Linden Lab is building a NEW virtual world

[DesperadoReprise]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

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DesperadoReprise wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

Repeating myself, but I have to agree:

the more that can be said now to reassure folks about the future

, the better for LL's ability to keep paying the bills until BetterWorld is open.

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Train's already left that station.

"the stage was set"

PS Damn! Laskya already said the same thing in a more

detailed and thoughtful

fashion while I was checking the - disastrous - cricket score.

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Fixed it for ya! :-D

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You might have fixed the typo - I did - while you were at it!

"the queen of hearts you say you never met"

[LaskyaClaren]

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DesperadoReprise wrote:

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

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DesperadoReprise wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

Repeating myself, but I have to agree:

the more that can be said now to reassure folks about the future

, the better for LL's ability to keep paying the bills until BetterWorld is open.

---

Train's already left that station.

"the stage was set"

PS Damn! Laskya already said the same thing in a more

detailed and thoughtful

fashion while I was checking the - disastrous - cricket score.

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Fixed it for ya! :-D

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You might have fixed the typo - I did - while you were at it!

"the queen of hearts you say you never met"

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I wanted it immortalized. :-D

[Coby Foden]

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Mony Lindman wrote:

 

At this time there's only a small number of people who heard about it but when everybody will know that their assets may be useless and worthless tomorrow..

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There has never been any promise that the present SL will continue forever. It has been no secret, the TOS clearly states that fact. And you have agreed to that, haven't you?

1.2 The Service exists only as long as and in the form that we may provide the Service, and all aspects of the Service, including your User Content, are subject to change or elimination.

Linden Lab has the right to change, limit access to, and/or eliminate any aspect(s), feature(s) or functionality of the Service (including your User Content) as it sees fit at any time without notice, and Linden Lab makes no commitment, express or implied, to maintain or continue, or to permit open access to, any aspect of the Service. You acknowledge that your use of the Service is subject to this risk and that you knowingly assume it and make your decisions to participate in the Service, contribute Content and spend your money accordingly.

Anyway, the backward compatibility thing what you are after actually is the major obstacle which prevents any major awesome overhaul and upgrade to the present SL. Therefore it is better to create a new world without the burden of old content. If Linden Lab would not make a new virtual world with up to date technology it is highly likely that somebody else would.

Either way, will it be Linden Lab or somebody else who makes the new world, it would mean the inevitable slow decline and eventual death of the present SL - provided that the new world is really outstanding and better in all respects. Which it may well be. :smileyhappy:

[DesperadoReprise]

LL also has the ability, and right, to terminate accounts without explanation, and without offering a cashout of any Linden Dollars held.

That would be a nice little earner for them, wouldn't it!

They also now own the rights to your content, so they could sell that after you're gone - and prevent you from selling it in V2 - even in the unlikely event that you could convert it for use there.

"Easy money"

 

[Domitan Redenblack]

COBY, you are saying:

 

Linden Labs also has the right to go out of business and lay off all workers, and wreck the investment of the owners.

 

This is "typical LL thinking" about customers. "It's our ball, so burn your shoes and outfits and property, OR just go away". 

 

The 3 Stooges of corporate management? Really?

 

Don't you think Linden really understands that losing customers is 100x easier than getting them?

 

 

 

 

[Mony Lindman]

Of course LL has all rights and we have none and we agreed to that but does that include the right to commit suicide? Well.. it probably does. But are friends and business partners not supposed to at least try to convince the suicider that life is still worth living.. as is ?

You say "If Linden Lab would not make a new virtual world with up to date technology it is highly likely that somebody else would". Well.. someone else already does.. it's called High Fidelity. Is that not competition enough for SL? Is yet another competitor, this time from inside, really necessary and helpful?

Remember that we're talking about more or less the SAME user base ..

[LaskyaClaren]

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Domitan Redenblack wrote:

COBY, you are saying:

 

Linden Labs also has the right to go out of business and lay off all workers, and wreck the investment of the owners.

 

This is "typical LL thinking" about customers. "It's our ball, so burn your shoes and outfits and property, OR just go away". 

 

The 3 Stooges of corporate management? Really?

 

Don't you think Linden really understands that losing customers is 100x easier than getting them?

 

 

 

 

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In fairness, LL has, intentionally or not, let the cat out of the bag. You now have pretty fair warning that, two years down the road at the latest, Second Life will become something of a lame duck. You have, in other words, lots of time to respond: this wasn't sprung on us at the last possible moment.

How you respond to that news will depend upon how much faith you have in Linden Lab's willingness or ability to accommodate the greatly diverse demands of its user base for portability and compatibility. 

You clearly don't have much faith in that, so the obvious answer is for you to get out, now, while the going is still good.

