What is Digg?Sponsored by NerdyShirts.com
Buy "Nintendo Family Tree" T Shirt view!
nerdyshirts.com - The Genealogy of Nintendo on a T Shirt
75 Comments
- TheNik, on 10/12/2007, -2/+50I tried SL instead of RL for a few days but it lagged more than RL on sedatives.
- cogen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+46Dugg because:
1. Second Life is an interesting concept.
2. The submitter actually linked to the source and not an ad-laden outside-party blog. Holy HELL! - missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36Don't feed the trolls, guys.
- gregmo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23I guess if someone wants to start an argument or just make a comment, theyre going to have to call a second life meeting in the game.
- Amplix, on 10/12/2007, -10/+28What... are you doing at digg?
- PvtJenkins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18SL has more bugs than my unfinished basement, your character controls like a hovercraft that weighs a couple tons, and the interface for doing pretty much anything is a mess. Unless they polish this game up BIG TIME, then count me out. Oh, and this news doesn't seem to help the game anymore either. It was a good experiment, and it would have be great if it was well made and thought out more so than it is.
- KhanneaSuntzu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Linden Labs will be *hard* pressed to repair or overhaul SL in the current format. They built themselves wedged in a room full of porcelain vases and only a major overhaul of the game will save them. I think they are geeks who had an imperfect understanding of game/VR design when they started in 2003. Now they are stuck in the format (like a tank with so many guns it can hardly move) and no one on the outside will invest in the game with a massive porn industry (onethird of a multi-million dollar economy)
...PLUS a vibrant BDSM/perv/child porn underground. Some aspects of SL are NASTY.
I bet Google would love to invest in the formula, people would love to buy in-world add banners but with that dark cloud hanging overhead in the game RW investors won't touch it.
I love SL dearly but I fear the thing is hemorrhaging to death. SL has only one brief chance before the other major MMO's come online next year. They need to go to a million subscribers. To do that they obviously deal with the game as a souped up chat platform. With a million subscribers (even though most of those are offliners and alts) they have a better argument under their belt for investors. I think it is obvious the forums were a losing proposition ... however closing them will create one or several non-linden lab forums. Or worse - a consumer lobby... unions... protest groups.. Imagine a few tenthousand people signing petitions and complaining.
They might die from the Bad Karma on top of all their other headaches.
IF LL had money to burn they could improve on the awful interface. I don't play SL because of the playability - I play it because it an exercise in raw freedom. If Lindens can create an interface about as good as WoW or GTA then they have a chance. But I am a bit concerned the game will slide into the margins.... and there will be something like a Google Earth VR in the same or similar niche that'll sweep em away in 2-4 years.
I will miss the rush of playing SL dearly if that happens. I will miss my character and my friends, and cry bittersweet tears. Like I said, I treat SL as a social experiment, a place to be free and a place to play with human minds.
It is a souped up chat platform, not a game. Highly recommended to people who want to play with a part of themselves they ordinarily hide. Like a said, a great place for pervs.
http://www.lastampa.it/cmstp/rubriche/girata.asp?ID_blog=35&ID_sezione=50&sezione=Over+Game
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1962441,00.asp - nacs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12The description and headline are extremely inaccurate.
I just read the linked post and it mentions that they'll be closing the non-Second life related forums only (General Discussion and such).
They're also going to consolidate the support forums into one big one. This is pretty much the only changes they're making.
The digg description makes it sound like the entire forum is being shut down. (Reported Inaccurate). - devzer0, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14So here's a perfect opportunity to start *your own* forums. Get Simple Machine's forum; it's the best AFAIC.
Awesome opportunity for Google AdSense revenue. You don't need Linden Labs to host its own forums, and you're better off if they don't. - anath47, on 10/12/2007, -8/+17you don't use adblock?!?
