Second Life is filled with petty and rude people.

[Penny Patton]

4 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

But nobody is forced to buy tickets on ships without enough life boats. 

If anyone is ever put in a position where they need to buy a ticket on a ship, but none of the options they have access to at the time has enough life boats, then this statement becomes incorrect.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Penny Patton

[Pamela Galli]

8 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

If there were no cruise ships offering cruises featuring enough life boats then, for all practical purposes, you would be incorrect.

I would decide not to buy a ticket. Maybe eventually the government would intervene, and then I would buy one.

 Second life we are not talking about buying necessities of life, nobody suffers by not buying something.  If enough people want things mod someone will make things mod. 

Edited January 7, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[BilliJo Aldrin]

14 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Then  I guess people learn a lesson, plus government can introduce safety legislation.  But nobody is forced to buy tickets on ships without enough life boats. 

Well you see, first class tickets included a place on the life boats. Steerage tickets only entitled you to a life vest.

[Penny Patton]

1 minute ago, Pamela Galli said:

I would decide not to buy a ticket. Maybe eventually the government would intervene, and then I would buy one.

You are making the assumption that no one has ever had a pressing need to travel. Say, to reach medical services not available to them locally, to meet with a dying family member before they pass, to escape war, famine, or some other unsustainable circumstances or even just for important business reasons. There are times when someone does need to travel and must make use of the options available to them at the time, even if those options are lacking in safety precautions.

Of course, no one ever NEEDS to buy anything in SL for reasons so important and there's no potentially life-threatening safety concerns with SL content (that I'm aware of), but if you want the best looking avatar you can get in SL then a mesh body and a mesh head are required as LL has chosen to let the system avatar fall short in quality and failed to provide further development support in this area of SL since about 2009-2010 when they gave us a way to hide the system avatar entirely.

[Pamela Galli]

6 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

Of course, no one ever NEEDS to buy anything in SL

Exactly. We are all here for fun, even if SL is our full time job. 

So I will make whatever I want, and you buy whatever you want — or if you can’t find what you want, do as I did, and make it yourself.

ps I like to make my stuff mod, but that is beside the point.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Penny Patton]

1 minute ago, Pamela Galli said:

Exactly. 

So I will make whatever I want, and you buy whatever you want — or if you can’t find what you want, do as I did, and make it yourself.

Psst, you seem to have missed all the text after "in SL".

[Pamela Galli]

1 minute ago, Penny Patton said:

Psst, you seem to have missed all the text after "in SL".

 The only thing I disagree with you about, is whether anyone but me gets to decide what I’m going to make and how I’m going to make it, because it’s my second life and I will do what I want. Everyone who doesn’t like my stuff for any reason should not buy it.  And the same is true of any creator, even the bad ones. Everyone should be free to choose. Obviously some choose to buy crappy stuff.

[Penny Patton]

1 minute ago, Pamela Galli said:

 The only thing I disagree with you about, is whether anyone but me gets to decide what I’m going to make and how I’m going to make it, because it’s my second life and I will do what I want. 

Except what other people make can affect you. Should I get into the performance issues caused by no-mod mesh avatars? They're all severe lag bombs and framerate killers, without exception because they do not allow you to remove elements that you might not even be using (such as tattoo/make-up/clothing layers, each of which adds 100%+ more rendering work and VRAM use above the base body). Or how some clothing makers load up their creations with absurd amounts of VRAM hogging textures? All of which can be fixed by knowledgeable customers without stepping outside the bounds of fair use. How much can content creators hurt everyone else's experience before we're allowed to say "you know, maybe consumers should have options to fix badly made content they've purchsed"?

[Pamela Galli]

Well lobby LL then.  My response to reading all this stuff about mesh bodies and heads, is not to buy. Don’t miss it. I also don’t miss buying unoptimized clothes, or seeing those who do.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Pamela Galli

[Theresa Tennyson]

36 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Then  I guess people learn a lesson, plus government can introduce safety legislation.  But nobody is forced to buy tickets on ships without enough life boats. 

