New L$ trading level low - L$317 / $1 USD.

Doubt SL is at risk of closing down any time soon, either. Not with the amount of money they have backing them (both US$ investments, and L$). I think SL is mimicking reality and extending it quite nicely. That $650US I have in $L is quite real. As for people loosing stippends and fearing they won't be able to play the game any more, ever heard of freeware? Crapload of it on SL, and crapload will continue to exist. So enjoy the game.

So the future of SL as you see it is just like the USA... full of big ugly advertising in your face everywhere you turn at every opportunity.

Is that really the best you can come up with?

Lewis

Investments are not what keeps anything going. Regular, commited players is what will make SL last.



Sex and advertising. Yep, mimicking the worst of reality.



It's only 'real' until LL close down and you lose everything. Boo hoo.



And what exactly do you contribute to SL apart from being yet another gay furry?

Lewis

To me, this is the funniest thing you've posted yet. Re-read post #145 by Rasah. That is SL's future. You clearly have no vision.

As just a game, it's future is limited indeed. What's the average lifespan of even a successful online game? I'd guess 5 years would constitute a hell of a good run.

Incidentally, regarding RL teleportation being a fantasy... the first steps in teleporting matter have already occured. In the last couple of years, light has successfully been dematerialised and reassembled in another place. For real. It was done by scientists in my city, in fact. Man walking on the moon was considered fantasy until comparatively recently.

I can also still remember a conversation I had with a business partner in the early 90s. He said the internet would never expand beyond the computer geeks, basically. This was before browsers. I countered that once they put a user-friendly interface on it, it would become the primary means of communication. And waddaya know?

You're a bigot. That is just wrong, in so many ways.

Got a little task for you.

1) Log into SL

2) Look up his profile.

3) Apologise.

Lewis

Whether he is gay or not is not the point. That was still a bigoted statement, that was still offensive and over the line, and you should be apologising.

Teleporting light and teleporting a single DNA molecule are very different. Just trying to gather up all the organic chemistry from a simple single cell animal and teleporting it without killing it may be impossible. You have to remember that there is energy out there that can interfer with your transmission and while it only may only slightly disturb your light transmission it will kill something as complicated as DNA. You must have heard static on a radio before.

Twaddle.

I would answer that question in that I provide entertainment in the form of a seventies themed nightclub, two Laserquest arenas, and obtain a small income from a store that sells a few basic products that I make. There's also the campsite although that is more of a 'holding land for a friend within my tier' opportunity than a serious build. There was also my rebuild of the Warmouth telehub on behalf of Linden Labs.

I just like to know what people contribute to SL when they claim they do. It's often not very easy to find out because people don't use "Picks" and other obvious ways to publicise their contribution.

Lewis

Well Lewis we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I'm very rarely offended or angered by a post in the forums, but I was by that one.

Your infohub is nice, I had a look, you did a good job. Just don't assume others aren't contributing. Not everyone flashes what they contribute. You'd probably be very surprised by some of the things I have done, and am currently doing. I wouldn't post it on the forums, or put it in my Picks, that's just tacky. You are welcome to discuss it with me via PM or IM, if that's what will illustrate to you that all sorts of people contribute in all sorts of ways, regardless of whether you agree with their reasons for being in SL or their chosen lifestyle.

If your question simply read "What do you contribute?", it wouldn't have been offensive. Can you see that?

Not really, no.

It was a statement of truth as made clearly available on his public profile.

Now if I'd have said something along the lines of "another damn gay furry wierdo pervert who should be lined up against the wall and shot" then that could be offensive... but I didn't.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter because it's not relevant to the subject.

Lewis

*sigh*

And people say I'm offensive?

My language may be colourful, but my thoughts are rarely that ugly.

Good grief... talk about making a mountain out of a molehill... and a molehill that doesn't even exist at that.

Lewis

For the most part this is just a game to me. So I buy lindens to play in the game. Yes, there are a few vendors who have raised their prices and I pay my tier in lindens and it has increased due to the linden rate, but I am still having fun. Been building some things but have not tried to sell anything yet, but if I would it would at a fair price and the time I have in it.

Granted, obviously. The concept of transmitting light this way however, has amazing implications for communication. I was merely illustrating, what seems sci-fi at one time, frequently becomes reality in another. Just like man on the moon.

Okay okay okay... Entitlement, incentive, contractual right, paid for compensation... it does not matter.


You want your 'obligatory' L$500 a week for USD 9.95 a month huh?

usd9.95 will get you at least L$600 a week at today's Lindex rate.

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO OWN LAND... and are still paying premium fees because you want cheap L$... don't be a fool... it is past time to switch from premium to lindex for your weekly "paid for" allowance.

Check your next billing date, switch to basic before it comes up and buy your future weekly stipends off the lindex.


There is nothing more expensive or valuable IN SecondLife than land. If some bitterly angry 'oldbies' storm off in a huff over L$500 a week. There'll be plenty of new premium accounts along soon enough.

Of course, if you really must, please do go on and on about it, but recognize that your threat to downgrade to basic deserves utterly no sympathy if you can happily be in second life without owning land anyway.

