Opinion: The Kids are Alright

 

In real life American news, one of the top stories are the students at a number of college campuses engaging in anti-Israeli protests, often speaking out in support of the Hamas terrorists despite their brutality. Any1 Gynoid, who wrote for the Newser regularly in the past and sends an occasional article, recently had a few things to say about the matter after going about for about a week in Palestinian fashion. Just what are the students really after?

Read Any1's commentary in Extra.  

Announcement: This Saturday at The Science Circle - "Museums" and "Has The Global Pandemic Changed Your View on Others or Society?"

 

"Museums"

Saturday November 6

10 AM to 11 AM SL time 

Which real-life museum do you recommend to others?

This can be a local, national or foreign museum and can be a science, art, history, maritime or open air museum. Is the location exceptional or the architecture of the building? Share it with us.

Which one left an indelible impression on you? Tell us what you found and discovered. Perhaps you can share an image of what impressed you the most. Share the website of the relevant museum with us.

An example of museum development and innovation is the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The Night Watch “De Nachtwacht by Rembrandt van Rijn” is currently being restored and to inform, educate and share this process with the public, you can get a virtual tour here.

We look forward to your museum!

This FC topic is an idea of William Schmachtenberg

Fireside

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/161/99/24 

*  *  *  *  *  *
 

"Has The Global Pandemic Changed Your View on Others or Society Itself?"

Saturday November 6

9PM to 10PM SL time

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” -Mahatma Gandhi

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Auditorium

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/104/125/1114 
 

Reader Submitted: The Second Life Name Issue

For several years, Second Life allowed everyone to chose from a list of thousands of last names with their choice of first name. It was without cost and without limit, as many if not most created alts over time who also had the same right or opportunity.

Then suddenly about eight years ago, they decided everyone should henceforth joining should be deemed "Resident."  This did two things. It made newcomers feel and look inferior, and it effectively created a permanent "Newbie" class of avatars.

They recently proposed bringing back last names, but only if people paid. This is highly unfair, especially to those who have been here five or more years and participated extensively in the economy. Should they pay when someone who logs in once a month and buys little or nothing for most of nine or more years got one or more for free?

Therefore I feel people who have been here several years and also made ample contributions to the economy, say for example at least fifty dollars worth in uploads a month and suffered under the Resident last name situation should be given a one time free name change, but future name changes could still be paid for everyone.

Kitacelia

News and Commentary: Blizzard Cancels Titan, Will Linden Lab Follow With SL 2.0?

By Bixyl Shuftan

For about a decade, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft has dominated the Multiplayer Online Game market. Although no longer getting twelve million players, it's still the top of it's class. But back in the prime of it's prize product in 2007, it was revealed that Blizzard was working on another MMO unofficially known as Titan. So when will this game be released? Apparently the answer is "never," as last week Blizzard stated the project was shelved.

There are a few reasons for Titan's cancellation. One was that those in Blizzard assigned to the game's development "didn't find the passion" for it. The success of it's recent smaller game "Hearthstone" was another factor, evidence that not everything by Blizzard has to be "colossal summer blockbuster-type products." Then there's the obvious: if the Titan MMO was a success, would it not be taking players from it's current hit World of Warcraft?

So Blizzard has made the decision to stick with what works, at least for now.

But does this mean that Linden Lab will soon be following up by scrapping its development of it's next generation virtual world, known as SL2.0?

Ciaran Laval wrote an article suggesting that Blizzard's move was a "warning bell" the Lab shouldn't ignore. Ciaran quoted Blizzard's cofounder, "We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confidnent that we knew how to make MMOs. So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn't come together." A VP was quoted of their decision, "We were losing perspective and getting lost in the weeds a little. We had to allow ourselves to take that step back and reassess why the hell we were doing that thing in the first place."Ciaran suggested that Linden Lab needed "to ensure they don't find themselves in this position with their future virtual world, that they don't find themselves making something that isn't fun, that isn't really progressing how they would like it to, and that it might not be worth their time at the end of the day."

In a sense, the Lab has more to loose as Blizzard's big product's revenue model is millions of users paying $15 a month, while it relies on several thousand users paying $300 a month per sim and content creators whose wares get the masses of users to buy virtual currency to purchase them. One reader responding to Hamlet Au's article commented, "a content creator needs several years to get respect, establish their brand and gather a customer base. ... This takes a lot of time and effort. Once that gets destroyed, the creator will get burned. That creator did work at a very low hourly rate for years to get to the point where they were now. Telling that creator the place where he does business will get shut (down), but he can come and rebuild it all over again on new tech, you can be sure about 70 to 80% will say thanks but no thanks."

Ciaran concluded, "Linden Lab, with a combination of luck and judgement, struck gold with Second Life. The new virtual world has for more ambitious aims, but Linden Lab need(s) to ensure that don't tie themselves in knots trying to make it happen. Second Life is still there, and many people will be happy to engage with (it) for many a year yet."

Hopefully the Lab will take heed of Blizzard's decision, and concentrate on making it's customers happier with it's current product instead of developing a product that given the transition from it's classic viewer to Viewer 2.0 is likely to be neither fun for them or it's customers.

Sources:  PC Gamer, Polygon, New World Notes, Ciaran Laval

Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: Second Thoughts on the ADI

Sometimes things look a little differently from the outside. That's the message Theonlyjohnny seems to have gotten with his latest dealings with the ADI combat group. Although once with them, he is no longer.  And in today's commentary explains why he doesn't have the same feelings about them as before.

Read more in Extra.

Commentary: Hackings On the ADI Combat Group

Since writing about the ADI combat sim in June, Theonlyjohnny Resident has continued to frequent the sim, engaging in a little first-person-shooter gaming with other residents. Unfortunately, the group has been the subject of some suspected hacking attacks. In his article for today, Theonlyjohnny expresses a few thoughts on the matter.

Read Theonlyjohnny's article in Extra.

News and Commentary: On the NSA's Surveliance of Second Life

It's been about a week since it made the news that the National Security Agency has been sending agents to virtual and gaming worlds. World of Warcraft, the largest of the MORPGs, has been one of their targets. But so has Second Life. The virtual landscape of Hippos and Lucky Chairs had found itself the target of "the spooks."

The NSA's gathering of "metadata" has been highly controversial. Outside the United Sates, the language has often been harsh. The German Chancellor recently compared it's practices to those of the East German Secret Police in the days of the Cold War. In the United States, both liberals and conservatives overall dislike what the NSA is doing, or at least the extent that it is. But the level of criticism doesn't usually reach the level it often does overseas. Perhaps both sides are after bigger fish in political struggles, (health care, employment, etc.), some people are still jittery about a 9-11 style terrorist attack, or something of both. Indeed corporations who depend on the Internet for their survival have often been reacting more harshly than the public as a whole. Microsoft went as far as to condem the US Government's activities as an "advanced persistant threat."

Americans, annoyed that their emails could be possibly snooped on, seemed to mostly regard the news about the NSA doing the same with online games with amusement. There were a few skits about NSA agents looking for terrorists amongst the orcs (video link). Some people joked that what was going on was agents goofing off: spending working hours playing games, then claiming to their superiors they were investigating terrorism leads.

For Second Life residents, part of the reaction was interest to being on the national news for reasons other than gossip stories about virtual infidelity and "catfishing." The overall reaction from my point of view has also been amusement, cracking jokes about NSA agents goofing off with romps in sex clubs. The topic was also joked about at the Avi Choice awards, a host and hostess saying hello to any agents watching, and cracking a joke about a "favorite NSA agent" category.

Not everyone was laughing though. New World Notes reminded that it had reported in 2007 on stories about terrorist in Second Life and Federal agents also in looking for their activity. NASA and NOAA are known to have come into Second Life, Halmet stated, so "it's not really a surprise to find the NSA is there too." Judge Richard Posner, who appeared in-avatar in Second Life, commented, “The Internet offers opportunities both for terrorists and counterterrorism,” he observed. So it's an arms race between the opposing forces, both seeking maximum advantage from the digital revolution.” Hamlet would also write about an article mentioning Cory Linden visiting the NSA being misinterpereted as him encouraging the agency to spy on Second Life's residents, while in reality he was there to stop possible government censorship and regulation.

