What do you think of the asia secondlife?

Two things struck me yesterday which kind of gell together and make sense to rumors that had been passing about last few weeks or so.

Firstly the Terms notice that came up yesterday greatly suggested LindenLabs getting ready for 3rd party clients and linking this with the potential of Asia plus I had a chat yesterday with a Chinese Reporter who was wandering round SL after dropping out the beta testing for the Asia equivelant.

I for one think its great if we will have two essentially similar environments and I really hope Lindens hook them up togther so they become pretty fluid environments.


What do you think ?

Massive market ?

or

Massive lag ?

Massive market, if LL does its job and upgrades the servers to support that kind of load.

Still, I dunno... MMOs are big in China but it's mainly the grind- or story-based types. I'm not sure something like SL would be the right type of game for that market.

I like the idea of having a seperate version that is suited to different markets. But I don't like the idea of having the worlds connected in any way, nor do I think that it would be able to be implemented in that manner.

The main issue of concern when talking about the China market is of course government censorship and control over internet use. I mean, you're talking about a country that only allowed Wikipedia to be accessed for like 2 weeks before banning it again! I don't think that the Chinese government would be particularly open to the idea of a world that they could not have control over and in which user created content is literally the way people play....if they don't allow wikipedia without being able to control it, they wont allow this. Basically the only way I can see this launching in any large scale manner in China is if the government had control over the servers and the content of its users.

Also, and I have to be careful here as it is a fine line...I don't like the idea of allowing many different languages to exist on a large scale within the same grid. I agree with having as much language support as possible - but for example if there were 1mil Chinese users added to the main grid you could be assured that the majority of written content created by that community will be in Chinese (and rightly so) with the new ability coming up of notecards to support different characters. What this will mean is basically that the world will be segregated into hubs of language. Sure it would be awesome to see all the new creations, but if you can't interact or learn from them in a meaningful way then I don't really see the point of all the extra lag and database problems. I hope that I don't sound prejudiced there, that is not my intention - I am rather concerned with the practical application for the existing userbase of large numbers of non-english speaking people...

I have some concerns too, but I don't agree with the "hubs of language" concept. SL works (will work) pretty much like the real world.

If tomorrow I go to China, it's unlikely that I will automagically understand Mandarin Chinese. When there I'll understand what's written and spoken in English and that's about it.

We can have concerns about lag, but the language thing is not an issue. At least, it will work as it is on real world.

That is true, and I had considered that of course...which is why I was saying it is a fine line. But even in the real world the experience of going to another country is not necessarily 'user friendly' even though it is a fantastic thing and one can learn alot from it. In a virtual situation in which one is trying to be 'user friendly' many different languages cause problems:

1) How does the search function work? How would you find new places you want to visit that are in different hubs (I guess we would have a new revenue stream for people that write guidebooks which could be quite cool actually)...but on a practical basis for LL, do they implement different character sets into Place/Plot names and therefore search functions or just notecards? What about those who can't search for Chinese characters? do they have to just wander about? And what happens when people can't determine properly what they are getting for the money they are spending on someones plot?

2) How do you introduce new players? Do they all enter the same hub and then are expected to find their own language hubs by themselves? Do people who can only speak Chinese (to continue with our China example, but these problems multiply with more languages) go to a Chinese tutorial island and then are teleported to a Chinese speaking area within the grid? Is this all a client based fix?

I can't be bothered to think of more situations but they are there...this isn't just going to be an 'I can't communicate with you but I like the look of your stuff' issue but a purely pragmatic issue on the part of LL. I would rather that instead of focusing all of their attention on converting the main grid over to work with a truly multi-lingual format that they develop a seperate grid in a seperate character set - and then maybe after solving a lot of other problems we have try and figure out ways to have people cross between the grids....which in 'real life' is exactly what you are doing when you cross borders of a country.

I can understand it being a Chinese version, but a version for "all of Asia"? It'd be sad if I could no longer meet Japanese friends on the regular grid and I think we'd all miss some of the designers..

