Adam Spark
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Posts posted by Adam Spark
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12 hours ago, FairreLilette said:
SL is not a game but it has many games. There are all kinds of boards games to play here, even chess plus there are battle game sims.
Which was my entire point. You play games IN SL, but in and of itself, SL is not a game.
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2 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:
Yup, every little bit helps. I didn't mean to sound discouraging, if that's the way it sounded. Attracting and retaining newcomers isn't an easy business, but it isn't entirely trial and error either. My point was that Linden Lab really has been making some decent changes in SL infrastructure that ought to help, and there are plenty of people here in the forums and in world who understand the importance of giving newbies a good start. I am less sanguine about convincing landowners to give up entrenched attitudes about who gets to wander onto their land, but who knows?
No offense taken at all.
I'm not convincing anybody with entrenched attitudes. Its tiresome at best, and likely an exercise in futility as you imply. But there are plenty who are not entrenched in their attitudes but do things they may just not think twice about. Its so easy to remove an issue with a quick ban, even I am guilty of it as a venue owner. So while we may all agree, it never hurts to see a reminder, or perhaps another way we can do what we are doing already.
Besides that, I tend to get on my soapbox on certain issues I strongly agree or disagree with haha 🙂
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1 hour ago, Matty Luminos said:
That indicates to me that the dances provided in your venue are not good enough quality. Update your venue dance machines and guests won't need to use their own.
People want to use THEIR dance huds, regardless of what the club has, even if they have the same dances. They leave before even looking at the quality of dance machines a lot of times, because regardless of what the dances are, they aren't interested.
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4 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:
I quite agree but I think you are preaching to the choir.
Maybe so, but I am sure the forum has a lot of lurkers, and we certainly see a lot of newbies who may pick up on some things said here for their future on the grid.
Having said that, I was merely voicing my agreement with a previous post and expanding on it, not really trying to convince anyone.
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1 minute ago, Beth Macbain said:
I'm not an educator. I have no patience. SL is my recreation. Teaching is work.
There are people who enjoy it and are wonderful at doing it. I'm not one of those people and I don't think it's a good idea to expect me to be.
I never worked with a mentor, or went to any educational areas to learn about SL. It was trial and error (many, many errors) for me, but that's the way I learn. Others are different and I think having several ways available to new residents is great. I think the idea of the new resident game because it's something someone like me could do by myself and at my own pace. Some would love the classes. Some would love to have a mentor. I'm sure there are other ways as well.
From the moment a new resident logs in, I think they should be offered options:
Hi, welcome to SL. We know there is a big learning curve so here are some ways to see and learn about all the things we have to offer.
- Join Magellan Linden on a quest to... do something.
- Jump to (teleport) to Caledon Oxbridge University and grab a class schedule.
- Fill out this form if you'd like one of our mentors to show you the ropes.
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Here's a list of welcome areas you can visit. Just click any of the links for a teleport.
- London City
- Firefox Land (or whatever it's called
- I don't know any of the other welcome areas
- If you ever get lost, here's the help section
- Don't forget to check out our user forums. There is an answers section at the bottom where you can get help on any topic!
I'm not just talking about mentoring, although mentoring is part of it, for those who want to be doing it. I wouldn't want to be mentored by somebody who wasn't passionate about doing so, so I would never suggest we all do that.
My point was in response to the idea that one problem is how newbies get treated in here, such as the age minimum for entering some areas. I get the point behind it, but we need to stop painting newbies with a single brush, and when they do wrong, we need to ask ourselves "is it possible they just don't know any better and just need to be told what they did wrong?"
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2 hours ago, Tarina Sewell said:
I think as a community we need to look after the new members to. For instance, stop auto ejecting them when they land on your land because they are not a predefined age. I had a friend join and really like it but within the first week, he was ejected from so many places and told he was not old enough he just stopped logging in...
The skill sets are there when people first land, all they need to know. They just have to go through them.
Amen.
We as a community need to look to ourselves to curb problems, and this includes educating new users.
I cannot tell you the number of new users I've seen mess up only to be educated on how they messed up, apologize for doing so, learn from the error of their ways and become great residents.
Some people just don't know any better when they get here.
Every time we ban someone, we burn a bridge with somebody that could one day turn into rule/etiquette abiding, contributing residents of SL.
None of us can say we were never a newbie, so why do we treat them so badly?
