Project Sansar to be Delivered by the End of the Year?

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

I loved this phrase in the very first sentence:

 

 

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"Second Life, the community-building online fantasy whose popularity spiked a decade ago"

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That's probably the best outsider description of SL that I've seen in a long time.

One thing that keeps slapping me in the face though is the impenetrable firewall that LL has built in the public perception between Second Life and Sansar. In the article the author points out that VR with a 3D twist is the real target of Sansar as well as the business ventures of many other top-flight companies.

It just strikes me as counter-productive to keep insisting "Sansar is nothing like SL" all while hoping to be a leader in the upcoming "hot niche" of 3DVR. Sure, SL's peak may have been a decade ago. But I challenge anyone to find a VR-based product anywhere that still holds on to customers like SL does.

It just makes more sense to me to start off with something like "Folks, the world of VR is getting ready to make a giant leap forward and we're the vanguard force to make it happen. Please jump in the boat with us and help us take our successes into the future." (or some similar rally the troops rhetoric)

I dunno what happens in the backrooms and boardrooms at LL. Maybe the investors are so disenchanted with the way SL has turned out that they forbade whispering the name anywhere near Sansar. But if so, I'm not so sure I'd trust the "investment sense" of those investors much.

Just my thoughts ...

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When Apple introduced the iPhone, did they say it was the next generation of the Newton?

 

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Awesome article from 2007 about Newton users' reaction to the iPhone:

http://www.wired.com/2007/01/in_1998_steve_j/

[Darrius Gothly]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

Tomorrow you wake up and discover that your entire closet is empty, all of your clothes are gone and you must purchase all new clothes in order to dress and go outside. Just how likely are you to suffer that indignity with happiness? I'd bet, not very likely. Considering the years you've put into crafting a certain look, your "style" and your private selection of comfy stuff .. you'd more than likely stay at home naked and happy.

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I came to Second Life from the Sims. I had a huge (for the Sims 1) neighborhood with many families and numerous expansion packs (which I paid for, mind you), and then The Sims 2 came out which was completely incompatible and extremely stripped down compared to where The Sims 1 was at release for The Sims 2 and required an entirely different approach to play.

However, I quickly discovered that the engine of The Sims 2 allowed me to go much deeper into story telling so I re-created my town from scratch using the same characters and eventually had a town spread with hundreds of residents spread over several sub-neighborhoods.

Because it wasn't the stuff i had, it was the ideas I had.

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Bravo for you. I am quite sure EA is tickled pink to have loyal customers such as yourself. And more power to 'em as well.

Nothing I have said nor believe obviates the existence of those like yourself that are willing to jump into new ventures and products with zeal and $$$ too. You are most likely the demographic that LL is banking on to ensure the future success of Sansar. That's a good thing ... from their POV.

But let's look at it from this perspective: According to Ebbe, last year SL Merchants cashed out $60M USD. If we assume that just half of the existing merchant/customer base chooses to abstain from joining Sansar that's a loss of $30M in the first year. That's losses from potential cashouts.

There's every reason to believe that the amount cashed out is a fractional part of their earnings. Just for S&G's lets assume that fraction is 1/10th. So if we guesstimate their earnings equate to 10x the amount cashed out, they stand to lose $300M the first year.

That's not a sneezable amount. If they invested 1/100th of that amount in development expenses, $3M in one year, that would pay for at least 10 full-boat technical bodies. A staff that large could easily accomplish the bridge creation to ensure SL inventories and technologies stay usable within Sansar. So for an investment of $3M in one year, they could conceivably capture $300M in income.

AND retain customer loyalty at a higher rate, ensure market favorability, preserve their leadership in VWs .. and and and.

I'm fairly certain you recall the backlash against EA when they cut off their old customer base with the introduction of Sims 2. With that lesson so obviously visible, I'm kind of amazed it wasn't heeded when laying out the "roadmap" for Sansar.

(alternate theory time)

Or .. I'm completely wrong and Sims 2 was actually such a giant boost in EA's income (that somehow didn't get reported or documented in the industry) that Ebbe used it as one of the selling points in his proposal to remake LL into a more profitable enterprise.

