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Second Life Viewpoint June 17, 2008

Posted by James in : SL Introduction , add a comment

I believe that many people do not truly relate to Second Life. They not only worry about Second Life would be the place gathered people who disembody, but also easily make people become escapism. In my opinion it’s inevitable, don’t you see it constantly happens in this realistic society? Why we just don’t think about it as well.. In point of 3D interaction, do any actual needs exist?
When I first contact with internet, I always argue that sooner or later web interaction will develop into a 3D virtual reality, a world which does not exist in fact. Even in 8 years ago I made an advance to company about my idea, trying to realize the hope of virtual reality as earlier as possible.
If we don’t count in web2.0, the web interaction between Amazon.com and users is one of the best. However, did you ever think about when you go around in a Amazon shop, you might meet someone you don’t know but you share learning experiences or talk about what book is great to each other? It does not easily happen in reality but it does in Second Life. Did you ever think about that while you are not sleepy at night, you have a virtual call to your friends or children who study abroad far away, and you date them to meet at the coffee plaza in front of Amazon and then maybe go for a concert?
Or think about it again if someday the portal site were not just a site anymore, it becomed an airport in virtual. Except the security control of entering-leaving country, if you wanna go to mainland China from Taiwan, you might not go without throughing some stations in third area. Oh! my god!
As long as you put on your head mounted display, your eyesight will change at once. To enter a space which never exists, and develop into merchant and customers, employers and employees, teachers and students with someone who you might never meet in relaity, and even develop into friends, loves or couples through virtual rencounter, The world become more flat..
In reality a group CEO is taking a flight from Taipei to San Francisco to discuss a new cooperation.randimg
In several hours after take off, he has in advance heard the latest briefing came from San Francisco RL in vitual head office’s meeting room with the related department’s heads who were in Vietnam and Shanghai. And he not only has made a final run-through on white board but also confirmed all matters. After arriving at SF he would meet with the other side directly. Although it is the first time they meet each other, they don’t’ feel strange at all because they had plenty of cooperation experience in virtual before this. Although it’s the first time being in SF, he is familiar with the streets and traditions of SF very much through the tour guide in virtual early.
Infact, we are not far away from such a science plot and it has already happened. We can achieve it if we have a simple installment like Wii and a simultaneous drawing board. What do we lack except the reality level? Of course we don’t know this virtual reality just Second Life or not, but apparently Second Life plays an indispensable role on th way.

Pics: Second Life in virtual & Washington Sweden Embassy in reality (from http://www.saabvideos.com)

http://blog.ttnet.net/secondlife/2008/06/16/second-life-viewpoint/

Second Life Money Making

Posted by James in : Cost And Risk , add a comment

How do we make money in Second Life? Besides Camping, what other ways do we have? It’s a common question that many people would ask when they first get Second Life in touch. As for me, I’m afraid of being asked this kind of question, because so far I only keep spending money. This question is a kind too wide for me to answer. What I mean is in reality, there should be few people would ask about “how to make money” this kind of subject for no reason..
There is neither game story nor upgrade mission in Second Life. In the beginning, if you ask me about how to make money, probably I can’t help suggest you “Camping” which is a kind of time-waisting and boring way. For what? Because it’s a worthless way to make money, even by “away from keyboard”, you have to consider power bill, computer depreciation even carbon emission and so on.

So how on earth do we make money in Second Life? Let’s think about why we entered this game:

1. Do you wanna make money in Second Life? Everything is just for fun? Unless the way to make money is just your fun. If not, I think you can directly spend few money on what you like, and do not waste your time and resources on “Camping” such money-losing business, besides in Second Life, we enjoy many funny things without spending any money.

2. If you thought about making money as to subsidize your income, I don’t suggest that you regard this as a game. Indeed you can make money in Second Life, but why people you heard really can made money in Second Life? Definitely it’s not because making money is easy in Secomd Life, neither Second Life provides any good way to make money. The same as our real world, it’s the result of supply and demand, you have to create your own chances or methods. Get familiar with Second Life first, then think about what is suitable for you. If not, you may waste your precious time.

