PSYKE!!

Vive9 announced on their blog on March 16th that due to mysterious RL (that is Real Life for you slow kids) issues they would be closing up shop. So they decided to have a sale. They decided to sell their skins for cheap, fatpacks going at around1k. The store flooded, people were crying about not getting in. Money was poured into their coffers as the vultures of SL Fashion circled over head, aiming at prize peaces of meat.

Fast forward to today. March 29th.

Word comes to us from our embedded correspondent in the Mean Girls Fashion Emergency Group (I made up the Mean Girls part…..or did I? Maybe Hot Tranny Mess Fashion Emergency Group who knows…) that the sale is off! Vive9 is staying in Second Life!

What happened Vive9? Did you make enough money off the fake leaving sale?

Tags: Fraud, Liar, Sale, Scam, Second Life, Vive9

In my continuing quest to find shit to do in Second Life I have discovered that Ivey and Roblem from Sn@tch have opened up a little lounge type club called “The Volcano Room”. So far out of the few clubs I have been to lately it is my favorite. It’s nicely decorated, not too big, not too small, and doesn’t have badly animated pictures of chicks in reverse silicon cowgirl. The music is varied as well. Anything from Goth to mashups and some country thrown in for good measure.

Today however is there Grand Opening. It is also the 70th Birthday of Chuck “I will totally be El Jefe of Texas” Norris. They are planning on having DJ’s from Noon SLT to 1amSLT.

The schedule is as follows:

• 12-2pm: DJ Ylva Korhonen
• 2-4pm: DJ DoomCookie
• 4-6pm: DJ Enzuru Onizuka
• 6-8pm: DJ Julian Battitude
• 8-10pm: DJ Zarabella Ming
• 10pm-1am: DJ Dov Watanabe

They will be having trivia throughout the grand opening in regards to “Our Lord of the Jumping Spinning Side Kick”. Gift Cards to Sn@tch will be rewarded. A good time will be had by all. So I expect to see some of you at The Volcano Room

Tags: Clubs, Events, Second Life, Sn@tch

As some of you may have noticed, it’s been a long time between posts here on Atomic Valley. For various reasons (the least of which the incredible amount of stupid floating around in the Second Life Community) I kind of lost steam. The desire to even take pictures and go “Hey this is the shit I am wearing” was gone as well.  After a time away I have decided to pick up the keyboard once again and administer textual (that may not be a word and if it isn’t I just claimed rights to it) beatings to those who so desperately deserve it. And with all that being said there are going to be a few changes to Atomic Valley Policy.

Read the rest of this entry »

At 11:14AM Pink Linden released a blog post detailing a new pilot program to help we, the Second Life Residents protect our IP rights. It involves an electronic form to be filled out by the offended party

Starting today, we will be inviting a small group of Resident content creators to be testers in our pilot program, which is a very early phase of testing our improvements to date. Given the technical complexity of the process, we are starting with a small group to help test the process thoroughly. During the program, we’ll collect feedback on the experiences of different testers using the improved process, with the goal of releasing these improvements more broadly as soon as possible.

A small group of residents based on their “experience” and who have “demonstrated an interest” in the content theft issues will be invited to test out this well for lack of a better term “online form” . This of course is all part of their content management roadmap.

So far according to this road map (speaking of which remind never to go on a roadt rip with these kids)

• They will improve the complaint process. This is actually a good thing. However, given past history with the Lab I am concerned about how they implement it. Basically will I have to send stuff in four times or have you streamlined the process down with your “Complex technical stuff” to only require sending it in in triplicate.
• New Features for Content Licensing. Okay, I am going to be honest here. Normally, I am pretty good at sifting through the double speak and corporate bullshit to get what they’re saying. That section however was either written by somebody who is either A: clinically insane B: On Drugs C: All of the above. From what I gather it’s a form of sticky license that will allow you to retain rights for their stand alone product. (Yes, because apparently people want to play Second Life ALL BY THEMSELVES).
  
