NotReadyforRentals Life

I finally got my sim delivered at OpenLife, after complaining that they don't notify you of the time it takes to deliver a sim. I got an email thus about 5 days after purchase, and a notice that I was now enabled for the Foundation member chat and toolbox. The toolbox appears to have no actual tools. I think all it does is change the sub-name or something. My avatar's name was spelled wrong, so there isn't a system that matches this automatically obviously.

OpenLife isn't really ready for mainland rentals. They are claiming -- and making their boosters claim -- that by having parceling ability on the mainland sims now that you can now have rentals.

But you can't, because there are no groups, and no group land. Rentals are very hard without being able to group land. Obviously, they didn't study this sort of facet of a virtual world, as they are obsessed with geeky stuff like RealExtend.

If I hear one more person laud RealExtend I'm going to puke. It's like the great communist future that can't put food in a starving belly today. It's some sort of avatar editor -- and so what? It does nothing for the average person, and even if it offers more creative capacity for making avatars or clothes or whatever, without a secure monetary system and currency exchange, what is the incentive? They also constantly brag that your can use a 3-D editor to import your creations. Again, whoop de doo -- but without money, a currency exchange, and most important, copyright protections and a spirit of protecting intellectual property (utterly absent from the OpenSim worlds), how can you make an economy.

It looks as if you can't create groups at all. There is one big commune called "The OpenLife Everybody Group" or some damn thing and apparently there are "chat channels" inworld to make the IRCers feel right at home. I tried making a group, it asked me if I wanted to REALLY spend $100 and risk losing the group if I had no friends to join it, then went flat after debiting some fantastic sum out of the $10,000, which variously appears and disappears out of my wallet.

Without group land functions and rights, which have been vastly improved over the years in SL, you can't enable tenants to deed their own media, paste in their own URLs, make their own ban lists, return non-group prims, terraform on their own, etc.

The alternative is to just leave the land on edit, which means all the people who keep wandering into your land -- of which there is no shortage, as most people are in "hobo" mode there -- can edit your land any time.

Of course, my own editing of the land isn't any 40 meters, which is one of the reasons I bought there -- it only appears to be about 10 at the most. I was hoping to terraform up some mountains -- to hide the views of several ugly box builds, made uglier because the default plywood prim there isn't plywood, but has a multi-coloured blueprint texture on it which makes lots of tiles and gets pretty annoying, more annoying that plywood, fast. There are textures in the library, but people don't seem to use them.

As in Second Life, people there have Three Big Ideas about builds in this "creative, free, open world":

1. OMG, I can make a big black box and call it the Black Sun Club!
2. OMG I can make a space station or star gate or some other Star Trek thingie!
3. OMG I can make something sort of Asiatic that looks like Japan -- via Buffalo!!!

Terraforming was a chore. The land kept not terraforming right, rippling, buckling, like a sheet flying away as you try to settle it on a bed. It doesn't seem to be subtle. It has the same features of SL -- remember, they reverse engineered the whole thing and just copy a lot of it -- but it doesn't work/feel the same, it makes bunches of lumps and flutters them all over the sim then appears to do nothing, then lumps again.

I parcelled up some 4096s and informed my tenants that they could try it free for one month. I had 3 takers right away, one of whom said they wanted to "move" to OLG. I cautioned them that they should have a looksee first.

I definitely don't want to multiply that by 100 and be deeding TVs and making ban lists against hobos and griefers -- I'm over that phase in my life, I finished it in SL in 2004-2005.

Of course, I imagine if you spend the $500 and buy the "private cluster of 4" it *might* have deeding features to deed to a group...except oh, wait, I don't think they have land groups yet. I wonder how that works.

I realized that the reason the estate tools don't seem to be turned on is that this is mainland. They want it to be exactly like SL of course, for no apparent reason. I suppose to get estate rights you have to spend the $500 for 4 sims -- but I only want one. No doubt if it gets working better, there will be people who will sell just one sim.

I noticed that while I have no inventory, no attachments, no calling cards, nothing to lag me whatsoever, I still can't see this world any better than I can see SL on my graphics card that was appropriate for SL seven months ago on their website. Flying around doesn't feel any faster or better, the way those old super-powered 40,000 FPS sims used to be in the days before Lee Linden installed socialism on every sim to dumb down all functions to the flat 100 and 45 (40,000 was before they redenominated FPS, I think it would be the equivalent of 400 today).

Since most of the fun of getting a separate sim like this even in a crappy world would be practicing with terraforming and putting in ground textures, I'm finding that with a mainland sim that provides me no powers (and doesn't explain that before purchase), much of the point is drained out. So it seems that the experimental bar for this world is set at $500 US, which is a lot to pay -- that's half the price of an SL island that works perfectly -- or two OS sims at today's prices.

