31 October, 2008

the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

This one's short, though not sweet: Primverness is burning.

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What, you thought I was kidding?

Lady CoyoteAngel Dimsum has set her sims ablaze in protest of the proposed OpenSpace sim price hike.

Further details on that--Desmond Shang has confirmed that at the largest of the protests to date, Linden Labs began forcibly logging out protesting avatars. He saw it happen.

The conflict still rages on Vryl Valkyrie's notoriously ridiculous decision to boot three thousand members from the Save Our Sims group.

We now have people virtually setting themselves ablaze.

Is it Second Life's second revolution?

People, this is now out of hand, officially. The Lindens need to wake up and realize what people will, and will not, put up with.

Because the alternative is not grumbling but paying, as they seem to think. The alternative is...leaving SL.

When SL is really the ghost town the stories paint it, who's going to pay for the game, then?

Unfortunately, the simplest solution is also daunting--because I like it here. Others like it here. We have homes, jobs, friends, some have families...we don't want to walk away from what we've made, of ourselves and the game.

I think we're looking at a lose-lose option, any way it goes. And that is the true tragedy in this.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The former outpost of the Caledon Volunteer Fire Brigade laid waste... It is cold comfort that Captain Projects is not alive to see this...

Emilly Orr said...

Cold comfort, indeed. She'd be horrified.

But that's one of many outrunners for how pervasive this has gotten. We have endured too much for too long, and this may have been straw for the camel--the single thing that causes grid-wide protest.

Well, that's *already* causing grid-wide protest...

Anonymous said...

No taxation without representation.
That simple.

I of course, have left. Any paying accounts I have will fold into basic accounts and I will just log on once maybe every six months or so until Linden actually extends their experiment in virtual environments to include

a) zero lag
b) zero involvment

Linden needs to call for a constitutional conference.

Then, they actually need to attend - and make it so that its zero lag, which they can do.

I learned alot from SL, but the cycle of the hero - as Bill Campbell put it - is to leave the war and return to the people and lift them up.

There are alot of people who might just radiate out of SL, as I have - with a bit more enlightenment regarding what is actual democracy, online rights - digital domain that serves us well into the 21st century.


And of course, Linden will go broke.

so, its up to them. Call a constitutional conference. Or watch SL slowly die away (which is what its been doing, despite the way they want to count alts in the headcount)

Anonymous said...

by the way , emily I am pretty sure you know exactly who this is. =) long time no see. hope all is well with you. did you get published again?

Emilly Orr said...

Oh yes, I know. :)

The thing that many people aren't quite getting, though, you included--this isn't a democracy, it's a business. There will be no constitutional conference. Second Life can continue fading for over a decade before LL really has to look at the bottom line and think, okay, this isn't profitable anymore, what can we do?

And even then, the residents of SL--what every other business call clients or users of the service--won't be considered as a native population, but as a demographic. Who's playing it now? Who's staying through the mania? Who's stopped logging in? Who's transited from premium to basic?

It's all numbers and the bottom line. Remember, remember, the 5th of November...? Not in commercial enterprises.

And that's exactly what SL is. If we want them to feel anything, we have to think like a commercial enterprise.

And by and large...the residents just aren't doing that.

Emilly Orr said...

And no, not yet. Still working on it. Brief flirtation with in-world publishing until the Metaverse Messenger bounced me. Still two outstanding journalist fees for articles published they never paid me. (I don't expect ever to see it, I'm just noting it in passing.)

But I'm still putting the story together, and working on outlining another. I'll get there.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...