Paul Hexem Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Innula Zenovka wrote: I'm not sure I understand the question, because I don't really understand what you mean by, "producing content just for that audience". Why would my business partner and I want to switch from making content we enjoy making for markets we understand (and from which, in SL terms, we do pretty well) to something with which we're unfamilar and don't find particularly interesting? I mean, if these GP sims want bdsm or vampire stuff, we'll happily supply it, and if we see potential there for something we think it would be fun to make, we'll go for it, but we're not going to get into weapons making, or building NPCs with pathfinding just for the sake of it, any more than we got into breedables, lucrative though obviously they are. Are you saying that the weapons and combat system makers will decide to ditch what they're doing, abandon their existing markets and make stuff specifically designed for some new form of content? Steam will bring gamers into SL. So anyone that sells things like guns and NPCs that take damage is going to see boosts in sales. Someone making beds and skirts isn't going to see that. So you'll definitely see creators push new content (or update their existing content) to try to cash in on the new crowd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innula Zenovka Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Time will tell, I guess. Personally, I can't see people like DCS or the various Gor combat systems taking their eye off the main ball, though they may diversify I guess. I just don't, though, see it having a direct effect on non-RP (specifically, non-combat RP) sims or creators. Maybe clothes and hair makers will start doing more medieval and fantasy stuff, but I'd have thought people would be making that anyway, if they wanted to. I've given up predicting what's going to happen as a result of changes in SL. LL certainly didn't expect mesh to be of such great interest to clothes makers, and I'm sure they didn't see Petites as being one of the main (and very lucrative) outcomes. Similarly, I'm sure they didn't think -- or at least plan -- that one of the main impacts of Pathfinding would be to make mesh more attractive as a building medium because of the changes to the LI accounting. And meanwhile, while I've had a bit of a play with keyframed movement, and can think of a few things I might use it for if the need arises, it's made no difference to me. I just don't see why an influx of gamers should make any of the successful RP groups of sims -- Gor, Bloodlines, the various sci-fi ones -- change what they're doing more than they feel like, and I can't see what effect it's going to have on Caledon or whatever. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think people won't want to lose their existing customer base they've built doing stuff they enjoy doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innula Zenovka Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Gadget Portal wrote: Steam will bring gamers into SL. So anyone that sells things like guns and NPCs that take damage is going to see boosts in sales. Someone making beds and skirts isn't going to see that. So you'll definitely see creators push new content (or update their existing content) to try to cash in on the new crowd. I honestly don't see many people who're successful in making beds and skirts dropping their existing lines in order to do something completely different simply because there's a market for it. And that's particularly the case since the gamers, or some of them, will presumably want clothes to wear while they're off questing, and some of them may even want beds if they manage to get their companions out of their clothes during the apres quest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 See, the problem, with thinking Steam people will like SL, is that all games that they play are optimized for speed. A real gamer will walk into SL, see massive lag, from all the sculpty wearers, texture abuse, and sculpty builds, and turn right around and uninstall SL. If we are lucky, we'll get just enough people to cancel out all the people leaving SL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Gadget Portal wrote: Innula Zenovka wrote: I'm not sure I understand the question, because I don't really understand what you mean by, "producing content just for that audience". Why would my business partner and I want to switch from making content we enjoy making for markets we understand (and from which, in SL terms, we do pretty well) to something with which we're unfamilar and don't find particularly interesting? I mean, if these GP sims want bdsm or vampire stuff, we'll happily supply it, and if we see potential there for something we think it would be fun to make, we'll go for it, but we're not going to get into weapons making, or building NPCs with pathfinding just for the sake of it, any more than we got into breedables, lucrative though obviously they are. Are you saying that the weapons and combat system makers will decide to ditch what they're doing, abandon their existing markets and make stuff specifically designed for some new form of content? Steam will bring gamers into SL. So anyone that sells things like guns and NPCs that take damage is going to see boosts in sales. Someone making beds and skirts isn't going to see that. So you'll definitely see creators push new content (or update their existing content) to try to cash in on the new crowd. Sounds good to me. I just released a full perm set of gun animations. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 I've never heard of Steam (when I first saw the title I thought it was referring to the Steampunk community in SL...lol). As I stated on another thread elsewhere, it irks me that LL keeps introducing new "shinies" instead of working on existing issues. I'm pretty much "meh" about it. (And this coming from a gamer...but old school as in EQ/WoW.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Amethyst Jetaime wrote: I hope you're right. The SL economy could sure use a shot in the arm if the players coming in are willing to spend money. Certainly this hasn't been the case lately as most newer people I run into now days seem to think everything shoud be free or so cheap it is hardly worth the creators time to make things. I've run into this as well, Amethyst. I was seeing someone for awhile who has been in SL for two years and, based on his avatar and conversation, has never put a dime into SL. His gifts to me were even from the Freebie Dungeon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Bittersweet Lime wrote: True as well. My experience in the gamer community is, that SL is well known, but most think, it is dead since long. Most of the people I've spoken with in the gamer community have either never heard of SL or say, "Oh yeah, I tried that game once; didn't like it." For awhile I was trying to encourage a few of my friends to come give it a try and meet them in world. They did and still left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 It will help, maybe not enough for all merchants to survive the crisis, but anything LL does to promote their world is better then keeping silent. I really don't care that it might bring in people who have different expectations. When I first arrived in SL I came with a game mindset as well. And I had no clue where to start, trying to get stronger, trying to get money, getting to know the right people, finding a home, or learning how to make things. But soon enough I met people, and I talked to them in my attempt to find out how to play 'this world'. And they learned me everything what a newbie needs to know: how to travel around, how to use IM, where to go for freebies and how to make money by camping or dancing in a club. In I simply forgot my expectations that came from gaming experience, because this whole concept where you set your own goals seemed much more interesting to me, then playing around in a preprogrammed world. Above that I was highly fascinated by the idea this world was completely made and owned by it's residents. To me this seemed the place where the collective fantasy took place, all with all a place to be. Virtual wolds will never appeal to the masses who are looking for easy amusement. Freedom is not the easiest toy to play around with. You must be willing to take initiative and make your own meaning. I'm convinced that there are still millions of people who will enjoy SL, and have the potental to become a loyal resident. Some of them will be hanging around in the gaming community, some of them will be playing farmville sort of games, some of them will have no gaming experience at all, and some of them have even never touch a computer for their fun. But I see nowadays is the threshold to become a participant in the economy much higher then five, six years back when we had camping all around. When it was easy to get some startmoney by camping, almost every new resident did get involved in the economy. That stopped when LL banned camping. There is less money coming in the economy, but the supply of goods continues to increase. The more goods available, the harder it will be to get your product seen by potential buyers. So the profit per product will decrease for every merchant. We definitely need a lot of people with empty inventories around to keep this pyramid economy working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dilbert Dilweg Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 I dont know. I think it could work out for the best. I stated in another post, that when Sl targeted Facebook users, it basically wasn't ideal for the type of users who use high end gaming machines. They were more like Notebook tinkerers, phones, laptops etc. As others have said, hardcore gamers have higher expectations. I think it makes sense targeting steam users because a lot of gamers on there take their gaming seriously, and spend a lot of money on their machines to be the best and fastest. So, there is going to be a large amount of users who have powerful machines. Enough to push SL, and will more than likely enjoy it more than a person using a laptop would, like FB users. If they experience less issues, then they are more than likely to come back more often. It could bring more money to Sl because they have more of it to spend on their machines to be the best lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bittersweet Lime Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Josh, you misinterpreted my numbers - I said if 10% try it out and 5% OF THEM stay - this mean 0.5% of the steam users, so my estimation is even more conservative than yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bittersweet