Getting groups and group land to function is probably something the makers of OLG have no incentive to do, as they don't really care about rentals and small business, any more than the Lindens care about rentals and small business, they are just temporarily exploiting people's need to do this for their own gain, to bankroll their software production. If they feel like chatting in a group, they go in their little tribal IRC-like chat channels on the website or on the forums. Like all communists, they are likely to reserve such privacy/control of parcels/creation of separate enclaves for the wealthier and more savvy who would like to buy private islands or run their own sims on their own servers.

But that means they are opening up a huge gulf in their economy, and creating a gap between haves and havenots even larger than SL. Having lower and middle class cheaper mainland with the ability to control the experience is vital to creating civilization. It's what gives the world meaning and vibrancy.

I see people gabbing asking to know how they copy all their SL inventory or bragging about "scanning" avatars with various scripts, that one person at least acknowledges tentatively is "wrong" but which won't be stopped there.

For example, I don't know if Jeffrey Gomez realizes his Prim Blender script, opensource of course, is being used to steal content now from SL, with the help of Thraxis Epsilon (remember him)? So instead of using it as intended by Jeffrey Gomez, which was to make builds yourself offline in Blender, then import them into SL, they are being used to copy SL builds, put them into Blender, then upload them into OLG, surprise surprise. The only blessing is that it appears not to work so well yet, but it will, with this gang at it.

I see people complaining about how no one comes to events, that they can't find people, that it's hard to get people to see and do things (of course, with their search hooking up only to SL and not to that world, small wonder -- like most geeks, they haven't understood the value of search/places yet to the world's meaning and economy, but go for search/all or lazy Internet chat room searches).

Sorry, I don't accept "but it's in alpha" or "it's in beta" for an excuse. If you advertise that you can have rentals, you have to make sense with that statement. Rentals is not only about having inworld currency, which they claim to be installing (and which I simply won't use because it's not trustworthy). Rentals is about groups and estate controls.

Comments

[Nebadon Izumi]

oh yea and btw everyone OpenLifeGrid has played absolutly no role in developing OpenSimulator, if you think im lieing do some research and you will also find OpenLifeGrid was nothing more than a OpenSimulator User, not a developer, they have done ZERO DEVELOPMENT on opensimulator project. and now they forked into a new project and no longer run OpenSimulator and are no longer recognized as an opensimulator Grid by the OpenSIM team. join me in irc.freenode.net #opensim to get the truth.

[Yumi Murakami]

Why would what you can do on a sim on osgrid.org be relevant? Do your servers currently support single load sims with collision detection on the client?

[Makon Bacon]

Wow, Nebadon you are looking kinda like a prick here.

Jealousy issues much?

[Ric Mollor]

RE: The 45,000 prim issue.

Isn't the limitation caused by the physics engine? Virtual worlds that run physics on the client such as Active Worlds can pack *at least* 200,884,464 objects on *one* server. No, that is not a misprint, the number is over 200 million. And yes, I'm certain as am logged in to Active Worlds at the moment and reading the number directly off the object counter.

Considering the amount of times that server side physics is really important in SL perhaps it's time to consider a move away from running everything serverside. The fact that you can't walk through a wall matters little if you can alt-zoom through it, pick something on the other side, sit on it, and magically be there.

Yes, I know that doesn't include scripting and so on but 200 million vs 15 thousand? I'm certain that there would be quite a market for scriptless regions if they held nearly unlimited prims.

[nebadon izumi]

think of me what you will, it doesnt change a single fact about what i said, so if the best you can do is call me names, then you are only proving my point even further, all talk no action.

[Osiris Indigo]

"Like i said come to osgrid.org i will give you a server and you can prove it too me, i have never ever seen anyone get 45k prims into a simulator ever under any circumstance, you are both wrong and i will prove it to you and anyone who wishes to see it proven.. DONT TALK SHOW ME!! all you talkers need to shut up and do some work to prove your claims."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ta2025/3007243590/

Do you want more? or is 45,400 enough? That took 17 minutes and no problems with 5-10 people watching over my shoulder..

Anyone can come to Bourbon Street @ OpenLifeGrid to see for themselves.

http://openlifegrid.com

No need for silly drama any more. We guarantee 45,000 prims - we deliver!

[Prokofy Neva]

"hey forked into a new project and no longer run OpenSimulator and are no longer recognized as an opensimulator Grid by the OpenSIM team."

Evil wreckers and splitters! Hiss!

[Prokofy Neva]

It's fun to argue about those prims, but one problem is, what can you put out there? There isn't any stuff. You'll have to build it yourself.

[Macphisto Angelus]

Mostly it is fun to laugh at Nebadon for being a fool. I hope his little hissy fit is doing something for his ego because it sure is making him look like an idiot. ;)

Gee, I wonder how truthful the rest of his claims are since this one was so obviously bunk.

lol silly Neb.

[Ric Mollor]

Just a confirmation that it does appear that there are 45,400 prims as described. Did not count them but the land stats show that number and the arrangement should make them trivial to count if someone desires.

