Questions

Fulkster wrote:

(Re: Biggstrek's question, my problem is it seems if we buy a 3rd party model/set/whatever, we run the risk of not owning our movie? I'm happy to pay for something I like (and respect the creator by not sharing the item), but if it negates a reason that drew me to this venture, I wonder how wise it would be for me to buy something in the first place? Or are we talking about things bought from Moviestorm (not 3rd party), that you are letting us use freely? (for our use))

In the animation industry when you purchase a 3d model or character from say, Turbosquid, it's always under the assumption that you'll be using the assets for commercial productions. If the creator doesn't want to give up the rights to their stuff they shouldn't sell it, unless of course a special arrangement is made between two trusted parties.
As for the question of giving it away to your mates, there's nothing much a creator can do to stop that happening. The onus would be on the creator of the object to try and track down anyone using their assets without having paid for them - which in practice is a pretty pointless endeavour, especially since people will probably modify the asset for their own use.
I would expect the same situation to apply within the Moviestorm community when dealing with models imported from other programs, but there are some things one could do to 'protect' assets created within Moviestorm, e.g. in Second Life you can sell an item of clothing and if I'm not mistaken it's locked to prevent re-sale and modification.

I wonder if, for smaller transactions it might be possible to build up moviestorm credit.

So say I made a magnolia tree, and uploaded it for sale at say 10(virtual) c a download, and ten people thought it was cool and were prepared to pay that exhorbitant amount..I would have 1 dollar in my account....and then I see some fabulous shoes that someone made, say, which are 90(virtual)c...I could buy those without troubling paypal or the taxman, and have 10(virtual)c to splash around later.

There could be some rule about withdrawals, the account only available in units of $20 (except when someone is closing their acount)

This would also give the team the opportunity to offer smaller incentives, and prizes in virtual dollars.

Experience from second life suggests that most people are happy to pay a reasonable amount for creations, especially when it saves time, but that many of the creations are made by people who are self financing their hobby.

kkffoo wrote:

I wonder if, for smaller transactions it might be possible to build up moviestorm credit.

So say I made a magnolia tree, and uploaded it for sale at say 10(virtual) c a download, and ten people thought it was cool and were prepared to pay that exhorbitant amount..I would have 1 dollar in my account....and then I see some fabulous shoes that someone made, say, which are 90(virtual)c...I could buy those without troubling paypal or the taxman, and have 10(virtual)c to splash around later.

There could be some rule about withdrawals, the account only available in units of $20 (except when someone is closing their acount)

This would also give the team the opportunity to offer smaller incentives, and prizes in virtual dollars.

Experience from second life suggests that most people are happy to pay a reasonable amount for creations, especially when it saves time, but that many of the creations are made by people who are self financing their hobby.

That is an excellent suggestion. I do believe that they are looking into implementing something like that.

I would like to note that some people are actually making money and living off of it in Second Life. There was some tv coverage on the news about this woman who designs clothes in there and she has 3 or 4 stores and makes about $500 real life dollars a month.

Like I said in another thread, I think that microtransactions will eventually overthrow subscription models and MS should go that way.

Toriel wrote:

kkffoo wrote:

I wonder if, for smaller transactions it might be possible to build up moviestorm credit.

So say I made a magnolia tree, and uploaded it for sale at say 10(virtual) c a download, and ten people thought it was cool and were prepared to pay that exhorbitant amount..I would have 1 dollar in my account....and then I see some fabulous shoes that someone made, say, which are 90(virtual)c...I could buy those without troubling paypal or the taxman, and have 10(virtual)c to splash around later.

There could be some rule about withdrawals, the account only available in units of $20 (except when someone is closing their acount)

This would also give the team the opportunity to offer smaller incentives, and prizes in virtual dollars.

Experience from second life suggests that most people are happy to pay a reasonable amount for creations, especially when it saves time, but that many of the creations are made by people who are self financing their hobby.

That is an excellent suggestion. I do believe that they are looking into implementing something like that.

I would like to note that some people are actually making money and living off of it in Second Life. There was some tv coverage on the news about this woman who designs clothes in there and she has 3 or 4 stores and makes about $500 real life dollars a month.

Like I said in another thread, I think that microtransactions will eventually overthrow subscription models and MS should go that way.

Although I'm new here and have barely had time for the briefest try out of the beta so feel loathe to spout too much, I personally am a bit wary of Moviestorm getting too deep into the whole community trading thing... I don't know much about how much programming and support would go into creating and maintaining a 'virtual economy' for users, but it seems like it would be a big effort and potentially take resources and man hours away from the all-important core aspects of the software, which is movie making. The economy also smacks somewhat of gaming or sim communties, which Moviestorm doesn't appear to be about..

I'm wondering if perhaps all buying/selling of art assets should be done externally, say people just use their paypal accounts or whatever to purchase 3ds files from each other for example, while all assets created within Moviestorm would simply be exchanged internally, say swapped or exchanged for services at users' discretion etc, rather than involving the whole economy thing... E.g. a modder could have some simple choices about keeping their item, giving it away 'locked' to one user only, or giving it away freely for unrestricted distribution/modification...?

Primordial wrote:

Although I'm new here and have barely had time for the briefest try out of the beta so feel loathe to spout too much, I personally am a bit wary of Moviestorm getting too deep into the whole community trading thing... I don't know much about how much programming and support would go into creating and maintaining a 'virtual economy' for users, but it seems like it would be a big effort and potentially take resources and man hours away from the all-important core aspects of the software, which is movie making. The economy also smacks somewhat of gaming or sim communties, which Moviestorm doesn't appear to be about..

I'm wondering if perhaps all buying/selling of art assets should be done externally, say people just use their paypal accounts or whatever to purchase 3ds files from each other for example, while all assets created within Moviestorm would simply be exchanged internally, say swapped or exchanged for services at users' discretion etc, rather than involving the whole economy thing... E.g. a modder could have some simple choices about keeping their item, giving it away 'locked' to one user only, or giving it away freely for unrestricted distribution/modification...?

I think that the idea is that if you want to simply share your mods, you will be able to do it freely. On the other hand, those who want to sell them will also have the possibility to do that too.