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The Call Girl Character Class
An anonymous reader writes "And you thought stuff like WoW was addictive before? 1UP has posted a story from CGW about the new character class in MMOs: call girl. They interviewed girls who make up to thousands of dollars a week as escorts in the MMO Second Life. The article even sheds light on virtual pimps and a gentleman's club that takes a cut of the action. Said one of the escorts interviewed, 'Based on my personal convictions, which most people would find beyond offensive, I do not set boundaries in Second Life. I'll do anything, and I'll probably do it better than the client expects.'"
Aight. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
"Hard like a rhino..."
- Vanilla Ice
Will the call girl class cry after the first time they level up?
virtual money for a virtual "escort"... kids these days. pimps and hookers can use this to hone their skills before going out and doing the real thing
It's only a matter of time before you have virtual crackwhores whose avatars stumble into your pad, and after they give sex for money, they ask if you want to try a hot new drug called "snow crash". (If you are in the 0.001% of Slashdot users who don't get the joke because you haven't read Neal Stephenson's , you don't know what you've been missing).
(Massive-Multiplayer Transmitted Disease)
With virtual hookers, at least it's only your *computer* that'll get a virus...
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
Actually, Second Life nowadays allows for user-uploaded animations. Most anything that is stored as a .bvh file can be uploaded as an animation for your avatar to do.
Some people make sets of animations that allow for almost every possible sexual position with almost as many partners as you want at one time. Some are even advanced enough to where you can sit on an animation object and switch between animations from a menu select system.
If pixel-slapping is your thing, then SL is probably one of the only "on-the-market" products that lets you have the freedom to do these things, among others.
Slashdot - Come for the creative thought, stay for the lesbians!
I read the article last friday and was shocked because it wasn't a joke!
I've recently started playing an MMORPG that's very roleplay-oriented and I have a lot of fun interacting with all the different stories each character has but I find that some folks take the game WAY to seriously. I don't know, I'm firmly and happily planted in the real world and I escape to the virtual one for a bit of entertaining psychodrama at the price of a few hours of my nights.
I'd love to whip out the old cliche "it's just a game" but it would be an oversimplification of the situation but the article shoots the argument down.
There are folks that participate in online gaming as a means of escape - life is hell and they want another chance elsewhere and they live these lives online.
Boy, psychiatrists and psycologists are making a fortune these days!
Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
This article uses the in-game currency/real-world currency while RARELY being explicit about which one is being used. I guess it incites the reaction it obviously got - Holy Crap, They're making a considerable amount of money! Except that it's $5,000 in-game currency. Which, according to the exchange rate, comes out to $18.12.
Both involve ho's
18.20 lets say that is for a 30 minute session. travel time 0.
18.20 time 2 is 36.40 an hour. Lets figure on a 40 hour week or about 2080 hours per year. That's $75.712.00 The more you work the more you make.
I also don't know what the exchange rates and fees are. I also don't know if there is taxes involved. (income tax for one.) These girls are making a little less than strippers but have 0 physical risk.
Just some math
JACEM
DOC Disinformation Obfuscation and Confusion
The carrot to FUD's stick
MMOrgy is a blog specializing in the naughtier side of MMOs.
Not level grinding games like WoW or Everquest.
An MMORPG is not like a single player RPG. You will never be the farm boy/girl who saves the kingdom and marries the princess. You can't be the hero in an epic story that changes the fate of an entire continent.
An MMORPG is instead about living a live in an alternate universe.
Those who complain that some people are using Second Live to escape their real live are idiots.
Because of cause that is why people play games especially computer games. You don't think Michael Schumacher plays F1 games do you? WW2 veterans do not play Medal of Honor (or if they do find it boring and unrealistic to the extreme) and so on. People with exciting lives do not watch TV and do not play games. That is something for the rest of us to do. TV/Computers games, the opium of the masses.
An MMORPG is a second live for escaping your normal live. How deep and in what way depends on the person. To some just "levelling" up, raiding dungeons and looting stuff is all they want.
Others want more but it is a rare game that gives them the possibilty.
I played Star Wars Galaxies (Before combat upgrade made me leave) and later Everquest 2 (anyone feeling the need to recommend other MMORPG's please check wether they can be paid without a credit card first) and after that Guild Wars.
The last two don't hold a candle in respects to "role" playing.