It's possible. But y'know, somehow I just don't find it a convincing argument.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Gavin Hird wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote: 

It just strikes me as counter-productive to keep insisting "Sansar is nothing like SL"

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There are probalby very good leagal reasons for calling it "nothing like SL". They don't want it to be an upgrade with all the implications that has on continuing the user base (that LL really don't like), portability of content, minimum age of entry and what have you. 

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Calling it the next generation of SL, or even "SL v2", implies no legal liability whatsoever. If that were the case Apple would have never released the iPhone 2.

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Oh, it absolutely does.  For the content developers there is a huge difference. My content is only licenced for use in "the service" SecondLife, and not in Sansar. 

From a consumer legislations standpoint it also does. If it is a completely new product, they can reset the terms as they are not remotely related (except provided by the same legal entity.) This includes who can be a customer or not.  

For an upgrade, you drag with you all the legalese from the previous version, which in the example of Apple is exactly what they want – extend the terms from a version 1 to a version 2 of the phone. 

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That "exposure" is yours, not LL's. Show me one single example where LL has acted in a manner to protect your legal liability either in addition to theirs or in deference to theirs.

But that's beside the point. What they say is compatible is nothing more nor less but .. simply compatible. If your argument held any validity, we wouldn't be on Windows 10, we'd be on "Attic Vent Fan 1.0".

Carefully examine the language of the TOS and all applicable User Agreements between yourself and LL. I'm sure you'll find very explicit language that tie the agreements to whatever they declare to be the Second Life service. They can call Sansar "SL V2" in the trades, they can provide it with full compatibility or none at all ... and still clearly and without confusion define it as an entirely distinct product/service. That's not a delicate bit of legal maneuvering either, it's just basic business practice.

[Gavin Hird]

To call it an upgrade there must be an upgrade path. In this case there is none because not a single item of your content (created or aquired) can be migrated unless there is so substantial conversion that the creator would have to add up to significant effort.  SecondLife, the service, is close to pointless without content.  Sansar, the service, is in the same way possibly pointless without content, but there is no customer migration path. It is therefore a new product. 

 

Windows 10 is a direct follow on to previous versions of Windows, there is a migration path and backwards compatibility in that applications created ages ago (even in the DOS era) still will execute.  There is no such link between SecondLife and Sansar.

 

Also, if Sansar is an upgrade, then the old service will terminate once the new service takes on the migrated customers. They keep telling us that SecondLife will exist as a separate service as long as it is viable. 

[Darrius Gothly]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

To call it an upgrade there must be an upgrade path. In this case there is none because not a single item of your content (created or aquired) can be migrated unless there is so substantial conversion that the creator would have to add up to significant effort.  SecondLife, the service, is close to pointless without content.  Sansar, the service, is in the same way possibly pointless without content, but there is no customer migration path.

It is therefore a new product. 

 

Windows 10 is a direct follow on to previous versions of Windows, there is a migration path and backwards compatibility in that applications created ages ago (even in the DOS era) still will execute.  There is no such link between SecondLife and Sansar.  

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I seem to be having a hard time making this point clear, so allow me to try again.

Providing compatibility between SL and Sansar in no way whatsoever implies that Sansar is a revision or update or upgrade to Second Life. It simply says "all your old stuffz can work" in Sansar. It is a very common occurrence in the industry to provide backward .. or even cross-platform .. compatibility yet retain clear and full distinction between the different products.

 

 

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Gavin Hird wrote:

Also, if Sansar is an upgrade, then the old service will terminate once the new service takes on the migrated customers. They keep telling us that SecondLife will exist as a separate service as long as it is viable. 

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This exactly proves my point. By maintaining the existing SL platform, they lend even more credence to the assertion that Sansar is indeed a completely new product without the slightest inference that it might be an update to SL.

And it can STILL provide compatibility to any SL content that can be legally exported and uploaded by the rightful owner.

[Gavin Hird]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

 

This exactly proves my point. By maintaining the existing SL platform, they lend even more credence to the assertion that Sansar is indeed a completely new product without the slightest inference that it might be an update to SL.

