What is "excessive violence"

Wow, I'm dense. I just *now* realized that this could cripple my business as well as the business of several friends, depending solely on what LL decides is "excessive violence".

I make combat swords, for both my own combat system as well as the Combat: Samurai Island system. Like most PvP melee systems in SL, there is blood and sound effects, but there are no beheadings or amputations or the like. Both of these combat systems have several sims devoted to their use, where people get together to have competitions, train, and just hang with other Samurai combat enthusiasts.

If these sims have to be flagged as Adult because of this PvP combat, it could have dramatic consequences.

The so-called "violence" in these sims is certainly not more excessive than what I've seen in several PG-13 movies, and far less than I've seen in most R-rated action movies.

My personal beliefs tell me quite strongly that there is nothing excessively violent here, that there's nothing to worry about. But since it's up to an arbitrary decision by some other party, and this system is supposed to be policed by "moral majority" residents (through the abuse reporting system), it does make me just a little bit nervous.

I am absolutely certain that many current and potential customers will not wish to partake in this program, at least initially, and whether that is a good or bad decision on their part is completely irrelevant to this discussion.


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A great question. Wonder if LL will be willing to spell this out any more then they will sex?

My opinion would be if people are being killed - its explicit violence.

Kind of like if people have sex - its explicit sex.

But knowing how violence is more PG than sex in the US I doubt thats the deal.

The CI combat system has (last time I checked) over 4,000 *currently active* members.

How many does CoLA have? Thousands, I assume. What about Sefugium and Nexus Prime (those are not combat sims, but it's not unusual to see friendly PvP roleplay there). There are so many others. What about Jesse and Rausch? Almost certainly "extensive violence" there, right?

And this is a consumer confidence issue at heart. There will be thousands of people who, at the very least, wish to "wait and see" before giving up the required information. Of all the "hot button" topics on these forums, issues regarding "invasion of privacy" (both real and imagined) are consistenly among the top topics.

This could have a tremendous impact all over Second Life in areas that have nothing to do with sexual content in any way.


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I suppose you could work around it by having "non excessive" combat area using the standard system but with appearance of paintball guns/wooden training swords and no gore visuals as some sort of a trial/demo, and then the "adult" marked area for these who liked the basic system enough to want something more enough to get verified etc..? o.O

Then again, there's plenty enough online games out there that offer this sort of content without requiring the users to be verified adults, so... meh. Who knows.

Thank you, I tried to raise this before but was tarred and feathered by people who thought I was against age verification. I think clear guidlines need to be laid out with regards to what is and isn't "adult" content. No way can this simply be left to opinion because, as we often see here, everyone has different standards concerning what is acceptable. I personally have no problem with violence in SL, just as I have no problem with sex but I feel it wrong to regulate one without the other (still feels silly to me though) nobody is forcing me to see either so it doesn't bother me. Should a person have to verify in order to hack n slash? To be perfectly honest I don't know but I do know it needs to be kept in mind when discussing these measures. It seems easier to dismiss violence in a game as harmless, there is less stigma attached to impaling someone on a spear than *cough* impaling them on something else hehe

Well yes - the sex restrictions will affect just as many or more people.

I think theres going to be a pretty huge adjustment period to the new changes.

It would be good is Linden Labs would at least provide some examples. So you could figure out whether you cross the "adult" line or not.

If theyd grandfather in everyone that verified the OLD WAY - theyd massively reduce the growing pains of the new system.

Hehe... I'm quite sure that the sex restrictions will affect more people, but since I've never had anything to do with that it's of less interest to me personally.

You are right... A little bit of "good info" from LL on what does and does not constitute "adult" would go a long way here.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that they didn't consider providing some examples. How hard is it to imagine that people are going to ask for that? I'm sure that anyone who has *ever* read these forums knows with certainty that it's going to be the #1 question, right?

What is excessive violence?

Well to some people, just asking for the last four digits of their SS number amounts to the rape of their privacy.

It's clearly all relative.


"Excuse me, mam. But do you have the time?"

"RAPE!! RAPE!!!"

Sure, like that V...B... guy repeatedly saying on the various threads that everyone who is posting questions is obviously underrage, right? That is such an ignorant position that it almost defies belief.

For the record, I *FULLY* support age verification, or at least the intention behind it.

What I am less sure of is how it is being implemented and policed. There is a credibility and confidence issue for me personally, as I have not yet decided how comfortable I feel giving this Aristotle company this data.

