Well, it seems that LL are determined to capture more and more of the market represented by incoming new users. I’ve previously commented on the fact that they appear to be going up against private estate owners by providing prefab sims. Now, with (I’m assuming) huge swathes of Mainland cleared of the “pesky” Adult Content, it seems that Linden Lab are about to effectively bite the collective hand of the Mainland landowners there who feed them through tier, with this announcement, which will provide (quote) content already in place, including busy commercial districts and residential areas.
Given the way Linden Lab has handled land over the last couple of years – yes, the OpenSpace sim debacle is just coming up on the first anniversary of the original hike announcement – this seems a pretty sharp kick in the teeth for those actively engaged in the Mainland market as land owners, as Prokofy Neva lucidly states in response to Courtney Linden’s latest (and totally inappropriately-titled) post on the subject of land.
Whether one agrees with Prok vis-a-vis her comments on FIC-status land barons (although I personally can see this being the case only too easily) one cannot deny that the that fact LL are now moving on both private and Mainland “themed” and “pre-fab” land underlines the fact that the die has been cast as far as Second Life content is concerned and LL’s role here.
If this is the case, one cannot anticipate anything less that the out working of the recently-proposed content roadmap will further the move towards greater control of content (and potentially content creators themselves) by Linden Lab, under the guise of “controlling” the genuine issues around content ripping – in much the same way as the genuine technical issues relating to OpenSpace sim performance was used by LL as a thin excuse for the massive price / tier hikes implemented at the start of 2009. (And I’d point out that those underpinning technical issues still haven’t been fully addressed, 11+ months down the road from the original OpenSpace sim announcement.)
But why are LL making these moves into pre-fab sims, Mainland or otherwise? I don’t for a minute buy the spin that it is to improve the “new user experience” – people have managed perfectly well within Second Life for the last six years without any need for intervention on the part of Linden Land when it has come to the provisioning of land, homes and the like. And as Prok rightly points out – the issue is not one that couldn’t be solved through vetted advertising at infohubs and greeting centres and better-up front information on the options and alternatives people can find as they explore SL.
Can the need to maintain a cashflow be so great that LL are now feeling compelled to enter their own market in direct competition with the people they ostensibly support and enable? Again, that doesn’t read right.
Taken together with the Adult Content moves though, one cannot help but wonder if elements within LL are trying to “sanitise” SL – at least in part. If this is the case, one has to ask why….is it purely to make SL more attractive to “big business”? Last year, Philip Rosedale, speaking at Metanomics made a passing comment that he’d like to see SL and the teen grid (which some regard as an epic fail in and of itself – although whether this is the case or not, I can’t say; I’ve never been there as I’m entirely the wrong age!) at “some point in the future”. Well, the “future” gets closer each day….
Or is it simply because LL are once again moving towards that other chestnut that gets raised from time to time: they’re seeking to IPO Second Life and focus their efforts in technology licencing in terms of the grid technology….?
Speculation is rarely accurate given the traditional lack of information / feedback / commentary from those within Linden Lab itself – but if I were to be pushed into indicating which of the above scenarios I’d consider to be the case – I’d be edging towards the desire to “sanitise” Second Life in order to make it more attractive to Big Business.
For one thing the other two don’t entirely stand up to close inspection. But, more prevelently, it’s pretty clear that with all the recent blog and other efforts (Amand Linden’s sadly laughable Open Letter to Your Boss, her myraid of other posts relating to SL as a platform of “business” and the oft-promoted “behind the firewall” “solution”), that LL are very much pinning their hopes on “cracking” the commercial market. As such, a more “sanitised” (or “uniform”) approach to mainland development seems to fit the picture. Sadly.
It seems that nothing much can happen in Second Life without at least one sector of the community responding with misplaced and vitriolic posts. We saw it with the OpenSpace debacle, and again with the Adult Change situation, where people opted to pour scorn and derision on both Linden Lab & those trying to encourage more engagement on both subjects, rather than join in sensible debate.
And, if I’m honest – and I do try to be – at times I’ve been guilty of the same.
But the level of vitriolic (and largely unfounded) statements and backbiting some have entered into with regards to the Eros / Nomine class action against Linden Research that is evident on the blogrum really take things to a new low.