This already happens with - for example - German players.

(though according to my German friend, the notecards on their version of orientation island -- and the german client text -- are *really* badly translated!)

A separate grid for all of Asia? No world-wide grid anymore? Why split the market? I can't see any language problems at all. Who doesn't speak english these days, except for some european development countries (like Germany and France)? SL only needs to support some additional fonts and keyboard layouts. I thought the open source development would handle that part, what else are they good for? Every browser displays asian fonts just fine.

I surely don't want to miss out on the japanese market, and I think every asian SL business person would want to target the world market as well, therefore offering their wares with an english description. Hmm.... what's next, european grid(s)?

I, for one, welcome our new Asian overlords But seriously folks, the more the merrier so long as the grid and asset server(s) can take the strain. I do see a time in the near future when LL may have to consider setting up separate server farms to service the Asian and European communities which I presume will be all linked to the US servers as the next step in Chairman Philip's 'Long March' towards the metaverse.

As a german resident I really hate this development. It's surely nice to present the local culture within SL *laughs loud* (sorry... just thinking of the tiny bit of culture we have left, which comes down to curry wurst, burping after the beer and bellybutton lint). But I'm totally against closed communities for the sad 30% of german online players who aren't (i.e. don't want to be) able to communicate with the rest of the world. The main idea of online worlds is to meet persons from all around the world, especially in SL (I thought).

for more about Secondlife Asia check out my blog posting : http://virtual2.co.uk/?p=8

Absolutely with you here Ishtara!
Within two weeks of entering SL I've chatted with Japanese, Dutch, French, German, American (US and Canadian), Australian and probably quite a few others! SL for me has broken down barriers of all types. For me it is SL's biggest attractions.
Occasionally, I see a foreign language chat on screen but it doesn't detract or distract in any way. Also my 'visiting hours' are somewhat haphazzard due to RL commitments but I can always expect to find someone for company, if not conversation.

Two questions

1) Is this so called new Second Life part of the main grid

2) If it is not where do I go to take a look at it

Replies welcome

Regards

John

Upon reflection I think the chap might of ment he had just come from the Asia/China Sim developments ( www.virtual2.co.uk ) .

But I guess it does highlight how vulnreable Secondlife is to emerging competitors I mean the likes of sony or even MicroS throwing a team of 100 at it would have major consecences in that we would have copetiative enviroments which would kind of go against the whole metaverse ideology.

Yilu Names New MMORPG “Second Life”
Thu, Jul 5, 2007 Games | Second Life | virtual world

As Guangzhou-based game company Yilu is wrapping up the production of the company’s first MMORPG MyLife, the company decides to choose Di Er Ren Sheng (Second Life in Chinese) as its Chinese name. Similar to Linden Lab’s second life, the Chinese version will emulate real world settings. However, according to the company's released information, the game will adopt the model of more traditional MMORPGs and will not allow user generated content. Redline China believes while the game will not be considered as an entrant to China’s nascent virtual world sector. However, the use of the well known “Second Life” name is meant to aid the company's marketing efforts and to generate publicity for the company. Source: 17173

www.virtual2.co.uk

No user created content? That's the complete opposite of second life. I'm sure a lot of people will be disappointed. Maybe they'll go to Hipihi instead.

I am one of those who think that in a generation or two China (and perhaps India) may be the hegemonic countries of the world, not the US - God help us!

But it won't happen until well after the Chinese authorities give up on the idea that they can control/censor the flow of information and ideas in an age when information and ideas are the fount of progress and, ultimately, of power.

If the Chinese go through with this, and create two universes, separate and unequal, they will be the losers. There may be over 1 billion Chinese, but you know what? That means there are 5 billion-plus non-Chinese, and if they exclude the rest of us, we can merrily exclude them and go on with what we are doing. Eventually, there will then be a revolution - in China.

