My experiences with the voice beta

Bartholomew Gallacher 30. März 2007 0 Kommentare

There was yesterday the announcement about the public availibility of the voice beta version of Second Life. Since I had spare time and a new, shiney headset, I downloaded the special beta client and gave it a try.

The first thing you’re going to notice is that you are not seeing much difference to the normal beta clients at all. Voice capability is disabled by default, so you have to enable it by yourself in the preferences. The second thing I experienced is – it’s much better to enable voice in the so called push-to-talk mode – meaning, that you’re only transmitting audio into the game world when you’re pressing down some key. Otherwise all people around you can be hearning echos if your soundcard is not configured correctly, many computers tend to transmit much noise, well, let’s just say it’s a waste of bandwidth and computing power.

I know how voice is being handled by services like Skype. Skype automatically adjusts the microfon volume while you speak, so that the microfon level is always nice mannered and not too loud. In the Second Life beta you’ve got to adjust the microfon volume on your own, so you should better now how to setup the volume mixer under Windows or Macintosh. Yup, there’s no beta for this available at the moment under Linux.

Well, if you’ve got your settings then right you can enjoy the voice capabilites of the beta – or not. First you need to get to a region, though, that is voice enabled in the beta grid. There are not many available and you can see a list of enabled regions in the release notes of the beta client. According to Lindenlabs there are these voice enabled regions at the moment on the beta grid: Abbotts, Lusk, Pulveria, Spaceport Alpha, Morris, Da Boom, Tehama and Balance. BTW, it’s not advisable under Windows to use the Shift-Key for enable the push-to-talk mode, since this is per default enabled by Windows to enable some advanced features for people with disabilities after pressing it fives times. Better use another key or turn those features of in the system settings of Windows.

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Fun with crashes

Bartholomew Gallacher 19. März 2007 0 Kommentare

It’s nowadays not funny anymore to do business or events in Second Life. The rule of the thumb is: the more people are online the same time, the more instable and slower the grid becomes. We had an event yesterday in the garden, the sim is able to hold 40-42 people at the same time. The owner even requested a reset of the sim one hour before the whole thing started.

And what happened: About 30 minutes after the event started, the sim was full, the whole sim crashed. We were lucky it crashed only one time, though, other sims have been reported to crash several times on Saturday while being full, e.g. for a wedding.

So, what are the consequences you should make? Well, it’s obvious, though SL is an excellent platform, that it has got major scaling problems at the moment. So, if you really want to do events in it or make serious business or teaching, better find dates where not so much people are online, to get a better experience of the grid. It’s probable that when there are many people online that the grid is going to behave strange and has hiccups, again, and this is getting worse day by day at the moment.

I wonder…

Bartholomew Gallacher 18. März 2007 0 Kommentare

…since Plastic Duck’s real life identity seems to be revealed by himself, if now Prokofy Neva is going to sue him for stalking. Well, we’re going to see…

About Twitter, the newest hype in town

Bartholomew Gallacher 15. März 2007 0 Kommentare

There’s a new hype in the town called „Web 2.0“ hype – it’s being called Twitter. What it is about?

To cite themself:

A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!

So it’s basically about you telling the rest of the world what you’re doing right now in your pitiful life. Not more or less, period.

Frankly said: why should I care about that rubbish at all? I value my privacy and for sure I am not going to tell the whole Internet what I am doing right now, where it still can be found after years and forever!

For an example, how this might look like, just follow this link. So it’s basically a very stripped down form of a diary with some community features around it. Period. Boooring…

The SLLA is pointless

Bartholomew Gallacher 7. März 2007 0 Kommentare

I’ve included the RSS-feed of the SLLA blog some days ago to my RSS aggregator, just because I’m curious and wanted to know this group a little better beside the media coverage they got last week.

Well, I read the article about „army rally and protest.“ They’re claiming that they want to install a government in SL made by the people. Sounds like a nice idea at first, but I’ve read that about 2-3 years ago the Lindens already asked the people if they want such a thing – the answer was a big NO back then.

Two quotes from the article are:

Our demand is clear: we want a debate between SLLA and Governor Linden. Where was the openness for dialogue when First Land was taken away, or when Linden Labs started selling chunks of our world to IBM, Sony and Warner Brothers?

Why should Lindenlabs care at all? They are a business company, not the welfare, they need to make money, they even more need to make profit. They gain profit when people enter the world, or companies, it doesn’t matter. Profit is necessary to continue the development of this platform.  Well, and to the first land issue – better such a reaction than no at all, I guess. The original intention of first land was being perverted by land bots and such.

From our actions at American Apparel last year to our resistance to corporate control of our AV lives, we are building a movement together! We will strike again very soon, count on it.

