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steph Arnott wrote:

thats your choice, as for comments you make plenty based on emotions. Few days ago you claimed to no nothing about progaming today you were a pro. What does that tell people?

A pro?... that's news to me.

...Dres

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steph Arnott wrote:

What do you give and how do you help others?
As for my illness it is none of your bissness
,
why would you even ask such a thing?
.

I know that your post wasn't addressed to me, but....

That's none of your business.

Then why did you throw it into the thread in the first place. Your illness is everyone's business because you included it in the discussion. You can't bring up your disabilities, and then tell people it's none of their business, even asking why they mentioned it. Well, you can - you did - but it's very poor thinking on your part.

Because you mentioned it yourself.

Apart from asking an occasional technical question, I was away from the forum for a long time and I only came back into it very recently. I don't remember you from the past, Steph, but these days you do seem to make a negative impact around the forum. So much so that I'm tempted to wonder if it's intentional - like one or two other people I've known here. I don't know if you intend it, but you certainly achieve it. Just the other day, you managed to drive a brand new forum user away (imo), and I often see people post negative replies to you.

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(totally off-topic .. but sometimes I just have to over-share .. apologies in advance)

Years ago I had just gotten some pretty downer news and I responded by walking around with a nasty scowl pretty much welded on my face. The whole world could just go hang .. far as I was concerned. While sitting outside smoking a cigarette and internally kvetching because I'd been handed such a rotten outcome, I happened to overhear a guy nearby telling some really BAD puns .. and getting the folks around him laughing like crazy.

I took the time to listen for a bit. I also looked at him. His legs were mostly burned off, his face was a mass of scars and burns, and his abdomen was tore up even worse. His left arm was gone from the elbow down, but his right arm was okay except for missing the hand. AND he was laughing, smiling, joking .. and pretty much making everyone around him enjoy the day.

That's when I cracked. I looked upward and whispered to myself "Okay! I get it!"

I've had similar bad days since. But I've also struggled hard to bring the same levity and life with me no matter what or where. Don't always succeed, but I still try. It ain't easy .. but it IS worth the attempt. Promise.

ETA: Sorry Phil .. wasn't aimed at you or your post .. just a general musing.

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Phil Deakins wrote:


steph Arnott wrote:

What do you give and how do you help others?
As for my illness it is none of your bissness
,
why would you even ask such a thing?
.

I know that your post wasn't addressed to me, but....

That's none of your business.

Then why did you throw it into the thread in the first place. Your illness is everyone's business because you included it in the discussion. You can't bring up your disabilities, and then tell people it's none of their business, even asking why they mentioned it. Well, you can - you did - but it's very poor thinking on your part.

Because you mentioned it yourself.

Apart from asking an occasional technical question, I was away from the forum for a long time and I only came back into it very recently. I don't remember you from the past, Steph, but these days you do seem to make a negative impact around the forum. So much so that I'm tempted to wonder if it's intentional - like one or two other people I've known here. I don't know if you intend it, but you certainly achieve it. Just the other day, you managed to drive a brand new forum user away (imo), and I often see people post negative replies to you.

I don't think it's intentional... I've never pegged Steph as some evil troll looking to purposely attack people.  While she's always been rather opinionated, her lashing out at various individuals with bizarre commentary seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon.

I have to imagine that she must be going through a rough patch at the moment, but as she said... what she may or may not be going through is really none of my business.  Let's just hope that whatever the recent problem is, it passes quickly.

...Dres

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Dresden wrote:

I find it both amusing and a bit frustrating how so many are so vociferously critical of Sansar, based mainly upon the cumulative speculation of what they believe it'll be like.  Perhaps some of those speculations are entirely valid, but even so, I seriously doubt that what LL believes Sansar will be used for will end up being how it's actually used.  They're creating a platform with an idea of how they want it to be used, but it's actually the future users of that platform who will decide how they wish to use it and who will ultimately drive its further development.  Trying to predict its success or failure is, at this point, entirely pointless.

...Dres

Some of the negativity may be coming from the fact people wont be able to take their content from SL into Sansar due to either technical considerations (compatibility) or because of copyright considerations.

