I think I also do not spend a lot of time on the Second Life road… but there was a Time I did.
Reading a Blogpost of Alicia, I decided to think about if I am a Couch Potatoe in my Second Life. Or should I rather call it Parcel Potatoe, Firefox Potatoe or Windows and Apllication Potatoe?
Alicia thinks that she should once again go somewhere in SL. Looks like she makes a Comparison and found out that there was more Activity back in her Second Life Days.
She noticed that´s not only her. Most of here friends just stand on ther Platforms as well. So talking about my Second Life related Activity, I must say this is my own experience I made in the past as well. I defenetly can agree cos if I login to Second Life, I hang out on my own Parcel (Sky- and Sandbox) most of the time too. And it´s true that I rather spend more time with Forums, SL Marketplace, Twitter, blogging and so on. Sure I call it my SL Activity as all this is mostly related to SL. But the good Point Alicia makes is that it isn´t Inworld Activity. And when she said that she noticed the same with her Friends, I just can sign it cos I notice similar behavior of my Friends.
So in my Case I can explaine it so… back in the Days, Second Life was so new to me that really everything was magical and interesting. I was just amazed about each Place I visited. I became somehwat addicted and soon when I met a Person who introduced me to her Estate, Club and Community, then I became all the more inlove with Second Life. I believe back in these Days I did not minimize the Viewer very often. I remember everything was pretty interesting so that the rest of the Internet just became a minor matter.
The Place where I mostly did hang out was an Estate with a Club and I know I got my first free Inworld Shop there as we became very good Friends soon. At this Time I did rather have a small Collection of Products and they all were everything but not Complex or something someone would need. 
Just my beginner Stuff. And also at this Time I did not spend much Time to produce new Stuff. So apart from hang out my own Products there I worked at her Club as well and I remember back that I got a very good Amount of L$. At least compared to what most of the Dancer´s and Host´s get today in SL. It was 1000 – 2000 L$ (really no Joke!) per Hours for working in her Club and much more then my little Shop income. Sure this was a Reason to stay inworld and it would be a Lie if I would say no. But everyday when the Club were closed we did still hang out together too. So I wasn´t hunting L$ only.. I just enjoyed the Time with my new Friends. We had always cool Topics when we did chat and we had defenetly a lot of fun. So I can say it was rather the Friendship which did bring me online. After some Month I had the feeling it was not just the Team of the Club but rather something like a Family and Federation. The bad End of the Story is that she one Day closed her Estate forever. I believe I would still hang out with her much but she did stop to login regulary and later she wrote me that she wont come online often in the Future as ReaLife keeps her on the Run. I can say I miss her much as it was my most active (inworld) Time in SL. Exploring, chatting, dancing, listening Music, shopping and I cant count it all. Sure is I did see a lot of Places in those Days.
So when my Friend did stop loggin in, I had some more Time to learn more about Conten Creation within Second Life. Soon I became a regular on these bigger Sandbox´s and did experiment a lot with Prims and LSL scripting. As I was still a beginner when we talk about creating Content and from now on very fascinated with all that but a very slow creating one, I would call this Time my second Level of inworld Activity. Even if I still was sad that a Friend leaved Second Life, I can tell you that I in fact now did spend more and more Time inworld. I rented my first own Land and started my Store and later a Mall which I did rent out for Tenants. Managing all this alone did result in much more Activity but not only on my Land. Making connections with other Landowner, renting AdBoards here and there affected me to see more and more Places inworld.
But some day creating things out of Prims became routine anyhow. I just learned to create things I have in mind and now didn´t need to think about it much. I just started to create thing´s I had in mind and this Process became faster then before. With much more finished Products then back in the Days I noticed that Xstreet got a bigger Economy-impact then my Mall. The difference of Sales was so huge that I just started to think about closing my Mall and rent a much smaller Place to just have my Magic Boxes rezzed anywhere and a Skybox for new little Projects.
So what about today? They just merged Xstreet to SL Marketplace and the old good impact of Xstreets Sales were just the beginning. My sales on SL Marketplace even increased compared to the closed Xstreet. And after reading other Blogs I now know and bet that a very heavy Amount of Sales go rather through SL Marketplace instead of Inworld Stores. Not enough… new Features like Mesh Import makes Content Creators stay outside of SL to create Content. I do so now too.
Today? I believe I can get these fascinating Essentials of Second Life without logging in much. And there is for me the Problem. It became creating Content outside of SL, managing these Matters outside of SL, advertise it outside of SL. When things are done, then they get just adjusted inworld and then dropped in a Magic Box. Oh and soon we dont even have to rent Land for a Magic Box as we soon can sell Thing´s out of our Inventory. I believe all this has a huge negative Impact on the Virtual Estate Business too.