• Standard Industry Practices for Copying Tools: I know, we can’t control the rats. So we shall regulate them. Yes, I know that there are legitimate reasons for using copying tools. Namely Linden Lab’s inability to actually keep their database servers from eating our inventory. But I am incredibly curious about how this will be done. I believe in that section they are referring to taking stuff out of Second Life and onto one of the other mom and pop grids. Which, last I checked isn’t the major problem. Way to stay ahead of the game there.
• The Content Seller Program. Look, as I said before. This is extortion. They offer you protection that you have to pay for to protect you from something they have the ability to stop and or control. These people can not be trusted to keep your inventory on the servers, to react reasonably to questions, and to come up with fair policies and then implement them in a manner which is both efficient and logical. And you’re going to trust them with your products? Fool me once and all that jazz.
• The education program. You know, if you hire an outside source to run this education program then frankly I think it might be a good thing. If the Lab does it by itself then it will end horribly. I am going to make a generalization here and if it gets me in trouble, fine whatever. People on the Internet are for the most part stupid. Linden Lab already has a serious communication problem with their customers. Their blog entries seem to consist of a mild hint of point with an extra helping of unnecessary words thrown in. Most of the time it’s aggravating and sometimes it’s confusing. A resident run program in reality won’t work either for the very same reason. They’ll be playing middle man to the Lab’s double speak and leave it wide open for interpretation. We need professional bullshit artists to come in and lay it on thick for us in a clear and concise manner.

If you want your voice to be heard, please go to the Second Life Wiki.  Find Linden office hours and attend them and give them your input. Be nice about it though as I am pretty sure most of them are actually humans.

In what can only be described as an extra helping of stupid on top of the serious case of dumb we’ve already had this week from the “employees” of Linden Lab. Not only do we get to now give LL our hard earned Lindens for hosting our items on the hot piece of steaming mess known as XStreet, and not only are we getting force fed their “protection” via a new plan they somehow thought was a good idea (Hey kids, I’ve been to San Francisco…good times…good drugs….but seriously put down the fucking pipe), they now believe it is gaming the traffic system if you have employees.

This link right here: Ta-Da! It’s correspondence between Linden Lab and a store owner who has done rather well for themselves and is  fortunate enough to be able to provide Second Life residents with jobs as customer service representatives. Apparently, that is not allowed however. In fact, she recently got everybody’s favorite email:

Dear Store Owner,

This email is notification of action regarding your Second Life account,
+++++++++, for violation of the Second Life Terms of Service or
Community Standards. The violation in question occurred on November 10,
2009 in the region of Richfield.

Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic Violation

As of the 1st May 2009, the use of bots or camping to game
Traffic values will be considered a violation.

Whether a landowner uses Bots or Camping Chairs, or Camping
Chairs with Bots in them, the effect is the same – the
traffic value for that parcel is inflated unfairly (and
therefore Search rankings).

Attempting to gain an unfair Search advantage, by the use
of Bots or Camping to inflate the Traffic for a parcel, will
be considered a violation. This policy applies to both
Mainland and Private Estates as both are represented in
Search.

If you continue to violate this policy, your account may be
suspended and the parcels relating to the violation maybe
removed from Search listings altogether.

For further information, see the following blog posts
http://tr.im/sl_camping and http://tr.im/sl_bots

If you are using bots/scripted agents on your land, please
look to self identify these accounts, for further
information please see this blog post
http://tr.im/sl_agentstatus

If you are going to have avatars as models they must be registered as
scripted agents.

Action:
No additional action is being taken at this time.

Appeal Process:
The decision to suspend your Second Life access was reached after
investigation of your use of the Second Life software and service. If you
would like to appeal your suspension, you may contact Second Life Support,
in writing, at the address below:

Second Life Support
Linden Lab
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111

You may also appeal electronically by filing a support ticket at
http://www.secondlife.com/support For more information on this process,
please see this KnowledgeBase article http://bit.ly/hBIjz

Please provide relevant information that you believe would explain the
above violation.  Linden Lab reserves sole discretion in considering
whether to take any action on an appeal.

Please note that for electronically submitted appeals, due to the nature
of the ticket, it may take upto 72 hours to receive an initial decision on
your abuse appeal.

Sincerely,
Linden Lab

Seriously? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? So, we can’t actually have employees. But we can register bots and that’s okay? You’re anti-bot policy is now: Real People Bad Fake People Good?

So the store owner  replies and asks some rather important questions.

