I believe I’m to the point where I’m going to just create a storytelling event on Second Life and make it happen on my own: it would be nice to have a SL RP HUD, but after trying to learn and trying to make the SL RP HUD myself, I am finding that I just don’t have the coding skillz to make this happen that way.
So I’m just going to do what I know I can do best: run a story event.
I’ll probably be using the Huddles RPS thing, no matter how goofy it is.
More as I know it.Â
I am headed to Dragon*Con 2006. While I am there, I would love to get ahold of any Fireseeds readers or just any Second Life players who might be there, just to chat and meet F2F.
Let me know if you’re available!
“No appeal, no parole…” That’s what Tina Turner said in the movie “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” but this time Kin Keiko’s experiencing it in Second Life.
She’s a hair designer in SL, apparently has been around for two or three months, has been trying to make money in Second Life to go to school. Then, apparently because her brother had been banned before and she was using similar-to-her-brother account info, she was suddenly banned. No appeal. Just banned.
At first the Lindens took all the money she’d made, but now they’ve given it back. But she’s still banned.
This just points out a few things:
1.) The world just needs a damn good virtual driver’s license for the Internet (one with some pretty strong crypto, if you please).
2.) SL money is still pretty tenuous. I’m sure all the other content creators are swallowing their gum looking at this. The idea is you should be banned based on what you did, not on what your account seems like.
3.) People are contacting Dazzo Street to sign a virtual petition to ask that she be re-instated.
Let’s say for the sake of saying that Kin Keiko is not innocent of being a Ban-workaround account. She’s spent the past several months developing lovely hair, not griefing or causing trouble. Whatever debt to Second Life society needed to be paid, she’s paid it, I say.
So I hope that Linden Labs will decide to bring her back. I applaud their giving her the money she earned, but I think that it’s time for them to establish special circumstances to help substantiate identity and/or prove rehabilitation.
No appeal, no parole? That’s no way to run a society.
Well, we’re all going to have to pitch in and make our beloved Forum Drama happen somewhere else from now on.
I’m a Free account now, and it’s interesting - I don’t really feel differently. I do feel a bit aimless when I’m in-world but whenever I start to feel that way I just head to a sandbox and take a look around.
I’d like to thank Merlyn Bailey for linking to me, and Stella Trenchmouth for posting a comment.
More SL RP goodness to come soon.
I’ve decided to go down to Free status for a while. My current financial situation’s really bad, and although the $9.95 isn’t too much, the fact that it came through unexpectedly meant that I had a bounce charge of $30. And I could buy a new game every month for $39.95. So, for now, until I can get things back up to snuff in my financial life, gonna make myself a Free user.
Of course this shouldn’t affect my scripting or building projects anyway, because I will be building my stuff and doing scripting practice in the sandboxes.
What this does mean is that the free bookstore has to move because I’m going to have to give up my First Land. It pains me to do it, but that’s how it is.
Anybody want to buy some First Land from me for very inexpensive? I’ll sell it to you cheap, otherwise you’ll have to buy it from Gov. Linden.
I was just playing with Angrybeth Shortbread’s new soundspace in Second Life.
It’s wonderful!
How many instruments can you become involved with that respond to whether you’re a teddy bear or not?
I found I preferred the music my smaller tiny-bear made rather than the large Alex av.
I also created a little shiny soccer-style ball to kick around and it made extra noise. And I silenced a bow by ripping out its sound file and used that to make noise - that was interesting too.
Now, RP ideas:
Wouldn’t it be cool to do a huge dune-style Emperor of the fading Suns sim / roleplay where there was a soundspace like this being played - and lithe dancing people moving through the cube, making beautiful melodies at the same time they impress the court with the grace and cunning of their movements?
Wouldn’t it be neat to have a music-keyed lock somewhere, so you must do movements in a specific order in order to unlock an ancient mystic gateway?
The possibilities are endless. Here are the pictures:
What happens when someone claims they have a “new innovative direction” for you follow and they want to “cut you in on a stake in the company” on Second Life? And strangely enough they just want your signature on an NDA before they can talk to you about what this “new innovative direction” is.
Note: Folks, be careful whom you send your digital signature to. Even your fax signature. This fellow made a big deal out of sending an NDA to him. Now, normally I don’t have a problem with most NDAs, but in truth I didn’t know this guy from Adam’s housecat. He sends me an email out of the blue and then he starts asking for my signature on a document for him. He really is insistent upon it.
Here’s a transcript of our chat. I have changed his name and identifying information. But I want other folks to know that there is someone out there trying to pull something - and I have reason to believe it’s not entirely on the up and up.
Join me at the end of the transcript for some thoughts on this.
Unknown: hello sam
me: Hello Jason
Unknown: i can understand you do not want somebody to own your dig sig
1:39 PM me: nods
Unknown: however, we have to find a way to talk “freely” as well
have you got a fax
me: I’m unwilling to fax, scan, or otherwise provide you with my signature Jason.
1:40 PM However, if you would like I will agree verbally to the terms of your NDA
1:41 PM Unknown: sam, that wouldn’t work, we are working practically along the same lines but with significant differences. I believe, if we work together we can build something big
1:42 PM me: nods Well, I’m all about Open Source, Jason. And I want the project that I am working on to be Open Source.
That’s a high value for me.
1:43 PM Unknown: well some aspects of our project is /can be open source
1:44 PM me: nods I doubt very seriously you have any IP that is not already sufficiently covered by copyright or patent law.
Unknown: yes we do,
1:45 PM me: So…either you just accept my gentleman’s agreement, without any sort of signed documents, or we can just say farewell and I’ll be glad to do a full interview and article on your work when you bring it out.
Ultimately, none of this is worth breaking basic security practices for.
And I respect your need to protect your ideas
1:46 PM Unknown: what’s you motivation?