 

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Which is what I originally said; They specifically call it a new product for legal reasons so they can call a clean sheet! ;-)

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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I'm fairly certain you recall the backlash against EA when they cut off their old customer base with the introduction of Sims 2. With that lesson so obviously visible, I'm kind of amazed it wasn't heeded when laying out the "roadmap" for Sansar.

(alternate theory time)

Or ..

I'm completely wrong

and Sims 2 was actually such a giant boost in EA's income (that somehow didn't get reported or documented in the industry) that Ebbe used it as one of the selling points in his proposal to remake LL into a more profitable enterprise.

It's possible. But y'know, somehow I just don't find it a convincing argument.

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You're completely wrong. The Sims 1 was the best selling game in history at the time, but The Sims 2 passed it, and was the biggest PC launch in EA's history.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-sims-3-facts-and-figures

[Darrius Gothly]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

This exactly proves my point. By maintaining the existing SL platform, they lend even more credence to the assertion that Sansar is indeed a completely new product without the slightest inference that it might be an update to SL. 

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Which is what I originally said; They specifically call it a new product for legal reasons so they can call a clean sheet! ;-)

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And again I will disagree. They can call it "Donkey Kong with Sprinkles" or "SL V2" or "Chevy Toehold" and have no legal exposure whatsoever. They can close SL's doors the day they turn on Sansar and STILL have no legal exposure.

The existing agreements give them full right and license to turn off, modify or extend the SL Service in any way they see fit. It is their choice, their interpretation and their decision. How that might affect their customers is expressly disincluded as having any influence on their legal obligations. If they choose to shutter SL today, with no notice whatsoever .. they have absolutely zero obligation to their existing customers. The TOS says so in very bold and plain language.

Even the "money" you might think you have on deposit with them in the form of Linden Dollars .. is theirs and not yours. Be very clear on that point. They owe you nothing and you have no right to demand anything. They provide SL at their whim and fancy. Any rights you think you have .. you don't.

But that substantially detours from the point at play here. Their decision to provide no path for transfer of SL content into Sansar is a technical decision only. It has zero dependence on any perceived legal exposure or liability. Not only are they protected fully against legal liability, but the simple fact that you access the two using two different points of access proves beyond any doubt they are separate products.

Providing a method to use existing SL content causes them no exposure or liability in any fashion .. period. It would simply ensure that existing customers have another way to put money in LL's pockets with little effort.

And I still do not see why that is a bad thing to do!

[Gavin Hird]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

And I still do not see why that is a bad thing to do!

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It is not a bad thing to do. From their perspective it is a good thing to do because they will get rid of all the smut, the winers, the child avatars, the entitlement and so on that has kept LL from being seen as a serious contentder in the market. 

Cutting the ties provide them with a clean sheet to define a new market!

[Darrius Gothly]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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I'm fairly certain you recall the backlash against EA when they cut off their old customer base with the introduction of Sims 2. With that lesson so obviously visible, I'm kind of amazed it wasn't heeded when laying out the "roadmap" for Sansar.

(alternate theory time)

Or ..

I'm completely wrong

and Sims 2 was actually such a giant boost in EA's income (that somehow didn't get reported or documented in the industry) that Ebbe used it as one of the selling points in his proposal to remake LL into a more profitable enterprise.

It's possible. But y'know, somehow I just don't find it a convincing argument.

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You're completely wrong. The Sims 1 was the best selling game in history at the time, but The Sims 2 passed it, and was the biggest PC launch in EA's history.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-sims-3-facts-and-figures

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Wouildn't be the first time .. dang sure wouldn't be the last either.

Yet I remain unconvinced. I continue in my opinion that the decision to make Sansar incapable of using SL content is both a poor business decision and a poor marketing decision.

Time will tell of course. Even if Sansar takes off on its own and becomes a stellar success in LL's offerings .. I will still maintain it could have done better had they simply taken the time and invested the effort to provide a level of portability between the two.

BTW: Just to satisfy my own curiosity ... how much money did you spend on Sims 1 after Sims 2 debuted?

If I'm right in my belief, your answer will be "zero or less." So in essence EA cannibilized the Sims 1 customer base with the release of Sims 2. On the face, EA would have gained a tremendous uptick in income as people repurchased Sims 2  Superficially it would then seem they gained substantially by that decision.

