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Forgot one point to address:

Scripters and Builders dont need to know things ?

Many people fill thousands of posts complaing to LL as if all the lag and crashes were their fault, and many arent. Despite the efforts they do to make SL "inept-proof", the "dont-need-to-know-jack-about-the-system" builders and scripters are the ones to blame about that.

What is the difference between a set of SIMs running with 20+ people, having 10+ moving vehicles, a dozen stores with rezzers and many buildings like homes, clubs and scene miscelaneous builds, all that with virtually no LAG and a SIM with 2 people, 10 vehicles not moving, couple shops with rezzers and many "just texturized boxes" buildings to make the scene, and a frezzing lag and these two peoples crashing many times ? I tell you the difference: Builders and Scripts knowing what they are doing and not knowing respectivelly.

I really think that LL do some amazing job correcting SL in a way that even that bad builders and scripters cant make an even worse damage to everyone else`s SL experience.

That is what have to change in order to get SL to stop having all that problems and support being less problematic. It wont solve the problem expand support team, keep patching SL to afford bad resident content. The problem will be solved by attacking the underlying condition, which is the believe that if something does what you want, it doesnt matter how it does, or the impact it has.

They should start in SL something like the environment protection policy they have in real life. You cant just put a factory in a place and start running it without the proper environment impact protection handled. LL should do the same about the SL environment, and prohibit bad scripting and building.

What differ a Sci-Fi game where I can build, craft, extend the world, interact with friends, and I dont need to be a medieval fantasy char, but anything I want, from SL ? Only one thing, you dont have people connected there who have no clue as what to do next like SL, because you have a ROLE to fullfil, just like you do in real life, which you dont have in SL.

If people have no clue what to do next in SL it is because they havent taken the time to explore the possibilities, that or they totally lack imagination or curiosity.

No SL doesnt require you have a ROLE to fulfill as in RL and I for one dont want it to. Why should we be constrained to one role?  Now we can be and do whatever our imaginations can create.  I dont want to have to earn points or complete tasks to become a certain role, that sounds like what the Sims was wasnt it ? Some people already have roles of sorts, there are designers, builders, educators, musicians, etc. but those people are not constrained to only that.  They can have multiple roles.

If builders had to be certified, scripters had to be certified, and like in real life, you had a ROLE in SL society you shall fill, SL wouldnt have so many wasted resources in unfinished SIMs, useless buildings, and so on and so forth.

I dont want to have to be certified, who is going to determine what one needs to do to be certified ? I guess you are proposing a fee to do so or a set of hoops we have to jump through to do that ...pfft

I have a job in RL and I dont really want to think I have to have one in SL if I dont want to. and I already completed my RL education so dont really want to go to school in SL either

What does it matter that there are unfinished sims, if the owner of that sim doesnt want to finish it what would LL care, they get their monthly tiers whether it is finished or not.  People dont have to go to those sims if they dont want to see that lol.  What you many see as a useless building may be a project to an individual and something they dont necessarily regard as useless.

 

What I was saying is that SL has too much potential, but none really 100% used, because you have the wrong freedoms and the wrong limitations, and that is because it is handled not like a IT system, but mostly like a utopic idealistic world like it was another reality.

The wrong freedoms?  The wrong limitations? excuse me but I like having the freedom to use SL as I like to create what I want when I want using as much or as little of the potential as I like.

SL IS another reality .....it is a virtual reality and most dont want it to be an exact mirror of RL. We have RL for that lol

 

When it start to have a real purpose, companies will come back, serious people will come back, stable investments will come back. If you think that it is huge that you make a couple thousands over a month or two, this is nothing compared to what it could be if handled right.

Not sure how putting everyone in a ROLE with specific duties and certifications will bring businesses. Any business can setup a group of sims and do what they want.  What real purpose do you want SL to have.  As far as I can see the current purpose is to provide a service and tools to allow people to do what they want by creating their own experiences .....what is so wrong with that?