I probably don't mean the same thing with roleplaying as most people. I am not talking about those people that roleplay a scout or a wizard in Everquest. Or those that roleplay rebel scum or a imperial scriptkiddie. (Oh be honest, have you ever met a mature imperial?)
No, I mean those who went beyond the title of their character sheet and roleplayed a trader or a explorer or a outfitter.
I played a trader, I liked exploring the planets and this often led me to unvisited shops wich usually had some stock going unsold. Easy to buy it and then resell it at hotspots for a slight margin. Food and drinks (buffs in swg) were espcially good. Few players had the dedication to prepare by stocking up before a mission so typical SWG fare was.
Player1: "All ready to go to the most lethal planet in the galaxy to go hunt the most lethal critter known?"
Player2: "Yeah yeah yeah lets go already enough time delaying"
Player1: "Okay we arrived, lets move out to the first lair"
Player2: "Give me some brandy I ran out"
Player1 + 3-9: "we are all on our last bottle too"
Cue my little character stocking the bazaars at the out of the way destinations with quality, pricey but quality brandy. Oh and in 1 bottle portions so as not to overtax those who spend all their money on a overpriced weapon.
It was in a way a lot of fun. Others I knew got a kick out of constantly checking what resources were being dropped. One guy seemed to be very good at finding players for missions. If you were missing a doc or a bio engineer etc for a raid, he could find someone willing to join.
In short the game allowed you to play more then just the "hero" prototypes.
If you ever wonder why SWG fans bemoan the New Game Experience it is because they removed the freedoms to play those other characters.
SWG was a girl heavy game with a lot of them having a sideline in dressmaking. I was better dressed in game then in real life.
So to me, hookers and pimps and johns in a MMO game doesn't sound bad at all. Not because of the sex but because these people found a way to play the game wich goes beyond what is in the manual.
Anyway it is nothing new. The sims online had an article about an underaged hooker.
A good MMORPG will be more then just grinding levels and raiding dungeons. Not that there is anything wrong with that but DDO to be fair can be seen as nothing mo
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The MPAA rates much harder on sexual situations than violent ones. Can have hundreds of people killed, still get PG-13, but get a couple too many boobies showing, rated R. Male nudity, pretty much Adults Only, or release unrated. The theory i've heard is "people know the violence is fake, but the sex can be more easily confused with real life, therefore influencing unwanted behavior". Lets say we pretend this is true, there's something about a bare breast that makes people unable to see that it's a construction on not reality, where do virtual worlds fit in? We've already seen the uproar with Hot Coffee and GTA. Here you're in the same environment (so no confusion reality vs. game), seeing a highly pixellated "woman" and that's immoral. But the violence in the game gets a rating sticker and is ok.
Not asking for an answer, just confused...
Specifically, your avatar can have the current animation be set and changed by an object, either by giving that object permission, or by sitting on it. A standard way of doing such things is to have "pose balls" or similar (e.g. a "sit" on a couch, or a bed, and it then gets to animate you). There are lots of combo pose balls where one person "sits" on one, the other on the other, and it puts both avatars into a posed position, typically sexual.
Since objects can also communicate, and can be controlled by a player (under control of a script), this allows for as complex interaction between two avatars as you can think of. Either or both can select how they want to act or respond, and a script can select the appropriate synchronized animations to do the appropriate interaction.
ALL avatar motion is controlled by such animations, such as normal sitting, standing, flying, jumping, walking, running, falling. You can also trigger animations on yourself, it isn't only through objects. Besides animations, you can also trigger sounds (which can also be uploaded).
Combined with the ability to upload skin details and attach objects to your body (and said objects can now move as well, e.g. twitching tails, flapping wings), and reshape body details (male or female), the possibilities seem fairly unbounded. Certainly for someone who gets off on phone sex, something like this can add a whole new element.
There also seems to be a big market in selling skins, pose balls, animations and sounds to implement all of this, i.e. the support structure behind the sex trade. Gambling also seems to be big in SL; think of it, you could script a slot machine that allowed anyone to copy it, they run it, and it automatically gives you (the programmer) a cut of the action, without even having to put up any money (and payouts come out of the account of the person who is running the machine, not you). You can do that without needing to actually pay ANY real money, just with the basic free account, and if your slot machine becomes popular, you'll start getting game money rolling in, which you can then trade for real money.
Maybe you will change your mind after listening to Reason :-)
Beware the fury of a patient man
- John Dryden
Wow, that's a hell of a fantasy! What's it called?
"The Aristocats"