Back In My Day...

[Hugsy Penguin]

Starting a new thread to help keep the other on topic.

 

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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ObviousAltIsObvious wrote:

Perrie Juran wrote:

I've read also that they charged for the TP's on the telehubs?????

They weren't that mean! The telehub system was a free replacement for paid direct teleports. Lindens really wanted people to slow down and mingle, but they never found a great way to make it happen.

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Thanks.  I remember now what/where I had read.  http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Telehubs

I really don't want to take this thread on a tangent but I've always found this comment there very interesting:

"A side benefit Linden Lab had hoped would be that telehubs would help in "urban development", creating more commercial centers around them, and leaving the outskirts of land further away from the "hubs" for residential-type land."

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IIRC, that's sort of what happened.  Land around telehubs was expensive and usually contained shops although there were shops in the outlying areas too.

When LL announced their plans to implement point-to-point teleporting, these land owners when ballistic (especially the one's who just bought “telehub land”).  They were angry because their highly sought after and expensive land would become no more valuable than anywhere else.

Also, today's no-public-access ban lines that only go to 50m above ground is a carry-over from telehubs.  People needed to fly over other people's land to get to where they wanted to go.  In addition, blacklist bans only went to about 800m I believe.  And, you could only build up to 768m; the sky was all clear above that.

[Kelli May]

When I started, you could rate other residents on three scales. I don't remember the exact titles, but they represented avatar looks, helpfulness/personality, and building skills. By going into their profile you could give a resident an 'up-rating' on one or more of these categories. IIRC, you had to pay a small fee to do so.

Further back, before my time, there was a prim tax. I hear that people used to remove prim structures on 'tax day' to evade the tax. 

[Czari Zenovka]

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Kelli May wrote:

 

Further back, before my time, there was a prim tax. I hear that people used to remove prim structures on 'tax day' to evade the tax. 

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In the book Second Life: The Official Guide there is an interesting chapter called "A Cultural Timeline."  The timeline is:

*First Era - 2001 - early 2003: Pre-Historic, Pre-Beta

*Second Era - Summer 2003: Natives Vs Colonists

*Second Era - Summer 2003: Revolution!

(This refers to the prim tax which was imposed, according to the book and apparently according to the Lindens to "...prevent residents from overheating the servers with too many objects."  Then:

Objecting most strongly to Linden's tax policy was Americana, a group devoted to creating tributes to US landmarks.  Feeling punished for their public works project, Americana unleashed a protest suitable to their name, dropping giant tea crates across the world and setting ther American landmarks on fire.  A cat named Fleabite Beach sent out a Thoreau-style proclamation against "Mad King Lindent," and led the revolutionaries into the streets with muskets and signs emblazoned with the words "Born Free: Taxed to Death." (A photo is included that shows some of the protestors.)  Much of he citizenry was drawn into the insurrection, either as rebels or redcoat "Linden loyalists." pg.282)

*Third Era - Winter 2003: A New Nation is Born

During this period, Linden Lab made three policy decisions that were considered radical at the time:

1. To end monthly subscriptions...and instead, begin charging monthly "land use" fees for virtual land.

2.  To announce a laissez-faire policy on buying and selling the official in-world currency on the open market for real money.

3.  to recognize residents' legally enforceable intellectual-property rights over the objects and scripts they created within the world.  pp. 282-283

*Fourth Era - Late 2003-Early 2004: Expanding the Frontier

*Fifth Era - Mid 2004 - Mid 2005: Industrial Revolution

*Sixth Era - Summer 2005 -Present (Copyright on book is 2007): Boom Time

I wonder what more recent eras would be called.

[Qie Niangao]

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Hugsy Penguin wrote:

 

When LL announced their plans to implement point-to-point teleporting, these land owners when ballistic (especially the one's who just bought “telehub land”).  They were angry because their highly sought after and expensive land would become no more valuable than anywhere else.

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That reminds me. When I started, some folks used land to sell stuff. These places were called "stores" -- but these were in-world "stores", not on the Marketplace. If you can believe that.

Now it's not just former telehub land that has no particular value.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kelli May wrote:

When I started, you could rate other residents on three scales. I don't remember the exact titles, but they represented avatar looks, helpfulness/personality, and building skills. By going into their profile you could give a resident an 'up-rating' on one or more of these categories. IIRC, you had to pay a small fee to do so.

Further back, before my time, there was a prim tax. I hear that people used to remove prim structures on 'tax day' to evade the tax. 