I'm with Sappy on this, the first qualification a CEO needs is EARS!!!!! We made this world, WE are the economy, without us it isnt anything, LL is a business and any business will fail if it doesn't deliver what the customers want and need. Good luck Rob, you sure cant do any worse than the ones before.

Welcome, Rod, and good luck!

First problem with your reply: As many people, you see one thing written, you assume that means another and stick with that construct as if it were reality. Where do I mention fees ? Who to determine who is certified or not ? Maybe the ones who made the system and know what should and what shouldnt be done ? And seek out game definition at some dictionary like cambridge one. It is free, and it is very insightful for those who think that game means only "quests" and "objectives".

Second problem: Due to the same problem above you assume that as I said SL should have roles for people to fulfil I am saying they should have only one. I am saying that regardless of how many or who fill a role, the role must be fullfilled. There need to be a builder, ok, so builders are sought, builders are trainned, tested and are real builders. The guy have much time in SL to spend, there need to be a scripter, ok, this same guy can go there, be trainned, tested, and be a real scripter.

Anyone really taking their jobs seriously in SL should like the idea of some sort of control of who can and who cant do their jobs since some jobs are (YES they are) specialized ones and requires knowledge. What good is to stand tall about being a builder if someone who look up a few lines and only know how to create boxes and resize them call themselves builders too ? What good is to spend time learning how to build and script as to have no lag and usability if anyone who copy and paste scripts from websites not knowing what they do call themselves scripters too ?

Above of that, the prices of stable and "environment safe" buildings and scripts are over the top, why ? Because all the work gets high value due to the army of bad scripters and builders selling the same thing, 1000 times more bugged and resource consuming for less than 10% the price. You mention economy, market, and so on and so forth, with regulation and organization there is nothing to lose and much to gain. That is why they came to be in RL. If you dont know, I will give you a free 1.01 history lesson: There was a time in RL when anyone could do anything since they felt so inclined, a era of colapsing buildings, falling walls and a frog shoved into your throat to cure fever. That is what SL is today.

@lane  You make some wild assertions.  Building as you know is capped by prim counts.  No matter how inept a builder or how ugly the result you can't put more prims on a parcel than allowed.  If the system can't support the allowed prim count then it is the system that has the problem.

On scripting LSL itself causes overcommit of memory (partially addressed as I understand it but not completely) and I think that its event driven engine deserves at least some serious examination.   So no, I am not buying that  ignorant builders are scripters are wholly or even mainly to blame.    Region differences can have many causes including different classes of region, different classes of servers, different bandwidth at the client end of the residents involved - to name a few. 

Saying you should be certified to build or script is to kill much of the innovation of the world deader than a door nail.  If you had said the same in the early days of personal computers we wouldn't even be here on such a medium discussing this.

@lane  You seem to miss the point of others as well.  Of course there are real servers, comm lines, etc. bedind a virtual world.  But SL was in fact designed to be a virtual world, not a MMORPG.    Regardless of whether you are at the "its all make-believe" stage or not, many others have moved on and they are not simply delusional.  Second Life is an early Metaverse attempt a la Snow Crash.  It is an earlier prototype of eventual upload space imho.   Some of our avatars are just as much developed personalities of their own as our physical world personalities.  That they are not autonomous and don't have their own physical brain in their own physical body does not make them less so.

I have already spoken to the utter death that certifying builders and scripters would bring.    We don't want a role to fill except whatever we decide to do ourselves.  That IS the point.

I don't really understand why people feel so passionate about labeling SL ...... Real or Not Real , MMORPG, early metaverse ....etc. Why do we need labels, does it make people feel better if they can label what SL is ? And those that label SL, do they do this,so they can say what they do within the world is right and what I choose to do is not. Or do they just feel better when things are labeled and put neatly on the shelf ?

Creation is not neat and tidy it is born from chaos.

