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Linden Lab is building a NEW virtual world


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Thanks for coming here and posting. I know this now must be taking a bit of your time.  I hope you come back and post more.

I understand the need to build from scratch.  There are too many deep rooted problems with the current architecture.  I've been interested in VR & Virtual Worlds for ages now.  One subject I sank my head into was scalabilty and have known for several years that SL has been exceeding what the experts say is practical.  One of my favorite technical articles on the subject: Scalabilty For Virtual Worlds.

Quite obviously the big question for all of us centers around moving from the old to the new.  All I can do is ask that you deal with us in a fair and equitable manner when the time comes for us to move.  I know you know that many of us have sizeable investments in inventory and other things in Second Life.

I never really question technical decisions though some times design decisions (GUI, The Viewer) make me really shake my head.  I've been known to say about some things that they are proof the designers don't have Second Lives.

Customer relations is still my bug a boo.  My personal experience is overall very good, but when it fails it really fails royally.  I can point you to several Threads in this Forum where people have tried for weeks to get something fixed or to get a clear answer where there is no good reason that they haven't been able to.

On a final note, we saw you initially posting on this over in the SLU Forum.  Ebbe, why is everyone posting over there about SL Centric matters (and not just this one) rather than using the Official Forums you are providing?  Does nothing strike you as wrong with that picture?

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So we'll talk about it. Or maybe I could have kept you in the dark for another month or two until it leaked out anyway (hard to hide such a big effort). And we have a long way to go to have all the answers to all the questions you may want. I figured sooner is better than later (even thought we don't have all the answers). 

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heya ebbe :3

 

all I would ask for this new venture would be to let us retain our names. since even I, took the plunge and bought a domain name for it to put myself out there even as my own av. would be weird to have to start the name all over.

 

that's all I got.

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Ebbe, it's just that the more you know and can talk about any continuity / transition path from SL to the new grid might instill some confidence in current residents -- and help keep them around to pay the bills for a while.

Personally, I'm not so much talking about content. For me, if my Inventory is completely stranded on SL, I don't much care. And I'd actually love to rewrite my scripts in something better than the current LSL. But land, Ebbe, you really have no idea how attached folks get to their own little sense of space. It's why the land-based business model managed to pay the bills for so many years, despite everything. Erosion of that revenue must have been painful already, but if folks see no future in their land holdings, that erosion could quickly turn to panic when no buyers can be found.

So a little reassurance about that would be in LL's best interest, if it's possible.

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I'm being honest and you don't seem to like it. Ok. I did not say at all that everything will be obsolete. I have no idea where you get that from. What I did say is that we will not sacrifice how good the future product will be because we have to twist ourselves in knots to be 100% backwards compatable. Basically we are saying that a better product is more important than making sure everything is SL as you know it will continue unchanged. That could end up just being an upgrade rather than a major step forward.

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Ebbe if you knew anything about me in sl you would know i have no real competition period

The only competition i have is with LL over the years trying to break things Like the famous GSA search putting my region and several thousand others out of the search for 3 months a few years ago!

 

Really you cant conceive that this won't effect the sl economy in the coming months?

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I think it's inevitable that sales and land will go down from now on. It's like you want to buy a new laptop for a 1000 $, but you know that a new OS is coming out next year. You'll probably wait until then, as long as you don't necessarily need a new laptop immediatly.

On the other hand, the uproar would have been HUGE, if they would have announced it shortly bevor they open the new world. Letting people buy old regions, for tremendous costs, when the new Grid may be even cheaper to set up something better.

Timing is crutial now. This new world has be launched as soon as possible IMHO.

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This is what I felt would happen.

People heard "we aren't making promises about backwards compatibility" and took it as "LL is giving up on backwards compatibility completely."

I just want to hear from you, Ebbe, that you understand the value of existing content in SL and that you will do what is possible to keep products people have purchased while obviously drawing the line somewhere that certain things are too difficult to bring to SL 2.0. 

Something along the lines of "Mono scripts will still work but LSL engine scripts won't." or "Mesh will work but sculpties won't." or "you can use existing animations with user created skeletons."

Just something along those lines. It doesn't even have to be concrete. But a lot of people seem to not understand how valuable a large amount of user generated content is and that (and I hope you agree with me on this) throwing away vast amounts of user content that other users like is a huge mistake, and that cleaning out existing content entirely would only put LL on level playing field with other virtual worlds.

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I think Qie is right.

One cares more for their land others for their inventory and many for both if the future of these essensials are unsure and if this will be bridged at all, so the transition will be smoothly and joyful only, it may be so people panic about this.

I'd hate it if with two platforms we get a divided community and people who bail out completely due to lack of information and security about what is important for them.

If I speak for myself I know I need to take a week to sleep this over to see what I need to do with my current properties and future in Second Life.

It is just not so comfortable to hear news without reassurance of some substantial basics.

I do understand though this "leak" was in a too early stage to say something constructive about these fundemental questions.

A lot of changes happened over the years frequently a lack of solid communication made it even harder to cope with it this may also be the reason people are a bit wary.

I feel it is better for everyone to have some more information rather sooner than later just so this can be done with us and not to us.

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So the SL reboot "will put focus on content creators as the primary customer".  I think I heard that about 8 years ago and invested much money, time and emotion getting to a very happy SL.

Now I feel like a happy Windows XP user who is being told I've to move to Windows Vista (and didn't that work out well!) but all of my pictures, video and music files will be deleted, but that's ok, I can just buy some more.  Well, just like I can't recreate a picture of my infant son, I also can't just recreate the one-off build I live in now.  Some of the precious music I have is no longer
available, and even if it were why should I rebuy it?