I do too carry a mind picture for Sansar possibly inspired by some of my Sci-Fi reading.  I envision these giant bubbles floating in the cyber universe and when you enter them small virtual worlds have been built inside.  Skies are painted on the ceilings.  Land and/or water on the bottom.  Or in some cases the orientation has been completely shifted.  Every standing sideways on the side of the bubble.  

But that is all a guess.

But what i said about the target audience, there is this quote:

“Our goal is to make creators successful,” says Linden Lab's Gray. “The creator is our target audience, and we want them to be successful and to be able to attract an audience into their creations.”

LINK

 

eta:shpelling

 

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Dresden wrote:

I find it both amusing and a bit frustrating how so many are so vociferously critical of Sansar, based mainly upon the cumulative speculation of what they believe it'll be like.  Perhaps some of those speculations are entirely valid, but even so, I seriously doubt that what LL believes Sansar will be used for will end up being how it's actually used.  They're creating a platform with an idea of how they want it to be used, but it's actually the future users of that platform who will decide how they wish to use it and who will ultimately drive its further development.  Trying to predict its success or failure is, at this point, entirely pointless.

...Dres

As someone who has put a lot of critical pixels on plexiglass about Project Sansar, I'd like to try and illuminate why I have been so negative. What follows are my opinions only .. based on my experience with both LL and with the digital business industry.

1) Past History - The issue that first brought me to the Forums was a case where the LL Management was making a decision that seemed at best capricious and unthinking, and at worst intentionally greedy and destructive. In the years since they have a rather daunting record of making similar decisions. When called on those decisions they never say a thing; they just continue with the wrecking ball .. blind to the damage they are visiting upon their customer base.

2) Unrealistic Expectations - When Philip first envisioned Second Life, he knew the demands of the platform would exceed the commonly available hardware, but he also knew that the hardware would improve in time. Project Sansar is once again putting the requirements far out ahead of the existing resources, but this time they are demanding personal skill and monetary resources to "catch up". These are things that do not grow at Moore's Law rates.

3) Disrespect of Existing Customers - The new "Business Model" of Project Sansar begins from the premise that all existing customers will be unwelcome and in fact won't even factor in to their design goals. This is a very blatant slap in the face of the millions of people that have put money into LL's pockets. I was always taught that existing customers are not only cheaper to retain, but also provide the best sales leads into new customers. Throwing away the entirety of their existing customer base seems a very disrespectful choice.

4) Vague to the Point of Absurdity - LL's intentions for the platform, what it will do, how it will do it and what "hook" it will have that makes it interesting are not just being held close to the chest, they are flat-out inscrutable. It makes sense to keep a certain amount of secrecy around a new product, but too much turns off any possible interest that might be generated as the product is developed. There is a balance that needs to be struck and LL has completely mis-placed that balance.

.. and finally ..

5) It Feels Like Surrender - For years it has been obvious to many watching the platform and the company that some very basic changes could gain some significant improvements in income and customer base. But for whatever reasons those changes have never been made. Now with Project Sansar they are off in a totally new direction that completely abandons the product they've spent more than a decade struggling to grow and improve. I cannot explain why the simple changes have never been made, but Sansar looks and feels like they've thrown in the towel and said "we give up." If there is one thing that typifies the Second Life die-hard it's that we don't give up. But if LL is going to give up, why should we continue struggling by ourselves .. and why should we trust them to create something new?

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Darrius Gothly wrote:


Dresden wrote:

I find it both amusing and a bit frustrating how so many are so vociferously critical of Sansar, based mainly upon the cumulative speculation of what they believe it'll be like.  Perhaps some of those speculations are entirely valid, but even so, I seriously doubt that what LL believes Sansar will be used for will end up being how it's actually used.  They're creating a platform with an idea of how they want it to be used, but it's actually the future users of that platform who will decide how they wish to use it and who will ultimately drive its further development.  Trying to predict its success or failure is, at this point, entirely pointless.

...Dres

As someone who has put a lot of critical pixels on plexiglass about Project Sansar, I'd like to try and illuminate why I have been so negative. What follows are my opinions only .. based on my experience with both LL and with the digital business industry.

