Some interesting notes about SL for some of the folks who posted but obviously never tried it (you know who you are) :
First of all, there is no monthly fee to participate in Second Life. Simply do the small download, instal and make an Avi. That's it.
They do have what they call "Premium Account" which, for $9.95 a month, gets you a monthly stipend of Linden Dollars (L$300 last I checked) and the right to own a very tiny plot of land (512 m2). This service is so not worth it unless you want to own land, or your SL business has grown to the point you need huge retail space.
Most folks don't pay a monthly sub to pay. Instead, SL is more like an asian F2P game in that you buy ingame currency to buy the user made stuff. If you are smart, you can get great looking things for very low prices. Some folks can make enough cash in game to avoid buying from Linden Labs, but this is not common.
What stops most people is how expensive to own a sim is. A sim is one square of land. To own one, you must plunk down $1900 to $2900 start up, plus a fee of $199 to $299 a month. Ouch!
What is so scary, is how many folks have payed the above fees. Download the game, and once running go to the map. You will see a dot representing you and a square of land you and others around you are in. That is a sim with the costs I mentioned above. Now, zoom the map out and be blown away... there are thousands of sims!
SL makes more revinue than all MMO's put together including the big boy WoW. Between the sim fees, land fees, folks buying Linden Dollars, Fees to upload and download files, Fees on all Linden Dollar to cash transactions, those who pay for Premium, advertisers who front money, businesses who invest in SL, and educational and other Non-profit org donations, SL is an economic powerhouse for Linden Research Inc. (Aka Linden Labs).
To give you an example, LL sold 22% of its stake last year for nearly $500 MILLION bucks!
Last night, there was 82,000 concurrent users online and many of them have over 50,000 items in their inventories, meaning most of that was bought even if you filter out textures, freebies and the things they built themselves.
Is it a MMO? Yes in that it is massive and it is online with grouping the main (and often only) thing to do.
Is it RP? Yes. Most folks roleplay in SL. Seriously. Play it for a week and tell me if you find someone who actually tells the truth about themselves. That doesn't include the scores of folks who make fantasy Avis and actually RP and/or play in combat sims.
Is SL a Game? Now you have an argument. Some say yes, others no. To me, it comes down to this: Is SL a business for you or entertainment. If you say entertainment, then it be a game, albiet the most open, structure free sandbox you will ever see. If you do business there, then the answer is no. Likewise, if your limited imagination says that games must have things to kill and loots to get, then SL won't rate.
In my opinion, SL is a huge, user built (and funded) virtual 3D Sandbox of a world that is mostly used for chatting, shopping, advertising and playing virtual dress-up doll. Occasionally SL gets used for culture, shows and arts too. And yes, some folks RP and PVP in it.
Some of the posters above like corpusc has it dead on. SL is not for everyone, especially if you want to build your own world. SL is freaking expensive if you want to take full advantage of it.
What is odd about SL building is that while you can make realistic hair and skins and even fully functional genitalia, you cannot make a NPC. You will see the occasional horse or pet (and they look real fake), but anything humanoid must be an avi played (or botted) by a user. Between that and the exhorbitant costs of land ownership, SL is not a haven for game or world makers/players. Because of this, SL has virtually zero PVE in it.
Now, if only some MMO devs would take the better aspects of SL and adapt them, or, if you could do what SL currently allows, but without the fees and stupid rules so that anyone can truly create and build, then we would most likely see a true revolution in MMORPGs and virtual worlds.
Is it RP? Yes. Most folks roleplay in SL. Seriously. Play it for a week and tell me if you find someone who actually tells the truth about themselves. That doesn't include the scores of folks who make fantasy Avis and actually RP and/or play in combat sims.
Is SL a Game? Now you have an argument. Some say yes, others no. To me, it comes down to this: Is SL a business for you or entertainment. If you say entertainment, then it be a game, albiet the most open, structure free sandbox you will ever see. If you do business there, then the answer is no. Likewise, if your limited imagination says that games must have things to kill and loots to get, then SL won't rate. In my opinion, SL is a huge, user built (and funded) virtual 3D Sandbox of a world that is mostly used for chatting, shopping, advertising and playing virtual dress-up doll. Occasionally SL gets used for culture, shows and arts too. And yes, some folks RP and PVP in it.
This I agree with. I see SL as a virtual world sandbox within which some people game, but which is not really, itself, a "game". That's not to say that people do not play games with each other in SL -- they do -- but people also play games with each other in real life (including pretending to be people they are not). SL just magnifies that because it makes it so easy to be someone radically different from the person you are in real life -- that's a temptation that many people can't seem to resist succumbing to.
Getting back to the OP's original question, I don't think that SL would work if it had a mandatory monthly fee. The "premium" membership, as you point out, is really not needed, and relatively few people have it -- most prefer to rent land somewhere rather than incurring the monthly fee. The essentially "free to play" model has made SL the huge size it is today -- you can roll up an avatar, and customize it/dress it up for a fairly small amount of Linden currency. And if you're just in the game to chat and socialize (or cyber), that's really all you need -- you don't really *need* a private space, and if you really want one, you can rent a space rather than buying land. Although there are thousands of private sims (a staggering amount, really), the percentage of people who own one is very small compared to the overall population of SL. Most of the people in SL participate in the world on a shoestring budget -- they spend enough for their avatar to look nice, and that is that. Some people spend a bit more because they are shopaholics or collect different looks and so forth, but for the most part you can exist in SL on a fairly small amount of money, provided you do not wish to own or rent land (and even some rentals are fairly cheap). If SL had a mandatory monthly fee, in addition to the land costs, and the costs of outfitting your avatar and buying things in SL's world, the number of users would be *much* smaller than the huge number it has grown to be today.