No, I think the billboards will be the beginning, but after enough complaints from residents they will be replaced with stores where you cold come in and look at the objects before placing real online orders. I.E you go into a furniture store in SL, check out the dimensions and looks of a couch, and if it's to your liking, you place the order and have it delivered to your house in real life. Same could (and already does) work with clothing, and I am sure can be implemented for a slew of other things. Even up to models of actual real homes built by realtors that you can check out and virtually walk through before you drive to the location to consider whether to buy or not.

Investments/Cash is what keeps a company affloat. Investments is what keeps the company going. The vast amount of cash in SL will keep it from going under any time soon. Investments in things customers will want to pay for is what will keep things going. And customers are paying for the economy and business opportunities, AS WELL as just to play a game.



Don't forget gambling, racism/discrimination, and abuse, among other things. But on the other hand there is also community, interraction, creativity, and experimentation with private businesses, (also among many other things), which ALSO mimic real life.



True, but they won't be stupid enough to do that. If they did that, they would have to return millions in US$ to the people who invested in their company. I don't mean by buying L$ on LindeX, either.



Um, let's see. I buy L$ and sell L$, contributing to the economy. I teach newbs how to play, where to go, and what to do (considering I've been here for so long, I know SL quite well.) I build objects for people, and I make kick-ass scripts for comissions, which are usually MUCH lower than what my time is worth and what the quality of those scripts is. I participate in parties and gatherings, and I share my invention ideas at show and tell meetings. So, I guess, even though I don't give LindenLabs $6 a month, I still add to the economy, to the creativity/inventiveness, and to the community. Probably like most everyone else on here, be they a poor broke shmuck with $50l in their pocket, or a land baron with 20 sims.

I guess I'm a bit guilty on this one by not providing anything in the Picks, but the problem is, since I don't and never have owned land in SL, preffering to simply move wherever the crowd goes, I don't actually have any concrete places where you can see my contributions. You CAN however see them in the scripted doors I made for people, as well as networked security/monitoring systems, a few shooter type games, a bunch of scripted book objects that people load their own pics into, and a slew of other script and build related things that for the most part I either just built and gave away, or taught others how to build. Aside from that you'll no doubt find at least a few people on there who are happy to see me, like to hang out with me, and whose day I can brighten just by showing up and saying "hi." My biggest problem at the moment is that September till end of May I am stuck in koledge, where the firewall prevents me from having any sort of interraction on SL, aside from certain ones that are on a 10 to 30 second delay (LAAAAAG).

I guess I'm a bit guilty on this one by not providing anything in the Picks, but the problem is, since I don't and never have owned land in SL, preffering to simply move wherever the crowd goes, I don't actually have any concrete places where you can see my contributions. You CAN however see them in the scripted doors I made for people, as well as networked security/monitoring systems, a few shooter type games, a bunch of scripted book objects that people load their own pics into, and a slew of other script and build related things that for the most part I either just built and gave away, or taught others how to build. Aside from that you'll no doubt find at least a few people on there who are happy to see me, like to hang out with me, and whose day I can brighten just by showing up and saying "hi." My biggest problem at the moment is that September till end of May I am stuck in koledge, where the firewall prevents me from having any sort of interraction on SL, aside from certain ones that are on a 10 to 30 second delay (LAAAAAG).

P.S. I've also been here for I guess almost 2 years longer than you have, and in the time you weren't even here, I spent a lot of time telling people about this game, showing it to them, and once they got in, teaching them how to use it, as well as helping them build/design their avatars to make their experience more enjoyable and more permanent. When I started, there were about 5 to 10 furries here, and less than half were gay. So, I guess you could say I spent two years before you were here building a customer base, and a refferal base (they told others, who told others, etc) for people who log in play SL now. I guess that's sorta important.

If your stippend is taken away, you could always use that $72us annual fee to just buy more $L on LindeX, right? So what's the problem?

While I can understand your topic fatigue on this issue, I would argue that it is directly relevant -- no, salient -- to the topic of Linden value. Newbies are a great source of RL fiscal import into the game; the very act of building up a satisfactory SL inventory without yet having learned skills that allow one to support the habit in-world brings cash directly into the SL environment.

And since the overall worth of one's money > content expenditures has a direct bearing on how much folks are willing to pay for their Lindens, I'd say that shady business ventures like freebie-selling to the front line of RL money influx are a necessary topic of conversation.

People tend to treat the SL market as if it were a microcosm of the RL market, and it is simply not. The formative structuring of the permissions system alone decries a direct correlation to RL markets; the ability to copy freebie items and sell them at any price makes possible business practices that would be impossible in RL markets, and can only be addressed here.

SL is a user content based venture, which means that its value depends largely on a constant flow of talented content creators. Business practices like freebie-selling have an impact on that flow, and that makes them viable, necessary topics of discussion.

Those of us interested not only in our own pocketbooks but in the value of SL as a whole have a responsibility to observe certain ethics, namely those that promote the overall value of the SL experience.

In simpler terms, just because you can do it, doesn't make it okay.

And just because Lindens don't have the precedent to stop people from selling freebies doesn't mean the behavior should be condoned by rational individuals.

A parasite is a parasite is a parasite... and parasites, by their very nature, do harm to those they feed from.

Hey... who put this soapbox here?