Your Cartoonist is now a SecondLife Addict.

[Kesh]

Part of the reason for needing a real-world ID is that it allows 'adult' areas.

[Allan_ecker]

It would, I should think, be difficult to defend great swaths of human culture given such a stringent test. Whether this is the "correct" judgement to make on such things, however, is not really my juristiction.

I'm going to give defending this system one more try, but if this goes any further it is more or less doomed to turn into a political discussion, something I try to avoid on my home 11. (If this turns into a debate on the legitimacy of either capitalism or communism, I'm leaving the thread.)

In-game currency's connection to the real world is an acknowlegement that it will be connected to real world money. This happened on EverQuest without the designer's original intent. It also creates a micropayments system, something I support as an advocate of artists' rights and the independant press.

The existence of money in-game does not doom the system to a bleak materialistic caste system even to the degree that it happens in the real world, because in Second Life no one has any physical needs. (Except of course bandwidth.)

And, as I said, this is not a collectible card game. Buying an item doesn't make you any more powerful than your fellow players. It might be cooler than something you could make yourself, or than any of the free stuff people are giving away (yes, there is something analagous to open-source in this game), but it won't give you any power over other individuals, except perhaps to the extent that they desire to buy your stuff offa you. Money does not equal power in SL, and so it is spared the traditionally negative impacts of allowing a connection between objects in-game and the real, monetary world.

I'm not going to defend credit cards any more. The existence and ubiquitousness of them would not be distasteful to me (or any sane person) if it were not for predatory lending, which is not something financial institutions should be involved in. However, the services I do use are useful enough for me to own (one) credit card, despite a number of moral concerns I have about the companies that provide them. You can't boycot the world, I've found.

[Andrick]

... In any case, it looks like one of the most positively disgusting things I've ever seen, both due to the emphasis on currency (real-world and in-game) and orwellian ID requirements.

Orwellian ID requirements? I was laughing at this until it dawned on me that you might actually be serious. How does Second Life's use of identification via the globally formalized credit card system equate to a police state's surveillance, monitoring, and control of its own citizens?

And the "emphasis on currency," otherwise known as the MacGuffin of game design, is nothing more than a resource management system of game play. What does it matter if it's represented by dollar signs, gold pieces, experience points, drama dice, score, bonus lives, lomber, or population points? Apparently it is not only an in-game reward mechanic to simulate the allocation of scarce resources, but it has an out-of-game function for the allocation of scarce, very real resources.

I'm scratching my head and trying to figure out your post? Is this just hyperbole or do you actually mean this at the emotional levels that you are conveying to us?

[Randyg]

Of course I'm serious... why would an online game need to know my real-world identity? Do they need to track users that closely? Does it matter to them if I'm Randy from california or Joe Smith from Nowhere, USA? Does who I am offline have any bearing on the game? If not (and I see no evidence it does), why do they want positive real-world identification? The only reason would be they want to keep track of who people are real-life, which is something they don't need to do, and I sure don't want them doing with no reason.

As to money... the difference between all those listed is that they're not based on sending the game people money. They're based on your progress in the game. How much skill you have at it, how much effort you spend on it, etc. Not how rich your parents were when you used their credit card to sign up for the game. Using real-world currency to affect in-game status is an unfair, discriminatory system, that places non-game-related real-world details (plus all the unfair, discriminatory problems of real life) as more important than your actual skill or effort. Working 697 hours designing some object to sell in the game so you can try to make some dough, then finding the person buying it did fucking nothing but billed their parents' card for more money, sure has got to make you feel bad...


Allan: Surely you know capitalism can never really work, right? :P

*ducks and hides*


Oh well, Allan doesn't like this topic, so I'll stop now.

--Randy

[Fallwind]

one reason they want to keep an idea of your real-world identity is for age restrictions. from the sounds of it there are some adult areas that you dont want some 12 year old stumbling across.

[Allan_ecker]

I guess there are a number of pollitical assumptions one must make of one who is going to enjoy Second Life, but as stated earlier, I'm making them for the purposes of this discussion. I am less shy about politics on this forum:

http://forums.unicornjelly.com/viewforum.php?f=9

But enough about politics, let's talk about how awesome SL is.

I discovered today that even the free accounts accrue a stipend equating to 20 cents a week, enough for five texture uploads and plenty to keep me fat and happy and probably never resort to paying SL any money at all, unless at some point I decide I want to build a place, at which point I'd be basically paying a kind of web hosting fee.

