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why does linden labs not care about us anymore?


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They 'don't care', as you put it, for simple reasons, when you think about it.

1) SL still really has no viable competition.  A company making any product that is in demand, can be quite laissez faire with customer service.   Sound familiar?

2) The - yet-to be- dynamo that is the CEO, can probably not believe his luck having landed a job in a company where the company is king, contrary to conventional business wisdom and practice.   I suspect his golf swing has improved enormously.

3) Ultimately, LL decisions are made by the bean counters, not the management. The management can only make new decisions if the cash is still rolling in enough to satisfy the accountants ok-ing any new expenses that may occur with new ideas and improving the system.  Bean counters are never satisfied, and maNY dream of squeezing last drops of blood out of stones most nights.

4) Any company that has managed to get away with customer service as poor as LL has, for as many years, will naturally think it has no reason to improve whatsoever.  Indeed, the afore mentioned bean counters may encourage such a paucity regarding giving the customer some consideration.  The bare minimum, if not a bit less, will be the maxim. 

5). Any criticism in the forums concerns them not: shills, toadies and the gullible swamp any such posts quickly.

I am sure you can think of others. 

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Did they ever? I don't remember time when SL was fixed, just that some days are less bad then others.  Linden Labs is working on new products not related to SL, and with the lack of communication from them, It sure looks like SL it not important to them any more.

To me the really question is why do I even care any more, it's clear the LL is never likely to change their ways.

Any one got some good news about SL?

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it's to do with profits. they wanted SL to be a huge thing like facebook & twitter... but it didn't take off.

so they immediately gave up. now they are working on making new products instead and leave SL to die.

although SL seems successful from an individual standpoint, i can assure you by a corporate standpoint it is disappoint.

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I think LL cares as much as any company "cares" about their customers, which is to say a sincere and heartfelt concern over whether or not their customers continue to send money their way.

Also, saying "they haven't fixed SL in a while" is a perplexing statement. SL has been broken since day one, about twelve years ago when it went into close beta and still has glaring flaws and broken functionality which persist to this day. Why? Well, I think the Lindens are completely baffled by their own product. Specifically regarding the social and creativity elements.

Seriously. The vast majority of the "lag" you experience, the choppy sim crossings, the abysmal framerates are a direct result of crappy content creation tools and LL can never fix it without fixing content creation tools no one they pay to come into their office has any clue about.

 

 Trying to explain how inconsistent scale screws up framerates, animations, and overal graphics quality to a Linden is kinda like trying to explain quantum physics to a twleve year old, a twelve year old who doesn't speak your language.

And is deaf.

 

And doesn't believe quantum physics is a real thing.

 

 

And who hates you and wishes you would go away.

 

 So, yeah, LL is simply incapable of "fixing" LL so long as they lack any expertise in the areas where most of SL's problems stem from. It's not because they don't want your money, it's because they have no idea what the problem is.

 

 On the other hand, I wouldn't say LL has abandoned SL, or hasn't fixed anything lately. They've actually been much more productive than I've seen them since I joined SL in 2005. We've gotten a lot of much needed fixes and features in the past year, and hopefully more are on the way.

 I suspect it seems like LL has stopped working on stuff mainly because they've gotten much worse at communicating. They only seem to add new blog posts when they've got something new they want to test on the public, or when the testing is over and they've released a new fix or feature into the wild.

 

 If they could get a competent art director on board and put as much effort into the content creation tools, some of the default settings for things like the camera placement, and work out some better resource management for things like script use (ie: a single avatar should not be able to wear enough scripts to bring an entire sim to its knees) then SL's improvements would be much more visible to the public.

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ollieoutie89 wrote:

they havent fixed SL in a while. theyr letting it run into the ground and its frustrating! do they just not care for their users anymore?

There are literally dozens of fixes to SL each and every week. In the last 12 months, Linden Lab has been producing fixes and updates for SL at least an order of magnitude faster than I've ever seen the company produce output before. Have you been reading the lists of changes and bugfixes that come out with each update? I'm guessing there's something specific you have in mind that has been bothering you that hasn't been fixed.

 

 

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I often feel like people mistake LL's inability to understand (and therefore fix) certain problems as a sign that LL wants all their customers to go away, or a mistaken sense that because "Problem X" hasn't been fixed yet, nothing has been fixed.

I can understand both points (especially because it's very likely that certain Lindens really do dislike the customers, afterall how many of us have worked jobs where we felt the job would be great if it weren't for the customers? Remember, for your average Linden, SL is just another job.) but I sincerely doubt that LL as a company wants to lose all our business.

 As for nothing getting fixed, it's easy to fall into that mindset because SL has so many problems which really ought to have been fixed over a decade ago now which are still problems! That's not hyperbole, SL went beta in like 2002. Many of SL's current problems should have been fixed before then and many more before the doors opened to the public in 2003.

 

 No wonder it feels like nothing is getting fixed! It's going to take a long time for LL to punt a noticeable dent in the mess they let pile up over the years.

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Indeed, and there are some things that are inherent to the capabilities of the system. Things that can't be fixed while keeping existing, core features. They're the price that's paid for being able to do certain things at all.

 

EDIT: This has given me an idea for another article, which I will set to writing.

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To add to a few of the comments of some of the other long standing users of Second Life: Linden Lab has also fired some of the employees who worked with and developed the code for various key features/systems. Those that remain truly only know this coding in a secondhand manner I am afraid (Sim interop technology for example, did not exist when Second Life first started).