Why can't SL be,  all that it can be, to each of us ? Whatever we choose to call it. Why do we have to judge , what one uses SL for ? As long as it brings a bit of extra happiness to ones life, and doesn't hurt another , shouldn't that be enough ?

Naming and labeling , creating more rules doesn't that pigeon hole the true ability of Second Life. SL is the Microcosm within the Macrocosm and it is whatever you choose it to be, just like your own RL. Label your own world but do not label it for others because all that causes is limitations. Everything grows, evolves, changes and we should allow that to be. Smile at your fellow SLer and be proud to share a journey into uncharted territory of the Unknown.

Welcome Rod to a place that holds Possibilities for all of those who wish to Explore and use SL in the way they see fit. I look forward to the twist you will add, if there is one thing that I could ask for,  it would be that you have a closer relationship with the people of SL. Take the time to show up in world and get to know some of the people that make it what it is. Instead of group meetings consider one on one time to really understand perspective from individuals instead group opinion.

GoodLuck !!! Happy New Year to everyone !!!!

I think you missed my point.  I am saying that I dont want just ONE role.  I want the freedom to have as many roles as I like.  I build, I design clothing, I write scripts, run a business and much more.  I dont want to be pigeon holed or constrained to just ONE role.  I have taught myself all of these skills (except the scripting which I had a very skilled scripter teach me) and like having the freedom to do so.

what you are suggesting would be analogous to putting someone in a sandbox in RL or giving them an erector set and telling them they first have to decide what ROLE they want ie pilot and then have to be trained how to make an airplane. They cant make a bus because they are not a certified bus driver.I think if you did that a person playing would say "what? you mean I have to work a job to be able to create/play/entertain myself?"  That is just too limiting and strangles creativity.  As a child I wasnt forced to color in a coloring book and stay withing the lines.  I was handed a blank piece of paper and told to create a picture or design of any kind.

SL is different things to different people.  To me it is entertainment/hobby/business/social network.  I use it as a blank canvas to express my creativity.

Even in RL people are not pigeon holed into just one ROLE, you have mothers who are executives who also may teach piano on the side. So I am still confused as to why you are so intent on this whole ROLE thing.  That being said, I respect that you want to have ROLES and cerifications.  Why dont you purchase a group of sims and create a nicely structured environment where all those who use your sims have to pick a role, join a guld, become apprentices and get certified for their roles.etc.  SL can be that for you, I just dont want to have it be that for me.

As I said SL is not RL, and some just dont want it to be an exact mirror of RL

As far as quality *shrugs threa are varying levels of quality in both SL and RL .  The market will usually eventually weed out the inferior products as those will be purchases less and probably go out of business anyway.  Any uneducated person can start a business n RL (trained or not) and they may be inherently gifted at that business and do well or they may be inept then the business will fail

I may be wrong but it just sounds like you are confusing a job in RL or RL structured society with a pass time/game/entertainment etc.

@Nyla  I hear you.  However, we end up having to name what something is or what the intent is or is not in order to track how we are doing.  If this naming and labeling precludes or makes some things of only secondary at best importance then those things lose out when push of full wishlist meets shove of real implementation, maintenance and budget constraints.  That is why people find it necessary to be sure things important to them aren't being left by the wayside by over-constrained naming.

After nearly 5 years of seeing poor decision, after poor decision by LL, the technology slowly falling behind, the grid getting more wobbly and the only constant being the Board of Directors and VC types, I have little confidence that any CEO will be allowed the latitude to make the changes needed to put SL back on track but, here's hoping.

Welcome aboard Mr. Humble and all the best to you. Not to put too much pressure on you but, you may be about the last hope for this virtual world. Users, even the most loyal and "addicted" long-timers like me, will only take so much before giving up in frustration and moving on.

I thought I would let the air clear a bit before I posted on this.

Somtime last century, lol, early or mid 90's, I was a fearless but clueless gave dev, hocking my wares at the Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas.  This was before E3 ever existed.

I spent almost all my money to fly across the country to go get some work, meet some people and represent the small group of friends that had a game dev company with me.

We had just done a great game on the SNES, but nobody knew who we were.  It wasn't like it is today where developers are rock stars, publishers took all the credit, and the last thing they wanted was for anyone to get expensive, lol

The experience was almost a comedy.  The perky assitant that was charged with filtering the nobodys would take your card, and say "Wait here just a minute".

She would then poke her head into the tiny little conference rooms that were set behind the kiosks of Sega Genesis and Snes, where more important people than us were talking and making deals.

30 minutes would pass.  Then 45.  Perky the assistant would then poke her head back in, and come out with a business card from one of the important people, and ask us to send a demo..

Over and over over, day after day, pounding the floor in a giant room filled with pounding techno music, getting nowhere, and losing hope.

The last day of the show, we went back to the EA booth, one more try to tame goliath!  Same routine, perky took took our cards, and poked her head in the tiny room.

But this time she was follwed out of the conference room by an actual important person.

He walked up and said "you guys made ***** (not gonna give away too much here, lol), that is a great game".  He then asked US, if WE had a minute to chat!

There was only one or two little rooms in the booths in those days, EA had 2, BIG BALLAH's , buit they were full, so he lead us to a lil loungy area just off the convention floor.

We grabbeed a couple sodas, we sat down, and a very chill guy, about our age, with a mellow british accent passed out his card.

It read Rodney Humble, Electronic Arts.

Probably 150 important people, in stuffy little conference rooms, that we had yet to cast a shadow in,  took a glance at our buiness cards that week, and told perky to take our number and shoo us away.  Only one of them was on his game unough to know that the unknown name on that card was the actual developer of a recent breakout game.

Only one made the decsion that getting up and leaving the little room to have a few minutes face time with a completely unknown, but up and coming devloper was more important then listening to a hung over buyer from BestBuy brag about his blackjack winnings.

In subsequent years, the tiny conference rooms turned into hospitality suites, and we didnt have to beg for face time any more.  It is a good thing we didnt just give up that first year.

So give this guy a chance, cuz waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, when the whole world was too import for for a a group of nobodys who were doing good stuff, he gave us one!

Welcome aboard Rodey Humble!

P.S. If you dont like M's old office, stop by our lil "booth" here in SL, we have nice stuff and whatever ya want is on the house!

@Fornicola Butuzova:

That is a good story, and I hope to hear more of those. Rod Humble's name did leave a very bad air with the SimCity 4 fanbase. The way SimCity: Socities turned out may not have been at his direction, and thus not 'his fault', per se, but EA appeared to have a deaf ear to the SC4 community, and Rod Humble represented EA. Maybe there was really nothing Rod could do except stand on the figurative stage dodging rotton tomatoes from fans like me who very much wanted a game more like SimCity 4 and less like The Sims.

Anyway, I am willing to give Rod the benefit of a doubt. I must say it would be damn skippy if we had a blog, or better yet a video presentation like the one last summer by Philip Rosedale last summer stating what are the major issues with SL at this time, what he intends to do about the issues and the timeframe he has in mind to solve them. People who participate with Second Life may disagree with what the hot SL issues are. But we can certainly take a look at what Rod is willing to claim publicly about his intentions, his timeframe, and his ability to meet his own publicly stated objectives.

I do note that the area of mainland I had to leave abandoned remains abandoned, and there is a *LOT* of old mainland simply dead. This is not good for SL's health, and it doesn't put money in Linden's cash register.

I note the current person I'm renting land from is 'one foot out the door' of dropping Second Life for another grid. I'm not sure where my loyalties lie. Actually, I do know where my loyalties lie. It is where I am having fun. A crashy client is not fun. Having to hold my nose and learn viewer2 was not fun. Saying something in group chat and finding chat still borked is not fun. I have a laundry list of things 'not fun' involving Second Life. If another grid fills my desire in the 'fun' category better than SL for my $72/ year + $25/ month + random $L purchases, that grid will have my loyalty and my money. I'm open to keeping things going with SL, but like the Nationwide Insurance ads... "life comes at you fast!" How does Rod plan to steer Linden Labs into moving at the speed of Internet Life?