At the time of the Titanic, few if any passenger ships carried enough lifeboats for all the passengers, so, if you wanted to cross an ocean, you basically had to buy a ticket on a ship without enough lifeboats.  When regulators proposed requiring more lifeboats at the time the shipowners said, "WAAHHH!!! We can't afford that!!!"

Then the Titanic sunk. And shipowners started putting on enough lifeboats for everyone on their own and advertised that enthusiastically.

[Pamela Galli]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

"

Then the Titanic sunk. And shipowners started putting on enough lifeboats for everyone on their own and advertised that enthusiastically.

Exactly. That’s how a free market works. Even in SL. Not buying what you don’t want works.

[Nalytha]

9 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

Except what other people make can affect you. 

I thought the jelly doll thing was supposed to help with this? I actually don't know very much about this topic, so please let me know if I'm wrong. I get pretty good FPS in most places in SL as long as they aren't near full capacity like popular shopping events. I run on high to ultra most places and do fine. 

I'm actually a returning player as well. When I came back, I switched to a mesh body and a lot of my old stuff either didn't fit, was a huge AC, or was just outdated. I'm not crying over the spent lindens. That was money I spent for entertainment at that time. I don't assume everything is going to stay relevant and current and last forever. Plus, I always know LL could shut the servers down in a minute and everything I bought could be gone. So, I'm not really swayed by this. 

All that said, I don't know much about modifying clothes, so I don't pay much attention whether the clothes I buy are mod or not. I do love decorating though and will not buy non-mod houses or decor. So, as a customer, I've spoken with my money. 

[Penny Patton]

2 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Well lobby LL then.

I've certainly been vocal about this but maybe I will start pressing the Lindens themselves more on the matter.

3 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

My response to reading all this stuff about mesh bodies and heads, is not to buy. Don’t miss it. 

Right, and I'm glad we agree on this stuff, but this wasn't your complete response. You also said that not buying no-mod content was enough to solve the problem entirely, and that I had not shown that people these days who want mod have fewer options. These are the parts of your response that I've been discussing for the past several posts.

[Nalytha]

30 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

So I will make whatever I want, and you buy whatever you want — or if you can’t find what you want, do as I did, and make it yourself.

I really, really like this. A lot of creators in the world started creating because they couldn't find what it was they were looking for being made by others. I've been toying with this idea myself for Second Life but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit the time necessary to learn. But it doesn't make the argument any less true. 

[Pamela Galli]

2 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

I've certainly been vocal about this but maybe I will start pressing the Lindens themselves more on the matter.

Right, and I'm glad we agree on this stuff, but this wasn't your complete response. You also said that not buying no-mod content was enough to solve the problem entirely, and that I had not shown that people these days who want mod have fewer options. These are the parts of your response that I've been discussing for the past several posts.

 I am very well aware of your campaigns, Penny and I am grateful for them. I regularly educate my customer base about things like camera angle. Over the years I have progressively reduced the scale of my houses and furniture, which Probably has cost me more business than gained.  I have no issue about the kind of content you would like to see, I just have a strong bias towards letting the free-market do its  work. 

[Penny Patton]

1 minute ago, Nalytha said:

I thought the jelly doll thing was supposed to help with this? I actually don't know very much about this topic, so please let me know if I'm wrong. I get pretty good FPS in most places in SL as long as they aren't near full capacity like popular shopping events. I run on high to ultra most places and do fine. 

Jelly dolls do help with this, to a degree, but not completely and they create another problem. First, when an avatar is rendered as a jelly doll, SL does not release all of the resources that avatar is consuming so you aren't entirely getting rid of their impact on your framerates/lag. And the problem they create is filling your screen with ugly, brightly coloured pixel explosions. Sort of a "Sophie's choice" of game design.

