Would You Buy a New Car from this Vending Machine?
by Urizenus Sklar on 03/11/06 at 10:32 am
Or from JR Breed…
Screenshots via New World Notes.
A couple days ago our good friend Hamlet Au had a most excellent post on the traffic drawn by the Nissan build vs. that generated by indigenous car guy JR Breed. Hammie does a good job of quantifying the fact that JR gets more visitors, and while defenders of the Nissan build have plenty of excuses (vending was machine broken, JR has camping chairs), the bottom line is this: The Nissan build just doesn’t get what SL is all about, and that is…
…commuity and socializing. No one is impressed by a giant sore toe of a vending machine standing like a 20th century rust belt monolith in a land of furries, elves, orcs and blinged out cyberpunk gangsters and hos. For that matter, no one is impressed by a structure that is just sitting there. Second Life is not a billboard for rent, it is a place for socializing, and given that I have to ask myself this:
What in sam hades was Nissan thinking? Did they think that people would stand around the giant vending machine and stare up at it in awe like the hominids in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Did they think people would look at that machine and say “wow, my next car is going to be a Nissan?”. Or did they think they were going to mine valuable data from the camera angles of the avatars as they watched the machine dispense their new Nissan, and as they placed it in their inventories to be lost forever with 40 thousand other freebies?
Second Life really truly is a *social* platform above everything else, and one thing that JR Breed offers that Nissan absolutely doesn’t is a fun place to go to and talk to about cars. JR is blinged out in just the right measure and his garage has that Too Fast too Furious tone just right; you are wondering when Vin Diesel is going to show up. But above all you get the sense that this would be a fun guy to talk to, especially if you are into cars or car culture. You also sense that you might meet *other* people who are into car culture there.
Now in contrast, what does Nissan offer? Not a fucking thing. Would it *kill* them to hire a couple grease monkeys at 20K per year to just sit around in a virtual vacant lot or virtual garage and talk cars with people? Nissan might actually even *learn* something this way. But no, we get the impression that Nissan isn’t here to listen. They are here to push cars at us, one by one, via a giant mechanical dispenser. No one listens. No one cares. We can almost hear the robotic voice saying “Please take your car. It is perfect. Move along please. Next.”
Are people in marketing and PR really this fucking stupid? Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, but when they start soiling an otherwise awesome place with giant vending machines, and anything else that is boxy it starts to nag at me. If you must be a fucktard, could you at least do it at home?
Howie
Nov 3rd, 2006
I know i’d rather buy from the Nissan vendor, that’s a pretty awesome design. Whenever i see chair campers i just want to retch.
Artemis Fate
Nov 3rd, 2006
Haha that Nissan vending machine is pretty bitchin, awesome idea. And yeah, if you want to talk about the death of socialization in SL, then why not talk about the thousands of people who are logged on to SL to be afk in camping chairs for hours even more than a day which JR Breed seems to contribute to. That’s really killing socialization in SL not to mention adding an insane amount of lag to the grid for the people who do want to do something in SL besides idling in a chair, not some surprisingly creative car vendor.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Nov 3rd, 2006
Artemis – you are missing the point. Nissan are just dumping their ‘product’ and can’t see any further than that…
Yes, JR may have camping chairs. Why? Because he understands how SL works – like that or not. Nissan don’t.
Or to be more accurate, Nissan’s PR/Marketing people don’t.
JR asks: ‘Are people in marketing and PR really this fucking stupid?’. Sadly the answer is ‘yes’. Expect to see more Nissan-like ventures as RL PR/Marketing people do what they do best – miss the point and relieve big business of obscene amounts of money for… well, very little…
Urizenus
Nov 3rd, 2006
So then, Howie and Art, I guess we’ll see you guys standing around the car vendor and…and doing what exactly?
mrlk perry
Nov 3rd, 2006
i dont know what your problem is – it was a good larf, whenever i’m bored & want to trash a nissan i find somewhere near the coast where i can rez the nissan and go for a burn out
if nissan want to do this then so be it – we all know where its heading but to me all this talk of corporates entering sl is the same as every other bbs, message board, chat etc where people moan “its not like it used to be”
Satchmo Prototype
Nov 3rd, 2006
Uri, have you actually been there? There are 4 sims to race around whatever cars you like. Buy a JR car and come to the Nissan sims to race them because there aren’t a whole lot of lag-free sims to race around in SL these days. So while people aren’t hitting magic traffic numbers in camping chairs, there are certainly people having fun racing around the sims.
Uri, don’t believe everything you read
Ok, back to my camping chair, I need to earn some $L while I check email today.
Urizenus
Nov 3rd, 2006
Yeah having a place to race is nice, but frankly I have a lot more fun racing my tricked out cart on the tracks in Toontown. At least there I can throw cream pies at my competitors. And the point remains that you can’t just build an edifice and leave it and expect something good to come out of it. Nissan needs a regular human presence here, otherwise the build means nothing.
Satchmo Prototype
Nov 3rd, 2006
lol Toontown!!! I’m not arguing with you about the presence. In the media space it is called “programming” and it is vital to create a real community around any space in a virtual world. It is something Second Lifers mastered for years. It is an expensive (SL’ers pay less than minimum wage, companies can not) but important thing to the vitality of a virtual space. It’s major reason The New Media Consortium SL project has been a great success.