But that disgregards the loss of customer loyalty and satisfaction suffered because of those existing Sims 1 customers that chose NOT to repurchase, not to continue spending money with EA, and instead went looking for other places to spend their money.

The Sims is also not a direct match for SL/Sansar. While there was a "Merchant Community" within Sims 1, it was by no means as diverse or mature as the Merchant Community within SL. Sims, both 1 & 2, were also not the "Shared Exprience" type of platform that Second Life has become. Both versions of Sims were populated and usable with zero end-user content. They came preloaded with worlds that were populated and interesting right out of the box.

Second Life never was that way. Sansar will not be that way either. To make Sims 2 the equivalent of Sansar would require wiping out all initial content and starting you off naked on a blank piece of dirt.

When Sansar debuts, it will be "pre-loaded" .. to be sure. But it will be pre-loaded with end-user created content. And that content will be provided by only a small subset of existing SL Creators. Had LL provided a means to transport a bulk of SL content into Sansar, I am quite sure the "Grand Opening" would be a much richer, more engaging and much more diverse set of worlds to explore.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Gavin Hird wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

And I still do not see why that is a bad thing to do!

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It is not a bad thing to do. From their perspective it is a good thing to do because they will get rid of all the smut, the winers, the child avatars, the entitlement and so on that has kept LL from being seen as a serious contentder in the market. 

Cutting the ties provide them with a clean sheet to define a new market!

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 Ahh . okay. But just to remind you: LL's definition of "problems" might very well be the same things that have kept them in business for more than a decade.

[mikka Luik]

You wrote : "..And it can STILL provide compatibility to any SL content that can be legally exported and uploaded by the rightful owner."

Interestin wording - as the 'rightful owner' is not defined. At its simplest? Anything built with in world prims I can export (with restrictions) - trivial but totally doable.

On a non trivial level, anything I own outright (ie I am the creator of) I don't need to export - I uploaded it in the first place =^^=

Slightly deeper level, we have had enough breadcrumbs re 'objects' to make a bet that at some point either DAEs or another common format will be let in - so anyone already making them is covered. (And as an aside - possibly flogging them elsewhere too). So yep - portable between the two.

On the script side yes it is more tricky. Again, we have the c sharp breadcrumb...and no news on how it will present. (Considering there are some 400 odd LSL functions I am hoping that we don't have to write equivs for the whole lot =^^= That list is very SL specific of course but even so some bright spark will find a way to convert. SL still full of some very smart people).  Even without that, it would not be the first time people have migrated a system from one language to another. If the key functionality is well thought out and copiously annotated (note to self - hide yer mess) then its again doable.

Not forgetting that there are other places that all of current SL stuff can be used - if you are the rightful owner.

 

Now if you wish to focus on the stuff you have bought from others - ownership has a bit of a different meaning.

 

[Darrius Gothly]

PS: I've never found it to be a good thing to say to my customers "Go away and don't come back unless you bring more money."

For some reason they tend to go away .. and then never come back. (just sayin ...)

[Darrius Gothly]

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mikka Luik wrote:

You wrote : "..And it can STILL provide compatibility to any SL content that can be legally exported and uploaded by the rightful owner."

Interestin wording - as the 'rightful owner' is not defined. At its simplest? Anything built with in world prims I can export (with restrictions) - trivial but totally doable.

On a non trivial level, anything I own outright (ie I am the creator of) I don't need to export - I uploaded it in the first place =^^=

Slightly deeper level, we have had enough breadcrumbs re 'objects' to make a bet that at some point either DAEs or another common format will be let in - so anyone already making them is covered. (And as an aside - possibly flogging them elsewhere too). So yep - portable between the two.

On the script side yes it is more tricky. Again, we have the c sharp breadcrumb...and no news on how it will present. (Considering there are some 400 odd LSL functions I am hoping that we don't have to write equivs for the whole lot =^^= That list is very SL specific of course but even so some bright spark will find a way to convert. SL still full of some very smart people).  Even without that, it would not be the first time people have migrated a system from one language to another. If the key functionality is well thought out and copiously annotated (note to self - hide yer mess) then its again doable.

Not forgetting that there are other places that all of current SL stuff can be used - if you are the rightful owner.