Move to the SL Reboot?  How many years before the next delete all inventory and start again? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

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Well, the line "will put focus on content creators as the primary customer" could be read also in the light of a higher sales tax/fee (you name it) for content creators. Not just letting them build the new world for them for free, but also taking more money away from them in return.

It's just a matter of perspective I guess. :matte-motes-big-grin:

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Ebbe Linden wrote:

I don't think we can assume that the SL tech and experience as we know it can last forever and that something better will not come around some day. It's either us or someone else. By letting you know that we are working on something I've already seen a lot of positives come out, and yes, some doomsday stuff, but there are always a group of people who dislike change (even for the better).
So, in the future, you will move to something better, and we plan to provide that.

I get this, Ebbe.

I'm a long time Apple fan, who's watched that company's steadfast focus on making the best product frustrate a lot of customers (including me) who just wanted a better version of the thing they had.

"They didn't ask us what we wanted!"

Nor did Henry Ford.

 

I would love for you to listen to me. Everybody wants to feel appreciated. But I'm pretty sure that if you did, there might not be many happy with the result, including me.

You're quite right. In the future, I will absolutely move to something better. Second Life was unlike anything I'd imagined, and that's what attracted me to it. That next place I go will probably be unlike anything I've imagined. So there's the dilemma. If you give me what I say want, I won't take it. I bet you've seen that happen before.

Just give me the best you can do. If I hate it, but you're wildly successful, that's my problem, not yours.

;-).

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1. Landscaping and building my parcel (Frank Lloyd Wright inspired "Falling Water") has taken years and at least $1,000 to build and get right. Will I be able to move en masse this work and contents, or will LL make it just disappear?

2. Laptops with Intel graphics were purchased by many of my friends a few years ago, "the latest and greatest with longer battery life". But they never worked with SL, which none of them realized in advance. Since they are not made of money, they simply left SL forever. Sad, eh?  Will the new world finish off the rest of us without the kick-ass PCs your LL engineers all have?

3. What if the "new world" fails to draw people away from their HUGE investments in old SL? Remember, 80% of SL isCHAT with a wonderful community (now half the size it once was), with the world itself being fun but NOT the core of SL imho.

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Those who have been in Second Life in 2008 already may still remember what happened when Linden Lab suddenly announced to raise tier for homesteads by 67 % overnight and short time after assuring us that tier prices are stabile and won't be touched. When thousands of residents dropped their homestead land within four weeks. I still see all those avatars with their black flags and that red hand symbol occupying all Linden owned buildings, help centers and other public places for days and weeks. And those were only residents who owned homestead land.

 

THIS will affect ALL who invested lots of time and money into their beloved homes and places, no matter wether they live on mainland or private land or no land at all. Limden Lab was surprised by the uprising in 2008 and now once again I think they will be surprised by what will happen if this will spread out to the grid - with all the rumours, false information about "SL closing" and so on ... Once again they only think in bits and bytes and see only what they want to see and they refuse the huge impact this will have on the community ... the users ... their paying customers !

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If they will put focus on content creators as the primary customer they should know that only a very small number of Second Life users actually are content creators. 95 % are content BUYERS and the Lab may very well end up with having the creators on the new grid and their customers remaining on the old grid for a very long time. Because it will take a damn long time before the new workd will be a world worthy to migrate to - for a long time there will be no clubs, no events, no homes, no nothing - many will create an avatar over there to look around but that will be it - all their friends, favorite places to go, their stuff will be on SL 1.0. - What I expect for the first few weeks is a high number of sign ups and a very small number of active users because - well - its stoneage ... remember inworldz ? blue mars ? nexxtlife ? ... the new grid will just be another competitor for a very long time.

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Thanks. So FB/Oculus came out and said they are going to do a VW for a billoin people. I did not hear a peep from anyone here. How compatibale will that world be? When will all users run over to that one? Should I invest in SL now that they are donig that...etc. 

If all users move rather quickly from SL to our next gen then I assume things went very well. If few are, then I think we'd have more work to do and SL will keep on tickin until only the new one makes sense to operate...

I can't give a clear path for exactly when and how this transition may or may not happen (could be that they are side by side for a very long time). 

All I've said is that we're doing it, we're going to invest a lot to do it, and that from now on forward we'll all be talking about it with more and more detail as time goes by. You'll be along for the ride. Trying to hide it for a long period where we can answer all the questions by the time we do reveal it I don't think would work becuase it would come out anyway and second, I want to have dialog with you all about it rather than come up with all the answers first (and then get yelled at for not including you sooner ;)

So, my recommendation is that if you have interest in VW then use the best product there is (SL) and as time goes on we will figure out how to make it worthwhile for you to stay with us and work through the transition over time . But none of us can predict what the world will look like 2 years from now (regardless of what we do or do not do). 

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Thanks. We will clearly try to make sure things work out for the best for our users and that we are fair (although I can't guarantee that all will be happy; some will be happier, some will find their niche is less valuable and a large number of new users will find new ways to create that hasn't been done before). 

I ended up posting where there was volume on the topic. I don't worry too much if it's "my" board or someone elses...as long as there's useful dialog I'm ok...

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Ebbe Linden wrote:

Thanks. So FB/Oculus came out and said they are going to do a VW for a billoin people.

Hehe, cool! You have a link maybe? They already had the next gen virtual world with cloudparty already. We all know how well that went. :matte-motes-big-grin:

However, that's good news indeed, because we don't have to fear that Mr. Zuckerberg will buy out the Lab when it has this awesome new platform ready, when the Rift is going to consumer level next year.

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It may. It would if another company did a better VW. 

But not investing in the future is not the answer so I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

We're obviously going to do our best to make it a positive experience for existing as well as new users. 

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