Johan

Weird how this is called a game even by the creator while it has no aspects of a game. Also, I must agree with most people here that Blue Mars is unusable unless you have a good graphics card. While I have no problems running Second Life on my newer pc, I could simply not run Blue Mars (very jerky). I'm glad to hear they're trying to do something about that...

Hmm - I bet those complaining about not getting their bonus payments are most likely right. For some reason Linden Lab has always had issues with paying out bonus payments. Remember the old "Refer-a-friend" program? Over the years it was active, it was broken twice (broken = no payouts). The first time it was broken for 6 months and the last time it was broken for over 1 year. Linden Lab refused to take the link down as they were planning on fixing it. Eventually after many complaints and after being accused for false advertising ... they finally removed the program without any announcement. I can nearly guarantee the same will happen here. So are they just plain evil? No, according to Linden Lab what happens is that the original dev leaves and nobody takes the project over. Since Linden Lab doesn't make money with bonus payments, these kind of programs as simply not a priority. I can nearly guarantee the same will happen here...

I tried the platform multiple times and it simply wasn't good enough. It kinda reminded me of Lively from Google which was clear from the start that it wouldn't survive either. Of course with Google you never know since they don't mind loosing money on certain projects. I am having serious doubts about Blue Mars as well simply due to the fact that their platform requirements are way to steep. Unless they are able to live of investment capitial over the next 3 years so technology has a chance to catch up, they'll have a very hard time surviving. I hope not because Second Life really needs some healthy competition and there simply isn't a match at this point.

Alright so I finally got to download it. Besides the 300MB initial download and the fact that you need to download each city individually (another 300MB/city), it was virtually unusable on my computer. LOL - this is actually the first "game" I haven't been able to play on my computer so I'm a bit shocked with the specs. After trying to walk for 2 minutes I basically had to give up since my computer simply couldn't handle it. The high hopes I had for this platform have been crushed completely. I assume within 3 years this platform might become usable but right now the requirements are way to steep.

As a scripter I have relied on Backup Inventory software for a long time simply due to the fact that Second Life is VERY unreliable. Any scripter or creator knows you will loose your content sooner or later which forces you into finding alternatives to backup your creations. Copy and pasting source code into an editor just didn't cut it for me. Should you have the option to backup your own creations in Second Life? Of course you should! If you can do the backup with a third party tool, then why can't I do it within my Second Life client. This logic doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You only need to loose all your source code once to realize that that inventory backup isn't a nice to have feature, it's an absolute must.

I believe Maria's comment here is spot on. It's very hard to lure new people in Second Life so why doesn't LL offer a web platform where people from outside can participate in meetings without having to download anything? That way people with and without an avatar can communicate with each other. This might peak the interest of the web user who then might decide to actually join Second Life at a later stage. In a perfect environment you should be able to present something in SL and on the web platform at the same time. Doesn't seem to be rocket science...

Again, there is till no incentive to switch to a premium account. Until LL gets it, premium accounts will continue to decline. In the old days LL actually paid people to advertise their premium service. I'm sure some of you remember the Refer-a-friend program? Each time people would switch to a premium account by using your link, you would get up to L$1500. Unfortunately the program was broken for over a year and LL refused to take the link down as it was given them free advertising. The point that I'm trying to make? Until LL increases the true value of a premium account, people with premium accounts will finally figure out that they're actually getting ripped off!

Shouldn't Second Life be listed? It seems a bit odd you give the platform coverage nearly ever other day and it isn't even listed? Was this an oversight?

Well crap, how very strange you can't list freebies for free any more? Am I really understanding this right? I wonder who's dumb idea that was? I guess it's time to remove mine...

Wow, I was surfing around a little bit and it's scary to see how easy it has become to steal scripts from any object at this point. I always felt pretty good about scripting in Second Life since that was one thing people couldn't copy but ... I guess that was then and this is now. Not good, not good at all!