SL didn't get to be the size that it is due to the "user content creation" community. These were the people who were in the SL platform back when it started in 2003, when the world of SL was much, much smaller, and much more focused on content creation. At that time, the population was mostly the more stereotypically geeky sort of population which enjoys playing with 3d imaging and animation software, some coding work and so forth. At that time, the platform was not anything like the social networking scene that it is now -- it was more focused on the content creator community.
That focus changed, largely due to the introduction and proliferation of private sims. The platform started to draw people who wanted to play more than they wanted to create, and that began to spiral the numbers of users upward substantially.
Ultimately, SL's draw for most of its users is as its name suggests -- it offers the possibility to lead a different, second life. That's a proposition that's attractive to quite a few people, particularly when you add the elements of (1) virtually complete anonymity due to the internet and (2) a place that has virtually no rules or laws beyond anti-harassment policies. The idea of anonymously going to a virtual place where you can basically do whatever you please ... that's certainly attractive to quite a few people. Would they still come in droves if they had to pay $15 a month to access it? Probably not.
Is it RP? Yes. Most folks roleplay in SL. Seriously. Play it for a week and tell me if you find someone who actually tells the truth about themselves. That doesn't include the scores of folks who make fantasy Avis and actually RP and/or play in combat sims.
What is odd about SL building is that while you can make realistic hair and skins and even fully functional genitalia, you cannot make a NPC. You will see the occasional horse or pet (and they look real fake), but anything humanoid must be an avi played (or botted) by a user. Between that and the exhorbitant costs of land ownership, SL is not a haven for game or world makers/players. Because of this, SL has virtually zero PVE in it. Now, if only some MMO devs would take the better aspects of SL and adapt them, or, if you could do what SL currently allows, but without the fees and stupid rules so that anyone can truly create and build, then we would most likely see a true revolution in MMORPGs and virtual worlds.
I've been in SL for quite some time.. Altho for *me* I just run a shop and we sell our "user created" content there. My GF spends most of her time there and has quit "mmorpgs". She enjoys "building" the most.
As for the RP comment... Its like anything else. If you get to know people and they like to talk you will find out enough about them. Probably more than you wanted to know and sometimes things you didn't want to know. Even some of the more odd people we've met were fairly open about "who they were". Altho what I have noticed is that "in" SL people tend to RP more.. but when they are on either area voice or "skype" etc.. they are generally not so much roleplaying ... so I guess that's just my experience. As you say its a very social experience and if you get along with certain people. You tend to get to know more about them just like first life.
I've seen for more.. and built more.. than an occasional Horse and the only ones that look "real fake" are the ones made by the same builders that make the "real fake" looking clothes. Obviously.. its all fake. This just comes down to builder skill. Altho there are humanoid "bots" as well... Last night I walked through a "combat sim training area" that had a fully functional (looked like a man) NPC that would shoot arrows at you and even engage in melee combat... I would say as far as pets go its perhaps harder to find the quality ones. Then most "builders" that can make them aren't scripters. If you want an actual functional pet.. someone has to provide a script for that. My experience is people that are experienced and good at LS language in general are so busy or sought after... Also the quality depends on experience, ability and the tools you have or can afford.
Builders are far more common in SL than scripters (just my experience again).
I agree with the last part totally. Perhaps the biggest barrier is the resources they would need to *screen* the user created content. I mean if you've been in SL much.. you know what kind of content can be found there.
I think eventually this is where MMO's are going to move to. If nothing else most of the time I am so unhappy with how things look in the MMO's I play.. that I want to replace most of it. Like EQ2 as an example.. I always wanted to "redo" my armor.
*edit*
I didn't quote it but I would also add that I agree with this posters comments on fee/no fee.
Most people in SL are not paying for a premium account. The only real advantage to it is land ownership. Also of note is the "tier fee" system. Which as you own more and more land you move up in tiers and your monthly fee will be adjusted by that as well.
If the point wasn't made.. no one is going to pay for a "premium" account for the "free" lindens you get every tuesday.
You could spend $8 a month (less than the premium fee of $9.95) and end up with more lindens. I forget the exact number but you get around 300 lindens every tuesday for your premium subscriptions.. while $8 would buy you 2000 linden.
The only other benefit is after you have a premium account for a certain period of time you get a ONE time bonus of linden. Its been so long I forget the amount (this may be part of a referral program as well.. I really just don't remember).
First of all Second Life is not a game, its not linear, but then its not a sandbox game either. Yes, you can customize your character and you can build buildings. But, why would you?
Second Life has been a media success with more than 15,000,000 registered users, but... its only in the media. In reality Second Life has between 100,000 and 200,000 who regularly comes back inside the world. The reason for this is probably that there is nothing really to do in there, its quite a boring world. There are people trying to organize themselves and get something going, but frankly, if this is the type of world you want, you would most likely be better off going into swedish Entropia.
First of all Second Life is not a game, its not linear, but then its not a sandbox game either. Yes, you can customize your character and you can build buildings. But, why would you? Second Life has been a media success with more than 15,000,000 registered users, but... its only in the media. In reality Second Life has between 100,000 and 200,000 who regularly comes back inside the world. The reason for this is probably that there is nothing really to do in there, its quite a boring world. There are people trying to organize themselves and get something going, but frankly, if this is the type of world you want, you would most likely be better off going into swedish Entropia.
I don't play it because its filled with lag that makes Star Wars Galaxies look smooth and the character movement is like trying to steer a freight truck on ice.
It is really lagy, its very distracting and makes for lots of borring and annoying loads. Also I have gotten viruses from SL. I enjoy SL to some extent but I guess it is not that hard to put a virus into the game and becasue you're loading your soroundings its just like cliking "OK" on some popup that gives you that antivirus2008 crap.
