SL expands to STEAM and improves graphics

[Deja Letov]

I'm very big into Steam. I have an account, as well as my husband and kids. I have bought a TON of games and paid into the free to play games as well. Yes we will get some griefers but I think you give them too much credit for making it a regular thing. Most of the gamers I know that use steam, use it to play games, not to bother people. Sure they might jump in and check it out and even jack with people (probably kids), but they will lose interest quickly if they don't like it and then be gone. I don't give a rats butt about them. What I am excited about is the amount of exposure SL will get for being on the Steam portal. Plus...I know for me, how much money I have invested in games on Steam (even the free to play ones) and to think that more like me might come into SL and dump some money into the economy...I am a happy camper about this one.

And if you think gamers who use Steam won't play SL because of all of the "quality" games on Steam...take a look around. yes there are some awesome and beautifully designed games...but there is also some real horse crap available on there as well. It's simply a game portal, a place to find games to play. There are quite a few nobody's with games on there and trust me SL will not be one of the bad ones comparatively.

[Seven Overdrive]

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mikka Luik wrote:

Good point on the demographic, brought to mind this

old bit of news

especially the part where it says 'Valve has advised users - or their parents' =^^=

Made me smile

---

Oh yes. THAT bit of news. Thanks for reminding me of why I probably won't be linking SL to my Steam account.

 

On another note... I vaguely remember someone from the lab (maybe Rod?) mentioning the possible addition of gamer achievements or tags during some discussion about bringing last names back. I suppose this will be one way of implementing those and makes me wonder how deeply the Steam client will be integrated (if at all) into the SL viewer that is downloaded through Steam.

 

[Drew Bhalti]

With the "old bit of news" you do realize that nothing ever happend besides them getting ahold of it. 

 

no fraud, no misuse, nothing,  go check the official steam forums out.   if there was an issue with the info inside that encrypted DB being cracked,  it would of caused a panic.

[Seven Overdrive]

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Drew Bhalti wrote:

With the "old bit of news"

you do realize that nothing ever happend besides them getting ahold of it. 

 

no fraud, no misuse, nothing,  go check the official steam forums out.   if there was an issue with the info inside that encrypted DB being cracked,  it would of caused a panic.

---

(bolded the part I am responding to)

Which is enough incentive for me to not have my SL account linked to Steam.  Doesn't matter to me that they may have not done anything with the data.  The fact that they did obtain it still gives me pause.

[Paul Hexem]

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Lindal Kidd wrote:

I'm not familiar with Steam either.  Does Valve police all their users???  Will this mean there will be a "higher authority" than LL to appeal to?

---

That's actually a really good question. Steam users can go to Valve for refunds on software purchased through Steam when the developers/publishers don't stand by the product. Valve then disables that particular product key, and gives a refund on the purchase cost.

If a Steam user buys L$ with USD and then the L$ purchase goes bad (like they so often do) and LL says "Sorry, delivery failures aren't our fault." or "We don't get involved in resident to resident disputes.", the user will then go to Valve with the complaint...

The question is then, what will Valve do to LL? The more I think about it, the more likely I think Valve will kick LL off Steam.

[Nuhai Ling]

Steam huh? Ok, that is a new one for me but I will check it out. Glad all the Lindens are big fans of it; at least we know now where they are instead of working on Second Life. :matte-motes-big-grin:

This quote was the most telling of all though, "Many of us have friends who are avid Steam GAMERS, but if you’re not familiar, Steam is a very popular online GAME platform that offers a wide range of titles." A game platform? Hmmm...

Anyone else old enough to remember the montra, "Second Life is not a game.... Second Life is not a game...." No? Why not?

Oh cr*p! My avi lifelight is red! Time to go to Carousel I guess... there is no place in the dome for people like me over 30 days old. *sigh*

[Seven Overdrive]

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Herry Maltz wrote:

I agree but I used to run a very large gaming community that supported a number of Steam games. Look at minecraft for example, absolutely terrible graphics with building and yet its popular. Garry's mod with a similar aspect. I ran into many games that were free and on steam, that people would join just to cause problems (aka troll) because it was free and they were bored of their primary game. That's what I'm afraid of seeing here. Then say we do have masses of these individuals bored of their main game and coming on here to cause trouble? 