Now if you wish to focus on the stuff you have bought from others - ownership has a bit of a different meaning. 

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I chose that wording intentionally too. My specific reason is because Sansar has (so far) tightly restricted participants to a select handful of Creators. I am specifically considering this issue from the Creator perspective too. The transfer of purchased content from SL to Sansar is a whole 'nother bucket of worms. (Messy but not insurmountable.)

Blocking Creators from porting their created content into Sansar is where I push back the hardest and is central to my primary concern. Even the conversion of Prim Objects into Sansar-compatible formats is doable; amply proven by such products as Mesh Studio and the like. So yes, I agree with you, over time some smart folks are going to figure out ways and means to move stuff from SL into Sansar. It will just be via the "back door" and once again employ glitches or exploits that might very well disappear at a moment's notice.

Allow me an example that I think illustrates the situation quite well: MegaPrims. There was a time when a momentary glitch allowed folks to create prims with unheard of dimensions. There suddenly arose a massive market created by those smart enough to assemble collections of these glitched prims .. and sold or given to those within SL wanting or needing to use them for their own builds.

But they were a hack, an exploit, the unholy offspring of a programming error and as a result they developed a reputation as being Sim Killers and the root of most of the evil in SL. Some folks went so far as to outright ban anyone daring to use them. Others embraced them with glee and employed them in new and unique ways that extended the range of creativity beyond what LL had originally envisioned.

Today? After years of walking in shadows, MegaPrims are something you can create with the basic Viewer. They no longer kill Sims (although it's not really clear they ever did). With their newfound legitimacy, many more are finding them useful in unique and amazing ways. They can finally walk in sunlight and not fear uneducated scorn from those who don't understand why or how they can be used.

Sansar will no doubt provide room to expand and improve the tools and creations from the community at large. Yet once again we have the Overseers ... err I mean Linden Lab .. placing restrictions and constraints on the limits of that creativity for reasons that seem contrived at best .. lazy at worst.

Once again we face a situation where LL's own personal imagination is outstripped by the much broader imagination of their customers. And again their response is to place artificial limits on things rather than to open the door wider and formalize it to better serve the creativity of the customer base.

To put it into a more current frame, consider the Modding Communities of many online games. Those games that have embraced their Modders and provided documented, tested and functional modding tools have also seen explosions in their customer bases and income streams. Those games that kept the door tightly shut and worked to thwart modding have either vanished or suffered greatly in the market.

In one statement Ebbe espouses the desire to support the End-User Created Content that is the life's blood of SL. Then in his actions works to slam the door shut and restrict that content. It just makes no sense!

Sansar can and should be not just an extension of Second Life in practice, it should be the Giant Leap Forward that Virtual Worlds need in order to fully utilize the upcoming advances in 3D Virtual Reality technology. I just keep looking at the decision to start off from a platform of "yes you can" while simultaneously chanting "oh no you can't" as quixotic, confusing and ultimately doomed to defeat.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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I'm fairly certain you recall the backlash against EA when they cut off their old customer base with the introduction of Sims 2. With that lesson so obviously visible, I'm kind of amazed it wasn't heeded when laying out the "roadmap" for Sansar.

(alternate theory time)

Or ..

I'm completely wrong

and Sims 2 was actually such a giant boost in EA's income (that somehow didn't get reported or documented in the industry) that Ebbe used it as one of the selling points in his proposal to remake LL into a more profitable enterprise.

It's possible. But y'know, somehow I just don't find it a convincing argument.

---

You're completely wrong. The Sims 1 was the best selling game in history at the time, but The Sims 2 passed it, and was the biggest PC launch in EA's history.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-sims-3-facts-and-figures

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Wouildn't be the first time .. dang sure wouldn't be the last either.

Yet I remain unconvinced. I continue in my opinion that the decision to make Sansar incapable of using SL content is both a poor business decision and a poor marketing decision.

Time will tell of course. Even if Sansar takes off on its own and becomes a stellar success in LL's offerings .. I will still maintain it could have done better had they simply taken the time and invested the effort to provide a level of portability between the two.

BTW: Just to satisfy my own curiosity ... how much money did you spend on Sims 1 after Sims 2 debuted?