1) Past History - The issue that first brought me to the Forums was a case where the LL Management was making a decision that seemed at best capricious and unthinking, and at worst intentionally greedy and destructive. In the years since they have a rather daunting record of making similar decisions. When called on those decisions they never say a thing; they just continue with the wrecking ball .. blind to the damage they are visiting upon their customer base.

 

2) Unrealistic Expectations - When Philip first envisioned Second Life, he knew the demands of the platform would exceed the commonly available hardware, but he also knew that the hardware would improve in time. Project Sansar is once again putting the requirements far out ahead of the existing resources, but this time they are demanding personal skill and monetary resources to "catch up". These are things that do not grow at
rates.

LL wants to ride the VR headset hype wave. SL can't produce the framerates that the Oculus Rift wants but Sansar can (at least LL hopes it can). LL's dream for Sansar is that companies will want to get in on the headset hype too & do so by buying virtual worlds from LL.

My opinion is that the VR headset hype is way ahead of the customers. The Rift requires a good gaming computer (around $1200) in addition to the price of the Rift itself. Unfortunately for Oculus, most people use laptops so they have no chance of running the Rift at the recommended settings. It'll be a couple years at least before the average new computer will be able to handle a Rift-type headset. That works well for LL since it'll be a couple years (2017? 2018?) before Sansar goes live, then longer yet before there are enough worlds to attract a lot of customers. (It'll be funny if it turns out there really isn't a mass market for virtual worlds or VR headsets.)

Fortunately, you won't need high end hardware to use Sansar without a VR headset. If Sansar is more efficient than SL (shouldn't be difficult to do) then existing hardware may work better with Sansar.

I assume "personal skill and monetary resources" is referring to people who create things. From what we've heard so far, Sansar will be all mesh. SL is headed that way already, so Sansar isn't really a change in that regard. If LL does what they've said they'll do, we won't have to use Maya to create mesh for Sansar so there's not necessarily an increase in cost. It's also possible my assumption is wrong & you meant something else.

3) Disrespect of Existing Customers - The new "Business Model" of Project Sansar begins from the premise that all existing customers will be unwelcome and in fact won't even factor in to their design goals. This is a very blatant slap in the face of the millions of people that have put money into LL's pockets. I was always taught that existing customers are not only cheaper to retain, but also provide the best sales leads into new customers. Throwing away the entirety of their existing customer base seems a very disrespectful choice.

Sansar isn't SL or an SL successor. LL wants to be a virtual world (aka experience) provider to companies and individuals who want to develop their own virtual worlds. We'll be the customers of the companies who buy/rent a virtual world from LL. Those companies might do well to talk with us, since we'll be potential customers. BTW, if Sansar takes off there will be a great business opportunity for the creative people who can build an experience/world. If some fast food company wants a world to use as a promotional tool, they'll get the space from LL and hire people to build it.

4) Vague to the Point of Absurdity - LL's intentions for the platform, what it will do, how it will do it and what "hook" it will have that makes it interesting are not just being held close to the chest, they are flat-out inscrutable. It makes sense to keep a certain amount of secrecy around a new product, but too much turns off any possible interest that might be generated as the product is developed. There is a balance that needs to be struck and LL has completely mis-placed that balance.

LL has given quite a bit of information about their plans, but there's probably little to actually show at this point. This time LL is providing an empty book to people who will fill the pages. The empty book isn't that interesting; it's what people do with it. If Sansar survives we'll know the answer in a few years.

.. and finally ..

5) It Feels Like Surrender - For years it has been obvious to many watching the platform and the company that some very basic changes could gain some significant improvements in income and customer base. But for whatever reasons those changes have never been made. Now with Project Sansar they are off in a totally new direction that completely abandons the product they've spent more than a decade struggling to grow and improve. I cannot explain why the simple changes have never been made, but Sansar looks and feels like they've thrown in the towel and said "we give up." If there is one thing that typifies the Second Life die-hard it's that we don't give up. But if LL is going to give up, why should we continue struggling by ourselves .. and why should we trust them to create something new?

LL still has a team working on maintaining and improving SL; they have another team developing Sansar. Companies can have multiple products. LL may not be able to handle doing both at once; we'll see. So far I haven't noticed a decrease in LL's work on SL since Sansar started. Project Bento will be a huge update for the SL avatar -- that doesn't seem like giving up.

