With Philip Rosendale returning to advise on SL I thought I might return. Should I? If so why?

[Misty Rookstown]

On 5/17/2022 at 6:07 PM, Jaylinbridges said:

A blast from the past (2007), highly edited...

If Second Life isn't a game, what is it?

The mainstream press has struggled with how to characterize Second Life. The term “3-D online virtual world” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as the term “game.” And it’s a whole lot harder to get in a headline. But what is it, really?...

 

I use to work at a local news station years ago. We ran a couple stories from a sister affiliate about Second Life. The described it as a virtual world ... which did roll of the tongue. No point adding online and 3D since that is redundant.  We ran it a couple times ... guess it was a time LL was trying to market heavily through the media. That and we had idiot producers who ran stories about White Castle on Valentines day in California where the nearest one is 542 miles from here currently ... at the time the nearest one was probably a thousand miles away. We also ran a very stupid story about saving gas by turning off the car and coasting. Thank goodness the CHP guy was on following for a traffic report and said umm no don't do that. 

[Misty Rookstown]

On 5/17/2022 at 6:53 PM, Drayke Newall said:

I would have thought the name would have shown it to be a game to every other person on earth other than some people in these forums that seem to think otherwise.

You are roleplaying your Second Life.

You create your avatar as you always wanted to look like or roleplay another life form. You buy land to build a house, you build that house or pay someone else to build it for you. You pay rent, you try to find ways to earn a living in your Second Life to buy things your second life avatar needs, you meet people, you go to shopping events/stores, pretend to dance at clubs or relax at your house listening to music or watching something on your TV in your house in your roleplayed digital Second Life.

You build things, make decisions for your avatar, you control every aspect of your avatar in its virtual world.

Sounds like a game to me...

I own an actual game store. Roleplay isn't a game unto itself ... an acting exercise possibly. Role playing games have objectives, experience points ways to progress though there are some exceptions on the experience points part but there are always goals or rules at the very least to the game. If you think hiring someone to work on your house, paying rent and watching tv is a game ... remind me not to invite you over to game night. That is what everyone does outside maybe the homeless. 

[Misty Rookstown]

On 5/17/2022 at 7:05 PM, Rowan Amore said:

It's more a toy than a game.

https://tomchatfield.net/portfolio/the-difference-between-games-and-toys/

Playing a game means submitting to an external set of rules defining particular things you are supposed to achieve: goals, achievements, points, a certain amount of exploration or action, kills, items, whatever. Playing with a toy, though, is about satisfying not an external set of conditions, but a far more nebulous internal set: through play, you are experimenting with how doing something makes you feel. The aim is not, in the end, to satisfy something outside yourself; it is play itself in the most basic, self-delighting sense.

This is closer. An activity is a bit closer, virtual world encompasses all of the above though. But to some it is an escape, to others a way to socialize, to some it is a creative outlet, to others well ... to express kinky desires and fantasies (we have to be honest i and to some others it is serious literal business. Pretty sure land barons think of it more of a game when they are making their car and house payments in real life with it. 

[Misty Rookstown]

On 5/18/2022 at 10:55 AM, Persephone Emerald said:

Both are tree fruits with high amounts of sugar, some water, fiber and vitamin C. Both are easy to carry around and keep pretty well at room temperature. Both have seeds on the inside, an edible skin, fragrant flowers, smell good and taste good. Both have been cultivated for centuries and cross-bred with similar fruits. Apples and Oranges are different fruits, but certainly comparable.

I always use this argument to be snarky Which is why I like saying it's like comparing apples to thumb tacks or something along those lines.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Misty Rookstown said:

Sure for marketing reasons it would be good to not call it agame. But just telling someone about it casually to someone and saying something like "have you checked out the game called Second Life? You should check it out". They will go to check it out with a game in mind but basically find a big 3d chat room where you can buy clothes. You don't have to be wordy ... just say virtual world. If they don't understand that you can ask them have they seen Ready player one or the Matrix ... kind of like that. Telling them it is a game will set them up for a lot of disappointment and confusion. 

Good point. For marketing purposes someone could call root beer a cola, but when someone who's never had root beer tries it, they won't be happy, because it's not cola.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Drayke Newall]

5 hours ago, Misty Rookstown said:

I own an actual game store. Roleplay isn't a game unto itself ... an acting exercise possibly. Role playing games have objectives, experience points ways to progress though there are some exceptions on the experience points part but there are always goals or rules at the very least to the game. If you think hiring someone to work on your house, paying rent and watching tv is a game ... remind me not to invite you over to game night. That is what everyone does outside maybe the homeless. 

You missed the point entirely. Seeing as you own a game store and think earlier you said that game store is board games I will put it another way.

I am playing a virtual table top RPG where I am the Game Master making the rules and goals for my avatars second life. As the Game Master I set a goal for my character and decided that my character will go to a club and dance to try and find a friend. That is a goal. Therefore by your definition that an RPG requires a goal, Second Life is now a game. 🙄

Additionally, a game by no means requires experience points or levelling up and likewise it doesn't need a goal.

Just because you own a game store does not mean you set the definition of what a game or roleplay is.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Drayke Newall

[Love Zhaoying]

Apparently, arguing about whether or not "Second Life is a game", is in itself a game. Then there's "Game of Homes".

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 hours ago, Misty Rookstown said:

I always use this argument to be snarky Which is why I like saying it's like comparing apples to thumb tacks or something along those lines.

 

So, you started this thread to see if people wanted you to return?

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Good point. For marketing purposes someone could call root beer a cola, but when someone who's never had root beer tries it, they won't be happy, because it's not cola.

That's because root beer is made from a root and colas are made from nuts. 

🤭

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

That's because root beer is made from a root and colas are made from nuts. 

🤭

Nah, they're both made from corn-syrup. 😄

[Silent Mistwalker]

14 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Nah, they're both made from corn-syrup. 😄

I said made from, not made with. 😜

[Gabriele Graves]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Apparently, arguing about whether or not "Second Life is a game", is in itself a game.

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

That's because root beer is made from a root and colas are made from nuts. 

🤭

Your links invalidate your assertion. *

From the Wikipedia description of Root Beer:

"Sassafras root beverages were made by indigenous peoples of the Americas for culinary and medicinal reasons before the arrival of Europeans in North America. European culinary techniques have been applied to making traditional sassafras-based beverages similar to root beer since the 16th century.

[snip]

" Not all traditional or commercial root beers were sassafras-based. One of Hires's early competitors was Barq's, which began selling its sarsaparilla-based root beer in 1898 and was labeled simply as "Barq's".[10]

[snip]

"Safrole, the aromatic oil found in sassafras roots and bark that gave traditional root beer its distinctive flavor, was banned for commercially mass-produced foods and drugs by the FDA in 1960.[1] Laboratory animals that were given oral doses of sassafras tea or sassafras oil that contained large doses of safrole developed permanent liver damage or various types of cancer.[1] While sassafras is no longer used in commercially produced root beer and is sometimes replaced with artificial flavors, natural extracts with the safrole distilled and removed are available.[11][12]

[snip]

"Root beer was originally made with sassafras root and bark which, due to its mucilaginous properties, formed a natural, long lasting foam, a characteristic feature of the beverage. Root beer was originally carbonated by fermentation. As demand and technology changed, carbonated water was used. When the potential health risks of safrole were realised, sassafras temporarily fell out of use (it returned later as a distilled, safrole-free flavouring). Some manufacturers used small amounts of starch (e.g. from cassava) with natural surfactants to reproduce the familiar foaming character of sassafras-based root beer. Some brands of root beer have distinctive foaming behaviours, which has been used as part of their marketing identity.[14]

[snip]

"Ingredients in early and traditional root beers include allspice, birch bark, coriander, juniper, ginger, wintergreen, hops, burdock root, dandelion root, spikenard, pipsissewa, guaiacum chips, sarsaparilla, spicewood, wild cherry bark, yellow dock, *****ly ash bark, sassafras root, vanilla beans, dog grass, molasses and licorice.[18] Many of these ingredients are still used in traditional and commercially produced root beer today, which is often thickened, foamed or carbonated."

- Ounce for ounce there is more sugar and corn syrup in most soft-drinks than any of their other non-water ingredients. Since commercially produced root beer usually has little to no sassafras root extract in it, the only other root extracts commonly found in it would be from burdock, dandelion and licorice root.

 

From the Wikipedia link on the Cola Nut:

"The kola nut has a bitter flavor and contains caffeine. It is chewed in many West African countries, in both private and social settings.[4] It is often used ceremonially, presented to chiefs or guests.[5] In folk medicine, kola nuts are considered useful for aiding digestion when ground and mixed with honey, and are used as a remedy for coughs.[6] Kola nuts are perhaps best known to Western culture as a flavoring ingredient and one of the sources of caffeine in cola and other similarly flavored beverages, although kola nut extract is no longer used in major commercial cola drinks such as Coca-Cola.[1][7]

[snip]

"In the 1880s, a pharmacist in Georgia, John Pemberton, took caffeine extracted from kola nuts and cocaine-containing extracts from coca leaves and mixed them with sugar, other flavorings, and carbonated water to invent Coca-Cola, the first cola soft drink.[1] As of 2016, the cola recipe no longer contained actual kola nut extract.[1][13]"

 

* (In case anyone doesn't get it, I'm making fun of how we get threads derailed by arguing  over off-topic details, analogies and personal opinions.)

