Current List of Annoyances

[Solar Legion]

4 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

If you drop the word "game" and substitute "pastime" all of the contentious connotations such as goals, rules and competition just fade away.

Or Hobby. Or just not bother with the substitution at all and just drop the word "game" .....

[Wulfie Reanimator]

8 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson nods and smiles.

Of course you haven't.

Genuine question: Are puzzles not games?

 

Regardless, when people call Second Life a game, it's shorthand for "video game" which has a more specific scope than just "any game" so making comparisons to completely unrelated things is only going to confuse you further.

Once you start seeing enough games (read: video games) in your lifetime, it becomes pretty intuitive to recognize what types of software fall into that category within seconds of looking at it.

Believe it or not, but there are games exactly like Second Life that are considered to be games by all.

"Garry's Mod" for example. You start the viewer, pick a region, and you rez into it as an avatar. There is no goal or a way to "win" unless you make it so, like in SL. You can change your avatar, build stuff with prims and add scripts to it, upload and share your own content, teleport to a different sim, etc. It's a sandbox game and no one in history has seriously tried to claim it's not a game.

There are also "simulation games" in which your only goal is some mundane real-world task, such as farm work or conducting a train.

There are also games that are seriously pushing the boundaries of what we would traditionally call "games." Games like "Gone Home", "What Remains of Edith Finch", and "Life is Strange" are often called "walking simulators" because that's pretty much all you do. You control a character and experience a story, sometimes without even interacting with anything (or anyone) directly. Sometimes even the direction to which you're supposed to walk isn't given to you, so these games can be less than "interactive movies" but they still have most of the core parallels of what makes a video game.

Video games are more than the sum of their parts, so you're not going to be able to define them with some neat one-liner such as "a game must have a goal" because for any simple definition you can come up with, I can find an example that doesn't fit.

I don't quite understand this aversion to calling SL a game. Why does that classification bother you? Does it take away from it? Do you not want to be mistaken for a sweaty gamer? Are you upset that someone's not reading The Dictionary like a bible?

I do like the point that sometimes comes up that "everything is a game" though, because everything can be reduced or twisted to something that fits the dictionary definitions of "game," regardless of which definition you want to use.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Genuine question: Are puzzles not games?

 

 

I'd classify it as an activity.  Yes, the goal is to finish the puzzle but honestly, I wouldn't think of it as a game unless I was trying to solve one in competition against someone else doing the same puzzle.  A lot of things have goals yet aren't considered games.  Reading, knitting, balancing my checkbook...they all have a goal but still not games.  I understand that a lot of people will always consider SL a game, I get it.  It's not how I see it or ever have or ever will.

I think it's an individual thing for sure.  As long as the people you interact with are aware of how you see SL, it will avoid conflict.  Don't fall for that girl/guy who sees it only as a game and all the people players.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

16 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

As long as the people you interact with are aware of how you see SL, it will avoid conflict.  Don't fall for that girl/guy who sees it only as a game and all the people players.

See, I don't understand that either.

Second Life is a game by every metric. Why do you think me thinking that affects how I interact with other people? Do you think you can't have serious inter-personal relations in a game? That seems psychotic or at the very least sociopathic to me.

Edit: Re-reading the question a bit.

Those people exist in real life too, you're just a game to them regardless of whether or not there's a game between the two of you. I repeat what I said above. It's generally very easy to tell what someone's attitude to Second Life is. I don't know how you can interact with someone for so long (or quickly) that you fall for them without realizing that they're just roleplaying the entire time. That kind of communication problem seems entirely self-inflicted.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

See, I don't understand that either.

Second Life is a game by every metric. Why do you think me thinking that affects how I interact with other people? Do you think you can't have serious inter-personal relations in a game? That seems psychotic or at the very least sociopathic to me.

I'm not saying ALL people who think of it as a game will behave that way.  Not at all.  As I said, it's completely up to the individual.

I've met people who say, "Why you all upset?  It's just a game!  Don't take it so seriously!"  A lot of the time, they're the ones who treat people as game pieces without caring what they say or do to them.  I, personally, avoid people like that.

[sunnyrio]

Oh my god, this is very simple, let me explain it once again.  A game is an activity which you do for fun, and also involves interaction with choices.

Watching TV, listening to the radio, reading a book: not a game, no interaction, the data is one way from the TV/radio/book to you.

Knitting: there's interaction, but it's mindless, you're not thinking hard, you're just following a pattern.  A machine can do it.

Playing tennis/football/chess/scrabble/darts/solitaire/monopoly/etc: a game, it's fun and you have to make decisions to choose how it continues.