Leaving aside most of those issuing forth with spite / outright hatred towards Stroker and Munchflower have, in reading their posts, either failed to read the documentation relating to the action or had a failure of comprehension about what the papers are actually stating – I’m stunned at the degree of petty jealousy towards Stroker as a businessman that is inherent in many of these responses. Particularly when these same individuals would otherwise have us believe that they are “mature”, “professional” “business people”.
And yes, Stroker is a businessman; he’s sought to establish a professional presence in Second Life in exactly the manner Linden Lab would like to see businesses develop and strive. It matters not whether the content of his business is of the kind LL themselves would like to actively promote – he has played by their rules and made a success. And like any successful businessman, he has every right to defend both the position his company is in, and the trademarks, IP, etc., invested in the products that business sells – regardless of whether the products are virtual or real.
Note I say, “he’s sought to establish a presence in Second Life in exactly the manner Linden Lab would like to see businesses develop and thrive….” This is important, because it seems to be the point that many of those pushing out angry blogrum comments aimed at Stroker (and to a lesser extent Munchflower) seem to overlook.
Linden Lab promote Second Life as an environment in which real businesses producing genuine products – be they quantified in terms of physical prims, scripts and textures sold to other residents, or skills and abilities provided to others in terms of consultancy or expertise that results in in-world creations.
As such, Linden Lab does have certain responsibilities for in ensuring the environment in which they actively encourage others to engage in commercial activities is as secure as it can possibly be when it comes to protecting the goods and services provided by those entering the environment.
And the bottom line is that Linden Lab did little to prevent the emergence of tools such as Copybot (which came about prior to open-sourcing the viewer) and have done next to nothing to prevent its continued use – other than adding a somewhat woolly statement to the ToS against its “misuse”.
And while they have constantly promised to tighten-up things within SL, the fact remains that right now, six years down the road from SL’s launch, all we really have is a “roadmap” that the company is considering in order to “improve” things. A roadmap that is in itself somewhat questionable in its end goal – and which could be potentially far more “damaging” to the overall state of “free” commerce in SL than the action being brought by Eros / Nomine.
Thus, to suggest that Stroker and Munchflower are acting out of “greed”, or that they are risking the “status quo” of commerce in SL is at best misplaced sentiments – the issue does, whether people like it or not, go much deeper than this.
Which is why I can only – for one of the few times in my life – thank Prokofy Neva for posting one of the most lucid, intelligent and positive comments on the matter. For all her faults, Prokofy has a knack for getting to the heart of a matter – whether one likes or deplores her more usual style of posting.
In this reply she hits every pertinent nail on the head and – and I say this with hand on heart – echoes many of the thoughts I’ve been having around the timing of this action and the possible underlying motives. The difference is, she’s put words around the possible reasons far more clearly than I could have managed (and indeed, I did attempt to post my thoughts on possible “conspiracies” yesterday, but gave up due to lack of clarity of thought).
But…whether or not there is much more to this matter than meets the eye, whether the plaintiffs may in fact be “in league” with elements within Linden Lab itself…is currently so much speculation. What Prokofy Neva has done – I hope – is re-focus the discussion on what should be under discussion – the potential outcome of this situation in terms of commerce as a whole in SL, and what responsible merchants should be looking to achieve in order to prevent many businesses from finding themselves out in the cold as a result of changes forthcoming either as a result of this suit or Linden Lab’s own “roadmap”.
So, let’s knock it with the idiotic and irrelevant arguments that we “shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds us” – again, for the reasons I’ve mentioned above – or that this suit is akin to someone suing the automotive industry for all car accidents – perhaps one of the silliest responses I’ve read on the matter. We may no all agree with the action Eros / Nomine have taken, and we all have a right to be concerned at the possible outcomes….
….But let’s at least try to be civil in discussing things, and mature in our dealings with one another.
SexGen is a well-known name in SL. Go just about anywhere in Zindra, and you’ll see adverts for SexGen beds….so much so, that you’d think that “SexGen” was a generic term.
It’s not. It’s a trademark. It belongs to Eros LLC, operated by Stroker Serpentine – as does the underpinning code and IP relating to objects powered by the SexGen system.
