BobbyGeorge

Phoebe Avro wrote: Club End of Days^^ http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/End%20of%20Days/233/245/503 Actually, I'd second this for cybergoth/electronic. Not my cup of tea musically, but a very atmospheric, well designed club with a loyal crowd and it has that style of music nailed down, IMHO. Friendly folk too. Used to pop in sometimes to play the sploder...

Rufferta wrote: Yesterday I enjoyed sailing through part of Second Life, but at the same time I was aware of a cat near my ankle, I listened to my husband telling me about what he was watching on tv., and it felt as if I had a foot in both worlds. As it should be, IMO. Google 'Mark Knapp second life' for an extreme consequence of too much immersion. Still, there will be people who willingly choose to cut themselves off from the real world (I've met a few people inworld who are dangerously close to that already). Looking forward to a bright future of cops kicking in apartment doors to collect emaciated corpses in OR goggles, and SL addicts in soiled clothes running around the streets with blood pouring from their eyes, screaming at passers by and pointing at trees in awe!

A tough one to answer. I'm aware of hundreds of SL fashion blogs, but virtually nothing dedicated to SL vehicle reviews. It depends on what you want. Performance-wise, it's all down to the script - you could put a decent script into a pole-shaped prim and ride it and still outperform a number of L$2,000 bikes with inferior scripts. If, however, you're after something that looks great, it'll be far easier to pick one you like, and the SLMP cost probably reflects the visual detail rather than the functionality. A cynic might add you'll be spending more time looking at it than throttling it anyway, thanks to sim crossings, ban lines and general lagginess. Not much help, sorry - maybe try a few inworld racing tracks and see what regular users suggest.

>> But SL still has managed to be the most successful VW ever, to this day. Yes, that's beyond dispute. InWorldz and other OS alternatives never managed to evolve to the point SL did. That's their bad, but I was specifically talking about the fact that SL, despite promoting itself as a platform for whatever virtual experiences the user can imagine, has restricted itself to appeal to a rather conservative demographic and lost a lot of users as a result, IMO. >> Seems like you have a better idea for what SL should be. Want to tell me? Well, something resembling SL between 2008-2010, without the horrendous business decisions that followed, might be a good phase to go back to. What was SL doing right then that it's clearly not doing now? The attempt to integrate itself with FB users was flawed. Most FB users want to post pictures of themselves, their friends and family; not be represented by a humanoid fox avatar. SL calls for a dedicated type of user, who'll immerse themselves in the platform. IMO, LL's biggest mistake has been trying to be all things to all people, instead of concentrating on what made it special and unique (I say this as somebody who once used to log into SL regularly and loved his initial SL experience). >> That's fine since it's just a codename and not the final name. That's a relief! >> Maybe it's because I'm a Swede... Ah...I appreciate it's not nice seeing a thread where you're getting negative comments. I'm sure you're a great guy, but I'm sorry, I think you're not so hot on PR. I've found a lot of your announcements, so far, to be evasive and bland. They sometimes sound like you're launching some bank security software instead of a dynamic new VW. Naturally, these are just my opinions and I would love to have to eat my words if Sansar/SL2 blows us all away.

I just can't see the NGP working. And I'm not a harbinger of doom, but LL's business practices never cease to baffle me. For a start, SL has never produced a clear vision of what it's meant to be, other than 'Your world, your imagination'. Clearly, that can be interpreted in myriad ways. When it comes to enforcing 'the law', though, LL has always, weirdly, come down in favour of one side. Namely, the older users who want to manage a virtual holiday home and dress up their dollies, rather than push the platform's physics to the limit. For people immersed in the game, it's worth pointing out: SL means next to nothing to the majority of the world's population. This is an extremely fringe platform; I'm sure that some whacked-out conspiracy forums get more genuine traffic. In a way, LL's decisions have killed off a lot of the potential for immersionism, to its detriment. SL or Sansar or whatever will never compete with FB; it's an entirely different dynamic. LL seem to have disregarded its ideal, target market with a series of dim decisions and futile attempts to 'be' something it can't. 'Sansar', IMO, is ultimately a forgettable name. Won't register or strike a chord with most folk. You won't be able to transfer most (or any) of your inventory; retaining AV names is still a moot point (I still haven't seen any clarification on the issue of names); it seems it will be a completely different beast altogether. I think SL as we know it will grind on for a while, but why on earth would a company looking to make profits invest in a dead horse? SL will probably become like Inworldz for a couple of years and then fizzle out altogether. As for Ebbe as an individual, I've yet to encounter a more wooden, dry and evasive public face for any company. His distinct lack of enthusiasm alone makes me wonder why he's been appointed to take forward a platform that's supposedly meant to stoke personal creativity. Part of SL's amazing, initial dynamic WAS that clash of cultures and user intent. To have a grid that hosted educators, Gorean women on dog leads, genius scripters and redneck C&W DJs alike. It created an interesting frisson, at least. LL has now weighed in on the side of a vague 'nothingness', some undefined 'typical' user who doesn't exist, and has ignored/ deterred a lot of the dedicated obsessives and geeks who made SL what it was - and who would (probably) have clung on to become core customers in the long run. I really can't see Sansar attracting anyone other than current SL users. Likewise, I can't see SL still running by the end of the decade.

For those of us who want to ditch the 'Resident' surname...will there be a surname option on Sansar? Or even better, can we pick our own first and last name there? Thanks.

Nah, take the plunge. It's fun. :matte-motes-grin: Only recommendations are to find a club that you really like and would like to DJ at. Many of the 'opportunities' in the Inworld Employment forum are for new clubs, which can turn out to be a headache if the owner's a jerk and/or has all the charisma of a brick. The best 'way in' is to chat to existing DJs, club managers, etc that you get on with. Most folk get hired by word of mouth/recommendation, or because they come across as convincingly knowledgeable about the musical genre they're into. A bad host can be a pain in the neck, but a good one will be inviting people to join the club/group and sending messages to promote your set, to free up your time, and are therefore worth making an effort to build a relationship with (unless they're totally awful). Don't think voice is necessary and don't understand why some clubs (mostly C&W places, weirdly) insist on it - never stopped me getting gigs by micing off, and I personally don't want to hear someone talking between tunes . As long as you can type-chat, this shouldn't be an issue.