Lime Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Hm, I guess that is because I have mainly contact to gamers, who are active in MMO forums and there it is well known, even like you pointed out, most do not get what SL is all about. IMO the whole way new residents make their first experience in SL is wrong and makes them not even try to leave welcome island but quit right out from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoebe Avro Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 This will be a total waste of time, if LL don't improve the new user experience inc the welcome areas they are awful I once offered to build a themed low lag fantastic looking welome area for LL free via another forum that I know some high up Lindens visit often but my offer was never taken up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bittersweet Lime Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 My personal estimation of the active permanent average user base of SL is 1.5 million residents, where 2/3 of them pretty much never participate in the economy and most of the rest pay for the whole show. That is why I think, that if steam would bring in 200,000 new residents, who would stay, this would just make for about 60-70,000 new residents, who at least participate in the economy. But this does not mean that those are all shopaholics. So I guess, the impact of steam will be low and in the range of maybe 10% more L$ spent. Edit: And this I base on a sign up of 4 million new residents through steam - so the impact will not be high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Rather than retype the whole thing .. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Forced-to-close-down/m-p/1639623#M26198 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bittersweet Lime Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Well, put Darrius. I agree with that. It is hard to get new users to sign up AND stay, if the whole point of SL is not getting through to them. And those who come now are not the early adopter type, which is likely to deal with short-comings and make the best out of it. What comes now, are more and more the consumer type with a high expectation to service quality. And this is just not given right from the very start. They might find it later, in the high quality themed sims and the fabulous fashion and creations in SL - those are amazing, no doubt - but a new user must first get a chance to find those. But what does he get when he comes in?- An unfinished body, which looks awful compared to any other modern MMO and he might just think "well, this is crap" and leave right away to never give it a second try and tell everywhere when asked about SL "well, I tried it and did not like it". The first user experience is bad with an even more worse default client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Madeliefste Oh wrote: It will help, maybe not enough for all merchants to survive the crisis, but anything LL does to promote their world is better then keeping silent. I really don't care that it might bring in people who have different expectations. When I first arrived in SL I came with a game mindset as well. And I had no clue where to start, trying to get stronger, trying to get money, getting to know the right people, finding a home, or learning how to make things. But soon enough I met people, and I talked to them in my attempt to find out how to play 'this world'. And they learned me everything what a newbie needs to know: how to travel around, how to use IM, where to go for freebies and how to make money by camping or dancing in a club. In I simply forgot my expectations that came from gaming experience, because this whole concept where you set your own goals seemed much more interesting to me, then playing around in a preprogrammed world. Above that I was highly fascinated by the idea this world was completely made and owned by it's residents. To me this seemed the place where the collective fantasy took place, all with all a place to be. Virtual wolds will never appeal to the masses who are looking for easy amusement. Freedom is not the easiest toy to play around with. You must be willing to take initiative and make your own meaning. I'm convinced that there are still millions of people who will enjoy SL, and have the potental to become a loyal resident. Some of them will be hanging around in the gaming community, some of them will be playing farmville sort of games, some of them will have no gaming experience at all, and some of them have even never touch a computer for their fun. But I see nowadays is the threshold to become a participant in the economy much higher then five, six years back when we had camping all around. When it was easy to get some startmoney by camping, almost every new resident did get involved in the economy. That stopped when LL banned camping. There is less money coming in the economy, but the supply of goods continues to increase. The more goods available, the harder it will be to get your product seen by potential buyers. So the profit per product will decrease for every merchant. We definitely need a lot of people with empty inventories around to keep this pyramid economy working. A very insightful post Madeliefeste, esp the bolded parts! I would like to reprint it on my blog with attribution, with your permission. And I will tweet