DNA Prototype
Nov 3rd, 2006
“Would You Buy a New Car from this Vending Machine?”
Um, no. They are free.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 3rd, 2006
Actually, camp-chair sitters *are* socializing in IMs as their avatars’ asses are parked in the chairs. Or in YMs or AIMs. That’s the norm. Some might be AFK but it’s merely to load up on loot to shop and socialize.
Camp chairs are evil, but their evil springs from a need newbise have for money and something to do. Somebody else who can figure out how to give them jobs for pay and not too much labour and some fun socialization will win them over easily.
I don’t see any proof that the New Media Consortium has any “success”. In fact I hear and see just the opposite. Having a few hundred in-groupers who are plugged in to earn contracts as builders for NMC who then hang out at their builds doesn’t mean “success” to me. Could we hear how you measure success, Satchmo?
And truth-in-advertising (TIA) — aren’t you or your company ESC employed by Nissan? or if not by Nissan, by something like it in the big league and you are all closing ranks here, Satchmo? Sure, there’s a place to race. It’s empty most of the time. Fact is, and I tested it on the Sheep island, the seams just don’t work, period, no matter what kind of fancy car you have. It keeps going off road and is uber annoying.
I think that Pontiac/GM, which has the plan to give away free land and have a content contest, is probably going to be more of a winner than Nissan, but they, too, will be sucking the life out of Second Life by taking away the JRs of the world from what they do best.
Satchmo Prototype
Nov 3rd, 2006
I judge the success of NMC based on the community of educators who use it and attend their events. It’s great that you hear things, but I see first hand as a member of the SL education community. It doesn’t take much lurking on the SL Educators list to realize how many educators have participated in NMC’s community.
Yes I work at the Electric Sheep Company, no I did not work on this Nissan project (but ESC did), Yes I’ve heard this same argument at the dawn of the web and Yes I think the web is a better place. For completeness I’ll throw in the fact that I teach a class on virtual worlds for education at Columbia but I didn’t realize I had to whip out my creds every time I join a discussion with the Internet community.
Urizenus
Nov 3rd, 2006
Yikes! Satch, don’t be whipping out your cred here. Keep that monster zipped up. This is a family newspaper.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 3rd, 2006
The SL Education Community has yet to impress me. I see course after course not about some actual content or subject, but merely a look-see at the technology itself, with people flying around and extolling themselves looking at their RL counterparts on a video on a laggy sim in SL. I’m serious about this. I think the education hyperventilation needs a real thorough examination, too. Perhaps Uri, a real professor in real life could take this on.
I sit in some of these meetings and I see it is totally content-free. Perhaps that’s a natural phase.
But when I look at the course listings, i see they are all digital media this and digital media that and virtual worlds this and synthetic that. How about a course on English Literature or Calculus? When those kinds of courses are taught without everyone being distracted by making cool avatars and IMing each other and fooling around, I’ll believe in it. I’m bolstered in my impressions by reading truthful reports like that in Slatenight this week from Anya Ixchtel about the difficulties of teaching in SL — and talking to RL acquaintances teaching within SL who are less than impressed with not only problems like lag, but the problem of just getting everybody to overcome the SL learning hurdles itself, make the avatars, make the building, then sit down and shut up and learn. This is a problem just like RL.
I hate people who demand credentials. Isn’t that what ESC members like Flipper and Cory often do in their arguments? We’re all feebs and choads because we don’t program or build so we must be “jealous”.
So I’m not the one who has called for credentials, but since you’ve intruded with them, do you talk in your course about anything except the *technology itself*?
Whenever I’ve been a guest lecturer at Columbia University in RL, at least the course had content that wasn’t “about itself” but was about history, politics, international affairs, etc.
Artemis Fate
Nov 3rd, 2006
I guess I am missing the point. Is this a debate of whether it’s better to have no people (or apparently people racing around the sims Nissan made) in the Nissan area (or I notice there’s lawn chairs in that picture, maybe they sit around and chat) or having no people at JR’s place, or people afk in camping chairs lagging the entire grid for everyone else, or people who walk around shining more than the sun and shouting “HOOOWWWLZZZZZZ”? I think i’d definately go for the Nissan one.
What are you expecting from Nissan? real life companies don’t treat SL as something to invest time and money into, it’s just a place for some quick advertising, they find a building company like ESC or RRR and ask “Will you build something for us?”. I don’t think they even bother to log in. So what? Atleast it’s a cool looking build and it’s offering good free content.
And Prok, if people put as much time into learning building, animating, scripting, texturing, or clothing making into what they put on sitting in camping chairs for hours on end for literally pennies? We’d have a HUGE community of content creators making much much more than what they were on camping chairs not to mention adding to things in SL instead of heavily taking away from grid resources by keeping people logged in who don’t need to be.
Artemis Fate
Nov 3rd, 2006
one thing I do like about Nissan is that they set a quality bar, selling a good car like that for free. So if SL people want to compete they have to deal with that. Whereas JR is selling a similar car except more laggy for absurdly high prices from 1500L$ to 5000L$, no wonder newbies have to spend all their time on camping chairs if they’re buying from e-Thug price scalpers like that.