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/10/ - KhanneaSuntzu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Red Light Center is just horrible. It was set up by people branching away from the Amsterdam crowd in SL ... and they are literally sponsored by the people from Cassa Rosso... which is literally a front for Hells Angels. I know, I worked there. So you basicly have a real world criminal organisation running a small area in SL and their own embryonic VR game.
There are many other games appearing in the same scene:
http://www.blackloveinteractive.com/84/tiki-page.php?pageName=rapture+online
http://pcdmusiclounge.com/Home.do
http://www.jewelofindra.com/
http://www.redlightcenter.com/flashtour.asp
http://sociolotron.amerabyte.com/website2/download.htm
http://www.naughtyamericathegame.com/
http://www.virtuallyjenna.com/
I dont see any of these games breaking even, let alone become big. But in the next decade the experience people build up creating these games *will* create the first Porn VR millionaires. - mercatfat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I see you burning in grammar Auschwitz.
- seanalltogether, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13@foto and yet here you are on a Sunday afternoon, reading and posting to digg.
you sure are busy living that life of yours eh? - raindog469, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Khan, don't lump us fans of BDSM in with the kiddie porn people, please.
- KhanneaSuntzu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Nah hardly any meaingful combat. Like I said, it's a super Chat Program.
- hypodermia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7the communities in the game have gotten a lot of moving inertia now, to such a point that the many subcommunities can communicate among themselves in their ways. will we have to search for Linden team members in-game to talk to them now ?
- rtilford, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9i see blizzard doing this with there wow forums
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Is it possible to run your own country in 2nd life? How about invading others? :)
- BarleyWind, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Pool's closed?
- imdwalrus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9To be fair, "immature twit" is much more creative than "ass." You could try so many more words and phrases instead. How about "blithering ninny?" "Incompetent pony?" "Smelly git?" The English language has thousands of words...use them to your advantage.
Also, it's nice to see that your superior comment posting skills resulted in your comment being out of line with anything instead of in line with the post you were trying to insult. - Ulrika, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5All forums that are critical for communication with Linden Lab and between users are being closed. Here's a list of the forty or so forums being closed:
Linden Forums (Announcements & News, The Official Blah of Linden Lab, Known Issues and Development Updates, References & Policies, Second Life Release Notes, Linden Press and Events, Second Life Land Management, and Second Life Answers)
Resident Conversations (Community: Resident Sites, Resident-Run Websites, Bulletin Board, General Topics, The Sandbox, Land and the Economy, SL In-World Political Science, SL Volunteers & Education, Real Life Meetups & Events)
Feedback (Preview for SL 1.12, Lindens Asking for Feature Feedback, Current Version Feature Feedback, Feature Suggestions)
Technical Talk (Technical Issues, Mac Discussion, Linux Client Alpha Testers)
Classifieds (Shopping, Land Sales and Rentals, Property Sales and Rentals, Special Attractions, New Products, Employment Ops & Help Wanted, Products Wanted, Services)
International (German Forum, Japanese Forum, Korean Forum)
Group Life (Dedicated Forums for Second Life Groups)
Forum Archive
And here is a list of the forums remaining:
Content Creation (Animations, Building, Design and Textures, Event Discussion, Gallery, Movies & Machinima, Scripting Library, Scripting Tips, SL Games) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I just tried the game out. Its pretty gay; not to mention I received an email from an in game Guide/GM/mentor whatever the hell they call it harassing me for logging out at the same time they asked me a question.
Whats the point of this buggy, laggy game? - tarkonicus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Just look at their logo: "talk to the hand!" And so Linden doesn't want to bother with it, there's plenty of other options for forums out there. The less-connected outside forums and fresh-faced and fancy-free upstarts like http://roleforums.com/ for your MMORPG chit-chat needs. Maybe it can all be handled by in-game meetings, maybe people want to talk while they're at work. Either they find an outlet or they choose another game.
