Secondlife 15th anniversary and CEO's letter

[LittleMe Jewell]

27 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Will it be available to everyone, or just those with the Resident last name?

Looking at it from a technical standpoint, if they are going to allow full name changes and not just the last name, I can't think of any reason at all why they would need to restrict it to just those with "Resident" in as the last name. 

I could see them charging a small fee for this - just cuz.

[Chic Aeon]

10 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

ETA: We're expecting different Premium levels, presumably at different costs, and perhaps a top level user will be able to buy a Homestead. That's not a bad idea, since we're going to get different Premium levels.

I pretty much remember something like that (not copying your whole long infopost in here :D) and I definitely remember those "park" sims that people bought that only supported a VERY few prims that you put trees on to have a larger land vista. 

When The Lab started talking about new ways to own land (maybe a year ago? not sure) my first thought was quad sims that share the prims of one sim -- so four times as much land for the same prim amount. These are called VAR regions in Opensim and they were the norm in Cloud Party (different platform of course but some similarities).  

BUT I think you have a better idea!  Both I suspect would be popular. Things will certainly be shifting and there will likely be lots of navigation around those rocks.  This last land deal has me moving from a quarter sim rental to a "free tier" 4096 which will work just find as I wasn't using but half the prims on the rental.  Some folks are waiting to see what the changes in premium and land will be, but I am of the mind that whatever is working the best at the time is the way to go -- you can always change directions later.  

Free is a good price and the 1024 we sold paid for the 4096 so THAT was "free" also in some sense. I think that we made about $4000 on that 1024 but purchased it in 2009 so that isn't a great return over time LOL.  Sometimes it was used and sometimes it just sat there. 

 

[lucagrabacr]

This is great! And glad to see that LL is taking their time to make sure these changes don't negatively impact the inworld ecosystems, careful and respectful towards their residents like always <3 way to go LL!

[Phil Deakins]

23 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Looking at it from a technical standpoint, if they are going to allow full name changes and not just the last name, I can't think of any reason at all why they would need to restrict it to just those with "Resident" in as the last name. 

I could see them charging a small fee for this - just cuz.

What I'm thiking is that it's generally a bad idea in this type of system to allow name changes, and I wouldn't want them to do that. I'm all in favour in allowing those without a proper last name to add one, but I'd be against allowing general whole name changes. But it's not up to me, and Patch said that it would whole name changes, in which case I see no reason to allow it only for 'Resident' names.

What may happen is allow whole name changes but with a limit to how often they can occur - and, as you said, charge for them either each time or for all subsequent changes after the first one. I certainly don't think they should charge those with Resident names. It would fit with Ebbe's statement about rebalancing financial things - only slighty, but every little helps.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Patch Linden]

47 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Will it be available to everyone, or just those with the Resident last name?

It will be available to everyone.  

[Phil Deakins]

So now we wait and see whether or not it will be charged for, and whether or not a change will be one-time only

Edited March 22, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[LittleMe Jewell]

4 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

What I'm thiking is that it's generally a bad idea in this type of system to allow name changes, and I wouldn't want them to do that. I'm all in favour in allowing those without a proper last name to add one, but I'd be against allowing general whole name changes. But it's not up to me, and Patch said that it would whole name changes, in which case I see no reason to allow it only for 'Resident' names.

What may happen is allow whole name changes but with a limit to how often they can occur - and, as you said, charge for them either each time or for all subsequent changes after the first one. I certainly don't think they should chanrge those with Resident names. It would fit with Ebbe's statement about rebalancing financial things - only slighty, but every little helps.

Another thing that I could envision is that in the deep dark recesses of the database, they keep track of the original account name - and never let anyone else take that name.  That would be useful for searching out someone when you only have their original name (and keep folks from imitating someone else) - as well as being useful for other reasons.

Edited March 22, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Phil Deakins]

13 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I pretty much remember something like that (not copying your whole long infopost in here :D) and I definitely remember those "park" sims that people bought that only supported a VERY few prims that you put trees on to have a larger land vista. 

That type of sim was called Openspace here. I say "was" but it may still be possible to buy new ones from LL.

Thoughts on the Premium levels. I said earlier that I'm hoping that one level - probably the highest - will be able to buy a Homestead or Openspace sim. Another thought is that the amount of tier-free allowance could be greater, the higher the level.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the levels will be.