I could certainly be wrong, but spending three years dealing with these people on a daily basis...

I'm willing to bet I won't be wrong and I can almost guarantee its not going to bring in much in the way of premium memberships which I feel LL is hoping to achieve by this move. Maybe sell some land through private estates

but overall far more users at the expense of LL as the cost of providing the service will increase. 

That was one of the reasons that I ended up shutting down my servers. Another was denial of service attacks on servers that were being popular. Granted, I'm unsure if they could really touch SL with denial of service but I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to do which would be one of the many ways that our experience as paying residents could get messed with. 

Computer wise, with the price drop in technology its not that hard to get a machine that runs things well. Sure few years ago you'd be paying a grand or more for a decently put together machine but now... Its far easier to keep your machine up to par without spending an arm, leg and ear. 

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(bolding is mine)

I too was thinking they may offer premium memberships through Steam.  Who knows.. this may actually improve the retention rate if more go premium from the start.  If that is the case, I really wouldn't expect most to ever go beyond the Linden Home trap for a very long time (if at all), so I wouldn't count on private estates seeing much benefit from it.

[Herry Maltz]

I could be severely off base here, but I get the feeling some of you think steam is a game. Its true that its a GAMING PLATFORM but in a commercial way. Think of it as... Hmm. A virtual eBay just for video games and software that instead of receiving physical copies you receive a download through their service. You can buy and trade games on Steam but Steam is NOT some sort of platform that you play. Its a background service that allows you to play other games. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm not exactly sure how to explain it lol.

Steam is nothing but a glorified community of members that have access to buy games of all sorts without having to have separate logins for five game developers and limits how much your personal information has to be out there when buying gaming related things (specifically games) online.

As far as those comparing to the griefing and problematic people today, I present to you an example. About two years ago we were supporting a game very similar. An individual was removed from our service. He proceeded to then bypass the ban which consisted of about the same way of banning someone on SL to continue harassing. Steam accounts ARE FREE and so are SL accounts. It may or may not happen a lot, but I definitely see people creating multiple accounts one after another to really get under someones skin if they want to. Steam groups I was able to locate over three hundred clans "dedicated to disrupting gameplay" with the leading group of just under one thousand members. Just imagine this clan coming on this game into a specific area in an organized manner to disrupt the zone. I've seen it before on similar games, other games entirely, ventrilo and teamspeak v oice clients and even within old mIRC (Internet Relay Chat) times. Many of you are definitely underestimating these individuals. You can call me crazy but its definitely something that happens quite regularly. The griefing and problems today don't compare to the problems we face if the wrong people from the Steam service gets their hands on SL, assuming of course SL can handle the extra people on their service as they've neglected to fix things years old.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

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Alazarin Mondrian wrote:

My main concern is that LL, in their rush to make SL appeal to gamers who are used to a much more polished visual experience, raise the hardware requirement bar so high that the default 'SL user experience' is only available to hard-core gamers with deep pockets for high-end graphics cards. For example I'm an oldbie resident and most likely will stick with SL to the bitter end however I already have to disable the current raft of visual shinies just to have a framerate that is in double digits.

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Something could be said about the steam community. Others have stated above that Steam users and heavy gamers have high expectations for the service they use. Lag and graphics being the main concern.

I have seen that most users who experience a lot of lag, are using low end computers. They dont quite have the gaming machine they thought they had.. Or running a pisspoor laptop..

When Sl targeted facebook users. It was pretty much a waste of time of you ask me. Maybe not if they did gain 5% . But I would say that the majority of Facebookers are "tinkerers" and using notebooks,PDA's and phones mostly. Laptops and lower end machines ... But targeting the steam crowd there could be a bigger gain. The hardcore gamers spend a lot on their PC's and won't have to deal with the lag and be less critical because they have the power to back up their gaming. The graphics improvements coming soon will make a big difference on graphic display. But I definitely share concern over the immature crowd that is around there. Not all of them are but there are some who lack serious control LOL . I played counterstrike a lot and I didn't like dealing with the amount of foolish users thru steam. But I did run into some great people in there and I guess that could be good  for SL as well. We will have to see how it goes LOL

 

It does make more sense to target a crowd of users who put money in their machines to run with the big dogs

[Maryanne Solo]

Our Steam involvement comes about because of Skyrim and Dungeon Siege 3.