First of all Second Life is not a game, its not linear, but then its not a sandbox game either. Yes, you can customize your character and you can build buildings. But, why would you? Second Life has been a media success with more than 15,000,000 registered users, but... its only in the media. In reality Second Life has between 100,000 and 200,000 who regularly comes back inside the world. The reason for this is probably that there is nothing really to do in there, its quite a boring world. There are people trying to organize themselves and get something going, but frankly, if this is the type of world you want, you would most likely be better off going into swedish Entropia.
I agree and disagree. Clearly, Mitara falls into my "SL is a business and therefore not a game" category. That does not make Mitara wrong, for this poster's experience and use for SL is different than mine.
I find making the Avi and hanging out with friends the best part of SL. That is why I called SL "Electronic Dress-up doll" in my earlier post. There is quite a bit to do IF you know where to look and have good friends to share it with. They are tons of fun places to explore and things to do..if you can find them. Otherwise...
Mitara speaks the truth. The sad truth is that SL is becoming more and more corporate driven with sim after sim of boring and empty residences, malls and nonsense buildings. As RL businesses move in, LL is catering to them at the expense of the common user and the sad fact is SL is losing that "spark" that makes it fun.
"For users by Users" used to be SL's mantra. No more. Now it is, "For RL corporate sponsors by corporate sponsors funded by users." After 3 years of good times, I find my interest in SL waning due to this outside business and corporate mentality and design.
3 years ago, SL was a fun, vibrant community. It was a lot smaller and had tons of bugs and problems. Yet, it was a lot of fun. Now a days, there are less bugs, but one finds acres of mostly empty malls and residences. When you do find a grouping of people, you have to wonder if they are played by real folks or are simply bots to run the traffic rating up. In short, SL is becoming a virtual QVC channel with the occasional "fun" place thrown in.
Add in greedy or desparate shop and land owners trying to keep up with LL's fees who charge ridiculous prices for crap, and you have a mostly busted economy where us users are forced to buy Linden Dollars; whereas, 3 years ago, it was entirely possible to have your SL job pay for the game.
SL can be and is still fun, but new users will find they have to wade through tons of boring, strange and just plain empty or useless areas to get to the good stuff. That is why you must have friends, if nothing else, to show you around.
i dont need a second life. reality games are boaring and remind me of real life issues. i play as a hobby to get away from real life for a minute and just indulge in killing stuff.
Originally posted by corpusc i have some suggestions on a UGC (user generated content) paradigm far different from SL, so if you want to skip my little rant on why SL shoots itself in the foot as far as discouraging people from making quality content, look for a bunch of asterisks (**********). the reason %90-%95 of everything in SL is crap (that applies to almost everything in life) is more than just because its %99 UGC. there are alot of people who would contribute to making the world look nice...IF THEY COULD. there's alot of free work that would gladly be done if they didn't CHARGE YOU EXHORBITANT/LUDICROUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY for the privilege of putting in tons of time into making THEIR world a better place. if you subscribe (last i knew it was about $10 a month) you are allowed to own a tiny plot of land (512m) for no extra cost a month. if you double that tiny plot of land your subscription fee goes WAY up. what most people would want to build would never fit on even 1024m. such as a even a normal sized house with a tiny yard. and naturally people aren't going to be that inspired to make even a normal sized house, they want to build a MANSION as this is cyberspace and what good is cyberspace with such real world like limitations? not only that, each 512m plot will only allow you to place 112 primitives (cones, boxes, pyramids, other elemental shapes that everything is made from). that SEVERELY limits your imagination if you want anything thats not for sparse and underdetailed. even the best looking places in SL use way less objects than they should because of this restrictive prim budget. so even the best looking places have really cheap looking things in them, such the railing around a deck or porch being made up of alphablended 2D sprites with no thickness to them. looks very cheap and breaks immersion immediately. ALSO, because of these limitations, unless one person owns a whole region, there are a bunch of plots where the buildings and content stretches all the way up to the borders of the NEXT guys land, so there's virtually NO yard or landscape between all these tiny user areas that are all jammed up together in an extremely unrealistic and unnattractive manner. house or building walls jammed right up against the next guys. if they both had windows lined up with each other, you could jump thru from your house right into the next guys bedroom. lol. ugly ugly ugly. the fact that there IS any nice spots in SL is almost a miracle. those people put alot of money and effort into those areas, fighting the whole messed up system all the way. AND, you see fantasy themed areas jammed right up against fantasy areas, 30's mobster areas, hip hop themed areas, steampunk areas, sci-fi themed areas, etc., etc. VERY much breaking any chance of immersion. *************** this is the kind of UGC MMO i wanna see ***************** operates like a realtime massively multi-user 3D BBS. for those that didn't ever use a phone modem or bulletin board services (pre-internet mostly), think of internet forums. they were basically like that, but generally only one user at a time could be connected to a BBS. you could also download files and play some primitive turn based games and some other things. there was a "sysop" who ran the thing and was the central authority. he had the freedom to delete any files the users uploaded that he didn't want, or delete any messages that offended him, etc. i would call him a ServerOp in the kinda of MMO i have in mind, and each different server would have a different ServerOp and therefore a different world. there would be a purpose to explore different servers in this MMO. everyone can build (practically) AS MUCH as they want, ANYWHERE they want. in SL, the best and most creative artists are STILL limited to their tiny plots, or to however many islands/sims they own (remember thats around $300 a month for each sim). if they could build anywhere they would probably build 2x-10x as much stuff why would you want to turn away FREE LABOUR for your world? also, when you can build anywhere, i would expect that much of the building that gets done would be additions to things that already exist. improvements and extra details. so you could come back to the same building next week, and it could look much more authentic or more detaild and/or with more rooms and features. a serverop can reject anything theydon't like. this allows for there to be worlds that are coherent to one style or setting. one server might be fantasy, another sci-fi. the artwork could all be consistent (depending on how stringent/exacting the serverop is). stuff that gets rejected will not simply be deleted/discarded. every player would have their own private instance/world they can invite other people to, so they can show them all the stuff that was rejected from the main world for whatever reason. this is even better than player housing since your private instance could be an entire world in itself if you put the time into it, or other friends joined and built onto your world. there would be different options for each player where you can choose to see new content submissions or not, or see translucent versions of them. this new content has not been reviewed by the serverop and would not have any collision so it couldn't be used to block doorways or dungeons or whatever. users can review the new content so that there can be a sh*t filter for serverops that don't want to examine every single new thing. they could choose to only look at 4 star ratings and above. they could start their world by allowing practically everything, and get more and more selective over time. simultaneously that old crappier content can slowly be improved and or replaced. up to the serverop. each world could have different skies. different lengths and ratios for the day night cycle. different weather and gravity settings and such too. i'm tired, can't think of anything else atm, but thats the basics of a world that would encourage both QUALITY AND quantity (depending on each serverops preferences), and allows for vastly different and yet fairly coherent servers/worlds (depending on how the serverops run them).