As for your performance experience in SL, I'm glad to hear it. Sadly, my computer is seven years old now and I only have 2GB of VRAM. My computer will run most modern games pretty decently but in most sims I visit my framerates tend to dip into the teens. Also, I've seen wildly different opinions on what constitutes "pretty good" FPS in SL. Personally, I consider 30fps "pretty good" for the typical quality of graphics I experience in SL. I'd say 20fps is "bearable" and anything less is "unacceptable". In sims I've built myself, and keeping my draw weight cap at the recommended 80k, I rarely see my fps drop below 30fps. I've also gotten to preview a new SL feature LL will be rolling out which caps VRAM use, which had me experiencing even greater FPS boosts in any sim I visited.

9 minutes ago, Nalytha said:

I'm actually a returning player as well. When I came back, I switched to a mesh body and a lot of my old stuff either didn't fit, was a huge AC, or was just outdated. I'm not crying over the spent lindens. That was money I spent for entertainment at that time. I don't assume everything is going to stay relevant and current and last forever. Plus, I always know LL could shut the servers down in a minute and everything I bought could be gone. So, I'm not really swayed by this. 

That's a fair enough point and I'm not saying that mod content will magically last forever, but I've been able to keep mod content up to date much longer. I've been able to take furniture I bought in 2005 and update it with sculpts to reduce the number of prims, then later update them again with mesh and replacing the poseball scripts with avsitter. I'm still using a mesh body that has seen no new clothing released for it in years because I've been able to create entirely new clothes through texture mods. I was also able to add materials to that body long before any of the no-mod bodies had materials.

 And not everyone can mod, at least not to a great extent, but those of us who can should have the option.

[Theresa Tennyson]

20 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Exactly. That’s how a free market works. Even in SL. Not buying what you don’t want works.

Worked a little slow for 1,517 people, didn't it?

I'm a firm believer in competition and markets, but there's a basic problem with them.

Of course, people can be outright frauds, but they go out of business quickly - they usually aren't planning on staying around. Think about the "empty box" scams on the Marketplace.

The big problem is that it can be more efficient to operate irresponsibly than responsibly - doing things just well enough to get by for everyday purposes but not building in allowances for things that could possibly happen but may only happen every once in a while. A ferry doesn't sink every time it's overloaded, for instance. The efficiency advantage can be so big that irresponsible suppliers can drive the responsible suppliers out of business because it's cheaper to be irresponsible and most customers don't realize what's happening or don't care if they can get a good deal.

Then the unexpected - that should have been expected - happens...

Edited January 7, 2018 by Theresa Tennyson

[Ashlyn Voir]

Interesting this thread I’ve created has been derailed from one topic to something about marketplace sales, childbirth, and mesh bodies/heads. Either way, feel free to continue detailing. My thoughts haven’t changed as this thread proves enough to me. I’ll sit back and continue to watch.

[Penny Patton]

8 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

I have no issue about the kind of content you would like to see, I just have a strong bias towards letting the free-market do its  work. 

My own view on this is that history has shown beyond any doubt that a laissez faire approach to the free market is an untenable extreme and that a regulated free market works best (so far and as long as the regulation remains sensible, which is easier said than done) but I'm not trying to argue that with you about that I'm just talking about very specific points that have been brought up, as I said in my last reply. If we're not talking about those points anymore then I think we're just bouncing the ball back and forth.

13 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

Over the years I have progressively reduced the scale of my houses and furniture, which Probably has cost me more business than gained.

I'd hate to see any talented content creators lose business over that. I've always suggested content creators include multiple size options and maybe a README file briefly running down the pros and cons of larger/smaller buildings and tips on how to get the most out of SL land. That way you're nudging people towards a better experience and more value, while not turning away potential customers who don't care about that.

 Anyway, I do appreciate being able to talk about these things civilly even if we don't agree on every point. It's a welcome departure from how people in SL normally, in my experience at least,  choose to voice their disagreement on these issues.