it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeliefste Oh Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Pamela Galli wrote: A very insightful post Madeliefeste, esp the bolded parts! I would like to reprint it on my blog with attribution, with your permission. And I will tweet it. Go ahead Pamela, you have my permission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 This does make me think of when I first found SL and when I first used Steam, and services like their's. As any1 who has heard me tell the story before. I was Modding the game Far Cry before I found SL. The game came with an editor. People would post their Mods on sites like Steam. Some Mods were completely reconfigured levels for awesome multiplayer capture the flag games, and some where complete redos and levels of the actual Far Cry game. Far Cry's Editor made things somewhat simple to recreate your own games, if you were willing to dig thru the extensive PDF files. Unlike learning about SL, this editor was fully documented in every way possible. I first edited terrain in Far Cry, which was done almost exactly like SL. When I first found SL, I kind of saw SL as simply the Far Cry Editor in a virtual environment. This was also why I got excited about Blue Mars, cause they used basically the same CryEngine that Far Cry used. SL just didn't have all those gaming tools that the Far Cry Editor had. Like NPCs and premade scripts to make them do stuff. This is why I see LL's move to gamify SL as a good move. Seriously tho, they really gotta go all the way and try not to leave everything up to the residents. Every role play or FPS game has basically all the same elements. LL should just make all the coding and all the elements and hand them over to the community. Like, make a whole rpg system, with coding for everything you'd need. Then, the residents would take all those parts and make their own rpg's simply by customizing all the parts. I don't mean to sound like I want to put all the coders in SL out of business. The way I see it. Coders don't really make all that much in SL, cause of all the freebie scripts people can find, and doing all the coding on really complicated things, like an rpg system, ends up being more work and hassle than it is worth. Coders will still have tons of work, but it would be more productive work and customized works. Plus, I don't think any of the gamification things hurt SL at all. The best thing about SL is the social element of it all. Like last night, I went to a boxing competition where they used my combat system. The house was packed, and every1 had a good time, especially the fighters. 3 matches, 8 rounds, 1 KO, and 2 fights where they were close to KOs. Then, every1 runs off to clubs or what not. Games just bring in a broader group of people, both players and those just looking to be entertained. So, what I"m basically saying is that LL should do all the backend work and make all the gaming systems for SL, and then just hand it all off to us to customize those systems into an array of playable games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrius Gothly Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 From a purely technical perspective, the reason such MMO's as Far Cry, WoW, EQ .. and every other targeted game program can be so efficient is because they pre-optimize the scenes, the scenery, the whole graphical representation. The amount of code that has to execute to render even the most complicated vista is barely spit in the bucket compared to what the SL Render Engine has to run. You can have flexible or fast, but you can't have both. 3D Games opt for fast at the willing expense of flexible. But that's okay because people in the game are looking to engage the game elements, not the surrounding decorations. But SL is intended to allow the "players" to interact with the scenery. It's what makes it a virtual environment with complete flexibility. If LL goes the route of writing the tool set to implement a fully-featured RP game then they will have to completely retool the render engine, optimizing it for that purpose. At that point they'll wind up creating a completely different platform entirely. So they might as well just write a whole game too. The reason RP Sims thrive now is because of the 100's if not 1000's of coders and developers that over time have gradually optimized and slimmed down the game devices to work the best possible in the SL infrastructure. For LL to take on that task would be not only grossly unsuccessful but also a monumental waste of time. Their first year's worth of releases wouldn't begin to hold a candle to what's out there now. So once again they'd completely destroy a viable and dynamic niche all for the sake of "doing it their way". I'm not saying they won't. However I am saying that they'd be damn foolish to try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temporal Mitra Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Ok...I've read more about steam...it's not a thin client portal as I first thought...it's basically an online game shop, with a instant messenger overlay, with a few other things, that allow you to make your games more portable...you still need the high end computer to run SL... I see the value of exposure of SL to a wider gaming audience...and I see the value of an SL client being more portable..despite the fact that most residents dont