A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg

[Menion Azalee]

I am wondering, why the rush to get rid of classic avatars. We have spent thousands upon thousands of lindens on making our avatar the way we want it. Second Life is suppose to be A "Make it YOUR OWN" world. We can't make it our own if we are forced to go mesh and become cookie cutter avatars of everyone else. It defeats the purpose of SL being OURS!

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

Dear Ebbe Altberg ..........

Keep in mind Ebbe's involvement (or lack thereof) with SL on a technical level, asking specific technical questions is unlikely to return any meaningful answers. He probably has no idea there are limits on sound files etc.

Product level questions are something he should be able to answer.

[Callum Meriman]

3 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

A basic read/write persistent storage database able to handle the different SL variable types and read/write note cards. This could be offered as a paid annual service and I am quite sure many creators would pay given the benefits; it would provide selling their products.

We have this with the KVP database included with Premium benefits, and JSON

Edited April 14, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Thermalpulse]

Have you considered allowing DDS (DirectDraw Surface) Mipmapped textures for better overall performance?

SL's current system uses flat textures locked at their initial resolution, which weighs heavily on VRAM pools. It would be more resource efficient to have Mipmapped textures so video cards only need use the resolution relevant to distance from the avatar. Perhaps even allowing 2048x2048 sized textures for DDS/Mipmapped textures exclusively as an incentive for creators to switch over to the more performance friendly texture setup?

[Kurshie Muromachi]

33 minutes ago, Thermalpulse said:

Have you considered allowing DDS (DirectDraw Surface) Mipmapped textures for better overall performance?

SL's current system uses flat textures locked at their initial resolution, which weighs heavily on VRAM pools. It would be more resource efficient to have Mipmapped textures so video cards only need use the resolution relevant to distance from the avatar. Perhaps even allowing 2048x2048 sized textures for DDS/Mipmapped textures exclusively as an incentive for creators to switch over to the more performance friendly texture setup?

There's some wiki info that states mipmapping is used in SL.

 

[Asadora Summers]

 

Thank you for the opportunity to submit questions in the hope that they will be answered during the 15th anniversary town hall, which hoped will become a regular event. 

Questions: 

1. Back in the day we used to have a poll/vote feature in groups is it possible to have this feature implemented  into a working feature again? 

2. Also back in the day, there was a feature where you could rate someone's profile, the profile rating system. Considering this feature was around before Facebook and now everyone is used to 'liking' something, wouldn't adding this feature bring more socialness into Second Life, rather than having to go to Facebook to fullfill that need to 'like' something? I understand that this feature was removed by LL in 2007 due to it being misused and misunderstood; however, if there was an option for the user to either opt in or opt out of the profile rating system then surely that could protect against such misusage. 

3. As a Mainland advocate, perserving Mainland is important; however what is also important is to update the Linden first generation roads, rails, and landscaping, such as the LL trees and bushes.  Mainland is what us Mainlanders make it, though to have the infastructure of Linden roads and rails improved with an incorporated updated landscaping scheme that better matches the current state of LL's technology would suit those that live on Mainland better and perhaps inspire those that live on Mainland to also update their parcels. 
If LL doesn't put effort into making Mainland a better place to buy land, then it's hard to encourage users to turn it into their homes or businesses. 
Besides, I hear the moles love their gardening;) 

4. Lots of users tend to live stream their Second Life, would it be possible to implement a feature that announces that the person is live streaming on whatever platform on the person's profile? As it is known that some people have went around the grid trolling people while live streaming it on youtube. It would be fair to the innocent bystander to know that the person they are interacting with is currently live streaming or not, as then they can know if their privacy is being invaded or not.

5. Regarding changing of tier, is it possible to have a 24 hour grace period if one is changing their teir in order to not be charged that's month's teir even if only their teir increased for a few mintues? The Land Use Fees and management are confusing and often it takes an entire thread of people on the forum to explain it, perhaps a better way of explaining to the user how changing tier would be more benifitical and less traumatic.

Thank you for your time and for these last 15 years!

 

Kind Regards! 

 

[Chic Aeon]

3 minutes ago, Asadora Summers said:

5. Regarding changing of tier, is it possible to have a 24 hour grace period if one is changing their teir in order to not be charged that's month's teir even if only their teir increased for a few mintues? The Land Use Fees and management are confusing and often it takes an entire thread of people on the forum to explain it, perhaps a better way of explaining to the user how changing tier would be more benifitical and less traumatic.

That would be a VERY BIG PLUS and likely increase mainland sales. 

[Penny Patton]

17 hours ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I am constantly amazed by  the number of people that use Sl as a primary source of income.  Flabbergasted would be a better word.  The number of things totally out of your control that can and do annihilate a business over night leaving you with zero recourse is staggering.  On top of that, there is virtually no IP security. I could never trust my RL future to SL business.

The same could be said of anyone who is self employed or runs their own business. There's no greater risk in doing it through SL than doing it through YouTube or opening a brick and mortar store. Hell, I used to work in television until the animation studio I worked for was caught up in a lawsuit that didn't even really involve the studio, just the guy who owned the studio through his involvement with another studio. I had to change my career plans afterwards as most of the other animation studios have moved out of the city I lived in at the time. I went into teaching for a while but that turned out to be even more untenable. All of that was outside my control.

For the past two years I've been self employed as a freelance designer. I've done work for multiple publishers who went under, sometimes without paying me everything I was owed. Getting back into SL content creation would actually be more stable than that. The main thing is to put away money when you can, so if your income is decimated overnight you have savings to live on while you regroup.