Personally I don't care about Sansar right now. I'm having fun continuously building and rebuilding my homestead region. There's projected light and materials and other fairly new things to play with. Once Project Bento goes live I'll stock up on the weirdest new avatars I can find. 

Someday Sansar may go live and companies may use it to create their own virtual worlds. If so, I'll check out the new worlds and perhaps find one or more I'd like to spend time in. SL will eventually die, whether Sansar exists or not. For now it's not worth worrying about.

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(pardon the massive re-quote but .. I think it's germane)


Parhelion Palou wrote:

Darrius Gothly wrote:


Dresden wrote:

I find it both amusing and a bit frustrating how so many are so vociferously critical of Sansar, based mainly upon the cumulative speculation of what they believe it'll be like.  Perhaps some of those speculations are entirely valid, but even so, I seriously doubt that what LL believes Sansar will be used for will end up being how it's actually used.  They're creating a platform with an idea of how they want it to be used, but it's actually the future users of that platform who will decide how they wish to use it and who will ultimately drive its further development.  Trying to predict its success or failure is, at this point, entirely pointless.

...Dres

As someone who has put a lot of critical pixels on plexiglass about Project Sansar, I'd like to try and illuminate why I have been so negative. What follows are my opinions only .. based on my experience with both LL and with the digital business industry.

1) Past History - The issue that first brought me to the Forums was a case where the LL Management was making a decision that seemed at best capricious and unthinking, and at worst intentionally greedy and destructive. In the years since they have a rather daunting record of making similar decisions. When called on those decisions they never say a thing; they just continue with the wrecking ball .. blind to the damage they are visiting upon their customer base.

 

2) Unrealistic Expectations - When Philip first envisioned Second Life, he knew the demands of the platform would exceed the commonly available hardware, but he also knew that the hardware would improve in time. Project Sansar is once again putting the requirements far out ahead of the existing resources, but this time they are demanding personal skill and monetary resources to "catch up". These are things that do not grow at
rates.

LL wants to ride the VR headset hype wave. SL can't produce the framerates that the Oculus Rift wants but Sansar can (at least LL hopes it can). LL's dream for Sansar is that companies will want to get in on the headset hype too & do so by buying virtual worlds from LL.

My opinion is that the VR headset hype is way ahead of the customers. The Rift requires a good gaming computer (around $1200) in addition to the price of the Rift itself. Unfortunately for Oculus, most people use laptops so they have no chance of running the Rift at the recommended settings. It'll be a couple years at least before the average new computer will be able to handle a Rift-type headset. That works well for LL since it'll be a couple years (2017? 2018?) before Sansar goes live, then longer yet before there are enough worlds to attract a lot of customers. (It'll be funny if it turns out there really isn't a mass market for virtual worlds or VR headsets.)

Fortunately, you won't need high end hardware to use Sansar without a VR headset. If Sansar is more efficient than SL (shouldn't be difficult to do) then existing hardware may work better with Sansar.

I assume "personal skill and monetary resources" is referring to people who create things. From what we've heard so far, Sansar will be all mesh. SL is headed that way already, so Sansar isn't really a change in that regard. If LL does what they've said they'll do, we won't have to use Maya to create mesh for Sansar so there's not necessarily an increase in cost. It's also possible my assumption is wrong & you meant something else.

3) Disrespect of Existing Customers - The new "Business Model" of Project Sansar begins from the premise that all existing customers will be unwelcome and in fact won't even factor in to their design goals. This is a very blatant slap in the face of the millions of people that have put money into LL's pockets. I was always taught that existing customers are not only cheaper to retain, but also provide the best sales leads into new customers. Throwing away the entirety of their existing customer base seems a very disrespectful choice.

Sansar isn't SL or an SL successor. LL wants to be a virtual world (aka experience) provider to companies and individuals who want to develop their own virtual worlds. We'll be the customers of the companies who buy/rent a virtual world from LL. Those companies might do well to talk with us, since we'll be potential customers. BTW, if Sansar takes off there will be a great business opportunity for the creative people who can build an experience/world. If some fast food company wants a world to use as a promotional tool, they'll get the space from LL and hire people to build it.