[Phil Deakins]

5 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Another thing that I could envision is that in the deep dark recesses of the database, they keep track of the original account name - and never let anyone else take that name.  That would be useful for searching out someone when you only have their original name (and keep folks from imitating someone else) - as well as being useful for other reasons.

I hope that happens. Things could occasionally get quite bad for people if it doesn't happen, due to impersonations.

[Patch Linden]

12 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

So now we wait and see whether or not a change will be charged for, and whether or not a change will be one-time only

[Cesartje]

Those Bakes on Mesh topic - does it means new bodies and heads will have to be created to support it, or it can be used on the existing ones?

[Phil Deakins]

7 minutes ago, Patch Linden said:

What? To buy LL? It's a bit pricey isn't it?

 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

3 minutes ago, Cesartje said:

Those Bakes on Mesh topic - does it means new bodies and heads will have to be created to support it, or it can be used on the existing ones?

Option c) Hope for a proper update to the currently existing ones, at least the popular choices.

[Pamela Galli]

 Wondering how my transaction records for 10 years will handle customer name changes. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

 Wondering how my transaction records for 10 years will handle customer name changes. 

This is one of the reasons I could see them keeping everyone's original name in the system and having it tied to their new name - and not ever letting those original names be reused.  They would almost have to put in some sort of system allowing you to search the original names.  Or when someone searches a name, it automatically searches the current and original name list.  For it all to work more seamlessly, they'll also need to provide a scripting function/command that will return the original name of someone's current name.

[Callum Meriman]

Lets just hope the character set is restricted to the English alphabet.

ღᙠ??η∂ Щιʅԃʂ๏ЯƬღ

Is already rubbing her hands in anticipation.

[kershe]

2 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

It will be complete and total name changes, both first and surname.  Just to set expectations on this, it is a later this year item.  

Wow wow wow.  That sounds great.  Can I ask:

- will we be able to hide our usernames? (see below)

- will firstname lastname combos have to be unique? Or can 20 people call themselves "Joe Doaks"?

 

 

 

 

[animats]

Unicode names are OK, but names should be required to be unambiguous in the way that domain names are made unambiguous.

The short version of that is "don't let people create names that look like other people's names".

[Callum Meriman]

Just now, animats said:

Unicode names are OK

Names have to be searchable. People need to be able to open search and type Brenda Wildsworth because ღᙠ??η∂ Щιʅԃʂ๏ЯƬღ can't be typed by any normal person.

Even something plain, like Günter Bræsh will make it hard for most people.

[Patch Linden]

6 minutes ago, kershe said:

Wow wow wow.  That sounds great.  Can I ask:

- will we be able to hide our usernames? (see below)

- will firstname lastname combos have to be unique? Or can 20 people call themselves "Joe Doaks"?

No hiding of names.  First name and surname combos will have to be unique like they are today.  A couple of other questions that came up - no re-use of retired names, once a name has been used, it belongs to that account forever.  We keep a transnational name change history.  Only standard English characters will be permitted.

[Callum Meriman]

19 minutes ago, Patch Linden said:

No hiding of names.

Babigurl69.Resident will still be shown on the screen, with her more respectable name over that?

Display names V2 Point Zero then.

[Patch Linden]

3 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

Babigurl69.Resident will still be shown on the screen, with her more respectable name over that?

Display names V2 Point Zero then.

How so?   If Babigurl69.Resident changes that name to Mayflower Daisyweather ....  that is now the name for that account.  You can not hide Mayflower Daisyweather.

On edit: this has no affect on display names and largely I do not anticipate we will change how display names work.  If anything, it somewhat sunsets the need for them.

[Callum Meriman]

1 minute ago, Patch Linden said:

How so?   If Babigurl69.Resident changes that name to Mayflower Daisyweather ....  that is now the name for that account.  You can not hide Mayflower Daisyweather.

But you can hide Babigurl69?  So many bad choice account names out there hehe.

 

Edit: I have 3 bad choice names myself O_O

Edited March 22, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Rhonda Huntress]

28 minutes ago, Patch Linden said:

Only standard English characters will be permitted.

And there was much rejoicing!

[LittleMe Jewell]

/me starts thinking about what she'd like to rename her alts and searches the current Jewell account names to see what's available.  Two said alts have names that just don't sound right paired with Jewell. I guess they'll have to get completely new first and last names.

 

I'm also looking forward to the mad rush of folks trying to get a specific name when this all comes online.

Edited March 22, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell