World of Warcraft is largely expected to experience The Shattering next week, a time when Deathwing wreaks havoc and brings chaos to Azeroth by changing the landscape, another step in the direction of their Cataclysm expansion pack. There have already been a number of pre Cataclysm events in World of Warcraft, including this week’s chaos when Elementals tried to invade the major cities.
Linden Lab are also unleashing events to mark their Cataclysm, when the teens are welcomed with open arms to the grid, this has a scheduled release date of the end of this year, but that may change, although it’s highly unlikely to happen on December 7th. We’ve already experienced a number of pre events too, the search game when you had to figure out why your parcel didn’t show in search when multiple maturity ratings were selected was one event quest, another was when those humourous Lindens decided that a parcel that had PG content but sat on mature/moderate land should be filtered out of PG search, because hey it’s mature land you silly people and even though the content may be completely PG, we don’t want the teens knowing it exists.
The latest event quest was announced this week, Linden Lab teased us in gently, they made an announcement about a new web based introduction version of Second Life. This created a bit of a buzz and although many people couldn’t test it, the whole concept and introduction page where you could try and use the viewer displayed a nifty sense of marketing, at last LL were showing videos along with some music to try and make it look appealing.
However the dark clouds over mainland were hovering and then with a double whammy the announcements of the latest leg of pre-events were unveiled. First up was Terence telling us more about the teens arrival. Oh how the flog comments were filled with enthusiastic praise as Terence told us:
“With nearly 5,000 General-rated regions in Second Life, the area that will be accessible to our 16- and 17-year-old Residents will dwarf the 100 regions currently available on Teen Second Life, giving them far more space to create, explore, and experience their online environment and what they can do there.”
Oh how wonderful, those neighbouring mature/moderate sims will be delighted, especially if the little darlings can cam in and purchase mature rated content. However this was just background info, the pre-event quest was announced by Jack. This included important event information about search, particularly classifieds and land ratings:
“New Filters for Search with General or Moderate Ratings
Until now, we’ve had both land and language filtering in search results. However, there was no real difference between General and Moderate content filters. We’re tweaking the content filters, both by defining a “Moderate” set of keywords and by altering some of the teen-related language in the adult filters. If your parcel or profile does not appear at the maturity level you expect it to, then edit your text. You will usually see your edits reflected in Search within six hours.
Classified Ads Now Get Extra Level of Rating Validation
Classifieds have always allowed Residents listing a Classified to self-declare the maturity rating of their ad. With teens gaining access to the Main Grid, we’ve added content filtering to provide another level of rating validation. If you list an ad and don’t see the maturity level you’re optimizing for in search results, then just edit your text. You should see the edits reflected in Search in about an hour.”
This should be great fun, as business owners now have to figure out a whole new set of words that Linden Lab place on their super secret word filter list, I’m sure Wade1 Jya of the Lolo Pet Store can’t wait to see if Lolo gets nuked again, the recent battle with an end of level baddie can be read here, fortunately Wade1 Jya managed to win again this time, but a third time may not be lucky. However Wade1 Jya did have to battle for the brand to be allowed back in search:
End of Level Baddie: You do know what your brand is slang for dont you? I am sure that is why it was filtered out.
WADE1 Jya: there is no meaning its a nonsense word, nobody says lolo for anything.
End of Level Baddie: Well I would google it. And none of us can honestly say it is not a word that is used anymore.
Ummm??? Answers on a postcard to: Obscure slang word competition, San Francisco.
So here we are, Linden Lab who refused to listen when asked to create a PG rated continent during the the adult continent fiasco are going ahead with their completely irresponsible plan, but adding a few search filters to now incorporate moderate language, to further burden business owners who have been grappling with the the search changes for the majority of this year.
Had Linden Lab listened, this would all be a whole lot easier because safeguards and a safe area would now be in place, but as usual they had the “I’m not listening” headphones on. The new continent is still the best way to do this and they can start it with the 100 sims on the existing Teen Grid, which will become part of the main grid at the end of the year. They could even have developed a solution from a family friendly continent to bring the 13 – 15 year olds in, I’m not against Teens in virtual worlds, I’m against this plan though, the core age group I work with are 16 – 18, this is not a suitable environment for them and no matter how much Linden Lab try and brush things under the carpet, it remains an unsuitable environment for teens. However Linden Lab have no intention of listening, Linden Lab are a company for whom the phrase “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is a completely alien concept.
However, with the Second Life Cataclysm, there’s no single large entity to look out for, there’s no Deathwing, we currently have Terence and Jack making the announcements, but the plan as it stands is so hugely irresponsible that I’d have more faith if Terence and Philip were calling the shots, and I’m not talking about Terence and Philip Linden!
Seriously, what is so difficult about working towards a sensible plan regarding these issues, one that doesn’t inconvenience existing business owners and allows a long term wider scope? Why are Linden Lab so averse to working towards a responsible plan? Why do they want to undermine their own customers with their search tinkering? Why can’t they just listen to their customers for once, on the platform where their customers are feeding back to them?
The plans as they stand remain irresponsible and disruptive, it really shouldn’t be this way.