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Have you ever heard about Second Life? This sounds like it might be something for you.

Virtual families already exist in Second Life. For example my character has a virtual mother, and one friend who married ingame has modified her character to look pregnant. Another friend who married and later divorced ingame has adopted another player as her son, etc... And there is a field in character profiles for your partner, be it husband or wife or whatever-you-call-it.

"It's realistic" is not a defense for a poor game mechanic

I didn't say it was. Simulation breeds familiarity. Not all pastimes involve adventuring. If you want adventuring, find a world with more existing chaos that demands more adventuring.

unless the intent of your game is a simulation of an actual real life situation.

The cornerstone of entertainment in many MMORPGs is simulation of a fictional world, such as one said to have existed a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. To many non-munchkins, MMORPGs aren't "games" in the classic sense as much as they are glorified chat rooms. People can go there and have a second life.

Don't forget Second Life and the recently released remake of the Thriller video.

You just described SecondLife. Never heard of it? Most people haven't.

I dont care. I'm hooked into Second life. Ive met some sexy gals (or at least their good a role playing one). I wanna give up my job and just become one with secondlife....as long as the street cornor has a wifi connection, there will be no problems. lol

I keep trying to zoom in on things from far away (boobies?) or thinking "wow, what a waste of prims, that must've took loads of his allocation to build" when looking at things - that's what you get from being in Second Life for too long.

Try Second Life.

Uh, Second Life is entirely streamed from the server. The download is only 10 - 20 megs, and then everything you see and do is sent over the internet.
It works great and does not require a very fat pipe.
You can feasibly play it on a 128 kbit line, althought its bandwidth slider can be pushed up to 1 mbit.

Been traveling a bit (just finishing up a Machinima workshop in Vienna at the Top Talent Festival), but came across this thread and thought to throw in some cents (Euro or US, you decide)...

Machinima development has come a long way in the last few years - fulfilling upon its expected promise - though it still has lots of room for maturing.

Fountainhead Entertainment's Machinimation program (which uses the Quake III Arena engine) is the definitive make-machinima-quick tool. Its the first real program for machinima production. In addition, it comes in Demo, Academic and Professional flavors depending on the projects you may have in mind (those interested should check out the Machinimation version differences and the Machinimation FAQ. Machinima filmmakers should stay tuned to the continual development of this program.

In the "promise on the horizon" dept., the afore-mentioned Half-Life2 has a number of tools that could make it the standout machinima production engine. With its internal character facial/gesture animation tool, Face Poser, the ever-so-missing dramatic expression of faces and lip-sync finally gets its due. While the Hammer editor doesn't get as much of an overhaul as I would have liked, this machinima filmmaker hopes there's scripting support in the full SDK to be released next week.

One of the most satisfying of current machinima production-ready engines is probably Unreal Tournament 2004. While even the Epic Games tech can use some help in the machinima department (its internal camera system, Matinee, only goes so far), it does have a large community for support as well as Epic's own Unreal Developer Network (which should be a model for any game developer looking to support their engine post-purchase). That said, the UT2004 tech has room for development and could be the platform for further Machinima development in the future (without spilling too many beans, interested parties should stay tuned). The Unreal 3 tech looks great too!

Other engines: The Sims2 is a good Machinima contender (and the engine behind Rooster Teeth's The Strangerhood) - one hopes that Maxis/EA will build up its Machinima use, either through internally developed tools, or supporting third-party/end-user development of such programs. Linden Lab's Second Life is also a good Machinima platform, although the control of characters and events through a remotely located server can impact production. Still, it allows the end-user to upload their own gestures as well as givens them IP ownership (big deal for those looking to profitize their work). A Machinima filmmaker may also want to consider the Torque engine from Garage Games with its low-cost ownership model and large community as well.

As mentioned in the original posting, Lionhead's The Movies looks promising - an application that blurs the line between game and productivity tool (as least from the Machinima filmmakers perspective). Lionhead unfortunately hasn't looked to the Machinima community for recommendations (which could have been a valuable resource, IMHO), but hopefully they will post-release.

Finally, I will do a selfish plug and make the recommendation to my book, The Art of Machinima, which I created with the beginning Machinima filmmaker in mind. The book covers using Fountainhead's Machinimation (a demo of which is included in the book's CD) as well as more advanced Machinima using UT2004.

