maximiliancb Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Dear all, I'm in my final year of my undergraduate degree in politics, and i'm writing my dissertation on the use of MMORPGs as decision making tools. Second Life is of course one of the big games of this type, and is really interesting to me. However, I have never played it before and, though I grasp the basic outline, I don't know it in detail. As such I am looking for someone with a lot of experience with the game to explain the mechanics of certain features.The aim of my dissertation is to examine how much like real life these games are, and if so, can they be used to predict how people in the real world will respond to certain events. I havent settled on all the aspects I want to examine yet, though I know the first is Auctions. In short, what I'm asking for is someone who knows the system well, and that I can ask a few questions of, when I have the questions ready. I'm a student, and have nothing really to give in return except copious thanks, sorry 'bout that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Jetaime Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Do you plan on actually coming into SL and making observations and doing part of the work yourself or are you going to strictly rely on asking people questions about it? I don't see any indication that you have created an avatar yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximiliancb Posted April 12, 2012 Author Share Posted April 12, 2012 In my experience on another game (WoW) it's easy to grasp the basics, but to find out the intricacies of how the system works takes a long time. This isn't the only game I'll be using in the dissertation, the minimum will be 3, at the moment that is WoW, Eve Online and Second Life. The areas I will want to know about will be very specific, auctions for sure then possibly conflict between groups and something to the effect of player managed groups (guilds, businesses and the like). I'm not asking someone to write this for me, the most part would be pretty basic questions, I'm just prepared that it may take some explaining. For example in WoW there are particular aspects of the game that I wouldnt guess existed unless I was well acquainted with the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janelle Darkstone Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 From personal experience, I can tell you that if you throw a bunch of humans, orcs, elves, trolls, gnomes, goblins and space goats to fight over a tiny island with a ruined prison complex every two hours, the results will never be pretty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Muni Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 maximiliancb wrote: ... the most part would be pretty basic questions ... You can ask that questions in this thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterCanessa Oh Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 SL is going to suprise you. For a start it isn't a game and secondly it doesn't have "rules" or basic operations (apart from how to use the interface and ownership of land). It has people (avatars), money (L$, which can be bought with and sold for real money), things (objects) and land (contiguous areas in the horizontal plane). Everything else is up to the residents and any resident (with the land) can do and make anything they want. The only official auctions are Linden Lab land auctions, although any resident may decide to auction or otherwise sell anything any time they like. Land-owners are the ultimate and only power in the world, subject to Linden Lab's Terms Of Service. As such the only conflict between groups is with griefers (criminals, social-inadequates, the mentally ill) and everyone else. You may get some mileage from supposed 'security' groups set-up in response to griefers but generally considered worse than the disease*. ALL groups are player-managed, as are all businesses. Neither has any power nor responsibility except in the ownership of land. [*Which reminds me, I was supposed to pay a visit to one such group so they could show me how good, considerate and useful they are. My mistake for the ommission] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximiliancb Posted April 12, 2012 Author Share Posted April 12, 2012 This sounds fantastic. The auction part sounds good, is there any central system where people can be made aware of auctions that are not Linden Lab ones? do Auctioneers pay money to the Auction house and if so, what is it used for? There is one thing that I noticed in WoW, which is that sometimes money gets 'burnt', that is, its given back to the game, and record of it is lost. Examples from WoW are NPC vendors, they have no personal bank, they will always sell certain goods, and will always take money from you, but it is never reintroduced into the system. Same thing in the Auction house, a fee is taken from the Auctioner, but that money simply vanishes from the system. Also, your point about griefers gave me my third dimension for examination, internal conflict. You say there are security firms that are worse than the problem itself, which implies two things, one that it is possible to respond to internal conflict, but that this is inadequate/ an adequate form has not yet been found. Land seems a bit odd, I take it it is all owned by Linden Labs up until it is bought from them, and that it is all useful for some purpouse (no **bleep**ty useless desert, for example). Also there is no maximum, there is as much land as there is desire for land? how about businesses, how are the resources gained to be made into a salable product? I have gathered that characters can fly, so the process of resource gathering is going to be a bit of a departure from reality. I'm getting the impression that SL is very good at enabling people to organise themselves as freely as possible, but this is in a sort of bubble, in which the repetative, worky bits are avoided. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namssab1nad Piers Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 As was mentioned before, perhaps you should get up off your lazy butt, make an avitar, and enter Second Life. By the way, it is not a game per se. It is a platform supplied by Linden Labs in which the residents make their own worlds. All subject to TOS of course. So get off the sidelines. You will not learn anything there that you can trust will be accurate and therefore usable in your dissertation. Who knows, you just might like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterCanessa Oh Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 maximiliancb wrote: ...is there any central system where people can be made aware of auctions that are not Linden Lab ones? No. There are NO 'central system's in SL, more or less. Land can be advertised for sale or rent in these forums, look at the land category ^^: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Land-Forum/ct-p/LandForum ...do Auctioneers pay money to the Auction house and if so, what is it used for? That's entirely up to the auctioneers, who are ordinary residents, and whoever runs the 'auction house', also ordinary residents. If any said residents decided to use an auction house instead of eBay, twitter or shaven-headed runners ... since it is all up to individual residents. Since the auction house, if any, would be run by residents I assume they would want to spend the money elsewhere in SL or withdraw it to their real-life bank accounts. There are no NPCs in SL, except in as much as objects may be created (by ordinary residents) to resemble 'characters'. These are all owned (by ordinary residents), however, and paying them would send the money directly to their owner. Also, your point about griefers gave me my third dimension for examination, internal conflict. You say there are security firms that are worse than the problem itself, which implies two things, one that it is possible to respond to internal conflict, but that this is inadequate/ an adequate form has not yet been found. [Don't get me started] To be very brief about a very contentious issue - although you might want to focus more on it for your paper - land-owners are the ONLY ones in SL, on their land, with any 'powers'. They may delegate these to other people for use as assistants or whatever, on their land. The 'security firms' are anything from hired organisations to self-appointed vigilante groups. You really need to get a representative of the other viewpoint here but it is the latter, vigilante, groups that have gained the whole area a bad reputation. In effect they use exactly the same in-world harrassment, real-world hacking and libel/breach of privacy tactics that the griefers do. Judicious use of land-owners powers and Linden Lab's abuse-reporting is all the is required. Land seems a bit odd, I take it it is all owned by Linden Labs up until it is bought from them, and that it is all useful for some purpouse (no **bleep**ty useless desert, for example). Also there is no maximum, there is as much land as there is desire for land? how about businesses, how are the resources gained to be made into a salable product? I have gathered that characters can fly, so the process of resource gathering is going to be a bit of a departure from reality. Land is the ONLY limited resource in SL. Yes, LL own it all. The purchase and rental of land is a bit complicated but boils down to - the more land you want the more rent you pay LL every month. It nearly all seems to be prime beach-front property although it can be anything ... almost entirely up to the resident that owns it. Whoever does own it can put anything they want in the area, from 0m to some 7000m altitude, and this is where land has its use ... every object in the world is measured by the number of 'prims' (primitive shapes) required to make it. An area of land only supports/allows a certain number of prims in the area. So if you want to have more objects or some more complicated objects, you need to have (and pay for) more land. There is no resource-gathering. Any resident can create unlimited prims: right-click, select 'build' from the pop-up menu, left-click on the ground. BUT, the trick is - you need the land to have somewhere to put that prim, and all the other prims you join to it to make your dream house/boat/car/ fantasy world. SL is not a game. It is a virtual-world in which anyone can create anything they want at any time, without cost. If you want to have things permanently in-world you will need sufficient land for it though. Now, apart from making 3D things from prims, with 3 mouse-clicks you can also twist and shape them, texture (put pictures on) them, colour them, script (program) them, import sound effects, etc. You may also make animations, clothes and body parts (skin, eyes, etc) for avatars. More clothes are worn-objects, made the same way as any other object. Everything (with a few exceptions) in SL is made by ordinary residents, exactly how those residents wanted to make them, for no other reason that they wanted to make that thing that way. If they then feel like selling that thing, or copies, they are free to do so. Any way they want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake1 Nightfire Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Auctions? What auctions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake1 Nightfire Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 SecondLife is not a MMORPG.. not even close. nor is it classified as one in Wikipedias list of MMOPRGs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Muni Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 maximiliancb, many of your questions are answered in the offcial Knowledge Base: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/tkb-p/English_KB%40tkb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarissa Lowell Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 Why don't you just ask questions here? We recently found out that survey takers post here so they can get email addresses and other information and do some damage. Phishing expeditions. Now we know why there are so many survey topics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeanneAnne Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 maximiliancb wrote: Dear all, I'm in my final year of my undergraduate degree in politics, and i'm writing my dissertation on the use of MMORPGs as decision making tools. Second Life is of course one of the big games of this type, and is really interesting to me. However, I have never played it before and, though I grasp the basic outline, I don't know it in detail. As such I am looking for someone with a lot of experience with the game to explain the mechanics of certain features. The aim of my dissertation is to examine how much like real life these games are, and if so, can they be used to predict how people in the real world will respond to certain events. I havent settled on all the aspects I want to examine yet, though I know the first is Auctions. In short, what I'm asking for is someone who knows the system well, and that I can ask a few questions of, when I have the questions ready. I'm a student, and have nothing really to give in return except copious thanks, sorry 'bout that. why dont you just read Boellstorffs book ?? he already covered all the stuff youre interested in Jeanne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximiliancb Posted April 17, 2012 Author Share Posted April 17, 2012 Hey all, thanks so much for the input, its been really useful, and I am relatively confident of the information I have. I would like to put down what I have got, and if you so chose, you could correct what errors I have made. Auctions- The only central auctions are Linden Land auctions, which comes from a limitless supply of prime property, for this you require a premium, paid-for account. Other auctions may be arranged at the disgression of players with goods to sell, there is however no central catalogue for them to list this auction. Players may set up auction houses that other players may use to auction whatever goods they wish, and according to the will of the auction house owner, they may or may not charge a fee. Conflict- There are no factions in game, but conflict may still arise through 'griefers' players who cause damage for the fun of it, who do not stand to gain out of it. The response to this is security firms which may be hired to defend against griefers (clarfication on how this works would be appreciated, I'm assuming they can't just smack them and advise that they leave). Some vigilante security forces exist, these are almost as much of a liability as the griefers due to imperfect knowledge and a tendency to act first and ask questions later. Copyright and authorship- SL was the first virtual world to grant full authors rights to its players, and the goods are freely tradeable both in game and out of it. It has not yet faced the debate over whether any limit of access to a players property (banning, lost data) counts for loss of income, which they would be accountable for. (you laugh, its already happened in South Korea and China) Thanks a lot for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Muni Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 - Auctions: http://usd.auctions.secondlife.com/ - Copyright: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php#tos7 More in the Knowledge Base, in the SL web ... and knowing the SL world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterCanessa Oh Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 You're broadly correct, although most of what you've written seems very strange from an SL perspective. Irene's advice is good as always. You're still stressing "auctions" too much for SL though - such a thing really has no meaning or exisence in SL, except as some residents might organise one. Trading is usually through in-world shops, LL's ecommerce marketplace or other web-sites. If you haven't seen the marketplace you're missing a huge amount of stuff (millions of different items or more, apparently) that would give you some idea of the range of things people make and sell in SL. "There are no factionsin game" because it's not a game! There are games within SL and some of those have factions. Participating in such is just another opportunity residents may or may not follow. Trying to explain SL in terms of 'a game' is like trying to explain the internet in terms of ' a book' or Hollywood in terms of 'a film'. You need to go one abstraction-level higher. SL is a platform, using it people can make games, auctions, shops, friends, music, babies or whatever else they can come up with. There have been a number of court cases regarding SL's virtual goods and currency. Most tax jurisdictions have also considered the question of whether money made in SL is 'income' (and decided that whether it is worth anything or not everyone should give them some of it). Paragraph 11 of the TOS gives LL's position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximiliancb Posted April 17, 2012 Author Share Posted April 17, 2012 I'm comparing these virtual worlds with predictions made in game theory, in which game means any form of human interaction, and that keeps slipping into what I type, sorry. So auctions are possible, but not widely practiced or popular? is there a reason for this? in terms of benefit for a supplier they ensure the absolute maximum a crowd is willing to pay, instead of a competitive market price, this is of value if the item you are selling posesses unique qualities (property, livestock, antiques in the real world) but doesn't make sense if the item is easily replicated. Does this mean that the absence of interest in auctions is because items are generally easy to replicate, or simply because noone has succeeded in drawing a great enough crowd to one yet, or am I missing the point somewhat? Thanks agains for your continued help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morgaine Christensen Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 ROFLMAO...if you really think you are confident from these short answers and not exploring the world yourself, perhaps you need to supply us with the name of the head of your dissertation committee so we can speak to them directly about your suppositions you are presenting for your dissertation. You are so far off the mark comparing apples to oranges it is not even funny. If they accept and pass your dissertation, drawing on conclusions from this brief exploration, the degree can't be worth the paper it is written on. You simply cannot compare WOW and Second Life with any accuracy nor, can you draw conclusion and make predictions with any accuracy. If you do, you are very irresponsible. Also, you are not be taking into account age ranges, global and culteral diversity, gender diversity, etc you will find in SL, but not in WOW. WOW is server and region selective...i.e while I can interact with people from around the world in SL....I am restricted from doing so in WOW. WOW, while it does have older players and females playing, genereally is filled with the under 20 male crowd. You don't even have the terminology straight. SL DOES NOT have auctions unless it is for land...Even then...you can buy land and never have to deal with an auction. In fact, you don't even need to own land in SL, it can be rented. Also, SL "vendors" are real people and not NPC...there is no "pre-made product to sell" like WOW vendors that have a set buy/sell price. We have a viable real world economy, more or less, where