Nissan is here, JR better home that Hummer, Mustang, Corvette, Lexus, and all the other companies whose car designs he rather blatantly stole and find out that he’d been selling their work.
I went to both places, when I went to Nissan I struck up a conversation with a guy there and a few more were hanging around, when I went to JR’s there was 6 afk people on camping chairs and 2 guys who were afk off of camping chairs.
So to answer the original question of the story: I’d much much rather get a new car from a Nissan vending machine (and did) than JR’s place.
I feel bad for all the other people in the sim JR’s store is in, since he’s literally hogging every bit of the resources having 20 or more of his laggy cars rezzed at all times, not to mention the camping chairs, vendor systems, and JZ tvs.
urizenus
Nov 3rd, 2006
Artemis, on this point:
“What are you expecting from Nissan? real life companies don’t treat SL as something to invest time and money into, it’s just a place for some quick advertising, they find a building company like ESC or RRR and ask “Will you build something for us?”. I don’t think they even bother to log in. So what?”
I agree that this is how Nissan is behaving. What I don’t see is that it is in their best interest to behave that way.
On your other points, I agree that camping is bad and that lag is bad but…
1) surely the solution to the camping problem is for Nissan or someone to find ways for people to actually make money for doing something constructive and interesting and socially interactive.
2) while lag is bad I think it is a mistake to design these projects with processing load being the dominant concern. We *understand* lag, we live in SL, after all. I get the impressions that these projects are being designed by engineers and not marketing people because the desire to keep processing to a minimum seem almost a fetish. I mean take that car dispenser. Even real life coke machines don’t have hard edges like that.
I’m reminded of a day, not so long ago, when my university didn’t want to grant internet access to students because they were downloading images with mosaic, and then netscape, and then google, and then they were downloading music files with napster and the worry was, OMG, our computers are ginding to a halt. But of course what that meant was that the university’s computer infrastructure was becoming obsolete and needed to be updated immediately. The problem with lag is not the bling and compound curves of the objects in second life, it is the shitty-ass servers and obsolete physics engine that Linden Lab refuses to update.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 3rd, 2006
Artemis, you are merely spouting the received wisdom from the IRC channel, which, despite having a collective consciousness that has been resolutely against ANY business in Second Life for 3 years (except “me and my friends’ business” lol), is now deciding “We Like It” because it gets them contracts of obscene amounts for even their limited skills in arcane subjects like LSL.
As for frog-marching everybody off to skillz classes, the world doesn’t work like that. Everyone knows that in games, 10 percent of the players entertain the other 90 percent when the game company itself doesn’t manage to. And in social worlds, perhaps it might go to 15-20 percent, who knows, regarding content production. But most casual users or even ardent loggers night after night are users and consumers of content, not makers and that’s fine.
If we have a world where everyone is a high-content creator only buying from other content creators who only pass muster after credentialing either in SL Instructors’ classes or the Ivory Tower of Prims, we have a medieval guild-type society. Yawn. We’ve been over this. We do not want men in tights. This is the modern world — hey, even the REAL world.
Traffic doesn’t lie. It doesn’t matter if you’ve decided to be contrarian and IRCarian, Artemis, we all know you’ll dis mass culture and democratic participation at every turn and JR’s will never do it for you.
I have to BURST OUT LAUGHING at the idea of these lame lozers “heavily taking away from grid resources”. Ever single grid that these resource-hoggers are on is OWNED AND TIERED except for the handful that LL keeps as WAs and sandboxes. So they are always somewhere, where somebody is already paying the Lindens for that heavy use of resources.
What are you paying for, Artemis?
Artemis Fate
Nov 3rd, 2006
Urizenus:
The Camping problem is our problem not Nissan, Nissan is just here to get a bit of advertising done in this media darling of a world. It’s not their job to make our world a better place. I agree that we have to deal with lag, and that every project shouldn’t have to be a pinnacle of efficient perfection. However, there’s a bar, a comfortable target area. And while when someone goes under that target area and is more efficient than need be, that doesn’t hurt anything, but when someone goes OVER that bar such as JR’s car, then everyone else has to suffer their lag. I think one of the things that causes this is what you mentioned “Even real life coke machines don’t have hard edges like that.” Yeah they could cut the hard edges and put in 20 extra prims to make a rounded one. But we have to keep in mind that SL isn’t really made for such perfect realism, and that we have to work within it’s limits.
The idea is, we have to think of a balance between aesthetics and efficiency.
Prokofy:
I find it interesting how you seem to no longer define groups like the FIC or apparently now the IRC channel, as no longer “groups of people” but almost as it’s own sentient being. You analyze cause and effects of groups and mass apply them to even the most vague of members. Thus, you seem to qualify my motives and opinions without knowing much about me at all simply because I sometimes chat in the #Secondlife IRC channel. However, despite your beliefs my opinions are my own and not brought to me by some other fictional entity of power that you imagined.