The upcoming Machinima Film Festival (Spring 2005) will be showcasing the majority of these engines and developments - people should st

Second Life is the way to go. They've had vid cap since version 1.0, which works quite well, at any screen resolution. Its also only $10 for a LIFE TIME account. Due to having almost entirely user created content, the set possibilities are also endless. Avatar customization and custom animations (using Poser) really open up a ton of possibilities.

I'm producing a sitcom in http://www.secondlife.com/ which seems like the perfect environment for machinema considering that the world is BUILT on user-created content -- even animations!

True we're thinking of using post-production sfx to move mouths, but there are ways to animate and use camera tricks to get the sense of voice->actor tied together. For now we can use the plethora of pre-made facial expressions creatively. :)

Look for Icon Serpentine in-world or send an email to [info]{at}simpleninja(dot}[com)

cheers.

Not saying all MMORPGs have to have a one time fee, that's not doable, but it should be cheaper at least than my crazy webhosting deal I get for like $7 a month. There needs to be an MMORPG price war, but I don't know how one would be initiated.

Quick coffee crazed idea; but I'd love to see a MMORPG client and server frameworkd developed under the GPL, and then the servers would be run by third parties who charge for access.

Recently I started a thread on the COH suggestion forums that got a high rating about wanting a new ski area zone after having seen how ice worked in one of the missions I played. I also mentioned in a later post if there was a map editing tool I'd probably make it myself.

Do you think most future MMORPGs are going to stay with the developer-based content model like COH and Everquest, or do you think we'll begin seeing more user-based content such as in Second Life?

Do you think Cryptic will ever release some kind of content editor (aside from the already incredible character creator) to the users?

Damn straight. That's why you should try SecondLife. One time fee unless you are actually using server space. The whole thing is much more of a social game than a game of pouring more money into a publisher's pocket.

In the meantime, Second Life is a fully scriptable and physics-enabled virtual world with optional damage-enabled zones, where players can create their own RPG and other lifestyle environments from scratch. They encourage economy in and out of the game. You are encouraged to make real money playing it, while they also provide for all players. Their architecture is based on open standard technology and runs on MacOS and Windows, with a Linux client on the way. The Windows client runs on WineX 3.

They need to first create a coherent Internet strategy spearheaded by a Pokemon, Zelda, or Mario based MMORPG at least on par with Final Fantasy and Second Life. Only then shall I permit this fragmentation of attention! This..this... childish insolence!

Combine with Second Life and seriously.

Not affiliated, not even a member, blah blah blah.

Why is this news?

A machinima version of Michael Jackson's Thriller using Second Life's custom animation feature can be found here. The graphics are as good as UT and Second Life provides in-world tools to create sets, costumes, and props. Custom animations can then be uploaded to animate characters. It's a machinimist's dream!

If you are a machinimist and would like to sign up for a free trial of Second Life, enter "Ulrika Zugzwang", the film's creator, in the "Resident Referral" box and join the in-world film-production crew.

Another similar MMO is the poorly-named 'Second Life', published by SF Based Linden Labs. Which is an entirely player-maintained MMO. (ie: 99.95%+ of items, events & actions are built, run & maintained by players).

It mixes some features of ATiTD with a much wider array of customisability (mostly through the in-world C-like scripting language 'LSL'), and can in turn be more interesting purely from creative possibilities. (Since there is no 'levels', 'skill points', it's entirely based on your own prior experience as to what you are capable of), ignoring the incredibly poor choice of name, it actually is more like a proper 3DVR platform mixed with some MMO elements, that what the name implies. (also see ActiveWorlds for a much more primitive similar design). If your interested, there's a 7 day trial availible (with refferal / without refferal link). Worth checking out as well as ATiTD.

-Adam

Another similar MMO is the poorly-named 'Second Life', published by SF Based Linden Labs. Which is an entirely player-maintained MMO. (ie: 99.95%+ of items, events & actions are built, run & maintained by players).

It mixes some features of ATiTD with a much wider array of customisability (mostly through the in-world C-like scripting language 'LSL'), and can in turn be more interesting purely from creative possibilities. (Since there is no 'levels', 'skill points', it's entirely based on your own prior experience as to what you are capable of), ignoring the incredibly poor choice of name, it actually is more like a proper 3DVR platform mixed with some MMO elements, that what the name implies. (also see ActiveWorlds for a much more primitive similar design). If your interested, there's a 7 day trial availible (with refferal / without refferal link). Worth checking out as well as ATiTD.

