Don't Shrink Me Into An I-Phone Rodvik!

Rodvik Linden has arrived in the People List -- that's his name. Rodvik was a gaming name he used (or maybe the full version of his name?).

What will he do?

There's a huge thread with all kinds of suggestions and tips and harangues and threats -- I started a forums thread urging three word recommendations so it is more coherent -- and started with "Log in often" (I find some of those senior Lindens never log in, it's shameful.)

I don't suggest that magic things happen if you log in a lot, but one thing for sure, your messages won't cap and you will see the IMs and notecards sent to you (of course you should link those to your offline email). And logging in can force you to look at things, especially if you set a log in to an infohub. Imagine if Rodvik Linden logged in every day at Waterhead or Moose Beach and saw the shenanigans there but also the obstacles for newbies. Imagine if he just flew around to those destinations on the destination list, it might inform some of his decision-making.

Lots of other three-word adages -- "fix search now" would be one and "set safe default" for land --  but I'll leave it to your imagination.

One thing I really hope is that Rodvik won't suck me into an i-phone.

We had all heard rumours that Blue Mars might be folding in June when the VC cash ran out or something, but with all the blustering hype we've had about it from Desmond, DanielRavensNest, etc. I thought it might really make it at least until June if not December.

All of a sudden there's an announcement that it is closing NOW, and turning to work on avatars for i-phones and i-pads. Ouch.

The curious thing is that rather than shutting down their servers with the virtual world, the way EA.com with the Sims Online or There.com did, instead, Avatar Reality, the company running Blue Mars, is going to leave it running, and stop charging tier -- or the equivalent of it, for cities, as far as I understand. I wonder what that means. Do virtual worlds left running but uncared for by their makers go feral? Do bands of wild junkyard dogs and zombies begin to roam the streets? Do mafias begin taking protection money? I can't imagine how that will work. I also have to wonder what it means not to collect tier, whether that will eventually result in having to shut off the servers. There was kind of a casual thing there with the tier, where some people didn't pay it or got bonuses or tier-free for life if they built something attractive...or something. I wasn't sure of the system, and it seemed a kind of BM FIC in the making.

Of course, there's the creepy issue of what happens to your "investment," which is what you call money you have put into this hole in the Internet called "a virtual world" like you would a boat that is a hole in the ocean into which you pour money.

It's funny, the thing that Desmond and others have often raised as a spectacle of fear around SL for which they were smugly prepaired with lots of cushioning of tier in advance or whatever, is what has hit him and others in Blue Mars. He may have lost thousands, I don't know, or maybe he can still collect rent?

There's a thread about this at Sluniverse (Sharia Court).

I can't get this idea of "avatar on my phone". I remember Yahoo tried to push the making of avatars to go on Yahoo Messenger, it didn't have uptake really. Then there was another place whose name I can't remember now that had little avatars on horses and IMs sort of like Meebo -- well, I can't remember it's name.

People on i-phones don't want avatars. They want either Facebook, where they have their RL picture, with other pictures available, or they want just IMs or texts where there's just a name. I can't think of any demand from the people out there for avatarizing their i-phone. Either you use the smartphones as is, with their Facebook or Twitter or whatever attached, or you simply play WoW on your desktop or laptop. Or ipad games that have those. I'm not seeing the demand. I know I personally wouldn't bother to kit out some avatar on a phone that couldn't go anywhere or be in a world with everybody else, it's too dinky and too laggy and too stupid. If I want to go in a world, I go in a world.

If Blue Mars is pushing avatars on phones, they would seem to be the least likely company to be doing this. Their avatars look like ass. A big part of why I didn't want to go to BM was because I didn't want to look like a drooling bozo. To be sure, some fashion got started there and the dressing of the avatars apparently got better, but their shapes were from hunger. I would think IMVU which has more experience in this sort of flatter-dimensioned socializing world with avatar skins and accessories might make the jump to i-phones more smoothly, if they aren't on their way there already.

Cityville has all these little tiny people -- fake people -- crawling around your little town, and every once in awhile your friends who have been horsed into playing this stupid game with you arrive in the form of a little miniature icon in a square hovering over a franchise building or some other thing like crops they are watering. Of course, it would be better if instead of those odd square picture frames, there were actually dressed and accessorized avatars -- like Raph made in Island Life, where you could visit other people's islands and actually see them there in real time in their avatar they had chosen and dressed -- not in fake time, which is what Cityville has when my RL friends or relatives seem to appear in my village with their picture -- they appear as a game mechanic, not as someone I can actually talk to. (I found that particularly creepy in Cafeville, which seemingly had the avatars of other people coming and cooking and eating -- but they weren't real, even with real people's names on them, they weren't "there".) Didn't I once say the definition of a virtual world is: 1) has a sense of place 2) has drama. That would require real people talking in real time, not fake time.

There's been a lot of talk about Mineshaft, it's the geek's new hobby, but I don't think you can go in to someone else's mineshaft and talk to them, right? it's solo.