Did you check the Knowledge Base?:  Yes, and I have further questions
Preferred Language:  English
Details:  As far as I was aware paid models doing a job were allowed onto a sim? I just received an account suspension warning for campers/bots…. I have NO campers or bots. The items returned to me are model stands, that the models have to be assiged to a group via invite only, they are asked to fill out job application forms, they have tip jars, they are modeling my clothes that I made at my store and are there to help my customers. They have rules stating they are not allowed to be away from the keyboard for any period of time. So we are not allowed staff now??? Can someone please clear up for me what the differance is between paying staff for doing a job and camping? I know of plenty of other stores with paid models and campers and bots and I really start to feel like you target me.
Can you please tell me why I am not allowed paid staff??
I need my staff there to help and guide customers, so why am I not allowed them or not allowed to pay them?
Thank you.

Makes sense. Staff make the shopping experience more enjoyable for the average consumer. They are there to answer questions and they keep people from constantly bugging content creators. It makes sense, less stressed creators equals more products, happier customers equal more money spent. Kind of win/win isn’t it? I mean I’m sure the money grubbing monkeys at the lab will even get their piece of the action due to it.Apparently……not.

Hello, Store Owner:

Thanks for contacting customer support.  Model bots are allowed however each bot is required to be identified as a scripted agent: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Scripted_Agent_Status. This is so traffic results will not be affected by these bots.  You run a risk of further disciplinary action against your account because can not view someone else’s scripted agent status however any model bots on your land must have this setting enabled.  What you may do instead is subdivide small parcels for the model bots to be on that have About Land > Show Place in Search disabled.

Regards,

Frontier Linden

I enjoy watching the Lindens respond to emails. It gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside your chest like when you finally realize that no, the person is not actually reading what he is responding to, and did indeed copy paste that shit straight out of the manual he lives and dies by.

So the store owner, obviously frustrated decides to check to see if good ol Frontier has bothered to read the original email. (My guess is no.)

Reopened  +++++++ Can you please re-read my email to you, they are NOT bots!!
The models were real live people there to help customers, earning a base rate of pay, they have to fill in application forms, have knowledge of my store and products, not go afk, be in the correct group.
Why am I not allowed paid staff????

Please do not tell me about bots, I have NO interest in bots, I don’t use bots and I never will. I need real staff on my land which you are saying I can not have? Not one single bot could have been on my pose stands, I know this as everyone has to fill in forms and tests with basic questions before being invited into the group.
So please tell me why am I not allowed staff?

Seems fairly reasonable. Upon talking with the store owner, the models/CSR’s have very specific rules. They are encouraged to interact with customers and are paid through pose stands spread throughout the area. These are not bots. These are RL people who earn money to buy stuff in Second Life by doing this.

Frontier replies. As you can guess it’s mostly the same old song and patterned response tap dance.

These residents may not be bots however traffic calculations are still being artificially inflated.  In order to avoid further disciplinary action in the future, these options are available:

- They should have their scripted agent status set to true.  Please keep in mind you will not be able to confirm that they have done this.

- Create a separate parcel of land and disable About Land > Show Place in Search.

This will allow you to have paid staff without inflating traffic results by mistake.

So, the anti-botting policy now covers actual people. And the solutions make me giggle.

Solution 1: Create a separate parcel to house said real people and have it not show up in traffic. Great idea! (no not really)

Solution 2: Have the real people set themselves to appear as bots. So…about that logic. Or maybe the lack of it. I can’t really decide on this one. Of course, you can’t actually check to see if your employees do this.

The traffic is not being artificially inflated. In that logic lies idiocy. Those are real people doing what they are paid to do. Artificially inflated traffic? Try actually busting down on those pathetic BIAB owners who bot the hell up and then create a new account when suspended. Until then, Linden Lab? Seriously? Shut the fuck up.

The store owner responds over and over again, asking for clarification and gets stonewalled by a case of dumb the likes of which I have not seen since the “boycott”.

This idiot policy calls into question the ability to have employees for anything. What about ye olde local SL strip club? No hosts? No DJ’s, No dancers? Those are all paid employees. Do they not increase traffic? How long am I the store/club/whatever owner allowed to stay there. Am I not increasing my traffic?

Why not actually take the time to come up with a bot policy that is actually understandable and works. Or better yet, blanket policy. No more registering bots for second life. Instead let us just remove all of them. No bots at all. Want to have models and what not? Actually help the economy in Second Life by hiring people like this author did.