Well, maybe not! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@morn: hah! Hey man, I was there when it happened. It wasnt funny then, and it sure as hell ain't funny now. There are a lot of people over at SL who know that to take even one more step forward they'll have to tear down the entire monstrosity and build it again (the right way this time)---but it's been stated over and over again that theres no way they could ever license a real rotoscoping engine because they don't allow for "on the fly stuff" (not my words).
Of course they dont. Theyd have to license the source and build it in--and the very fact that instead of doing that they say its impossible says quite a huge hell of a lot about the caliber of programmers working for them. - Portside, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Unmanageable my ass.
I've seen way bigger, and way messier forums than those at Second life.
*COUGH* Gaia *COUGH* - hoyaman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8I modded you down becaue you're being a immature twit. I mowed my lawn yesterday, today I'm installing shelves.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+16I dont know, second life was much nicer when it was called Active Worlds and Outer Worlds (from which they clearly stole the engine and gave exactly zero credit)...sure, it was smaller, simpler...but it was also stable and usable. SL has been one uncredited code-lift after another, smooshed together with duct tape and bubble gum. It would have to be completely rewritten from the ground up (start with licensing the oblivion engine, boys).
- hoyaman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yea, inaccurate, in fact this is what the article says they're doing:
"We’ve decided to focus Linden energy on building out the Linden unified blog and planning for other www.secondlife.com and in-world communication options. Ultimately we want to see a richly supported community of Resident websites living alongside improved in-world social features as SL rises to its full potential."
My question, of course, is that if you're paying good money to play Second Life, why not want the forum-style feedback within that "world," to limit posters to folks actually active?
Why not then advertise whatever you do/sell there externally on your own ad-revenue drawing site? More time for you to, uh, get what you pay for... - ArianeB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dumping the forums is a bad idea.
Recently LL made some choices which were HORRIBLE (i.e. the 200 meter ban lines) that killed exploration temporarily, but literally hundreds of complaints on the forums got the rules changed in a week.
I bet that the forums come back up the next time LL does something stupid (and they will) and all the players spam live online support with their venting. - morn, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12yttrx's comment being dugg up, not down, is proof that the digg.com comments moderation is broken.
- diggumjonez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i really liked second life until i had a billing question and attempted to contact their customer service/billing department. i was completely ignored for a month, and in the last few days before I could contest the charge with paypal, filed a dispute via Paypal. The ONLY response I EVER got to being overbilled $35 for a month was that Paypal disputes were not the way of getting this resolved. they ignored me, ignored paypal, and just let paypal refund the money to me eventually. In the meantime, they locked my account, which had the equivalent of about US$90 in it. Subsequent requests to get that refunded or transferred have been met with, you guessed it, complete and utter silence.
The idea is great - the best thing about "Snow Crash" was this user-programmable "reality" which Second Life tried very hard to emulate. It's too bad the real world side of that, the business people who answer the phones and emails, have to be the weak link in the success of that chain.
Good riddance. Let it die, and let someone else come up with a better version. - zer0cubed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Linden Lab, extreme right wing?! LMAO
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ultima Online circa 8+ years ago... no?
I'd rather have an MMORPG with a town building element. - GwynethLlewelyn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The issue most of the more vitriolic kind of users of Second Life have with "shutting down the forums" is that suddenly their favourite media for venting their anger has been removed from them — and placed into a plethora of user-managed forums instead, where things like the Linden Lab Terms of Service do not apply.
What this means is that their audience of perhaps a few hundred readers (an irrelevant tiny number, compared to the 400,000+ accounts in Second Life) will now be more "dispersed". They will naturally gravitate to the SLogosphere instead — where the number of regular readers is much less.
The notion that "Linden Lab has to provide an open channel of communication between users" is a fallacy. The key word is "has to". They can do it if they wish; but they are not *required* to do so. Specially if those parts of the forums were mostly abused by trolls and flamers whose whole purpose was to get people angry with each other — and see who could "hold out longer" without getting banned from the forums (mostly through the action of "resident moderators", who are not Linden Lab employees...).
