General – Page 6 – Ciaran Laval

March 8, 2014

Report Compares Second Life, World Of Warcraft And Eve-Online To Real Life

GamesBeat have published a very intersting article : Comparing the virtual worlds of Warcraft, Second Life, and Eve Online to our own yields some surprising stats. The article itself links to a funky report by digital marketing agency Epiphany with a blurb of :

The online world is very different to our own, with new rules, new races, and new ways of living. There are, however, some similarities – take a look at our breakdown of the internet’s biggest virtual worlds to find out how they measure up against real life.

This isn’t the most detailed report in the world but the site does provide some interesting stats. Introducing Second Life they say:

Second Life is seen as an online marketplace as well as a game, and many players have been able to earn serious cash thanks to the easy way in-game currency can be sold for real-world money. More casual players use the game to build, customise and create, developing a literal second life in which their character can live out the player’s desires and fantasies – whether that’s a mansion and a helipad or the romance of a lifetime!

The website has a series of icons which lead to other little gems of information when clicked, I’m not going to cover them all but I’ll mention a few. In terms of Second Life they point out that English is the most popular language with 54% of users speaking that language, which compares to 18% in the real world.

In terms of user growth we’re told :

Between 2006 and 2011, global internet usage doubled in growth – in the same timeframe, Second Life saw a 4000% increase in users.

That’s rather impressive. Another interesting point is made with regards to financial institutions and economies, although I’m not sure things happened exactly as they seem to suggest :

In 2007, Second Life saw a huge financial incident which mirrored the bank crises we’ve seen in the real world since the start of the recession. When the developers announced that gambling in-game would be officially banned, thousands of users rushed to Ginko Financial, an in-game bank offering astronomical interest rates, to retrieve and sell the currency from their accounts. This caused a run on the bank which eventually resulted in a complete shut-down – wiping out around $750,000 (£457,736) in real world money. The incident has since been used by financial experts across the web as an example of what happens when banks fail to self-regulate.

The part where I disagree with them is regarding the rush of people to Ginko. I don’t remember that happening, I do remember the Ginko scandal but I don’t recall a rush due to the gambling ban. I can recall arguing with people that if real life banks faced a close down in the manner that Second Life banks did that there would be a rush on the banks that they wouldn’t be able to handle.

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March 6, 2014

Price Comparisons For SL Go Are Difficult, But Please Leave Coffee Out Of It

Often when people are debating costs of online services, such as MMO’s or SL Go, the coffee argument will be trotted out. On the face of it the coffee argument is a good one, the cost can be compared to buying a few cups of coffee a month, which is true. The problem with the coffee comparison is that coffee is a consumable product, with little investment opportunity. I mean you may get a coffee loyalty card which can earn you free coffee, but you know that each cup is going to be disposed of in one form or another.

People who spend time in MMO’s and virtual worlds such as Second Life are investing in their avatar, there are various different ways of doing this but people generally don’t think of this avatar investment as a disposable product. They see it as an ongoing cost in developing said avatar.

That avatar investment is extremely important for developers of MMO’s and virtual worlds, it’s the hook, it’s why people are prepared to keep logging on, there’s progression. This is why in MMO’s a hardcore mode where you lose everything if your character is killed is not the norm, some have it as an option, but it’s not the norm because if that were the norm, people would see their character as disposable, like coffee.

Coffee is not a good comparison, nor is Pizza or even a trip to the pictures. This of course leaves one in the awkward position of trying to find a good comparison. In terms of something like The Elder Scrolls Online, it’s other MMO’s, and there are plenty of them with different pricing structures.

In terms of SL Go, it’s a lot trickier because there’s nothing really like it. Lumiya is a mobile client for Second Life, but it doesn’t deliver its service in the same way as SL Go and it won’t provide the same levels of performance. However Lumiya will provide a means of logging into Second Life on a mobile device.