These policies stacking up are going to lead to several things. The big stores will fail thanks to Linden help while the small stores will continue to do so-so. Less people will cash out (which is what LL is hoping for). And somehow the Lindens will post happy things about it. Followed of course by their resident cheerleader Torley. (Seriously? After you fucked us on XStreet and everything else you’re going to send Torley out to talk to us like we’re 5?). For some though, they’ll get it. And instead of writing in chalk outside Linden Lab at the next SLCC, there may be more people doing this.

Tags: Dumb, Linden Lab, Second Life

In only what can be described as S-Week (S stands for Screw by the way) Linden Lab has felt the need to drop multiple bombshells on its patrons (read: employers).  The news quite frankly is not good. In fact it looks much like a Abe Vigoda/Bea Arthur Sex Tape.

We’re going to start with the oldest and work our way to the newest. I am going to give you my honest opinion on what exactly is wrong with what they are saying and exactly how they can fix it.

Pink Linden wants to know what we’re feeling. Wants to know what is on our mind.

In fact she sent out a survey asking us what we thought about some ideas in order to…..actually it’s not very specific. I would venture to guess help curtail content theft. Let me check here one second…

Okay I found it. Basically they’ve come up with these vendors. You put your wares into said vendors for sale. LL takes a 10-15% commission for said sales. Also, for the low low price of 5-10USD per item it can be cross listed on XStreet (would they make the listing for you? It’d almost be worth it if they would do that so you didn’t have to deal with the mess known as creating a listing on XStreet) and you would get “premium” listings . Oh and there will be a Merchant program to give us tools to sell our stuff. The cost? Only a measly 10USD to 100USD depending on the volume of our sales. Also if we’re willing to “donate” 30% of our sales to the Lab, and pay all the other fees. We can indeed have a free spot in the mall! Isn’t that fantastic? I’ll tell you what, makes me happier than Glen Beck snorting cocaine off Sarah Palin’s ass. Now then….

A few points.

1. Let’s be honest with each other shall we? This is going to happen. Yes I know you made another blog post detailing how this was all just information gathering but really now, who exactly do you think you’re fooling? I mean yes, you were information gathering. But in the whole “Hey, we’re going to do this. I wonder how bad it will piss them off” sense.
2. Just so I am clear. You actually won’t take a proactive stance towards content theft. However, you’ll be happy to have us register and essentially pay for your protection. There is a word for that. Let me find my dictionary one second……..oh I found it. Extortion
3. At this point, I would go ahead and change your motto. It’s no longer “Your World You Imagination”. It is now “Welcome to Second Life: Arbeit macht frei”

The XStreet “Free Ride” is OVER!

Yes that is right boys and girls. As of 1:53PM today the gig is up according to Colossus Linden. Coming soon to everybody’s favorite merchant website will now be charging you. For what you ask? I will break it down by the magic of copy pasting.

Monthly Listing Fee for Freebies of L$99:

• Listings for free items will now be treated as a marketing/promotional tool and thus will have a price.
• L$99 is the price of our least expensive listing enhancement and so we will start there.
• Depending upon desire for this marketing opportunity and perceived value given such demand, we will adjust the price as necessary to maximize this value and keep the freebie listings from becoming bloated again.
• Expected Delivery: 30 – 60 days

Minimum Commission of L$3 on all items priced L$1 or greater:

• We will enact a minimum commission of L$3 on all sales of non-freebie listings.
• Since Freebie listings are now considered marketing and are charged as such, they will not incur this fee.
• A L$3 commission will raise the commission on all listings under L$50.  This was a range suggested by residents, but it turns out that this is the price range where there is a very high transaction volume and low commission income which combine to cover the costs of those transactions.
• We may adjust this minimum commission as we see its effects on the marketplace.  L$3 does not cover the full cost of a transaction, but the goal here is first to manage freebie growth first.
• Expected Delivery: 30 – 60 days

Monthly Listing Fee of L$10 for all items L$1 or greater:

• All non-freebie listings will now be charged L$10 per month to remain listed in the Xstreet SL Marketplace
• Currently, less than 20% of Xstreet SL listings make at least one sale per month.  This displays just how much clutter of unsold items exists on Xstreet SL.
• Doing this will provide an incentive for merchants to remove listings which are not selling, while keeping this fee low enough to have a minimal effect on listings which are selling and are desired by shoppers.
• By reducing the overall number of listings on Xstreet SL, the shopping experience will drastically improve which will please our shoppers and be a boon to the business of all of our merchants.
• Expected Delivery: 60 – 90 days

Separate freebies into their own category:

• There is already a freebie section on Xstreet SL.  This section will become the place to browse for new freebies.
• We will remove free listings from the browsable categories and keyword search results on Xstreet SL.
• Expected Delivery: 60 – 90 days

That’s right! Want to list a FREEBIE on XStreet? That’ll be 99L. Why? Because XStreet is currently a fat bloated slow moving pig. And of course! The only solution is to charge. For everything! Yes, if XStreet has LESS listings it will make more money for you and it will run smoother.