Speaking of top notch graphics, the last game my sister & I got was Alex Kidd in the enchanted castle.

WHOAH WAIT! I didn't know you could punch the cars! omgod lol

[161488303349]

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Herry Maltz wrote:

The griefing and problems today don't compare to the problems we face if the wrong people from the Steam service gets their hands on SL

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has been over 30 million accounts created on SL now. i think is nothing that any never been on SL before newbie steamer greifer can or will do that we not seen already before

be more of a yawnfest i think for most people on SL when/if they do come. for like a whole 5 minutes or about. bit like how all them under 18 teens perverts was gunna absolute ruin SL

 

[Shiva Draconia]

I just want to point out that possibly, a lot of gamers, with very up to date systems, may have issues trying to get SL to run on ultra graphics. 

I'm on a laptop. It's less than a year old. It has two graphics cards - one is an intel chip, the other a decent nvidia. I can play Witcher 2 on this machine with no issues (check the specs... not exactly low end). SL on the other hand? I can just about get 10FPS on low graphics. The graphics card isn't exactly high end anymore, but it supports 3d graphics (if only I had the glasses), so it's not exactly the worst either.

This is a coding issue with SL. On a day to day basis, it refuses to see the dedicated graphics card. The only way to get it to see the nvidia card, it to hook it up to a HDTV. This is all well and good, except the text gets very hard to read.

 

Your point about keeping a machine up to par is very much valid. BUT... spare a thought for those of us that DO keep a decent machine, but are screwed over by bad programming code. The dual graphics card thing is technology that's been around a few years - Optimus technology. Gaming and other graphic intensive programs are meant to tell the dedicated card to kick in as they start up..SL doesn't. So, on a day to day basis, I'm stuck on low end graphics, when my previous laptop played ultra no issue. Hooking up to the TV is a hassle, if I'm only gonna be inworld for half an hour, ya'know!

Sorry for the rant, but I've had people telling me I should update my laptop if it's so rubbish...Though, the way things are going with it breaking down, that could happen in the next year -_-' (Two repairs before it's even a year old.. thanks for a solid machine, Dell ) This is more an attempt to educate on an issue that a lot of people aren't aware of, including a lot of gamers.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

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Lindal Kidd wrote:

I'm not familiar with Steam either.  Does Valve police all their users???  Will this mean there will be a "higher authority" than LL to appeal to?

---

That's actually a really good question. Steam users can go to Valve for refunds on software purchased through Steam when the developers/publishers don't stand by the product. Valve then disables that particular product key, and gives a refund on the purchase cost.

If a Steam user buys L$ with USD and then the L$ purchase goes bad (like they so often do) and LL says "Sorry, delivery failures aren't our fault." or "We don't get involved in resident to resident disputes.", the user will then go to Valve with the complaint...

The question is then, what will Valve do to LL? The more I think about it, the more likely I think Valve will kick LL off Steam.

---

I don't understand.   I think the only things you can buy from LL are L$ on Lindex and land from the land store, and those don't usually go wrong.    If you're referring to in-world purchases going wrong (or purchases on the marketplace),  then that must surely have been discussed and resolved between Valve and LL, unless Valve have no idea what SL is like and LL's legal department are completely incompetent, I would have thought.

 

[161488303349]

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Shiva Draconia wrote:

I just want to point out that possibly, a lot of gamers, with very up to date systems, may have issues trying to get SL to run on ultra graphics. 

I'm on a laptop. It's less than a year old. It has two graphics cards - one is an intel chip, the other a decent nvidia. I can play Witcher 2 on this machine with no issues (check the specs... not exactly low end). SL on the other hand? I can just about get 10FPS on low graphics. The graphics card isn't exactly high end anymore, but it supports 3d graphics (if only I had the glasses), so it's not exactly the worst either.

This is a coding issue with SL. On a day to day basis, it refuses to see the dedicated graphics card. The only way to get it to see the nvidia card, it to hook it up to a HDTV. This is all well and good, except the text gets very hard to read.

 

---

is not just a SL problem switching from IGP to Nvidia. was heaps of games affected by Nvidia Optimus last year. latest NVidia driver fixes all them problems.

