Why is group chat so laggy and buggy?

[Hoppimike]

Doesn't it kinda suck? Why don't they fix this?

So many bugs are fixed in SL I know and I really, truly appreciate that but... group chat is REALLY important for a social game.

Why hasn't this been done? I find it terribly laggy and sometimes it loses messages and sometimes it just gives up completely.

What gives? :(

Is there any way around this, or?

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Groups were originally made to manage land and only have a relatively few members.  Like so much else in SL, LL didn't anticipate they'd be used for commercial and social uses with some groups having thousands of members. Personally I don't think groups were ever designed for use like this.

Why groups haven't been fixed by now though is anyone's guess.  It's probably on the list of the top most requested things residents have for LL.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Hoppimike wrote:

Doesn't it kinda suck? Why don't they fix this?

 

So many bugs are fixed in SL I know and I really, truly appreciate that but... group chat is REALLY important for a social game.

 

Why hasn't this been done? I find it terribly laggy and sometimes it loses messages and sometimes it just gives up completely.

 

What gives?

 

Is there any way around this, or?

---

Yes, group chat is really important for a social game - but the social aspect, especially the chat aspect, of SL is only an accessory, not it's main function and the architecture isn't optimized for it. I'm heavily involved in SL and I would find group chat to be a nuisance even if it worked perfectly.

Most chat systems have people consciously log into a chat "room", but the group chat system of Second Life has to locate everyone in that group who's currently logged into one of thousands of separate servers and send messages to all of those servers. There's recently been some adjustments to the system to fix some internal blockages but it's not ever going to be as efficient as a dedicated chat system by the very nature of SL.

If you want to talk to a group of avatars who are all logged in it works much better to get them in one place in-world and talk in local chat.

[Hoppimike]

Thanks for the replies! I actually didn't mean the proper established group chat, maybe what I meant was "multi-user chat", like when you invite another person to a private conversation and then you all chat.

 

However, both forms of group chat appear to have similar issues so they're probably facing exactly the same problem(s).

[Hoppimike]

Just wanted to bump this as it's still bugging me haha

I take it there's been no progress?

I am genuinely looking at alternatives to SL because I see it as very significant >.<

Also... it's the only thing that bugs me when I'm recommending the game to others, as otherwise I totally love SL.

Come on LL!!! I love ya dudes but you need to fix this!