Also, in the back of the Target parody on the 'toonified island of Taco, there's a little blue hoop, inside which is the "invisibility" primitive, a scripted object which allows you to render part or all of your avatar invisible. It is completely free for everyone to copy and mess with as they please. This is really handy if you want to make unconventionally shaped avatars. For example, digitigrade legs look a lot better if the plantigrade ones that came with the avatar can be masked out of the picture. I've also seen a judicious use of this technique to make teeny tiny avatars and other neat stuff. One avatar basically looks like an animated pile of scrapyard junk!

I predicted, back in 2000 when I had just got my FurryMUCK account that, one day, there would be cheap enough resources and bandwidth that a place like FurryMUCK would exist, except in 3D, with beautifully rendered landscapes and furry avatars, and that it would be free. I was off by a number of years, but I think it is safe to say that I was right.

[Allan_ecker]

one reason they want to keep an idea of your real-world identity is for age restrictions. from the sounds of it there are some adult areas that you dont want some 12 year old stumbling across.

Yeah, part of the fun of SL is that any "rating" system is purely voluntary; lots, if not most places have a number of quite thoroughly naughty areas. The FurNation annex has a very nice art gallery

[Randyg]

I predicted, back in 2000 when I had just got my FurryMUCK account that, one day, there would be cheap enough resources and bandwidth that a place like FurryMUCK would exist, except in 3D, with beautifully rendered landscapes and furry avatars, and that it would be free. I was off by a number of years, but I think it is safe to say that I was right.

Heh, I started to write one a while ago, but overcomplicated it to the point it would be difficult to complete.

(how did I do that, you ask? Simple... I decided I didn't like any available programming language for writing it. So I started writing my own programming language. Somewhere around where I had half-finished the language specs and reference compiler I decided there had got to be something better to do with my time...)

The main reason for needing a new language was so that the muck could be written in the same language users script it in, and thus users could completely create entire worlds within the muck, not just objects that fit pre-defined conceptions.

It was extensible enough that a user could write _anything_ needing no permissions beyond that of any other user. A complete world that used its own protocol to communiate with its own client? not a problem. A MMORPG? not a problem (the language even supported multi-server parallelism to help with the MM part). While interacting with the default world was, of course, constrained by the laws of physics, economy, etc I created, that was just the beginning, not an end.

(as to economy, there was no money in the default world. Due to the highly extensible system, people could source a money-handler object that would implement money (did I mention I'd have remarkably little control due to how extensible it was?), and it would be expected that some custom words might have a currency system, especially strongly themed (i.e. game) ones, but the default world was much better.)

The default world would have multi-interface support, so people could interact with it as a text muck, 2d sprite interface, or full blown 3d... custom worlds could do positively anything, as in-game scripts could create GUIs and the like for people visiting the area. (the language was designed to be JIT compiled, or at least bytecode compiled, and able to run client-side as well as server-side)

Of course, there's no point to me bothering describing it, as it's likely users would create things I could never dream of. Every single part of the environment could be replaced (in custom worlds; in the default world there's a bit less you could do), so just about anything could be done... One could call it a turing-complete muck. :)

...

Did I mention I over-complicated it to the point it would never get completed? heh.


Short version, I too have thought such a thing might be fun... but secondlife isn't it. (and even if I didn't think it was disgusting, I still wouldn't be able to sign up unless I downloaded a list of credit card numbers, which I don't plan on doing, despite how easy it may be.)


--Randy
(as to 18+... I couldn't care less if 12 year olds are interested. If they seek out something with an age warning, take the steps to sign up, install client software, and connect, etc, then find their way around in the world, they're old enough to see whatever it is they see, or leave if they don't like it.)


EDIT: Yes, I know people are going to say "Use LISP! It can do that!". No, it can't. In order for user-provided scripts to be executed which the amount of power granted to them, a very fine-grained security model is required. As opposed to, say, none, like lisp. Some versions of java have features approaching what would be needed, but not easily, and other nice features of the language aren't possible. Plus java is fucking ugly and slow. And no mentions of muck forth. not even going to comment. :P

[Allan_ecker]

SecondLife probably succeeded because they traded some flexibility for ease of design and usability. There are a number of things I don't like about the engine, and some things are just pushing the "game" too hard, but all in all I have to give it a high rating.

