About our RP communities, Friendships, Economy, and Voice. Expectations, Concerns?

Something for everyone to consider...


One thing I *never* report is some of the metrics I track.

Bluntly stated, I already know what the dedicated RP player's paying turnover rates are, even in today's good conditions. I have to know this stuff to ensure long term viability of my region. No, I'm not sharing the info, that would be unethical.

Yeah, I know it will be a bit different in a voice enabled world. But I've spent many years in voice enabled worlds, text worlds, all of it.

So how good is Desmond's estimation of the future?


Let's look at my track record.

1) charged about 25% more than going rates for 4096m before the 15 Nov 06 pricehike and most everyone thought I was nuts.

2) banned casinos before the gambling purge and when most everyone thought I was nuts.

3) banned sexual ageplay before the sexual ageplay purge when most everyone thought I was nuts.

4) Sitting on 17 sims with a waiting list 3 or 4 sims long. At present, could grow at one sim every 2 weeks if I so chose, but won't due to community quality concerns.




Let's look at my future outlook:

a) Think voice is going to come in and rock the world hard.

b) have 3 months solid tier in reserve in place for the event of 0% occupancy due to unforseen changes.

c) Expects another strong resurgence for SL in 4Q07, with growth still present but nowhere near recent levels by 2Q08, and never as strong as in 4Q06 ever again.



So you decide. How well does Des know what he's talking about?

An open question.

Well, I already had a high opinion of your business acumen. And a low opinion of mine. When you say most of SL will go voice, I believe you.

But when you worry about losing the current creative culture, I also believe you. And I say, don't just roll over and turn your muzzle away.

If you (and others in your position) convince the Lindens to tie voice into the premium membership, I think things will be fine. People will use voice if they need it, not as the default mode of communication, which is as it should be. More importantly from your point of view, the financial burden will not shift to the Islands where (I feel) the majority of creative ventures are happening.

If it becomes implemented as currently planned (id est, out of YOUR pocket), then why not leave most of your sims text based? Even if business starts to drain away from them because of that, it won't happen instantaneously. If you pay for voice on a few sims (with correspondingly higher rents), you will have the necessary control group to contrast with and decide if it is truly worth it.

Oh, just for the record, I think you are brilliant. But you are clearly "nuts" or you would never do what you do

"We are all born mad. Some remain so."
-Vladimir in Waiting for Godot

Voice won't change what I do or say in SL. I probably won't use SL's voice system at all. Not because I'm against voice in SL, but because I currently use a Ventrilo server and invite the select few people in SL that I intend to chat with into the server.

I've been using SL and Vent this way for the past 7 months or so, since I started. Using the SL voice would then allow others to listen in. I prefer the privacy offered (assured privacy) by using Vent.

Having said all that, I do know that the relationships I developed in SL which ended up going to Vent have changed, for the better. I feel more comfortable and relaxed with the spoken word because you can hear the inflections and the way things are said, versus trying to decipher what the meaning of the word "is" is.

A

Ok.



You charged accordingly, due to the quality of the product you were offering. You believed in your product. I'm quite sure had it not panned out for you, you would adjusted accordingly. That's exercising sound business practices. There is nothing nuts about that at all.



I find this rather odd, It seems like an obvious no brainer. Why would people think you nuts for banning the scourge that are casino's from residential sims. It seems like a very obvious choice and one that most residential sims do make, and understandably so. How viable and prosperous would you expect to be, by allowing these lag-inducing, resource-hogging casinos to operate in your residential sims.



Again, this seems quite obvious to me. Why would most everyone think you nuts for banning sexual ageplay in your residential sims.

I'm not doubting your business savvy Desmond. I just fail to see the the "stray from the norm wisdom" that youre implying by mentioning these particularly obvious examples.



Ok.



Ok, but what do you mean "rock the world hard." Do you mean that in a negative or positive way?



As well you should. You should always have atleast three months of saving in the event of emergency.



Let's hope so. Positive growth, however minimal, is always good. Especially when considering the alternative. A more specific prediction might be, would SL have experienced faster or slower growth had voice not been introduced?



I'm not sure how to answer your question. You didn't exactly go out on a limb with your actions and predictions

I think you do know what you are talking about -
And yes voice will be a sweeping change that will surpize a lot of pro voicers.

And yes well see accounts closed over it.

This Plus Age/Identity verification hitting at the same time? Were going to see a definite population decrease in the short term.

To those who think everyone's being alarmist:
Dont be surprized if you are on the forums in 6 months , remembering the "good old days"

I'm not particularly worried about voice. Chances are that I won't use it much as I spend more time in SL building alone than socialising. I can see that I'm quite likely to have it disabled frequently. Not from wanting to 'hide' my voice, but more to block out excessive background noise. I'm more likely to switch back and forth between text and voice as each has their own advantages and strong points. Text can have much greater depth than speech, but speech is much more 'immediate'. And for the times when I want my voice to sound different from my RL voice I'll prolly use the Screaming Bee voice changer.

