Perrie Juran Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 Qie Niangao wrote: Nova Convair wrote: Qie Niangao wrote:[...] If "no land as we know it" means something deeper, I sure wish somebody would explain it. Just read about "Hifi" which was mentioned in the context of SL2. There is a good example: Imagine a city which is held in a serverspace - you enter a building and switch to the serverspace that contains this building - you go to your apartment, open the door and enter the serverspace that contains your apartment. Switching serverspace is like sim crossing But if that will be noticeable then LL should drop everything and leave the work for the pro's. How a serverspace is implemented and hosted is a technical question. The network behind that world will surely be more complex and much more advanced than SL. - You will have to pay for the serverspace for your apartment. - There is no need to run that space if there is nobody in your apartment. But the city of course will still be there - if someone is in. So there is no need to keep everything running when nobody sees it.- There is no size. A serverspace can be an apartment - a city - the little cat NPC that wanders through the world - an area in space with the size of a lightyear? hehe - you'never know whats possible. I don't know of course If thats the goal of LL or within everyones imagination but I consider anything below that level as "steampunk". Oh, okay. So "no land as we know it" is really just an implementation detail about sharding scalability, not a fundamental change that removes all geography from the virtual world, which is what I've been taking to mean "land" and which seems to me so essential to any virtual world worth visiting. I'm not even a purist about "land" being limited to perfect 3D continuity, precluding portals or anything. So as I hinted in another post, I'm certainly not worried about the details of how space is simulated, as long as it is. Well, we all do exist in 'space,' that is we all fill up a space. But that brings to mind something that would be a holy grail for some people, the ability to have 'outer space' to travel through. Inspire Space Park does am excellent job of simulating this but they get limited by the fact everything in SL is tied to the ground so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Drongle McMahon wrote: The two things that stuck in my mind while reading this latest transcript were "experience" and "scalability". I think there is a realisation that in a system that will scale to the sort of size they want, LL cannot be involved with direct interaction with the end-use, the "customer". Instead, they will only deal with middlemen, the "Eperience creators". These will be much fewer than those we currently call creators. I think this elite of experience creators, the only users interacting directly with LL, are those who will be the object of the "creator-centric" strategy. The business of LL will be to provide infrastructure, and, while there may be cost-covering charges for that service, the real rewards for LL will come from "sales tax" on the services that the experience providers sell. Interesting thoughts and you may well be right that this is how they think. There's no way the model will work though. LL can't limit themselves to opereate through just a few selected middlemen. I'm not even sure if such a model would be legal but even if it is, they can't afford to use it. That's because many of the people they reject will just go elsewhere to build their projects and ideas. Each of them won't matter much but too many of them will add up to serious competition. Realistically, the only way they can limit the number of direct customers is by increasing the entry fee. As for sales tax - well it certainly would add one more piece of realism to SL: A black market economy. :matte-motes-wink: Drongle McMahon wrote: The experiences created will be as diverse as the imagination of the experience-creators. Nah, I doubt it. A creator's imagination is one thing, what he can actually sell is another. I bet you good money that 99% of the experiences will be of the "Living alone in an oversized mansion on a desert island" kind. Only this time they may have mirrors so you can watch both the front and the back of your pixel doll at the same time. If LL really try to limit the number of direct customers, the entry fee will be seriously high. Way too high to do anything risky - better play it safe and go for somethign you know will sell. Drongle McMahon wrote: My favourite will offer the challenge of survival in the face of an aggressive self-sustaining ecology, with limited avalable tools, decreasing admission cost for each day of survival, dangers active when youaren't there. Oh, you mean that kind of experience? Today there are - in theory - two ways you can build something like that: You can rent a server and build your own virtual world from scratch (possibly using those 3D functions Adobe added to Flash last year) or you can go to an existing virtual world (SL is the only realistic option there really), rent a sim and build it there. As I tried to demonstrtate in my first post, at the moment building something like that within the Second Life context has so few advantages and so many disadvantages it isn't really a sensible option. If LL wants to attract quality creators of that kind of experience, they have to offer them a far better deal than they do today. Drongle McMahon wrote: An end-user might participate in as many of these experiences as he chooses to. They would be connected only by single points of entry and exit, keeping the overall interconnection complexity of the system low. The complexity of internal connectivity would be under the control, and the responsibility of, of the experience creator. Inventory could be tranferred (but not all usable in all experiences). All transactions in all experiences would be in linden currency, ensuring the sales tax could be collected. You mean reintroduce the telehubs? Apart from that, this is pretty much how SL is today with so much of the mainlands empty. Oh, there is supposed to a grid where all sims have their place but in the end that's just a bunch of squares on a map. Since the sims aren't actually physically connected, the grid doesn't actually mean anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drongle McMahon Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 