That so many apparent knock-offs of SexGen items thrive in SL points to the endemic nature of content theft in-world – theft which LL are only now resuming efforts to try and make harder, despite having over six years – plus their pre-launch period – in which to more properly address the matter and try to stay abreast of evolving techniques and capabilities.
Thus, it is unsurprising that Eros has – together with clothing making Nomine – filed a class action against LL for allowing such copyright infringement to run unchecked in SL for so long.
The suit itself makes interesting reading – and has already created a storm of debate on LL’s own blogrum and elsewhere. Certainly, the suit is taking a different tack from other attempts at suing LL. In all it cites twelve individual causes for action against Linden Research, the majority of which relate to deliberate / negligent trademark / copyright violations, but which also extend to breaches of Californian business codes and intentional / negligent interference in economic relations.
The crux of the argument is that Linden Research is benefitting from the inappropriate use of trademarks and copyrighted property in that the infringing / illegal goods must be sold via in-world land – from which LL benefits in terms of tier payments OR via XStreet – from which LL benefits in terms of the commission they receive on each sale. The argument even extends to ripped textures (particularly relevant in the Nomine side of the action) – wherein LL benefits to the tune of L$10 per ripped texture uploaded. Finally, there is the claim that LL also benefit in that they receive a 3.5% commission on every transaction of illegally-raised L$ transferred out of SL as hard currency.
This is indeed an interesting track to take – and one in which it is hard to see LL being unable to escape any claim they are failing to meet their responsibilities, either deliberately or simply through their own negligence – again, note that the action purposefully differentiates between the two and brings separate causes for each in terms of trademark and copyright infringements against Linden Research. Thus, it is hard to see that “ineptitude” on LL’s part can in any way be proffered as an excuse.
Certainly, the approach calls into question whether Linden Lab will be able to defend itself using the DMCA in much the same way as Veoh has apparently successfully done. But that is not to say the case is by any means open and shut. Take the DMCA and couple it with LL’s own recent announcements on the subject of content protection, their ToS, the fraud protection within Lindex – and one can see that LL may be able to mount a persuasive – to a judge, if not to content creators – defence of their position.
What cannot be dismissed is that should this come to an open trial, it puts Linden Research between a rock and a hard place. Should the case come to court and they lose – then they undermine their self-promoted position as the “safe” virtual platform for “serious” business – which has been touted so very recently by Amanda Linden. If they win, then they risk losing the confidence of every earnest content creator, big or small, already within Second Life.
Thus, either winning or losing the case could irrevocably tarnish Second Life’s reputation as a “serious” platform.
…Which, in a way, is why this may yet end-up as a non-issue, inasmuch as one can see it being quietly resolved out-of-court, which may in turn result in little or no major changes within SL beyond those already roadmapped by LL themselves. Or maybe the fact that the matter is now in the public eye – and being so widely debated – may still encourage LL to be more proactive in dealing with content ripping despite any out-of-court they may reach with Eros / Nomine.
Today is the day LL “throw the switch”, so to speak, on Adult Content – from today, all commercial / advertised content related to Adult Activities must either be located on the “Adult” continent of Zindra or on a private island sim which has had the Adult Content flag set.
Exactly how much confusion is likely to come out of this has yet to be seen – but my honest opinion is that, despite the wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments by many in the BDSM community, there won’t actually be very much confusion at all and that life with more-or-less go on as normal.
I say this because, despite LL’s truly abysmal handling of the entire affair in terms of the lack of clear-cut announcements, bringing the changes to the attention of the community as a whole, the confusion evident within their own ranks (Cyn, Jack, Blondin all issuing contradictory statements at one time or another – or even at the same “press conference”), the unwillingness to engage more directly with those with genuine concerns (who admittedly had themselves to fight against a wealth of misinformation circulating within the BDSM community relating to things such as Age Verification, and who were frequently shouted down as a result)….the fact remains the those who will be most affected by the changes are now sufficiently aware of the changes – thanks to the BDSM commuity itself – that the “flicking of the switch” will barely affect them.