people actually make/lose real money in the market place. Not like the Gold Farmers in WOW...it actually takes some thought, some skills to make product to sell and market. Also, you need to get your facts straight...you cannot necessarily "freely trade" created objects outside of SL...that is covered by each creator's licensure of their product. It is also a real world DMCA violation that has real world consequences. You are confusing a static game (WOW) with a social networking type environment (SL). As far as you know there are no factions in SL, you obviously are stuck on WOW's self imposed mentality of "good vs evil" notion of Horde vs. Alliance (Yeah, I play WOW...HORDE RULES...and also a long time SLer with in-depth knowledge of both environments...AND, I have a statistical research background). There are multitudes of conflict each and every day on personal and some group levels...which is way different than your supposition of griefers. You are taking short cuts and being lazy. And, you definately are not much of a researcher nor, do you have a clue what you speak of. Good Lord, what are they teaching in colleges and universities these days! Guess I need to make a few phone calls. LOL...it is a good thing I am not on your dissertation committee...you would fail so fast your head would spin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Muni Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 Morgaine Christensen wrote: ROFLMAO...if you really think you are confident from these short answers and not exploring the world yourself, perhaps you need to supply us with the name of the head of your dissertation committee so we can speak to them directly about your suppositions you are presenting for your dissertation. You are so far off the mark comparing apples to oranges it is not even funny. If they accept and pass your dissertation drawing on conclusions from this brief exploration, the degree can't be worth the paper it is written on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximiliancb Posted April 17, 2012 Author Share Posted April 17, 2012 I suppose i brought this on myself. I have not explained what my dissertation is, how you became so confident about the content of my dissertation I'm unsure. It is not a comparison of SL and WoW at all, infact the two were chosen because of their differences. And I apologise in advice for the resulting blood pressure spike, I'm looking at Eve Online too. If you're interested, the dissertation is comparing all three of these games to the predictions made by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita based on game theory, with the intent of identifying all obstacles that would prevent virtual worlds from making predictions of similar quality. That established, I guess we can skip your points on the incomparability of the two games. You say SL doesn't have auctions, which is true, but that is different from can't have auctions, it is possible but not practiced, why? I'm not taking short cuts, nor being lazy, I do however lack the time and money to play on 3 different virtual worlds. I've read what information is available on this site, and there are gaps, gaps which other users are being very helpful in filling. In response to your last point, true, you are not on my dissertation comittee, and as far as I'm aware, neither is anyone who begins texts with ROFLMAO. In short, I'm surprised your researcher background didnt kick in when you launched into your rant with next to zero idea what it is you're ranting about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morgaine Christensen Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 I am not going to argue with you. You seem to have all the answers. But, SL is FREE to download and access. Give it a try it might surprise you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterCanessa Oh Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 @ Morgaine - to be fair(ish) most of what he's saying comes from what I've told him here, so my failure to explain. To be totally fair - my comments posted here hardly constitute detailed research into SL ^^ @ OP ... Yes, auctions are perfectly possible but rarely used. Rare to the extent that I haven't really thought about them at all, so here are some SL reasons against them: Scripts (programs) require programming skill and experience, other content-creation requires other real-life creative skills; graphic and fashion design, animation, musical composition, etc. etc. Any creation worth selling will also require a considerable investment of time. Copying is more or less just a copy-paste for the creator even if an item is the result of weeks or months of work. The 'value' to a potential purchaser is therefore the investment to aquire and apply the skills they would require in order to replicate an item. To the creator of the item the cost of making duplicates is nil. The marketplace (LL ecommerce) allows any resident to put anything they own for sale at any price and for no up-front fee (there is a commission). Copies are usually (automatically made and) sold, not originals. It is therefore simple for any resident to market any product to everyone else, 24/7*. Vendor scripts (eg; programs to turn an object into a vending-machine) and the built-in 'for sale' setting makes it similarly easy to sell items, and copies of items, from in-world shops, without human attendance. Advertising for a specific, timed, event such as an auction is not easy or necessarily free. By holding an auction at a specific time it precludes everyone not in that timezone. Holding an auction over several days would be possible but I don't know of any in-world examples. I think people would just run it via a web-site. Which brings us to ... eBay exists. If I want to auction something I'd think of them first [*People who know the marketplace's recent reliability record will be screaming] PS: Unlike Wow or Eve SL can be entirely free. I have earnt more L$ than I need in SL (by selling scripts, mostly commissioned work, some repeat sales) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximiliancb Posted April 17, 2012 Author Share Posted April 17, 2012 Thats excellent, just the information I need. Thanks yet again for putting up with my constant questions. For what its worth, I will be joining SL once I've finished university, it sounds fantastic as is, and of equal importance, it seems to be constantly developing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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