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Why I consider "path finding" useless in SL, and what do people use it for?


Mircea Lobo
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Masami Kuramoto wrote:


Qie Niangao wrote:

Once the host is gone completely, OpenSim will have only itself to consume.

I am looking forward to the day when LL shuts down SL and thousands of inventories disappear forever. Because it is precisely those inventories that keep SL residents firmly locked into LL's grid and force them to accept server rental fees that are obscenely high by today's standards. In my humble opinion, virtual property is fraud. Imagine you buy something at Walmart but cannot ever take it outside Walmart. Is it really yours? What exactly did you
buy?

It's taken no initiative to expand the Virtual World market--who ever 
starts
there?--only taking what's left of Linden's.

Its goal has never been to create or expand markets. Its goal is to become the virtual world equivalent of the Apache web server. That was once Linden Lab's goal, before they dropped the ball and transformed into a game company.

 

this a good point in the debate over digital things

what is it exactly in property terms?

i dont think we can see it as property in the same way as we see physical/touchable things

we going to end up in the mainstream with the pay-per-use model. everytime you see/hear then click cha-ching for mainstream stuff

some people will always give their stuff away for free. some people who create will not. they will put on the digital shops and get a bit of the cha-ching. is quite a few shops like that now. more and more every day

the interwebz radio US legislation debate is a good example of this. like how much do the radio stations have to pay the artists. youtube another example. how much cut do the artists/creators get off the adstream?

SL is another example of pay-per-use model

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The crowd that OpenSim will be drawing is currently stuck in a walled garden.

 

It is often said that OpenSim isn't popular because it doesn't have an economy. It is said that content creators have no incentive to go there. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, OpenSim is currently populated almost exclusively by content creators; in other words: its creators-per-consumer ratio is much higher than SL's. Those who go there do so for few other reasons than to create.

 

SL merchants often complain about the fact that SL has a massive freeloader problem, i.e. a large percentage of its residents consume LL's network bandwidth and server capacity without ever participating in economic activity. However, you never hear those merchants suggest that freeloaders should be exiled to OpenSim. And the Lab never considered to drop the free basic account plan. How come? If freeloaders are such a burden, shouldn't the Lab be happy to drop them off to someone else's grid?

 

Well, I guess you know the answer to that one as well as I do. There's a huge pink elephant in the room that few people dare to talk about: creators are not in it for the money, even if they claim to be. Most artists are attention seekers, and the worst thing they can imagine is a world where no one is looking at their stuff. They will go wherever there is an audience, even if it's a place without an economy. Most SL content creators don't even earn enough to offset the cost of their virtual land, yet they stay, and the freeloaders are part of the reason.

 

So what exactly is holding back OpenSim, if not the artists and the freeloaders? It's the consumers, all the people who have spent years and dollars to grow their inventories. When they hear about OpenSim for the first time, most of them are very interested, but as soon as you mention that they can't take their inventories there, the initial enthusiasm fades quickly. Consumers cling to SL not because of the stuff they can buy but because of the stuff they have bought (and can't take elsewhere).

 

That's the status quo, in a nutshell. It's a Mexican stand-off: everyone is waiting for the next guy to move. However, as you can tell from SL's shrinking land mass, the whole thing is coming apart at the seams.

 

The "open source is a geek thing" argument is old, I've heard it hundreds of times before. For example, just a few years ago people told me that Linux will never draw a crowd. Today it owns 75% of the global smartphone market. As Mitch Kapor once said, the long run always favors the more open ecosystem.

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but havent you answered your own point?

linux on the smartphone didnt didnt make the smartphone happen just bc it was linux

it happen bc the phone makers made their smartphone into a compelling experience. compelling enough that people bought the phone

until someone makes a world with OS code into a compelling experience then no one will buy it. that the basis of Qie's argument as i understand it

 

edit: no one meaning consumers. and the smartphone didnt make the smartphone just bc (:

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Masami Kuramoto wrote:

What do you think made Android more compelling than iOS, if not the lower price and more openness?

you countering your own argument again when you say this

people buy android phones bc they provide a comparable experience to apple ones. in some case even better

for OS to draw customers it has to provide a comparable experience to SL or better

people abandon Apple, and Microsoft even, for better+cheaper or same+cheaper

cheaper all by itself is not enough

+

codeya might care about openess of code. consumers dont care

 

 

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It's perhaps worth keeping in mind, during this sort of discussion, the relative numbers involved.  