I recognize of course, that not everyone who sits on camping chairs would be able to switch over to building and learning, i’m just stating that for when someone uses the excuse “I sit on camping chairs because I can’t get money in SL” is a pretty bad one. I don’t mind that people want to sit on a chair for pennies an hour, but when we have an extra few thousand people logged in that don’t need to be that are therein bringing more server load to everyone else (avatars are after all, the laggiest thing you can do to SL), then it effects me and then it’s a problem. If they don’t want to make anything they should just buy Lindens, it costs them more to keep their computer running than they make in SL from camping chairs, so it’d likely even be cheaper and faster. Not to mention it’d help LL make money so that hopefully they might reinvest it into SL at some point, unlikely but atleast more likely when they don’t have the money.
I don’t know where you got this whole “they’d have to go through FIC institutions to learn how to build, thus entering them into the tekkiwittierattistaviks and make them hate me
(((((” thing from, but you don’t need to go to building classes or the ivory tower of some magical guild to learn how to build, it’s quite simple. All you have to do is just spend some time messing around with the tools and you’ll figure it out within the day.
You know, your “Ever single grid that these resource-hoggers are on is OWNED AND TIERED ” is reminicient of SL v.1.1 when there was no prim limits per tier, which meant every land owner in a sim got equal claim to the entirity of the sim’s prim limit. What happened was, was people who owned small parts of the sim would use up massively disporptionate amount of the sim prim resources, and people who bought land there would find themselves unable to build anymore because the sim is full. They fixed that thankfully, but we’ve got it still in terms of scripted resources, which are used heavily unproportionately by places like JR who use almost all of it in a sim bringing it and everyone else who was unlucky enough to live there to a grinding halt.
Now i’m sick of your fallacious arguments of “Oh well you do this so therefore you think like this, and your opinions should be ignored”. Debate me for me, not any groups i’m in, places I hang out, or people I talk to. If you can’t handle that, then shut the hell up.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 3rd, 2006
I don’t agree that it’s not Nissan’s job to try to exercise corporate responsibility in a virtual world just much as the real world, and if they have the vision to make the world a better place, it can only help sales.
Who’s suffering JR’s lag? if you don’t go there, you don’t suffer. It’s a free country. Perhaps JR isn’t doing SO well that he can buy an entire island? And how could he now that they’re priced out of range? And if his neighbours suffer, that’s a cause I can get behind, and I think all of us should then boycott any venue on any sim that uses camp chairs, sucks CPU all to itself, and vetos other people’s use of their land. That’s the kind of protest movement I can get behind and wish I had more time to keep going.
My analysis of the FIC and the IRC channel haven’t changed a bit. My association with you and the IRC channel controlling your thoughts has been validated recently for me twice in world, as once I saw you among the first to come and see the defacement of my RL-picture bust on Satyr after hearing about it on the IRC channel, and another time coming to taunt me in Tuliptree over something you just HAD to ask me after hearing about it on the IRC channel. That’s all.
All the logic in the world won’t prevail against people in camp chairs. They are wives who have to ask their RL husbands’ permission to put so much as $5.00 on a credit card — they can’t be buying money in a game and have him ask about it — these lives of dependency are more common than you think. Or they are kids, already on suffrance using mom’s credit card. Or they are pensioners, or disabled people, or foreigners who barely got access to DSL, who are on fixed incomes or small incomes and watch every penny. They are people who just want to get something for nothing. These motivations are powerful and cannot be quelled. Only by creating a relatively painless job that really accomplishes labour, is not hard to do, and can also pay out money, will this problem be alleviated.
Your notion of building not requiring a lot more schooling or more to the point, apprenticeship, is simply ridculous. I’ve been in SL two years. I can’t build worth shit. I try, I’ve spent the day on it, I’ve even taken classes. But it’s fucking hard. Having to constantly work numbers, angles, slippery tools, problems like rubber-banding of prims simply tries the patience of all but the most obsessed. Texturing in particular is just a fucking bear. Any normal people who have done thos who aren’t part of the tekkiewikiwoo know this fact of life and accept it.
Oh, I’m all for fighting the use of one parcel on a sim at a hog’s level and vetoing everyone else. I’m for mounting the biggest and baddest consumer boycott on this until the Lindens start charging for CPU usages, which I believe is the only solution.
But that’s not what we were talking about. The overall usage of CPU simply by these new people occurs spread across the grid, on tiered and owned sims. Not all of them are in camp chairs. The top lots with the camp chairs are only so many and only have so many avatar slots. I’d make an easy bet now that most people coming into SL now are on their own 512s they just bought and not on a camp chair, or renting. Easy bet. Go look at the green dots on the map, as I do all the time.
I think it’s important to identify clusters of thinking and groups that constantly engage in group-think, and the FIC and IRC channel are among them. It’s good to call them on their fallacies. They gain strength in their numbers and their aggressiveness. If you can’t handle criticism of your group-think, too bad for you.
Cory Edo
Nov 3rd, 2006
>I hate people who demand credentials. Isn’t that what ESC members like Flipper and Cory often do in their arguments? We’re all feebs and choads because we don’t program or build so we must be “jealous”.
but right before…
>aren’t you or your company ESC employed by Nissan? or if not by Nissan, by something like it in the big league and you are all closing ranks here, Satchmo?
1. I’ve never asked for anyone’s credentials when discussing a topic on a blog or forum. I don’t think I’ve ever even implied that they’re relevant to the discussion at hand unless the topic clearly indicates it. I’d love for you to find a situation where I did.