Whatever, I can show you some directions and my opinions. Do you wanna make equivalent possible money in Second Life just like in real world? So far I think it depends on originality not on labor, if you simply wanna spend time and labor, it’s better for you to consider this as a game.
So why is originality? For example, you designed a very popular clothes, and you could rent a storefront or a stall to sell this clothes. If it sells good, you may find another place to keep selling, and keep designing clothes. Maybe finally it will become a well-known brand and even hold a virtual fashion show. Certainly, it never continues spending the time but you have constant income, maybe someday in real world someone would ask you for proxy..
The other things you often see are clothing apparel, fashion, cosmetics & beauty supplies, hair styling, life furniture, landscaping & gardening design, pet and aquarium, sound acoustics, building materials, vehicles, 3D textures, software tools and so on.. Are these suitable? Are there other ways you can try? I still wanna say, the only limit is your imagination.

http://blog.ttnet.net/secondlife/2008/06/16/second-life-money-making/


Camp in Villamood Club - Happy dancerrandimg

Second Life Cost And Risk

Posted by James in : Cost And Risk , add a comment

randimgHow much should you spend if you wanna build a beautiful villa in Second Life? The answer is “Free”. If you own lands, basicly it costs nothing on building and decorating as long as you are willing to spend your time on it(if you wanna uplord pics of texture, it costs 10L$ each time), of course you can use buying furniture or texture to save your time. The furniture in Second Life generally is sold about 100L$ to 2000L$(1US$ exchanges about 267L$) and it’s not expensive. Besides you can collect some freebies, but it needs luck and costs your time. In addition, you should consider its quality..randimg
Actually the most important thing you should care is not beautiful decoration and furniture. There is a limit in Second Life, On the one hand broad band and computer operation abilities are restricted, on the other hand maybe Linden would like making money :P. Each 512 m2 land provides 117 prims(it’s the basic unit of object, a complicated shape object is made up of plenty prims) object capacity. In other words, if your object is too complicated that above 117 prims, you should buy more lands so that you can contain these objects. Let’s take Second House of Sweden for example, 9129 prims were used for the embassy itself without including surroundings. That means laying an embassy needs at least 39936 m2 lands(the amount of prims is not entirely related with size, on the contrary it’s related with shapes), it might cost at least 1.2 or 1.5 thousand USD to buy the land.
And then is land fees, each 32768 m2 land will be charged 125US$ per month by Linden. Over 32768m2 will be counted as 65536 m2 and charged 195 US$ by Linden :(.
Finally let’s talk about building cost, neglect design expense(the embassy directly took American Washington Sweden Embassy as blueprint). All staff are about thirty, if we just look at main structure, the staff may be eleven and it took more than two months. People said Second House of Sweden consumed 63 thousand dollars or so..

http://blog.ttnet.net/secondlife/2008/05/22/second-life-cost-and-risk/

Second Life Game Type

Posted by James in : SL Introduction , add a comment

randimgEarlier on blog someone asked me Second Life was classified to MORPG game type or not and what’s the difference between Second Life and common fighting games. Because I don’t know too much about all game types so I looked up Yahoo knowledge and also refer to many portal sites how they classify Second Life. It’s hard to avoid that many players associate Second Life with online games like “Lineage” or “World of Warcraft” when they first heard Second Life. Many people assumed that Second Life were the web version of “The Sims” as well. To aim at this part I made an introduction in detail at the post “Seconf Life Brief“, so we just only talk about game type here..

Actually I never regard Second Life as a kind of game. I always say it’s more suitable to see Second Life as a “3D interactive platform”.
But since Second Life definitely presents a game style, so let’s reserch Second Life and other game types and codewords.

“MORPG” According to the meaning of word itself , it should point Multi-user Online Role Playing Game. There is another kind of abbreviation is “MMORPG”, a more “Massive” is in front, I guess probably it points at Second Life this kind of large-scale Multi-user role playing game. But what is role playing? I used to think it means acting a role in a game story, the game like Second Life without setting the action, shouldn’t be the part of it? Then I check and find out the way that ID-hiding groups or interactive games are both called RPG. By this Second Life undoubtedly is a kind of RPG. As for the fighting game we ofter mention should be the part of SLG.

In Second Life some people go to specific fun area, they accouter themselves and divided into groups to fight. But it’s absolutely not online first-person shooter game. Just like occasionally we go to paintball field in real world. It’s only specific time and place so just to become SLG at times :).

But eventually I wanna remind everyone we should take Second Life as a 3D interactive platform, not merely a game.

Here are some references about the contrast of game type abbreviation:

ACT = Action Game
AVG = Advanture Game
FTG = Fighting Game
RCG = Race Game
RPG = Role Playing Game
SLG = Simulation Game
SPG = Sport Game
RTG = Rhythm Game
STG = Shooting Game
PZG = Puzzle Game
TBG = Table Game
ETC = ETC Game

http://blog.ttnet.net/secondlife/2008/06/16/second-life-game-type/