There's no way the model will work though. ... many of the people they reject will just go elsewhere to build their projects and ideas. Why? Of course we have to assume that LL does a good job of making the infrastructure. Then that it includes all the building tools anyone could want, a functioning currency system and identities that persist throughout the new world as well as in the old SL. No competition is any more likely to succeed in providing all that than do LL's current competitors. By using the new world experiences, end users will get more of what they want in more different ways and combinations than they do in SL now. So I can't see any reason to expect the exodus you would predict. In any case, it is not retaining old users they are after, it's recruiting new ones. Realistically, the only way they can limit the number of direct customers is by increasing the entry fee. On the contrary, it is the stated intention that the entry fee - the cost for land (or whatever replaces it=server resource) will be reduced. I suggested reduction to marginal running cost, but it could be even lower. Instead, profit and development costs would be generated from the sales tax. That intention has also been explicitly stated. A black market economy. Yes. As long as offworld real currency transcations can't obviously be excluded, this is a risk. Nevertheless, Ebbe did say sales tax would replace land as the prime income source. So this problem is there however wide of the mark my other suggestions may be. Maybe they think they have some way to limit the black market. Maybe they're just hoping. ...at the moment building something like that within the Second Life context has so few advantages and so many disadvantages it isn't really a sensible option. If LL wants to attract quality creators of that kind of experience, they have to offer them a far better deal than they do today. Exactly, and I presume that is precisely what they are intending to provide by making the the new world! "Better" seems to be Ebbe's favourite word in this context. this is pretty much how SL is today with so much of the mainlands empty Indeed. The evolution from mainland to estates, that has relieved LL of some of the direct administration burden they get from (almost deprecated) mainland, is the harbinger of the next step. I would expect the experience creators to have much more far-reaching and fine-grained control over what parts of the infrastructure will be accessible to users participating in their experiences, than do present estate owners. I should perhaps note that by infrastructure I mean everything, including build tools, scripting, permssions, transactions, animation, movement, lighting, graphics capabilities, inventory access etc., (maybe even clothing and numbers of limbs!). Delayed disclaimer: Of course, all this is entirely speculative and ignores all practical constraints. It is ntended only to stimulate imagination and discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irihapeti Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 my thoughts/guesses land the platform focus will be on social, residential, art, edu, shopping, clubs and live music, events, roleplay and game experiences. Creators thru the platform tools will be encouraged to create stuff for residents/people to do interactive stuff/activities as opposed to passive stuff. Passive by example meaning seen one tree, seen them all. Passive not meaning reflective places of quiet and contemplation. Which is stuff people do Land in itself I dont think in this betterworld will have any value. Parcelled land will not be a commodity (thing of value) to be bought and sold vis a vis mainland Mainland will be gateways for new signups. Similar to the new Linden Realms portals. And sandboxes there will be LL residential estates similar to Linden Homes. Themed and covenanted. Starter homes for new people. Like the current Homes they will be limited in capability there will be Estates. Parcelling will be allowed only at Estate ownership level. Theming/convenanting into "experiences" will be the new order. Residents wanting own Home as alternative to Linden Homes will have to go to an Estate. Estate owner/operator will be tightened up. Probably a SLA type agreement with LL to be a Estate owner/operator the concept of Tier for residents as we know it will be abandoned. Parcel (estate) rentals boxes/payments will be built into the viewer. Rent paid for in L$. Estate owners will pay Estate fees in US$ based on acreage used. With some minimum payment/commitment due to LL monthly. Use/pay/rent out your estate or lose it. Lose it meaning that the acreage will be auctioned off with tenants/residents intact to other Estate owners. Residents leaving a Estate (for any reason whatever) will be autorefunded any outstanding rents automagically Effectively Estate owners wont be Barons as we know them in SL. They be what they are: Estate Managers who get a piece of the rents for managing tenant/resident concerns. Tenants will not be able to be booted on the whim of some random Estate Management staff member/owner. Estate will have to be show tenant has breached the Covenant to get booted. Or just not paid their rent on due date + play doll play house this the single most important thing that keeps current SL afloat more than anything else. While is cool to have stuff to do, is more important to be able to dress for the part a massive revamp of how residents can add/edit/mod own avatar and home will make or break the betterworld. Yes is lots of people who make stuff for avatars and home. Creators and that is way way way more people tho who mount, accessorise and mix n match that stuff. Not only will the platform tools to do this be a whole lot better for avatars, but also will be able to make My Home similar to a My Outfit. Lay it out on the rented parcel and Save As a My Home. Want to change it then right-click inventory and Derez. Rez another My Home (with everything in it). Or make a new one and Save As Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: Has anyone had any thoughts on what he might mean by it? At this point and time I don't think THEY know what they mean by it. I think they have a few base ideas as to what this new world should be like, aside from that they have zip. Actually, I'm inclined to think they do know what they mean, or he wouldn't have said it. I'm now thinking