anyways...... i'd like to hear your thoughts on THIS kind of theoretical MMO
Not to be totally rude, but the biggest reason why UGC in SL is crap is because the tools *are* crap. Want to build a unique mesh for NPCs? Forget it, use prims. Want to design unique physics without having to write more than 300 lines of code? Forget it, use multiple laggy scripts. Want objects to scale in relation to each other (e.g. Alice in Wonderland like effects)? Forget it, you'll only get approximations both for the really big and the really small. Want to use shaders and manipulate them with precise controls in-grid? Forget it, there's all on one setting: DAY GLO! And the list goes on and on.
The basic issue is that LL for years has treated the SL product/service as its red headed stepchild (they originally intended the core technology to test out hardware for computers and console game systems), despite whatever profit they do get out of it (and get quite a sum for the population that does pay). So, the only real push for real world content development tools is coming from third parties such as the OpenLife Grid folks. And not from LL. Expect the core technology for content development to improve in the OpenSim and OpenLife servers before they even improve for SL/LL.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp Second life is a cash shop, with no "game". You spend real life money to buy clothes and avatars, but then there's no game to play. Unless you consider cyber sex a game. MrFurry hits you with 100 points of perversion. You fail your saving throw, and your avatar changes to a bunny with a cotton tail and big breasts. Please pay $4.95. Thanks for playing.
The funny thing is often you'll get trolled by old fart furries like myself on that than not. As many of us are not "furry lifestylers." The rest of us are just trying to figure out how to hack on the LSL code to do weird things like having an object which we can attach to ourselves to 'crap' out random objects. Or some other trippy stuff. Yes, we're weird on the grid, very weird.
Its a terible game, huh its not game eather its just try to get your cash and ingame world alot of perverse creeps running around no thx:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
i have some suggestions on a UGC (user generated content) paradigm far different from SL, so if you want to skip my little rant on why SL shoots itself in the foot as far as discouraging people from making quality content, look for a bunch of asterisks (**********).
the reason %90-%95 of everything in SL is crap (that applies to almost everything in life) is more than just because its %99 UGC.
there are alot of people who would contribute to making the world look nice...IF THEY COULD.
there's alot of free work that would gladly be done if they didn't CHARGE YOU EXHORBITANT/LUDICROUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY for the privilege of putting in tons of time into making THEIR world a better place.
if you subscribe (last i knew it was about $10 a month) you are allowed to own a tiny plot of land (512m) for no extra cost a month. if you double that tiny plot of land your subscription fee goes WAY up.
what most people would want to build would never fit on even 1024m. such as a even a normal sized house with a tiny yard. and naturally people aren't going to be that inspired to make even a normal sized house, they want to build a MANSION as this is cyberspace and what good is cyberspace with such real world like limitations?
not only that, each 512m plot will only allow you to place 112 primitives (cones, boxes, pyramids, other elemental shapes that everything is made from). that SEVERELY limits your imagination if you want anything thats not for sparse and underdetailed. even the best looking places in SL use way less objects than they should because of this restrictive prim budget. so even the best looking places have really cheap looking things in them, such the railing around a deck or porch being made up of alphablended 2D sprites with no thickness to them. looks very cheap and breaks immersion immediately.
ALSO, because of these limitations, unless one person owns a whole region, there are a bunch of plots where the buildings and content stretches all the way up to the borders of the NEXT guys land, so there's virtually NO yard or landscape between all these tiny user areas that are all jammed up together in an extremely unrealistic and unnattractive manner. house or building walls jammed right up against the next guys. if they both had windows lined up with each other, you could jump thru from your house right into the next guys bedroom. lol. ugly ugly ugly. the fact that there IS any nice spots in SL is almost a miracle. those people put alot of money and effort into those areas, fighting the whole messed up system all the way.
AND, you see fantasy themed areas jammed right up against fantasy areas, 30's mobster areas, hip hop themed areas, steampunk areas, sci-fi themed areas, etc., etc. VERY much breaking any chance of immersion.
