Second Life Orgy of Press Hype

[Krakrok]

Could part of the problem with server stability be its open source foundation?  Too many crappy / poorly programmed objects by the masses?

Yes and no. The scripting language (LSL) is crappy which just about everyone acknowledges. Times that by X billion objects.

SL has ~2700 servers or some such and only 12000 people online. On the other hand you have normal webservers that host multiple customers per box with thousands of scripts (PHP/ASP/Python/Perl/whatever) and can handle maybe 1200 requests a second. Or EVE which has ~75 world servers running Python and ~28,000 people online.

Sounds like an architecture issue to me but MMOGs are hard.

[Raph]

The $200+m figure is for INTERNAL transactions. It's akin to the calculation saying that EQ is bigger than Russia economically.

[SnakeCharmer]

Could part of the problem with server stability be its open source foundation?  Too many crappy / poorly programmed objects by the masses?

Yes and no. The scripting language (LSL) is crappy which just about everyone acknowledges. Times that by X billion objects.

SL has ~2700 servers or some such and only 12000 people online. On the other hand you have normal webservers that host multiple customers per box with thousands of scripts (PHP/ASP/Python/Perl/whatever) and can handle maybe 1200 requests a second. Or EVE which has ~75 world servers running Python and ~28,000 people online.

Sounds like an architecture issue to me but MMOGs are hard.

At least I was on the right track ;)
Thanks for the clarification.

[caladein]

So I get home from class and turn the TV on. I'm flipping channels and land on BBC. Second Life.

I quickly change channels to my local ABC affiliate. More Second Life.

At that point, I go outside for a walk.

[Endie]

So I get home from class and turn the TV on. I'm flipping channels and land on BBC. Second Life.

I quickly change channels to my local ABC affiliate. More Second Life.

At that point, I go outside for a walk.

Yeah, I got home from work last night some time between 10 and 11 (crunch time), switched on the BBC 24 hour news, and there was Second bloody Life, with their tech correspondent floating around and saying it was the future, while admitting he couldn't really find anything to do and that he had trouble seeing the point after a couple of days.

Raph is right, of course: the best you can say about their megabucks announcement is that the money has a certain velocity around the economy.  Since transaction costs are minimal, two people could sell a house back and forth for a few billion Linden dollars all day long and that would be added to their figures.  They lie, they hype: it's just like 1999 again.

[Tale]

Yeah, I got home from work last night some time between 10 and 11 (crunch time), switched on the BBC 24 hour news, and there was Second bloody Life, with their tech correspondent floating around and saying it was the future, while admitting he couldn't really find anything to do and that he had trouble seeing the point after a couple of days.

And you wouldn't fucking believe it, but right after I posted above, I went into work and our top online video for the morning was that exact BBC Second Life story.

I tried to explain to my boss how I'd just been discussing Second Life and how overhyped it was, and he (being a total non-gamer and non-Internet geek) looked at me as if I was talking about my obsession with the price of fish in Ghana. He didn't care that Second Life is three years old and crappy, as long as people watched the story. After a while, neither did I :)

[Numtini]

Watching their magic box of population numbers can be interesting.

A game that averages 15k peak logins has added 27,265 accounts in the last 9 hours. Since yesterday when Kakrok posted his totals, it's added 46,675 accounts.

[Soln]

Watching their magic box of population numbers can be interesting.

A game that averages 15k peak logins has added 27,265 accounts in the last 9 hours. Since yesterday when Kakrok posted his totals, it's added 46,675 accounts.

it's magic!

[Viin]

I like how when I decide to look around again (for the second time in 2-3 years) the server is down and not accepting new logins.

I'll be interested to see where they go with this whole "open source" thingy they have going. Maybe someone will make a better engine to run on top of it.

[CmdrSlack]

Watching their magic box of population numbers can be interesting.

A game that averages 15k peak logins has added 27,265 accounts in the last 9 hours. Since yesterday when Kakrok posted his totals, it's added 46,675 accounts.

Actually, it is related to the ability to make infinite free accounts without any real identity verification.  Most residents have at least three alts.  Seriously.

[WindupAtheist]

Urge to create Second Life account... drop Tubgirl billboards all over the place until banned... rising!

EDIT:  Client downloading now.  Oh man, they have you pick an avatar when you register.  There's one normal male and normal female, and the rest are either furries (Yes, right there at the start!) or so gay they make the average Final Fantasy protagonist look like Bruce Willis.  I can tell this is going to be fun.

EDIT 2:  Flew around aimlessly for fifteen minutes, reveling in the shitty graphics.  Realized I didn't really have anything to do.  Logged off.

[Numtini]

Actually, it is related to the ability to make infinite free accounts without any real identity verification.  Most residents have at least three alts.  Seriously.

Yah, I don't even like the game and I think I have at least four different accounts/characters. I figure that's where the way out of proportion total logins to population comes from. (I also wonder if logging into the web site, which you need to do to look at most of it, counts as a login--that would make me an active player.)

But even that doesn't explain new accounts at a rate of twice game population every day. Though I suppose given how lousy the game looks and how jerk the avies are, particulalry initially, it could be that they really do require 10 or 20 trials to get a single player who lasts more than 5 minutes.

[eldaec]

The FT has a third of a page today devoted to Second Life and one Ailin Graf, a Chinese-born teacher living in Frankfurt who plays as 'Anshe Chung' and claims to have a Second Life business with revenues of $2.5M, and around 80 employees based in China. This being the FT it includes a quote I found particularly amusing...

Although Ms Graf's business has never been penalised by the "governer" of Second Life - Philip Rosedale, the 28 year old founder of Linder Lab - she worries that the risks her business faces "are comparable to a business operating in any non-democratic country".