For socializing it´s pretty much the same.. Social Networks, Forums, blogging… I believe I spend more Time outside of SL today. You get these Second Life related News and hot Topics outworld.. and you can discuss it with People even if you are not online on the Grid. Do I like it? No I think Alicia is right. We should explore more often again Inworld. What I did now was losing the Fascination of SL, I had early Days in SL . The Question is if we are the Reason for that.. if we are lazy? If we lost Ideas where to go? If we lost Friends inworld? Or is this all due to some changes LL made?
Really I like new Features like Mesh Import and the upcoming Features. So.. well.. I am not sure. I just know that Content Creation became a very importend Part of my Second Life and so I can just judge it from this Perspective. Linden Lab gave us Tools like SL Marketplace and the Mesh Feature to just handle everything we want but not inworld. So there seems to be just a minimalized Reason for Content Creators to stay online on the Grid. If I could handle all this only Inworld and there was a Time… then I would probably rather be anywhere around on the Grid. I dont want to say that I dislike the changes of Linden Lab. Great Features arrived and will arrive soon. It´s just for me clear that they have a huge impact. They change Second Life.
Ok. Looks like for me socializing became simply suppressed by creating Content for SL. And now I dont do it often inworld. Even if I still have fun with what I do.. I agree.. it´s anyhow sad because there is maybe so much more I could do inworld. I sometimes just dont know what and why if I can do it without being around on the Grid.
However I think Alica found a Topic which might be for some of us pretty up to date. At least for me. I am sure we all have differend Reasons to be Parcel Potatoe´s or People who just login to put some Thing´s up for Sale. Maybe some of us are still often inworld. But I believe fact is that there are a lot of People who aren´t and if then they simply hang out on ther Parcel and have no other Ideas. Maybe I should start again to explore what SL can offer me apart from what I do now. Or maybe all this is just a subjective Feeling as we did spend already so much Time inworld in the past.. maybe it just feels differend then before. The latter would be what I experiences in other Virtual Worlds like World of Warcraft and so as well.
7 Years ago I did explore any Places in World of Warcraft just because I was nosy what there could be behind that Hill on the Horizon. But today I know there might be nothing then some low Level Monsters which wouldn´t even hurt me. That cool feeling of exploring new Worlds comes again when new Content or an Expansion arrives. But also only for a short Period. The Focus of my WoW Gameplay is now mostly Player versus Player Matches, new Dungeons, Raid´s and so. The World is just nothing new to me…
But sure! The World of Second Life does always undergo modifications! Maybe I should write that on a Note in front of my Keyboard so that I sometimes do anything else then now. 
So this is a Topic I did think about often in the past two or three Month. So that I lately did make a good new start with exploring the Linden Realms.. another Day I was listening and chatting in a Electronic Music Club. But then I got bored again.. I simply do not often have Ideas what to do in SL. But well… lets see…
Gold sellers and spammers in Second Life Forum
So now the Gold sellers and spammers we know from other Games (MMO´s) like World of Warcraft are arrived in Second Life. The official Second Life Forum is full of “Buy Linden Dollars” spam.
So be careful… I bet you catch malware if you click on one of those links. And you know.. you just can get L$ from Linden Labs on the official Second Life Website. So dont buy L$ on any of these dubious Websites they spam in the Forums.
Hey fellow… It´s just a game! Chill!
One thing I really hate is when peoples behave aggressively just because the own team did lose a match in a game. Today we did play World of Warcraft with friends. We did join battlegrounds and talked about our tacticts on our teamspeak server. One of our friends is know for freaking out when anything in the game goes wrong. I think its ok to get upset sometimes if it is in a funny or smooth tune. But he sound like he is before destroying his microphone or maybe his computer. Today again and it was absolotly annoying. We lost a match and he was screaming that we all got bad mood.
I always have an public opinion and thats why I told him “Hey fellow.. can you please chill? It is really just a game and if we lose, we wont die!”. I did add “You drive us all mad.. You are 29 years old but seriously.. you act like a little frustrated child..” and “Get a life or chill out!”. Then… 30 seconds silence………………………………
Then he said “I do not have to put up with that”" and we all did hear a friendly teamspeak server voice “Player leaved your channel” which means he left. Ah k… just as well.
Seriously.. whats wrong with him? We play games in the evening because we want to chill out from the day. Peoples now said to me.. “Yea your right.. he´s just annoying.. someone had to told him”. We all were the same opinion. There is sometimes something wrong in a game and sure we can get upset sometimes. But its the tune… we often are upset but laugh.. it is fun.. a game. But he was freaking out and screaming in our all ears. Seriously I have neighbours and I did put down my speakers because I thought it is awkward if my neighbors can hear him.
However.. after he did leave our Voice Server, we had fun again nevermind if we did lose or win. Thats what I call great gaming and not stressful as he would be there. He is now probably angry with me. But I dont care. I had to tell him.
