Truth or Rumor? --- The Lab's plans for the future

[Chic Aeon]

There is a long article over on Hypergrid Business (and percolating over the web) that suggests the new SL  land options hinted about  in last week's official changes announcement will be on demand sims like those in Kitely.   I cannot find any OFFICIAL posts on this though and there were none linked in the article. So I am wondering if this is all supposition? Need for more dra-ma? A try for a larger audience?  Or simply fact that I can't find?

I am not sure if Opensim is actually worried about all this. While I was very active there for a couple of years, I have pretty much left the building. Too many arguments and a bit too much theft for my sensibilities. I have had a sim in Kitely and if you keep your area sleek -- as in well-made and streamlined mesh, few scripts and all that, the sims load almost as fast as our SL teleports. The on-demand option wouldn't be all that great for businesses but for casual users it seems like a fairly good plan. 

So if someone has seen some actual corporate announcement  on this I would be happy to hear about it.  

 

Thanks.

[Phil Deakins]

What constitutes an "on demand sim"?

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

9 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

What constitutes an "on demand sim"?

My guess would be a sim which is only running when avatars are connected to it?  Since the only reason that you'd need a sim to keep running when there are no avatars on it would be if you have server scripts or virtual pets, etc. I'd imagine on demand sims would be an ideal solution for a lot of residents who want to own an island but don't want to pay a fortune for it.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

1 hour ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

 I'd imagine on demand sims would be an ideal solution for a lot of residents who want to own an island but don't want to pay a fortune for it.

That's assuming that there'd be plans for reduced prices. 

I haven't read that article at all, so no idea if there's any speculation in that regard - as pretty much everything seems to be speculation. 

[Qie Niangao]

Not sure this even relates to that rumor, but as Inara Pey points out with more details from a recent TPV Developers meeting, the Lab's blog post about SL future development mentions 

Quote

... upgrading all of the SL infrastructure and moving it to the cloud, which will bring a wealth of opportunities to Residents near and far, and allow us, among many other things, to make SL more performant for Residents across the world from us. It may also allow us to introduce new products with more flexible pricing. 

If I were to guess, I'd imagine that the cloud hosting will include more capacity-on-demand beyond the basic "sim idling" that has been part of the current datacenter-operated grid for several years now. Presumably cloud providers can more fluidly shift capacity among virtual hosts, but how well that can work may depend on details of the sim code itself.

[Richardus Raymaker]

2 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

if you have server scripts

Secondlife is running always all scripts server side ! And with a code rewrite virtual pets could work to.

I do not expect a big price drop if the do that. The good thing from cloud based can be that regions move closer to users. And this is why linden lab changed the tos years ago with what the can do with content. Where people complete got in panic. it's just so the can move assets around in the cloud.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

5 minutes ago, Richardus Raymaker said:

Secondlife is running always all scripts server side ! And with a code rewrite virtual pets could work to.

By "server scripts" I mean scripts for network vendor servers or any other type of script that sends and receives data to other objects around the grid.  As for code rewrites for virtual pets it won't really matter what code is in the scripts, since if an on-demand sim goes offline when there are no avatars present then that sim would no longer be available to run scripts so no code would be executed and anything attempting to communicate with objects on that sim wouldn't receive a response.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

53 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

That's assuming that there'd be plans for reduced prices. 

I haven't read that article at all, so no idea if there's any speculation in that regard - as pretty much everything seems to be speculation. 

The recent email that Qie just quoted from made mention of "new products with more flexible pricing" which is probably the basis for the assumption, but yes at the moment it is all just speculation.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

well if they can keep my email and vendors servers alive, then we are all good. 

[Chic Aeon]

Soooooo --- apparently no actual OFFICIAL STATEMENTS on this. I am not surprised as I did look for them.

"On Demand" sims are ones that are only online when someone wants to get to them. Kitely is the only one I know that does this. I have had a Kitely account for a couple of years and had a demo sim there for a few months (just closed that recently as no one was coming to demo :D). 

When you log in -- if the sim isn't already online -- you end up in a holding area for maybe a second to maybe a minute. This depends greatly on both the size of the area you are going to (4x4 sim size "vars" are popular and those take a long time to load) as well as how dense the mesh is and how many scripts are running.  

 

It can be a tiny inconvenience or a "pain" depending on the factors above. Kitely does run well however and this would be a viable option for some folks.  BUT since Linden Lab didn't SAY this was happening it could just be an idea in the mind of the reporter ^^ wanting to get some traffic to their webpage. 

I can say that in Kitely messages seem to go to email fine. I don't use vendors but there ARE scripted rental machines and such which I think would be similar. 

That's all I know!

 

 

[Bree Giffen]

It sounds like LL is using what they learned at Sansar with bringing up instanced experience sims as visitors increase. 

https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/linden-lab/

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Oh brilliant, a new loading screen simulator!

[Chase01]

If this becomes a means of lowering costs. That would be good for consumers and for businesses.

[Aethelwine]

I don't see how it would work. People would put a 24/7 bot on their instanced sim and get the same availability as any other. 

[Chic Aeon]

6 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

I don't see how it would work. People would put a 24/7 bot on their instanced sim and get the same availability as any other. 

I was thinking that too really. "I" am on my sim most of the day while working in Blender etc. I leave my computer on all the time. I could easily just leave myself on.  No need for bots at all.   