2. You’re the only one who’s ever called anyone a “feeb” or a “choad”. You’ve actually done it twice now that I’ve seen. And no, saying that that’s what we ‘must really mean’ or ‘thats what you’re thinking’ doesn’t cut it.
>Now i’m sick of your fallacious arguments of “Oh well you do this so therefore you think like this, and your opinions should be ignored”. Debate me for me, not any groups i’m in, places I hang out, or people I talk to.
Artemis said it better than I could. I’ve never seen anyone so convinced they know what goes on in other people’s minds, and so eager and willing to attribute motive and malice without the slightest shred of evidence or even past action to back up their attributions. Granted, it would be more troublesome if that wasn’t something you’ve continually displayed an affinity for.
>while lag is bad I think it is a mistake to design these projects with processing load being the dominant concern. We *understand* lag, we live in SL, after all. I get the impressions that these projects are being designed by engineers and not marketing people because the desire to keep processing to a minimum seem almost a fetish. I mean take that car dispenser. Even real life coke machines don’t have hard edges like that.
Uri, the design of the 4 sims centers around the fact that they’re provided to be driving sims. Especially to try and maintain the load for numerous people wracking the hell out of the physics engine, trying to keep the rest of the load and lag down was pretty high on the list of priorities. We all *understand* lag, but that’s far from saying lag should be completely ignored or not try to be minimized. So why call it a “fucktard” move to try and work within the limitations of the system to provide the best environment for its purpose, when you turn around and admit “The problem with lag is not the bling and compound curves of the objects in second life, it is the shitty-ass servers and obsolete physics engine that Linden Lab refuses to update”?
And the car dispenser was modeled after a real life dispenser image that was provided for the project, edges and all. Sorry to disappoint.
There’s also a Nissan employee that mans the Toast Alicious avatar daily to provide the pin number for the free Sentras, so yes, there is ongoing participation from the company in SL, a trend which is only going to increase.
mrlk perry
Nov 3rd, 2006
highbrow comments dont get anyone anywhere… except for looking like a twat
my 2 cents
Artemis Fate
Nov 3rd, 2006
“I think it’s important to identify clusters of thinking and groups that constantly engage in group-think, and the FIC and IRC channel are among them. It’s good to call them on their fallacies. They gain strength in their numbers and their aggressiveness. If you can’t handle criticism of your group-think, too bad for you.”
You’re right! Every single member of Ravenglass rentals therein MUST be all brainwashed by your conspiracy agenda! That’s just using your own logic. Did you EVER stop to think that just because people agree, doesn’t mean that it’s a conspiracy against you? Like most people agree that you’re a paranoid psychotic with narcissistic delusions of being the “hero of the people”, maybe it’s not that everyone who agrees to this is obviously under some sort of brainwashing delusion but rather that you’re just a paranoid psychotic with narcissistic delusions of being the “hero of the people”? Of course, I suppose crazy people always think that everyone else in the world is crazy but them.
I can’t believe you’re basing this “Artemis is brainwashed!” theory because I visited a publicized joke of a bust they were building of you (not to mention that I wasn’t the first one there, but one of the later ones), and I was in Tuliptree completely on coincidence something you refuse to believe, because I walk the grid a lot specifically following the road since so many people set their land to no access, it’s almost impossible to fly around now. When you asked how I found you I told you the truth, but you didn’t want to hear the truth, you wanted something that would reinforce your beliefs that everyone is out to get you.
Who’s suffering JR’s lag? All the other people who own land in the sim he’s in, maybe they could go elsewhere but the landmarket is shitty and maybe they don’t feel the need to move because some asshole is hogging all the resources.
As I mentioned before, I like to walk the roads of the SL maingrid, and when I do, one thing becomes abundantly clear. A LOT of people are camping, I walk and look at the dots, and 70% of the time, they’re all in camping chairs. And I don’t buy your assumption that everyone on camping chairs is somehow unable to buy lindens because of a various number of overbearing wives or not having enough money in real life. If you don’t have enough money to drop 5 dollars into SL every now and then, then how do you have enough money for a computer good enough to run it, or the time to spend on SL in camping chairs all the time?
Really, if you can’t learn how to build after 2 years, it’s no longer a problem of the subject, it’s a problem of you. Building is absurdly simple, like playing with legos. 2 years is enough time to learn pretty much any trade (that’s about the amount of time you dedicate to most bachelor based trades in college). So in 2 years, if you can’t learn something as simple as building, it’s because you’re not trying or you’re exaggerating as to “how hard” you’ve been trying all this time.
Ordinal Malaprop
Nov 3rd, 2006
I hate camping. I *really* hate camping. I always will as long as the grid continues to be organised in the way it is right now and it can sap resources from other sim occupants. I spend most of my time scripting and lag causes me intense irritation, not just where I live but wherever people who use my products want to use them. I have to compensate and adjust for lag environments when I’m scripting, and I hate it.
On the other hand, if it’s a question of a resident build made by an enthusiast which people go to because it’s fun, and a build owned by someone interested in RL advertising with no interest in the grid which people go to (once) because they can get a free car, I know which one I want to see more of, and all of the bling in the world won’t change my mind. I would rather see a million messy builds by people who really like what they’re doing (and apologies to Mr Breed who doubtless keeps a very tidy sim) than contract work for people who don’t really give a monkey’s what happens. And it’s obvious which one will survive the bubble bursting, if indeed any of us can carry on after that.