-Adam

Another similar MMO is the poorly-named 'Second Life', published by SF Based Linden Labs. Which is an entirely player-maintained MMO. (ie: 99.95%+ of items, events & actions are built, run & maintained by players).

It mixes some features of ATiTD with a much wider array of customisability (mostly through the in-world C-like scripting language 'LSL'), and can in turn be more interesting purely from creative possibilities. (Since there is no 'levels', 'skill points', it's entirely based on your own prior experience as to what you are capable of), ignoring the incredibly poor choice of name, it actually is more like a proper 3DVR platform mixed with some MMO elements, that what the name implies. (also see ActiveWorlds for a much more primitive similar design). If your interested, there's a 7 day trial availible (with refferal / without refferal link). Worth checking out as well as ATiTD.

-Adam

Goodbye simoniker. Thank you for always covering Second Life so extensively. The slashdottings really helped the world grow :)

I actually just registered for Second Life last night. It's kinda interesting. I don't think it qualifies as a conventional "roleplaying" game, although you do have an avatar in a massive multiplayer online world, and you can configure how you look and amass all sorts of objects in an inventory... as well as virtual money. But there's no "experience", per se.

One aspect that may definitely disqualify it as a MMORPG for sure, is that it actually has women in it. ;)

Second Life has a scripting language (C++-based) and basically allows anyone to create freeform objects with behaviors and properties. The economic model is interesting. You can do things like create an automated dispenser which charges people to create copies of objects you have created. You can also own virtual real estate.

Someone has created an adventure-within-a-world in it that tracks experience. I haven't checked it out yet, but it sounds interesting. You have to "buy" an Adventurer's Pack which gives you all the relevant objects.

So I don't know if it counts. What do you think?

My name in it is Roark Spinnaker, in the event you run into me while I'm flying around in it. I haven't decided yet if I will stay after the free week trial is over.

http://www.secondlife.com

it looks alot the same as 'There' which i 'played' the trial version of

And are they mostly 3d-modelers/ coders on there, or a more general mix of people

I signed up for a Second Life (SL) account and now I'm hooked. In addition to the gestures and RPC that's been added in version 1.4, there's an existing feature that readers of Slashdot might be equally interested in. Objects in SL can be animated, manipulated, and enhanced with scripts that have similar syntax to C, Java, and perl.

Having coded perl for years, I was impressed when I read up on their scripting language. C, Java, and perl purists should get an account just to celebrate the absence of VB.

Michael.

"There" is alright, it's fairly easy to use and it has a broad appeal. I think of it like the AOL of persistent multiperson virtual environments.

However, when you grow tired of all of the 13 year olds using incessant netspeak, awaiting approval and paying out the gazoo for every little thing you want to customize, and are ready for a more mature environment that runs in something greater than 800x600, you might give Second Life a look. =)

Catholic Sunday masses are now held in Second Life. I believe the first one was just yesterday and as far as I am aware, whoever is running it plans to hold them every sunday morning.

It's also in use in Second Life -- a real-time VR environment. All of the sound effects in the game (including user-created ones) are streamed to clients as Ogg.

In Second life, the content player create, is owned by the player and not the company .
This is totally against the grain of most online games where the company owns it all.

Additionally, they have started tying in real currency to the in game currency. I know this not unique, as Project Entropia does the same thing.

I personally hope this is the way games will go--giving ownership of virtual property to the players and allowing them to use it, sell it, convert for real $$$. I find these environments more enjoyable and rewarding that environments like Everquest, where Sony pretty much owns you.

Second Life already has a vibrant economy driven by user-created content and some users are choosing to convert their in-world earnings back in US$ via Gaming Open Market. Terra Nova has extensive discussions of the strength of the SL economy, as well as some of the problems that can arise from using real-world currency in virtual worlds -- including resident alienation, loss of suspension of disbelief, and interesting legal implications. It is also somewhat specious to suggest that pulling real-world currency into a virtual world somehow enables user-created content. The billing system, whether in US$ or SL's L$, was certainly a complicated component of the overall product, but it was dwarfed by the complexities of 3D streaming, collaborative creation, and distributed physical simulation.

I was really into the Battletech muse years ago, it had decent ANSI gfx, and was rather fun over a modem. I tried to find one in service for old times sake, all the links where dead.