Concurrency on the main LL grid, at the moment, seems to be anywhere between 30,000 to 60,000 people logged in at any one time, depending on the time of day (http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/sl-statistical-charts/).

In comparison, I've just this minute (13:56 GMT)  taken a screenshot from http://www.osgrid.org/ 

os grid screenshot.JPG

It's come out rather small; it says Users in world: 64 (that's right; sixty four) and Active Users (last 30 days) 3401.

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It's a Mexican stand-off: everyone is waiting for the next guy to move. However, as you can tell from SL's shrinking land mass, the whole thing is coming apart at the seams.

But this standoff is not worth winning. Not only OpenSim but SL itself--this whole Virtual World schtick--it just ain't takin' off. Maybe somebody farting around with OpenSim could turn that around; we have years of evidence that the Lindens can't. But that somebody, if ever s/he's to exist, will not chase LL's tail, nor fret about SL inventories. The more that OpenSim fusses over manoeuvring legacy stuff across all these doomed grids, the less prospect it has of ever breaking out to something with interesting growth prospects.

Also, if it succeeds, it won't be because it's open, per se, nor because it's free, but because somebody does something with it that isn't being done anywhere else. It's convenient that it's free and open--that expands the universe of potential "somebodies"--but in and of itself, free and open is not sufficient for it to be anything more than a saprophyte on SL's rotting trunk.

Virtual worlds aren't smartphones. The hypergrid doesn't come with a huge and growing market of pent-up demand, nor even a sizable stagnant market. It comes with a small and shrinking market of increasingly disillusioned (and aging) Second Life users. As long as OpenSim's ambitions are limited to more effectively feeding off that shriveled teat, I'm not much compelled to watch.

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Excellent post, Qie.

As I see it, the big problem that OS grids have in moving things forward is that they are not the creators. They merely use other people's system, and they are unable to move it forward themselves. The other people are those who reverse engineered SL - the OpenSim people. It's those people who are able to move it forward, perhaps upon suggestions from those who own grids, but those who own OS grids can't do it themselves. They are able tinker, like allowing more prims and such, but they can only tinker (set variables). They can't create.

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16 wrote:

<snip>

we going to end up in the mainstream with the pay-per-use model. everytime you see/hear then click cha-ching for mainstream stuff

some people will always give their stuff away for free. some people who create will not. they will put on the digital shops and get a bit of the cha-ching. is quite a few shops like that now. more and more every day

the interwebz radio US legislation debate is a good example of this. like how much do the radio stations have to pay the artists. youtube another example. how much cut do the artists/creators get off the adstream?

SL is another example of pay-per-use model

Hi 16 :)  This caught my attention because in some older MMORPG's the trend in some have been to go from a pay2play model (ie. charging x $/mo subscription fee) to free2play.  The free model was introduced while I was playing an MMORPG I've played for years and go back to now and then and going to the free2play model really ruffled some feathers among that game's user base.

As it turned out, the game didn't got totally free2play; it is more like free2play with limited access.  By that I mean, if one chooses the free model only 4 specific races can be chosen instead of the entire array - forget how many but 10 or so.  There are a lot of other limitations: cannot share bank space with alts, a very limited inventory size, cannot have certain armor (and of course this would be the better armor), etc.  IMO, and the general census of those commenting on that game's forum last year, this is more like a free introduction to the game for new players to see if they like the game and, if so, then would become paid subscribers since they wouldn't want to be limited in armor, alts, etc.  As a side note, this company was also in the situation of having a very long-term, devoted user base but, as newer games came out, was not attracting new players, thus the overall population was diminishing.

When my last subscription to this game expired, I logged into it as a "free player." WHOA!!!!!  About half of my inventory was gone, the majority of my armor was greyed out and could not be used, half of my bank space was gone, etc.  I received the message that to regain everything I had to be a paid subscriber and then go to a certain NPC to regain the rest of my inventory.  For an established player that, in a word, sucked!  I don't mind at all paying the subscription price if I wish to play that game here and there but their "free" play, again for an established player, was awful!

Not quite sure how this equates to SL except your mention that "we" (assuming you meant SL or maybe virtual worlds in general) would go the mainstream of pay-per-use, while the game to which I refer went the opposite direction in a frantic effort to attract new players.