Anyway, I don't want to be either a) avatarized on a phone or b) having to stare into a virtual world that has been miniaturized to fit on a phone screen and dumbed down to fit on a phone's capacities (and here cube points out something else: and is more expensive ultimately as a result -- I could play SL for $9.95 a month and even get 300 to spend and 512 meters, and I could pay an Internet bill of $37.00 a month, but a phone is going to cost $100-150 a month.)

The Lindens became preoccupied, you will recall, with the i-phone world back in 2009, when they said they were "restructuring" to focus on the web. Since then, they've ruined stores inworld and immersion in world by moving goods to SL Marketplace, and as much as somebody might complain about this, the reality is merchants save money on tier and avoid inworld hassles like casual copyright theft and griefing and garbage clean-up, and have a clear interface that they can leave open to sell 24/7 without their involvement. Can't beat that with a stick. Of course, sure, you can copy stuff from somebody's house, but note that I said *casual* copying of the sort that happened in stores versus on private islands where there might be security orbs or group-access only.

I don't think the Lindens ever succeeded in making a mobile application, although we heard it was in the works, and of course we know about all this Hamlet-incited ecstatic adulation of this teenager named Katherine who hacked something up on Ajax. But she's no longer a child wonder and no longer a teen and her hacked-thing wasn't usable because people don't want their passwords yielded. I don't know where this stands now, anybody? I think a Japanese company had a mobile SL but they also foundered on issues like passwords and I think they went out of business or ceased their SL business.

Please please please don't shrink me into an i-phone, Rodvik. There's no percentage in it. I am not an app. I don't want to become an app. I want to raise my chickens in a *world* not on my phone.

 

Comments

[cube inada]

"it's the geek's new hobby, but I don't think you can go in to someone else's mineshaft and talk to them, right?"

uh..uh.... i think their are state laws preventing this....

"not thats theres anything wrong with that"...;)

the "zwinky" market of 2d avatars that look like anibabies on mobiles will be flooded by end of 2012...its already big for years in asia... itll have a year or two of hype here, and BM will ride it... but in the end..mobile devices are for controlling/organizing larger real and virtual lifestyles....

otherwise theyll called "handheld game devices" and are marketed to 12 and under.

It was clear that BM couldnt wait out the 5 years needed to the next VR worlds -- are the next big thing- gardner hype cycle.

2015 ...place your bets now... the real winners will be VR worlds that have no HUMAN drivers, just machines living in machines..and the crazy idea that we will live in RL off the slave virtual labor or these AIs making pizzas that they cant eat for each other:)

caprica awaits.

[brinda allen]

Amen! I phone apps will kill SL as surely as a stake in the heart

[twitter.com/ordinal]

I don't really think that Blue Mars claiming they are firing everyone to work on iWidget applications is really believed by anyone. It is the sort of thing that people say so as to not immediately have investors banging on their doors. Blue Mars is basically a dead world walking.

Nobody seems very interested in actual VWs on phones, partly because the technology is quite limiting but I think mostly because of how people use their phones. The supposed "MMOs" on the iPhone certainly all seem to be basically simplistic and rather antisocial games which badger you to spend money on inworld credits and sign up others as friends.

People do spend quite a lot of time on their phones but it is all very casual - it has to be something one can pick up and play for moments and turn off when the bus gets to your stop. Certainly the concepts of Blue Mars and SL are not appropriate for mobile devices - by all means let them log in and check and send IMs on the move, but mobile elements are only ever going to be an add-on to the full desktop experience when you have uninterrupted hours to spend with a proper screen and keyboard.

For the record, Minecraft *does* have a server version, which you can download and run yourself if you want (as long as you have paid) and let other people in as you wish. It isn't available on phones though.

[Desmond Shang]

I simply don't have enough information to have a firm opinion about Blue Mars' future yet, as I haven't been able to talk to everyone I need to in the last couple days. Knee jerk responses are easy; real research is a very different thing. It may take a week at least.

My guess is that Avatar Reality will continue as a company, perhaps a highly successful one, but the virtual world outlook of Blue Mars going forward appears to be pretty bleak at this point.

I can still charge rents, but the question is, is that justifiable under current conditions.

Once I have an idea of what is actually happening with Blue Mars going forward, I'll post a summary somewhere of the conclusions.

[melponeme_k]

Its a real shame what happened to Blue Mars. But really the warning signs were all there and they were ignored by everyone involved.

In my opinion, it didn't exist long enough to see past it's potential. The city areas are still being worked on even after this announcement. Some are still going ahead with rentals even AR for their city.

The avatars were a true mishap for this world. The minds behind it all were the ones who created the strange "actors" in Final Fantasy Spirits Within. And it showed. I always felt as if I was not myself in the BM avatar but a fantasy created by a dev. With a professional skin, clothing and a facial shape, that I worked on meticulously, I managed to get something a little more personal.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28831595@N05/5356707090/

But the average person is not going to stick around long enough to figure out the shape problems.

I think VR people should come to grips that they appeal to a very small, very unorthodox group of fans. The masses won't flock to SL, BM etc because it requires something more than "kill me 10 rats and come back".

[Prokofy Neva]

Translation of Desmond:

"Don't rush to conclusions that I've lost $20,000, I've really only lost about $5,000-$10,000, and this depends on whether I can continue to collect rent. People are unlikely to pay me under these circumstances where the end of the world servicing has been announced, but I'll convert that into an expansive show of my governorly graciousness and decency not to attempt to collect from them when I can't promise the provider's service."