I swear to god the baby died from impact before the bathwater even touched it.

So let me get this straight. You’ve already ruled out the following solutions to the XStreet Problem.

• You’ve obviously cleared out all of the content that violated copyrights correct? If I type: Coke, Nike,Miller, Coors, or anything like that it will come up empty yes?
• You’ve upscaled in correlation to the growing demand on your servers.
• You’ve learned how to make and run a database
• You asked one of your investors (E-BAY) how to do this correctly?

You’ve done all those things? Well I guess the obvious solution is to of course charge your residents an arm and a leg for the use of something that you took money for anyways. Will putting an item up be any easier? Will you get us our money in a timley manner with this change?

I am going to shoot straight here for a moment. Lindens, were you any of the employees I have under me in the company I work for and you came up to me with these great and innovative ideals….well

I hear you meet the most interesting people in unemployment lines.

But I am leaving out an important part here. In these trying economic times, when belts are tightening are you helping the people responsible for your paychecks? Are you making things easier for those who use Second Life as a supplemental income to help with food, bills, rent, etc? No, you’re not. You are finding new and innovative ways to milk more money out of us. And for that, Shame on you Linden Lab.

Also I am going to verbalize what a whole bunch of people are thinking after your announcements. Fuck You Linden Lab, Fuck You Very Much.

Want to make a difference? Pull all of your stuff off Xstreet and check out these alternatives:

Slapt.me

Meta-Life

Metaverse Exchange

Tags: Jumping The Shark, Linden Lab, News

Remember remember the Fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot….

Hello dear readers, you may remember on Monday I posted a little commentary on the user run hit squads. In it, I stated that they are indeed inherently flawed and that in the end they will do more harm and than good. I had no idea that the Führerette and her council of minions would completely blow it this soon.  Recently Führerette made a plurk announcing their latest plan to help “prevent content theft”. A boycott. But not just any boycott Ladies and Gentlemen! Instead they’ve decided to boycott legitimate businesses and content creators. Their plan involves shutting down everything for two whole days. According to the notecard obtained by our elite cadre of highly trained ferrets, a notecard is being passed around that states the following:

On the 5th of November, the Artist’s Voice will be encouraging its members and the community to STOP. Stop buying L$, stop selling L$, stop uploading, stop creating, stop shopping, stop selling, stop blogging! Just STOP!

The effect of the content creation community in Second Life is huge. If we all banded together for 48 hours and just STOPPED – we could really send a message to Linden Lab that we will NO LONGER tolerate content theft, and show them – and ourselves – how much of an effect we have on the SL community. This will only work, however, if we ALL work together.

If you want to participate, you will be doing a great service for yourself and the community. If you don’t, please notecard me with one idea for a campaign you would be willing to participate in. Of course, this is completely voluntary, but we would really like it if you participated.

We have several solutions for creators who may find “STOP SELLING” a major task.

CREATORS:

1) Put ban lines around your land after first warning your groups of your intentions and putting it on your blog. Then set up prim signs for “Artist’s Voice” around, so that people know why. You can even set it up to give a notecard with an explanation.

2) Put prims up in front of your items with the texture provided below. Most people stop at the first road block – this will be as effective. If you rent at a mall, please clear this with your mall’s landlord first.

3) Block your shop’s doorways with prims that show the 5th of November texture. Set the prim to give a notecard explanation and a copy of the texture.

4) Please note there is a loophole in all of this – you may still sell $0L freebies! It’s not making the economy any money.

Texture to use on prims for this campaign:

SHOPPERS: STOP buying for 48 hours! You may start again on November 7th. This includes ALL L$ transactions. NO L$ TRANSACTIONS.