*************** this is the kind of UGC MMO i wanna see *****************
operates like a realtime massively multi-user 3D BBS. for those that didn't ever use a phone modem or bulletin board services (pre-internet mostly), think of internet forums. they were basically like that, but generally only one user at a time could be connected to a BBS. you could also download files and play some primitive turn based games and some other things.
there was a "sysop" who ran the thing and was the central authority. he had the freedom to delete any files the users uploaded that he didn't want, or delete any messages that offended him, etc. i would call him a ServerOp in the kinda of MMO i have in mind, and each different server would have a different ServerOp and therefore a different world. there would be a purpose to explore different servers in this MMO.
everyone can build (practically) AS MUCH as they want, ANYWHERE they want.
in SL, the best and most creative artists are STILL limited to their tiny plots, or to however many islands/sims they own (remember thats around $300 a month for each sim).
if they could build anywhere they would probably build 2x-10x as much stuff
why would you want to turn away FREE LABOUR for your world?
also, when you can build anywhere, i would expect that much of the building that gets done would be additions to things that already exist. improvements and extra details. so you could come back to the same building next week, and it could look much more authentic or more detaild and/or with more rooms and features.
a serverop can reject anything theydon't like.
this allows for there to be worlds that are coherent to one style or setting. one server might be fantasy, another sci-fi. the artwork could all be consistent (depending on how stringent/exacting the serverop is).
stuff that gets rejected will not simply be deleted/discarded. every player would have their own private instance/world they can invite other people to, so they can show them all the stuff that was rejected from the main world for whatever reason. this is even better than player housing since your private instance could be an entire world in itself if you put the time into it, or other friends joined and built onto your world.
there would be different options for each player where you can choose to see new content submissions or not, or see translucent versions of them. this new content has not been reviewed by the serverop and would not have any collision so it couldn't be used to block doorways or dungeons or whatever.
users can review the new content so that there can be a sh*t filter for serverops that don't want to examine every single new thing. they could choose to only look at 4 star ratings and above. they could start their world by allowing practically everything, and get more and more selective over time. simultaneously that old crappier content can slowly be improved and or replaced. up to the serverop.
each world could have different skies. different lengths and ratios for the day night cycle. different weather and gravity settings and such too.
i'm tired, can't think of anything else atm, but thats the basics of a world that would encourage both QUALITY AND quantity (depending on each serverops preferences), and allows for vastly different and yet fairly coherent servers/worlds (depending on how the serverops run them).
anyways......
i'd like to hear your thoughts on THIS kind of theoretical MMO
Not to be totally rude, but the biggest reason why UGC in SL is crap is because the tools *are* crap. Want to build a unique mesh for NPCs? Forget it, use prims. Want to design unique physics without having to write more than 300 lines of code? Forget it, use multiple laggy scripts. Want objects to scale in relation to each other (e.g. Alice in Wonderland like effects)? Forget it, you'll only get approximations both for the really big and the really small. Want to use shaders and manipulate them with precise controls in-grid? Forget it, there's all on one setting: DAY GLO! And the list goes on and on.
The basic issue is that LL for years has treated the SL product/service as its red headed stepchild (they originally intended the core technology to test out hardware for computers and console game systems), despite whatever profit they do get out of it (and get quite a sum for the population that does pay). So, the only real push for real world content development tools is coming from third parties such as the OpenLife Grid folks. And not from LL. Expect the core technology for content development to improve in the OpenSim and OpenLife servers before they even improve for SL/LL.
hmmm, i don't see why you think you are being rude at all. hopefully you won't take my response that way, i'm not looking to argue or put down anyone.
your post doesn't even have any relation to anything i was saying.
ANY editing software is going to limit you from doing EVERYTHING you could possibly think of. this is t he nature of just about anything. not even just software. most users don't have a problem finding tons of other things to work on that ARE technically feasible. and they CAN be (and ARE sometimes, albeit not that often) very high quality content.
everything i said still stands. even if SL's in-game editing abilities let you do all those things you mentioned (rather unrealistic expectations i think), their whole monetization system severely hampers, even PREVENTS lots of quality work from being added to the world, and simultaneously makes tons of incoherent/unrelated and poor quality content a MANDATORY part of %95 of the world (since everyone can make any style/theme of content, and of any quality level and it ALWAYS WILL appear there in world for all to see).
on a somewhat unrelated note ( the popularity of SL isn't that relevant to the discussion), i think SL will only go down from here, and hasn't much chance of being the 3D world-wide-web that claim they are working towards. and one of the biggest reasons (even tho it SHOULDN'T have the impact that it does) is simply the name. Second Life. so many people will never touch it because of the name and what it suggests the world is all about. and even tho it is by far the most technically advanced MMO in existence, and the most unique, and has the broadest amount of applications (things it could be used for), %95 of the players voluntarily (and proudly) re-enforce the notion in most people's minds, that its a game of make believe who's sole purpose is to pretend to be something/somebody that they aren't and can never be in real life. i personally have never roleplayed in an MMO of any kind, but was hardcore into SL for a few months (exploring the possibilities of making money via coding/scripting, and other forms of content creation and businesses).
There are some pretty good roleplayers in second life. If you get in the right SIM the chat logs read like a so-so writer's work, only it reads a bit more interestingly because there is no main character, and sure as hell isn't no super-god-can't-die hero.
There are lots and lots of micro communities. One day you might end up defending a planet your clan owns in a battletech SIM, The next in a Gurps wizards and magic world, or in worse case a D&D world
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I claimed earlier that the subscription base to 2nd life was maybe 100,000. This is the source, one of the most respected sources in the industry. http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html He has it at only 80,000ish.
LOL don't get started with Entropia Universe. MA got so greedy. That game used to rock 4 years ago but now you can't play unless you don't mind depositing after every hunt or craft because they just leech it back into the game.
Drackarre-A new medieval fantasy sandbox mmorpg in development by Bungaboo.
Comments
Some interesting notes about SL for some of the folks who posted but obviously never tried it (you know who you are) :
First of all, there is no monthly fee to participate in Second Life. Simply do the small download, instal and make an Avi. That's it.
They do have what they call "Premium Account" which, for $9.95 a month, gets you a monthly stipend of Linden Dollars (L$300 last I checked) and the right to own a very tiny plot of land (512 m2). This service is so not worth it unless you want to own land, or your SL business has grown to the point you need huge retail space.