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I did a thread about the early "economy" and taxes a while back.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Second-Life-2003-Life-Death-And-Taxes-In-The-Early-Days/m-p/1743459/highlight/true#M84168

[Canoro Philipp]

how about these names for eras:

Space Era First Attempt: Hypergrid

A New Continent on the Horizon: Zindra

We are All Equal: the death of Last Names

The Resurrection: Phillip Linden comes back

The Renaissance: Rodvik

[Jumpman Lane]

Back when i started griefers were EVERYWHERE. i remember when Mysti-tool first came out and people would rez that shiny white globe. Sit on it and get nonphysical AND GO TO WAR! Ahhhh the good old days

[Poenald Palen]

I don't think

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Canoro Philipp wrote:

how about these names for eras:

Space Era First Attempt: Hypergrid

A New Continent on the Horizon: Zindra

We are All Equal: the death of Last Names

The Resurrection: Phillip Linden comes back

The Renaissance: Rodvik

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Interesting post!

Not only this one, but the other one. I just kept thinking about it and got to this one and it made me think of it in a broader way.

So, humorously I will attempt to look at the different ways people study Virtual Worlds and the Virtual Universe.

Theologians/Cosmologists. Basically it is like religion, these humble grids are a part of building a sort of after-human (similar to an after life) or a heaven. For those people it is part of the next step of humanity or intelligent life, imortality. They believe whole heartedly in the singularity and may spell it with capitals. It is The Singularity! Maybe the only era here is pre and post. The other eras are a concern of other things, only timelines of tech development towards the singularity count. I shouldn't say "them" and say it is a type of person, because at any time a person can think on this level or have opinions. SL fits into the thinking here, but far more importantly is the tech, the mental social learning and SL is more like a lab. It doesn't exist as a entity worth to much era naming though? Not sure, just thoughts of the top of my head.

Girdologists/Cosmologist sort of thinking. Who would see teh Hyergrid as the ultimate. Singularity is not a concern really. All grids are a concern, and any other system that is not really a grid maybe to. It is about the universe, what it is made up of. Tech would be more of a focus? SL's tech, hardware and such are important and the rest of the catagories handle othe stuff. The grid and who does what, following the money and incentive may be interesting.

Sociologists. They would focus on how it affects human social groups. So, eras would be based on how they effected the overal makeup of the population and thier social activities?

MBA. Money. All Money. All business. Business law, TOS and all that stuff.

Historian would maybe see major influences that where more general. This is where we get words like "Renaisence" used?

So, as far as a social and history slant. I can't say right now is a Renaisence. I do think mesh and more freedom to upload things with new tech, like a updated avatar, as being something that may be seen as that. But, that is from a creative perspective and I am not sure creative types are all there is to it. From the stand point of a physcology...I think a person would not see the majority of users seeing a history as affecting them. So, they experience non of this. Creativity in SL is hurt for some, not for others. Some indulged in prims and I know people will bash an editor for choosing a non top of the line artist for an art book and I have a theory that if the bar is lower, not low, it enables a flow state. A mental state that enables a person to have fun, and they also feel more confident they are pro level. If they think they can make it, they buy more books. Someone already out there may agree that what was in the book was adaquate, but they want to learn from the best and feel beginners are being cheated.

Prims did this, they enabled people to feel like they could do it! It was a flourishing of art for many. Those builds where private, maybe even those same people (me!) end up learning mesh for sculpties. I figured I could do better than with prims, prim counts restricting me (once again, the axiam about limits freeing oneself....even though I hate it and am glad mesh uploads are here!) so...yeah, it is crazy to say this. But restrictions are not always the worst thing, and priims where not really a restriction to some...they where a good excuse to give it a shot. You saw the worst you could do in the sandboxes, another hilariously restrictive space that almost frees people from mental blocks and hurdles. Surely you can do better than that horrid thing over there in the corner...even though it looked fun to build! So, you figure at least it will be fun! So, you keep going. If Prims where so good though, I never may have bothered with sculpts or mesh as much! I have more fun with mesh, building in a quick speedy offline purpose built environ and youtube, CG Society.org and various other sites are inspirational and slightly intimidating at the same time. But, I already started so feel encouraged at times. If it wheren't for real life issues I would have meshed up a storm. It is interesting, satisfying many times, to see a render. Just enough magic and builds may be a bit slow for me, but faster and more gratifying other art mediums at this point in my life.

Wow, to much. I never got around to other perspectives.

So I think we are still to see if this is a renaissance, but I also wonder if we are basically in a longer running renaisence the web and software have brought about. SL is just a small part of that, though important for virtual reality fans and casual fanish people (me) to where it occupies some hours of thought each month!

Maybe I would see eras like this:

Campy Tribe Ville/VC wants his moneh...release the Hippos!! era. This is the begining, pivoting like a off balance top maybe? Starts off as an idea with a very minecraft feel. Nope, they make a shared creative world that the users biuld. Land barons is what they focus on, they sell the land and host it for tier. BUT, the tribe of beginners get land to help start things off. Small tribes just share stuff, they don't sell as much and basic needs are met and some fun had. They may look very similar and don't have tonnes of possesions.