use the the official viewer. I also see a couple of problems... First, SL has a rather robust economy...and though LL says that the L$ is not worth anything, many of us have significant amounts of US $ and L$ on our accounts...what happens should that money go missing? If we are logged in via steam, will LL then say that since you came in through the portal, they can't be responsible for the financial security of your account? Will both LL and steam point fingers at one another, saying that the other is responsible for your missing funds? How safe is our password, when coming in through a portal...would logging in be the same as sharing our password with another entity, in this case Steam?...Something LL warns us never to do? Next...we all know there are griefers...those people that LL occasionally have to ban from SL...they often do this with various methodologies that are designed to keep malicious folks from returning to SL...how will this be accomplished when entering via the Steam Portal?... Next...what about the fact that fully half of the residents logged into SL at any one time use a third party viewer...will those be available on Steam?...or will we only be able to use the offical viewer? Temp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Hexem Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 That's not what Steam is. Technically speaking, Steam is just a store where you can buy games and an instant messenger. It does nothing to help scrappy computers play games. Your other questions bring up good points though. It's a topic I'm wondering, myself. LL doesn't take responsibility for anything that goes wrong in SL. Marketplace non-delivery? Just go file a JIRA. In-world purchase failed? Resident to resident dispute. And so forth. People will then turn to Valve for resolutions, since that's what they're used to- buy a game/microtransaction through Steam and it fails, Valve will refund you if the developer won't. In this case, I don't think Valve will do that more than once or twice before telling LL "Your platform is stupid, get off of ours." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZenWarrior Fuosing Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Three letters why provision and adoption of SL via Steam--as a game--will fail: FPS. (Look at the vast numbers of people in SL who now never see more than 20 FPS on a very good day with their low- to mid-powered graphics and PCs, and often see little more than 10-15 FPS.) However, is LL looking to Steam as less a "possible" source of new customers, or is it more looking to use the Steam cloud as a cheaper alternative to its present servers and COLOs? Finally, and related to FPS, what changes can be expected in SL's infrastructure to handle those expecting to play a "game" vs. (slowly) living in another world? The infrastructure even now cannot keep pace with one's thoughts, and especially not in a game where actions must occur almost concurrently with thoughts. One thing SL has always lacked, and clearly forgotten in its design, is adrenaline. I do not ever recall my heart pumping faster or feeling challeged by anything other than lag in SL. However, when I pull out a NFS or Tom Clancy game, the adrenaline pump works overtime! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Medhue Simoni wrote: So, what I"m basically saying is that LL should do all the backend work and make all the gaming systems for SL, and then just hand it all off to us to customize those systems into an array of playable games. I agree...but based on what we've been witnessing re: show stopper MP issues still in existence from April, my faith in LL coders, or at least the ones working on the MP, has dipped a tad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seven Overdrive Posted August 18, 2012 Share Posted August 18, 2012 Innula Zenovka wrote: It's been suggested (by someone who has professional RL experience of this area) that the obvious place for SL to be listed in Steam is under the "Creative Tools" category, which would help direct it towards the people who're most likely to find it interesting. To my mind, it's a very positive move. It gives SL access to a list of some 40 million people, some of whom are surely going to find it enjoyable, and also rather undercuts all the people who've been writing it off since all the wild hype of 2006/2007 failed to materialise. I will be surprised if LL doesn't list SL under a gaming category since, even though Steam will be offering more than just games, the largest demographics are the under 18 and 18-24 age groups. With the push to upgrade the graphics of SL and the introduction of advanced creator tools, I am thinking LL will want a big slice of that pie and it would be hard to ignore. The fact is, LL needs to get themselves into a position so they are no longer so dependent on tier for their revenue and a huge influx of new people will give LL more room to do so (especially if a good portion of the new arrivals can be convinced to stay and go premium). From what I have read about the upcoming changes to Steam, people will be able to use their Steam Wallets for the other non-game offerings that are coming to their store. How LL will use this to their advantage, or not, is a big unknown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Flickr
Recommended Posts
Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now