Ironically, I just cancelled my SL account today. I had so much trouble just trying to get the program to work, I never really got to experience the content. Very RAM intensive, and they even bost that 10 fps is "good" when other people are in the area. I had all sorts of graphics and navigation bugs. Right before I uninstalled it, my avatar was changed into a female for no reason whatsoever, and although it has a character creation tool that puts City of Heroes to shame, I spent so long just trying to get that to work, that suddenly losing it all wasn't worth it anymore. Unfortunately, with no NPCs or anything, so much of the world is just a giant, wonderfully designed -- but dead and barren -- world.

How depressing/awesome is it going to get when in-game industries starts to outpay and outperform others and we have to outsource jobs like lawyering, preaching and politics to India and Pakistan? I await that day with great anticipation. -leeman

this kind of MMOG (Second Life) appears to me as cosmetics to our real lives. in fact, makes me reconsider why i have ever played any of these MMOGs. I have never bought gold, but just saving up money in these games to obtain things is beginning to be just as absurd as buying gold with real money. i really wonder who these people are who can busy and concern themselves with a toon's well being in a virtual world (the toon of course being a representation of themselves, which sometimes involves sex change under the excuse of "i just like looking at a chic in action!")

all this is most certainly about people who *need to make contact with other people, yerning to feel something beyond their physical awarness, seeking a home for their ego, and for this they are the most exploitable for real money.

In fact, I'll never play another MMOG that makes me work =D

I was reading a review for RFO, 3 factions pvp MMOG, and they encourage you to afk while your toon farms for 8 hours. why not just give you the ore that you need? i know, i know, it's all behavioral tactics to keep customers. though here at least farming may be handled best, not sure. I quit reading the reviews once it was clear to me that here was another MMOG where you had to level, save up items, money, grind, probably work on rep, and so on.

Other MMOGs are sure to follow suit with Second Life's model in one aspect or another, and this just indicates what MMOGs will be for.

I guess mmo's are cheaper than drugs or alcohol and probably offer greater escapism too.

Our subconciousness knows the world is going downhill (global warming, starvation, terrorism, corruption, pollution) even if a lot of people deny it to themselves (I know I sometimes try not to think about it) and more people find ways to escape from reality.

Obvioulsy you don't think to yourself, 10,000 people are dying a day due to starvation, another few thousand due to war and violent crime, ice caps are melting, natural disasters are increasing, Iran wants to go nuclear - I think "I'll play an mmo to have some fun". But I'm sure there's some correlation between the state of the world and the increase in popularity of mmo's.

These mmo's, where there are more ways to pay, show how content some people are to stay in their virtual worlds when they see how easy (pay money) it is to improve their virtual lives.

Like in WoW, people struggle for hours, days or weeks raiding to get some epic weapon, the achievement they feel when they get this virtual item must surpass, subconciously, what they feel in 'real life' otherwise why would they do it?

I don't mean anything negative to people who play in mmo's by the way, I'm just wondering if there are underlying reasons why we play mmo's, i.e not just for fun.

I'm a cheap bastard. It's a fact. I hate the idea of micro payments, like 3 bucks for a new car in (some racing game). I don't like the idea of companies nickel and diming me for stuff that was once already given for free in a "finished" game, because i like my nickles and dimes.

Now as you might have figure, i don't like the idea of having to pay for rent in a game. Why should I have to worry about real life burdons, like rent and a job in my fantasy escapist world? I so appalled by the idea, if this game as no monthly fees, if would make my avatar a bum, dressed in rags, begging for change on street corners like the free loader that i am. I just want to be a plight in this virtual digital paradise :p

I played around with Second Life last year. The editing tools available there are simple but astonishingly powerful.

Although it is essentially just a giant chat room, the editing tools make all kinds of games, sports and activities possible.

People WILL pay for well-crafted specialty items that they don't have the skill or time to make themselves.

People made over 100,000 a year in a GAME?! Not even Myomito makes that much!

I wonder how companies like Square-Enix, Nintendo, etc... would react to seeing avatars based on their characters being sold in this game. Considering how Marvel reacted to City of Heroes toons looking like their characters, it could end up being a messy legal situation for both the modders and the company that runs Second Life.

That said, I have some experience modding for other games... It really makes me consider checking it out and trying to make some extra cash.

Hey Real World! Yes, YOU! What the frell are you doing in my escapism? Bugger off damn it!