Others -- and I hope this is a majority -- may have more faith that LL is sufficiently aware of its own best interests not to burn content creators, landowners, and other "high end" users more than they absolutely have to.

[DesperadoReprise]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

You clearly don't have much faith in that, so the obvious answer is for you to get out, now, while the going is still good.

Others -- and I hope this is a majority -- may have more faith that LL is sufficiently aware of its own best interests not to burn content creators, landowners, and other "high end" users

more than they

absolutely

have to.

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You'd trust LL with a judgment call like this? An organisation that bans someone from the forums for a post that says simply "Wut?"

"You sealed your fate up a long time ago"

[Perrie Juran]

 

I think this sums up the current state of the discussion.

 

[Pamela Galli]

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Mony Lindman wrote:

Ebbe, please try to understand what you are saying..

As YOU stated in the discussion with the 3rd party viewer creators (

- after time code 1:24) , according to YOUR research, the BASE of SL , the economically most important group of SL users, are the content creators, right?

SL is a business, as YOU stated and the BASE of this business are the content creators. OK, if that is the case, and i believe it is, then how can you even consider hitting exactly THAT BASE that hard ? By saying that moving their assets into the new world is NOT A PRIORITY! It may happen , it may not.. but you just dont care as long as your new world will look as good as PlayStation 15..

Can you really not understand that hitting THE BASE OF YOUR BUSINESS , you hit YOUR BUSINESS ITSELF ?

Content creators are not only the professional RL graphic desigers who have their 3D products on their HD and can upload them anywhere, the majority of the content creators (& merchants) are those who buy such products IN WORLD with full permissions and mod them and combine them into something new. They invested millions of lindens over the years and their investment sits in their INVENTORY! Not on their HD coz that's not allowed and not possible.

And even if it was allowed and possible , it would not be legal because these items are licenced for Second Life only. And if SL2 is "another world" then adieu assets.. good bye investment..

Every single day, more than 1 million REAL DOLLARS change hands in Second Life. Since 10 years .. EVERY DAY! Part of it on services and fees but much of it on ITEMS. And those items land in the INVENTORIES. Not only the inventories of content creators but all the millions of inventories of the millions of "usual users". And I do mean millions. Because alts also buy things..

And now you come, out of nowhere, and tell us all, content creators and normal users, that you don't like "old items" and don't want to see them in your new shiny world. And if the effort of moving those assets into that new world would somehow hinder that new world from shining like the sun, then just throw them away .. who cares..

Well.. YOU should care. Because that IS your business!

The Second Life users, be they content creators or not, invested BILLIONS of REAL dollars over the years into THOSE assets, be they full permissions or not, and THIS INVESTMENT kept SL alive and made SL a profitable business.

THIS MONEY is your business! And the items sitting in the inventories of content creators are THEIR BUSINESS. And since content crators are the base of YOUR business, their business is YOUR BUSINESS! Is this really so difficult to understand ?

Can you at least imagine what impact this "announcement" will have (and already started to have) on the SL users of all kind? What degree of uncertainty is spreading over the grid AS WE SPEAK?

At this time there's only a small number of people who heard about it but when everybody will know that their assets may be useless and worthless tomorrow.. who will still want to buy ANYTHING in SL? Will not everybody feel like being ROBBED? And act accordingly?

Over the next 2-3 years that you seem to need till SL2 will go life, will we still have a business if people stop buying? Will YOU still have a business..?

In any case, what I absolutelly need, and I need it NOW, are CLEAR answers to the following questions:

1 - What type of assets are more likelly to be transferable to SL2 and what probably not? (meshes, animations, sculpts, scripts, textures, builds made of normal prims, system clothing ?)

2 - Is SL2 to be considerd "another grid" in which case the TOS of most full permission creators would prohibit the transfer to that grid? If that is the case, could LL speak a word of power and decide that for full permission items that CAN be transfered, the new SL should be considered as the "same grid" ?

3 - Will at least the L$ currency remain the same and will available balances be usable in both worlds?

4 - Will the 2 worlds be connected in any way and will an avatar be able to move from one to another with the same name and profile and groups and friends? And .. some of its inventory..

It's not too late to clarify things and avoid this way a total break down! Clear answers to the above questions (and others) may help a bit..

 

You say : "we will not sacrifice how good the future product will be because we have to twist ourselves in knots to be 100% backwards compatable".

 

I say : if you dont twist yourselves in knots to be at least 90% backwards compatable, you won't have a future product. And you will also lose the old one ..

If SL2 is conceived as a "paralel world" and not as a continuation of SL1 then you create an internal COMPETITION which will affect both worlds. Your user base will split in 3! Because it will be already split in 2 when High Fidelity goes on line..