[Phil Deakins]

Another possibility for the "on demand sim" phrase is sim 'instances'; i.e. when a sim is full but others want to get in, another instance of the sim is spawned. The ramifications are way too complex for me to get my first thoughts around, but it's a possibility

I does seem unlikely though. The idea of running a sim only when it's needed is much more likely to my way of thinking - it's easier to wrap my head around too

I don't think it matters if sim owners leave an avatar in the sim just to keep it running, because all sims are running now, so those keeping their sims running can't make operations any heavier than they are right now. If LL is thinking of only running a sim when it's wanted, there'd be no need whatsoever to plant an avatar to keep it running, because it'll run when someone wants to go to it, or when someone is in an adjoining sim and needs to see the sims next door. so nobody will notice when it's not running.

Edited September 11, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

Sim instancing would definitely be a neat idea, although would make the new premium-only avatar capacity on full sims a little redundant, but it doesn't really fit with their enigmatic mention of "new products with more flexible pricing" (unless they're somehow planning on charging sim owners more for instancing capabilities, and I really hope that's not the case).

As for people using bots or leaving their avatars logged in to keep an on-demand sim running continuously I guess there are some people that would want to do that (if they were, for example, running a breedable pet "farm" or something else that required scripts to run continuously) but I'm not sure what percentage of prospective land owners that would be or how much of an impact it would make to running sims on a cloud in general, I guess that's something that LLs marketing department will need to work out when pricing these hypothetical on-demand sims.

Perhaps LL are considering keeping track of up-time for each sim and charging based on that rather than a flat fee? 

[Rhonda Huntress]

I wish they could instanced housing like you see in many morpgs.  That way you would have more participation in the main world while still maintaining an individual's private space. 

[Lada Charlton]

I noticed specific language around the upgrading of all servers to a cloud-based system, which would mean faster experiences, advanced software like idling, and overall more affordable sims.

Should be great all around for business and private development!

[Aethelwine]

If whatever they are thinking allows them to add some sims to mainland to join up navigable water routes, that really would be cool and improve the value of a lot of parcels that are now just nice water views

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

there'd be no need whatsoever to plant an avatar to keep it running, because it'll run when someone wants to go to it, or when someone is in an adjoining sim and needs to see the sims next door. so nobody will notice when it's not running.

Well perhaps but taking Kitely as the only current (that I know of) On Demand sims, it does get pretty damn tiresome if you have to wait for a sim to load (and as I said, larger "clusters" used their can take a long time (twiddling thumbs time) mainly because of very dense mesh uploaded and bad scripts. So it wouldn't be good for businesses ---- if we use that Kitely model. And you can't "peak into" a sim when it isn't running LOL.   Funny.  I used to watch the restarts and see the sims disappear and then reappear :D.   

But since there is NO official word on this it is all moot. 

[Phil Deakins]

I don't know Kitely, so I haven't tried it, but, if LL do what's being talked about in this thread, I don't see the need to keep sims not running when they are adjacent to a sim that has someone in it. So, if LL do it, they'll do it better

[Parhelion Palou]

The primary reason LL wants to move SL to the cloud has to be to save themselves money. Sansar runs in the cloud, but it's a bunch of disconnected experiences, so there's no worry about communication between them. There's no such thing as a sim crossing. LL will have to worry about all that with SL, making the move to the cloud much more complex than Sansar. LL spent a lot of time and money putting in a 'fiber ring' to speed up inter-server communication to make region crossings better. Will the cloud be able to do it as fast? I hope it's faster, but LL gets to find that out themselves first.

Running regions on demand sounds good, but it can't be for a fixed price. LL will be paying the cloud provider for resources used. If someone is paying a fixed lower price for an on demand region but is keeping it running constantly, LL is losing money. Therefore, I suspect on demand pricing will be based on the time the region is running. Assuming pricing is based on run time, I'd be upset as the region owner to find out my region has been running because someone in a neighboring region happened to look toward my region. Region crossings would be a problem as well. It would be much simpler for LL to require on demand regions be islands.

What I hope happens is the simplest of all: LL saves themselves money by going to the cloud and passes on some of the savings by lowering the prices for regions. It will help them anyway by increasing land sales.

4 hours ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I wish they could instanced housing like you see in many morpgs.  That way you would have more participation in the main world while still maintaining an individual's private space. 

Easy peasy -- the solution already exists. Get one of your free Sansar experiences and build your home there. You can set it to private and it won't be running if you're not there. A valid answer, but not a serious one.

[GoSpeed Racer]

4 hours ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I wish they could instanced housing like you see in many morpgs.  That way you would have more participation in the main world while still maintaining an individual's private space. 

Blue Mars had that on their Hawaiian themed island. The apartments could have dozens of instanced rooms per building. You could look out the window and see everyone and everything going on outside. but you could not meet your neighbors in the building.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

On the subject of region crossings and regions being kept active because of someone in a neighboring region I guess LL could opt to make these on-demand sims standalone only.  Looking at the number of single non-connected sims on the map it does seem that there's quite a demand for regions that don't have neighbors.

While the whole idea of on-demand sims is intriguing, I'm a little wary of the inevitable drama that would ensue when people realize that you can grief someone simply by AFKing on their sim and running up their monthly tier fees, and of course the resulting tide of crazy land owners accusing people of "financial griefing" simply for standing around in one place too long on an otherwise empty sim. 

Edited September 11, 2017 by Fluffy Sharkfin