If I'm right in my belief, your answer will be "zero or less." So in essence EA cannibilized the Sims 1 customer base with the release of Sims 2. On the face, EA would have gained a tremendous uptick in income as people repurchased Sims 2  Superficially it would then seem they gained substantially by that decision.

But that disgregards the loss of customer loyalty and satisfaction suffered because of those existing Sims 1 customers that chose NOT to repurchase, not to continue spending money with EA, and instead went looking for other places to spend their money.

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By the end of The Sims 1's lifespan all the new features that had been patched into it had made it a mare's nest of bugs and glitches. I never switched my town over to the 4th and 5th expansions just because the process would have been so disruptive - in other words, I'd already stopped spending money on it. And, for very similar reasons, EA had already stopped trying to monetize it. Because they realized it was the same customer base.

From what I've seen your entire argument against Sansar is, "My ox is going to be gored. I don't want to get a new ox. Save my ox plz." That's certainly understandable. However, you really haven't done anything to show why your ox is so darned special anywhere other than where it is right now.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

From what I've seen your entire argument against Sansar is, "My ox is going to be gored. I don't want to get a new ox. Save my ox plz." That's certainly understandable. However, you really haven't done anything to show why

your

ox is so darned special

anywhere other than where it is right now.

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Ahh .. okay. Allow me to yank your head out of the sand and explain it in very forthright terms.

LL has an old aging platform that is past its prime. They have in-house talent and experience that could launch a new dawn in Virtual Reality 3D immersive experiences. They also hold the reins of 100's of thousands of active well-monied experienced and dedicated customers.

They are throwing away those customers, ignoring the clearly stated desires of those customers and refuting the 14+ years of experience they've gained to chase down a flighty, immature, short-pocketed group of "Fad Chasers" who will spend less than a month on the platform and invest far less than $50 each.

And my ox will go where I take him.

[Phil Deakins]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

From what I've seen your entire argument against Sansar is, "My ox is going to be gored. I don't want to get a new ox. Save my ox plz." That's certainly understandable. However, you really haven't done anything to show why

your

ox is so darned special

anywhere other than where it is right now.

---

Ahh .. okay. Allow me to yank your head out of the sand and explain it in very forthright terms.

LL has an old aging platform that is past its prime. They have in-house talent and experience that could launch a new dawn in Virtual Reality 3D immersive experiences. They also hold the reins of 100's of thousands of active well-monied experienced and dedicated customers.

They are throwing away those customers, ignoring the clearly stated desires of those customers and refuting the 14+ years of experience they've gained to chase down a flighty, immature, short-pocketed group of "Fad Chasers" who will spend less than a month on the platform and invest far less than $50 each.

And my ox will go where I take him.

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I've noticed in several of your posts that you haven't managed to grasp what Sansar is, OR that SL isn't going anywhere. When you accept the latter, you won't have any more concerns about the advent of Sansar.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

From what I've seen your entire argument against Sansar is, "My ox is going to be gored. I don't want to get a new ox. Save my ox plz." That's certainly understandable. However, you really haven't done anything to show why

your

ox is so darned special

anywhere other than where it is right now.

---

Ahh .. okay. Allow me to yank your head out of the sand and explain it in very forthright terms.

LL has an old aging platform that is past its prime. They have in-house talent and experience that could launch a new dawn in Virtual Reality 3D immersive experiences. They also hold the reins of 100's of thousands of active well-monied experienced and dedicated customers.

They are throwing away those customers, ignoring the clearly stated desires of those customers and refuting the 14+ years of experience they've gained to chase down a flighty, immature, short-pocketed group of "Fad Chasers" who will spend less than a month on the platform and invest far less than $50 each.

And my ox will go where I take him.

---

The only people who they'd be "throwing away" by not jumping through hoops to bring over old SL content into a new platform are those who:

1) CAN create using the proprietary tools of Second Life, which are deliberately kneecapped due to the requirements of Second Life and it's need to keep those using the tools from damaging the real-time world accidentally or intentionally

and

2) CAN'T create anything similar using anything else.

Not sure how valuable that particular skillset would be in a new environment, and those people are still going to have the old one available.