Welcome!  I hope to see innovative apps that will connect social networking or other virtual worlds and users.  Tweet this, for example:  At the Robot Factory to change the color of my skin, but deciding to stay with green to match my eyes...lol.

No...that is NOT a Second Life build http://lat.ms/gNM7C3 but what if it was?

Second Life started as an alternative...but think about the possibilities if it were to give people a way to visit places far flung? 

For many seasoned SL residents, Paris 1900 might come to mind.....but let's get back to the example just presented. 

What if those NYC architects had taken it upon themselves to present not just some 2D drawing, but a build in Second Life?   How many Los Angeleans would jump into SL to get a taste of this quite interesting design?  How many world wide?  Then...oops!...what do you know...they are now SL residents.

How many other designers would follow that lead and do likewise....?    That would sorta answer the question of what is there to do or see in SL?

Oh?  and how about the museum holding a concert there?  Hmmmm......then learning it could have TWO museums...for the price of one?  ((the cost of a virtual museum is not necessarily cheap cheap

And then what about other museums....

Ok...bottom line.....think outside the box....

Sl isn't a game. it's a vital thriving community, that works it's best when it is listened to by the ptb. PLEASE don't make the mistakes of your predecessors and change things for the worse. DO realise that the hard core SL fanatics that have stuck with the program this far, have done so because they love SL for what it is. it ISN'T twitter, or facebook, or myspace. it's a WORLD where we do our best for us and those around us. We give freely, and enjoy our time HERE IN SL. If we wanted to be on facebook, or anything like that, we would be. but we are IN SL. And this is where we wish to stay>

So, please take the advice of the already frazzled residents. HELP us, don't HINDER us. LET us be who we are, and not try to make us into something we aren't. LET US choose what we like, and stick with it, because it is what is familliar to us. (removing all access to the 1.23 versions of the viewer is a HUGE MISTAKE!)

Land prices are very taxing on those of us who aren't here to make a fortune like most land barons. We run scenic sims, and yes, sometimes they have small business on them. We pay 295 usd a MONTH per SIM (3540 usd a YEAR!). For some of us, it's a matter of what we have to give up IRL for that month to keep our sims. Sometimes, it's groceries, others, it's a phone bill.

Some risk all, because we LOVE SL. Are you willing to help?

I don't approach Second Life as a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).  It's a real world, I'm real when I'm within it, I deal with real people, and we don't confine ourselves to role play.  I run my business and earn real money.  I make real friends.

If I may speak for what I believe to be a majority of SL residents, it is our fervent hope that Mr. Humble, and Linden Labs in general, would not take such a limiting view of Second Life.

 

Well said Mike.

I've made the point in this forum that SL is not a game.  It is for some, and I don't have a problem with that.  Certainly we all get to perceive and experience SL as we choose.

My life is real, SL is a part of that life.

For me and my friends here, most of whom are RL/SL artists (and I'm a RL/SL live performing musician) SL is a place to create, do business and hang out with friends. I'm able to converse and collaborate with artists from places on the planet I will never travel, people I likely would not have met had I not come to Second Life.

I don't role play. I'm not interested in SL being a game in the sense of goals to meet, levels to achieve or competition with others to win.  I'm also not interested in it being a game in the sense that it doesn't matter how I behave or treat others because it's not "real".

Collectively, many of us have problems with LL.  I'm just waiting to see if it keeps going down the tubes, and am actively exploring other options.

After the viewer 2 and allowing teens in debacles, I wonder...

 

it ISN'T twitter, or facebook, or myspace.

 

Please don't try to make it a social networking site.  It's a creative world.  It's a place most people choose not to reveal much, if anything, about their so called RL selves.