What is amazing here is that people think this is somehow strange. How is this different then paying for things like paintings for your house? Aren't they both just visually appealing and mildly entertaining pieces of well-crafted "art" that serve no practical function in the real world? That's how I see it. People make graphics on the computer and they have been sold since computer graphics could be made and transfered. Same thing with computer games themselves. They don't serve a real "purpose" in life. This is just a SLIGHTLY different extention into that. People are buying "art" for their games. So we combine two things that serve no "function" but visual appeal and entertainment. So I'm not surprised, and I see no problem with this. The people who make stuff, and make money are entraupenuers, artists, sculptors, it's all the same. Congrats to those people, I wish I had that kind of skill.

hahaha
/wipes tear of laughter from eye/

And I thought I didn't have a life... Thanks for cheering me up, steve! :D

Well this is just great.
People are making a fortune in these games?
So now I'm a loser in the virtual word as well as the real one.That's all I needed to hear.

To FTH,

Why are you responding then? Stay in your virtual world for good and don't mind what we explore, because this is what we are always going to do at our end for understanding why we do what we do.

I haven't tried any of these. However, I just don't like the feeling of a pay for content only game. I'm a pretty impulsive buyer and if I would turn out to like one of these games. I would probably spend way to much money on it. Not that I have much money to throw around anyway. Anyways, back to my WoW addiction.

I stoped playing MMO or RPG when I realised that I was wasting time working and training my char, I realised that all that time I was wasting on that virtual guy was not used on the real me. Thats when I started going in a real Gym and training the real me. These games can become easily addictive and the player tends to forget who the real player is, the human body wich need exercise. So guys, keep in mind what the real life is. ;)

Well, the way things work in SL is the players themselves make the content, not Linden Research (the owners). Liden made the client, has the servers running, and the framework for the program, that's it. So in effect, other players are getting "paid" for making in game content. Its a little like how Blizzard modelers and programmers earn their bread money by making World of Warcraft stuff, but in a round about way.

Now I don't know about the whole paying vast sums of US$ for L$ thing myself, but I do know that this place is a model hobbist's dream come true. Ever wanted to just screw around and make a flying tank? Or furniture? Or any other kind of virtual art you can think of? The program itself comes with all the tools you need to just start cranking out things, and is a good way for novice modelers to mess around and have some fun. If you know programs like AutoCAD or anything else that deals with lines, shapes, and models, you can start screwing around with SL's integrated item creation and be making things in a day or two.

Oh, and the other thing is copy write laws make it so when you make something, it is [b]yours[/b] intellectually (assuming you aren't ripping the item off from another place). So if you make a model of something, or a peice of programming that you really like, you have every right to sell it, keep it, export it out of the game, or whatever like any other peice of intellectual property. There are actually ingame modification and copying rights on items that lets you protect this as well. In other words, I cannot bust open someone else's peice of code and steal something, or mass copy their item unless the creater enables me to. Oh, and yes, there are "Freeware" items out there too.

Meanwhile in World of Warcraft the virtual items, your avatar, and everything else in game, you are "renting". You do not own that Zweihander of Beezulbub (that took you 300 hours of guild raiding or 300 US$ to get), Blizzard does. They are nice enough to lend it to you, but if they decide to gut your 60 High Warlord character, or even the whole server, legally you're SOL. If they decide that the Zweihander of Beezulbub is too powerful and nerfs it, you're SOL. This is why I *do not* agree with virtual item sales for real dollars in traditional MMORPGs because the players are selling something that is not theirs intellectually, and if Blizzard ever decides they want to pull the plug on their operations, tough luck, game over, you lose real money on your virtual "investments".

Steve is totally right when he says this game is "chugging along." I tried it out for an hour or so. I don't know if it's just server-side lag, or if the game engine is crappy, or both but I was getting ridiculously low framerates even in fairly simple areas. It took forever for anything to load up and once a significant amount of objects had loaded I could barely move.

To be brutally honest, I cannot see the appeal in this game. Maybe if it looked nicer there'd be some novelty in wandering around looking at stuff, but since it takes several minutes for an area to load, much of your wandering will be across a barren martian landscape, populated only by invisible objects for you to trip on.

The only plus is it's free. That it only has 130,000 users despite that should say something.

Hm. People were making tons of money off of RPG games for the longest of time.

Going back to my first major RPG online---Diablo II:LoD, there was people selling rare items and leveled up characters of hundreds of dollars a week/month depending on their activity.

Of course, botters, cheaters, etc., botched up this economy.
People have entire businesses ruined by gold farmers. ;P

Bah, who cares? GET ON THE OBLIVION INTERVIEW! Please man....just a small hit...I need it! You know I'll be good for when my paycheck comes! Come on man, don't hold out on me like this! Is it itchy in here or is it just me?

I think it's all a marketing ploy. They get some guy to drop a ton of cash into the game on real estate in order to try to entice people who have a gambling addiction to make money on their game, when really they take a cut of all the money people spend in the game. I seriously doubt that someone is really making 6 figures with a subscriber base of only 130k. And if he/she is, then they are the only ones.

If you're having performance issues as I was when I first started it up, this can be solved by adjusting the graphical and/or net settings within the game. I fixed mine relatively easily.

i've never played this game before

Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 66048, and it got it right! Pretty neat.