RavenRaide Stormwind
Nov 4th, 2006
Point is that they dont understand the concept of Second life, that they are looking at it as mearly another form of advertisement. Yes thier build may be intereseting, yes they may be givving away cool looking cars, but in the end its nothing more then an advertisement scheem, not even an attempt to prove to us that thier cars are better. All that they want with our wonderfull world is to push thier product on us. in any case, i would buy a car from the vendor… simply because its pretty… then again… i woudlnt spend money on a car in sl when the physics engine eats its self.
Raven~~
Ace of Spades
csven
Nov 4th, 2006
I think Nissan, and others, may be on the wrong track here, but it’s too early to really tell so I think these comments and the NWN story – as intriguing as it is – are premature. As for Nissan’s responsibility to the world, I consider that a socialist argument and only works for those who want a conformist space (where *everyone* knows what qualifies as beautiful – ha).
Let’s remember that the same people citing corporations for making mistakes are also often the same one’s declaring that corporations can’t simply drop in as they’re doing and expect to succeed; that the playing field is leveled. Well, if the playing field is leveled, than why expect them to do what we don’t expect of anyone else? Exactly what has JR or any other inworld business “done for the world”? As far as I can tell, they’re doing things for themselves and don’t really have socialistic, altruistic motives. In fact, when someone comes along feeding me a line about how they’re doing something for altruistic reasons, I fully expect it masks some effort intended only for personal gain. There are exceptions, but isn’t that how it usually works out?
Artemis Fate
Nov 4th, 2006
I don’t see how JR understands the “concept of SL” better than Nissan, I don’t even know what the Concept of SL is anymore, I started with the impression that it was an artistic and technical community who could create and practice ideas in these forms with others. But then content creators became the minority and casual non content creating users became the majority, then it apparently became “make money anyway you can”, whether it be slimy land buying/selling tactics, or sitting on a chair for pennies a day, both affect others
negatively but who cares if you’re making money from it?
So How is that different from Nissan? The only difference I see is that JR is using SL as an ends and a means while Nissan is using SL as a means to an end, they’re not advertising for an inworld product, they’re advertising for a real world product. But what? SL businesses don’t advertise? Look in an in-world magazine and you’ll find advertisements everywhere that look and use the same tactics of real advertisements.
Really, when did SL ever have a concept outside of “Your world, your imagination”?
Cocoanut Koala
Nov 5th, 2006
Second Life IS a giant billboard for rent, as far as these outside companies are concerned, and that is exactly why they should pay more for the privilege, via a three-tier land system:
. Corporate (high) – for real-world businesses promoting a real-world product or service (and those businesses that serve to set up these real-world businesses.
. Resident (medium)- for residents and residents selling only virtual products and services to other avatars, limited entirely to the virtual SL world and its microeconomy.
. Educational/Charitable (low) – for non-profit educational, charitable, and support organizations.
The key to this pricing model is this: Is the business’s product/service a real-world one, or is it entirely virtual and of use only to other avatars?
Real-world companies don’t care about coming into SL and giving away what residents are encouraged to charge for.
Fine – but at least don’t charge us the same as Nissan to help along our own ruination.
We should not be forced to subsidize real-world corporations here only to hawk their real-world products, in addition to all the free accounts we are already subsidizing.
I encourage everyone to boycott the corporate lands until this inequity is redressed.
coco
Cocoanut Koala
Nov 5th, 2006
P.S. Uri, don’t give these corporations any ideas. It’s only a matter of time till they figure out EVERYTHING they should offer, and that will put us out of business even faster.
Cocoanut Koala
Nov 5th, 2006
“one thing I do like about Nissan is that they set a quality bar, selling a good car like that for free. So if SL people want to compete they have to deal with that.”
This quote, from a poster above, is exactly what I mean, and why these companies should be charged a corporate rate for land and tier.
Nissan doesn’t HAVE to sell their virtual car. Nissan CAN “sell a good car like that for free.”
They are not interested in selling a virtual car at all. They are interested in selling their real cars, using SL simply as another advertising medium for their real cars and paying for it out of their advertising budget.
The SL car-maker can’t compete with Nissan by offering his car, no matter how fabulous it is, because he is an entirely different animal from Nissan.
Nissan is using their land for a completely different purpose from the SL car-maker. Nissan should pay a MUCH higher price for their land.
In fact, Nissan isn’t even making their virtual cars. They’ve hired people like ESC and MOU to do it for them, and those people are getting anywhere from $10k to $100k and over, U.S., to do that along with their other services to Nissan.
ESC and MOU don’t care about any profit made from a virtual car, either. They are real-world businesses, serving other real-world businesses, and should be charged the corporate rate as well.
We don’t have a competition here, we have elephants, giving away the store. Those elephants – as well as the companies like ESC and MOU that provide real-world services to them – should pay a corporate rate.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 6th, 2006
Cocoanut, I think you have a good idea with this 3-tier rate for SL. I think far from stratifying the world, it would make it more granulated and diverse — currently what we have are the creator-fascists at the top of the pyramid and the vast masses who have some levels, of course, between the landless and the landed, but by and large are utterly dwarfed by the huge incomes and reputations of those at the top.