that he meant that creators would be the main focus in SL2; i.e. provide really good tools for creating fantastic stuff. The way he said it, using the word 'customers', sounded like they are planning on creators being their main source of income, which I'm also thinking is true; i.e. a larger commission than they get now, and on all sales - inworld and out. He also said that "property tax" (tier) is too high, so I'm thinking that "land as we know it" (discussed in this thread) won't change, and it looks like it'll still be land that we can 'own'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joal Oddenfen Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Oh i think the clue is in "unlock", if true then it is not hard to work out what they intend to do to increase income. seems they are nicking an idea of a creator already here or wish to enhance what they are doing, lol, i wonder who that is, ebby must be impressed by them even though most of you hate them, lol. if it is to enhance then i am sure the creator in question will help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 ChinRey wrote: Actually at least one big landowner in SL run their sims on their own servers today. Really? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Drongle McMahon wrote: There's no way the model will work though. ... many of the people they reject will just go elsewhere to build their projects and ideas. Why? That was in response to: Drongle McMahon wrote: ... LL cannot be involved with direct interaction with the end-use, the "customer". Instead, they will only deal with middlemen, the "Eperience creators". These will be much fewer than those we currently call creators. I think this elite of experience creators, the only users interacting directly with LL, are those who will be the object of the "creator-centric" strategy. If LL is going to limit the number of customers they deal with directly, they will have to reject quite a few. That goes without saying. Some of these people will just deal with one of the officially approved middlemen of course, some will simply give up, some may try to sue LL... But many of them will try to build their own alternative to SL. We already have that of course, small virtual worlds with a few people in them, big enough for the owners to make an acceptable living, big enough that LL can deny any monopoly accusations but not big enough to be a serious competition to SL. Imagine a hundred rejected entrepeneurs pooling their resources and starting their own virtual world. Imagine that happening not once but a dozen times. Combined, all those mid sized (by today's standards) virtual worlds would be a serious competition to SL. Besides, how are they going to limit the number of direct customers? Are they going to simply select the people they wanna deal with? There are actually very strict laws against that both in the USA and in Europe and probably elsewhere in the world too. Even if they manage to find some legal loophole, they still have to be prepared to spend a fortune on lawyers to fight all the people who'll sue them. Are they going to make the TOS so inedible it'll only be acceptable to a few? Now, that's a thought... :matte-motes-wink: Are they going to set the price so high only a few can afford it? Apparently not. Are they going to offer only huge package deals? Well, they'll have to anyway. Like every single commercial venture in this world, LL wants more sales and fewer customers. That inevitably means each customer will have to buy more. We're not talking about the independent enthusiastic "experience creator" here. We're not even talking about the current big land barons. All those guys are way too small to matter. What LL needs is the kind of customers who are willing and able to rent the equivalent of a thousand sims or more. That's well beyond what a single person is able to administer so we're talking small firms with a handful of employees - located in some low cost country to keep the wages down of course. Drongle McMahon wrote: A black market economy. Yes. As long as offworld real currency transcations can't obviously be excluded, this is a risk. No, it's not a risk, it's a certainty. In fact, it's a certainty that within a month or three somebody will openly set up a complete alternative payment system specially aimed towards SL2 transcations and the only thing LL can do about it is lower their transaction fees enough they'll be able to compete. There is no realistic way for LL to supress a "black market" economy. One reason is that it won't strictly speaking be black market. LL is a commercial corporation, not a govenrment. It has no jurisdiction whatsoever and there's no law to force people to only trade through their officially approved channels. TOS? LL doesn't even have the right to know about any transactions their customers make outside LL's own channels. Imagine you're a experience creator offering lovely private tropical islands with stunning Victorian mansions on them. I rent one of them and pay you 2 Lindens a week. That's all LL has the right to know. The ten U.S. dollars I transfer to your PayPal account every now and then is none of then is none of their business. Even if LL learns about it somehow, they better shut up cause the slightest hint that they've had access to our PayPal transaction histories is enough excuse for us to sue them to death. Drongle McMahon wrote: Exactly, and I presume that is precisely what they are intending to provide by making the the new world! "Better" seems to be Ebbe's favourite word in this context. Indeed. One of the most basic rules in business is that to succeed you need to offer something that sets you apart from your competitors. It can be anything and it doesn't have to be much but it has to be something. It's easy to see what the existing SL's has as that is unique. But there's nothing of it that can be transferred to SL2 so they'll have to find a brand new unique edge for their brand new virtual world. They haven't come up with anything yet but to be fair, they probably don't tell us the whole story and besides, it's still early in the process. Drongle McMahon wrote: this is pretty much how SL is today with so much of the mainlands empty Indeed. The evolution from mainland to estates, that has relieved LL of some of the direct administration burden they get from (almost deprecated) mainland, is the harbinger of the next step. And