Why am I reminded of Monty Python right now and must think of the People’s Front of Judea? Whatever.

The one who owns the technology makes the rules, plain and simple. If you are not satisfied by the rules you are free to leave the platform.  I mean, why should Lindenlabs care at all about these people? It’s nice in the form that they’re making free media coverage for the game, makes even more nice PR when they’re willing to meet with them, but the truth is – they’re usefuls idiots at the moment. Not more, not less.

Disposable pawns for the Lindens, so to speak. If they really would like to get rid of them they can do it anytime without much effort at all.

Exactly to the point of the participation of the people Prokofy Neva (…) wrote an article some time ago in his blog called „The adventure capitalists“. To cite the main passage of it:

Dear Philip,

All of us who pay tier, collectively, pay Linden Lab something like $9.5-$10 million a year (I’m not sure how many total hidden/non-hidden sims there are with tier and island billing). It’s as much as a venture capitalist. We’re the adventure capitalists.

Could we as a group get a seat on your board? We could run elections among the 42,000 mainland landowners and the thousands of island owners (about 50,000 total perhaps?) The person who was acclaimed by assembly or voted for by direct ballot could serve on your board. At least you could consider having that seat in an advisory, non-voting capacity –though the stake is real. It’s 70 percent of your revenue, correct?

The first comment on this blog entry was made by Allana Dion in that way:

Dear Wallmart CEO,

All of us who shop in your store, collectively, pay your company something like $9.5-$10 million a year (I’m not sure of the exact figures). It’s as much as a venture capitalist. We’re the adventure capitalists.

Could we as a group get a seat on your board? We could run elections among the 42,000 daily shoppers and the thousands of weekly shoppers (about 50,000 total perhaps?) The person who was acclaimed by assembly or voted for by direct ballot could serve on your board. At least you could consider having that seat in an advisory, non-voting capacity –though the stake is real. It’s 70 percent of your revenue, correct?

She’s right there. What Prokofy Neva and the SLLA want is something like this: when you’re going to a bar/pub/restaurant, it is run by an innkeeper in one way or another. But they want to make rules for the innkeeper how to run it and this is not going to work. Well, they’ve got no right to make these rules or any kind of claim to do so. And that’s why the SLLA is pointless.

I’m an ESAK

Bartholomew Gallacher 6. März 2007 0 Kommentare

I’ve taken the good, old Bartle-test to see what kind of player in MMORPGs I am. Ok, some of the questions don’t apply to SL, of course – like killing dragons, gaining experience points – but when you carefully answer the questions, you got a real good picture about what kind of player you are.

So I am an ESAK. This means:

Based on your answers, you are ESAK.
Breakdown: Achiever 33.33%, Explorer 86.67%, Killer 13.33%, Socializer 66.67% ESAK players often see the game world as a great stage, full of things to see and people to meet. They love teaming up with people to get to the hard-to-see places, and they relish unique experiences.

Some further explanations show the four categories. The categories mean:

• People with high Achiever scores tend to prefer collecting points, levels, treasure and accomplishments that set them apart from other players–or simply present challenges.
• People with high Explorer scores tend to enjoy finding all of the unique areas of the world, often enjoying the immersion of the experience. Finding a place with unique monsters and seeing what those monsters do is usually more fun for an Explorer than defeating the monsters themselves.
• People with high Killer scores prefer the player-versus-player aspect of any game more than anything offered by the environment. They often relish the adrenaline and challenge of pitting themselves against real players.
• People with high Socializer scores enjoy interacting with other people, forming organizations, and finding cooperative solutions to the challenges within the virtual world.

Although the test is now somewhat old, the results are still a very good match. If you want to try it on your own go to this page and just answer the 30 questions. That’s all, done in under 5 minutes and it’s fun.

Just a little reminder

Bartholomew Gallacher 21. Februar 2007 0 Kommentare

When you’re the owner of a good going business and are in the process of setting up your brand new arrived sim, better be sure that your access list is setup the way you think it should be. Why? Well, because when you’re talking about the sim’s name in public at your well frequented business, you never know who might overhear it and goes there to take a look around. Oh, and taking it in your pics is also not so good, then.

New pest coming around: banner ads

Bartholomew Gallacher 21. Februar 2007 0 Kommentare

A new pest is forming up in Second Life: newbies going around with banner ads (and similar objects), getting paid for it the usual rates (2-4 L$ / 10 minutes). The benefit for them? Well, they can move in contrary to camping chairs or dancing pods, so I expect to see a drastical increase in such kind of advertisement.

The benefit for the people „employing“ them? Very cheap advertisements running around nearly everywhere.