Meanwhile there will still be creators from Second Life who can build a new world around the knowledge of what not to do.

About an hour ago I was sitting in a meeting with some Lindens and there was discussion about updating Second Life's permission system - the chief Linden said that the code around it was so tangled that everyone feared to touch it and whenever he experimented with changing things in test regions they needed to be rolled back.

Meanwhile, there were a couple of SL animated pets wandering around. One was a cat made from over a dozen sculpted prims that were animated awkwardly (if adorably) by changing their position through a script, and the other one was a puppy animated through a multi-face mesh that changed textures to give it a rather notchy stroboscopic cuteness. Fun, and about as good as you can get in Second Life. But compared to a pet from The Sims 2 from 2008, which had a skeleton-animated mesh body (impossible currently in Second Life for a non-avatar, but entirely possible in a different system), they look much worse and consume many more system resources. Those pets must be quarantined for the good of the new world. That's all there is to it. I know they're cute and you can get attached to them, but that's not the way to build a new environment.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I've noticed in several of your posts that you haven't managed to grasp what Sansar is, OR that SL isn't going anywhere. When you accept the latter, you won't have any more concerns about the advent of Sansar.

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In fact Phil, quite the opposite is true. I absolutey realize that SL is .. according to the words from Ebbe and LL .. going to continue on as long as it remains profitable. However what I bring to this rodeo is something you may lack; experience with the software development industry. While I may not have actual finger-pounding mileage churing out MMORPG code, I do have rather extensive experience running the front office, running management and .. surprise! helping determine where companies spend their product development dollars.

Second Life as a product has been inscrutable to LL almost since its inception. Philip had some really good ideas of what he thought would sell, he built a team and some fantastic on-ramps .. when suddenly and almost certainly as surprising to him as anyone else ... Ka-BLAM! Second Life caught fire and took off.

His total fail creating a successful venture since is just more lead-balloon proof that he didn't understand the reason for its success any more than any other LL CEO.

To be totally transparent, I'm not sure I have a better idea about the secret sauce either. But I am VERY sure I know what is not in the sauce. Rampant monetization of the customer base, disregard for past successes, and a total disrespect for the voices of the customers are clearly NOT ingredients.

LL's other "blazing successes" using the same principles that have gone into Sansar should prove beyond doubt .. it's a fail on the run. And LL is not the only company to use these ingredients, mixed in massive quantities of investor money, and churned out flops on an epic scale.

But hey, let's not look at the industry or the history of performance of other companies .. that wouldn't be right. Rather we should hold fast to the dream that "the next big thing" is right around the corner. If we just believe .. and all clap our hands .. Tinkerbell will live this time. Surely she has to .. Right?

*coughGagpuke*

Now .. back to Sansar .. shall we?

Sansar is intended to be a new paradigm. A new take on the product niche loosely associated with Virtual Worlds. It is intended to capture the bleeding edge of Virtual Reality interfaces, give it a real reason to exist .. and power it with an economic engine that can run the distance and keep worthy people gainfully employed. Agreed so far?

Good .. then consider this. That economic engiine depends on fuel provided by customers. But rather than borrow some gas from the SL tank, they've chosen to wall if off completely, design an engine that won't even share the same sort of energy source .. and yet somehow creates a new niche in a market that doesn't even exist yet. And they don't even understand the niche they're in now!

I totally get that Sansar is going to be something new, unseen and untested. The whole freaking IT industry is built on exactly that foundation. But making something new has never EVER required tossing away everything old. Yet that is what LL is doing .. and militantly so to boot.

But just to be nice, I'll even back out one more notch .. 

Even if Sansar has no data/content transportability. Even if the computers needed to run Sansar are a whole generation newer than those needed to run SL. EVEN IF the whole gestalt of Sansar is so radically new-thinking that it will define and attract a whole new demographic of customers ... 

It's just freaking stupid to throw away all your existing customers, cherry pick only certain ones while shooing away all the rest .. and completely junk the lessons learned by every software company since techies first began using magnetic donuts to hold Ones and Zeroes.

[Darrius Gothly]

Hmm .. y'know this may come as a shock to you but .. 

I have prim products. I have sculpty products. And I have mesh products. They all work just fine, but the new stuff? That's coming out in mesh because of the advantages it provides.