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Your links invalidate your assertion. *

From the Wikipedia description of Root Beer:

"Sassafras root beverages were made by indigenous peoples of the Americas for culinary and medicinal reasons before the arrival of Europeans in North America. European culinary techniques have been applied to making traditional sassafras-based beverages similar to root beer since the 16th century.

[snip]

" Not all traditional or commercial root beers were sassafras-based. One of Hires's early competitors was Barq's, which began selling its sarsaparilla-based root beer in 1898 and was labeled simply as "Barq's".[10]

[snip]

"Safrole, the aromatic oil found in sassafras roots and bark that gave traditional root beer its distinctive flavor, was banned for commercially mass-produced foods and drugs by the FDA in 1960.[1] Laboratory animals that were given oral doses of sassafras tea or sassafras oil that contained large doses of safrole developed permanent liver damage or various types of cancer.[1] While sassafras is no longer used in commercially produced root beer and is sometimes replaced with artificial flavors, natural extracts with the safrole distilled and removed are available.[11][12]

[snip]

"Root beer was originally made with sassafras root and bark which, due to its mucilaginous properties, formed a natural, long lasting foam, a characteristic feature of the beverage. Root beer was originally carbonated by fermentation. As demand and technology changed, carbonated water was used. When the potential health risks of safrole were realised, sassafras temporarily fell out of use (it returned later as a distilled, safrole-free flavouring). Some manufacturers used small amounts of starch (e.g. from cassava) with natural surfactants to reproduce the familiar foaming character of sassafras-based root beer. Some brands of root beer have distinctive foaming behaviours, which has been used as part of their marketing identity.[14]

[snip]

"Ingredients in early and traditional root beers include allspice, birch bark, coriander, juniper, ginger, wintergreen, hops, burdock root, dandelion root, spikenard, pipsissewa, guaiacum chips, sarsaparilla, spicewood, wild cherry bark, yellow dock, *****ly ash bark, sassafras root, vanilla beans, dog grass, molasses and licorice.[18] Many of these ingredients are still used in traditional and commercially produced root beer today, which is often thickened, foamed or carbonated."

- Ounce for ounce there is more sugar and corn syrup in most soft-drinks than any of their other non-water ingredients. Since commercially produced root beer usually has little to no sassafras root extract in it, the only other root extracts commonly found in it would be from burdock, dandelion and licorice root.

 

From the Wikipedia link on the Cola Nut:

"The kola nut has a bitter flavor and contains caffeine. It is chewed in many West African countries, in both private and social settings.[4] It is often used ceremonially, presented to chiefs or guests.[5] In folk medicine, kola nuts are considered useful for aiding digestion when ground and mixed with honey, and are used as a remedy for coughs.[6] Kola nuts are perhaps best known to Western culture as a flavoring ingredient and one of the sources of caffeine in cola and other similarly flavored beverages, although kola nut extract is no longer used in major commercial cola drinks such as Coca-Cola.[1][7]

[snip]

"In the 1880s, a pharmacist in Georgia, John Pemberton, took caffeine extracted from kola nuts and cocaine-containing extracts from coca leaves and mixed them with sugar, other flavorings, and carbonated water to invent Coca-Cola, the first cola soft drink.[1] As of 2016, the cola recipe no longer contained actual kola nut extract.[1][13]"

 

* (In case anyone doesn't get it, I'm making fun of how we get threads derailed by arguing  over off-topic details, analogies and personal opinions.)

 

 

Um... I am one of those indigenous people.

Are you having fun? 🤭

[Persephone Emerald]

32 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Um... I am one of those indigenous people.

Are you having fun? 🤭

We could go off on more tangents about cultural appropriation, colonialism, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, evil corporations, the unhealthy adulteration of commercially produced foods, the negative effects of too much caffeine and sugar in one's diet, having the freedom to eat whatever we want without being controlled by regulations made by a nanny-state, etc., - but then we'd probably get criticized for bringing politics into the thread.  😆

Edited May 20, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Silent Mistwalker]

59 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

We could go off on more tangents about cultural appropriation, colonialism, the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, evil corporations, the unhealthy adulteration of commercially produced foods, the negative effects of too much caffeine and sugar in one's diet, having the freedom to eat whatever we want without being controlled by regulations made by a nanny-state, etc., - but then we'd probably get criticized for bringing politics into the thread.  😆

[Misty Rookstown]

14 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

You missed the point entirely. Seeing as you own a game store and think earlier you said that game store is board games I will put it another way.

