There Inc - Propagating the Bad of Society? 43
An anonymous reader writes "A former beta tester has written up a negative, but interesting, review of the 'virtual world' MMO title There. While it mainly contains sarcastic remarks directed at the game mechanics (or lack there-of), near the end it also claims that There is 'a mirror of the shallowest possible view of American consumerist society.' It concludes by saying that There is missing anything that would classify it as a game, and that as a chat service it capitalizes on 'our society's tendency to believe that being attractive is a prerequisite for being accepted by others.' Should developers try to be aware of whether their game will reproduce negative trends already present in real life?" We recently ran a story on the official launch of There, a game that has its fans as well as its detractors.
Re:If you want chat...and interaction... (Score:4, Informative)
Second Life seems to encourage player content and player control. It is interesting how players are rewarded for makeing good content. Players are able to charge other players fees for products, land, and access to land (services). There are monthly stipends with bonuses for high, player generated, ratings. There are tools for radically altering a characters apearence, and building almost anything. The scripting language looks to fairly powerfull. Players can even alter terrain.
I find it equally interesting that I was able to learn about Second Life through there own online documentation. Second Life seems to be quite open about what there "game" is. Whereas most links on the There website require an account to access.
Second Life looks to be a very ambitious project. It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off. I am quite interested if the balance of player control will work, or if Second Life will degenerate into a trollfest like some many other services online.
Take your own tour...free (Score:3, Informative)
I visit There from time to time (as BlackCloud). I want to make a few remarks:
The landscape is much more interesting and varied than he makes it out to be (once you've had your fill of two-tone landscapes). See below for a link to take your own tour.
Who would want to socialize with someone so lacking in personality as starting avatars seem to be?? On one had he equates personality with the initial garb, on the other he complains about the consumer aspect of the game.
My original character sported, aside from a perfectly trapezoidal head, a red mohawk that cost most of my starting money. After that I only had enough money for some cheap black pants. Needless to say, I wouldn't make many friends in There. Notice he said "wouldn't", not "didn't". One of the most popular people I know in There dresses badly, has a freakish head with a wild white afro and sports a pot belly. Why is he popular? He's funny and a great conversationalist. No one is ignored in There because of how they look.
uessing muscular chest skins and leather-esque pants are hot commodities in There... among 40-50 year old truck drivers, anyway. This isn't any different than an 22 year old guy pretending to be a female elf from the safety of his parents' basement.
There Inc. is charging people to create content, and charging other people to use that content. Yes, and it makes sense for a couple of reasons. All uploaded content is reviewed before being allowed into the game to keep out obscene or copyrighted material. I suspect the fee (besides paying for the review) also keeps inflation in check. If creating content was free, and you could sell said content at whatever price, soon there would be a glut of money. Content would be a way to manufacture money. There's economy was designed by real economists, by the way.
Once you pay the cover charge required by many of There's events Many, but not most.
however don't even think about joining a group that already has more than eight people in it... nobody could communicate with that many people at once! How is this a problem with the game?
Many emotes cause your character to do some action, or an icon to spring from various parts of their body. They've introduced dance moves recently too :) The emotes are suprisingly effective at making the game more immersive.
Well, since the other plan doesn't come with an activation fee, I'm going to guess it's just a clever way of saying they're "activating" their need for more money. The other plan doesn't come with a monthly stipend either. The exchange rate is $1 = T$1787, so each month you get $4.95 worth of T$. The monthly charge is also $4.95, so you get the game for the price of the activation fee. That's not a bad deal since money is useful (though not necessary) in There. Every virtual world needs some form of exchange.
This is evidenced by the sheer amount of benches and loveseats scattered around the land I found them a more convenient place to chat 1 on 1. Standing is fine too but sitting prevents interruptions...one you have 2 people in a conversation no one else can join.
There, Inc. is capitalizing on our society's tendency to believe that being attractive I wish I could find the link to the article I read here on Slashdot about Everquest. It gave some stats the showed players overwhelmingly favored the more attractive races (like elves) compared to the uglier ones (such as gnomes). And in There you can be as good looking or ugly as you want to be. If you spend a little time in There you'll see it's personality that makes one popular, and generosity (you can loan anything you have, from clothes to vehicles, and recall those items whenever you want).
Take a look around there yourself at this site [hjsv.com]
It looks like There is also going to do some open source work [there.com]