[Prokofy Neva]

Melponeme, no offense, but as nice as that skin and outfit look, it's the eyes that are a problem. They are too close together, even crossed. The problem with eyes being too close together or even crossed is that they spark a cultural cue in people to view the person as either untrustworthy or loony or retarded. And that little tiny detail may be what caused Blue Mars not to have a stampede of people out of SL in the end.

[Desmond Shang]

I've already told everyone renting that I'll leave their structures up even if they cease to rent. Some have taken that option. I've already lowered rents to absolute minimum I can, and would lower it to zero if I could (or people can just abandon). That's what I feel rent is worth if the world isn't going to have much of a future.

Most seem to be holding on because, well, my best guess is that they feel very sad about the whole thing and don't want to be seen to be 'cutting and running' right away. Even when I myself doubt the value of continuing in a place that will never have effective vehicles, or ways for people to influence their world very much.

And finally, the one thing that can only be accomplished by renting is product sales; once the shop is abandoned one cannot sell any more. For the clothing merchants, who *may* have a market on whatever iPhone application comes down the pipe, this is a question for them ~ should they continue, even if the world never takes off? I can't possibly tell them.

The least expensive option to me considering time and hours is to walk away, and not spend time on it. But there are those who chose Caledonia on Blue Mars to be the location of their main store, and if they want to remain I'll keep going, even if someday only one person wants to continue there.

Going forward, it won't be a loss (cities are now free) but the 'big reward' might allow me to visit Starbucks now and then at best, or more likely not at all, while putting in a little time to maintain things.

This isn't how I hoped things would go. But I certainly don't expect anyone to continue to pay rent under current conditions. If there is a major turnaround someday and a future for the world, maybe then. But right now I don't see a lot of value. I don't have a final conclusion on Blue Mars yet (the 'world') but things look bleak, and I shall have results from some research into the matter soon.

[cube inada]

Your Work, Their Control.
just another ghostown on the gold coast.

enjoy the screen caps:)

hawaii must have been nice:)

[melponeme_k]

Yes, The eye problem was a big deal. No matter how far apart I pushed the eyes in the shape, if they were round or almond, they always looked a little cross-eyed. Never could figure out the problem. They also seemed unfocused as well.

Unfortunately, that problem will never be fixed in the PC version. Who knows about the mobile version. I have a feeling the avatar problem will travel.

[Darien Caldwell]

"There's been a lot of talk about Mineshaft"

I think you mean MineCraft. As far as I know, people can visit your little craterous creation if you let them. But it's not really designed to be a 'social' thing at all. It for OCD ppl to hack away at stuff incessantly. :)

[Cinder Roxley]

There's a mobile third party secondlife client (*not* a viewer) for android phones called Mobile Grid Client. It's not in the tpv directory because it's closed source, and it's a prepay service (L$450/month or L$4500/year).

http://www.mobilegridclient.com/

It's really not a viewer, more of an sl IM client. I use it when I need to login and have no PC access to talk to someone. There's no 3D, and it's really not a replacement for the viewer.

Despite what Kathrine will tell you, the whole login process is now handled by the mobile device itself, no longer are passwords or their hashes transfered to their servers. (They used to, sl blocked the client, MGC fixed the problem and were allowed to connect again.)

Why do I trust them even without tpv approval? MGC is developed by a real person with a real name and address with real accountability for his service.

[Darien Caldwell]

yeah, but $450/month is criminal for such a simple app. Better to just buy a laptop that runs the *full client* with 1 month's fee and take it with you if you need to chat.

[Amanda Dallin]

my reading of Cinder was that it was 450 linden a month. that's approx $2.

[Treasure Ballinger]

I was really enjoying your '3 words for Rodvik' thread on the General Discussion forum. It had some great posts, and might have actually given him an idea where the residents' heads are in SL. The thread is gone now, or at least I don't see it anymore. I don't know why the mods couldn't remove offensive posts without removing the entire thread. It was a good thread with a lot of positive energy and hope showing.

[Darien Caldwell]

LOL, I didn't catch that 'L' there. I thought we were talking real American Dollars. The thought of someone charing Linden Dollars for a phone app never crossed my mind.

I take back what I said ;p

[Ann Otoole InSL]

hmmm people like building roller coasters (minecraft) don't they? I used to enjoy roller coaster tycoon.

hmmm... *gears begin turning*

[Cinder Roxley]

Oof. For $450 a month I could hire a developer to write an app from the LoveMachine. :)

[Danton Sideways]

I access SL using the Pocket MV application on iPhone: http://www.pocketmetaverse.com

All it does it chat, but it can be pretty useful if you want to attend an inworld meeting when you're on the go.

[Laetizia Coronet]

Happy to see you on the Welcome Area / Infohub bandwagon there Prok. If need be, newbs should be diverted not to 'the nearest' infohub (which is always Waterhead if Help Island is full) but to 'a random' one, or better still 'a good' one. Like Ross, in fact, which is very good indeed.