But now, with all CPU/GPU power, there are good graphical type MOO's. Half the fun of MOO's where creating objects and chatting at the same time. There are a dozen opensource VR worlds on sourceforge, and some monthly subscription VR worlds that are rather fun.

Currently I'm playing Secondlife. It's quite a improvement. Of course, I still know people who play nethack and tradewars. So the classics do stay around.

I believe There uses DirectX and IE pretty heavily, making a Linux port nearly impossible barring a significant rewrite of the renderer. If you want to check out a 3D-VR world under Linux, give Second Life a try. It only has Windows and OSX ports, but runs under WINE almost perfectly. There are instructions on the SL forums for getting it up and running. At $10 for a lifetime subscription, how can you go wrong? :)

I think what drove me away from online games is the lack of departure from the levelling treadmill, combined with the incessant immaturity of adolescent players.

I recommend Second Life to people who are bored/sick of MMO's or games in general, but still have lots of free time to spend on the computer =) SL is not really even a game, but more of a metaverse, or generic 3D environment where you can build anything you want, or explore and/or collect things that other people have made.

If you ever enjoyed any of the old Maxis games, you'll probably get hooked on SL; it's a big simulator world, where you can see all the changes people are making to it in real time, as they're creating.

The best thing about it is that it's age limited to 18+ so the atmosphere is mostly mature and intelligent, and there's even areas where you'll find "adult" content if that kind of thing interests you...

So basically if you're losing interest in games but still like hanging out online with other people, I suggest taking a look at SL... They have a one week trial but even a basic subscription is just $10 (one time, not monthly). And don't let the cheesy website throw you off, it looks a lot better inside =P

In a similar way, some Second Life users decided that they wanted to be able to play a traditional RPG within Second Life. The result of their creation was Dark Life, captured in SL's New World Notes. The Dark Lifers have been quite successful and have drawn many players into their game, including many new users. In addition to the usual creature killing, magic spells, healing and leveling, they have also introduced some very interesting twists on traditional RPG gameplay.

Yes, but you don't have CounterStrike! Still my favorite PC game. (And some tribes1/2..)

But, also Mac, The Sims, SecondLife, CivIII, AOE2, Dungeon Siege, Diablo2, MOHAA Expansions (Spearhead), Rainbow Six.

And Mac only has AirBurst, great multiplayer game, one of my favorite Mac games. (Guess it won best of Mac World too.)

I havn't tried Halo on my mac, it only has a ATI 9000, waiting 3 months when ATI releases its new GPU and prices drop, should be able to pick up an ATI 9800 pro for around 100 bux. The GPU's should be 2-3x faster (R500?) My ATI 9700 Pro on my XP box is almost acceptable, I wouldn't even try on an ATI 9000. That Halo Speed patch should be out soon, maybe it will be playable. I do like how you can play across Mac/PC versions. I hope more developers do that.

Second Life has been hapily using NSIS -- featuring Super-PIMP(tm) technology -- for 3 years. We played with just about all of the different installers and settled on NSIS because it generated by far the fastest installs and also created the smallest files. Throw in the fact that it was incredibly easy to use and you had a winner. We haven't switched over to 2.0, though.

Unfortunately, most large-scale parallel processing tasks aren't so simple to break down. But a lot of them can be reduced to ones where you don't need terrible amounts of synchronization between nodes, or can use approximation algorithms to mitigate it or whatever. Second Life apparently runs its weather simulation using a grid running on the client systems, where each user's computer just computes the weather for the nearby "physical" area.

I haven't played FFXI, but I'd steer towards something with more cooperation and less violence.

Second Life looks like an interesting possibility.

Try playing Second Life one of these days. That thing eats more bandwidth than all the illegal content of this world. It's a full 3D massively multiplayer environment where all the content is streamed to you in real time. Geometry, textures, player's movements and actions, everything you see is constantly being downloaded from the server.

And X is NOT slow.

He is right about X not being slow. The problem is the perception thats X is slow. X is what is visual to the user, users either blame KDE/Gnome or X.

Take a pre-emptive low latency linux kernel and run X on it, its like night and day, its smooth, fast, which proves its not X but the kernel.

Windows cheats and loads the gui extremely fast, but if you watch your hardrive light, and tool tray, you will noticed things are still being loaded in the background. The system is busy for a few more seconds. You can load an application, and it waits till after the services start.