mainland is of course one of the two things SL has that the competitors don't and can't have. (The other is the big, loyal customer base.) Everything else can be replicated fairly easily outside SL but I can't imagine that anybody will be able to build the equivalent of mainland today. It really makes me sad to watch mainland decline and I'd be more than happy let go of every single improvement and "improvement" LL has made since I joined SL if that would help revitalize mainland. You see, I too have a vision how I want SL to be. What I want is a huge wonderful landscape to explore. With new interesting people to meet and lovely suprise experiences around every bend. And I want ot jsut experiecne but shared experience. You can still find this in SL but it's less of it every day. :matte-motes-frown: But then again, I'm just a blue eyed dreamer. I know nothing about business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joal Oddenfen Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 i have my own sims on my own server, i use the latest version of OS sims but they are not as good as linden sims, for a start planes dont work very well in os sims and i have yet to get one to pass a sim boundery, now ebby did say that the new sl will not be open source, so i imagine that os sims will stand still now as they only use the tech the linden discard, so i dont think new worlds will come about to compete with them or they would have already, i have tried 2 new worlds, known both the owners of these new worlds and there are many things that dont work in these world and will never work as the tech to do certian things dont exist in these worlds and wont once this new second life appears. I also think that creators might have to gain a licence to create in this new world, i think maybe the option to just set up your own server in world will be ended so making sure the lindens get a cut of every transaction, with script you have the freedom to do this, but there wont be script in this new world, i think you just have to look at the modern mentality of investor driven corpoprations to see where this is going, all bussiness are about keeping investors on beaches and keeping them in the life style of gods, customers are just cattle they milk. In other words they may not be any inworld shops in the new second life, all things will be sold through market place and if no shops what does that mean for land, with no shops or malls? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 joal Oddenfen wrote: i have my own sims on my own server, i use the latest version of OS sims but they are not as good as linden sims, for a start planes dont work very well in os sims and i have yet to get one to pass a sim boundery, now ebby did say that the new sl will not be open source, so i imagine that os sims will stand still now as they only use the tech the linden discard, so i dont think new worlds will come about to compete with them or they would have already, i have tried 2 new worlds, known both the owners of these new worlds and there are many things that dont work in these world and will never work as the tech to do certian things dont exist in these worlds and wont once this new second life appears. The SL server code was never open source. Only the viewer was open source, which is how third party viewers came into being. What Ebbe said is that the SL2 viewer code won't initially be open source. The OpenSim people didn't use LL/SL code. They created their copy by writing it all themselves - backward engineering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joal Oddenfen Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 why didnt they remove the copyright notices inside the code, cos all the modules i have got have linden labs copyright notices inside them, so how is it that writting it themselfs, looks to me like they copied it but i could be wrong, i write code and always put my name inside it even though no one can see it unless dissasembled, i have looked in side the modules of OS they all have linden labs copyright written inside them. in fact i think OS sims is a branch of linden labs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Qie Niangao wrote: ChinRey wrote: Actually at least one big landowner in SL run their sims on their own servers today. Really? It's not exactly official but yes, you can buy a license for the SL software, install on your own servers and get LL to connect them to the SL grid. Visitors and tenants won't notice any difference. After all, it doesn't really matter to use where in the physical world the server is located and who owns and maintains it. The entry fee is very high though and LL has to enforce some very strict rules how you maintain and run your servers. As a result it only pays if you're running a huge number of sims. And I'm not talking just a few hundred sims here, this is the kind of customer who would acualy be interesting to LL for SL2! joal Oddenfen wrote: now ebby did say that the new sl will not be open source, so i imagine that os sims will stand still now as they only use the tech the linden discard, so i dont think new worlds will come about to compete with them or they would have already, Not necessarily. It wouldn't be difficult to develop an OS based grid to the current SL standard and beyond. It would just be expensive. You'd have to spend a small fortune buying the latest libraries and hiring some programmers to sew it all together. Apparently far too big a project for any of the current OS based grids to manage. Too risky too. Even if you managed to make a new and better virtual world that way, you'd still struggle to get people to leave the good old SL and move over to your place. SL2 might change this though. Most of the people in SL are loyal to Second Life, not to Linden Labs. If they get the impression they have to move anyway, they won't automatically choose LL's new world. And if large groups of creators and entrepeneurs get the impression they're not welcome at all in SL2, they will definitely want to look at the alternatives. If enough of them get together (and they almost certainly will) and pool their resources, we'll get an alternative grid with serious power behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 ChinRey wrote: Qie Niangao wrote: ChinRey wrote: Actually at least one big landowner in SL run their sims on their own servers today. Really? It's not