MMO Player Perspective on Sansar

[ChinRey]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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ChinRey wrote:

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HarrisonMcKenzie wrote:

Sansar isn't SL2.

 

You mention that early on, but it's clear that it hasn't sunk in.

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That is a problem of course. Linden Lab, creators of the famous Second Life, is building a new virtual reality. Despite all the known facts, it's very hard

not

to think of it as "SL2". That probably explains the contradictions Nalytha mentioned: Just like everybody else, Ebbe and the other Lindens can't help thinking of Sansar as a Second Life replacement. Even though they know better, it's still there in the back of their minds.

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My first gut reaction to your statement, "Linden Lab.... is building a new virtual reality," was nope, that's wrong.  At least in part it is but I'm not sure if in whole.

So far the way that Sansar has been described they are building a new platform for others to build realities in.  When SL opened, while yes it was a paltform also, there was a virtual reality (a small mainland) there for people to explore.  (Am I splitting hairs here?)

 

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It's my fault if you are. I should have remembered to add quote marks around that sentence.

[ChinRey]

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Nalytha wrote:

I think who LL is targeting the most is the people who are actually going to spend money. So they care most about not just the casual players who never spend anything. They care about the money makers.

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Maybe but if so, we're talking big money here, individuals who spend/invest at least six digit number of dollars every year on SL.

It's a dangerous route to take anyway. Most, possibly all, "free" online games and other services are financed by the "whales", the few big spenders, and those are of course the ones everybody want to recruit. But focusing too much on them and ignoring all the small fishes is bound to backfire because it's all those small fishes that attracts the whale and besides, every whale started as a small fish. (Yes, I know a whale isn't a fish, but let's not discuss biology here!)

[Nalytha]

I totally agree with that assessment and love the clarification on the biology of whales. We can all agree they can be Itty bitty fishies for the sake of this discussion

[Parhelion Palou]

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Faye Feldragonne wrote:

They want a game that the players are not making more money than they are,  such as unnamed land owners.  Residents have too much power in Second life,  hence the protests the lab has to deal with all the time.  

It won't be an open source

. They want full control without their economy run by the whims or threats by players when they make changes.  They no longer want other viewers.   I've sat in on resident and Linden meetings.  It's no joke that residents are telling the CEO they don't like something. Or others picketing in protest.  I've seen and read the crazy,  secondlife doesn't make big money.  The kind of money SL makes is like a drip in the pan,  nor do they have a big player base.  What it is is a nice income as long as they keep the players happy.  They don't want to deal with residents anymore. 

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This time the viewer can't be open source. It will be customizable, and that's required too. If some company, call it McTurkey, decides they want a VR game to advertise their food they can go to LL to get the space for the experience/world. They'll hire people to create the game within that space. They'll also want the viewer to fit the theme, so someone will create plugins to put happy turkeys on it and restrict users to whatever the game requires. I assume they'll be able to restrict any other viewer setups ... it's their game after all. Having the viewer be open source would open the door for people to mess up their game. Messing up their customers is something LL can't afford, so no open source.

I wonder if the same will happen with avatars too -- if McTurkey wants all the players to look like various color turkeys, then LL will have to give experience owners the ability to restrict the avatars that can be used in their game. You'd also have to get into the game via McTurkey's registration system.

Note: The people who McTurkey brings into their game (via advertising, links on their website, etc.) are none of LL's concern. If McTurkey's game only gets one player or gets a hundred thousand it won't bring extra money to LL. (Except perhaps charges for extra servers to handle the load.)

 ETA: Sorry, had another thought. I wonder if IMs between people in different experiences will be possible. It would be chat between separate worlds, after all, and some experience owners might consider it a detriment to their experience. This time the experience owners are LL's main source of income, so they may get their wish.