Iris Ophelia wasn't laughing either, taking the matter quite seriously. "Maybe you know better than to post drunk selfies of yourself on Facebook," she reminded, "but what have you been up to in the presumed privacy of your virtual home?" Over time, one meets up with a lot of residents here, and we talk and do things with them without a second thought. "those friends you've known for years? What are they up to? One of them asked you to hold into some L$ for them recently, do you know why? She also asked you to help her get into that invite-only group, why? What do they do? Are you a member? What about that person you paid for that item a few months ago, you know the one. What do you know about them? We just need you to answer a few questions..."

In an open letter to the people of Brazil asking for asylumn, Edward Snowden, whom leaked a number of information about the NSA after leaving the US to China, then Russia, claimed that what the NSA was doing could also be used for "economic espianoge" and "social control." While Snowden is not a neutral party in this matter, and is considered a wanted criminal, his statement was a reminder the NSA's activities can be used for far more than just looking for Al Quedia.

The NSA's activities could lead to some long-term consequences beyond just people looking over their virtual shoulders. Many countries were already less than happy with the Internet being of American design governed by American rules, and dominated by a few American companies. The NSA's snooping could very well be the final straw, seeing the Internet "Balkanized" among various countries. Online games based in America, as well as Second Life, would find it harder to get new users overseas.

Yesterday offered some good news though. A US Federal judge branded the NSA's surveillance as "Orwellian," and stated it likely was a violation of the Constitution. While the ruling didn't stop the snooping right away, as he put it on hold pending an appeal by the Government, it could very well be the beginning of the end of the wide-scale spying campaign of the Internet, and Second Life.

Sources:CNN,  The Guardian, New World Notes, Microsoft

Bixyl Shuftan

Opinions About the Content Creators Rights Controversy

By Bixyl Shuftan

As the fallout from Linden Lab's change of the Terms of Service concerning content creator rights continues, more people have expressed comments about the issue. Some, such as Mona Eberhardt of the Living Virtually blog, feel the Lab is in the right, residents should stop worrying about being ripped off, and criticism should be muted otherwise the Lab will just stop listening.

It is obvious that this revision of the ToS was, to say the least, short-sighted and ill-advised. But it is not obvious to the Lab. Now, contrary to what is claimed, LL does not claim ownership of anyone’s intellectual property and all such talk needs to stop now, because it’s not only counter-productive, but also harmful. ... SL content creators need to understand that the new ToS do not constitute an appropriation of their intellectual property by Linden Lab and all such wording needs to be removed from blogs, in-world “grassroots” groups etc. Why? Not only because it’s factually wrong, but also because it sets the entire discussion off on the wrong foot: with wording like this, the other side in this discussion (i.e. Linden Lab) will perceive it all as “yet another round of false accusations” and will simply not bother to listen to even the calmest of voices, especially given that LL doesn’t face any real competition. ... So, if this screaming, shouting and yelling continues, LL will be very well inclined to adopt a “f**k you” attitude, reassured in the “Catch-22″ situation users are currently in.

Hamlet Au of New World Notes talked to a lawyer knowledgeable on IP rights, Agenda Faromet. She felt the Lab's actions were from trying to "consolidate its many new services under one set of policies," and compared it to similar actions by Google, which eventually got it in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission. She called Linden Lab's move "tremendously short-sighted ... Linden Lab's refusal to understand the needs of its customer base is far more troubling to me than its poor contract drafting." She felt all the Lab needed to do was just make a change of ten words, "All they need to do is limit their license to uses within the scope of their business purpose. People might still be mad, but then it isn't nearly as stupid a license grant."