Most folks don't pay a monthly sub to pay. Instead, SL is more like an asian F2P game in that you buy ingame currency to buy the user made stuff. If you are smart, you can get great looking things for very low prices. Some folks can make enough cash in game to avoid buying from Linden Labs, but this is not common.
What stops most people is how expensive to own a sim is. A sim is one square of land. To own one, you must plunk down $1900 to $2900 start up, plus a fee of $199 to $299 a month. Ouch!
What is so scary, is how many folks have payed the above fees. Download the game, and once running go to the map. You will see a dot representing you and a square of land you and others around you are in. That is a sim with the costs I mentioned above. Now, zoom the map out and be blown away... there are thousands of sims!
SL makes more revinue than all MMO's put together including the big boy WoW. Between the sim fees, land fees, folks buying Linden Dollars, Fees to upload and download files, Fees on all Linden Dollar to cash transactions, those who pay for Premium, advertisers who front money, businesses who invest in SL, and educational and other Non-profit org donations, SL is an economic powerhouse for Linden Research Inc. (Aka Linden Labs).
To give you an example, LL sold 22% of its stake last year for nearly $500 MILLION bucks!
Last night, there was 82,000 concurrent users online and many of them have over 50,000 items in their inventories, meaning most of that was bought even if you filter out textures, freebies and the things they built themselves.
Is it a MMO? Yes in that it is massive and it is online with grouping the main (and often only) thing to do.
Is it RP? Yes. Most folks roleplay in SL. Seriously. Play it for a week and tell me if you find someone who actually tells the truth about themselves. That doesn't include the scores of folks who make fantasy Avis and actually RP and/or play in combat sims.
Is SL a Game? Now you have an argument. Some say yes, others no. To me, it comes down to this: Is SL a business for you or entertainment. If you say entertainment, then it be a game, albiet the most open, structure free sandbox you will ever see. If you do business there, then the answer is no. Likewise, if your limited imagination says that games must have things to kill and loots to get, then SL won't rate.
In my opinion, SL is a huge, user built (and funded) virtual 3D Sandbox of a world that is mostly used for chatting, shopping, advertising and playing virtual dress-up doll. Occasionally SL gets used for culture, shows and arts too. And yes, some folks RP and PVP in it.
Some of the posters above like corpusc has it dead on. SL is not for everyone, especially if you want to build your own world. SL is freaking expensive if you want to take full advantage of it.
What is odd about SL building is that while you can make realistic hair and skins and even fully functional genitalia, you cannot make a NPC. You will see the occasional horse or pet (and they look real fake), but anything humanoid must be an avi played (or botted) by a user. Between that and the exhorbitant costs of land ownership, SL is not a haven for game or world makers/players. Because of this, SL has virtually zero PVE in it.
Now, if only some MMO devs would take the better aspects of SL and adapt them, or, if you could do what SL currently allows, but without the fees and stupid rules so that anyone can truly create and build, then we would most likely see a true revolution in MMORPGs and virtual worlds.
This I agree with. I see SL as a virtual world sandbox within which some people game, but which is not really, itself, a "game". That's not to say that people do not play games with each other in SL -- they do -- but people also play games with each other in real life (including pretending to be people they are not). SL just magnifies that because it makes it so easy to be someone radically different from the person you are in real life -- that's a temptation that many people can't seem to resist succumbing to.
Getting back to the OP's original question, I don't think that SL would work if it had a mandatory monthly fee. The "premium" membership, as you point out, is really not needed, and relatively few people have it -- most prefer to rent land somewhere rather than incurring the monthly fee. The essentially "free to play" model has made SL the huge size it is today -- you can roll up an avatar, and customize it/dress it up for a fairly small amount of Linden currency. And if you're just in the game to chat and socialize (or cyber), that's really all you need -- you don't really *need* a private space, and if you really want one, you can rent a space rather than buying land. Although there are thousands of private sims (a staggering amount, really), the percentage of people who own one is very small compared to the overall population of SL. Most of the people in SL participate in the world on a shoestring budget -- they spend enough for their avatar to look nice, and that is that. Some people spend a bit more because they are shopaholics or collect different looks and so forth, but for the most part you can exist in SL on a fairly small amount of money, provided you do not wish to own or rent land (and even some rentals are fairly cheap). If SL had a mandatory monthly fee, in addition to the land costs, and the costs of outfitting your avatar and buying things in SL's world, the number of users would be *much* smaller than the huge number it has grown to be today.
SL didn't get to be the size that it is due to the "user content creation" community. These were the people who were in the SL platform back when it started in 2003, when the world of SL was much, much smaller, and much more focused on content creation. At that time, the population was mostly the more stereotypically geeky sort of population which enjoys playing with 3d imaging and animation software, some coding work and so forth. At that time, the platform was not anything like the social networking scene that it is now -- it was more focused on the content creator community.
That focus changed, largely due to the introduction and proliferation of private sims. The platform started to draw people who wanted to play more than they wanted to create, and that began to spiral the numbers of users upward substantially.
Ultimately, SL's draw for most of its users is as its name suggests -- it offers the possibility to lead a different, second life. That's a proposition that's attractive to quite a few people, particularly when you add the elements of (1) virtually complete anonymity due to the internet and (2) a place that has virtually no rules or laws beyond anti-harassment policies. The idea of anonymously going to a virtual place where you can basically do whatever you please ... that's certainly attractive to quite a few people. Would they still come in droves if they had to pay $15 a month to access it? Probably not.
SL is the ultimate roleplay game.
Only people that don't know it but yet talk about it say otherwise.
Crafting in SL can get you a real life job and takes years to master. Who can beat that.