Therefore it may even be worth a thought if a MAJOR UPGRADE to SL is not somehow a better choice than a huge "step forward" into the chaos and destruction..

 

Mony Lindman

 

 

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Agree with all, esp bolded -- the more I consider the ramifications, the more horrified I become. 

Yes, I need to know NOW what will be ported. This should never have been announced until they could tell us that. What other reason was there to announce it, other than to enable us to prepare??? I can think of none. Overnight SL has been turned into a lame duck in which people -- customers as well as LL --  will be reluctant to invest. Why?

I sell houses, kitchens, and furniture on 4 sims. I need to be able to try to staunch the upcoming bloodbath by telling my current customers, for example, that any mesh item they buy from me from now on, I will give them in SL2. But I cant say that because I have no idea if I will be able to do that or not. 

[LaskyaClaren]

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DesperadoReprise wrote:

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

You clearly don't have much faith in that, so the obvious answer is for you to get out, now, while the going is still good.

Others -- and I hope this is a majority -- may have more faith that LL is sufficiently aware of its own best interests not to burn content creators, landowners, and other "high end" users

more than they

absolutely

have to.

---

You'd trust LL with a judgment call like this? An organisation that bans someone from the forums for a post that says simply "Wut?"

"You sealed your fate up a long time ago"

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This is a false analogy.

The judgement call that you cite is one predicated on notions of "fairness" or "justice." I have never expected corporations to exhibit those qualities.

The faith that I have in LL is founded upon surer ground: self-interest. And I do believe that they are self-interested, and clever enough, to do what they can to mitigate the damage to their own bottom line (and ours).

[Phil Deakins]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

The faith that I have in LL is founded upon surer ground: self-interest. And I do believe that they are self-interested, and clever enough, to do what they can to mitigate the damage to their own bottom line (and ours).

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I sincerely hope there will be no damage to my bottom that is bad enough to ever need mitigating

[Phil Deakins]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

I think this sums up the current state of the discussion.

 

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Seconded

[Pamela Galli]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

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Domitan Redenblack wrote:

COBY, you are saying:

 

Linden Labs also has the right to go out of business and lay off all workers, and wreck the investment of the owners.

 

This is "typical LL thinking" about customers. "It's our ball, so burn your shoes and outfits and property, OR just go away". 

 

The 3 Stooges of corporate management? Really?

 

Don't you think Linden really understands that losing customers is 100x easier than getting them?

 

 

 

 

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In fairness, LL has, intentionally or not, let the cat out of the bag. You now have pretty fair warning that, t

wo years down the road at the latest, Second Life will become something of a lame duck.

You have, in other words, lots of time to respond: this wasn't sprung on us at the last possible moment.

 

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For some, SL became a lame duck as soon as this announcement was made.  And the effect will snowball -- unless LL comes up with some kind of reassurance, and fast. 

 

[LaskyaClaren]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

The faith that I have in LL is founded upon surer ground: self-interest. And I do believe that they are self-interested, and clever enough, to do what they can to mitigate the damage to their own bottom line (and ours).

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I sincerely hope there will be no damage to my bottom that is bad enough to ever need mitigating

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Post some pics, Phil, and we'll be the judges of the required degree of mitigation. :-)

[Phil Deakins]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

The faith that I have in LL is founded upon surer ground: self-interest. And I do believe that they are self-interested, and clever enough, to do what they can to mitigate the damage to their own bottom line (and ours).

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I sincerely hope there will be no damage to my bottom that is bad enough to ever need mitigating

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Post some pics, Phil, and we'll be the judges of the required degree of mitigation. :-)

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I would, Laskya, but it's not allowed in this forum.

[Pamela Galli]

What LL is proposing is something like this:  "Hey, all you residents of Topeka, how about you give up your identity and all* your stuffs and we move you to PARIS!!!!!  (At your expense, of course, but still: PARIS!!!!.)"

 

*Well maybe not all but we cant say for sure, so dont count on anything."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DesperadoReprise]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

 I do believe that they are self-interested,

and clever enough,

to do what they can to mitigate the damage to their own bottom line (and ours).

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What evidence do you have for this belief?

"Stole your dreams and paid you with regret"

[DesperadoReprise]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

 

For some, SL became a lame duck as soon as this announcement was made.

 

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What's the usual delay between a lame duck becoming a dead duck?

"sooner or later"

[DesperadoReprise]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

What LL is proposing is something like this:  "Hey, all you residents of Topeka, how about you give up your identity and all* your stuffs and we move you to PARIS!!!!!  (At your expense, of course, but still: PARIS!!!!.)"

 *Well maybe not all but we cant say for sure, so dont count on anything."

 

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 . . . and we reserve the right to temporarily house you in Guantanamo Bay for an unspecified period in transit.