Aeonix Aeon (Will Burns in real life) also commented on the matter. In his article, he compared it to the owners of a warehouse where publishers go to store their books claiming equal rights to the contents. The slogan "Your World ,Your Imagination" he felt no longer accurately applied to Second Life. So what was going on? Aeonix could only guess, but he had some ideas, "in most technology companies, there is a very high expectation of (an) Exit Strategy from investors, and your subsequent board of directors." And the "end game" is usually either public offering and stock (like Facebook) or acquisition, being bought by a bigger company (like Tumblr). In the case of Second Life however, it wasn't large enough to offer stock, and not bringing in enough bucks to attract a buyer.

Aeonix's article seemed to express the opinion Linden Lab was beginning to move away from Second Life, " … unfortunately Rodvik does not comprehend Second Life as much as he insist he does. … Desura is the content distribution platform for games because Linden Lab doesn't think that Second Life is that platform. Therefore, Desura is your replacement. Rodvik, for all his Pedigree, is thinking like an EA Games executive."

... your content isn’t of use to a AAA developer but it’s a goldmine to indie game developers. If Linden Lab refuses to “work within the system”,  they are going outside of it to a place you have no control over and can’t compete with them at. Linden Lab cannot compete with the community in Second Life on their own terms, even when arbitrarily poaching everything you are already offering and have been for ten years. So if they can’t win in Second Life, they’ll just change the game to something they have the complete control over and you have no manner to compete with.

If you believe that the assets in Second Life aren’t worth anything to Linden Lab, then guess again. Figures in the industry would say that an estimated $1.5 billion dollars each year is spent on virtual goods, and while you may believe that only applies to in-world transactions, this can just as easily be applied to those same assets outside of the Second Life ecosystem. People will pay good money for all the stuff you’ve created, and if they wouldn’t than most of you would never be setting up shop in Second Life to begin with.

Just moving to other virtual worlds wasn't an effective solution, Aeonix reasoned, as the Lab would still have the content, and a mass exodus would simply speed up their plans. A letter writing campaign might not do much good, "We all know how much the Lindens tend to converse with the community these days …" So what would get their attention? A class action lawsuit.

Ironic that a TOS that was likely written to avoid such legal issues would instead raise a veritable legal-storm of apocalyptic proportions. But it wouldn’t be just a lawsuit on behalf of the content creators alone in Second Life, but one that encompassed all of the third party content services like CGSociety and Renderosity. It would include the bigger names as well, vouching that their content which entered into the system under limited license has been misappropriated and revoked without their consent or authorization. Under no uncertain terms can the licensing for content have the terms changed or stripped retroactively by Linden Lab for personal or commercial gains, immediate or potential, as defined by the new TOS clauses.

Aeonix and I later talked. He stated, "I'm just taking educated guesses. (I) Don't want people thinking I'm calling for Linden Lab to be burnt to the ground or anything. Just looking at all angles and possibilities." Later on, he would write again about what he called a "Migration Solution."

What if Kitely could automate the validation of receipts from #SecondLife  to carry over the content to pre-existing customers in a usage transfer? That way whatever I've bought in SL from content creators, if the content creator moves their stuff out of SL into Kitely and Hypergrid, I could validate the same pre-existing purchases over there and reclaim the inventories for HyperGrid and Kitely without making people repurchase the items they already have bought. This would create a massive incentive to move over everything and leave SL without creating the situation of nullifying content with refunds in SL - so the content creators aren't in a hostage situation and the people who bought those items won't lose them entirely and would be able to reclaim them in Hypergrid as an automatic voucher without having to repurchase the items. This would flood Hypergrid and Kitely with content and an incentive for users to migrate over outside of SL.

In the meantime, the controversy continues, with no sign of Linden Lab backing down.

Sources: Living Virtually, New World Notes, Andromeda 

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Relay For Life – Fashion For Life

DrFran Babcock took a look at the first big event in the Relay For Life following the Kickoff, the Fashion For Life. DrFran found much to like and admire, such as the detail of the builds of the Seven Wonders of the World. Unfortunately, there was also much to dislike, notably that in this charity event not everything was being sold with the proceeds going to the Relay.