+

open Nvidia Control panel

Help \ Updates

if your Installed Graphics driver is not Version 301.42 then Check for Updates

after you update to 301.42 then in Nvidia Control panel

Select a Task... \ 3D Settings \ Manage 3D Settings

Program Settings \ Select a program to customize: pick Second Life from the list (is heaps of other game settings as well now in the list)

Select the preferred graphics processor for this program: pick High-performance NVIDIA processor

then Apply button

+

ps. for people who only got a Nvidia and not a IGP as well then do same above except is no pick the processor bc you only got a Nvidia anyways

+

pps. about the gamers. they been screaming since Nvidia Optimus came out and Dell choose not to put a gfx switch in the bios or even in their Dell gfx driver. Dell thought at the time that they would be better at choosing which one to use for you. even the games writers couldnt pick which one either at time

but anyways. NVidia solve it now. just have to get the latest driver off Nvidia and not use the Dell one

[Paul Hexem]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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Gadget Portal wrote:

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Lindal Kidd wrote:

I'm not familiar with Steam either.  Does Valve police all their users???  Will this mean there will be a "higher authority" than LL to appeal to?

---

That's actually a really good question. Steam users can go to Valve for refunds on software purchased through Steam when the developers/publishers don't stand by the product. Valve then disables that particular product key, and gives a refund on the purchase cost.

If a Steam user buys L$ with USD and then the L$ purchase goes bad (like they so often do) and LL says "Sorry, delivery failures aren't our fault." or "We don't get involved in resident to resident disputes.", the user will then go to Valve with the complaint...

The question is then, what will Valve do to LL? The more I think about it, the more likely I think Valve will kick LL off Steam.

---

I don't understand.   I think the only things you can buy from LL are L$ on Lindex and land from the land store, and those don't usually go wrong.    If you're referring to in-world purchases going wrong (or purchases on the marketplace),  then that must surely have been discussed and resolved between Valve and LL, unless

Valve have no idea what SL is like and LL's legal department are completely incompetent

, I would have thought.

 

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Bold by me- that's exactly what I'm worried about.

LL being incompetent is like water being wet.

And even if it's not the case, SL is the only platform on the planet where if something goes wrong with in-world purchases, the developer claims they're not responsible, not liable, and it has nothing to do with them. This will come as a shock to Steam users that are used to the microtransactions in their games having a warranty of some kind.

Valve has removed games from their platform after a certain amount of complaints- especially if some of the complaints make it look like Valve is the one dropping the ball. So if LL doesn't take responsibility and Valve doesn't take responsibility, the Internet buzz becomes "Valve got me into this stupid game that steals my money and won't refund me.", and Valve will correct that real quick-like.

[Alicia Sautereau]

aslong as they finally implement a working sli/crossfire solution...

[Innula Zenovka]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

I don't understand.   I think the only things you can buy from LL are L$ on Lindex and land from the land store, and those don't usually go wrong.    If you're referring to in-world purchases going wrong (or purchases on the marketplace),  then that must surely have been discussed and resolved between Valve and LL, unless

Valve have no idea what SL is like and LL's legal department are completely incompetent

, I would have thought.

 

---

Bold by me- that's exactly what I'm worried about.

LL being incompetent is like water being wet.

And even if it's not the case, SL is the only platform on the planet where if something goes wrong with in-world purchases, the developer claims they're not responsible, not liable, and it has nothing to do with them. This will come as a shock to Steam users that are used to the microtransactions in their games having a warranty of some kind.

Valve has removed games from their platform after a certain amount of complaints- especially if some of the complaints make it look like Valve is the one dropping the ball. So if LL doesn't take responsibility and Valve doesn't take responsibility, the Internet buzz becomes "Valve got me into this stupid game that steals my money and won't refund me.", and Valve will correct that real quick-like.

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 Well, I've always been struck by the way LL's ToS go out their way to absolve Linden Research of liability for just about anything that might conceivably happen, so I'd be a bit surprised if they'd somehow managed to put themselves in a position that altered this as far as customers from Valve were concerened.