1:47 PM me: My motivation is to create an Open Source RP system for Second Life that can empower individual content creators / storytellers / RP event coordinators to run episodic or serial RP sessions for themselves.
1:48 PM They are free to charge for participation in the RP, but not for the Open Source System
Just as I am free to charge folks at a science fiction and fantasy convention for playing in my LARP, but I am not free to re-sell the LARP rules to someone if they are Open Source.
1:50 PM Unknown: okay, so you want to build something without any commercial benefit to yourself?
me: No, that’s not what I said.
I said that I want to create the basic system as an open source project.
Thereafter, I will be able to charge for admission to Second Life RP sessions based on the fact that I am running a story, people know I’m a good storyteller, and so on.
1:51 PM But the basic system will be free.
The system doesn’t cost, just the RP events. And if you want to take the system yourself and run your own game with it, then go ahead.
It’s just like this: you can take Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which is an open source play right now - it’s copy-free
you could perform it on the streetcorner for free
1:52 PM OR you could charge $50 a seat in a fancy theatre
but the basic play - Hamlet - is free
Same thing here.
1:53 PM Unknown: our business model is not really different from this.I love linux,mysql etc… some aspects of our system is open as well
me: nods
1:54 PM I think it’s important to be totally Open Source, for me, because I want people to continue to develop the basic system, upgrading it, keeping it from breaking in light of new SL changes, etc.
1:55 PM The proprietary Intellectual Property in my games will be the setting, story, and charactes that are created by the content creator
characters, rather
1:56 PM Unknown: thats fine. So far, I do not see any conflicts but you neeed to see the direction we have taken, which I believes plugs signficant gaps in what you are proposing
1:58 PM i am willing to offer you a stalk in the venture but can for some reason you do not have sympaty with our need to protect our idea until we go public
2:00 PM me: I do have sympathy with your need to protect your IP, as I said before. However, I will not be able to fax or send you a digital scan of my signature. If you can’t accept my word of honor on it, then we’ve got nowhere to go.
2:01 PM Unknown: hmm, okay sam, it is a big pity. I would have loved working with you. We think alike in so many respects
me: So, you like gaming, what’s your background in gaming?
2:02 PM Do you have any favorite game designers?
2:03 PM It is regrettable that the day and age we live in has made this a necessity, yes. There are so many Nigerian scams, for example, out there, that cause problems with people.
Unknown: I love gaming like the next guy, not as involved as you are, but I am very innovative and think outside the box alot
me: Excellent.
Unknown: it not really the scam that bothers me, it is respect for other peoples ideas
me: Well, I wish you well in your endeavor.
2:04 PM nods Right, I understand.
Well, I do think you’ll go far if your IP is so unique and exciting. I’ll just have to smile and say, “I knew him when!”
2:05 PM Unknown: I once send a sms game to be played with (TV show), we couldn’t reach an agreement on licensing and two months later, i saw the game on tv
that’s what I am worried about
2:06 PM me: nods Understood. I am sure you will go far. Thank you for the opportunity, and maybe in the future there will be a safe way to legally authenticate such documents without bringing risk.
Farewell, now Mr. Yount
Unknown: bye for now, sam
First of all, this guy was unwilling completely to even begin to talk about RPGs or any kind of roleplaying situation, and his questions never belied any knowledge of the gaming industry. Secondly, he is very insistent on getting that signature, when I know for a fact that 1.) ideas aren’t protected under copyright and 2.) international Patent law is dicey at best.
The NDA was very vague, as well. I can find no reference to this guy or his project on the Internet, and as I said, I don’t know this guy at all.
I really do hope that my suspicions are false and that he’s not a Scammer, but I really feel at this point like the rest of the Second Life community needs to be aware of people like this.
I have been thinking a lot lately about this topic, so I thought I’d bring these topics to this forum.
Roleplaying is not killing things and getting treasure.
(Roleplaying is about telling a story, with a plot, and characters, theme, mood, and all those other literary conventions you may have heard about.)
Roleplaying is not a freeform wahoo “I shot you, no you didn’t” experience.
(Roleplaying is a cooperative, consent-driven activity.)
Roleplaying is not improv.
(The point of most improv is to make other people laugh. Improv is for other people. Roleplaying is both for you, and the other people with whom you roleplay.)
Roleplaying is not wargaming.
(The slower conflict resolution is, the harder it is to fit in those snippets of character and story that make roleplaying great.)
Roleplaying is not Second Life, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, or City of Heroes.
(Second Life is a virtual world platform. WoW, DaoC, and CoH are all engines for playing a computer wargame.)
Roleplaying is not a euphemism for kinky sex.
(Although folks play roles for sexual purposes, a roleplaying game is more story-focused and character-centric, and may include sexual situations among adults, but that is not their purpose.)
Roleplaying is not automatically about fantasy or science fiction.
(Roleplaying can be modern day, horror, romance, or even true crime-related too.)
Roleplaying is not a Mary Sue platform for acting out your fantasies.
(Roleplaying is a shared participatory experience, not someone’s opportunity to be a little tin god.)
Roleplaying is not an industry.
(Roleplaying is what the RPG industry should serve, not the other way around.)
Roleplaying is not just child’s play.
(Although children should be encouraged to enjoy it)
Roleplaying is not exclusive.
(Roleplaying is something anyone can do. In fact, we do it every day. In fact, you’re probably doing it right now.)
Roleplaying is not expensive.
(Especially not compared to other activities / pastimes, it’s downright cheap on an hour-per-dollar-spent scale.)
Guess what?
I’m playing host to one of the first in-world Bookstores on Second Life.
Come by and see us!
Edit: Actually, the bookstore is elsewhere now. Look for Falk Bergman in-world, he should know where it is.Â