Of course SL went from a pay to free model before I joined so it's almost like a "Back to the Future" deal if it goes back to pay to play.

On a side note: In all this discussion of Open Sims and who adopted what from SL, how would a virtual world like InWorldz fit into this?  Was it created from the open source code and adapted; therefore would it be considered an offshoot of Open Sims or something different?

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On a side note: In all this discussion of Open Sims and who adopted what from SL, how would a virtual world like InWorldz fit into this?  Was it created from the open source code and adapted; therefore would it be considered an offshoot of Open Sims or something different?

Per their FAQ: "InWorldz is a Virtual World initially based off the OpenSim software. Efforts however, are being made to move past this source code and becoming closer to the Second Life standard for working improvements."

So it's using it's own flavor of OpenSim.

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Masami Kuramoto wrote:

 

It is often said that OpenSim isn't popular because it doesn't have an economy. It is said that content creators have no incentive to go there. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, OpenSim is currently populated almost exclusively by content creators; in other words: its creators-per-consumer ratio is much higher than SL's.
Those who go there do so for few other reasons than to create.

 


(Emphasis mine)  I can vouch for this with one specific example.  The rp group that I was once part of for 15 years on IRC came to SL to continue our rp in the 3D environment.  This group was always small as compared to others of like nature, even on IRC, but we preferred it that way, desiring quality over quantity, etc.  Having been together for so long, we were a family.  Shortly after arriving on SL I met and became partnered to a man who had no interest in the rp so I gradually left the group but still stay in touch.

This group leased land and developed a niche marketplace that was doing well; however, this group never did go out seeking new members.  If people found the group by whatever means, they were most welcomed and a few stayed.  

About a year ago the group left SL and went to OSGrid.  I received an email from one of the members when they moved.  Their reason was primarily cost.  Instead of renting however much land they had in SL, on the OSGrid they have 15 sims that comprise the "city" and my friend said it is all free. (I am not well versed in how open sims/OSGrid works, just relating what I was told.)  So I mosey over there one day and began clicking on objects in their sims - trees, buildings, whatever.  Several of the group members had become talented builders while in SL and I noticed the majority of what I clicked built by one of them and...here's the fascinating part - most everything except entire buildings could be "purchased" for 0L.

ETA: I forgot to mention - I've talked about OSGrid with a friend and her reason for no interest in it is not enough people.  But for some, that's not an issue.  This group to whom I refer could care less if they are the only ones on the grid - they just want a place to be together to continue their rp.  When they were on SL, most of them never ventured out of their land.

I am at the point in my SL where 99.9% of my time is spent either building or just hanging out in my house and IMing with a few good friends.  I keep saying I want to get back into exploring and even when I do as well as in the past, I'm exploring to see new areas; I'm most happy when I'm the only one in the area or with a good friend.  I'm not the "I want to meet new people" type.  I *do* meet new people just by "being" sometimes as well as from the forums, but I don't go looking for new people just to meet new people...if that makes sense...lol.


Masami Kuramoto wrote:

 

 

There's a huge pink elephant in the room that few people dare to talk about:
creators are not in it for the money
, even if they claim to be. Most artists are attention seekers, and the worst thing they can imagine is a world where no one is looking at their stuff. They will go wherever there is an audience, even if it's a place without an economy. Most SL content creators don't even earn enough to offset the cost of their virtual land, yet they stay, and the freeloaders are part of the reason.

 


(Emphasis mine)  I would ammend that to "some" or "many" creators are not in it for the money.  As has been stated elsewhere in this thread, for some creators SL provides their RL income, in whole or part.  I *have* run into some very talented creators who can build circles around me but either don't feel their work is "good enough" to sell, or prefer giving what they create to friends.  I actually run into quite a few of the latter.  I also enjoy giving my items to friends, for gifts, etc. although I do sell them as well - this allows me to enjoy SL without putting very much RL funds into it.

 

 


Masami Kuramoto wrote:

 

 

So what exactly is holding back OpenSim, if not the artists and the freeloaders? It's the consumers, all the people who have spent years and dollars to grow their inventories. When they hear about OpenSim for the first time, most of them are very interested, but as soon as you mention that they can't take their inventories there, the initial enthusiasm fades quickly. Consumers cling to SL not because of the stuff they can buy but because of the stuff they have bought (and can't take elsewhere).

