Will Wright joins Linden Lab

[Jo Yardley]

Great news I reckon.

http://danielvoyager.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/will-wright-joins-linden-lab

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/10/will-wright-joins-the-board-of-linden-lab.html

[Wildcat Furse]

that news sounds very promising .... :smileyhappy: *meows*

[Ann Otoole]

I think it would be great if all the original game gods were on the board and turned SL into a game incubator to battle the corporate monopolies that took over and screwed up the gaming world.

[Ellyn Elan]

This is interesting. Whether it is promising or not is too soon to tell.

It would be nice to get the infrastructure fixed and upgraded and not just a new flavor of online philosophy.

Wait and see, wait and see.

[Deltango Vale]

I am cautiously optimistic. It is certainly good to see some new blood on the Board of Directors. Perhaps it's time for some old blood to retire. If Second Life is to prosper, it needs a massive injection of youth, enthusiasm and intelligence.

[Linda Brynner]

Will Wright Is an American video game designer and co-founder of the game development company Maxis, now part of Electronic Arts. In April 2009 he left Electronic Arts to run "Stupid Fun Club", an entertainment think tank in which Wright and EA are principal shareholders.

Hmm, not exactly a surpise since it was announced that we are going to see simulated life forms in SL and both the CEO and this guy are going back to Electronic Arts.

Perhaps we are heading towards SECOND SIMS lol

[Medhue Simoni]

Interesting:smileysurprised:

[Melita Magic]

Now there is a good marriage.

He's already in my Simpsons DS game, why not Second Life?

[Linda Brynner]

Well at least LL's direction seems clear... its development is going to be more approached like a game...

Howerver i am a "grandmom" in SL where it was "Your World, Your Imagination"... later it became "Your World..  Your money we want in any way we can"... Moreover, LL clearly lacked any vision while major problems never had been resolved.

Technically SL is still at the state of a niche. There is has been a lot of window dressing like a website with the atmosphere like IMVU, a new IU for for the viewer, and all kind of tweaks and geeks later on to get more ppl into it.

However the progressive development of new signups remained flat, daily logins dropped and montly logins remains flat since 2007. 

This all has a technical background, lack of real vision and lack of main stream connections and licenses. However, the way SL is fabricated it cannot handle 100k of concurrent logins where IMVU got over that number years ago.

Perhaps these known faces from the gaming industry will be able to turn it around... interesting, but SL should not be about: walking alone amongst artificial life. For me it would be totally boring. If i was to play a console game i would have done so. SL to me is still interesting, but i do hope it is not going to be degraded into some boring game.

 

 

[Medhue Simoni]

lol, it's interesting that you say that. Boring, I mean. Cause many non creators in SL would call SL boring right now. I would never say that, cause my love of SL has everything to do with creating.

My personal thoughts on why SL is not as fun for some, has everything to do with interaction. Creating interactive items, whether that be avatar to avatar or avatar to object, is not all that easy in SL, outside of the basic things that every1 does. NPCs is just 1 aspect and considering Rod's experience, and now Will's, I'm expecting to see all the things that I always wished SL had to create with. Mesh is 1 big thing, and that is here now. Pathfinding is another very major thing for NPC, and they are working on that now. Currently, we have always had the best animation system ever concieved for a game, tho it could be improved in many ways.

Some are going to say, "Other games have these things, so how does this push SL over the top?". My answer would be that it is the prosumer aspect that will make these items and other new things LL develops, that much more exciting than what can be produced in other games. When I did MODs and played FPS games, it was the MODs that every1 used. You could not play on some1's server unless you had the right MOD. Many times, the MODs were much better environments, because the creators could test and test and test and then adjust, making them way more fun. Plus, you will have a choice of thousands of different games, Role Play, and interaction that you can't get anywhere else. Many people are snarky about NPCs and combat in SL, but this combo allows you to have fun while waiting for real people to play with.

[Deej Kasshiki]

Amen to that Linda. If I just want to log in and shoot NPCs there are far better (and FREE) games that allow me to do that, or I could just dust off my copy of The Sims.

I really hope that the people at the top of LL don't lose sight of what makes SL unique.

[Void Singer]

devils advocate time:

I sense more commercialization in our future

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Maybe, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I feel that the one thing that will get more people in the door to SL is finding a way to reduce the end-user hardware requirements. Maybe look into ways to pre-render a sim in advance to reduce the amount of work done on each residents' computer? That would pave the way for residents whose computers have low-end graphics processors.