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February 21, 2014

Ex Linden Praises Versu Engine, Linden Lab Really Should Allow This To Live

The disappointment over the loss of Versu continues, with several people bemoaning the loss of what they consider to be a concept full of excellent potential. Now at this point it should be pointed out that excellent potential does not mean excellent delivery, but Versu certainly hit some right buttons. Here is a quote from an ex Linden :

The Versu underpinnings are genuinely revolutionary; my jaw dropped in the meeting where you explained how the engine works.

Inara Pey’s blog post : Could Versu live on links to an excellent article in the New Scientist : AI makes social game characters all too human.

The thing with Versu is that it wasn’t just about its functionality as an interactive fiction tool, people were very impressed with the artificial intelligence in the project, to quote that New Scientist article:

Claudio Pedica of the Icelandic Institute for Intelligent Machines at Reykjavik University is impressed by the way Versu models social practices. “Social rules create constraints on what actions an agent can do,” he says. “That’s a very powerful metaphor for human interaction.”

I can’t help feeling that Linden Lab have missed a trick here, because whether Versu was ultimately a success or a failure in the interactive fiction stakes, the artificial intelligence angle is something that would greatly benefit Linden Lab’s products as a whole, they would certainly benefit Second Life.

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February 20, 2014

Emily Short Wants Versu

I was reading recently that the family of the man who wrote the song “It’s a long way to Tipperary” still receive £30,000 a year in royalties. Obviously by now that’s going to be quite an extended family. I’ll expand on this later in the post.

Two blog posts from Emily Short identify some pain from the closure of Versu by Linden Lab. The first post actually has nothing at all to do with Versu initially, the conversation regarding Versu appears in the comments. The first post is about general examples of what can be achieved from Interactive Fiction : A (Mostly Recentish) IF List, For Breadth. That post excited me purely because it mentions Sorcery! by Steve Jackson and Finkle. I played the fighting fantasy books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone when I was a lad! I loved those books.

However it’s in the comments where Versu gets a mention with a commenter suggesting Versu should be added to the list and Emily replying:

Versu I’m not listing here because there isn’t currently anything that people can pick up and try: Linden is no longer supporting it, has not released Blood and Laurels, and has taken down the older Versu app. I am investigating whether there is a way for me to regain ownership of the IP and carry the project forward on my own, but I don’t have concrete information to share about that at the moment. I made a pitch for Linden to open source the project as it currently stands, but did not succeed.

I suggested that Linden Lab might want to consider open sourcing Versu or handing the IP to Emily Short, Richard Evans or some other interested party in my recent post about the closure of Versu.

Emily followed up on that comment with a blog post about the closure of Versu : Post-Linden. In this post Emily explains about the closure of Versu. Emily also mentions how she would like to see people who may have started working on Versu in academic environments being able to publish their work in some form. Emily also says:

I am currently trying to see whether I can get back the IP for Versu and the apps that we built that Linden did not release, including Blood and Laurels.

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February 19, 2014

Versu Should Get A Second Life

Well my spider senses have proven to be correct with Linden Lab issuing a press release : Linden Lab Refocuses Product Offering

After careful consideration, Linden Lab has decided to cease development and support for dio, Versu, and Creatorverse. We’re grateful for those who took the time to experiment with these products in their early days, but ultimately we have determined that due to a number of factors, we and our customers will be best served by focusing our efforts on continuing to provide exceptional service and compelling new experiences for the users of our other products.

Whereas most product closures upset some people, the most disappointing aspect for me is the loss of Versu. From the blurb of the soon to be removed website:

Versu is an interactive storytelling platform that builds experiences around characters and social interaction. Each story sets out a premise and some possible outcomes. As a player, you get to select a character, guide their choices, watch other characters react to what you’ve chosen, and accomplish (or fail at) your chosen goals.

As a content creator, you’ll be able to create your own characters, improvise new dialogue and gestures for them, and even build entirely new stories and games for others to enjoy.

Unfortunately Versu didn’t make it to the content creation part. However there’s a lot of potential in this concept. So here’s the thing, is Versu dead or will Richard Evans, who may well still be the owner of Little Text People, or Emily Short, of Emily Short’s interactive storytelling, be able to continue with the product?

This is where things get a bit confusing, has Little Text People been released from Linden Lab back to being an independent company?

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