So the whole system was doomed to collapse under this model. Either Linden Lab is a 3D platform developer for virtual worlds — and everything else is left to the users — or it is a "virtual country government". In the first case, it doesn't make sense to provide anything that is not done in-world — when users can freely create all the forums they need, use existing ones, or start their own blogs. Good blogs and forums always attract an audience. Second Thoughts, for instance, has more regular readers than the SL forums ever had; the same goes for online newspapers like the Second Life Herald.
In the second case, the model is all wrong: Linden Lab would probably be required to give access to "public mass media", BUT they would also have to work actively as moderators. This would mean having a completely different model, where LL employees would actively moderate (or shall we say, edit...) the comments. This would have extra costs. Out of the 400,000+ accounts, only perhaps 60-70,000 are willing to pay — not enough to cover any part of LL's business that is not their core business, like "providing forums". So very likely this would mean having advertisement to cover up the costs. Residents engaging in commerce and business would gladly embrace that option (they already used the Classified sections, not to mention the signatures, to promote their products). Still, a test had to be made — is it worth spending enough US$ to pay for a few LL employees to moderate a group of forums that is just read by a few hundred readers?
The alternative was to change the model completely. And this was Linden Lab did: they introduced the Linden Lab blogs. Under this model, the "moderator" is a Linden employee, that sets the theme through a post. Comments can be made, but... they're also moderated!
What this means is that one has to be more creative in their criticism. Dirty tricks exploring the naiveté and emotional reaction of users, in order to gather attention (ie. trolling) will simply be discarded by the Linden employees. Instead, good constructive criticism will most certainly "pass" the moderator's editing scissors. Not unlike public radio or TV — where the director might cut opinions that are basically just hate speech, or hate speech disguised as "free speech".
Naturally enough, one can always question if the Linden employees posting on their own blogs are willing to take any criticism *at all*. But again, the solution is simple: create your own blog/forum. Attract the attention of your readers. Show them how cool it is to write inflamated articles. If you write them well, people will come. If you're mostly trolling, well, you know how tough an audience can be.
In real life you have all sorts of "media", some of which is just blatant destructive criticism. People set up newspapers (and web sites) just to protest, to grumble, to "agitate the masses". That freedom is one we take as granted. Nothing that Linden Lab has done — or can do — will ever limit that freedom.
But it's mostly unfair (and naive!) to imagine that Linden Lab is "required" to provide that type of "inflammatory media" as well. For free? Hardly likely. - kmduke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Second Life had the ability to be a really great concept, note I said "had". Being nothing more than a graphical MUSH/MOO/MUCK it was top dog for a while, and I for one enjoyed it for the ability to create content, we the population could, to a degree, control our environment. SL failed miserably in being able to keep up, you want combat, it can and has been done, but you must enjoy running about at a few frames per second, want a MMO, it has been done, although lag again kills it. SL could be "anything" and that was the great thing about it, but what is SL? Shopping, sex, and clubbing.
Second Life must either rebuild or die, simple as that, the current engine is old, graphics are beginning to be laughable compared to what is out there, and its only going to get worse. Linden Labs must either bite the bullet and start with a new engine or be left out in the cold as soon as someone new comes along with a new engine and a decent development team. Seeing the numbers they throw around for a user base I'm surprised that hasn't happened, oh wait, thats right we don't know how many of those users are free accounts vs. paid accounts. - TaoTakashi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3See, the good thing for having now a official Linden blog instead if the forums is that you can link to it, e.g. from a digg post :-) The same can happen to your posts when they are not in some closed forum anymore.
Regarding the "outcry" it happened to me that most people I meet are actually quite glad that they will shut down those forums.. - Amplix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Yeah anyone can start their own third party forums, if they advertize it enough most will migrate there and we will once again have our community. I've been using Secondlife since mid may now and love the concept.