Did you ever have similar experience with someone? If so.. do you just listen and think your part? Or do you also prefer to tell peoples your opinion?
When we remember great gaming times! World of Warcraft was fun..
You must know this post here will be a general blogpost.. yes maybe a complain specially about World of Warcraft. I had an interesting discussion yesterday with my friends from reallife.
Today we are five of our clique who still play World of Warcraft sometimes. Sometimes we are one more or less. But let me compare this to some years ago. We were more then twenty peoples of our real life clique who played together World of Warcraft. Additionaly we had twenty and more peoples we met in World of Warcraft. We said they are friends too. Lets count together… we was able to setup a guild with over fourty and I believe we had more then fifty players in our guild. But it was not an anonymously guild because most did know each other from real life and the others became friends as well, with the difference that they did live just not in our hometown but instead of that in another town. However.. there was something which hold us all together and it was World of Warcraft and a nice guild constitution. Yes we had rules! No flaming! If there is a problem… only real and fair discussion! We had more rules.. and we kicked anyone who wanted to brake our rules. But we didnt need to do often. Our guild was a bunch of peoples who did respect each other even if they had another opinion sometimes. But we had peoples with great attitude. Something else did hold us together. We had success but something which is more vital, we had fun together!
Yes when I talk about fun then I really mean fun!
Have you ever been on a teamspeak server (voice chat) where fourty peoples celebrate loud that they have just killed an heavy raidboss (non player character)? If so.. you know what fun is. If not.. you missed something. But I can tell you this was often a real party. Peoples really couldn´t calm oneself. I think this did hold us together. We did go raiding in Molten Core with fourty players, we did go raiding Blackwing Lair with fourty players and we did invade Temple of Ahn’Qiraj with fourty players. We had real partys when we completed these runs. Peoples did laugh, kidding and scream on our voice server just because they was happy to complete something which was difficult enough. We had success together and we became strong company.
Ok back to our discussion yesterday. We did remember this time. And we all were the opinion it was an extraordinary experience. Something great!
So you maybe ask why we have been over fourty players some time ago and today only four, five or six players? Some of you think it was maybe due to reallife? You think peoples became mature and didnt want to play games anymore? If you think that.. then you are wrong. I can tell you the truth as I still talk with some friends. Many of them are still my reallife friends. Most of them became just disapointed with the game and many belive there were some pretty ugly and design decisions from “Blizzard” the maker of “World of Warcraft”. If you are able to setup a fourty player guild, it is just sad if Blizzard removes these fourty player raids. They did change it so that there was now twentyfive and ten player raids. Our guild did burst on that design decision pretty soon. We was a team and didn´t really want to split our guild in two sections. That was not our target but we had to do. Soon we did lose a half of our players. I think it was just more diffiuclt to manage two raids instead of one huge raidgroup. Ok but now were still enough players to join twentyfive player raids.
Blizzard never stops to install patches on your computer and they never stop to make changes. If new content arrives, players like it. But if they change to much on the mechanic.. to much changings on the base frame.. yea at least the old players might be scared of these decisiones then. But some of us believe today that these decisions came because Blizzard wanted to bring in many new players. You can say World of Warcraft was a hardcore game.. a niche and maybe something peoples called “Nerd Game”.So we think Blizzard´s targed was to get more into the casual market. So they changed the game so much that it was easy now.. easy enough for the casual who anyway just want to play 6 hours a week. You was now able to get any ingame item faster then before. But those who liked the game before.. the hardcore´s.. they had trouble with this gamedesign decision´s. At least it was the reason why our guild lost many players. It was a complete renovation also for every class. Maybe they did success by getting new and lots of new players. But as I said.. some oldboys and oldgirls from the very first minutes of World of Warcraft became scared so that they stopped to play.
Me and four, five and maybe six player of our clique still play World of Warcraft time to time. But often we remember back to our great times and we said it will never be as it was. But we still have fun today.. we are a little group who now mostly join player versus player battlegrounds. Yes and sometimes we go raid with other peoples we dont know. But World of Warcraft has changed. Or maybe we changed? At least it is not as it was and thats why we are so honest to say sometimes that this soon will have an end also for us. We already play other games more often then before. Its not only World of Warcraft anymore. We have already alternatives as the overall experience in WoW has changed to much for us. And thats why we did discuss it yesterday. When we do.. we do it sad.
But hey!…
One thing we learned.. a game isn´t just a game. Thats only what those flaming news in television telling you. No! A game is more! You bring in your friends and you meet new friends. Those who dont understand.. they never will understand. Apart from playing a game together we had great conversations on our teamspeak server over several years and not only related to World of Warcraft… No in fact we did talk about anything from our world. Oh and we did visit peoples from our guild, which we didnt know before in real life. We traveled by train and had a great weekend with peoples we never seen before. That means we did make new friends we still have today.