exactly official but yes, you can buy a license for the SL software, install on your own servers and get LL to connect them to the SL grid. Visitors and tenants won't notice any difference. After all, it doesn't really matter to use where in the physical world the server is located and who owns and maintains it. The entry fee is very high though and LL has to enforce some very strict rules how you maintain and run your servers. As a result it only pays if you're running a huge number of sims. And I'm not talking just a few hundred sims here, this is the kind of customer who would acualy be interesting to LL for SL2! And what would be the benefit of that to a large land-owner? Why would anyone pay a large amount to run their sims on their own machines when they can run them for nothing on LL's machines - unless you're saying that it eliminates the tier that's payable to LL. There are reasons why I simply don't believe it. One is that rumours about special treatment for big spenders (large land-owners) fly around from time to time. The FIC (Feted Inner Core) was one, but it was just one person's imagination. Yes, very large land-owners can get special deals, but anyone can get those deals if they spend enough. Another reason is that it releases the server programming into the wide wide world, so a lot of trust would be needed. (The server code was never open source as some people in this thread think.) It's not like Google's GSA, for instance, where you can lease the GSA (search engine) from Google but it comes on Google's machines and not on your own, so the programming is not accessible by you.. And yet another reason is that there is no benefit to the large land-owner unless there's a major reduction in, or elimination of, tier, and I just can't see LL doing that when they don't have to. My guess is that it's just another rumour that was started by someone who thinks that everyone should be treated equally by LL, regardless of how much they pay LL each month, and there are many people who think like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 joal Oddenfen wrote: why didnt they remove the copyright notices inside the code, cos all the modules i have got have linden labs copyright notices inside them, so how is it that writting it themselfs, looks to me like they copied it but i could be wrong, i write code and always put my name inside it even though no one can see it unless dissasembled, i have looked in side the modules of OS they all have linden labs copyright written inside them. in fact i think OS sims is a branch of linden labs. I don't know why the code contains those notices. What I do know is that the SL server code was never open source. Only the viewer code has been open source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 joal Oddenfen wrote: why didnt they remove the copyright notices inside the code, cos all the modules i have got have linden labs copyright notices inside them, so how is it that writting it themselfs, looks to me like they copied it but i could be wrong, i write code and always put my name inside it even though no one can see it unless dissasembled, i have looked in side the modules of OS they all have linden labs copyright written inside them. in fact i think OS sims is a branch of linden labs. I'm not going to claim that the copyrights you are saying are not in the code because I've never looked in it and that's a bit out of my expertise. But OpenSim states (LINK) that the Contributors.Text (LINK) has "a full list of copyright holders." I see no reference to Linden Lab in that list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drongle McMahon Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 If LL is going to limit the number of customers... They don't have to. The model proposes that LL will handle scaleable services dealing with basic identity, inventory and currency. To that extent, all will still be their customers. Everything else will be in the domain of the experience creator. To the user, there will be nothing different from now, except that the variety of experiences will be greater. I would imagine some of these would be pretty close analogues of mainland as we know ot, which I use too. They don't have to exclude anyone. They only have to design the experience creator role to require a greater commitment than most can provide. At the same time, the experience creators can provide everything anyone gets from SL now, and more. I don't understand your couner arguments at all. In terms of accessibility, the experience creator role is a fairly straightforward extrapolation of the current role of estate managers, the middlemen of the land-tax-based world. I haven't heard of anyone suing LL because they can't afford an island and think they are unfairly excluded thay way. No, it's not a risk, it's a certainty (black market). So how do any websites charging commissions survive? Perhaps because they provide a consolidated service including security. authentication, consolidation of transactions, dealing with tax and money laundering laws etc., that is worth the commission? Still, Iagree it's an issue and might depend on the size of the commission as well as any other measures. They haven't come up with anything yet Yes they have: it will be "Better" :matte-motes-smile: What I want is a huge wonderful landscape to explore. With new interesting people to meet and lovely suprise experiences around every bend. And I want not just experience but shared experience. That's exactly what I imagine the experience creators would (try to) provide for you. The role of LL is to provide them with the means. And if you want, and have the resources, you can be one of the the providers too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Phil Deakins wrote: And what would be the benefit of that to a large land-owner? Why would anyone pay a large amount to run their sims or their own machines when they can run them for nothing on LL's machines - unless you're saying that it eliminates the tier that's payable to LL. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Instead of paying the monthly server rent, you pay a large sum at the start for the rights to the software and then take care of most of the work yourself. Phil Deakins wrote: There are reasons why I simply don't believe it. One is that rumours about special treatment for big spenders (large land-owners) fly around from time to time. Sorry, it simply didn't occur to me until now that this was secret or controversial in any way. A while ago a friend of mine told me about a large commission build he had received. During the talk he mentioned his client were running their own servers and also a little bit about how and why. (He also claimed that their servers were faster than SL's but I don't belive that - I've been to several of those sims and they're just as laggy as the rest of SL). Neither of us thought of this as secret or controversial at that time. Quite honestly I can't see why it should be controversial either. LL offer quantity discounts to large customers - so what? Everybody does. It makes perfect business sense because fewer and larger customers means less work. Some parts of that quantity discount scheme is freely published at SL's website anyway. As far as I can see, the only reason why they don't publish the whole price list is that it's relevant to so few customers it just as easy to deal with them individually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 ChinRey wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: And what would be the benefit of that to a large land-owner? Why would anyone pay a large amount to run their sims or their own machines when they can run them for nothing on LL's machines - unless you're saying that it eliminates the tier that's payable to LL. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Instead of paying the monthly server rent, you pay a large sum at the start for the rights to the software and then take care of most of the work yourself. LL doesn't need to do that though. They can collect tier on the land instead. That reason alone makes it incredibly unlikely. So incredibly unlikely that I don't believe it happens. I believe that you believe it happens though, but I don't. Phil Deakins wrote: There are reasons why I simply don't believe it. One is that rumours about special treatment for big spenders (large land-owners) fly around from time to time. Sorry, it simply didn't occur to me until now that this was secret or controversial in any way. A while ago a friend of mine told me about a large commission build he had received. During the talk he mentioned his client were running their own servers and also a little bit about how and why. (He also claimed that their servers were faster than SL's but I don't belive that - I've been to several of those sims and they're just as laggy as the rest of SL). Neither of us thought of this as secret or controversial at that time. Quite honestly I can't see why it should be controversial either. LL offer quantity discounts to large customers - so what? Everybody does. It makes perfect business sense because fewer and larger customers means less work. Some parts of that quantity discount scheme is freely published at SL's website anyway. As far as I can see, the only reason why they don't publish the whole price list is that it's relevant to so few customers it just as easy to deal with them individually. It's not controversial, or secret, because, imo, it doesn't exist in the way that you've described it. I wonder if LL have produced a product that allows people to create their own grids, using a version of LL's software. I can't see them allowing such a grid to connect to SL though, simply because, if anyone goes into one of those remotely-hosted sims, together with their stuff, as happens between sims in SL, it would place all of the stuff outside of LL's control. That's the very reason they never found a way to allow outside grids to connect to SL even though they got the TPing part working. I think you've misunderstood something, or someone has been spinning you a yarn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vivienne Schell Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 "I wonder if LL have produced a product that allows people to create their own grids, using a version of LL's software." They actually did: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/23800.wss I do not know exactly what happened to that project. But there was another attempt to adress the enterprise sector later on, namely Second Life Enterprise Solution: http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/11/04/linden-lab-launches-second-life-enterprise-beta-second-life-wor/ http://www.youin3d.com/en/second-life-enterprise.html It actually was launched but withdrawn in 2011 or so. I cannot tell you if customers running SLE still are supported or can connect to the grid, but i don´t see a reason for discontinued support by LL there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Drongle McMahon wrote: If LL is going to limit the number of customers... They don't have to. The model proposes that LL will handle scaleable services dealing with basic identity, inventory and currency. To that extent, all will still be their customers. Everything else will be in the domain of the experience creator. To the user, there will be nothing different from now, except that the variety of experiences will be greater. I would imagine some of these would be pretty close analogues of mainland as we know ot, which I use too. One of the issues could still be vetting who can use those experience tools. Griefing has been one of the concerns right from the start. I am reminded of attending the performance of Milton's Paradise Lost in SL. The Audience was asked to (required?) to wear an Ava provided by the performance. When worn it included the "request permission to animate you." At certain points in the performance the audience became part of the cast, dancing with the Devils or Angels. Right now we still have a problem with one permission in SL that until recently there was no way to revoke it. But LL's fix is only partial. There is a very easy work around to the fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 12, 2014 Author Share Posted August 12, 2014 Thank you, Vivienne. The IBM page is different to the other two. It was an experiment back then but it wasn't pursued due to the fact that avatars arrive in sims with their stuff, which would then be insecure. The other two pages describe what I was wondering about. They are both stand alone (they don't connect to SL), and they are both in servers provided by LL - like Google's GSA - so operators can't get their hands on the software. I feel sure that what ChinRey was describing must have been that Enterprise