Or China will become what the Muslim world is now. In the Middle Ages, the Muslim world was the center of knowledge - which is why we use Arabic numerals, name bright stars to this day with Arabic names, call county law enforcement officials sheriffs - which is a term with Arabic origins - and today the Middle East is a *editing because of inflammatory nature*. They shut down progress in the name of Authority, an issue discredited in Europe after the Galileo affair.

It is the Chinese that need to look to their problems here, not LL.

ahh well ignoring the last racist edged post I think its too little too late and yes the fact that ts no user created content is again just a game shipping on the back of secondlife hype.

i think the lindens have developed a good thing here and they are just too far ahead possibly for another clone version to take over.

possible merger or buy out of linden with another tech company ?

ohhh the rumors!

I'll have to ponder that while sipping a sassafrass and investing more money into buggy whip stocks.

Note that you're asking us to share an opinion on a product which none of us have actually used and appears to not even be on the market. Any opinions you get on this subject are completely uninformed. How good will the moon hotels be? No one has any idea as there are no moon hotels. Do the people of 70 Virginis b have three eyes? No one knows. We have no idea as no one has been there. It's speculation. When it's done endlessly it becomes specubation.

I'd say this falls under the "I don't give a Flying Yuan" heading, for me.

Uninformed opinions make the forums go 'round. And 'round. And 'round.

.

Actually, based on how they're progressing already I don't know that they would have to actually give such freedoms to become the top economical and consumer players.

Are we actually all that free in that respect? Most information that's exchanged on the internet is hearsay and speculation...just look at this web site anytime LL is in the news or announces something!

They don't need to make innovative new products. They just need to keep coming up with innovative ways to make existing products cheaper!

Wow, ain't that the truth?

I normally describe this using a cereal box word problem: A person has a box of cereal. They can't get it open. Does the cereal taste good or bad?

Now look around. We live in a media saturated universe of people giving opinions on books they haven't read, movies they haven't seen, and on the character of people they don't know anything about, etc., etc. And after all that the uninformed opinion has to be compressed into a snappy soundbite. And then the snappy soundbite has to be linked on a blog.

Yeah, maybe China's government has the right idea afterall...

Hey! Get off the stupid PC "racist" crap. This is not racism. It is, if you really want an -ism, "culturalism."

It is an objectively verifiable fact that the Middle East has been *deleted for inflammatory nature* since the Reformation in the West. Go ahead. Try to deny that. It happened because much of the Islamic world turned its back on progressive thought and fell back on the Eighth Century Authority of the Q'uran and the Hadith, short-circuiting progress. Go ahead, deny that. It has nothing to do with Arabs, or Persians, or Kurds, or Moghuls, or Turks, or any other racial/cultural/socio-economic category you might want to get on your PC high hobby-horse about. It is about rigid, absolutist, unthinking appeal to Authority in opposition to what we in the West think of as intellectual progress.

Whether it is Arabs who fall into this intellectual trap, or self-styled latter-day "liberals" who want to feel morally superior and try to pin a "racist" label on anything they haven't thought of themselves so they can pose as being morally superior to it, it is still the same nonsense. Southern Baptist fundamentalism is denounced; crazy Islamic fundamentalism is defended - because, you see, nowadays Arabs are somehow "PC" and the same home-grown type of backwardness is not. But it is the same stupidity.

Some cultures are demonstrably superior to others by any reasonable measure, like whether they enhance or diminish the lives of their adherents in objective terms like life expectancy, literacy, available economic opportunities, education including simple literacy for women, mundane matters like female circumcision (twhich denies women sexual pleasure), and so forth.

One culture that is demonstrably inferior is that of the elitist, self-styled "liberal" faction in the West. It exists primarily to enhance the egos of its adherents, advance the political ambitions of its political champions, and promise "security" to the lower orders it pretends compassion for in order to get their votes. One of its hallmarks these days is throwing the label "racist" around to forestall rational thought and attain a position of being "one-up." Get with the program. The 21st Century is going to leave you behind. Doesn't wash any more.

Now, go ahead, try some more of your irrational "racist" crap. I dare you. It will be fun.