And that’s perhaps the saddest part of these changes: not so much that they had to be made (I’ve never actually had much against the changes in principle) but in the fact that despite the utter ham-fisted manner in which LL executed the entire “programme” the overall lack of confusion will cause those most responsible for the repeated blunders of communication, understanding and implementation within LL to give themselves a self congratulatory pat on the back and walk away in the mistaken belief that, despite all the naysayers, they clearly did “communicate” “clearly” and they obviously “listened” to the user community – and therefore see little reason to change how they “manage” such interactions in the future.
One thing I did find interesting in a quick-fire trip around Zindra some 24 hours before the switch-over was the large number of “Mature” rated sims their that were still attracting relatively new avatars (less than 3 months old) with NPIOF. Now, granted said avatars may have been age verified, but I do have my doubts as to whether they are – and the fact that they were happily enduring the already noticable lag on Zindra suggests that there will at least be some confusion after today, as people find their way barred to places they’d visited 24 hours before. Or maybe I’m doing them a disservice, and they’re aware of the changes and were making a quick “last visit” before the doors closed…
I have no idea how many people are active in the Blue Mars beta – aside from the dozen-or-so I’ve met in the Welcome area, I’ve barely seen a soul elsewhere on my travels. Nevertheless, I shall continue my explorations.
Today, skipping away from rl work, I dropped in at the two principal games that are currently in-world. The first, located at the waterfall, is a “flying” game, where you pilot some kind of flying vehicle through a series of rings. along a landscaped course. I didn’t particularly enjoy this for a number of reasons, which can be summarised as:
No clear indication of what you’re supposed to be doing when you arrive – while there are instructions, they are hidden within the “?” icon – usually reserved for generic BM tutorials
The controls are cumbersome – a mixture of using w,a,s,d, CTRL, SPACEand the mouse and the arrow keys which can easily have your fingers tying themselves in knots
It tened to lag (actually the first “lag” I’ve encountered in BM).
I’m sure the game is playable by those with an intuitive feel for games (where I understand w,a,s,d are common control keys), but for me, this was rather a “meh!” moment.
Of far greater fun – is the golf. This is widely used in Blue Mars advertising stills and promo work – and it is actually a lot of fun. It’s also much better thought-out than the flying game, and – in all honesty (and remembering I am in no way a “gamer”) it is like stepping directly from Blue Mars into a quality video game.
Golfing tutorial in action
On teleporting, a splash screen is displayed, offering you the option of playing one hole or three holes. You then get to choose single or multi-player. As I was (again, sadly) on my own, I went for the single player option and found myself on the tee. The screen itself is a lot more friendly – well, it should be; while I may not play golf, I at least know what the idea is, and so a golf course isn’t going to be totally alien – with a comforting button in the bottom right corner labelled TUTORIAL.
This launches a picture-in-picture tutorial guiding you through the on-screen controls, which although is very quick (a pause button would be nice), is also very informative and leaves you in command of the (straightforward) controls and the (few) keyboard options, and ready to play.
Now, I’ve already admitted I know nothing about golf ( share Mark Twain’s opinion of the game: that it is a good walk ruined), so the fact that the game automatically picks your preferred club for you left me with one less thing to get worried about and frustrated over.
This left me with the “simple” acts of aiming and shooting. The former being the (now familiar) right-key-and-drag mouse option to turn my avatar left or right, while the latter is simply achieved by selecting the strength of my swing on the “swingometer”, and then clicking the SHOOT button that pops up.
To be honest, I wasn’t aware of my own strength. For the first two or three goes I kept putting the ball totally out of bounds….causing me to step right back on the swingometer. Once I did get things in bounds, my avatar walked off across the green before arriving at my ball, complete with the preferred club (which I could change, if I wanted).
There are some nice touches in the game – the avatar takes a very natural swing to hit the ball each time, and when putting, if the ball just misses the hole, there is a frustrated stamping of one foot.
Putting
Along the way a little window in the top right records the number of goes you’ve had, while above it sits the number of goes it should take to get the ball in the hole. On my first attempt it took me *cough* eleven goes to get the ball down the hole – but the controls are intuitive enough that on my second go, I had this down to five.
On completing a hole, your avatar gives a little victory salute and if it is the end of the game, you have the option of starting over or exiting and returning to the welcome area.