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1 hour ago, Bree Giffen said:
SL has been to been catering to only one side which doesn't want game mechanics and ignoring those that do expect some purpose. It's like that Simpson episode with Ned's parents saying, "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!" Not suggesting for a game feature that everyone must now play but just a little thing that could bring in and retain new people. Bitsy gets it!
The idea of optional gaming is a good one. Linden Realms was a great idea for giving gamers something familiar to them to do in return for prizes. It was an example of catering to gamers.
The problem with introductory gaming mechanics with signs pointing elsewhere as Bitsy put it is it would only serve to drive home the highly incorrect assumption that SL is a game.
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11 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:
Sadly, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, because there is no one-size-fits-all SL resident. I had no intention of staying when I came here out of curiosity in 2007, but I was fascinated by the fact that SL was not a game. Nobody told me what I had to do. The lack of "purpose" was exactly what convinced me to hang around. If someone had told me that I had to collect Pokemon or some other pointless trinket, I would have been out the door the same day I walked in. So, here I am 13 years later, still finding ways to amuse myself and so deeply immersed in this world that I cannot imagine leaving. But I am not the typical resident, any more than you are. The trick is not to design for a mythical typical resident but to design ways that each real resident can discover something unique that captures her imagination. That .... or figure out a way to attract more imaginative residents.
Same thing for me. The fact that it is so much more than what any game could ever be has kept me here.
SL is no more a game than Facebook is.
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13 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:
People from gaming backgrounds and even ordinary non-gamers are confused by the lack of purpose in SL. Maybe, LL should give them something to do like collecting Pokemon or something. People like having a purpose. We harp on this all the time here. Make some small prizes that can only be gotten by collecting across the mainlands. As people play the game, they slowly become acclimated to SL and notice there are people not playing and doing other things. LL has to create this and not residents. It has to create a feedback loop that makes SL addictive.
This would only work if SL was, in fact, a game.
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4 hours ago, sceneris said:
u hit the bull eye, when i first started out, its exactly like you said, all standing there wondering what to do, as a guy who play tons of multiplayer and rpg game, i don't really wanna sit down there reading all the tutorials, modern games introduce their tutorial as you progress through the story line, usually there's side or main quests, so people would at least know where to go or what to do next, if most people who expected that something should follow up after the tutorial ends but nothing happens next, probably that explains why lol
There are no storylines or quests in Second Life because it is not a game.
What to do next is completely up to you.
Linden Lab seriously needs to do a better job of letting users know what they are signing up for.
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I have friends who have female avatars yet make no bones about the fact that they are male. I don't pretend to understand, but I highly respect the honesty.
Be what you want. You owe no explanations. Just be honest.
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3 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:
OK Boomer. 😉
Basically it's everything a game is... but it's not a game... because games are bad. got it.
Nobody is saying games are bad. One of the beautiful things about SL is you can play games within it. Linden Realms, hunts, Greedy, the list goes on. Gaming in Second Life is huge and that is fantastic.
Second Life, in and of itself, however, is not a game.
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2 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:
Is SL an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online)? Yes. Is SL a sandbox? Yes. Is SL a platform? Yes. Is SL a game? No.
Which is why I always describe SL as a creative platform that is not a game. It's important people understand the difference otherwise they won't stay. It's one of the main reasons why retention is so low. People log in expecting to play a sandbox game only to find out it's nothing like a game and leave never to log in again.
THIS.
The biggest difference in 2007 and now is there was a clear vision of what Second Life is/was in 2007. The vision for the future changed and the waters got muddied horribly. Linden Lab has done a great job in a lot of respects recently, backing away from gamifying (yes that is a word dangit) and focusing on community again to a degree (Bellissera is a step in the right direction like we haven't seen in years, in my opinion). But one major failure? New users have no idea what they are signing up for. They see 3D graphics and some of the other tech behind games and they assume SL is another one, and in turn try to "play" it as such, getting confused on what to do next, when the beauty of SL is the lack of a "next". How do you play SL? You don't. You reside in it. There is a reason why we are referred to as residents. We aren't players.
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6 hours ago, RaeLeeH said:
Thanks to all for the advice, comments and suggestions. Since the situation falls under harassment more than anything, my next question is more what happens after the Abuse Report has been filed?
From the wiki I know Linden Lab don't give feedback on any actions they've deemed appropriate to take (if any at all), but it's more a question of what happens to the instigator or harasser if action is deemed to be warranted? Assuming they even are warned, there's no naming of names is there (as in who filed the AR against them)? And if there aren't how is this person expected to quit their antics with me, again assuming that like most bullies there would be more than one target in their proverbial cross hairs? Does the warning state the reason why one has been warned in order for some lesson to be learned, or is it something else entirely?
I'm sincerely dubious much will amount from this, and not convinced in the slightest that the bully will change their ways after all these years and for the situation to be resolved. Worst case scenario there's nothing stopping them from creating an alt account and returning to pick up where they left off - though I can only imagine that would happen in the most extreme of cases, and this wouldn't be it. But for what it's worth I am following the appropriate channels and hoping for the best.
It would be nice if there was no need for ARs in the first place but since commonsense and common courtesy are misnomers (especially on the internet) it's pointless to dream otherwise.
^😟^
Hopefully seeing the Lab get involved will send a message to them, regardless of them knowing it was you or exactly what they did. Having said that, I know most nefarious individuals couldn't care less, but there is always hope.
And if nothing changes, file another. Had they been warned the first time, consequences will escalate.
If nothing else, it will send a message that you are dismissing (for lack of a better word, perhaps) their harassment personally and letting the lab deal with it. They might just go away at the implication that you are doing something about it as opposed to letting them win.
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I'm reminded of a quote.
"Don't tell me what others have said about me. Tell me why they felt comfortable telling you"
Or to paraphrase better for this situation: "Don't tell me what others have said about me. Tell me why you seem to believe them."
Another quote: "Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter".
So yeah, people think you are so-and-so. Remind yourself that changes nothing about you and your life and keep being you.
Last quote: "Let em talk"
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2 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:
I do think that a lot of it was nervous laughing and the problem of trying to remain serious when you get the giggles. Someone with a bit of professional media training should be able to rein that in and calm the people being interviewed.
Another thing I'd like to see end is the whole SOON thing. It's funny and cute for a minute, but they really should be able to say "This thing is targeted for the 3rd quarter of 2020" or something similar. If and when it appears that won't be able to happen, there is nothing wrong with saying "We hoped to release this feature by 3rd quarter, but we've run into asteroids and we're now targeting 1st quarter of 2021."
I love me some freaking Lindens but the communicate, and communication style, could be better.
I HATE the soon thing, but I also get it.
LL: "We hoped to release this feature by 3rd quarter, but we've run into asteroids and we're now targeting 1st quarter of 2021."
Most residents: "Yeah but you said 3rd quarter so where is it?"
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42 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
I'm kind of with Tarina on this one.
People are actually dying. And the ripple effects of this are wreaking havoc on the lives of millions in all sorts of nasty ways.
It seems, to say the least, bad taste to speculate as to whether a revisitation of the kind of horror that was the Spanish Influenza epidemic might be "good for business."
This. Just this.
The Coronavirus is good for absolutely, positively nothing. Over 2,000 deaths and we are discussing a benefit to business? Really?!
Nascar driver Denny Hamlin won the Daytona 500 after fellow driver Ryan Newman was critically injuried. He stopped celebrating once he learned of the severity.
Some folks need to take notes. Some things matter. Some things...just don't.
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5 hours ago, animats said:
I know. There's so much that could be done with SL, but it's way beyond the abilities of the current dev team. It would require a new viewer, based perhaps on Unreal Engine 4, with parallelism and physically-based rendering. It would take a set of creation tools which took you from a good-looking but inefficient mesh to optimized game-quality assets without pain points. It would take a level of detail system which was smart about what to load in what order and what resolution. It would take a background system which automatically worked through all the mesh assets, re-making optimized versions of lower levels of detail where where they had holes or were really bad. It would take an overhaul of the back end to improve concurrency, so that entering avatars didn't cause two seconds of slowdown, scripts didn't slow the server, and region crossings worked every time. It would take an impostoring system, so distant objects were represented by billboard impostors or simple forms, and you could see all the way to the horizon.
And that just gets you SL's current capabilities brought up to modern game technology.
Then you'd need to go on from there. Figure out how to support crowds, so a few hundred people at one event will work. Offer webcam facial expression tracking, so your avatar reflects your own facial expressions. Optional, but it would be expected of performers.
Yep. And Linden Lab's mantra is to always take the easy road by patching the current mess with so called upgrades, so that won't be happening.
