer space, sit on a beach ball and have people throw you around, welcome newbies, ridicule oldbies, sexx0r the gender of your choice, play games, visit the amusement park, try to visit every sim without crashing, watch the sunset, try to catch a "blue moon", did i mention talk to people? etc etc etc.

i could go all day but i got a life. i dunno why you're so hung up on money. even if you started with L$0 there are tons of free items, clothes, vehicles, games, toys, avs, and even places to live in exchange for dwell.

experience is where you find it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Kris Ritter owns a sim doesn't she? So I dunno who she's tryin' to fool. No disrespect, but spending $200 a month and saying you don't need Lindens to play is kind of a loop-hole. You're just bypassing the Linden Dollar, but really paying more than most of us. Just an observation.

And to say you don't need Lindens to enjoy SL... listen, if you want to present an extreme example where you have one person who really can do anything, then fine. Jesus doesn't need $L if he decides to play SL. But for the rest of us of a somewhat more restricted skillset, those $L sure come in handy.

And frankly, if the chips were down, I think Jesus would end up using some $L himself.

If you tried to play SL with no lindens, yeah, there is stuff you could do, but you -could not- enjoy SL to it's fullest.

What Kris Ritter said.

I think TLuskie is looking for SL trade aspects involving no L$. I have a few things to say about that:
- if you can't rate because of money, you can still make things and give them out instead.
- as a non-money player I hang out around Sims that have little or no malls, or malls that are litteral parts of the environment, there are a great number of these if you look closer. I tend to see malls as museums, I get good inspiration looking at the style and practical design of what other people make, this is another non-money aspect of trade in SL.
- and as Kris explains, social interaction (chatting, sexxing, dancing and most everything in between and outside of these) is a form of trade too, without L$.

Sorry? Does this invalidate my opinions? I didn't own a sim for the first 6 months of my Second Life. And I know lots of people who dont spend money because thats not where their SL interests lie.

there's a difference between having "a fullfilling sl experience" like TLuskie was talking about and "enjoying sl to the fullest". yeah if you have L$0 you can't do every single possible thing there is to do in sl but that's a long way from not being able to have a fullfilling sl experience.

i'm not sure how theoretical this is supposed to get. it's kinda impossible to have L$0 without giving away all your money each week since even basic accounts get $L50 plus bonus per week.

and just because Kris Ritter owns a sim doesn't mean anything. if that's what it takes for her to have a fullfilling sl experience that's cool but that doesn't set the bar for fullfillment at "own a sim". kinda a no brainer.

I recommend that you try to play SL without using money, it will make your class project far more meaningful.

is there a goal to sl?

Aww fuck. I didnt realise I was doing someone's fucking homework or I wouldn't have bothered. I thought this was someone who actually gave a shit about Second Life asking a serious question, as opposed to some tourist who looks in on us all like we're some fucking cage full of lab rats.

*Makes note not to post in threads started by Radiks*

I think Kris' points are not only valid - but come from the perspective of experience.

Kris and I came to SL around the same time - when you were taxed for land, prims, the height of prims, light tax.... and on top of that it was 10 bucks a prim to rez anything.

We were both perpetually piss poor! -- Stipend Day (then called 'tax day by us) would come up and we'd be busting out calculators to see if we had a positive balance or not.

Several times I didn't -- I actually had a negative balance!

And I still had fun - even though I had even LESS that I could do then than I could with no money today.

During those times were when I forged some of my closest friends in SL - and had some of the best of times...

So I don't know if this answers your question or not - but I think that you can't do EVERYTHING in Second Life without a few dollars in your back pocket (although not as many as some would have you think) - you can still have a hell of a lot of fun even if you had none at all...

That being said - enjoyment is different for everyone here.. I imagine a broke land baron would be a very sad panda indeed... so your milage may vary.

Siggy.

Furthermore I'd suggest they make this happen by giving me all their money

Malachi and I will dispose of it properly by going out for hookers.

Siggy.

I bought a thing or two, I decided I didn't like them, I can't give them away or get my money back. The cars all suck, how many times can one enjoy flying a space ship around? There's this thing called memory that gets involved - oh, I remember, I flew this spaceship just like this every day for the past month. The weapons all involve mouselook that redefines the left and right arrow keys which I hate so the weapons all suck so far as using them goes. I had a giant bunch of land, I kept having problems with the sim borders and lag from a club and the sim being full so I couldn't get on my land, etc. so I sold the whole thing.

Well, my the point of that rambling non-paragraph above is: I don't feel any need to have money in Second Life at all. I never spend anything anymore. Owning land isn't worth it, free clothes abound, you can build in the sandboxes if you are lucky enough for technical problems to let you. People will like you if you present a pleasant personality and that doesn't take any money.

Better documentation and fewer bugs would be a lot better way to help the casual user's experience than a few lindens a week.

I hardly spent any money at all the first months I was here. My stipend money just stacked up. I didn't need to buy anything because people in SL gave me so many things when they knew I was a new member here. I didn't buy things until later on and that was just because I wanted to. I could go back to not spending hardly anything and my life on SL would not be diminished for it.


I think people and the RL societies we live in are so commercialized it is extremely hard for some people to imagine a world with stores that people don't feel compelled to shop in. The is Second Life, not Real Life, you have to buy here to live. In the RW you must assquire food and shelter and clothing to survive. Second Life offers you the oppurtunity to walk around naked in the snow feeling great even though you are homeless and haven't have food or drink in over year

t
The original question was does the economy rule the user experience? Even though a user may be a participant in the economy, whether or not it affects his experience is up to him. I think that it is quite possible to enjoy th game while ignoring the linden.

Patrick Playfair

t
The original question was does the economy rule the user experience? Even though a user may be a participant in the economy, whether or not it affects his experience is up to him. I think that it is quite possible to enjoy th game while ignoring the linden.

Patrick Playfair

As I have said before, and will say again: No.