As a very basic game, the golf is a good indication of possible directions BM can branch, and shows that games, etc., can be integrated into BM. The tutorial in particular demonstrates what can be achieved to assist residents (and in particular newcomers) gain better and easier understanding of where they are and what they can do – so it gets a thumbs-up from me.
Few can be unaware of Blue Mars – it has been the source for speculation for a while now, and the hype machine has been working overtime to promote it on all fronts – Youtube included. For various reasons, I signed up for a Beta account (as well as applying for Content Creation info!) and – to my surprise, and after a very sh***y couple of days (my computer did a “parrot” from the Monty Python sketch of that name – no need to say any more), I found I’d been…..accepted!
Now…the thing to remember is that Blue Mars is still Beta. A lot is still being worked on. And for those familiar with Second Life and the overall ease of use of the UI (despite all the complaints) are going to find BM a little challenging.
Blue Mars UI
For a start, the UI in BM is …. bare…. There are no visible menu options, no buttons, just a few small icons and a chat box(private instant messaging is not available as yet).
Chat appears in the chat window, which automatically appears above the chat box in the lower left corner of the screen. Scrolling on this did appear a little iffy at times, and I found myself frequently manually scrolling down to keep up with conversations. Chat also appears as a bubble above the avatar’s head…which currently cannot be turned off and is, frankly, a little annoying.
For those used to using SL, the other difference is that avatars don’t have name tags over their heads – this actually makes keeping track of who-is-who a little difficult.
The interface is clearly in a state of flux – some of the tutorial videos refer to elements of the UI that have been removed / replaced, which does make it somewhat harder to get to grips with things, given there is no actual orientation centre. Video tutorials are also potentially going to be available in-world as a picture-in-picture type thing: you click on a question mark icon in the top right of the screen and you get to see video tutorials in a new window. Currently, however, these are restricted to just one, which deals with walking.
However, while the UI is rather bare, it is also somewhat context-sensitive. Click on another avatar, for example, and you can interact with them (kiss, cuddle, shake hands, etc.), add them as a friend, and so on, click on yourself, and you’ll get a menu pertinent to your own avatar.
Movement in BM takes a little getting used to. Rather than using the cursor keys, BM uses two different approaches. In the first you rotate the camera view, a slightly clunky right-click and drag of the mouse (trackballs rule in BM!), then click on the ground were you want to go. Your avatar then moves to that point. Click far enough away, and your avatar will run. Or you can use a combination of letter keys – W(alk) with a,s,d to manoeuvre around. for those used to SL, this is going to take some getting used to as it feels uncomfortable.
Perhaps the biggest critique is that the camera doesn’t track with your avatar when in 3rd person view (or at least, I’ve not found out a way of doing so) – so if you are walking with the camera behind your avatar and make a turn left or right, you’ll end up with the camera looking at your avatar’s right or left side, requiring the camera view to be scrolled around to a more appropriate view. And if you’re used to zooming around to look at things – you’re going to miss that in the current iteration of the BM UI.
Exploring an apartment
Things like sitting are relatively straightforward, simply click on a chair and your avatar will walk to it and gracefully sit down. Again, with animations built into the UI, there is no need for the object itself to be heavily scripted (I assume, at least, as objects aren’t “editable” in the SL sense), and there are no poseballs or silly “sit”, “relax” or other signs hanging over cushions and chairs.
Exactly how doors work, however, is still a mystery to me….
Movement in a wider context in BM is via a familiar teleporting effect, and is initiated either via teleport devices – not all of which are obvious; coming in various forms as garden gazebos, old-style UK red telephone boxes, even objects set into stree lamps or apartment floors – or by clicking on “advertising” images for the various available regions that are displayed in the “welcome” area everyone currently appears to have to log in to. Movement between regions, however, appears to require a return to the welcome area before hopping off again to your required destination – I’ve yet to find a means of going direct from, say, the golf course to New Venice, although teleporting within a region – from a garden to an apartment, say – is possible.