Yet while the entrepreneur says that Linden Lab, which represents the law enforcement in the virtual world, could harm her business if it wished to do so, she also acknowledges that it is unlikely; it is not in the interest of Linden Labs to destabilise Second Life's commercial sector, she says, as Mr Rosedale "has to be accountable to his investors".

I honestly don't know if by 'investors' she meant herself, or people who own Linden.

[Endie]

The FT has a third of a page today devoted to Second Life and one Ailin Graf, a Chinese-born teacher living in Frankfurt who plays as 'Anshe Chung' and claims to have a Second Life business with revenues of $2.5M, and around 80 employees based in China.

Chung gets mentioned quite a bit on Terra Nova.

[Falconeer]

As unbelievably as it may sound, Anshe was the guildleader of my first guild in Shadowbane, Braialla's Presence, and when she moved to Second Life I bought some land lots (she paid me for that service) on her account helping to start the big business that made her what she is now.

The internet is so small.

[WindupAtheist]

You know that feeling you get when you're burned out on an MMO, and it all just seems like a pointless graphical chat room?  That was Second Life for me after ten minutes.  I could maybe fly around dozens of weird-looking and deserted buildings until I found someone, then start talking to them out of the blue, and maybe hope their company was so fascinating that it made slogging through this clunky shitty-looking "cyberspace" nonsense worthwhile.

[Numtini]

I knew it was only a matter of time. A feminist blog (really good one actually) ran a story about virtual rape kits in Second Life. Wait until they find out about the entire pedo area.

[Strazos]

I love how people in SL somehow feel entitled to measures to protect their "business" - they're trading bits in a game. I don't even understand how the land works in that game - LL makes all the land, correct? If so, why is it even necessary to buy from any of these leeching middlepersons?

A huge problem I see with SL is that a lot of people are going to follow some of the things they do in future games, such as introducing real world value into games. Keep the fucking money out of my game.

[Trippy]

I love how people in SL somehow feel entitled to measures to protect their "business" - they're trading bits in a game. I don't even understand how the land works in that game - LL makes all the land, correct? If so, why is it even necessary to buy from any of these leeching middlepersons?

Cause the rich people will buy up huge swaths of land or complete islands and then resell smaller portions to people who want them. It costs ~$1600 (that's real US dollars, not ingame Linden $) for a 16 acre island (65Km2) buying direct from LL. On the other hand the newbie "first-time buyer" plot of land that you buy direct from LL only costs about $2 (512 L$) for a 512m2 plot of land.

Edit: clarified island purchase

[CmdrSlack]

I love how people in SL somehow feel entitled to measures to protect their "business" - they're trading bits in a game. I don't even understand how the land works in that game - LL makes all the land, correct? If so, why is it even necessary to buy from any of these leeching middlepersons?

A huge problem I see with SL is that a lot of people are going to follow some of the things they do in future games, such as introducing real world value into games. Keep the fucking money out of my game.

In addition to what Trippy said, there's people who, for some reason, prefer to rent thier land in themed areas, etc.  When you see stuff about Anshe Chung in a SL media whoring article, it's because she's paying her RL bills as a land speculator/developer in SL.  Anyone with the proper amount of seed money can pull it off, but she's done it really, really well.

Why would someone rent the land instead of own it?  Lots of reasons -- some people want prebuilt housing on their land, some people don't want to use a CC with SL and prefer to buy their currency, etc.

[Numtini]

The Anshe communities are like themed homeowners associations. It's a way to make sure someone doesn't open up an eyesore next door or just something you don't want to deal with. You have to agree to certain limitations and I think she actually retains ownership of the land. So she is actually adding value.

It's basically a reaction to the libertarian roots of SL. When someone builds a 200' orange and purple penis statue next to your quiet house, suddenly rules seem like a really good idea.

[HaemishM]

It's basically a reaction to the libertarian roots of SL. When someone builds a 200' orange and purple penis statue next to your quiet house,

AND THEY WILL.

suddenly rules seem like a really good idea.

Yes.

[Bunk]

I love how people in SL somehow feel entitled to measures to protect their "business" - they're trading bits in a game. I don't even understand how the land works in that game - LL makes all the land, correct? If so, why is it even necessary to buy from any of these leeching middlepersons?

Cause the rich people will buy up huge swaths of land or complete islands and then resell smaller portions to people who want them. It costs ~$1600 (that's real US dollars, not ingame Linden $) for a 16 acre island (65Km2) buying direct from LL. On the other hand the newbie "first-time buyer" plot of land that you buy direct from LL only costs about $2 (512 L$) for a 512m2 plot of land.

Edit: clarified island purchase

Very first thing I saw when I first tried SL and hopped over to my "newbie plot" - giant flashing billboards offering to buy my land from me.

[DataGod]

Well I am frankly tired of going into the whole SL sucks thing. Theyre good at some things teh suck at others no biggie.

The have a huge press machine because they're VC's are hugely connected to the media, also no biggie its common for investors to flog thier portfolio


It was clunky, yes but OPEN

What I saw when I first logged in ON THE NEWBIE ISLAND, seriously I shit you not:

I large naked fat man, wielding a axe, with a burger king like over sized crown, simulating sex with a cat woman and a young leather gay boy love slave......

You cant even make that shit up for a new user experiance.....

Of course they stopped what they were doing and came to welcome "me" but I flew off

PS: I didnt know SL had a pedo area, thats crossing the Fing line IMO, wait til the media get a hold of that little gem.....Im sure that board meeting will be interesting.

[Strazos]

If it's not in a video, it didn't happen. Or at least a screenshot.