There are definitely some things that need to change with the game (such as an optional privacy option for when you do not want to be disturbed... for building.. of course :P) The forums were a great place to suggest such things and get answers from Lindens.
My name is Kernel Bock, look me up :) - termal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Astroturfing?
I love SL *despite* the ~30% of it that's devoted to "adult" stuff. I tried RLC just to see what the UI and graphics were like and I was anything but impressed. It was like a cheap knockoff of SL with a really dumbed down interface (ok, arguably SL's is a little daunting to new people, so for some people that's a plus). On the plus side, it was pretty resource light instead of chewing up CPU cycles the way SL does, but it was also buggy and crashed on me several times in the couple of hours I ran it. Oh, and the camera controls make you feel crippled, and you can't even copy/paste from chat.
Avatars are a little better looking than a SL newbie one is, but you're incredibly limited in customizing them and you can't go for a look that's not completely slutty looking for women. The guys there are similar to those typical of SL's sex areas, which is to say very friendly to females, but with a palpable undercurrent of sleeze and horniness in every social exchange. But that's 99% of the focus, instead of a just a small fraction of SL's content. Fine for the people into that, but whatever...just don't think the free RLC membership is going to let you experience it either--you can't even do more than look around without a paid VIP membership. - GwynethLlewelyn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Also, I might remember the readers that the "outcry" goes mostly unnoticed. Even if *all* regular forum posters signed a document to keep the inflammatory threads up and running, they would hardly fit in a page :)
The use of "outcry" or "many claim that the closure is an attempt to silence criticism" is misleading. Sure, a few hundred people complained. But a hundred people complain about *anything* at some point in time. I complain that my Mac doesn't have "vertex shaders" enabled, and so do a few hundred people. So I must conclude that having shaders enabled is as important as having forums? Hardly likely. 150,000 or so Mac users *never* complained about not having vertex shaders. So, only a tiny percentage grumble, to lobby for a few developer hours to get that feature fixed. Will Linden Lab address the issue? Hardly likely. The virtual world of Second Life is not targeted to a specific individual that complains, but to a majority of regular users.
It's hard to accept that you're not in the centre of the Universe. Even if you number a few hundred people. - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I worked at amsterdam Cassa Rosso IRL. I worked in the amsterdam area in SL.
For anyone doubting me, just take a stroll inside the amsterdam area in SL and then the same stroll in RLC. You'll notice the VR area's are identical. Then ask Stroker, the manager of Amsterdam, about his investors. Then read the RLC FAQ. - KhanneaSuntzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yah let me rectify;
apart from the vanille escort scene in SL, in which somewhere between 500 and 1000 escorts work, some having one to ten clients per week depending on how much they work and how good they are, there is a mostly noncommercial BDSM scene. In other words collared slaves are as common in SL as Special Interest lobbyists in Washington DC; you trip over them all the time. I know dozens of guys who have up to 5-10 (female) "slaves". I understand that in some relationships it bleeds over IRL with a lot of voice cyber and instruction-based slaveplay. ("take the dildo and lick it")
Apart from that there is a substantially smaller group of people who either play kiddies or play with someone else's kiddie avatar. I looked at it, a but suspiciously, and played along on two occasions, but found it's great. This way potential RW pedophyles stay IN the game, getting to vent their urges in a safe environment. It can be silly, an avatar of a 8 year old girl begging for c0cK. It doesn't do much for me but I was amused by some of the antics they did and how they did it. Almost slapshtick.
Indeed I have found very little overlap between the BDSM scene and the Yng pervs. There is more overlap between SL swingers and (the more out there) pervs. - Yashu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes they are... I am suprised more people don't know this already.
If you doubt me, why don't you ask yourself if NEWSCORP(fox) is right or left... think about that for a second... then notice how similar Philip Rosedale's Linden Lab is to Rupert Murdock's FOX Empire... the scale is not the same, of course, but the parallels are all there.