system, and that he'd misunderstood about it connecting to the SL grid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Drongle McMahon wrote: If LL is going to limit the number of customers... They don't have to. Now I'm really not sure what you mean. No, they don't have to but I thought you said it was what they plan to do? Let me try an illustration to clarify. If I have an idea that will require the equivalent of - say one sim by old SL measurements - can I got to LL and rent that directly from them on SL2? If the answer is yes, all is fine as far as I'm concerned but it means LL has given up their larger-and-fewer customers idea. (OK, maybe a full sim is a bit bigger than some of the small portions they operate with today but the difference is hardly enough to be regarded as a significant policy change.) If the answer is that they don't deal with land portions as small as that directly and that I have to go to one of their authorized middlemen... In such a scenario, the middlemen aren't "experience creators" in any meaningful definition of the term, let's call them "estate agents", or "land barons" if you like. Anyway, I can easily think of half a dozen good and even more poor reasons why I don't want to deal through a middleman. Drongle McMahon wrote: The model proposes that LL will handle scaleable services dealing with basic identity, inventory and currency. Fair enough. I wonder how much that is worth to each customer. Certinaly nothing near the current tier level. Drongle McMahon wrote: No, it's not a risk, it's a certainty (black market). So how do any websites charging commissions survive? Perhaps because they provide a consolidated service including security. authentication, consolidation of transactions, dealing with tax and money laundering laws etc., that is worth the commission? That's right. I suppose that's one of the systems LL will create and provide. But if LL can do it, somebody else can too. There is no way LL can keep others from creating or using other payment forms than theirs. The only thing they can do is keep their transaction fee (or "sales tax" if you like) low enough to compete. So sales tax is not going to be a "milk cow" for LL. The best they can hope for is a marginal profit from it. Drongle McMahon wrote: They haven't come up with anything yet Yes they have: it will be "Better" :matte-motes-smile: Of course! How could I forget? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medhue Simoni Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Well, I'm late again to the party! Here is my take on it all, or maybe just what I hope. Creator-centric means that they will build the world around what the creators need, to maximize what is possible, and the amount of creators involved. Yes, I think the % of sales commission will be higher. I hope it is not over %15 I think it would be kind of dumb to tax inworld sales, as I still see land as a big seller, that will always dwarf the marketplace. You want all those creators to own land too. LL was all wrong about land prices for SL. They just thought wrong about it. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying LL should not have maximize their profit potential, but that maximum level is hard to predict. They far over shot it. Remember when they announce that enterprise grid product, and asked 50k? Those people in Cali don't quite understand how to gauge price. If LL prices these new sims, bigger sims, at something reasonable, like 50-75 bucks, with no set up fee, then the consumers aren't taking that big of a risk, and they'd have many more times the landownership. There will be more volatility, but easily 5 times the volume. They'll have to expand. Plus, land sales is a more constant profit, and what got them this far. I also see something like approved game developer that create experiences, like they are doing now in SL. What I would like to see, is LL create sets for codes for games, so that any knowledgeable creator can just slap some prebuilt code together to basically create whatever they wanted. This is kind of what is happening with Unity. Or LL could promote or pay independent developers to write the code for the games that will be available to anyone. As creators add their own code, they can choose to release the code thru an approval process with LL, or keep the code secret. This kind of coding practice works great with the SL viewer and 3rd party viewers. It also works great for Blender's development. In no time, we'd have the most amazing games possible, and all accessible to every creator or developer. To me, it the best way for code to be developed. Of course, this is what I'm hoping for. Or, LL could write their own game code, and license it to creators. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 Medhue Simoni wrote: Well, I'm late again to the party! Better late than never. :matte-motes-smile: Medhue Simoni wrote: Here is my take on it all, or maybe just what I hope. Creator-centric means that they will build the world around what the creators need, to maximize what is possible, and the amount of creators involved. I hope so too. I think you are right, except for two missing words: "will build" should be "will try to build". That's a rather important difference. There are no content creators nor experience creator working for LL. There are nobody at the board or staff meetings or at the office to give them firsthand information about what a 3D world creator actually needs. LL has always tried their best to make SL as creator friendly as possible but without that in-house expertise, they often miss the mark. One example: As I'm sure you all know, there is another team, independent from but partly financed by LL, who are working on another virtual world right now. They're going to base the graphics on voxels which apparently are quite a lot heavier on the computers than mesh. Their reasoning is that voxels can provide better graphics and by the time they're ready to open their world, the average computer will be twice as fast as today so they can afford to use heavier graphics. That's exactly how Ebbe started his SL2 pitch too. "Better graphics", cause that's what all creators want. Or more correctly: that's what all non-creators think all creators want. And of course we do, but not at any cost! I mean, what's the point of making a wonderfully detailed replica of an old motorbike if the environment is so