If it's tied to having a premium account, that's fine as I'm already premium. If it's tied to land tier, it'll prolly mean my bills will go up as I have land on the mainland and on a private island. I can see that larger landholders such as Des stand to take quite a hit if voice is tied to land. Ultimately he, like all the other landholders, will have to pass their costs on to their tenants or else go out of business :|

Well folks, like it or not I'm along for the ride.

I can't exactly pop the cash for voice for all those servers.

Yes, Caledon does have extensive newer regions that would get voice. But the core areas won't even have the option for landed tenants, without a Company policy change.

The dollar amounts involved are 'bigger than me' and the issue is out of my hands unless I want to rout the community with a pricehike.

One cannot have a Montmarte priced like Sofitel. It just. doesn't. work.

* * * * *

I truly hope voice becomes a premium option.

Failing that, the Company is now going to end up as a de-facto, value-added Skypelike service for free members, which even on the mainland will cause them to pay more and more and more and more to their digital voice services provider. Doh.

Your mainland bill won't go up; I hear it will be free across the mainland under current policy (or the last policy I heard, at any rate).

It's the people with 195/mo islands that will take the hit.

Unfortunately, it's Windows only, and the good quality version that supports multiple voices in each gender costs $40 USD. (They have a free one, but with only three voices, one of which is useless.) I also seriously doubt that it would allow you to switch rapidly between three or four preset voices on the fly, in real time. And though it sounds fairly decent, it's still noticably artificial. Even if I changed to a Wintel system and tried using this, I'd have to use it for both male and female voices, so they all sound equally strange...

That's interesting. I've been told point blank that they totally ignore text chat when using voice. I've also seen and heard text chatters ridiculed.

Not everyone is rude, but if that small percentage is multiplied by the numbers on the main grid...

Not to mention- Ill bet that Beta testers are generally more open minded, polite, and idealistic about SL than SL residents on average.

What we see in the "but on Beta its like this .." is that people are usually failing to take into account the lowest common denomenator

If that turns out to be the case, maybe LL can give us a "ban voice chatters" parcel option

Not sure about that Colette, but if true then this will really be a nightmare.

One anti-voicer simply stated that they wouldn't be using it, and was asked what they were doing on the beta grid, sculpties anyone?

Another typed LOL in chat and a voicer made fun of it.

I was attempting to explain what the red speaker lines meant to someone who was blaringly loud, and was told by another voicer that "I" was the problem. I guess assistance is now complaining if you don't "voice" it.

We need one. Take the public areas for instance, even if one person mutes someone, you still hear it via others mics. Short of banning them from the parcel (if you have that option) there is nothing you can do.

Yes Ive heard the Beta test isnt all peaches and cream too - contrary to what some of the Pro-voicers say.

Im also confident that on the Real grid - it will be worse both in Scale and Scope than on the Beta Grid.

Beta Grid people tend to be more aware whats going on in SL -
Thus as many know - Ignorance breeds intolerance.

It will be worse. If nothing else it will open up previously unexplored avenues for greifing.

It's funny that in this thread the current population size is a positive that we are in danger of losing but elsewhere it's all alts and camping zombies and a strain on the servers.

Evil is all around us!! LL is determined to ruin SL by adding another feature that will give people more opportunities!!! Save us!!!!

There are obviously enough die hard chatters to keep it alive. Everyone into RP of all types that I've talked to has said they prefer chat for RP (so do I). There are plenty of people who don't want to use chat (for whatever reason) so I really doubt that there will be a huge exodus from SL...and if there is...that's less lag for me!!

I am imagining equivelent to being trapped next to an unmutable spongebob screamer,chopperman, and babylaugh gesture user no matter where on the grid you go. In my work I deal with morons all day, I dont see why in my freetime I should have to as well.

From what I understand there will be an option in the land tools that allows you to disable v-chat just like push, scripts, objects, etc. It just won't work.

Sure be we were talking about a parcel mute on individuals.

Click "speakers", select the person next to you making noise and mute them. At this point in the Beta Grid this mutes their chatting, too, but from what I hear they are going to have the option of muting one or the other...or both of course.

Besides, if you don't want to hear the guy talk, what are the chances you'd want to read what they say anyway?

Oh, you definitely can turn voice chat off for everyone. But ONLY on your land. If you're on anyone else's land, you are subject to their choice for Voice. So on anyone else's land, you can personally turn off your own ability to hear ALL voice chat (blessed silence, but you also can't hear the respectable conversation and get left out of that) - Or you leave it on, try to mute the screaming Spongebob, and still hear him through everyone else's mikes.

Next week, huh?

Well, it better not be too noisy. I just spent twenty years raising kids.

coco

That doesn't work. You can still hear them through others mics.

Exactly.