 

 


I still enjoy SL and don't wish to see it implode, but I do admit that spending much time on other virtual worlds does not appeal to me in large part due to my inventory.  That rezzing as a noob and going through the process of acquiring items to at least look how I want to, for me, feels like starting all over again and, at present, I don't have the mental energy to do so.

 

 

That being said, I am interested in the Open Sims.  From reading a few blogs of those that now "live" there it seems that a lot of the educational community or at least the branch that is interested in the Metaverse concept have migrated over.  I am fascinated with the idea of acquiring an open sim and challenging myself to create everything that is on it to stretch my building skills.

That will need to wait until next year, however. :)

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Qie Niangao wrote:


On a side note: In all this discussion of Open Sims and who adopted what from SL, how would a virtual world like InWorldz fit into this?  Was it created from the open source code and adapted; therefore would it be considered an offshoot of Open Sims or something different?

Per their FAQ: "
InWorldz is a Virtual World initially based off the OpenSim software. Efforts however, are being made to move past this source code and becoming closer to the Second Life standard for working improvements."

So it's using it's own flavor of OpenSim.

Ah ok.  I recall reading about it being based off the Open Sim software, but wasn't sure if it is then pretty much identical to Open Sims in general, just with a closed "ownership" for lack of better worlds...or if it differed in some way.  Thanks, Qie. :)

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I don't think that InWorldz was based on the OpenSim system. It *was* the OpenSim system, and nothing else. I'm sure it probably still is, although they may have found the expertise to get into it and make some changes that I imagine are relatively minor - that like the third party viewers that are the SL viewers with relatively minor changes.

What's needed for a system to really go off on its own is to start creating it from the ground up.

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So many replies... hard to read all of them. But to look at a different side of things too regarding OpenSim: I wonder what the situation would have been if LL also open-sourced the Second Life server code. I heard there were plans to do that years ago, but they changed their minds (sad decision IMO). Although OpenSim is pretty much a SL server in practice (even if not in purpose), I think everyone would have been happier if LL went all the way with opening up their technology. But still, maybe someday...

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Mircea Lobo wrote:

So many replies... hard to read all of them. But to look at a different side of things too regarding OpenSim: I wonder what the situation would have been if LL also open-sourced the Second Life server code. I heard there were plans to do that years ago, but they changed their minds (sad decision IMO). Although OpenSim is pretty much a SL server in practice (even if not in purpose), I think everyone would have been happier if LL went all the way with opening up their technology. But still, maybe someday...

As great as it would be for others to take what Linden Lab made and improve upon it ... It was a very good choice on the part of Linden Lab to keep their server's source code closed source at this time.

Think about it: In the time since they opened up the client code, they had to fight back the various clients designed by griefer teams to aid them in their antics.

To utilize a different bit of software as an example ... Minecraft is fully java based client wise. The server code is handed out to anyone who wants to run a server. Both were obfuscated from the start but it did not take long until the obfuscation was broken on both sets of code. Griefers were able to do things on multiuser servers that they would not have been able to do if Mojang had not handed out the code in the way they did.

The same would be trule if Linden Lab released their server code as open source. Yes, there'd be a lot of god that would come from it ... But the bad? No. Best not to give the more dedicated troube makers a new weapon set to use.

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I wonder what the situation would have been if LL also open-sourced the Second Life server code. I heard there were plans to do that years ago, but they changed their minds (sad decision IMO). 

Cory was, umm... generous in his assessment of his own creations. Had they open-sourced the server code then, exploits would have kept the grid offline more than not.

I suspect the same would obtain even now. For that matter, it would on OpenSim grids, too, if anyone could be bothered.

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

Concurrency on the main LL grid, at the moment, seems to be anywhere between 30,000 to 60,000 people logged in at any one time, depending on the time of day (

That number is ridiculously low if you consider that more than 10,000 new SL accounts are created every single day. At least OpenSim has the excuse of not being widely known. What is Linden Lab's excuse?

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LL's problem, as I understand it, is that people tend to create an account, log in once (maybe twice) and then never come back.   To my mind, if LL knew what was causing that, they'd take steps to remedy it, if they could.   I don't know, but I'm sure it can't be to do with not being able to TP to other grids and take your inventory with you.    

Maybe it's just people take a look and decide that a virtual world like SL isn't for them, and they'd rather be playing Minecraft.  Which is where Patterns comes in.