And I know I'm not alone in this. Whatever my feelings about age and identity verification may be, they are completely seperate from my self-preservation instinct and whether or not I trust this third-party company that I'd never heard of until yesterday.

I've personally had supposedly credible companies (or one of their employees, it's all the same to me) steal my credit card information in the past, and I get a daily average of 10 telemarketers calling my house even though I've signed up on the national "no-call" list twice, so for anyone to suggest that I'm against the verification process in principle simply because I have questions about this process and company is just plain ignorant.

I think it's absolutely natural and expected for logical people to have questions, and to expect those questions to be answered.



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Scary ain't it to be policed by the public.... it turns in a witch hunt fast before you know it.

Same happened with counter-strike or other online FPS games now we are in a "mature" online world and again we are faced with the same thing what is violence what is not.
Who may see it who may not....

If we talk of kids nowadays they see everything when it comes to violence either
it's wrapped in a nice red and white ball that you throw and yell "I choose you Pikachu!!!"
and a fluffy looking electric animal appears with enough power to light a small city.....
if you may believe the creators.....

Violence is violence if i attack you with a toothpick and try to stab you in the heart (tho difficult to kill you) it is violence plain and simple

I don't feel the need for a adult tag if it comes to fighting in PvP because this is not age bound
everybody does it either in game TV or movies.

Wolvie

This whole problem boils down to LL having a policy of no one under 18 years old being allowed to play on the main grid and then choosing to not enforce or verify this. If LL had not been so greedy for new subscribers at any cost this would be a none issue. The answer is simple, paid account, unpaid account all must provide at least a CC or other verifiable ID at signup.

No, the whole problem does *not* boil down to that, and the answer is not so simple.

For me, at least, the problem is completely different. For me, the problem is that I do not (yet) trust the third-party company designated to handle the task.

That would still be the issue for me if this was my very first day in Second Life, and I would certainly have an easier time of answering it: Nope.

If I had not been in Second Life for nearly a year now, and have come to know many good people and started a fairly successful business, I would not be at all conflicted, actually. I don't like what Aristotle has to say on their website, I've never heard of them before now, and therefore have no reason to have the necessary confidence in them.

If it was a simple matter of providing a credit card, it also would not be an issue for me, as I've not only done that, but have also given LL my PayPal information (which also has an identity verification policy). Linden Labs absolutely knows who I am in real life, and regularly pays money to me through that real-world identity.

Whether they should have or should not have done this from the beginning is completely irrelevant to the discussion in this thread, since the issue at stake (as explicitly mentioned in my previous post) is one of "consumer confidence".

So, your "easy answer" doesn't really reflect reality, and doesn't really reflect an understanding or careful consideration of the true issues at stake for many people besides yourself.

A bigger concern to me is that there will be a very large number of people who are also not completely confident in this process, and while everything gets ironed out, there will be hundreds of SL businesses and communities (and thousands of residents) that are affected by this, which have nothing whatsoever to do with sexual content.

I am happy it's so clear-cut for you, and I wish you the best, but it's a little presumptuous to say "the answer is simple" when it really isn't.


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Well - it is simple - sadly

With the inmates able to report you and thus - will report you - eventually anything remotely objectionalble is going to need an Adult flag.

Whats not simple is how we manage until that sad day comes.

/me sighs..... Yeah....





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Actually, the answer is almost always simple. Its the implementation that gets complex. LL had the chance to avoid all of this. It was their choice to allow a massive influx of unverified account that has been the source of major problems for many. If LL actually enforced their policy of 18 and older for access to the main grid this whole age verification would have never come up.

You might be right about that last sentence there, unfortunately that does not help or provide any consolation today

You are right in the sense that the answer can be stated quite simply and in binary terms and still be technically correct, but the issues involved are a little muddier than that.

In any case, it's also true that the only thing I personally can do is just wait and see what the effect is over time, so that's my plan


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Everyone has raised some very valid concerns here. The potantial mob rule aspect, the adverse effect on businesses, etc are especially troubling. And LL has seemingly washed its hands of any responsibility by leaving open to broad interpretation of what constitutes "adult" whether that pertains to sexuality, violence, or whatever.

People are worried and rightly so. It would go a long way towards allaying those worries with some guidance and some non-spin, non-CYA legalese answers from LL. I, however, am not holding my breath waiting for that guidance. If past performance is any indication, we're all on our own and will have to see how this plays out in practical terms after this policy is in place.

I just hope that what remains afterwards is worth being a part of.