4) Vague to the Point of Absurdity - LL's intentions for the platform, what it will do, how it will do it and what "hook" it will have that makes it interesting are not just being held close to the chest, they are flat-out inscrutable. It makes sense to keep a certain amount of secrecy around a new product, but too much turns off any possible interest that might be generated as the product is developed. There is a balance that needs to be struck and LL has completely mis-placed that balance.

LL has given quite a bit of information about their plans, but there's probably little to actually show at this point. This time LL is providing an empty book to people who will fill the pages. The empty book isn't that interesting; it's what people do with it. If Sansar survives we'll know the answer in a few years.

.. and finally ..

5) It Feels Like Surrender - For years it has been obvious to many watching the platform and the company that some very basic changes could gain some significant improvements in income and customer base. But for whatever reasons those changes have never been made. Now with Project Sansar they are off in a totally new direction that completely abandons the product they've spent more than a decade struggling to grow and improve. I cannot explain why the simple changes have never been made, but Sansar looks and feels like they've thrown in the towel and said "we give up." If there is one thing that typifies the Second Life die-hard it's that we don't give up. But if LL is going to give up, why should we continue struggling by ourselves .. and why should we trust them to create something new?

LL still has a team working on maintaining and improving SL; they have another team developing Sansar. Companies can have multiple products. LL may not be able to handle doing both at once; we'll see. So far I haven't noticed a decrease in LL's work on SL since Sansar started. Project Bento will be a huge update for the SL avatar -- that doesn't seem like giving up.

Personally I don't care about Sansar right now. I'm having fun continuously building and rebuilding my homestead region. There's projected light and materials and other fairly new things to play with. Once Project Bento goes live I'll stock up on the weirdest new avatars I can find. 

Someday Sansar may go live and companies may use it to create their own virtual worlds. If so, I'll check out the new worlds and perhaps find one or more I'd like to spend time in. SL will eventually die, whether Sansar exists or not. For now it's not worth worrying about.

All very good points .. and well said. I will admit that I am particularly cynical about the future of Sansar owing in large part to the history of the company and my experiences with their decision making patterns. I may be a bit too cynical but .. it's where I stand.

What we have been allowed to know .. or at least allowed to deduce .. is that LL will be injecting a layer of Creators between themselves and the ultimate end-users. As a business-person, i would not want to occupy that layer no matter what. The most prominent hallmark of LL past and present is their diffidence to customer concerns. They have an above average history of building in language and practices that completely absolve them of any responsibility for anything that goes on here.

In another thread here we read how a customer in good standing with a routine problem was made to wait nearly two months to resolve a rather simple problem. In that time their business was suspended, their income blocked and their communication from LL completely non-existent. That is not the only case we have heard of over the years either. It is more their SOP than an exception.

Now imagine yourself being a Creator depending on LL for some help in resolving a customer (your customer) issue. What will LL's answer be? "Sorry to hear that, we'll get on it right away" or "Sorry to hear that. Let us know when you figure it out"? LL may be aiming to reduce their customer service headache by creating a buffer layer, but what they are really accomplishing is moving further away from their own income while increasing their responsibility to react to customer issues even faster. I don't see any genetics in the company to tell me they're going to do it properly.

IMO the biggest change LL can make right now .. ignore all the techno-buzzy things, forget the income projections and stop talking "A future dream" .. and START treating their existing customers with respect, trust and above all an air of responsibility toward making them feel like valuable customers.

The new cake may look really good, but if the old cake made everyone sick then no amount of pretty icing is going to make anyone want to eat it.

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

All very good points .. and well said. I will admit that I am particularly cynical about the future of Sansar owing in large part to the history of the company and my experiences with their decision making patterns. I may be a bit too cynical but .. it's where I stand.

I fully understand your cynicism based upon LL's history and share many of your concerns in that regard.  That's not the type of critique to which I was referring.

It's certainly true they LL has left a lot of gray area concerning the development of Sansar and it's to be expected that people will try to paint those areas with their imaginations.  What irks me is the propensity of some people to complain about a paint job which is based entirely upon their own or someone else's speculative prognostications.  It's useless to worry about things that may never come to fruition.  In fact, it's more than useless... it's actually detrimental to be spreading such unfounded negativity.

...Dres

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