Phil Deakins

Void Singer wrote: abuse of region resources =) But they're not abusing region resources.

I agree that the inworld search often isn't all that good for finding stuff, although often it is. Unfortunately, LL chose the wrong search system for SL. The previous system was worse, so they were right to try and do something about it, but they couldn't make the GSA work for the uniqueness of SL itself. Not because they didn't have the skills, but because the GSA was a closed system as far as LL was concerned, and they couldn't do anything about it. Also, a search system that lists a small number of results per page cannot fail to cause people to do things to move up the rankings, and nobody can blame them for doing it. It's entirely the wrong sort of system for SL. (Using incorrect words, with the intention of getting people to places that don't sell those things, can be blamed of course, as can such things as gross keyword repetition). Another unfortunate thing is that LL isn't like a normal web search engine. If you do things with your site to improve its rankings in web engines, and that the engines don't want in their index, such as keyword stuffing, the site will be dropped from the index. End of story. It means that doing those things can be financially risky. But LL isn't so firm, and it's pretty much been open season on search gaming., with no real financial risk at all, so people do get cheesed off when searching for stuff.

I'm not criticising anyone for prefering to use the marketplace. I just find it disheartening that trade is going there more and more, and SL trade (trade in the actual world) is ebbing away more and more. The SL world is less of a world for it.

None of that applies to me, Mickey, and I still find it disheartening. It's the erosion of trade in SL that I find disheartening. It doesn't make any difference to me one way or the other but I'm still disheartened by it - just like LL's homestead fiasco made no difference to me either but I was still disheartened by it.

Mayalily wrote: Marketplace is what completely sold me on joining SL. Marketplace is amazing! It's the eBay of the virtual worlds There is no choice with eBay. It can't exist in any other realistic way, and it does serve an excellent purpose. SL and the marketplace aren't like that. If the marketplace didn't exist, it wouldn't affect the availability of anything, because everything would be available in SL - just like it used to be before LL pushed the marketplace on everyone in every possible way they could. Before LL bought Xstreet and OnRez, those two exactly did exactly the same thing that the marketplace does, and all was well with the SL world. The only difference between them and the marketplace was that they actually worked properly, whereas the marketplace doesn't. I just find it so disheartening that a significant part of the SL world - of a normal world - is being intentionally eroded away by Linden Lab when, as Qie said, they could have done it so much better, and for the good of all. It made my heart sink to see someone wanting somewhere to place a magic box - to open a store without any means of trading in the world at all. I've no doubt that there are a great many such stores in the marketplace, and a great many more to follow. It's alien to to what SL actually is and I find it disheartening.

My generic response to those who like the marketplace:- You've made my point. You prefer the marketplace to inworld trading. That's what is so disheartening to me. More and more, trade is the marketplace and SL trade ebbs away, which is so alien to what SL actually is - a world.

Of course it's silly, but that's what you wrote - see the brown text above. All we did was say that the real world isn't like that, which you now agree with. As for what you call "time-phasing of upgrades", I was the one who wrote about that - not you. And yes, it is obvious, as you now say, but you didn't write anything like it until I explained it to you.

In the Land > General Discussion forum, someone asked for somewhere to place a magic box because s/he couldn't afford to buy land. The idea of opening stores in the marketplace, without having even a tiny store in SL, not even in a mall, is evolution - negative evolution. In the Commerce > Merchants forum someone asked what's wrong with search this time. There is SL search and there is marketplace search but, when asking about search, people fail to mention which one. To them, there is the main search and another small one in SL, and if search is mentioned, it naturally means the big one - marketplace. I find it disheartening that trade has become the marketplace and SL trade is ebbing away. To me, it's so alien to what SL actually is - a world. Oh well. I just felt like saying it.

Erwin Solo wrote: Who said anything about keeping all the machines up to date? Given any time-phased distribution of machines, the ensemble average increases in cost-performance according to the trends described. The real world works just like that. You said it. Here is what you said:- Processor performance has doubled roughly every 18 months for the last decade, and the cost of a decent processor box is lower than it ever has been. So if the Lindens are charging the same for tier as they were 18 months ago, their per-sim cost has dropped quite a bit. Notice the second paragraph. It pretty much states that LL changes their sim servers every 18 months. All I, and someone else, said is that it doesn't work like that in the real world - and it doesn't. Now you're talking about "time-phased distribution of machines" and "the ensemble average", which you only came to after I'd explained the realities of large systems like SL.