So, X seems slow compared to other OS's.
1. Long delays to get into KDE/Gnome, and actually use the system.
2. Slow response on user input.
3. Multitasking, switching apps pause the system.
4. Loading directories in ICON/Image view takes longer than windows.
5. Lindows has everything running as Root for a speed boost.

I predict we will see pre-emptive, low lantency kernels as standard on Mandrake and Suse. Preemptive kernels are now standard on 2.6.x (well, if you check the box). And even more pre-linking to help boot time.

BSD has the same issues. Apple's X server does seem faster than both Linux & BSD. I'm only running window maker on it, so its not an exact match, but task switching and running gimp does seem more reponsive.

Could the answer be the mach kernel osx uses? Maybe we need a new suite of benchmarks for user interaction. (os+X+wm/etc).
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I code in my SecondLife

I can't speak to the standard, but I can cover our experiences using Jpeg2000. In early 2001, the Second Life team did an evaluation of available still image compression schemes in order to determine whether an off-the-shelf solution would meet our requirements of providing flawless visual reproduction at 10:1 compression while preserving chroma at compressions of 100:1 or more, allowing progressive streaming in order to handle level of detail and mipmapping, and be high performance enough to allow for multiple packet decodes per game frame. We went into the search assuming that we would end up having to write out own compression scheme and were pleasantly surprised by the performance of Jpeg2000. We selected the Kakadu libraries for Jpeg2000 compression and decompression and have been happily using them for 3 years on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

It is a shame that Jpeg2000 hasn't seen wider adoption, as it is visually far superior to Jpeg at similar compression levels, especially in reduced "ringing" around high-frequency edges, and its ability to handle progressive streaming is incredibly useful in interactive environments. In Second Life's case, images as large as 2048x2048 are delivered interactively to the client viewer, with a single packet providing enough detail for distant textures. As the user approaches textures, additional packets are delivered to the client, providing a progressive increase in detail with very low latency, thanks to Jpeg2000's ability to deliver fine-grained increases. Kakadu's high performance has also been critical, since many scenes in Second Life have thousands of different textures in view because of user created and uploaded textures.

But isn't Dolby Pro Logic IIx for creating natural surround from stereo for music/movies while EAX allows game developers to create surround sound reflections for 3d enviroments?

And Creative has breakout boxes, multiple inputs, surround emulation software, accelerated audio, EAX# and A3D compatible, support for most games, etc. (And DRM)

I don't see this killing off creative, but will hurt its marketshare from non-gamers.

On the flip side, Creative labs have been quite stale, only minor updates to its Audio card line. They have been adding many other products, they even have mini-pc's, gfx, burners, mice, keyboards, etc..
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Secondlife

I played it for about 2 weeks before I became completly bored with it. I kept thinking to myself.. what is the point? I level up so I can get better weapons so I can kill bigger animals so I can level up so I can.. etc.

This is what we call in the MMO industry, treadmilling. It's working hard to get nowhere.

Some games make it obvious and unrewarding, but many have managed to disguise the treadmill with entertaining content (and these games go on to become successful). It can all depend on the game you're playing. I've not personaly tried FFXI, but I've played a few other MMO games (E&B, AO, SWG).

I spent about 6 months on Earth & Beyond. It was a very fun game, very social, and the treadmill was not too bad in the first 2/3 of the game. The only real problem I had with it was that it had a short feature list (ie no automatic selling), and I was interested in trying something more sophisticated.

I spent about 2 weeks on Anarchy Online. I got tired of doing the missions, and it seemed like there was nothing else to do, since PvP was not a realistic option until I had finished treadmilling. There was also little to no crafting ability, and very few people were open to socialize with a "newbie". =(

I spent about 4 months on SWG. I got in on the beta testing, and had a blast exploring all the new stuff and chatting with people who were game enhusiasts more than they were 'l33t d3wds'.

Once the game was released, it was still a fairly fun atmosphere, but it slowly degenerated into 'l33t d3wds' and people became less socialable. Also, by this time I had seen most of the content that was available to the game, and new content was very slow to come.

I think the problem with SWG was that they were all tied up with bugfixes that they had no time to add significant content in the first few months of release.

Finally, I found Second Life. =P I can't really expect that I will ever get bored here, since 95% of the content is made by the people who play it. It's not really even a game so much as a large simulation world. This is the closest thing we have right now to a metaverse.