As you can see from the images, the avatar is also somewhat basic – you actually set your avatar’s face from a series of presets prior to entering BM, and once set, you are largely “locked in” to the face for 3 weeks. Whether this is purely for beta purposes or whether it will be the same for the full release remains to be seen. There is a certain degree of “customisation” available, your inventory comes with a few changes of clothing and footwear, and a small range of flex-type hairstyles. Apparently, more will be added as content creators role in – we’ll have to see.
While there is currently little you can do about your avatar’s shape – the bodies all seem to be generic – or do much to alter the shape of your avatar’s head and face once in-world, there is a pallette system rather like those on graphics programs that allows you to add make-up, although I have to admit, I’m no graphics artist, and I find that approach daunting / confusing, so quickly gave up.
Again, one of the things quickly noticeable about Blue Mars is that given bodies are customisable and faces have only limited manipulation, is that the male and female genders (no exotic lifeforms or furries as yet) looks more-or-less identical to one another. Even though racial attributes can be selected at start-up – the fact remains that all the women look to be related to one another, and the guys to one another. With the current limit of clothing, this can give the place a slightly Stepford-esque feel….
Dynamic shadows!
Where Blue Mars immediately impresses is in texturing and detailing. Here it is already easily on a par with SL – and in some areas exceeds it: a very nice touch, dynamic shadows are working. While you cannot tell from the still here, my shadow is moving fluidly in time with my avatar as I stand on this bridge in New Venice.
And “fluid” is the word – BM appears to be largely rendered at the “back end”, unlike SL, where all the rendering talks place on your computer. This means that once connected, everything in BM runs at much higher frame rates than SL, rezzes a lot faster and is on the whole smoother and more life-like when it comes to general movement – although there are occasional glitches and exaggerations in some movements – but for a beta tool, it’s clear effort has gone into making things as smooth and life-like as possible.
The fluidity extends to the avatars – and while they may lack the degree of customisation one is used to seeing in SL, aside from the slightly dorky / gawky default “AO” style animations, I must say that the general animations are astounding. No crimped arms or pretzelled legs; no shoving a hand through one’s own boob to do something and no messy torso folding / twisting. Animations can be loaded by right-clicking your avatar and selecting the required animation from your “personal” menu. And they really are gorgeous (with thanks to Ravenelle for the video link).
Ambeient sounds are far superior to SL as well. You wonn’t find that awful default keening wind blowing in Blue Mars. Enter a garden and you can hear birds singing, perhaps a little music playing, water bubbling in a fountain or brook….wall on a sidewalk and your footfalls echo faintly (and nowhere near as intrusively as scripted footsteps in SL (could someone PLEASE outlaw those bloody scripts?); move onto grass an the footfall alters to something softer, and changes again when you walk on sand, where your feet leave very brief shadow-like marks, almost like indentations in the sand. Walk in water and your steps fall silent, but the water ripples around your legs with each step….and angle your camera under water, and the entire soundscape changes, almosts as if you are underwater in a swimming pool, listening to the world above.
New Venice
I’m not entirely certain how Blue Mars is going to develop, or quite what is going to come out of the Beta. There are huge question marks around content creation, cost, commerce, viability, etc. Exactly how it is going to be operated is interesting as well – major developers will be encouraged to create their own “platforms” (cities) to which users can teleport, each city themed according to the developer’s wishes (and potentially incorporating fees for visiting).
How user content will work is still open to debate, although Jim sink of Avatar Reality, and the VP of business Development for BM is on record as saying:
We wholeheartedly embrace user-generated content. All of our tools are free to use and anyone can become a Blue Mars developer. But user generated content on its own won’t make Blue Mars a success. The real trick is to create a system where the very best user generated content can bubble to the top and to provide a platform where developers who create excellent content can be rewarded for their work and can be confident that piracy will be effectively managed. Managing security issues and improving our promotional features like search, ratings, and recommendations will be an ongoing focus of Avatar Reality.
Exactly how this works out could be interesting.
Right now it is a very quiet place….there are several locations available to visit, but no overall city environment, from what I can see; I’m assuming the developers are waiting for 3rd party developers to come in to develop the “city” hubs around which BM is going to operate. But what is there – after an admittedly shaky start – did impress. I’ll be hading back and looking around some more in the coming days, and may well put more thoughts down here on my findings.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 