Many users have come up with a myriad number of "fixes" to make to their systems ... some good, others very bad. To use one of Penny's own points here: Script usage. This idea is both good and very bad. Why? Implementation!

How much is too much? I know people who wear an excess of  140+ scripts, that's a lot of scripts - isn't it? How about 11.7Mb of script memory usage? Sounds like a lot, doesn't it?

Put those two together and you get 0.270946ms of CPU time dedicated to those scripts on the server.

To those who know their data, code and CPU time ... that certainly sounds like a lot, doesn't it?

Here's the real trick of it all: Linden Lab's system does not differentiate between active scripts, scripts on standby and scripts that are simply reserving memory. Do a script count on an avatar you see, get their total number of scripts, memory usage and CPU times. Know what you're really looking at? A readout of all three items as if all the scripts were actively being processed by the server. Meaning, it's a count being treated as if the scripts are all set to running and constantly executing their code.

Toss in a single instance of a standby command or a sleeper command and those numbers should go down. The system should be able to take that into account and compensate in the calculations being done. It doesn't.

Yes, I have had this happen to me before and it annoys me to no end. I have gone to sims where they track their resource use through automated script sensors - which also eat up valuable resources I might add - wherein I was the only avatar present, utterly stripped down to bare bones (noobish avatar, nothing complex, no scripts at all) and guess what? The sim still lagged as if it was on its last knees!

Other times? I'll be wearing a prim/script heavy avatar in a fairly crowded sim and there are no problems with lag whatsoever.

So then ... what is the actual culprit? How should Linden Lab implement script resource limits?

Personally? They shouldn't until they clean up their own scripting system

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honerken wrote:

I honestly don't think LL ever cared about their users, especially when half their answers are basically, "residental desputes, solve it on your own."

LOL, so true. I've talked to a friend on SL who had their life threatend and LL didn't do anything about it. They even made an AR or two and included a detailed report.

I'm guessing if someone threatens to harm me IRL on SL I better just consider it a residential dispute!

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Perception is everything.

So if common perception is Linden Lab does not care about us anymore that is the reality. If they are wise, they would work hard to change this impression. Put some huge energy into showing they do care. Customer service (such as Dakota) they are nice, but impression of company higher-ups is they either despise us, see us as a resource to exploit, or simply don't care about us.

Thus perception of Linden Lab as a company is very poor & that essentially is management's fault.

They have an image problem they need to work on -- big time.

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LuciaRiley wrote:


honerken wrote:

I honestly don't think LL ever cared about their users, especially when half their answers are basically, "residental desputes, solve it on your own."

LOL, so true. I've talked to a friend on SL who had their life threatend and LL didn't do anything about it. They even made an AR or two and included a detailed report.

I'm guessing if someone threatens to harm me IRL on SL I better just consider it a residential dispute!

It'd be illegal for LL to get involved in most situations between users. If you have your lfie threatened, you talk to the police. If someone cheats you, you go to a small-claims court. Linden Lab could and should enforce its terms-of-service and community-standards - vigorously, but if someone breaks the law?

Getting involved in that sort of thing is much the same as dressing up like a giant bat, and beating up villains on the streets at night. It sounds cooler than it is.

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WADE1 Jya wrote:

Perception is everything.

So if common perception is Linden Lab does not care about us anymore that is the reality. If they are wise, they would work hard to change this impression. Put some huge energy into showing they do care. Customer service (such as Dakota) they are nice, but impression of company higher-ups is they either despise us, see us as a resource to exploit, or simply don't care about us.

Thus perception of Linden Lab as a company is very poor & that essentially is management's fault.

They have an image problem they need to work on -- big time.

 

This is a big thing, too. I'd say LL needs a better PR staff almost as much as they need an art department. Like the OP of this thread saying nothing has been fixed, even tho lots of things have been fixed lately.  They need to show things are getting done, they need to show off the potential of SL. showcase things that really show what's possible in SL, they also seriously need to work on the social tools.

"It's ugly" and "there's nothing to do" are the two most widely held negative opinions about SL, and not without reason. But it does not have to be that way.

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WADE1 Jya wrote:

Perception is everything.

So if common perception is Linden Lab does not care about us anymore that is the reality. If they are wise, they would work hard to change this impression. Put some huge energy into showing they do care. Customer service (such as Dakota) they are nice, but impression of company higher-ups is they either despise us, see us as a resource to exploit, or simply don't care about us.

Thus perception of Linden Lab as a company is very poor & that essentially is management's fault.

They have an image problem they need to work on -- big time.

Concur. When it comes to making decisions about where to spend time and money, perceptions (particularly negative perceptions) and expectations are often more important than realities.

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Here's a simple answer for you.  They made SL open source which is why you see avination and InWorldz.  They are like the old 2003 SL and it will take them many years to get to where SL is.  By that time, they will use up as much as they can and dump SL to the ground.  The technology has not changed just new interface which is horrible.  There's no innovation at LL's.  I've always had a super computer since the day I joined SL.  Not once has it ever ran smooth.

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ollieoutie89 wrote:

they havent fixed SL in a while. theyr letting it run into the ground and its frustrating! do they just not care for their users anymore?

Apart from at the very beginning, Linden Lab has never shown any care, or even interest, in their customers, imo.

I don't see LL as letting SL "run into the ground" though.

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