Driving a car: there's interaction, but the sole purpose is to get you from A to B.  So not a game, as it's main purpose is not fun, unless it's a race.

Second Life is enjoyable, and interactive, with constant decisions to make.  You don't just sit there and watch.  So it's a game.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

7 minutes ago, sunnyrio said:

Knitting: there's interaction, but it's mindless, you're not thinking hard, you're just following a pattern.  A machine can do it.

Your definition falls apart right here. "Thinking hard" is not a requirement for games. There are games that are simpler to play than knitting. Machines can play games.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[sunnyrio]

4 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Your definition falls apart right here. "Thinking hard" is not a requirement for games. Machines can play games.

I shall redefine what I meant by machine.  I was thinking of a mechanical device like a knitting machine, or a weaving loom.  To play a game such a chess requires a computer, which has a lot more intelligence than a mechanical device.  The point is whether thought is required.  If it is, and it's enjoyable, it's a game.

And stop disagreeing with me when you also think SL is a game!

Edited November 11, 2020 by sunnyrio

[LittleMe Jewell]

29 minutes ago, sunnyrio said:

Oh my god, this is very simple, let me explain it once again.  A game is an activity which you do for fun,

What about the folks that are here totally for the "running a business" side of things.  I'd think that Anshe Chung thinks of SL more as a Business entity/environment than a game - as least as far as her avatar is concerned.

[LittleMe Jewell]

32 minutes ago, sunnyrio said:

Knitting: there's interaction, but it's mindless, you're not thinking hard, you're just following a pattern. 

Have you ever knitted or done any other sort of needlework?  I can guarantee you that it does require a lot of thinking and is most definitely not mindless.

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

34 minutes ago, sunnyrio said:

Second Life is enjoyable, and interactive, with constant decisions to make.  You don't just sit there and watch.  So it's a game.

Despite all of your arguing, the 'game' statement is not "fact". 

Whether or not Second Life is a game, is primarily determined by its creators and:

[Rowan Amore]

Dang, I knew it would show up!  I thought it was off playing Fallout 4.  Who's responsible?!?!

I think maybe it's just lonely and comes in to troll when it's little friends aren't online elsewhere.

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by RowanMinx

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Genuine question: Are puzzles not games?

I would say that a boxed, physical jigsaw puzzle is not a "game" because, at least in the country/planet I live in, the vast majority of people would not refer to it as one. "Puzzle" has enough linguistic traction that it's the term that would be used and understood. If you invited someone over to "play games" and got out a jigsaw puzzle they'd probably be confused.

However...

On a computer, the English linguistic convention is to refer to most leisure programs as "games." If someone asked you if you had any games on your computer and you said, "Yes, I have a virtual jigsaw puzzle" they probably wouldn't take exception to that statement.

My opinion is that Second Life can be called a game because it has enough traits in common with other applications that are called "games." When taken descriptively, calling it a game is not objectively wrong.

As far as prescriptively, the term "game" is so hard to pin down that it's literally used as an example of something that's difficult to define:

https://magne.medium.com/what-did-wittgenstein-say-about-what-a-game-is-d333383cf8b4

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Despite all of your arguing, the 'game' statement is not "fact". 

Whether or not Second Life is a game, is primarily determined by its creators and:

You can't really build a car and call it a four-wheeled unicycle. As much as Linden Lab doesn't want to market its platform as a game, it is one by comparison. There are too many examples of other things people do consider games that have huge overlap with Second Life to rule that Second Life is not a game.

2 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

What about the folks that are here totally for the "running a business" side of things.  I'd think that Anshe Chung thinks of SL more as a Business entity/environment than a game - as least as far as her avatar is concerned.

You can certainly make significant amounts of real money from/in games, even to the point where your focus is making that money as your primary job. This does not transform the game into a non-game. An individual person's perspective doesn't affect what something is.

@Theresa Tennyson I completely agree.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[LittleMe Jewell]

I think that, regardless of the LL comment I posted, if anybody wants to think of SL as a game, they can.

However (despite some people's opinion to the contrary), there is no hard concrete rule on what makes a game and therefore nobody can decide that SL is a game for everyone else.

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

An individual person's perspective doesn't affect what something is.

 

True - and that goes both ways:

Just now, LittleMe Jewell said:

However (despite some people's opinion to the contrary), there is no hard concrete rule on what makes a game and therefore nobody can decide that SL is a game for everyone else.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

True - and that goes both ways:

To be fair, I've been very quiet on this debate across many opportunities to take part. I'm not the one who goes out of my way to tell people "SL is a game, deal with it." These debates are almost guaranteed to begin with someone mentioning the word "game" as a placeholder term as part of some broader and completely unrelated topic, followed by someone jumping in to nitpick with "uhh, actually SL is not a game" like it's some great insult and soon the entire thread is about that.