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2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:
I think you'll have to die on that hill, Adam. Conceptually, yes, a virtual world could be a game changer and a "Web 2.0". But SL could never be that, because of underlying technical limitations. Put simply, there's just too much overhead. Sansar was an attempt to get around those fundamental limits, as well as to jump on the bandwagon of VR, which some saw as the "future of the internet" too. Virtual worlds and VR may still be the future of us all, and I think that would be Very Very Cool...but right now I think they are both in a niche market.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. In 1975, personal computers were in a niche market too. Look at where we've come from that!
That last sentence speaks to the possibilities of where SL can go one day.
Technical limitations kept SL from being that game-changer as long as those technical limitations existed. Linden Labs refusal to solve them is what is continuing to keep it from becoming that game changer.
VW and VR will be the future if we commit to that and get through the technical hurdles. SL could have been a part of that process, with long-term commitment to do the same.
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8 hours ago, Zzevir said:
So I'm interested to know how clubs how plays live music get their musicians. As I never really seen any wanted ad on this forum for that.
Typically they contact the performer (usually at a show). As a venue owner, I contact musicians I know. Musicians rarely advertise except in profiles, from what I have seen, in terms of looking for booking. The only exception to this, at least generally, is we may get notecards from them or their managers.
Word of advice: Don't hire via ads. Go to shows. Contact the performer or their management (usually found in performer profile). Get their pricing and check your budget. Check crowd level. Balance cost with potential return.
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10 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:
What did they try in the beginning and stopped trying later on?
Trying to be the future of the internet. They envisioned a 3D web. They even experimented briefly with a hypergrid project several years ago. Unfortunately it was ahead of its time and discontinued. There is still work being done to create a 3D internet by quite a few companies, but somewhere along the way Linden Lab got out of the space and SL became just another "game".
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On 2/9/2020 at 4:48 PM, Syo Emerald said:
It was hype. A whole pile of unjustified hype. SL never could be that game-changer or the future of the internet. It was destined to not live up to those far fetched ideas.
Not picking my dog in the game vs. no game debatte, but no matter on what side you stand on, SL never stood next to World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. Those are MMORPGs and SL is not that category. They only have in common, that it requires an internet connection and everything happens in real time and you can meet a bunch of people from all over the world (or at least your portion of the world).
I respect that opinion. One hill I will die on, however, is that it should have been, still could be and should be that game-changer. It was destined to become that until they stopped trying (likely listening to doubters or electing a shorter term strategy because hey, thats easier). It stopped trying to be the future of the internet and its number of concurrent users has been declining ever since.
Not a coincidence in my book.
As for not standing next to WoW or GW, I fully agree and that was my point. The tech is its only link to those. My point is that it is largely considered by many of its users to be in that category, and LL does nothing to show that SL is entirely different from those (or any other) games.
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On 2/9/2020 at 2:41 PM, Amina Sopwith said:
It's user-driven...that's the entire point. So would it be a collective user responsibility to channel it in the direction we want? Or is it the advent of mesh and all the complexity it entails, and the ongoing issue of premium accounts that are driving it? Though I guess without mesh it would lose appeal for looking dated? Although to be honest, the best system avatars still look fine to me.
I don't have any well-formed opinions on any of this, just throwing some questions into the air.
You make a great point. It is definitely user-driven, to an extent. I feel like that is partly on Linden Lab, too, however. Take Facebook. Everyone knows it is a social media platform. It won't be user-driven to become anything else, unless the owners of the company open up those floodgates, likely by announcing they are coming up with new ideas outside of the social media space.
Linden Lab has failed, in my humble opinion, to explain its platform. I hear too many examples of "how do you play this game?" for a platform that isn't even a game to begin with. That's on you, Linden Lab.
Second Life used to have a voice (Its founder, Phillip). Now it has a support system.
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The tool I use is my arrow keys.
99.% of places will have more than adequate space for you to be 2m away from the nearest avatar. You can also derender anyone too close to you if you must, and everything will be just as if they are not there.
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Are you scared? : (
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
Fear will kill us before any illness ever should.
Practice social distancing, wash your hands thoroughly and often. Get lots of rest and look after your general health.
Covid-19 is potentially deadly but it doesn't have to be.
I have Spina Bifida so I am high risk. I'm not worried, but I am informed and doing everything I need to do to avoid this.
All the best to you and your nana. I hope you stay safe.