Tag: 3. November 2008

Another short thought about devaluing land investments in SL…

Many people are now starting to whine about devaluing their land investments in SL, again. They always tend to do that, e.g. when LL adds land too fast, lowers tier feeds, upfront fees and does other stuff.

Just get one thing into your big skull: owning land in Second Life is not about getting a value. Land is made by the Lindens, as they see fit, you are on their whim there, always, and there is nothing yet to change this. Take it or leave it, but don’t always whine about that. Real estate owners with a good business approach should know better than that.

Taking lessons in Linden maths

Basically, what the Lindens are telling us about open spaces sims, is that:

one normal sim runs on the core of a quad core server (e.g. Opteron), meaning 4 normal, full blown sims are running on a quad core normally.

An open spaces sim is 1/4 of a normal sim, so four of them are running on one core of a quad core server or 16 at whole, all of them put together serving the same prim count.

Being overused, the underlying maths about Open Spaces sims is that 1/4+1/4+1/4+1/4 is bigger than 1. Now that’s at least what the Lindens are trying to tell us, which I for myself don’t really believe at all.


Technorati : , , ,

Some common prejudices about Gor and reality (or: Getting to know Gor, Part 2)

In this article I want to talk about some common prejudices the public has normally about Gorean roleplay, well the stuff I’ve encountered so far yet, and how it is for real or not.

  1. Gor is for men just all about battling in shiny armour everytime while wielding big, expensive weapons and being proud of it. This is wrong. Normally real battles are mostly for members of the warrior caste, members of other castes tend either to carry weapons only for their job, like hunters, or for self defense, aside heavy armour is uncommon on Gor. Of course, the warrior caste is quite a proud caste, true. But Gorean role play is more than only battling all the time, in fact sims that tend to do only battles fast get a somewhat bad reputation in the community, because this is only one aspect of Gorean culture, an important one, that’s true, but you should not narrow it down on that only. The typical weaponry in the novels for a warrior is a sword and a spear while in SL it is a sword and a bow.
  2. Being a kajira is just all about looking nice, obeying your master and having, sex, sex, sex. Wrong. Being a kajira involves quite many different stuff to do, like house hold chores and other stuff, sex is just one of the aspects about it, also not all kajiraes have a master, but are in ownership of a city. Of course, when you play a kajira, the possibility to get involved into role play featuring sex is there, especially when you are becoming a love slave. If you are playing other roles, though, it is not necessary, you can have it, but don’t need to have it.
  3. All kajiraes are dumb. Wrong again. While many kajiraes tend to speak about themselves only in third person like "This girl likes to please." and such, this is not necessarily required from them at all. Also the training a kajira needs to get at the beginning is one of the most elaborate and complicated you can get in Gorean role play.
  4. There are only female slaves. Wrong. There are also male slaves around, called kajirus or kajirii in plural, but they are not so common like kajiraes.
  5. Gor is just there for people who want to have easy sex all around the clock. Wrong. Actually it involes much more than that, though it is part of it, it is not the main part.
  6. Masters love their slaves. Wrong. While many tend to play it that way and like it like that, this is something others, who are playing more accordingly to the books, despise, because it is against the natural order, with men being dominant and women succumbing to their whim. I guess there is place for both kind of play.
  7. The caste system is static. Wrong. While you can be born into a caste, according to your abilities you can either raise or lower in the system if necessary or fitting.
  8. All Goreans are dumb considering how long they live on that planet and they are still in quite some medieval state compared against the state Earth is already in. Wrong. There are actually quite decent people around, also people which try to invent new stuff and such and in some cases also quite some advanced machinery, but the development of new technology is being monitored firmly by the Priest Kings, which e.g. hinder the development of more advanced armor or weaponry. If there’s someone developing too much advanced stuff, expect the blue flame death to happen soon on that item. So most Goreans don’t even try their hands on that kind of development because they know the consequences would follow quite soon and fast.
  9. Gorean science lacks in all kind of fields behind Earth great lengths. Wrong, just take a look at the physicians.
  10. This is all sooo bad… Well, no one is forced to play in that kind of role playing universe, or is he? So all are there voluntarily and has its own reasons for being there, trying to get some fun out of it, which is the way it should be.
  11. All lifestylers are quite fanatic about Gor and intolerant. Wrong, most I’ve met so far are a bunch of really nice people and take a relaxed stance on it.

More to come later.


Technorati : , , ,