Furrie sex is present but maybe it's a 7% of the sex in SL, reading the forums seems it's the 90%.
There are lots of young (20+) girls playing SL, just check voice chat. There are also groups to meet people via webcam.
SL is what you make of it.
I've been in SL for quite some time.. Altho for *me* I just run a shop and we sell our "user created" content there. My GF spends most of her time there and has quit "mmorpgs". She enjoys "building" the most.
As for the RP comment... Its like anything else. If you get to know people and they like to talk you will find out enough about them. Probably more than you wanted to know and sometimes things you didn't want to know. Even some of the more odd people we've met were fairly open about "who they were". Altho what I have noticed is that "in" SL people tend to RP more.. but when they are on either area voice or "skype" etc.. they are generally not so much roleplaying ... so I guess that's just my experience. As you say its a very social experience and if you get along with certain people. You tend to get to know more about them just like first life.
I've seen for more.. and built more.. than an occasional Horse and the only ones that look "real fake" are the ones made by the same builders that make the "real fake" looking clothes. Obviously.. its all fake. This just comes down to builder skill. Altho there are humanoid "bots" as well... Last night I walked through a "combat sim training area" that had a fully functional (looked like a man) NPC that would shoot arrows at you and even engage in melee combat... I would say as far as pets go its perhaps harder to find the quality ones. Then most "builders" that can make them aren't scripters. If you want an actual functional pet.. someone has to provide a script for that. My experience is people that are experienced and good at LS language in general are so busy or sought after... Also the quality depends on experience, ability and the tools you have or can afford.
Builders are far more common in SL than scripters (just my experience again).
I agree with the last part totally. Perhaps the biggest barrier is the resources they would need to *screen* the user created content. I mean if you've been in SL much.. you know what kind of content can be found there.
I think eventually this is where MMO's are going to move to. If nothing else most of the time I am so unhappy with how things look in the MMO's I play.. that I want to replace most of it. Like EQ2 as an example.. I always wanted to "redo" my armor.
*edit*
I didn't quote it but I would also add that I agree with this posters comments on fee/no fee.
Most people in SL are not paying for a premium account. The only real advantage to it is land ownership. Also of note is the "tier fee" system. Which as you own more and more land you move up in tiers and your monthly fee will be adjusted by that as well.
If the point wasn't made.. no one is going to pay for a "premium" account for the "free" lindens you get every tuesday.
You could spend $8 a month (less than the premium fee of $9.95) and end up with more lindens. I forget the exact number but you get around 300 lindens every tuesday for your premium subscriptions.. while $8 would buy you 2000 linden.
The only other benefit is after you have a premium account for a certain period of time you get a ONE time bonus of linden. Its been so long I forget the amount (this may be part of a referral program as well.. I really just don't remember).
First of all Second Life is not a game, its not linear, but then its not a sandbox game either. Yes, you can customize your character and you can build buildings. But, why would you?
Second Life has been a media success with more than 15,000,000 registered users, but... its only in the media. In reality Second Life has between 100,000 and 200,000 who regularly comes back inside the world. The reason for this is probably that there is nothing really to do in there, its quite a boring world. There are people trying to organize themselves and get something going, but frankly, if this is the type of world you want, you would most likely be better off going into swedish Entropia.
You are absolutely clueless, sorry.
After spending 3 years insdie Second Life, I dont care, as long as they keep paying me....
I don't play it because its filled with lag that makes Star Wars Galaxies look smooth and the character movement is like trying to steer a freight truck on ice.
http://mmo-hell.blogspot.com/
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/rejad
It is really lagy, its very distracting and makes for lots of borring and annoying loads. Also I have gotten viruses from SL. I enjoy SL to some extent but I guess it is not that hard to put a virus into the game and becasue you're loading your soroundings its just like cliking "OK" on some popup that gives you that antivirus2008 crap.
Second life is a cash shop, with no "game".
You spend real life money to buy clothes and avatars, but then there's no game to play. Unless you consider cyber sex a game.
MrFurry hits you with 100 points of perversion.
You fail your saving throw, and your avatar changes to a bunny with a cotton tail and big breasts.
Please pay $4.95. Thanks for playing.
Who is really an overweight 52 year old divorced trucker from New Jersey named "Mack".
I agree and disagree. Clearly, Mitara falls into my "SL is a business and therefore not a game" category. That does not make Mitara wrong, for this poster's experience and use for SL is different than mine.
I find making the Avi and hanging out with friends the best part of SL. That is why I called SL "Electronic Dress-up doll" in my earlier post. There is quite a bit to do IF you know where to look and have good friends to share it with. They are tons of fun places to explore and things to do..if you can find them. Otherwise...
Mitara speaks the truth. The sad truth is that SL is becoming more and more corporate driven with sim after sim of boring and empty residences, malls and nonsense buildings. As RL businesses move in, LL is catering to them at the expense of the common user and the sad fact is SL is losing that "spark" that makes it fun.
"For users by Users" used to be SL's mantra. No more. Now it is, "For RL corporate sponsors by corporate sponsors funded by users." After 3 years of good times, I find my interest in SL waning due to this outside business and corporate mentality and design.
3 years ago, SL was a fun, vibrant community. It was a lot smaller and had tons of bugs and problems. Yet, it was a lot of fun. Now a days, there are less bugs, but one finds acres of mostly empty malls and residences. When you do find a grouping of people, you have to wonder if they are played by real folks or are simply bots to run the traffic rating up. In short, SL is becoming a virtual QVC channel with the occasional "fun" place thrown in.
Add in greedy or desparate shop and land owners trying to keep up with LL's fees who charge ridiculous prices for crap, and you have a mostly busted economy where us users are forced to buy Linden Dollars; whereas, 3 years ago, it was entirely possible to have your SL job pay for the game.