"the lawmen cleared the people from the streets"

[WickedWanda1956]

I agree with all of this statement except for one word. I would and do say "MOST" instead of "SOME".

[Flea Yatsenko]

I personally think this can't come fast enough. Building in SL is so tedious and unrealiable I developed in house tools to do the in world building for me.

SL is so broken that yesterday, I went to update my profile and I had to save it multiple times before it actually wrote to the database. This is the same infrastructure that is handling transactions for things I convert to real USD.

If content and people move to SL 2.0 and SL 2.0 is even remotely stable, SL 1.0 is going to wither away rapidly.

The way I see it is LL can either spend a ton of resources hobbling along on SL 1.0 or they can just start over with something better and use those resources to improve their features.

What would you rather have? An SL where Lindens spend their time fixing a broken MySQL Cluster and dealing with it not working half the time, or an SL where Lindens have a stable platform they've developed learning from what went wrong with the initial product and developing new features?

I am a patient person and SL 1.0 puts me at the end of my rope at times. Moving things only to see them spring back where they were, things randomly turning to Convex Hull from Prim, a convoluted permissions system that doesn't reliably tell you the permissions of something depending on if it's in your inventory or in world, etc. The fact that SL 1.0 hasn't imploded while it has all these problems is proof to me that people want SL very badly and will tolerate these sorts of things. But a large amount of people don't, and won't. And then you end up with new users who try and get into building, try rezzing a cube, see that it doesn't rez, try and rez more cubes, and then suddenly get 10 cubes. That's usually the point where people go "wow, what did I download this for again?" and never come back.

I have hopes that a more reliable and easy to use SL that actually engages new users would take off very well.

[Phil Deakins]

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Flea Yatsenko wrote:

I personally think this can't come fast enough. Building in SL is so tedious and unrealiable I developed in house tools to do the in world building for me.

SL is so broken that yesterday, I went to update my profile and I had to save it multiple times before it actually wrote to the database. This is the same infrastructure that is handling transactions for things I convert to real USD.

If content and people move to SL 2.0 and SL 2.0 is even remotely stable, SL 1.0 is going to wither away rapidly.

The way I see it is LL can either spend a ton of resources hobbling along on SL 1.0 or they can just start over with something better and use those resources to improve their features.

What would you rather have? An SL where Lindens spend their time fixing a broken MySQL Cluster and dealing with it not working half the time, or an SL where Lindens have a stable platform they've developed learning from what went wrong with the initial product and developing new features?

I am a patient person and SL 1.0 puts me at the end of my rope at times. Moving things only to see them spring back where they were, things randomly turning to Convex Hull from Prim, a convoluted permissions system that doesn't reliably tell you the permissions of something depending on if it's in your inventory or in world, etc. The fact that SL 1.0 hasn't imploded while it has all these problems is proof to me that people

want

SL very badly and will tolerate these sorts of things. But a large amount of people don't, and won't. And then you end up with new users who try and get into building, try rezzing a cube, see that it doesn't rez, try and rez more cubes, and then suddenly get 10 cubes. That's usually the point where people go "wow, what did I download this for again?" and never come back.

I have hopes that a more reliable and easy to use SL that actually engages new users would take off very well.

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Like you, I am very interested to see what SL2 will be like. But, unlike you, I don't expect that the sort of problems you used as examples will not be present. That's because it's LL, and I have no confidence in LL to get or do things well.

[LaskyaClaren]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

In fairness, LL has, intentionally or not, let the cat out of the bag. You now have pretty fair warning that, t

wo years down the road at the latest, Second Life will become something of a lame duck.

You have, in other words, lots of time to respond: this wasn't sprung on us at the last possible moment.

 

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For some, SL became a lame duck as soon as this announcement was made.  And the effect will snowball -- unless LL comes up with some kind of reassurance, and fast. 

 

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Yeah, I've said as much myself here, and elsewhere. And I do fear for the effects of that, even as someone who does not have a financial stake in the success of this platform.

But I think LL knows this -- why else would Gray urge us not to "panic"? -- and I have some hope that reassurance of some kind will be forthcoming.

How effective it will be, I don't know. But this was pretty clearly not LL's choice of timing; we can only hope that they are able to provide answers that stem the panic somewhat.

 

[Magnus Brody]

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Ebbe Linden wrote:

So you think SL can continue forever and still be competitive enought to matter in the future? 

We are going to do our best to make it  smooth, but if we have to make a crappy product with crazy complexity and poor user experience to preserve some very specific content compatability we don't want to cause those problems. 

A lot of what you have will be possible to move across and more specifics will come through over time. 

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Thanks for your reply, Ebbe, which I find re-assuring and logical.  Also re-assured by another of your responses which sounded positive about current and future indentity.