I have no connection with the Openlife grid other than being an interested observer.

http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=45400primsyn9.png

[none]

First of all why is it that this article fails to mention the big fact that this is a BETA, say again BETA grid? That implies that not all the features are there yet. This article is very biased in a negative way.

As the owner of Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras regions in OLG, I personally invite each and everyone of you to come, visit, and see for yourselves. Do not believe the nay sayers here.

"OpenLifeGrid has played absolutly no role in developing OpenSimulator"

This is incorrect. Look at the list of OpenSim contributors on their website.

"Just a confirmation that it does appear that there are 45,400 prims as described."

As the owner of the region, I can attest and assure you that there were 45000+ prims.

[Barker5]

Sounds sad Nebadon. Why don't you go and build your own grid so others can bash your work. Grow up.

[Prokofy Neva]

uh, why are people selling land on a BETA repeat BETA grid? That's retarded. It should stay as a free sandbox until they are ready. But, they are selling sims. So, they get to be poked about not being ready. That's what beta is all about. I guarantee you these people never thought about what goes into actual rentals, group land, perms, TV deeding, etc. etc.

[Gigs Taggart]

Yeah, they all pretty much suck.

Part of it is OpenSim sucking and part of it is the people running the grid sucking.

Alternate grids are not yet a viable threat.

[Mary Burgan]

All of this would be easily understood if you were to understand a few points:

1) The software is alpha
2) The software is alpha
3) The software is alpha

The so called companies promoting open grids at the moment are losers. They won't make it because they don't understand business. They wanted to be the first to hop on board and be the next Linden and it won't work that way. I've said that to a few grids that sunk money into what they are doing. They are making mistakes they will never be able to recover from.

On the other hand, there are companies and individuals working with the OpenSimulator platform that will be a success in it's time. Maybe on a smaller scale than Linden, maybe on their own much smaller scale. But they certainly do not promote dragging SL users to OpenSimulator based grids.

On another thought, if the author of this blog, Mrs. Neva, were to sign up for my grid, they would find their name banned. We don't need technically uneducated people like the author explaining to a generic audience that the platform is not even close to being ready. And how poor things work.

I'm not sure what part of Alpha you do not understand, and I certainly cannot understand how you would be so gullible to purchase anything based on the OpenSimulator platform at this time. Those people won't even exist when real companies do something with OpenSimulator software and will be immediately outdated and history.

Terrible business ideas in the very least and shows no real business background for those who pushed opensimulator based grids for fees in the state the software is in.

It not only reflects the possible bad reputation, but also doesn't do the opensimulator.org software any good either.

[Ciaran Laval]

It wouldn't say a lot about the confidence you had in your own grid if you banned people like Prok just for voicing their concerns based on their own experience.

[Mary Burgan]

Ciaran Laval,

There is no voicing concerns based on their experience when the software is "Testing Software" only. Not to the point of posting so negatively about every item of her displeasure. If the person wants to ramble on about how bad something is, they can get off their duff and code a little c++ instead of complaining. That's how it works.

Opensimulator is a "base" for various ideas. It's an way to create your own virtual platform. You will be seeing simulators in the future that would never appear to even be opensimulator code. It's a multipurpose platform. Not a SL replacement for wannabe virtual land lords.

[Gareth Nelson]

"They forked into a new project and no longer run OpenSimulator and are no longer recognized as an opensimulator Grid by the OpenSIM team."

Wow, just wow - is your complaint the lack of source or simply the "oh no! they forked!" argument?
Need I remind the whole opensim team that they not only chose a license which allows binary-only redistribution but actively protested en masse conversion to a different license? If you're an opensim dev please make your mind up - either say "it's fine for people to fork, and even to refuse to share their changes" or say
"no binary-only modified versions please" and change the license to reflect this.

By the way, Mr Zaius was one of the first to provide binary-only simulator downloads, and he's also been the most fanatical in his dislike of the GPL - so if your problem is with openlifegrid not sharing code changes then ask the "almighty adam" about deepgrid.

[Ciaran Laval]

No Mary that's not how it works, you're completely full of shit. The customer is always right dear, until you learn that concept you've got not hope whatsoever of running a virtual world.

[Ciaran Laval]

No Mary that's not how it works, you're completely full of shit. The customer is always right dear, until you learn that concept you've got not hope whatsoever of running a virtual world.

[Prokofy Neva]

>On another thought, if the author of this blog, Mrs. Neva, were to sign up for my grid, they would find their name banned. We don't need technically uneducated people like the author explaining to a generic audience that the platform is not even close to being ready. And how poor things work.

Thanks for providing yet more hard evidence of one of my most popular theses: that opensource is in fact all about closed society. That it's about assholes taking power. That it is about elitist pseudo-scientific Bolsheviks allergic to criticism and deadly against any critics. Thanks, because it's not always an easy case to make, but you handily make it for me : )

As for all this in-fighting and factionalizing, also typical of grid communism *shrugs*.