This is something we got from this experience. Maybe the game will stop to be interesting for us sometime. But our friendship wont!
I am back to SL for a while.. maybe with new inspiration. :)
Hello. I am back. Maybe you read some new stuff next time.. as I am back in SL with new inspiration.
But I still play World of Warcraft aside as well.
Software Piracy.. Minecraft creator Markus Persson said: “Piracy is not a theft”.
Markus Persson said this Week on the GDC 2011 “Piracy is not a theft” reported by Edge Online.
He said: “If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world.” and “There is no such thing as a lost sale. Is a bad review a lost sale? What about a missed ship date?”
Persson’s advice is to “make a game last longer than a week” and to “treat game development as a service”. I think it is true if we take World of Warcraft or any other MMO as an example.
“You can’t pirate an online account,” he truth. I think this is not complete true.. There are already tons Pirare Servers for World of Warcraft and other MMO´s available.. in fact you could download a ripped copy of World of Warcraft and join one of the illegal Servers. But it wouldnt be a real Account from Blizzard Servers and thats why Markus Persson is true with this argument. And..
If Game-Companys offer constant content updates, Quality and a good service.. and if you need an online Account to enjoy this service… the Topic of Software Piracy gets irrelevant. You wont get those great content updates on a pirate software and if, then these updates will be very late. So if you want quality you will join the real Servers of Blizzard and pay for the service. And thats why legal Servers are more popular then illegal ones.
So the question is true… Is Software Piracy still a topic for those companys? I dont think so. For companys who offer games which arent account-tied, software piracy might be still a big deal. So “make a game last longer than a week”, “treat game development as a service” and “You can’t pirate an online account,” is a good advice. But I think most Companys learned it already.
World of Warcraft Cataclysm is arrived yesterday!
So yesterday in the afternoon Amazon did deliver my World of Warcraft Cataclysm and finaly I was able to play the whole night! Hell.. that was fun! So this blogpost will be a really shot one because of my World of Warcraft addiction… 
I cant write a big blogpost about it.. there is really to much to do in Cataclysm and thats why I will start the game in the next minutes,
All I can say is thtat I already reached Level 81 and Im not far away from Level 82. I made round about one and a half Level yesterday. But you know what? Some peoples already reached the Levelcap 85 in 6 hours! Are they crazy? How do they do that? However,.. I do not want that stress while gaming. I take my time and enjoy the whole enviroment. Why should I play it like a race? There is just to much new stuff to visit and to explore. I want to enjoy it with time.
Ok but as I said.. I need to go back to World of Warcraft ingame now. So this blogpost is a short one.
My Amazon World of Warcraft Cataclysm Delivery is still not arrived..
I am still waiting for World of Warcraft Cataclysm. The Package arrived in Neumünster which is not to far away from my Hometown. I think 60km. So I think it will be delivered in the next hours for sure. Im excited and cant wait. Just like a little child! I must admit that I had more luck with Wrath of the Lich King. That time they delivered it one day before the Expansion Servers opens. But this time with Cataclysm my Package come a little bit late. However.. finaly I am sure I can play it today in the afternoon.
From 7th December.. Second Life brake for World of Warcraft Cataclysm?
Today I´ve got an Email that the World of Warcraft Expansion called Cataclysm will be released on 7th December this Year. I talked already with some friends and everybody will play that game for a period of some month or maybe more. We even did play World of Warcraft but lately it became extremely bored for me as I had already all what I can get for my Character and anyhow I did see everything ingame. But with Cataclysm there are lot of changes incoming which means that it wont be bored for me anymore. It will be a new adventure for me and much fun to play again with my friends from Germany.
I will bring my lovely and evil Horde Icemage (Bloodelve) which I play already since over 3 Years, to level 85.When we reach the Levelcap, we probably will once again play “Player versus Player” most of our time. Every now and then we will visit Raids too. Thats our gameplay procedure in short.
Anyhow I like all the teamplay in World of Warcraft. Its a game which can bring lot of fun if you play it with your real life friends. But I also did meet new Peoples in this game.
And what I really like, is the fact that this time when I will play World of Warcraft, will give me new creativity and ideas so that I can come back to Second Life when World of Warcraft Cataclysm starts to get bored. Backwards it is the same. This is how I get my variety.
Second Life alone cant occupy me a complete Year. World of Warcraft cant do that too. Rotational, both give me variety.
So yea… it might be that I will write about my adventures in World of Warcraft in December too. I even thought about why I only blog about Second Life when I have so much more other activitys as well? Might be that I write about other topics as well in the future. But I am not sure at this point.
So what about you? Have you ever played World of Warcraft? Do you still play? Will you hold a Second Life brake when Cataclysm is released? Feel free to comment here.
Greetings
