9 years in SL and I'm stumped

[Aislin Ceawlin]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

I had a poor new resident stumble on to my store yesterday. He was a cloud and was stuck., With a little talking, we got rid of the alpha that came with the mesh avi that he had managed to detach. Got him set up with a default avi and some clothes. Took about an hour to get him squared away....It shouldn't take that long. When I first came to SL it took me about 1/2 hour to get going, but then, the original orientation island had you actually spend 1 L for a mail shirt and then put it on,

You could always tell who was brand new since they usually had on that shirt and were carrying a torch.

The point is, new residents don't get that kind of help...it's sink or swim. The new mesh avis are just.....ugly. The new residents have no idea how to get rid of them unless they run in to an experienced resident that is willing to walk them through getting it off.

Sorry, but the mesh starter avis are as bad as the "portals" they had for a while where new residents landed then chose the experience the wanted, went through a portal and were randomly dumped somewhere in SL that might have something to do with what they chose. LL decision to do away with the SL Mentors racks right up there as well. I think the era of greatest retention was when LL sponsored private orientation center that were set up. Those were great. I remember the one for Japan was in Japanese and was set up like going through a subway station,. ...shrugs.

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OMG...lmao, that just brought back so many memories!!!! 

[Deltango Vale]

"Del, LL will be the only developer of their new virtual world. If you trust them to get that right, why not trust them to get the viewer right? If you don't trust them to get the world right, why care about the viewer?"

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Good point. I don't expect LL to get it right with SL2. I expect catastrophe. LL's track record on development has been abysmal. It's not just about core engineering; it's about the entire development process. V2 was dumped on the community without any consultation. God bless poor Torley who struggled to soothe people with instructional videos, knowing all the while that V2 was a turd. The introduction of mesh was a mess. LL is sloppy, very sloppy. I expect the same sloppy development and shoddy workmanship for SL2. I expect SL2 to bankrupt the company.

[Deltango Vale]

"I use the analogy of a car.  There is the engine under the hood and there is the Dashboard, etc, where we all the controls are where we 'interface' with the engine."

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Not quite. V2 destroyed the excellent, long-standing naming convention, resulting not only in 1) a greatly reduced name space for new residents, 2) account inflation as existing residents scrambled to create new avatars to prevent cybersquatting of their names and 3) a degradation of the user experience across Second Life. In other words, V2 replaced leather bucket seats with a single vinyl bench. More power under the hood maybe, but a less comfortable ride.

[Deltango Vale]

The Emerald viewer preceded the Phoenix viewer, which preceded the Firestorm viewer. Many residents switched to Emerald in the latter days of V1. It was a good viewer, but it was susceptible to abuse. When the main designer launched a DDoS attack, Emerald was doomed (and rightly so). The code was taken over by a responsible team of designers and the viewer was renamed Phoenix. All of this happened before the release of V2. Following the release of V2, Phoenix was redesigned as Firestorm.

[Saucey Sinister]

People don't realize that everything from a prim to an old avatar is mesh. Sculpts were made as an exclusive grid thing for SL that youc an't use elsewhere. Most video games that allow custom content give you their original mesh avatar and premade clothing, only SL's original avatar had clothing painted on. The other characters from other games were all prefit with the clothing with preprogrammed abilities never to change throughout play.

 

BUT- You have a huge point about the way people "push it down your throat" and/or how hard it is for new players. I believe the biggest reason are these fake marketing ideas brands are using to keep their sales on top, to keep people thinking their way is the best way. People like to claim their items are original mesh as a marketing reason to sell to you. Mesh means it won't bend derpy when you move about ( like any other game) but in such a clear, high rez drawing space that almost anyone can texture mesh. This causes store owners to naturally start a competative marketing war. Think Pepsi and Coke over the years. With these top brands selling their version of SL, new people coming in have no idea they've been brand brainwashed and thus starts the spin of I am better than you because I have "original created mesh".

For the record, I have indeed learned how to 3d sculpt to be able to create mesh and it's super freeing as an artist. The problem is (hold back the haters now, please) is that most people in SL are doing things half way. They may be able to buy a model off of a site like tubrosquid, texture it, and sound fancy. But, in my opinion, someone truly skilled would take time to build a fresh avatar or perhaps, the entire neck down, etc... or they learned how to export shapes, reupload an "original mesh avatar" but they can't make clothing at all. Why? Because they are faking it. All of this is about marketing products and in my opinion, it's no different than a commercial: They will let you believe whatever you want.

Good luck with trying to understand all of these pieces people have made as "original mesh content". I'm so over these snobs, seriously! LOL!!