As to the subject of age restriction, it is a sad fact that in America parental responsibility is abdicated in great swaths to corporations and/or the government. Under these conditions, the burden of proof of age often passes to entertainment providers.

But I think I'll move all my SL rantings over to my LiveJournal; it's pretty off topic.

[The_Fox]

I'm really tempted...but...

1) I have little artistic talent.

2) I already have other online things that drain my life. *cough*Warcraft*cough*

I might look into it though.

- Jarylan

[Alfador]

I'm really tempted...but...

1) I have little artistic talent.

2) I already have other online things that drain my life. *cough*Warcraft*cough*

I might look into it though.

- Jarylan

What server was that again? (again, as in, I think I asked you before, but I forget...)

[The_Fox]

Bloodhoof.

- Jarylan

[Allan_ecker]

Incidentially, I'm working on a Bunnie Rabbot avatar. The skin I've drawn looks pretty decent, but the head's going to take some work. However, the robotized parts of poor Bunnie's anatomy should snap together pretty handily.

After that, it's on to the UH crew. Volair, of course, is up first.

This game is entirely too much fun.

[Alfador]

Bloodhoof.

- Jarylan

Awh. I'm on Feathermoon with my main character (Lupiko for the Horde!) and Emerald Dream is where I've gotten into the new RPPvP thing; I've an Undead Warrior named Cennsumarut.

[Allan_ecker]

Aww, c'mon, put down that level-drudge game and play SL!

There's dance parties...

[Andrick]

Aww, c'mon, put down that life simulation game and join society!

There's dance parties...

*the ringwolf gives a sly grin*

[Allan_ecker]

*snerk*

Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it.

[Andrick]

Sorry, couldn't restrain myself from not posting that. I think I've already gone on record in this forum saying that life sims are the most perverse things I've ever come across. You are sitting at your computer for several hours guiding a fake person through a series of life paths to become healthy, educated, popular, successful, and/or "happy" instead of doing the same things with your own life to get the same results.

[Cyril_Dran]

Because on the computer, there's a predictable means of achieving success.

[Allan_ecker]

Sorry, couldn't restrain myself from not posting that. I think I've already gone on record in this forum saying that life sims are the most perverse things I've ever come across. You are sitting at your computer for several hours guiding a fake person through a series of life paths to become healthy, educated, popular, successful, and/or "happy" instead of doing the same things with your own life to get the same results.

If you ask me, part of the appeal of such games actually comes from that very perversity. Ever noticed how many stories of people performing horribly despicable acts upon their Sims?

But the point in this case is (nearly) moot since SL is not actually a life sim. I classify it as a MUCK, since it is a multiuser environment where people go to make, do, and mess with things and other people. It is distinguished from life sims in that the user has total control over his or her avatar. In a life sim, there is some degree of autonomy to the avatar of the player, in effect making it a simulated organism. There is no such autonomy in the SL avatar.

However, the charge that one is simulating life rather than living it stands, and can only be defended against (and not even fully refuted) by saying that in SL you can do a lot of things you can't do at all in real life.

In SL, the following can happen on a monday night:

You sit down on the beach for a while and tinker with a little clay sphere. Some psuedo-c code etched on the side and Poof! It explodes in a colorful spray that follows the sphere as you wave it in the air. You jump up into the sky, punch some buttons, and teleport to a grassy open field full of other Furries, who are wearing some of the most fantastic costumes you've ever seen, many of which you can't imagine a human being actually fitting into.

The music being pumped into the field has a lot of bounce to it, and six or seven people have started dancing. You pull your color-spraying sphere in half, and with one in each hand, become a one-man light show on the spot. Soon, the grassy field is filled with people glittering, sparkling, and of course dancing, some in mid air.

After things settle down a bit, you swap scripting tips with some of the other builder types. You slap a scrap of paper into a wolf's hand, and he feeds it into the sword he's working on, which then begins to swirl and pulse with colors.

None of this is real, of course. It's all just happening on your computer screen. And yes, your ass is getting bigger while you *look at* a representation of yourself dancing. But for a monday night, it ain't bad.

It is definitely possible to get addicted to this game, but it doesn't have that same uniquely messed up feeling you get after spending a few hours sitting in front of a screen clicking a button to get your simulated person to learn how to cook while you eat pop tarts and dry cereal, washing the lot down with a can of orange soda.

Thank goodness.