I am playing a virtual table top RPG where I am the Game Master making the rules and goals for my avatars second life. As the Game Master I set a goal for my character and decided that my character will go to a club and dance to try and find a friend. That is a goal. Therefore by your definition that an RPG requires a goal, Second Life is now a game. 🙄

Additionally, a game by no means requires experience points or levelling up and likewise it doesn't need a goal.

Just because you own a game store does not mean you set the definition of what a game or roleplay is.

Your example really doesn't work on any level. In a role playing game with you as the game master you are not making decisions for the players and you are not the player yourself. Its actually hard to reply because you don't seem to understand what a role playing game is at all. So let me explain the basics. A role playing game is a game in which you have a game master or dungeon master (the title judges from game to game but the job is the same). You will either buy a premade adventure campaign or write one yourself or maybe even just improvise the story. You then have other people that create characters with various physical and mental statistics set by specific sets of rules usually. The Game master describes what is going on, guilds them on a specific quest. The players makes decisions based on the situation presented and utlizing rules will resolve those situations using skills and dice rolls and various charts and rules. The goal is basically to complete the quest or mission. 
In second life there are no rules, no quests, no progress. There are guidelines for behaviors both for ethical and legal reasons but no rules on how to play Second Life. If you choose to role play in Second Life ... that isn't a game. A role playing game has rules and structure and goals sometimes lose sometimes not. Is Jack Nicholson a gamer when he is filming a movie? Of course not that is silly. But he is playing a role. Because I own a game store is a perspective of being literally exposed to thousands of games. It gives one a much wider understanding of what a game is. More so I would say than some hobby board gamer types even. Because there are a lot of things they might not call a game that are a game. 
If there are zero rules, zero goals, zero winners it does not really approach being a game. Keep in mind role play and a role playing game are very different things. You are right I don't set the definition ... but they are set. 

[Misty Rookstown]

9 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

That's because root beer is made from a root and colas are made from nuts. 

🤭

Cola is not made from cola nuts that often anymore. They get the caffeine from other sources usually. I believe the key ingredient anymore is coriander. It might be closer to trying to say Facebook is a game or youtube. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Misty Rookstown said:

Cola is not made from cola nuts that often anymore. They get the caffeine from other sources usually. I believe the key ingredient anymore is coriander. It might be closer to trying to say Facebook is a game or youtube. 

Coca-cola stopped using kola nuts in the recipe before I was born and that was more than 60 years ago.

[Mollymews]

i have forgotten who said it, but ages and ages ago in the furious days of Immersion vs Augmentation, the person said that when looking for a descriptor, that SL isn't about immersion or about augmentation, nor was it about: Is SL A Game or NotA Game

the way the person described SL was as a playground, where we come and play. Some play is very serious, like being a merchant to support our RL, or finding the true love of our RL life, and other serious stuf. And other play is less serious, more light-hearted, play dress up, play houses, play socially and sometimes play frivolous. That a playground caters for all of these

and I thought yes that's a good way to describe SL, when we wanting a single word that is all encompassing.A nearly equivalent word in other speak is 'platform'. I just like playground better, as is more encompassing, unlike a platform where trains can also arrive and depart

Edited May 21, 2022 by Mollymews
sn't

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i have forgotten who said it, but ages and ages ago in the furious days of Immersion vs Augmentation, the person said that when looking for a descriptor, that SL isn't about immersion or about augmentation, nor was it about: Is SL A Game or NotA Game

the way the person described SL was as a playground, where we come and play. Some play is very serious, like being a merchant to support our RL, or finding the true love of our RL life, and other serious stuf. And other play is less serious, more light-hearted, play dress up, play houses, play socially and sometimes play frivolous. That a playground caters for all of these

and I thought yes that's a good way to describe SL, when we wanting a single word that is all encompassing.A nearly equivalent word in other speak is 'platform'. I just like playground better, as is more encompassing, unlike a platform where trains can also arrive and depart

Is why I've always called it a creative platform. Less appeal to children and more appeal to adults... or supposed to be adults.

[Misty Rookstown]

19 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Coca-cola stopped using kola nuts in the recipe before I was born and that was more than 60 years ago.

Coca Cola also stopped using cocaine as well .. .but I understand they still use coca leaves for flavor

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 minutes ago, Misty Rookstown said:

Coca Cola also stopped using cocaine as well .. .but I understand they still use coca leaves for flavor

Where do you think cocaine comes from?