maximiliancb

Thats excellent, just the information I need. Thanks yet again for putting up with my constant questions. For what its worth, I will be joining SL once I've finished university, it sounds fantastic as is, and of equal importance, it seems to be constantly developing.

I suppose i brought this on myself. I have not explained what my dissertation is, how you became so confident about the content of my dissertation I'm unsure. It is not a comparison of SL and WoW at all, infact the two were chosen because of their differences. And I apologise in advice for the resulting blood pressure spike, I'm looking at Eve Online too. If you're interested, the dissertation is comparing all three of these games to the predictions made by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita based on game theory, with the intent of identifying all obstacles that would prevent virtual worlds from making predictions of similar quality. That established, I guess we can skip your points on the incomparability of the two games. You say SL doesn't have auctions, which is true, but that is different from can't have auctions, it is possible but not practiced, why? I'm not taking short cuts, nor being lazy, I do however lack the time and money to play on 3 different virtual worlds. I've read what information is available on this site, and there are gaps, gaps which other users are being very helpful in filling. In response to your last point, true, you are not on my dissertation comittee, and as far as I'm aware, neither is anyone who begins texts with ROFLMAO. In short, I'm surprised your researcher background didnt kick in when you launched into your rant with next to zero idea what it is you're ranting about.

I'm comparing these virtual worlds with predictions made in game theory, in which game means any form of human interaction, and that keeps slipping into what I type, sorry. So auctions are possible, but not widely practiced or popular? is there a reason for this? in terms of benefit for a supplier they ensure the absolute maximum a crowd is willing to pay, instead of a competitive market price, this is of value if the item you are selling posesses unique qualities (property, livestock, antiques in the real world) but doesn't make sense if the item is easily replicated. Does this mean that the absence of interest in auctions is because items are generally easy to replicate, or simply because noone has succeeded in drawing a great enough crowd to one yet, or am I missing the point somewhat? Thanks agains for your continued help

Hey all, thanks so much for the input, its been really useful, and I am relatively confident of the information I have. I would like to put down what I have got, and if you so chose, you could correct what errors I have made. Auctions- The only central auctions are Linden Land auctions, which comes from a limitless supply of prime property, for this you require a premium, paid-for account. Other auctions may be arranged at the disgression of players with goods to sell, there is however no central catalogue for them to list this auction. Players may set up auction houses that other players may use to auction whatever goods they wish, and according to the will of the auction house owner, they may or may not charge a fee. Conflict- There are no factions in game, but conflict may still arise through 'griefers' players who cause damage for the fun of it, who do not stand to gain out of it. The response to this is security firms which may be hired to defend against griefers (clarfication on how this works would be appreciated, I'm assuming they can't just smack them and advise that they leave). Some vigilante security forces exist, these are almost as much of a liability as the griefers due to imperfect knowledge and a tendency to act first and ask questions later. Copyright and authorship- SL was the first virtual world to grant full authors rights to its players, and the goods are freely tradeable both in game and out of it. It has not yet faced the debate over whether any limit of access to a players property (banning, lost data) counts for loss of income, which they would be accountable for. (you laugh, its already happened in South Korea and China) Thanks a lot for your help.

This sounds fantastic. The auction part sounds good, is there any central system where people can be made aware of auctions that are not Linden Lab ones? do Auctioneers pay money to the Auction house and if so, what is it used for? There is one thing that I noticed in WoW, which is that sometimes money gets 'burnt', that is, its given back to the game, and record of it is lost. Examples from WoW are NPC vendors, they have no personal bank, they will always sell certain goods, and will always take money from you, but it is never reintroduced into the system. Same thing in the Auction house, a fee is taken from the Auctioner, but that money simply vanishes from the system. Also, your point about griefers gave me my third dimension for examination, internal conflict. You say there are security firms that are worse than the problem itself, which implies two things, one that it is possible to respond to internal conflict, but that this is inadequate/ an adequate form has not yet been found. Land seems a bit odd, I take it it is all owned by Linden Labs up until it is bought from them, and that it is all useful for some purpouse (no **bleep**ty useless desert, for example). Also there is no maximum, there is as much land as there is desire for land? how about businesses, how are the resources gained to be made into a salable product? I have gathered that characters can fly, so the process of resource gathering is going to be a bit of a departure from reality. I'm getting the impression that SL is very good at enabling people to organise themselves as freely as possible, but this is in a sort of bubble, in which the repetative, worky bits are avoided.

In my experience on another game (WoW) it's easy to grasp the basics, but to find out the intricacies of how the system works takes a long time. This isn't the only game I'll be using in the dissertation, the minimum will be 3, at the moment that is WoW, Eve Online and Second Life. The areas I will want to know about will be very specific, auctions for sure then possibly conflict between groups and something to the effect of player managed groups (guilds, businesses and the like). I'm not asking someone to write this for me, the most part would be pretty basic questions, I'm just prepared that it may take some explaining. For example in WoW there are particular aspects of the game that I wouldnt guess existed unless I was well acquainted with the system.

Dear all, I'm in my final year of my undergraduate degree in politics, and i'm writing my dissertation on the use of MMORPGs as decision making tools. Second Life is of course one of the big games of this type, and is really interesting to me. However, I have never played it before and, though I grasp the basic outline, I don't know it in detail. As such I am looking for someone with a lot of experience with the game to explain the mechanics of certain features. The aim of my dissertation is to examine how much like real life these games are, and if so, can they be used to predict how people in the real world will respond to certain events. I havent settled on all the aspects I want to examine yet, though I know the first is Auctions. In short, what I'm asking for is someone who knows the system well, and that I can ask a few questions of, when I have the questions ready. I'm a student, and have nothing really to give in return except copious thanks, sorry 'bout that.