Read DrFran's editorial in Events.

Linden Lab Survey at the SL9B

Linden Lab never took part in the SL9B festivities, but is apparently interested in seeing what the residents liked about it and what they didn't. The link was in: https://my.secondlife.com/second.life .

Did you attend SL9B this year? If so, take this short survey and tell us about your experience! http://bit.ly/N56GWZ .

The SL9B blog commented, "Some of the questions do seem to reference the SL9B 20-sim Community Event, but many of them can be applied to other events if you want to comment on those (it might be worth specifying which event you are referring to in the comments!)"

The SL9B blog had it's own survey as well, which you can find Here.

Opinion: Why Second Life Isn't Going Away (and Why It Doesn't Appeal to Everyone)

Some of you may remember CNN iReporter Any1 Gynoid's article predicting Second Life's doom last month. Marx Dudex recently wrote an opinion piece in response to the "doomsayers." Marx commented that there was reason to feel pessimism for the past couple years, cluelessness at the Lab, talk of Second Life being sold, some noteable departures from the Grid, etc. But he feels more confident about the future, signs including a CEO who actually uses the virtual world, and a number of disgruntled residents who left coming back.

Why haven't the alternative virtual worlds been able to draw more people from Second Life. One reason Marx felt was the small market of goods available to buy. There weren't enough to convince many to stay. Then there was that Second Life had emerged as "McDonalds" of virtual world with no one else coming close. Timing also had part to do with it's success, he felt ...


Second Life came into being in the waning years of the dot-com bubble, and I think that it will be quite a few years yet before we see the advances in technology and new ideas that could bring about another such ‘goldrush’, if ever. Second Life came along at just the right time. It doesn’t necessarily matter that it did not become the game-changing ‘killer app’ that many had hoped.


I share Marx's optimism about the Grid's future. Although the sim closings still going on are sad, things are looking up compared to 2010. Although I know a few people who invested in Avination and Inworldz, they never really left Second Life but logged onto both worlds. One will probably still keep his casino in Avination due to his love of gaming and gambling, but he still comes back to the "Mother Grid" regularly.

And why hasn't Second Life caught on with the public to the extent World of Warcraft and Facebook have? Many have put the blame on the Grid's learning curve for new residents. But Marx saw it as more than that, "Second Life requires an investment of time, dedication, and most of all, imagination." The Grid's "core membership" he felt were more imaginative, and broad-minded, than the general public.

Marx hits the nail on the head here in my opinion. MORPGs such as World of Warcraft, while often flexible, offer pretty simple goals compared to Second Life. Go on quests, whomp the bad guys, maybe raise your crafting skills on the side, pretty simple. Second Life on the other hand is a blank slate ready to be drawn on, or in Marx's words, it "provides the canvas for our imaginations." Not exactly the ideal place for an intellectual couch potato, those who look for easy entertainment in which they don't have to think too hard. With Second Life, either you find your entertainment, or at least know someone who can find it.

Of Linden Lab on its way to shifting focus to other products, Marx felt that at most there would be fewer performance improvements and bug fixes to the Grid, but they would still continue. He saw two possible outcomes. Either Linden Lab would make something that would finally catch on with the public and Second Life could ride it's way of popularity, or the products would fail and the Lab would fall back to it's mainstay. This is something I've written about before. As a company, diversifying into multiple products is better business sense for it. And one doesn't just up and abandon the product that got you going, especially if it remains profitable.

Despite some rough times in the past, Second Life will not only survive in the years ahead, but thrive. And that's something we both, and others, agree on.

Source: Inworld

Bixyl Shuftan

Opinion: A Look at What Went Wrong With Mesh

Okay, I should have written about this a long time ago, but better late than never.

In Daniel Voyager’s Blog, the launching of Mesh in Second Life was listed at the top of his list of biggest news stories in Second Life for 2011. While certainly an important development, just how big an impact did it have for the average resident

In my opinion, Mesh has been much less important to Second Life than the earlier hype implied. Compared to earlier major updates such as Voice and Windlight, it has been much less important. Blogger Tateru Nino expressed similar views, “the new Mesh content type has had less impact on the Second Life grid than any other new content type that I can recall. In fact, it seems statistically insignificant.”