BLOGGERS: STOP blogging for 48 hours! On November 4th, post a message on your blog saying you are STOPPING for 48 hours and then don’t post again until Nov. 7th!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS! This movement will be NOTHING unless YOU get involved!

Please encourage your customers, your friends, your colleagues, your fellow designers, to STOP this November 5th for 48 hours!  Pass them this notecard!

This folks is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I have seen in Second Life. Let me get this straight in order to prevent content theft, we’re going to stop buying and selling legitimate goods? Why surely that would stop the content thieves dead in their tracks. Surely the Lindens will notice that they’re not making money from one section of Second Life and immediately take action!

In a word? Bullshit.

Let me be perfectly clear, it is my opinion that this tactic will only result in the loss of business by legitimate business owners. Second Life users are by their very nature a fickle lot and if banned from a store for no good reason then the word of mouth will spread and the store will hemorrhage money. To think that a two day shutdown of commercial business amongst in what is in reality a very small percentage of users is going to attract the attention of Linden Lab is incredibly foolish. Instead establishing open dialog, attending town meetings, and office hours and actually go about educating users about the dangers and consequences of content theft. Teach new users how to file successful abuse reports when they find stolen content. People are already aware of content theft. Educating them on what to do about it in the end will be the answer. Not this nonsense of stopping all business.

Will the powers-that-pretend-to-be blackball those who do not subscribe to this ridiculous plan? I am leaning towards yes. According to chat logs received and based on past behavior  it leans towards a cute little form of McCarthyism. Isn’t that cute?

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the various logs received through the FNN (Ferret News Network)

Tenshi
Why are you guys so willing to complain and so unwilling to even participate in a 48 hour protest? That’s completely silly imho.

Tenshi
I’m not saying they don’t, I’m saying 48 hours won’t kill ANYONE.

Tenshi
Hell, it might even drum up more business after the fact

Tenshi
If news blogs pick up on this and have a list of the stores participating, people will make note of that and probably want to visit

Tenshi
you guys are RIDICULOUS. You’re not even willing to TRY! Look at you put up a fight for even 48 hours!

Tenshi
That’s pathetic!

Tenshi
Okay so you’re willing to take the money and the risks then with content theft. Fine. The next time I see any of you putting your heels in

Tenshi
the ground against content theft I’m just going to laugh at you.

This is the leader of the “Artist’s Voice” folks. Pay no attention to the crackpot behind the curtain. This is the person who wants to hurt your businesses, inhibit your legal shopping. This person for “the greater good” wants to take money out of your pockets. This same person has made the statement that 2 days of no sales wouldn’t be that big of a deal (Which should tell you how much she actually sells). And the following people agree with her.

Arabella Steadham
Kat Alderson
Ayumi Shinn
Darkley Aeon
Rebel Hope As it stands. Rebel Hope didn’t even know this was going on and apparently is not for it.
Tracy Rubble
Teagan Blackthorne
Arwyn Quandry

If your sales suffer on these two days (November 5th and 6th), don’t blame the content thieves. Blame these people who sought to “protect” you. Blame the ridiculousness of this user run hit squad.

And do not let this be forgot.

Let me first say that yes, content theft is a major problem in Second Life and something does need to be done about it officially. I do have to wonder though, are user formed hit squads the solution?

I for one do not think so. For several reasons.

1: The user run hit squads do not have the same resources as Linden Lab

2: The people who buy stolen content don’t actually give a shit what you think.

3: The people who rip content are in the same boat. They’re in it to make money, as long as the people who buy stolen content don’t give a shit what you think then they’ll keep making money and in all truth there is jack and his friend shit you can do about it.

4: It’s run by residents. Any mention of being impartial is the gentle breeze caused by smoke being blown up your ass. It’s run by residents who can, will, and do hold grudges. Residents who enjoy nothing more than playing the political game known as “Sweet Second Life High”. Anybody who thinks this won’t possibly happen is probably wearing a special helmet right now so they don’t hurt themselves anymore.

5: You preach about things called transparency and education and then make people submit applications.

6: You make titles for yourselves like Chancellor (Sup Führerette) and Council and other completely pretentious titles insuring that nobody with a half a brain is going to take you seriously and write you off as another lame attempt at role playing some form of government

7: Some of you may indeed borrow content. And by borrow I mean user without permission or giving credit for the work.