For instance divide each sim into 32X32X32m cubes from 0 to 4096 altitude. If nothing's been edited in a cube for 24 hours it's automatically pre-rendered server side and stays that way until something is edited. This suggestion might not work as I don't fully understand how the rendering process works.

[Maryanne Solo]

Behold.. SLim City! 2012  

Interesting, let us hope he contributes something valid, original and specific to the unique platform that is SL.

It would appear LL are positioning themselves to deliver a knockout blow to the "follow this rigid path" gaming world.

If they have the foresight and the dedication to think this through properly, they are in a position to ensure the second coming of the Wirtual Vorld :smileysurprised:

Gazing into my fractal bauble.. I predict new styles of earning small amounts of money for residents as a starter. 

[Rolig Loon]

---

Medhue Simoni wrote:

lol, it's interesting that you say that. Boring, I mean. Cause many non creators in SL would call SL boring right now. I would never say that, cause my love of SL has everything to do with creating.

My personal thoughts on why SL is not as fun for some, has everything to do with interaction. Creating interactive items, whether that be avatar to avatar or avatar to object, is not all that easy in SL, outside of the basic things that every1 does. NPCs is just 1 aspect and considering Rod's experience, and now Will's, I'm expecting to see all the things that I always wished SL had to create with. Mesh is 1 big thing, and that is here now. Pathfinding is another very major thing for NPC, and they are working on that now. Currently, we have always had the best animation system ever concieved for a game, tho it could be improved in many ways.

Some are going to say, "Other games have these things, so how does this push SL over the top?". My answer would be that it is the prosumer aspect that will make these items and other new things LL develops, that much more exciting than what can be produced in other games. When I did MODs and played FPS games, it was the MODs that every1 used. You could not play on some1's server unless you had the right MOD. Many times, the MODs were much better environments, because the creators could test and test and test and then adjust, making them way more fun. Plus, you will have a choice of thousands of different games, Role Play, and interaction that you can't get anywhere else. Many people are snarky about NPCs and combat in SL, but this combo allows you to have fun while waiting for real people to play with.

---

Those are my thoughts too, Medhue.  I wouldn't have come to SL four and a half years ago if I had thought it was a game, and I certainly would not have stayed.  I know everyone has a different motivation, but creativity is mine.  I spend much of my time in world scripting or building things, and a lot of offline time texturing.  I'm excited by the challenge of learning and shaping my world.  I would be bored to tears in a game where a team of pros created all of the fancy graphics and left me with nothing to do but wander around slaying dragons.  If that's the future fo SL, I will be very disappointed.

I suspect, though, that Void's vision of the future is closer to the mark, so you and I can breathe easy.  The commercial side of SL is a major driver, and it depends on having not only enthusiastic buyers but a healthy cadre of creators.  The market economy of SL is a major asset.  Having a couple of gamers in the boardroom will help sharpen SL's focus, but I believe that focus will be on leveraging SL's market economy, not on making it yet another online game.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

Deej Kasshiki wrote:

I really hope that the people at the top of LL don't lose sight of what makes SL unique.

---

Assuming they can still see it. Deltango has somewhat famously said, "Sometimes I just don't think LL gets SL".

Needless to say I share your hope. I don't do much creating here other than a little tinkering for stuff I need. I can understand those who list that as their main reason for being here. My main reason is the social aspect: the conversations, the shared experiences.  I don't think either of those aspects (the huge range of ways to be creative, the diverse community) can be matched by anything anywhere else.

[Pamela Galli]

Would just like to add that creativity doesn't just mean creating content, but using the content creatively. My customers love to decorate and landscape, for example, and some of the avis and outfits people put together are works of art -- and photographers do amazing things documenting content.  You don't really need creating skills to be creative.

 

ETA: Tho photography does take some creation skills too.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Would just like to add that creativity doesn't just mean creating content, but using the content creatively. My customers love to decorate and landscape, for example, and some of the avis and outfits people put together are works of art -- and photographers do amazing things documenting content.  You don't really need creating skills to be creative.

---

I agree wholeheartedly, Pamela. I've seen avi photography that's as good as any fashion art I've seen in RL. And there are people who create environments that can change your mood, sing songs or play music, too.

SL is experiential and creativity comes in many forms.