Whatever happened to support? Bring them back. I miss 'em.

Java chat is still there to reboot the sim when your av becomes a ghost in the machine. But just try to get any kind of response to a ticket.

Or just try to complain. There's an obscene photo in Maia (an M sim) that's fifty meters in length and fifty meters in width. It needs to be moved to Zindra. I complained. It's still there. I had to move. I wouldn't keep my gallery next to that filth.

Welcome to SecondLife Rod. I sure hope you will be the CEO that will set the prespective of SL that i badly need. I am a builder in SL an dwould love to see the build map of secondlife improve, and I hope that there will be a team of Linden people who will sit down, and concentrate on the builders side of SL for you updates. SecondLife is build up by the builders, and everything created inworld, is by us builders. Many updates been made, with new fancy additions that are really cool, but i haven't yet seen new inputs in the build map. One wish i have the i always wished for, which i think many of my fellow builders agree on, is the abbility of hollowing prims on all axes z y and x. lol \o/ would be perfec.

But welcome to the world join the party inworld as much as u can

SeanD..... OH and PS!! try to update your servers, maybe buy some bigger LOL, and DON'T walk pass the ASSET server..please

You gotta do something bout that LAG man

One other builder wish list item:

The imprudence viewer includes being able to enter simple math expressions in the text fields when building.  These include some useful constants like SQRT2 SQRT3.  Very very handy.  Otherwise I am always reaching for my calculator.

Oh, also please add support for 99% hollow and make all fields significant to three decimal places.

Hi Rod Humble, A quick intro of what you can expect and how to improve Second Life!!!

1st: of all your new name will become: RodHumbleResident when you are making a ALT account as we all know your main account will be RodLinden but ok what i whanted to say with this is bring back the namegenerator to start that whould make a lot of "residents" very happy!

2nd: i whould like to say please test v1.23.5 and when done that then test the ugly and crap of v2.0 make your own mind open and dont listen to EsbeeLinden or TorleyLinden for what we your paying residents whould like to keep avaidable to play our Second Life's with withs is v1.23.5 please this is a emergency call redevelop Snowglobe! Yes Rod Humble you can do a lot to make our dymonds above our heads green again like you know that game The Sims!

3th for the love of god please do something about server lagg i pay enough $ to your company and all we get in trade is a laggy simulation this is simply not fair how about you decraise tiers from $295,- to $195,- so Second Life can grow again!

4th: fix search, whitout a working search machine people cant buy land cant buy items and Second Life will become compleetly hopeless!

5th: show yourself in world, show that you care about the Linden Lab customers let us know you will trying to safe our Second Life's and let us know you will do your best to make us all happy again we had a lot of changes lately with region rating adult/mature/pg, then the prices for homesteads and open sims whent up and people starting to abandon their sims massifly. There are less people in world by the day noobs will come but also go be aware that the people that your company has now are your main customers and these are not the newcomers so listen to us!

SAFE OUR SECONDLIFE'S MR.HUMBLE!!!

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looking for a boat? Twins Craft Marine - Realistic Watercrafts

looking for land? The Hellespont Estates - Helion Island

Come visit us if search isnt working then teleport via the map it might show up grey but what the heck it might wor you never know!

if tier ever goes back to what it was, I'll buy another island and a few homesteads as well

I welcome a new CEO.   Perhaps the new CEO could shake up the Case and Administrative Issues' department, and also the department designing performance feedback surveys on serious shortfalls in addressing Second Life reported issues.

YES YES YES !!!! get th damn last name generator back, and skip those annoying display names again, i know i use it myself, but how confusing can it be. AND YES YES skip that ne v 2.0 veiwer interface...how bad can it be....no wonder everybody using Phoenix and other third party viewer.

AND yes...do something about the sim tiers again...seriously. i know more simulators does lag more on your servers...but seriously, if LL can't afford to upgrade the servers, something gone wrong in my mathbook!!