8: You use bad examples. Like this for instance

See the competitor’s logo on the bottom right? Yeah that is Apple’s old logo.

9: You need to be credible. And I mean spic and fracking span. Callie Cline in theory would have very little problem. But if you have a background in drama and a history of throwing down accusations left and right and oh say hiring griefers using an alt to attack a alleged content thief’s  Sim then no it’s not going to work.

10: There are 4 of you already. It seems to happen that way, a number of you will pop up at once. You’ll eventually get into a “My e-dick is sooo big that” war and you will all fizzle out. But don’t worry there are at least four more that will pop up afterwards and the cycle of dumb will continue on the great hamster wheel known as Second Life. Just like it always does

On October 17th 2009 Robert Bowling from Infinity Ward did a podcast with the folks at BASHandSLASH to promote the highly anticipated game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ and frankly PC games and gaming have not been the same since. Some including BASHandSLASH are referring to it as Black Saturday.

Basically what Infinity Ward and Activision/Blizzard have done is slapped the entire PC gaming community in the face. How did they do this? They removed the ability to have dedicated servers. Dedicated servers have been a backbone of the PC multiplayer gaming scene since they days of Half Life. They have allowed communities to form on different servers, they have allowed server admins to run their own set of rules (some good, some bad) and they have allowed the more creative to make mods and maps which in turn extend the playing time of a title by adding new things constantly.

Instead they hand us a little thing they call IW.Net which is what they’ll be force feeding all PC users for what I suspect is now on. IW.Net is going to be run through Steam. It’s going to be a matchmaking system much like what they have for consoles. This make no mistake about it, is a very very very bad thing mostly because it users p2p. Which if everybody’s hardware is the same (like you have with consoles) is a very okay thing. However, not everybody’s computer is the same so basically we’ll be sharing ALL of the lag. It’s even worse if you’re an international player because there will be no dedicated servers in your area. Instead you will be playing American players and with that their latency.

But I am getting slightly off track here.

Apparently, Robert Bowling was off in Europe promoting the game. When he got back and saw the petitions, the seriously pissed off forums, and the really angry tweets he hopped onto his blog and released a lovely bit of fluff.

There have and will continue to be reprecussions from this deception (Bowling stated earlier this year that nothing in multiplayer would change). Already thousands of people have cancelled their preorders (at 60 USD a pop), other game developers such as Dice are capitalizing on this fuck up, and people have begun to put two and two together and are cancelling their WoW  accounts since it’s now Activision/Blizzard.  It’s recieved numerous 1 star reviews on Amazon UK and the price is actually already beginning to drop.

So the writing is on the wall PC Game Developers. If we can afford and build gaming rigs, we can also afford not to buy into your bullshit. That’s what consoles are for.

So it was recently announced that our fashion challenged overlord was leaving Linden Lab for greener pastures. You know, that observation would actually make sense if he was actually you know…leaving the Lab. He’s not though, not really. Instead he’s stated he will remain chairman and is going to start his own business (with at least two confirmed residents) that will “revolutionize” Second Life.

We’ve all heard the Revolutionize song and dance before. Everytime The Lab issues the new and shiny edict they like to use that word. And in the end it’s still the same. Mostly broken feature with very little support provided. So in the end everytime we hear “Revolutionize” from the Lab we end up thinking this:

Want to Revolutionize the Second Life Experience? It’s not going to be with bringing SL products into the RL (which is what it is rumored that Phil is working on). Instead I am going to give you a list of things that will revolutionize Second Life.

1. Actually provide solid customer service (I know, I am thinking outside the box)
2. Make it so when I put on a pose my avatar’s hand is not chanting “Kali Ma Shakti de”
3. Mesh Importation. Yes, I know this is in the works but hurry it up already
4. Actually fix snapshots
5. Finally allow us to share windlight settings in world like you promised
6. Fix Busy so our stuff doesn’t go to trash.
7. Ban Profoky Neva
8. Make Second Life Adults Only. Yes I know it’s supposed to be but when you have 16yr old shits like Francois/Krez running around your credibility goes out the window. Also if you made SL adults only you could end that disaster you call Shinra Zindra.
9. DirectX. And before you Apple geeks start crying they actually have directX for apples. Not sure about Linux but who cares, price you pay for being all indie.
10. Custom Names from initial registration. Is it really so hard to do without charging us an arm and a leg?

What would you change or add to the list?