I think the three-tier system is a good concept for SL, justified, and easy to implement in a way, and borrowed from RL, where corporate/individual/student rates are common from everything to subscriptions to event tickets to product sales. All normal.
Here’s where it gets complicated. If I’m an inworld service that makes, say Japanese zen gardens that are la dernier cri for all the metaversal minions to put in all their cement houses, then they are buying loads of my stuff, using their corporate millions. So now that I am supplying those at the top of the pyramid, licensed to His Majesty the FIC, do I rate an individual subscription or corporate sub?
Spin Martin made this comment, “We can’t have different drinking fountains”. And this RL tourist office IM’d me saying, when I commented that I didn’t know they were from real life?
Artemis, you’re absolutely typical of this insular and arrogant creator-fascist class. You actually think you can make up a world only as you say, “an artistic and technical community who could create and practice ideas in these forms with others.” You don’t imagine this just as a neighbourhood, or a suburb, or a city, as artist enclaves are in RL, but *the world itself*. You actually thing can’t stagnate or that it doesn’t require infusion. And…who pays for it? The latter-day Medicis, the not-quite-profitable Linden Lab? But theyr’e not going to do that any more.
So, content makers become a minority? Nu? Big deal? They have to sell their stuff, stop giving away freebies, and help get the economy started. If casual consumers then can help compel these nasty tekkies to acquire some consumer service niceties, or if some class of merchants can emerge which can stomach the finicky and mean tekkies and put up with their caprices and still sell their stuff, then we have a functioning world. It evens things out in one sense and makes them more diverse in another.
As for csven, there he goes again, ranting about not being a socialist, and yet continuing to support what amounts to “state capitalism,” the socialist oligarchy of LL.
Level playing field doesn’t mean level outcome, or non-recognition of talents. It means not skewing the playing field artificially to some groups just because they were in beta. That’s not meritocracy. It’s oligarchy.
I also totally narrow my eyes in suspicion each time I see some vaunted program that is going to Sustain Art or Help Newbies — like csven’s sandbox in Patagonia : )
I cast a weather eye on all those gambits in SL — they’re always about sales and reputation points.
As for Nissan giving away freebies, for shame. They undercut others, and they just infuse the struggling free world with the vast socialism of the outside world, which whatever it’s role in the external world’s capitalism because merely part of the state-supported oligarchic system of SL.
I think JR surely does get SL — he provides networking, friendship, socializing, conversation, etc. — he shows up. These corporations don’t show up. I can’t dial them up. They are like NPCs.
In a sense, Coco, by hiking these island rates, the Lindens are saying they will tax the hell out of the middle class — the middle class they hate like all elitists and revolutionaries. They will claim that they profit from flipping and arbitrage and that therefore they need to pay up. Meanwhile corporations won’t find any difference whatsoever between $1250 or $1695.
Artemis Fate
Nov 6th, 2006
Wow Prokofy…. you really have no attachment to reality at this point do you? I mean, where do you get this stuff?
I really don’t even know what to say anymore to you. You’re completely off the edge. There’s absolutely no use of rational or logic because all you see is conspiracy and paranoid theories. I’ve even seen you post logs that were clearly against your favor or showed you to be a total asshole, under the concept of “look at me dealing justice to these Tekkiwikki FIC shadow government members”.
It was funny at first and still can be, but really it’s just getting more and more sad to see you so deeply in the grips of insanity.
Cocoanut Koala
Nov 6th, 2006
If you sold corporations products they can only use in SL, Prok, you would still be at resident rate.
And I would like to change the word “corporate rate” to “commercial rate” – a term Kelly Linden helpfully supplied me while she was telling me my ideas make no sense.
“Commercial” is a much better word for real-world companies who are using SL only to advertise their real-world products, which aren’t even available in SL.
Your Japanese zen gardens are for SL residents’ use only. If, however, you branched out into selling non-pixel Japanese zen gardens in the real world, you would then qualify as commercial.
coco
//METAVER.SE
Nov 7th, 2006
Toyota at Second Life: Scion City
Millions of Us, who brought c|net, Intel, SUN Microsystems, WB Records, Wired, and even Governor Mark Warners PAC Forward Together to Second Life, announced the launch of Scion City today. Its a sim dedicated to the virtual Scion of Toyo…
csven
Nov 7th, 2006
“I also totally narrow my eyes in suspicion each time I see some vaunted program that is going to Sustain Art or Help Newbies — like csven’s sandbox in Patagonia ”
Apparently “vaunted program” can also mean “don’t have time to do anything with this land at the moment”. More Prok distortion. Par for the twisty course.
Adam Zand
Nov 9th, 2006
Our tech PR firm has been having fun in SL – helps that our cool client, Podcast Ready, has a pool/hot tub, jet ski, movie screen, etc. I can justify it at work because we’ve even had journalists interview/publish on our First and Second Life efforts.
For now, I’m still intrigued by major brands joing the SL community a few years late. I’m also intrigued how overt (aka clueless) marketers are behaving and being perceived.