No it doesn't work like that. The hosting you mentioned is one of the most competitive things to do with the internet, and competition for it is fierce, so its prices are not a good parallel. It's the same with ISP costs. A much closer parallel is major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!. They run thousands of not-up-to-date machines and they run pefectly well. They will change them over time, of course, but they don't, and can't, try to keep all their machines up to date with the latest machines just because newer/faster machines exist. SL is the same in a smaller way - hundreds of machines instead of thousands. The owners of such systems cannot simply update all the machines every 2 or 3 years. What they do is use the latest machines when new machines are needed, and retire older ones over time as they break down or as they become too old. I have no doubt that that's what they do. We used to have different classes of sim servers in SL - newer and older machines - class 4s and class 5s, with class 5 being the newer/faster ones at the time. LL slowly retired class 4s so that all sim servers were class 5s. After that, there were no stated classes, presumably because even newer/better/faster machines were available and LL used those when new machines/sims were needed. Keeping the class system would have meant we had class 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, etc., all at the same time. That would have been difficult to operate because sims were put back onto the same class of server following a restart, but sims are never intentionally put back onto the server they were on before the restart. It would also have made it a bit silly for customers when buying and selling sims. So sim server classes were done away with. Large systems, such as SL, and huge systems, such as major search engines, can't keep all their machines up to date. The best they can do is change slowly, over time, by using new machines when additional ones are needed, replacing old ones with new ones as the old ones break down, and, once in a while, replacing a chunk of old ones with new ones. That's the reality. Keeping all the sim servers up to date with the latest machines would cost so much that it would put prices up - not down.

It's an enviroment / hobby / passtime / etc. but it's not a game - or a toy

As Pussycat said, it doesn't work that way in the real world. Processor power may well have doubled roughly every 18 months but companies that use a lot of machines can't change them every 18 months or every few years. Imagine Google changing their thousands of machines every few years. It would be a foolish thing to do and nobody would expect them to do it. Likewise, nobody would expect LL to change their hundreds of machines every few years either. Having said that, I believe that LL did change their machines a few years ago, and the change might have been an occasion to reduce tier, but processing power isn't the only thing that a company needs to consider when setting prices. It's only a part of it. For LL to reduce tier, the projection must show that it stands at least a very good chance of either not losing profits or increasing them. An alternative to reducing tier is to make smaller tier jumps, which would also need to stand a very good chance of not reducing, or increasing, profits. Either of those alternatives would lose profits immediately, and it's a case of how quickly the current level of profits can be reached again, and whether or not the change would cause increased profits after that. Imo, smaller tier jumps stands a much better chance than simply reducing the existing tier prices. For me, the tier jumps of 32k, 16k, and even 8k were much too big to take lightly, and held me back from buying more land for long enough, although I did get up to paying for 64k eventually, whereas smaller jumps (say 4k at a time) wouldn't have held me back at all, as I would have continually added whatever I needed or fancied. I would have got to 64k eventually but I would also have been paying more than I did along the way. Incidentally, one significant Linden (Jack - manager level - now sacked) did push for lower tier costs, so it's not something that LL haven't considered. Because of business considerations, they may have been right not to lower them, or make any changes to them, but I don't believe so. If they ever do it, it'll be a difficult thing to do, because they will instantly lose a significant amount of profit in the hope that it will make the company more profitable in the not too distant future. It would be a major risk but making smaller tier jumps is a risk that I think is worth taking because, although it would immediately lower the profits, I believe that the ability to add land without major tier jumps would soon make up for it and, in the relatively near future, would result in higher profits.

It's true that computers continue to become more powerful but largish systems like SL can't just change to new machines whenever the owners want to, because it's too costly. Huge systems like Google don't do it even with their money, and much smaller systems like SL don't do it because they don't have the money to keep up with more powerful machines. They all change once in a while but there's no way that SL can keep pace with more powerful machines.

Myra Wildmist wrote: Am I on track about this? Is there something I'm missing? (Very possible.) Yes you are on the right track but, unfortunately, the decision-makers at LL are blind to it (or scared of it). There's another, probably better, possibility too, which is to make a lot more tier levels - much smaller tier jumps, so that people only pay for the land they have, in, say, 4k jumps. The thing to do is not expect anything good, or even reasonably sensible, from LL. Then you'll never be disappointed and, once in a rare while, you might even be delighted.

Yes, of course. Anyone can call anything whatever they want to call it. But calling something a word that has a different meaning, doesn't make it that meaning. E.g. saying that coffee is tea doesn't turn the coffee into tea any more than calling an environment, or place, a game turns the environment, or place, into an actual game. The only reason that some people wrongly think of SL as a game is because it looks a lot like some actual games.

Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Children who play with toys or role play cops and robbers make up their own gameplay. Exactly! For users to treat SL as a game, they need to "make up their own gameplay" because SL doesn't provide any for them - because SL is not a game. And since cops and robbers is a game in my book, despite the lack of fixed rules, SL is a game for me too Let's just agree to disagree on this one. Cops and Robbers is a children's game for which they make up their own rules. SL doesn't incorporate sides to be on or actions to perform like Cops and Robbers does because SL simply isn't a game by any stretch of the imagination. However, I am happy to agree to disagree, knowing that you are entirely wrong

Venus Petrov wrote: But, it also makes them look silly. I totally agree.

Scripting is something that can't be learned quickly, like making animations and objects can. The word "scripting" makes it sound quite simple but it is actually programming, just like any other programming using any other other high level programming language. To be a decent scripter, you need to become a decent programmer, which takes time, more time, and then more time. Don't misunderstand "high level" though. High level languages are closer to the english language and, therefore, easier. The post above is a good place to start but start with simple stuff, and don't expect to be writing your own breedable scripts in the very near future.

Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Children who play with toys or role play cops and robbers make up their own gameplay. Exactly! For users to treat SL as a game, they need to "make up their own gameplay" because SL doesn't provide any for them - because SL is not a game. Yes, "passtime" and "game" are mutually exclusive words. The first is something to do to pass the time and the second, in the context of "SL is/isn't a game", means a game such as World of Warcraft, football, chess, and a myriad of others that have integral gameplay. Perhaps a good way of looking at it is to think of a game, - say chess or WoW - remove the integral gameplay and game rules completely, and then look at it. What is it? With chess it's a board with some carved objects on it but what can you do with it? Nothing, unless you invent a game for it, such as firing pellets at the objects to see who can knock the most over. With WoW, it's an environment you can wander around in but that's all. The actual game has been removed. That's what SL is. To have it as a game, you have to invent some gameplay for yourself, otherwise it's just an environment you can wander around in. SL does not provide any gameplay whatsoever, therefore it's not a game. It's merely an environment in which you can wander round, chat and do other things with people, make things, create some gameplay, etc. etc.. You can make things in SL but you don't get any points for doing it, and you don't overtake anyone, or get higher up the leader board, or go to the next level, etc. by doing it. Making things isn't a game, and it's not stated anywhere that, in order to get ahead in the game, you have to make things or do other things, or not get caught, or whatever. It's simply not a game. I'll say this. The ONLY reason why some people think of SL itself as a game is because it LOOKS like some computer and online games. But looking like a game doesn't make it a game.

Nice try, but all wrong I won't go into all the details of your post but I'll mention a few. Flight simulators are not games unless their is actual gameplay, such as flying from A to B so that you are allowed to go the next level. Dressing Barbie dolls isn't a game - it's a pleasurable passtime. Children "play" with Barbie dolls in the way you said, but there is no "gameplay" so they are not a game. Sitting on beaches isn't a game and dancing in clubs isn't a game. I'll leave it at that. Apart from preparing to play a game by dressing your avatar in other systems, everything you mentioned comes under the heading of passtimes. It crossed my mind earlier that SL business can very well be a game for many people - the earnings being the personal score - even though it doesn't compete with anyone else. But business isn't instrinsic SL, and it doesn't make SL a game. SL is merely an envorionment in which people can do whatever they like. No "game" or "gameplay" is provided for them.

I was here when those things existed but they didn't make SL a game by any stretch of the imagination. Ratings weren't for building, scripting, etc., as you thought. They were merely if you fancied rating someone for whatever reason, like you can rate items in the marketplace but ratings don't make the marketplace a game. For instance, friends used to rate each other just for the sake of it. Dwell was what is now called traffic. Neither of them were gameplay, which is what a game must have to make it a game.

Void Singer wrote: I would say that it's a game for people that use it as such, and not for those who don't. people can make a game out of war and killing (the real kind, not imaginary).... so the definition is only as good as it's usage. both views are valid depending on individual behavior, and people really need to accept that not everyone uses or views things the same way. The overarching definition may be the lowest common denominator, but it rarely affects individual response. I disagree. SL *cannot* be used as a game by anyone because there is no game to play. Some people have created small games within SL and people can play those, but SL itself cannot be played as a game. SL is only countryside and water, just like the RL world. And, just like RL, some people have built buildings and such. But the RL world isn't a game either. You can't wake up, go outside, and start playing the game because the RL world isn't a game. Some games have been created in the RL world, and you can play those, but the RL world itself isn't a game - and neither is the SL world. I'll clarify a bit. Imagine SL without users and without any user creations of any kind, and you, plus a few people, log in. Now go and "play" it. What's the game? Where does the game start? What do you have to do to win?

Luc Starsider wrote: Whether SL is a game or not is not a myth. It is a matter of how each of us perceive it and how we approach it, and is not something that can be proved conclusively either way. - Luc - It's very definitely provable that SL is not a game. SL is an environment without any form of gameplay whatsoever and, therefore, it's not a game. A game *must* have gameplay for it to be a game. If you think differently, show me the SL gameplay and I'll accept it. Remember that it's possible for users to create some gameplay within SL - Tiny Empires and Vampires, for instance, but that's not SL itself. So show me the gameplay that's intrinsic to SL and I'll call it a game.

Ishtara Rothschild wrote: Dogboat Taurog wrote: Second life isnt a game i had to say it :smileywink: Yes, that's a widespread myth It's no myth. Show me the SL gameplay and I'll agree with you. But you can't because there isn't any The fact that games can be created within SL doesn't count because SL itself is not a game, and never has been.

Jo Yardley wrote: Myth #1: holding your cursor over a texture makes it load faster... Holding the cursor over a texture doesn't make it load "faster" but it does make it load more quickly; i.e. sooner than it otherwise would. If you change the word "faster" to "more quyickly" or "quicker", then you can add some red text saying BUSTED.