I had heard of SL back when it was in beta, but what finally hooked me to try it was when I heard that it let everyone write scripts to put into the objects they build.

When I finally did the free trial, I realized the world looked a whole lot better than the website depicted it, and that it is a lot more flexible and friendly than I thought was possible in an online environment (minimum age of 18 could have something to do with this).

I think I've realized the problem with most online games is that the developers can't keep things fresh enough for all the users. This is why I think online environments that give the players the tools to create ALL of the content will become more popular as people get bored of the levelling treadmills.

I guess SL is a lot like slashdot. The developers give us bits of things to get us started, but we create and enjoy most of the content. I think this is the best way to go, and will definitely keep things interesting (and very addictive) for a long time to come.

Anyway on the topic of game addiction in South Korea, I think it has a lot to do with:

Availablilty of Technology + Social Acceptability to Enjoy that Technology

In the United states, we have a good amount of the former, but not much of the latter.

In the US, most people use technology only a tool. We have no more interest in it than to get the job done, so they can go home and watch friends or hang out at the bar. We don't need to upgrade because their current computer runs Word 97 just fine and that's all we need. Also, we don't have many "gam

I still think you it comes down to the encryption. With enough hosts you could figure out which virtual address are the most reponsive for replies. And make a best guess that person is responsible. Attack in numbers, and then over time, find out which IP's respond, fall back to normal IP logging. Then ask your ISP who had which IP's over time, and go after that user.

I liked how they stated, the virtual addresses and routing tables will be tweaked for best anti-spaming and spoof checking.

Seems like they are working hard on the transport, after thats perfected, then you can add all the features like hash checking, multipart downloads, and file searching.

I like this much better than freenet. Sorry, no internal search engine, and everyone has to give up disk space for cache.

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Secondlife for programmers, artists and designers.

What's interesting is most people subscribed to Slashdot feel safe enough to post thoughts about moral objections, moral orientations and political views.

Most of America isn't.

On that point, we have a term for those followers, the sheep of America. Joe Sixpack, the nannied people who vote the party line, who do what father did, who is satisfied with the status quo. And with Joe Sixpack making up over 50% of the voting public, its hard to get things changed and not passing thought crime'ish laws.

The article brings up many true concerns and valid points. And luckly, a few of us more open minded people have a place to talk about ideas without political or moral backlash. (Except Mod points) That article is posted on the web, I doubt will be published in any editoral newpaper or magazine columns around the USA. Are we the lucky few?
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Secondlife

I upgraded from a GF3-TI500 to an ATI 9700 pro, almost as fast as the GF4-4200 or ATI 8500. At the time (2002) it was the king.

I first tried the Nvidia GF4-4600 for 199, and it didn't even feel faster(took it back). The ATI 9700 Pro, Ati's main comeback into the game, really was impressive. It was worth every penny (39,900 of em).

Anti-Aliasing was the new kid on the block, and the ATI 9700 pro allowed all games at the time (and most now) with AA turned on. Toms benchmarks shows the ATI 9700 pro still to be in the top 10. With video cards not doubling in speed every 6 months anymore (i miss you 3dfx), I dont expect to see the speeds jump like they use too. This card might just last me another year, and in the last 6 years, thats amazing in gfx card releases.

The only problem I've seen so far, is Nvidia's CG code really messes with ATI's textures and shaders. And with lots of developers loving Nvidia SDK's. ATI has been good to fix most bugs with ever new Catalyst release, but I'm still waiting SecondLife to get patched. (Nvidia CG bugs) Such a work horse of an engine (Havok), should be interesting to see Havok2 engine used. (Also used in Max Payne2)

The benchmark had me wondering, why only a P3.2ghz? I'd like to see them also include a High End AMD, and both mid range (2.6hz P4, AMD 2600) to round it out. Always wonder how many more FPS a faster CPU will give me, so I can just if its worth the cost. BTW Save those pics from toms hardware, then you can compare hardware later. I had to search the tomshardware.de for the benchmarks I was looking for 2002.

Hey, lucky they didnt use a P4EE ;)

I believe that this one-time fee option is viewable on a specific page on the Second Life site, but for whatever reason (probably due to the proximity of the announcement to Christmas?), this page is tricky (impossible?) to find through the main Secondlife.com site.

Anyhow, it's there, just badly linked to, so it works right now - I'm kinda tempted, actually.