As such a couple of us have launched a new SL group – Fucktards with Feelings …
Group Charter:
Fucktards are people too.
We are a shrinking number of marketing and PR professionals who will try not to ruin all that is good about Second Life.
Group Haiku:
You couldn’t care less
For the crap we are flinging
Annoy in both worlds
Blog post from our Oracle (aka Strumpette):
http://www.strumpette.com/archives/218-Fucktards-in-Cyperspace.html
Care to join?
Jr Breed
Dec 5th, 2006
WOW! I was just directed to this blog post and well. THIS IS AWESOME! Some comments had me laughin so hard. Some of you guys take things to a whole different level! Its crazy I tell ya. So much jelousy and just comments/assumtions/ridicule about me and mine made up out of thin air.. CRAZY! It is truly funny.
I have 6 camp pad which are not always filled. I didnt know 6 camp pads of which are not used 100% time where using up so much recorces in the game. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
JR BRRRREEEEEEEEED!!!!
Camping is what got me building in the first place. Camping got me lindens to upload textures. Camping inspired me to build a car. I built my first car while camping! Through camping I meet some great ppl and are still friends with them to this day. Camping got me some sweet shoes and many other objects! I watch the people who come to my place to camp as noobs then thransform into cool avatars over time cus of those lindens paid to them through camping. IM HAPPY FOR THAT! I talk to a lot of the campers at my place. I support camping. It got me to where Im at today. If you dont like it, then cry me a river. Heres a tissue, your gonna need it.
Half of these type whinners on these blogs come to my shop under alts like cowards. Thats right, you know who you are.
I spend all day and night in this game. Talking to ppl, hanging out, making friends, getting to know my customers secondlife and real life. I do serveal customs a day at no extra charge and spend a great ammount of time doing that.
Are my cars freebees, NO. Do I ever give out free cars. Everyday! I spoil my friends and just random people. If you dont like that, cry me a river. Have another tissue, actually here have the whole box.
Do these people know about Nissan, bet your ass they do. THEIR CAR LOVERS! Id myself would love to own a Nissan sentra real life!
“JR this, JR that” YOU DONT KNOW ME!
Im a cool dude who’s a die hard gamer! If you dont wanna take the time to get to know me and just flame me anyways… F U.
On a lighter note. Thanks to all that took the time to get to know me. Their the only ones that matter.
Thanks Urizenus for the sweet ass blog post! I LOVED IT!
Artemis Fate
Dec 5th, 2006
Well, i’ll say that that post vehemently backed up any assumption I had about JR Breed.
Urizenus
Dec 5th, 2006
I went to JR’s place last night and it was totally rocking out. Yeah, there were people camping on the dance pads, but they were socializing while they danced, and the place was full of people talking and looking at JR’s cars. Great music too.
Then I went to the nissan build.
chirp chirp chirp
Then I went to Scion city.
chirp chirp chirp.
What can I say, I like people better than cleanly rezed prims and the imagined sound of crickets chirping.
Artemis, you must come to accept this one deep truth about reality in SL. At the bottom of your twisted little soul you know this to be true:
Blingtards rawk!
Artemis Fate
Dec 5th, 2006
I prefer quality to quantity, in both my preference in art and people. Could be a world of 6 billion happening party Blingtards with no brains, i’d still prefer the company of 1 intelligent and creative person.
urizenus
Dec 6th, 2006
I *always* have the company of 1 intelligent and creative person, but talking to a mirror is so TSO.
Ordinal Malaprop
Dec 6th, 2006
I think Mr Breed sounds like a fine upstanding craftsman, enthusiast and pillar of the community.
Digital Kaos
Feb 24th, 2007
O M F G …I need some of those tissues JR this shit is funny.Damn where the helll i been i am like what 2-3 months behind lol ahh welll JR’s creations have class and can’t be compared and besides he’s is a cool mutha f#*%er who gives back to those around him and possibly even more and if anyone is talkin chit its because they just don’t know or their jealous and like JR says “It just makes me stronger”
JR Breed
Jan 15th, 2009
I know this blog is really old but it’s one I cherish as it was my 1st spot light into the community of SL. I read my post and I thought I went a little over the top, rude at times but I was straight to the point and I think a few got the feel on how passionate I am about this.
Its 2009 and N4S is still here. Still as strong as Need4Speed was at the time of this blog. Now I have my RL brother to help me with the sculpted designs (he’s is extremely talented in that area) and I know if it wasn’t for him, Need4Speed would be where it’s at today. Thanks bro, I love you man. Thanks for being there for me even when you live hundreds of miles away.
There was a few negative comments here and no matter how much intellect they had, it didn’t matter what they said. I have to say it again, 2 and a half years later we are still here as strong as ever. Most importantly, our supports. They are truly the reason why Need4Speed is what it is to this day (and my bro for the sweet content). My friends for helping me keep my head up. Lena Broome my long time partner. Thank you nina for always being supportive, understanding, patient, and positive of everything. I love you!
Thank you for bringing Need4Speed alive and keeping it there. Me and my bro promise to stay as fresh and original as we can with every new build. Come check us out if your not so inclined, Atropos (68, 140, 56).
I’ll be back soon, but not too soon.
See you around,
Jr Breed