When I say right wing, I am not speaking of the religious right in this context, but the Ayn Rand kind of right. It really is pretty obvious...
Philip and I have shared quite a few e-mails on various subjects and I can safely say that he is very biased to the right... as are most of the arbitrary decisions that his company makes.
It's sad, too... because the metaverse is a great idea... and secondlife is being poisoned by a bent against freedom of expression and creativity. - TiagoTiago, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3wow, with all this bashing on the decision, either people are exaggerating based on miss information or it is me that is miss informed...
from what I understood from the whole situation, LL is removing some of the more "miscellaneous" forum sections that were starting to get hard to manage (either content wise or due to the number of threads in there requesting responses from LL members), but they still kept the more direct sections (like for building and dealing with technical problems).
they expect many of the more specific chat to be hosted either somewhere else (like on forum freely created by someone else) and futurelly in world in some cases. many of the forums being disabled are obsolete and/or being replaced by other services, like the official blog for example
I guess I could go on and on about the details of the transition, but I think (at least for me) an analogy can sum it up:
they are not chopping down the tree, just trimming some branches were in the way the forest growing around it - aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6That's bizarre to close forums due to rampant negativity. That isn't unmanageable. I run multiple forum sites, including some big ones for corporations. If your forums become overrun with vitriolic posters, you do what Digg does -- you start to put the power into the hands of the people. In this case, you typically would add/enable karma or reputation, and you would allow negative karma/rep, and you would set the system to temp-ban anyone getting too much negative in a day, and you would perma-ban anyone getting too much negative repeatedly. In this way, you do not need to hire 1000 moderators to pour over 10,000 daily posts. Instead, you let the community react to what they read, and they flag & categorize it as they desire. VBulletin has this built-in as a feature. phpBB has this available as a mod. There are tons of other features you could use, as well: "ignore user" buttons, "report bad post" buttons, filters, etc.
I think whoever manages that community just broadcast to the world that he doesn't actually know what he is doing, and needs to be replaced by someone with a skill set in that area of expertise. - dagonweb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yah I seen you work in Arsheba Khan, you are damn good at what you do.
- madpie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Kevin45, that's what I was wondering, too. I "played" (i.e. walked around doing nothing, talking with people, looking at ridiculous efforts to create "exciting" clubs for avatars) for about 2 days. And then concluded wtf. As somebody said earlier in the comments, it's just a big, elaborate chatroom, with perhaps a bit of a clunky virtual porn world grafted onto it and a lame gambling economy operating in the background. There's no there there.
- zer0cubed, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I also reported it as inaccurate. The story here is that the forums are being closed. Period. It doesn't make sense to me for Linden Lab (not plural) to pour man-hours into maintaining the forums when its product is also a collaborative development platform. Similar functionality should be built straight into Second Life.
Forum moderation doesn't scale well for Linden Lab. Second Life is becoming something like the internet. There isn't one big forum for the internet. There are many more focused forums for specific communities within the internet, maintained by those communities.
Linden Lab is doing what's logical, not trying to silence its community. Bad form, Ulrika. - bkkfarang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2LindenLabs is pulling the walls down so that no one sees that the emperor has no clothes. :-(
- AlexFitzsimmons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1More's the pity that LL chose to dispense with what could have been an excellent medium for communication between them and the SL community.
Then again, they already weren't bothering to use it to listen ... - Obsidian99, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4You said, "Red Light Center is just horrible. It was set up by people branching away from the Amsterdam crowd in SL ... and they are literally sponsored by the people from Cassa Rosso... which is literally a front for Hells Angels. I know, I worked there."
That is totally untrue. RLC is a wonderful community run by Utherverse, Inc. You NEVER worked there, and it was not started by anyone at SL. RLC used to be Red Light World, and was started BEFORE SL.
Red Light Center has the friendliest community that I've ever spent time with. How dare you impune this company? -
Show 51 - 75 of 75 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is