Anarchy in the SL. The death of the tribe. This is akin to the huge tribe building/post tribe stuff that happens when Rome was being built. SL is now hurtling toward a kingdom or empire. But it is anarchy, greifing and other stuff coexist with new additions of money and so on. Land barons rise during this time and Ashne is know starting the next part.

The Empire Will Rise. Empire because greifing was reduced, money here to stay and land barons are multiple. Lindens dont' hang around the camp fire now, that ended last era and was here to stay. We see business types, crazy banks come along and a general sense of building and empire seperate from the real world. I remember the banks, gambling had just been banned and I attended a debate where people talked about Virtual worlds should or could be seen as seperate nations. The open source initiatives where seen in the grids poping up and the idea was SL may become the very most important and prolific virtual world around the web. Bans on unsightly things, gotta keep the city pretty for the Citizens of rom....SL. The merchants not only still deal with barbarian attacks(griefers) but still end up with fires (lag, search problems)

The Fall of Empire that Never Existed. Ah, Mark Kingdom is seen as to blame because people seemed to think he didn't fit in lol. A victim of bullying almost, he is seen as a time when SL had stamped out the banks, stopped griefers and we where now like citizens of an empire that could grow...HE killed it! lol. Not all feel this way, the adult thingy also seemed to be an issue. SL is split! Orthodox SL in the mature area, with G areas around it for the ultra orthodox and Zindra like...well, like Zindra. Once again, hard to compare.

Home Town SL. Now we see SL is sort of like a big big place, the same old stuff happens really, but less intense. No wild west shootout sort of anarchy griefing, but still griefing. Silly rules, strange rules and everyone is worried. The real world intrudes so much that it is now just like you go there after being part of the real world, like a person who drives to thier small town to relax and hang out after driving 2 hours+ from work in LA. Before long we see the next era....

Gated Community SL. This is where we almost get told to what color mail box to have....ah, sort of did go through that with restrictions on third party viewers and so on. SL is more on the web, forums open and so on. No huge walls around a walled garden, that was made as to look like a castle in the empire attempts period.

After this, I can't say I will name a period. It is hard to say, but it become much less of a city, a Rome in the making, as time goes on. Open source efforts and LL's dedication to softare aside from SL mean less growth for SL I feel. Virtual reality grows, in a place far away from SL. But it grows, it grows everywhere on the web to the point many will use it seemlessly with other options. Like reading a newspaper while the TV is on after waking up to a clock radio broadcast then getting into your car and listening to a talk show...yeah, no talking in the town square or on the porch but radio transmitted.

[CheriColette]

That made for interesting reading

I glad Im finding sl now and not back then.....it was hard enough for me to learn things with out all the hassles you guys had thrown into the mix.

 

(((HUGS)))) for Hugsy

[Poenald Palen]

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CheriColette wrote:

That made for interesting reading

I glad Im finding sl now and not back then.....it was hard enough for me to learn things with out all the hassles you guys had thrown into the mix.

 

(((HUGS)))) for Hugsy

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At sandboxes it was always just a matter of time before someone had a cage gun thingy fired at them. You ended up having to relog.

The big growth in population, which stagnated and actually dropped a bit as far as people all logged in at once, meant asset servers where failing a lot. Tonnes of freebie stuff at freebie places. The stuff is still around I bet, but I don't know if there was as many full sims full of free stuff like there used to be. You could dig through the boxes and find all sorts of projects. I went to Yadni's today, it is not busy as it was way way back when I first started. The job machine is still there, but I think it is broken. I am not sure many got jobs from it, sort of similar to now in that there just isn't that many jobs in SL and they pay very very little, just play money really.

Crazy thing was all the camping, I used to drive around 4 sims that a power company ran, an italian one. They would make announcements or do events and I would laugh at how I don't understand Italian. They got traffic and that meant higher up results in the search, back in the day. So, I drove through sim crossings, underwater 45 seconds or so if I was quick. 4 sims, racing around in thier logo'd car for pennies lol. The sims had 15+ people on some of them lol. It was a lag nightmare, but I battled on as I fell asleep at the wheel. Upload money, rent money and all that stuff to get my business started. Now I leave it on the marketplace and see pitifully small sales really, but somehow like checking on it and am still working on upgrading everything.

[Casidy Craig]

Back when I started (in 2006) if you had a problem you could just click "Help" and talk to a real Linden, and sometimes they would even come to you and help you out. On etime I got attacked by a "follower" griefer object, I called for help and within five minutes a real live Linden came and got rid of it.

There would frequently be what got called "grey goo" attacks (I forget why they were called that) which would shut down the entire grid for hours at a time.

Goatse cubes.

And "Update Wednesday" (with the gorillas banging on things) would inevitably be followed  by "Flaky Thursday" and "Unscheduled Maintenance Friday".

And camping. You could sit in a chair and earn L$10 an hour just doing nothing. That was when other people camping were real people, and we'd sit and chat with each other.