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Masami Kuramoto wrote:

The crowd that OpenSim will be drawing is currently stuck in a walled garden.

 

It is often said that OpenSim isn't popular because it doesn't have an economy. It is said that content creators have no incentive to go there. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, OpenSim is currently populated almost exclusively by content creators; in other words: its creators-per-consumer ratio is much higher than SL's. Those who go there do so for few other reasons than to create.

 

Consumers cling to SL not because of the stuff they can buy but because of the stuff they have bought (and can't take elsewhere).


And yet I've still been unable to find myself a mesh sometimes cat furry, sometimes African Neko avatar with dreadlocks, a mesh wardrobe for a Rastafarian, solid good animations, and a high quality African skin. Look at my gallery, in my sig - and recreate that in an Open Sim. That's how'd you'd get my attention.

Open Sim may have a lot of creators, but I don't think Open Sim has that many content creators. It seems to have a lot of Sandboxers - people who make 'stuff' and experiment. But don't make the kinds of stuff that can tool out a whole 'alt-community'.

 

Open Sim has the people LLs wishes were its customers, and SL has the people Open Sims like Inworldz wishes were their customers...

 

Maybe you think I'm "out there" on the far end of the spectrum. But I just have an easy list of catch-identifiers to me. How many other communities are also lacking the kinds of content they would need to jump?

 

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Masami Kuramoto wrote:


16 wrote:


Masami Kuramoto wrote:

What do you think made Android more compelling than iOS, if not the lower price and more openness?

you countering your own argument again when you say this

I was asking a question.

The lower price and openness helped, but it wouldn't have done much if it wasn't made by A BIG RICH COMPANY to allow OTHER BIG RICH COMPANIES to compete with YET ANOTHER BIG RICH COMPANY.  Which isn't really an arrow that's in OpenSim's quiver.

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Qie Niangao wrote:


It's a Mexican stand-off: everyone is waiting for the next guy to move. However, as you can tell from SL's shrinking land mass, the whole thing is coming apart at the seams.

But this standoff is not worth winning. Not only OpenSim but SL itself--this whole Virtual World schtick--it just ain't takin' off.
Maybe
 somebody farting around with OpenSim could turn that around; we have years of evidence that the Lindens can't. But that somebody, if ever s/he's to exist, will not chase LL's tail, nor fret about SL inventories. The more that OpenSim fusses over manoeuvring legacy stuff across all these doomed grids, the less prospect it has of ever breaking out to something with interesting growth prospects.

Well Open Sim isn't another kind of virtual world. Its just SL without the brand name.

Another virtual world would not use the same basic architecture.

The other virtual worlds are IMVU, Cloud Party, and Blue Mars...

Open Sim is to SL and Virtual Worlds what Linux is to Unix. Mostly the same thing, but with the serial numbers filed off. Open Sim is the 'Proda' handbag you buy from the guy on the street corner outside of the Prada factory. Its the same bag... but it didn't get the label sewn on...

 

The virtual world that will make it won't be a 'Proda Bag', nor a Gucci or even Guchi ( :P )... Papa's gonna need a whole new bag...

 

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Easier ways to grief are technically true with open source software. But I don't believe they're ever a reason not to release a source code for something. A good client + server package knows to secure such attacks, usually on the server's side. If it's easy for people to grief, it means there are flaws in the code that those griefers discover and use, and that they need to get fixed (in most projects they do instantly). Some trolls were actually useful in this sense, since they unwillingly helped identify flaws in the software and fix them.

At the moment, there's barely anything I know of that a griefer can do on OpenSim which they couldn't on the LL grid. I also play multiple freely licensed games... the Quake-based FPS Xonotic for instance is a project I've been a contributor at for years. I play it online frequently, and have never seen a case where anyone was able to hack the server to cheat (aimbots were discussed here and there). Same for all others. SL works differently of course, but again I don't know any ways of griefing that weren't found and secured as best as possible.

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I guess. But I can't really think of anywhere that would be the case. My personal experience as a beginner to medium developer is: If it's possible to grief in a place like Second Life, then the server has a problem because it allows flaws or unauthorized access somewhere. The client can't be blamed since any griefer can modify it to do bad things... but a good server is responsible with making sure only intended functionality gets through. Which in almost all cases happens 100%... I've yet to see a server that couldn't block a known method of griefing through abusing the technical means.

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