[Theresa Tennyson]

Just now, Ashlyn Voir said:

Interesting this thread I’ve created has been derailed from one topic to something about marketplace sales, childbirth, and mesh bodies/heads. Either way, feel free to continue detailing. My thoughts haven’t changed as this thread proves enough to me. I’ll sit back and continue to watch.

Then it worked out for you, didn't it?

[Nalytha]

2 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

Anyway, I do appreciate being able to talk about these things civilly even if we don't agree on every point. It's a welcome departure from how people in SL normally, in my experience at least,  choose to voice their disagreement on these issues.

I just want to say that I really would like to see everything mod. The great thing about Second Life is the potential for creativity. I love the houses I buy, but I also love that they give me an amazing base upon which to shape my own creative dreams. I get that some creators don't want to see their creations "distorted," but I love the ones that can see that modifying their work doesn't mean that their work sucks. Their work is a gift to us all. 

I guess my only argument is basically the same as Pamela's, as long as no-mod is an option, then seller's have the right to use it. 

[Ashlyn Voir]

10 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Then it worked out for you, didn't it?

Sure, Theresa. Sure. ??

[Penny Patton]

27 minutes ago, Nalytha said:

I thought the jelly doll thing was supposed to help with this?

OH! I did want to add one more point to this, the jelly doll feature, in its current incarnation, does not take VRAM use into account. Well it kind of does, but so marginally as to be utterly useless. So it is entirely possible to have an insanely laggy avatar with a low draw weight. For instance, a friend of mine showed up at my house one day and immediately my framerate dropped from the 30-40's down to below 20fps and I started seeing severe texture thrashing.

Luckily, at the time I was trying a test viewer with a new feature a friend of mine was working on to display VRAM use and I as able to see the visitor had nearly a full GB of textures on their avatar. They weren't even wearing all that much and had no more detail than my own avatar at the time, and yet they where using far more of my VRAM than SL is even capable of utilizing (VRAM is used by multiple programs and even just in SL alone for multiple features, so texture use should never even come close to the total amount of VRAM you have on your card). Their dray weight was only about 80k, which is reasonable (for SL). When I derendered them my FPS jumped back up and the texture thrashing ceased. This illustrates how the jelly doll feature can be useless for certain performance issues.

Luckily, my friend improved the feature quite a bit, added jelly doll functionality to it with VRAM caps, and submitted it to LL. The Lindens loved it and it's slated to arrive in the official viewer early this year. The problem then becomes that people using no-mod content will have no option to fix that content if it has exceptionally high VRAM use. It will simply be more unusable content that they've spent money on. Some such no-mod content that will be affected includes certain mesh heads which were released very recently and are very popular.

[Madelaine McMasters]

31 minutes ago, Ashlyn Voir said:

Interesting this thread I’ve created has been derailed from one topic to something about marketplace sales, childbirth, and mesh bodies/heads. Either way, feel free to continue detailing. My thoughts haven’t changed as this thread proves enough to me. I’ll sit back and continue to watch.

Many threads in the forums get derailed, often by me. If anything, the derailing of this thread shows that we treat you no differently than anyone else. I've never started a forum discussion with the expectation it wouldn't eventually get derailed. This is true of every forum I've frequented over my 31 years online. People will, as they always have and always will, feel free to take discussions wherever they go. You're welcome to drag us back on track if you wish.

[Qie Niangao]

50 minutes ago, Ashlyn Voir said:

Interesting this thread I’ve created has been derailed from one topic to something about marketplace sales, childbirth, and mesh bodies/heads. Either way, feel free to continue detailing. My thoughts haven’t changed as this thread proves enough to me. I’ll sit back and continue to watch.

[Emphasis mine.] I think I'm getting a whiff of confirmation bias here. And that would be an error. The discussions in this thread are nearly a master class in adults respectfully disputing substantive topics. (Well, "substantive" within the scope of a forum about a mere virtual world.)

If only our RL politicians could comport themselves with such civility.