Be that as it may, you're clearly more famiiiar with Valve and the way they work than am I.   Do you think it's going to come as a big shock to them to discover that one of the main features of SL is the the fact residents make content and sell it to other residents without reference to LL and, if something goes wrong with the transaction, LL won't get involved?    Maybe it will. but, if it does, it suggests they've done very little research.

[Paul Hexem]

I ask you this- how many forum posts do we see in a week by residents of SL that cant figure out why LL won't refund L$ after something went wrong? People that USE the platform are often unaware and caught off guard.

 

While I'm sure Valve is aware that the residents create the content, I'm not so sure they're aware of the utter lack of enforcement or lack of liability that goes on.

 

You're right, LL won't put themselves in a position where they're suddenly liable because of Steam, but Valve is likely to drop SL from the Steam service because of it.

[161488303349]

if we able to use steam wallet to bring and take out l$ like we do paypal then will be a benefit for both steam and sl users. can see SL people making a steam account. same steamers making sl accounts

if we cant do that then am not sure is going to be much benefit in terms of adding money players to SL. maybe thats the plan. linden to provide a convertible vcurrency for the steam games and worlds that are coming

[Innula Zenovka]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

I ask you this- how many forum posts do we see in a week by residents of SL that cant figure out why LL won't refund L$ after something went wrong? People that USE the platform are often unaware and caught off guard.

 

While I'm sure Valve is aware that the residents create the content, I'm not so sure they're aware of the utter lack of enforcement or lack of liability that goes on.

 

You're right, LL won't put themselves in a position where they're suddenly liable because of Steam, but Valve is likely to drop SL from the Steam service because of it.

---

Yeah, but I'd hope Valve do a bit more due diligence before accepting stuff for their platform than do many ordinary users of SL before buying stuff.   Maybe they don't, and it will come as a bit of shock LL don't get involved in resident to resident disputes but, if it does, Valve must be a pretty amateur operation, to my mind.   

[Paul Hexem]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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Gadget Portal wrote:

I ask you this- how many forum posts do we see in a week by residents of SL that cant figure out why LL won't refund L$ after something went wrong? People that USE the platform are often unaware and caught off guard.

 

While I'm sure Valve is aware that the residents create the content, I'm not so sure they're aware of the utter lack of enforcement or lack of liability that goes on.

 

You're right, LL won't put themselves in a position where they're suddenly liable because of Steam, but Valve is likely to drop SL from the Steam service because of it.

---

Yeah, but I'd hope Valve do a bit more due diligence before accepting stuff for their platform than do many ordinary users of SL before buying stuff.   Maybe they don't, and it will come as a bit of shock LL don't get involved in resident to resident disputes but, if it does, Valve must be a pretty amateur operation, to my mind.   

---

Even if Valve has done the research, all their customers haven't. That's more the point I'm making.

LL may not take responsibility for anything, but in my experience, Valve does. So if enough Steam users have this problem (especially if they're using money from their Steam wallets), I can't see Valve simply saying "Sorry, take it up with LL." after LL has already said "We're not liable for anything in SL, just shut up and give us your money."

Like I said, LL is the only company on the planet that has a complete lack of liability for their own platform. So you can bet that if SL starts to look bad on Valve's platform, Valve will do something- even if it's kick LL to the curb.

[Innula Zenovka]

But my point is that is seems pretty improbable that it won't have occured to anyone at either Valve or LL that this might be an issue.    I have no idea what's going to happen, but it just seems to me a bit unlikely that Valve and LL won't have discussed this at some point by now.  

Maybe they won't have; I dunno.

 

 

[Maelstrom Janus]

I wondered who linden labs were getting ready to sell too......

[Maelstrom Janus]

I bet these gamer bods are going to love coming to sl as is and seeing their gigas gobbled by pathfinding.... As Im looking to civ 5 on steam as an alternative to a rapidly declining sl I dont want nasty mega munching features being spread there thanks....

[Czari Zenovka]

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Nuhai Ling wrote:

Anyone else old enough to remember the montra, "Second Life is not a game.... Second Life is not a game...."

 

---

*Raises hand* I do, I do.  In fact, I vividly recall if someone referred to SL as a "game" on the old forums (usually a new resident) all manner of hades would break out.  In the last year or so I see the usage of the word "game" referring to SL on the forums regularly.

*Sits back in my rocking chair.*  Ah, the "good ole days." *Grins*