Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Drax put his latest episode of the World Makers out today. This is a fun interview with Rod Humble. It runs 5 minutes and there are some interesting bits of information.
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If you have listened to Rod’s 2011 speech at UC Santa Cruz’s meeting Inventing the Future of Games, you may not be able to pick up on some of the context included in the video. See Rod Humble Speech Released for a brief summary and links to that video.
The MadPea folks are going to tear down the Carneval to make room for a new build. To celebrate the end of a fun build they are throwing a big party. There will be prizes, raffles, and more. See their announcement: Survive the Madness.
The party starts today at 12 SLT/PDT and runs for 48 hours.
MadPea is advertising this as the largest party in their history. Check it out.
OK… we get lots of these stories. But, Loki Eliot has a post titled: I cant control how you see my world.
Loki explains what he wants to improve the experiences he builds in Second Life™. He makes some good points. Check out the article.
Fifteen or so region owners were at the Server & Scripting meeting Tuesday. They are having horrible griefing problems and are looking for help.
Seems repeat griefers are plaguing SL. That is not news. If you have looked at these problems, you know there is no easy way to get rid of repeat offenders. Those not familiar with the technology of the Internet always think there is a technical solution. Griefing is a human nature problem as in many cases the solutions are not technical but a matter of law enforcement. We see that in games, forums, and real life where problems of violence and hate are ongoing. Humans bent on anti-social behavior find ways around the technical solutions and legal restrictions. Technology is not going to stop humans from misbehaving. Nor is government, even when it has its foot on everyone’s neck… the complete removal of freedom. People misbehave.
This Sunday morning I am going reading blogs and forums to see what is going on in Second Life. The interesting things I am finding follow:
Honour has images of Alice is Wonderland [SIC]. See: SL10BCC, Jumping Down the Rabbit Hole in Second Life. It is a region that is as strange and odd as the original story conveys and Honour does a good job of capturing that in her photos.
Maria Korolov on Hypergrid Business post more about the ongoing saga of the L$ Exchanges. See: Linden Lab allows third-party currency sales. Maria sees this as the Lab reversing their position. I don’t.
All exchanges MUST buy their Lindens from the LindeX. People can then buy those L$ from the Exchanges. But, in reality these will no longer be ‘exchanges’ as no one will be able to take money out of SL EXCEPT through the LindeX.
So, the exchanges are now only retailers of L$. It looks like many people will still have a significant problem getting money out of SL. This is of course the whole point of FinCEN regulations.
There is a question and discussion in the SL Forum about: Any solution for cashing out in Euro with LindeX?
Gwyneth Llewelyn has published her take on the new More Options announcement by the Lab. See: Financial crisis in Second Life ended? There are some details and gotcha’s worth knowing.
Gwyneth speculates on whether the Lab will turn off the cash out feature of the LindeX. As it is now the More Options change means other exchanges CANNOT convert L$ to RL currencies.
If FinCEN is forcing the Lab to move that direction, it will happen. But, that would be a huge hit for the Lab. There are people making a RL living from their SL businesses. Preventing any outward cash flow would kill those businesses.
For instance the motion capture company just covered in The Drax Files would likely drop their efforts in SL and move on to something else.
Personally I think stopping the outward cash flow will kill Second Life. As things are now SL provides entertainment and income. I’ll have to look to see how many private islands/regions are a shop of some kind. Tier is paid by sales. That tier payment thing could continue. But, some significant portion of those people are taking money out of SL. I suspect that significant portion is likely to give up their land.
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