laggy you can't actully ride it? And how are we ever going to find time to use all those wonderful new features anyway? - I mean when you already spend three times as much time fighting the unfriendly interfaces of buggy, bloated and barely compatible software as you do on actually creating? Anyway, as I said, Ebbe started with the "Better graphics" cliché but now he suddenly talks about "experience creators". Now, being a pixel doll can actually be a nice experience (don't knock it if you haven't tried it) but it gets boring fast and I have a feeling what Ebbe had in mind was something a bit more action-filled. And since they clearly want SL2 to be for the masses, they need all that action to work on a perfectly normal average - and even slightly below average - home computer. That means the stipulated doubling in copmuter speed won't even be enough to get today's SL down to an acceptable lag level. There's certainly no room to spend any of it on improved or "improved" graphics. Here's a very simple test: Make a small race track - say about 1000x500 m in overall size. Fill the tribunes with 500 spectators, half of them on "average" home computers, the rest on two year old laptops. Start the race - twelve cars, fifty rounds, full speed, all drivers on "average home computers". The day we can do that with no significant glitches or lag, that's the day increasing graphics quality becomes more important than reducing lag. In SL1, of course, you're struggling with 20 avatars running through some basic dance animations in a club.... So, yes, better graphics would be nice. But there are so many other more important and urgent updates and the only visual feature that should be anywhere near the top of the priority list right now, is working mirrors. Medhue Simoni wrote: Yes, I think the % of sales commission will be higher. I hope it is not over %15 It can't be anywhere near 15%. One important point many people seem to overlook is that nobody has to deal with L$. We can do all our SL buying and selling with RL money if we like. We can even invent our own in-world valuta if we want to. As it is now we don't want to, of course. L$ is reasonably safe, free to use and very, very practical. Things will look very different the moment LL introduce any kind of general transaction fee though. Medhue Simoni wrote: LL was all wrong about land prices for SL. They just thought wrong about it. It's not that simple unfortunately. I know I'm repeating myself here but from an RL perspective, what you do when you buy a sim is simply rent a web server. Yes, it's a server with some special software and some special possibilities and limitations but it's not significantly different from any web server you can rent from any web host. Back in 2003 200 dollars a month was a perfectly reasonable price for a dedicated web server, in fact it was a little bit below average market price. But prices on the open web host market have dropped significantly since then and now you can easily get a dedicated server for 50 dollars/month. LL still charges 2003 level prices for their hosting services. You may think it's because they're greedy but there is actually another very good reason why they can't just drop the land tier: The L$ exchange rate is closely connected to land tier so if LL changes one of them, they'll have to change the other too. What do you think would happen if suddenly overnight you had to pay 1000 L$ for a U.S. dollar? It will happen sooner or later anyway of course but it's easy to understand why LL tries to delay that crack for as long as possible. Medhue Simoni wrote: I also see something like approved game developer that create experiences, like they are doing now in SL. Hmmm. There's something we've all kept quiet about until now. Approved developers.That idea's gonna create quite a stir. Medhue Simoni wrote: What I would like to see, is LL create sets for codes for games, so that any knowledgeable creator can just slap some prebuilt code together to basically create whatever they wanted. This is kind of what is happening with Unity. I think that's an important part of their current plan yes. Seems to me the package they're planning for right now, contains four items: A software system to simplify game buiding A dedicated (mandatory) hosting service for those games A dedicated (mandatory) viewer for those games A selection of auxiliary services (user registration, money transaction etc.) Now, the auxiliary services certainly have some value but not that much. The special viewer may be an advantage but it may also be a liability. It certainly isn't enough on its ow to persuade game developers to choose LL's package. The dedicated, mandatory web hosting is a clear liability, even if LL drops their hosting fees down to regulalr market price. LL will have to seriously sweeten other parts of the deal for developers to swallow this. In the end it all boils down to how well the game building software holds up against the competition. Hard to say right now but I have a suspicion LL has yet to realize there is a competition at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 When I hear "Creator-centric" I think of concentric circles drawn on my back. Because when LL tries to do what it conceives of as "helping" merchants, I have learned to duck. I am pretty resigned to the fact that I have had a very good run in SL, but LL is planning to kill it one way or another, probably several ways. Or maybe not kill, but seriously wound. I have a 4 sim store packed with content. It has taken me three years to get 2/3 of that content converted* to mesh, and trust me it has been a huge effort. Other than one PT employee who does MP listings, I have done it all, including Customer Service and managing the business end on top of learning Blender and keeping to a weely new release schedule. Just now the store is looking like i want it to. So I dont care how wonderful SL2 is going to be. After playing catch up to mesh for 3 years -- yes, I realize most mesh "creators" are just importing things off the internet, but I dont -- I cant look forward to starting over again, OR to trying to figure out how I am going to run two stores in two different grids when the one I have now takes all my time. * By converted I mean, making new mesh stuff, not some "conversion" process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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