The drawbacks? Well, for me:

• Bad karma and bad image. I would never do business with such a store/shop/company who litters the landscape of SL with such kind of garbage.
• It ruins many places, because the banners are something that catches your eye.
• The people doing it do this normally without asking, just come in with it and walk around, so they are in many places in for an ejection or ban. Go figure.

And here is a nice screenshot of such a guy dancing around in the garden of Intimate Moment’s with such a banner ad:

I asked him two times to put this thing off, and he complied. Lucky him, otherwise I would have ejected him.

In the same league play for me guys going to an event with a vendor’s tray hooked up. I’ve seen it already twice on events of us, some weird looking guy came in with a drawn weapon and a vendor’s tray full of cigars and other stuff.  I just hate such behaviour and when I see such a guy I’m on a very short fuse.

New profile pics

Bartholomew Gallacher 16. Februar 2007 0 Kommentare

I finally took the time to let take new pictures from me for my profile by a photographer. Without further adago here they are:

I’ve placed the colored picture in my profile. Those nice pictures were made at the Serenite Gardens, a very nice setting there. The photographer was Melodious Source, I can recommend her without doubt. A great artist and wonderful personna!

SL roundup

Bartholomew Gallacher 13. Februar 2007 0 Kommentare

After not posting entries for some days, I’ve got to dequeue my queued posts now. So, with no further delay here they are:

• SL had terrible problems yesterday. They bunch varied from not being able to login to problems with teleporting up to problems with the assets. So it was unsafe to use the inventory at all. This reminds us: when you really want to do business in SL, the platform tends to be fairly unstable. Count that always in. The whole drama lasted over 10 hours. Hopefully it is over now.
• Zee Linden posted an Excel spreadsheet about the key measures of SL. Very interesting read, you should give it a read. There are some big differences from SL’s statistics to other games, and it shows. For example:
  • The time of hours spent online per month seems to grow exponential at the moment.
  • There is a big growth in land. But the area covered by private islands is 2.5 times bigger than by the mainland (102.72 square kms mainland compared to 258,08 square kms private islands).
  • Also again: big economy growth in world and big growth in the sales of the LindeX.
  • Also as it seems a big exponential groth in the number of residents at all, but the number of premiums more in some kind of linear growth, also taking off right now, too.
  • The top 100 countries of the residents: 31.19% from USA, 12.73% from France, 10.46 % from Germany, 8.09 % from the Netherlands. I would have thought that more people are coming from the USA, but it shows that the audience of SL is truly international and not dominated by US residents only. So this leads of course to separated communities and some gated communities, too.
  • Average age on the main grid: 33. Bummer. Now this is really worth mentioning it. The audience in SL seems to be much older than in other online games, which makes it of course more interesting for commercials, real life companies entering it and so on and on.
  • More males using it than females (58,89% male compared to 41.11% female), though the female population keeps growing and growing.
• RL issues are coming strongly into SL, too, right now and this is going to be a big, big thing. Mainly: violation of copyrights. It is the title theme of The Avastar from last week. Only because there were not really actions taken against some people because SL was not on the radar of the companies and copyright holders at all does mean that it is safe to use copyrighted material. On the contrary, RL copyright of course applies also to the in world. This is a lesson people should have learned from the booming days of the Internet already, but history seems to repeat itself right now. For example they are interviewing King Pascale who sells his articles under real life brand names like Gucci, D&G, Chanel and so on. Now this guy seems to come from Denmark. The graphical ad for his shop looks like this:
  
  To cite him:

  I don’t do anything illegal. Producing articles and use of real life brands is forbidden. However, I don’t only sell on what other people create for me. I got it in writing from the Lindens that it was not illegal to sell on RL brands.

  Dude, you are sooo wrong! When a brand is copyrighted, it can be applied to several fields. For example the name of a computer must not apply to gardening utilities and so on. But what you are doing is to use the already established brand names to sell your own goods and make your own profit out of them. Read my lips: when a brand owner/copyright owner is going to sue you, and this is bound to happen sooner or later, you will be sued. Period. Don’t take the naive stance, it is not going to help you. Only a letter from the Lindens is no absolution that never anything will happen to you or binding legal consultation at all. Go to a lawyer with experience in this field and ask him for a consultation in that matter – and be quick! Be so quick!

• Of course violation of copyright does also include streaming music, videos and much more fields to cover. With the rush of RL companies into SL expect them to take some actions against it. Otherwise you’re naive.
• Another matter if importance are the still way too much high prices for land on the mainland. The prices are still not falling down, despite some other opinions. It seems that there are still land buying bots in the grid, buying new land under your feet. The Lindens should really do something about it, like introducing Captchas and other countermeasures. This is getting frustrated.