[Rolig Loon]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

Would just like to add that creativity doesn't just mean creating content, but using the content creatively. My customers love to decorate and landscape, for example, and some of the avis and outfits people put together are works of art -- and photographers do amazing things documenting content.  You don't really need creating skills to be creative.

---

Amen, Pam.  My definition of creativity embraces not only what the content creators do to produce new objects, scripts, animations, and landscapes, but also the imaginative work that residents do in customizing their local world with things that they have chosen.  Because I have come to appreciate the power of SL's market economy, I also include the role of entrepreneurs and merchants who are the bridge between creators and consumers.  We are not separate communities, any more than people are in RL, so we all contribute to the dynamic nature of a user-designed world.  Few online games can match that model.

[Deltango Vale]

I am suddenly reminded of the greatest computer game ever created: Sid Meier's Civilization II. If Linden Lab could bring the genius of that design into SL (while remembering that SL is a world and not a game), amazing things could happen.

I have no clear idea how to combine the brilliance of Civ II with SL, but my instincts are ringing loudly that a brainstorming session is in order. Several crude ideas spring to mind:

• build an AI into the infrastructure such that one can optionally utilize it in some way (an engine for breedable creatures, a control or scoring system for inworld RP, a financial trading system or market management system, a market-match search engine, a land-script-object management system)
• create an AI overlay to SL that controls world evolution systems (seasonal changes in Windlight, astronomical changes in the night sky, adding natural resources to land and oceans, avatar aging or auto-adjust avatar for age selection)
• created special Civ II type sims with special features that enable avatar-terrain and avatar-avatar interactions through time (from simply playing Civ II within SL to a whole new set of local objects being processed through the Civ II engine)

For the engineers among you, forgive my naivety. I read that LL does plan to add some kind of AI, so maybe I'm a million miles behind the trend. Perhaps the concept of combining Civ II with SL was discussed years ago. I don't know.

Also, as all of you know, I am one of the strongest proponents of SL as a world and not a game, but I believe there could be merit to adding an optional goal-based component, which might appeal to RP- and game-oriented residents. RL is a world full of games. Perhaps combining Civ II and SL in some way could generate a killer app that rockets SL to a whole new level of virtual world dynamics. Done well, SL could potentially pull a lot of customers from the Farmville and gaming worlds - not to mention adding a new layer of sophistication to SL in general

Thoughts?

[Knowl Paine]

Welcome to Second Life Mr. Wright,

It's not too late to bolt; I would understand. Just relax, and concentrate on the tens of thousands of Residents who are counting on you. Hope this helps :smileyhappy:

 

To: Jo,

Thanks for posting :matte-motes-grin:

 

 

 

[Bree Giffen]

Omg, the creator of The Sims? I think his joining is a good thing. I hope he gives SL a good long look and understands how different SL is from other worlds. Hopefully, we'll see changes for the better.

[Dresden Ceriano]

I remain sceptically enthralled.

...Dres

[Tanee Almendros]

It is true????????

[Morgaine Christensen]

I am not even optimistic.  LL has had a number of promient folks on their board or working for them in top positions over the years.  NONE have listened to the "bread and butter" users that keep this platform afloat. It is the user/customer that provides feedback that should drive the improvement of a product.  SL is one of the places that treats it's customer/user base as if we were stupid.  Issues are still unresolved on the JIRA . We are given what they think the "masses" want, which is fine for most gaming environments that confine you to a few static character choices and serves the pre-teen/teen world.  I find it terribly sad that a unique vision such as Philip had has been lost to the almighty dollar.  Of course, he is in very good company these days.

I am an adult.   I come to SL as an adult.  I expect adult things like mature conversations, various themed roleplay, or interesting philosophical evens, or to create things  for the generous amount of real money I spend with LL and numerous content creators each month.  If I wanted to do pointless static questing or shoot em ups that are mindless  babysitters (funny how TV has been replaced by computer gaming babysitters)  creating a population of mindless zombies geared toward the average, I will log into WOW or create a pointless SIM account. 

SL has always been a unique venue.  You can participate and create your environment.  You have the opportunity to really interact with people from around the world in things that do matter.   Amazingly enough, you might even get a chance to experience or understand another culture or issue from a different perspective.  Bringing on board those geared toward a less than unique experience with emphasis on mass marketing and mindles zombie creation really does not make my heart go pitter pat nor bolster my confidence.

*sits back and waits to be even minimally impressed*