SL can be and is still fun, but new users will find they have to wade through tons of boring, strange and just plain empty or useless areas to get to the good stuff. That is why you must have friends, if nothing else, to show you around.
i dont need a second life. reality games are boaring and remind me of real life issues. i play as a hobby to get away from real life for a minute and just indulge in killing stuff.
Second Life is an awful, awful game. There, now don't play it.
Less hyper-active idiots entering my combat/rp sim I enjoy there. The better.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
that game is horrible and boring,and runs terrible too on my high end pc.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
I too have to say this game is not great at all. All it does is take your money.
Drackarre-A new medieval fantasy sandbox mmorpg in development by Bungaboo.
Not to be totally rude, but the biggest reason why UGC in SL is crap is because the tools *are* crap. Want to build a unique mesh for NPCs? Forget it, use prims. Want to design unique physics without having to write more than 300 lines of code? Forget it, use multiple laggy scripts. Want objects to scale in relation to each other (e.g. Alice in Wonderland like effects)? Forget it, you'll only get approximations both for the really big and the really small. Want to use shaders and manipulate them with precise controls in-grid? Forget it, there's all on one setting: DAY GLO! And the list goes on and on.
The basic issue is that LL for years has treated the SL product/service as its red headed stepchild (they originally intended the core technology to test out hardware for computers and console game systems), despite whatever profit they do get out of it (and get quite a sum for the population that does pay). So, the only real push for real world content development tools is coming from third parties such as the OpenLife Grid folks. And not from LL. Expect the core technology for content development to improve in the OpenSim and OpenLife servers before they even improve for SL/LL.
The funny thing is often you'll get trolled by old fart furries like myself on that than not. As many of us are not "furry lifestylers." The rest of us are just trying to figure out how to hack on the LSL code to do weird things like having an object which we can attach to ourselves to 'crap' out random objects. Or some other trippy stuff. Yes, we're weird on the grid, very weird.
Its a terible game, huh its not game eather its just try to get your cash and ingame world alot of perverse creeps running around no thx:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Second Life NO, Entropia might think about it.
Not to be totally rude, but the biggest reason why UGC in SL is crap is because the tools *are* crap. Want to build a unique mesh for NPCs? Forget it, use prims. Want to design unique physics without having to write more than 300 lines of code? Forget it, use multiple laggy scripts. Want objects to scale in relation to each other (e.g. Alice in Wonderland like effects)? Forget it, you'll only get approximations both for the really big and the really small. Want to use shaders and manipulate them with precise controls in-grid? Forget it, there's all on one setting: DAY GLO! And the list goes on and on.
The basic issue is that LL for years has treated the SL product/service as its red headed stepchild (they originally intended the core technology to test out hardware for computers and console game systems), despite whatever profit they do get out of it (and get quite a sum for the population that does pay). So, the only real push for real world content development tools is coming from third parties such as the OpenLife Grid folks. And not from LL. Expect the core technology for content development to improve in the OpenSim and OpenLife servers before they even improve for SL/LL.
hmmm, i don't see why you think you are being rude at all. hopefully you won't take my response that way, i'm not looking to argue or put down anyone.
your post doesn't even have any relation to anything i was saying.
ANY editing software is going to limit you from doing EVERYTHING you could possibly think of. this is t he nature of just about anything. not even just software. most users don't have a problem finding tons of other things to work on that ARE technically feasible. and they CAN be (and ARE sometimes, albeit not that often) very high quality content.
everything i said still stands. even if SL's in-game editing abilities let you do all those things you mentioned (rather unrealistic expectations i think), their whole monetization system severely hampers, even PREVENTS lots of quality work from being added to the world, and simultaneously makes tons of incoherent/unrelated and poor quality content a MANDATORY part of %95 of the world (since everyone can make any style/theme of content, and of any quality level and it ALWAYS WILL appear there in world for all to see).
on a somewhat unrelated note ( the popularity of SL isn't that relevant to the discussion), i think SL will only go down from here, and hasn't much chance of being the 3D world-wide-web that claim they are working towards. and one of the biggest reasons (even tho it SHOULDN'T have the impact that it does) is simply the name. Second Life. so many people will never touch it because of the name and what it suggests the world is all about. and even tho it is by far the most technically advanced MMO in existence, and the most unique, and has the broadest amount of applications (things it could be used for), %95 of the players voluntarily (and proudly) re-enforce the notion in most people's minds, that its a game of make believe who's sole purpose is to pretend to be something/somebody that they aren't and can never be in real life. i personally have never roleplayed in an MMO of any kind, but was hardcore into SL for a few months (exploring the possibilities of making money via coding/scripting, and other forms of content creation and businesses).
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Corpus Callosum
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There are some pretty good roleplayers in second life. If you get in the right SIM the chat logs read like a so-so writer's work, only it reads a bit more interestingly because there is no main character, and sure as hell isn't no super-god-can't-die hero.
There are lots and lots of micro communities. One day you might end up defending a planet your clan owns in a battletech SIM, The next in a Gurps wizards and magic world, or in worse case a D&D world
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I claimed earlier that the subscription base to 2nd life was maybe 100,000. This is the source, one of the most respected sources in the industry. http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html He has it at only 80,000ish.
Second Life, no way.
Entropia Universe, hell yes.
I wish Mindark would open a new server that is P2P. I love the crafting system, mining system, and social aspect of EU. Would make a great P2P game.
Playing - Minecraft, 7 Days To Die, Darkfall:ROA, Path of Exile
Waiting for -
LOL don't get started with Entropia Universe. MA got so greedy. That game used to rock 4 years ago but now you can't play unless you don't mind depositing after every hunt or craft because they just leech it back into the game.
Drackarre-A new medieval fantasy sandbox mmorpg in development by Bungaboo.