Do I plan on withdrawing the prim products? No, there's no reason to. They work and continue to look good.

Do I plan on withdrawing the sculpty products? No, again no reason. They also continue to look just great (to my customers and me at least).

But will I spend a lot of time developing either prim- or sculpty based products? Not unless the economic tradeoffs make them more profitable. And I don't see that happening .. at least not for 99% of my stuff.

What you are defending here is the indefensible and totally wrong assertion that you can either have new tech or old tech, but absolutely not a gentle transition between the two. There HAS to be a hook, a fade .. a gradual blending of one into the other or the shock is just too much for most of the customer base to grasp.

The industry is rife with examples where version X+1 threw away so much of the "old familiar" embodied in version X that the product suffered, perhaps failed .. and even when successful took a much longer, more exhausting path to success. ALL to satisfy the tech-lazy whines of the develoment team who claimed (falsely so) that "it's just too much work to make the old stuff work too!"

You are talking to THE TECHIE that's been responsible for a lot of software systems development. (Okay .. not THE techie, but absolutely ONE of THE ...) I know the lines, I've SAID the lines. I've heard them so often, hell I could probably copyright some. And I will tell you without any hesitation .. they're all a bunch of hooey.

What LL is doing with Sansar is needlessly damaging its potential. They are kneecapping themselves solely to satisfy the inner urge to land the Big One, to build the newest neatest greatest end-all do-all thingamajig .. that will never be.

They are increasing the odds against themselves for no good reason. Yet if they divorced themselves from that techie-tantrum and built a system with legs that starts running from the line where SL ends? They'd be a whole lot further down the track before they run out of money, time and investor patience.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Darrius Gothly wrote:

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It's just freaking

stupid

to throw away all your existing customers, cherry pick only certain ones while shooing away all the rest .. and completely junk the lessons learned by every software company since techies first began using magnetic donuts to hold Ones and Zeroes.

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Okay, explain to me - how is not porting everything in Second Life now "throwing away all your existing customers"?

[Nalytha]

I don't want to argue whether SL is a game today. Personally, I think it is and I can't think of many games that let your port your inventory from one to the next generation, ESPECIALLY if the next generation doesn't even share the same series name.

 

Out with the old..... yada yadda...

 

You don't want to create in Sansar because you can't bring your ox? Oh well. Good thing they are making it easier to create so there will be many to take your place.

[Parhelion Palou]

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Nalytha wrote:

I don't want to argue whether SL is a game today. Personally, I think it is and I can't think of many games that let your port your inventory from one to the next generation, ESPECIALLY if the next generation doesn't even share the same series name.

 

Out with the old..... yada yadda...

 

You don't want to create in Sansar because you can't bring your ox? Oh well. Good thing they are making it easier to create so there will be many to take your place.

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I wouldn't say they're making it easier to create ... Sansar is all mesh, so creating things for Sansar would be very similar to creating mesh for SL. You'll be able to place your mesh items in Sansar using tools similar to in-world editing tools in SL, but that'll be done off-line, then optimized and published. You'll also have to have your own experience/world to build in.

 ETA: Check this: Ebbe's talk at SL13B -- he talks about Sansar and how land will work. It's definitely not like SL.

[Nalytha]

Ah I see. I'm just going off some of the quotes I've read where LL say their goal for Sansar is to make the creation process easier for content creators. To me, it sounded like they feel Second Life held back creators in a few different ways, one was land cost and another was the complexity of creation. I could have misunderstood, but I thought Sansar is meant to address both of those (and more issues they encountered with Second Life). 

[Parhelion Palou]

Creation should be a lot easier for people who build content for games, anyway. They're used to mesh. Using C# for scripting may be easier, at least to people who haven't had to use LSL. LL has said almost nothing about avatars in Sansar; that's where they could make life a lot easier for creators.

My guess is Sansar will be a lot like Google's old Lively virtual world. It wasn't a world at all ... it was a collection of rooms that you traveled to via URL. Substitute 'experience' for 'room' and you have Sansar. I hope it will be possible to join experiences such that you can see from one into the other, but I suspect that will be a future feature if it happens at all.