I haven’t written much about Mesh. This is mainly because Mesh was designed for use by Viewer 2 and 3. My computer cannot use those, as well as the Firestorm third-party viewer which is based on Viewer 2 technology. The viewers I’ve used, mainly Singularity to cut down on lag, have been unable to see Mesh objects as anything but distorted shapes. I once saw a mesh avatar, and to me it looked like a head next to a huge pillow. While Team Phoenix has been working on a mesh-compatible Phoenix Viewer, 1.6.0, I have yet to see anything Mesh. When I tried the Mesh-compatible Phoenix, it kept crashing.

I’m not exactly alone. Someone once stated 90% of Second Life residents are still using either the old Viewer 1.23, or third party viewers. This might be an exaggeration, and doesn’t take into account Firestorm and it’s use of Viewer 2 technology, but this shows the main reason Mesh hasn’t had the impact on the Grid that was earlier predicted: most people are not using the viewers that can see it. Naturally, this would discourage people from building and buying mesh objects.

Another problem is what builder Lomgren Smalls called “Prim Equivalency.” Mesh was touted as making builds that were a more efficient use of computer power. One lady tried making a tree using mesh, and it ended up the Prim Equivalent of 500 prims! Loki Eliot also had a few words on the matter:

“Mesh on the other hand is a weird creature compared to the familiar prim. It does not have a set shape, does not have a set numerical count. You rez a mesh and the viewer tries to calculate a Prim Equivalence (PE) so it can conform to the current system and this PE is effected by a number of factors - Size, Physical Weight, Number of Textures or whether it has a script inside. If you Link two Mesh together the PE may increase or decrease depending on factors of the linked mesh. If you link a normal PRIM to a mesh, it may not even seem to count towards the Mesh's PE.”

“A Mesh Objects PE is not set in stone either. You could have an object made with 5 Prims and have a Mesh version that comes in at 4 PE, if you enlarge the Mesh version by a metre or so, it's PE could jump to 8 PE. The Bigger your mesh the more PE it costs. It's a bit confusing and really kills off mesh for large scale use not to mention griefing potential of an object that takes up prim count when enlarging.”

Although Mesh objects can still have a much smaller Physical Weight than their prim counterparts, Prim Equivalency is another reason most builders are sticking with prims.

Then came another issue, one that sank the hearts of many of those who looked forward to Mesh clothing. Mesh outfits will sometimes be a poor fit with one’s avatar, unless one adjusts the shape to fit it.

Vaki Zenovka had a few words on the matter, “mesh opens up a very significant can of worms that Second Life had never really opened before: that of body image. SL always allowed us to create, within certain limitations, the body that we wanted. We could be slender, youthful, and girlish. We could be stacked, sexy, sensual. We could be wiry, androgynous, angular. We could be voluptuous, curvy, womanly. Men, too: from skinny youths to muscular manly-men to pot-bellied bears, SL allows an amazing range of shapes…and that’s just the humans.”

“here’s the mesh problem: so many of us have struggled for years in real life with our body images, for whatever reason. So many of us dread the chore of going shopping for clothes and wading through options that don’t fit, or hang funny, or gap in places they shouldn’t gap. We hate it because society makes clothes for an ideal shape which is not our own. We hate it because it reminds us that our bodies are not easily mutable, and we cannot change the things about us that feel, for whatever reason, alien.”

For some, the Mesh upgrade has meant an uncomfortable detail of real life has crept into Second Life. That is, unless Mesh clothing is not considered an option.

By all means, Mesh is still a useful feature. If nothing else, it's shown the promise for new and better graphics. As some such as Pooky Amsterdam have demonstrated, the detail it allows makes for some great Machinina effects when everything works well. Unfortunately for use by the masses, it still needs work. And because of the bias of many residents against newer official viewers, it will need the assistance of third party viewers to reach the majority.

Bixyl Shuftan