You're free to think what you want, I don't care what any individual person particularly thinks. Sometimes I just see people making really poor arguments when I think the entire discussion is fruitless for both sides to begin with, and it's fun to argue.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Aishagain]

How about this:  The way I interact in SL is not gaming.  Others *may* game my reactions but that does NOT make me a player.

In all honesty I do not care whether any  one of you thinks SL is a game or not, so long as you are honest and not deceptive.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Aishagain

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Arguing whether SecondLife is a game or not is just

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A game?

[Sphynx Soleil]

On 10/6/2020 at 5:19 PM, Solar Legion said:

If anyone else is experiencing any of the issues you've listed, they can come here and speak up.

I've seen #2 and #10 pretty often enough, but since it's like a 2-second workaround, they're minor issues for me compared to things like group chats not working.

 

On 10/6/2020 at 5:19 PM, Solar Legion said:

Snark here not (entirely) intended: Not seeing many TPV users reporting/complaining about the ??? balance issue might simply be because the average user of TPVs appears to be a bit more proactive/knowledgeable (putting it politely here) and less likely to go nuclear when the unexpected happens.

Firestorm has its own support team.

Other TPV's usually have SOME level of support somewhere, even if it's not inworld.

But LL has made it plain in the past that they don't support TPV's, so...not much point in complaining here on the forums about them, lol.

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 minutes ago, Sphynx Soleil said:

But LL has made it plain in the past that they don't support TPV's, so...not much point in complaining here on the forums about them, lol.

Since LL Support doesn't work from the forums, complaining here about the LL official viewer won't typically gain anyone anything either.

[Solar Legion]

27 minutes ago, Sphynx Soleil said:

I've seen #2 and #10 pretty often enough, but since it's like a 2-second workaround, they're minor issues for me compared to things like group chats not working.

 

Firestorm has its own support team.

Other TPV's usually have SOME level of support somewhere, even if it's not inworld.

But LL has made it plain in the past that they don't support TPV's, so...not much point in complaining here on the forums about them, lol.

 

See the below quote and the section under it.

23 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Since LL Support doesn't work from the forums, complaining here about the LL official viewer won't typically gain anyone anything either.

The entire point was that by and large you'll see TPV users come here to ask the user base for assistance only after exhausting their other avenues of assistance. Oh yes and that the OP tends to complain about things in a manner wherein they pretend to speak for others.

Both of those issues are non-issues to begin with: One is nothing more than a balance update being stalled and requiring a manual poke while the other is nothing more than a visual glitch (at worst).

[sunnyrio]

On 11/11/2020 at 7:16 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

What about the folks that are here totally for the "running a business" side of things.  I'd think that Anshe Chung thinks of SL more as a Business entity/environment than a game - as least as far as her avatar is concerned.

I assume those are the minority.  And they are "running the game" for those who are doing it for pleasure.  If I own a real life casino, people come in and play card games.  It's a business to me, but that doesn't change the fact that what's happening in that building is the playing of card games.

  

On 11/11/2020 at 7:17 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

Have you ever knitted or done any other sort of needlework?  I can guarantee you that it does require a lot of thinking and is most definitely not mindless.

 

But you're not making choices.  You have a pre-defined goal to make a certain garment.  It's not like monopoly where you can go in different directions.  In SL you don't have to do things one way, nor in chess.

  

On 11/11/2020 at 7:21 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

Despite all of your arguing, the 'game' statement is not "fact". 

Whether or not Second Life is a game, is primarily determined by its creators and:

It's not up to Lindenlab.  If I made a car and called it a spaceship, it wouldn't be a spaceship.

  

On 11/11/2020 at 7:34 PM, RowanMinx said:

Dang, I knew it would show up!  I thought it was off playing Fallout 4.  Who's responsible?!?!

I think maybe it's just lonely and comes in to troll when it's little friends aren't online elsewhere.

 

No, I come in to educate you lot.  And yes half my day is taken up playing Fallout 4, because the graphics are 10 times better, you actually interact with things - you can injure yourself, you get hungry,  you get tired, the character in Second Life is just a drawing,  a cardboard cutout that can fall 50 miles without damage, never sleeps, and never gets hungry.  And the other characters in Fallout 4 actually interact with you, they're not random people you've never met just going about their business and not wanting to even talk.

[LittleMe Jewell]

18 minutes ago, sunnyrio said:

I come in to educate you lot.

No, you come here to argue a statement about something that IS interpretive, not fact.

[Ardy Lay]

blargh