[Penny Patton]

Here's another question;

Does Linden Lab have any plans to improve the in-world building tools? Allowing people to create better and more optimized content using nothing but in-world tools. The current tool set is more or less the same now as it was when I joined in 2005. Other platforms over the years have demonstrated content creation tools that blow SL's out of the water. Sony's "Landmark" being the preeminent example. Is LL considering any sort of investment to reinvigorate in-world content creation?

The same goes for the system avatar. Laggy, high-poly mesh bodies have more or less replaced the system avatar after LL decided not to update them. It's fractured the clothing market, making it so much more difficult for clothing makers to reach a wider share of the market. Would LL reconsider their decision not to update the universal system avatars?

Edited April 15, 2018 by Penny Patton

[DirkWinehouse]

With the adult sector being such a driving force behind the money-making within Second Life, why do you not capitalize on the success of this and advertise it more?  I've seen pretty tame, arguably lame advertisements for Second Life (few and far between) that never mention the adult sector.  Why are you not advertising to the people who would (as is proven) spend money?

[Kurshie Muromachi]

1 hour ago, Penny Patton said:

Here's another question;

Does Linden Lab have any plans to improve the in-world building tools? Allowing people to create better and more optimized content using nothing but in-world tools. The current tool set is more or less the same now as it was when I joined in 2005. Other platforms over the years have demonstrated content creation tools that blow SL's out of the water. Sony's "Landmark" being the preeminent example. Is LL considering any sort of investment to reinvigorate in-world content creation?

I was actually considering asking a similar question of whether the in-world tools would ever get any modern day love. I ended up scratching it though because I figured it would never fly and there are people who would throw the "there's already advanced 3D modeling tools, just use those" reason.  I'm not asking for an advanced 3D modeler, but you're right about other demonstrated platforms. There are even some impressive web-based modeling tools like VECTARY.

I think the prim tools could be modernized with actual meshing capabilities. If network efficiency is a concern, perhaps making the tools work form a client-side local storage could help in that case. Local creations could then be maybe published using mesh import options. This however won't be very user-to-user collaborative friendly.

[Tricky Fairey]

I have been a resident for 10 years, I would love to be a resident for another 10.

While I do understand that this world is really up to the residents to shape and evolve, I do feel like Linden Labs takes far too much of a passive approach in this.

1) Why doesn't LL advertise more? Are there plans to? With the popularity of Ready Player One, this is prime time to try and capitalize off that popularity and bring in more residents!!

2) Why do we have to contact LL to try and get abandoned land put up for auction? Would LL seriously consider just holding regular auctions for abandoned land? Let's bring more life back to the mainlands!!

 

Thank you for your time.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Tricky Fairey
Typo

[Anna Nova]

On 4/14/2018 at 6:46 PM, Whirly Fizzle said:

You don't need to worry about this.
Firestorm already fixed the problems with the Linux viewer after the Alex Ivy merge - it now builds & runs with working media.
The beta testers will be getting a Linux viewer soon to bang on.
If you self compile, you can already roll your own.

Repo: http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/
Compile instructions:
64bit Ubuntu
64bit Debian Stretch

If don't self compile, you can join the FS beta testers to get access to the Linux builds soon. 

Thanks Whirly.  I tried to compile it this afternoon, and it was fairly painless - I use Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, so the Ubuntu instructions were good.  However, even though it runs, it crashes quite a bit too.  I don't have the skills to debug that, so I'll have to wait for a release.  I don't think there is much point in joining the Beta Testers unless I can debug.

[Garnet Psaltery]

I've turned 13 in Second Life and I want to know when I get more pocket money.  Life is so unfair.

[MarsyMonroe]

Will you implement a voice harassment policy?

Would it be possible to become muted to the person that is blocked?

Also, what will you do to improve the quality of voice servers? 

[Akasha Sternberg]

On 14.4.2018 at 10:15 AM, Rhonda Huntress said:

I am constantly amazed by  the number of people that use Sl as a primary source of income.  Flabbergasted would be a better word.  The number of things totally out of your control that can and do annihilate a business over night leaving you with zero recourse is staggering.  On top of that, there is virtually no IP security. I could never trust my RL future to SL business.

2

 

On 14.4.2018 at 10:49 AM, Phil Deakins said:

I don't think it's something to be amazed or flabbergasted about. It's not as though some people decide to quit their jobs and build an SL business to make a living. I don't think anyone has ever done that. What happens is, a person is surprised that their little SL hobby business grows to earn  more money than they'd thought it would, and their thinking transitions to it being, first a nice extra earner, then to it being a significant part of their RL livelihood, which I think is the stage that most of them stay at, and then in a very few cases it becomes the sole RL livelihood, and that is only because the previous RL livelihood wasn't so good, either because it wasn't a nice job or the pay wasn't so good.

I don't think that the extremely few people (counted on one hand?), for whom SL businesses are their sole RL livelihood, imagine that their businesses are in any way secure in the normal RL sense. I think it's more a case of doing it while the going is good, and when it sinks or ends, doing something else for a living.

 

1

 

that... the people earning their RL income with SL are stay at home moms usually or housewives that have a hobby... and the number is VERY little... Smaller than one would think ...  Even if I was good at graphic designs and 3d designs and could handle stress  I don´t think I would do SL business (or be self employed at all XD)

 

[Hintswen Guardian]

12 hours ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

I've turned 13 in Second Life and I want to know when I get more pocket money.  Life is so unfair.

Every Tuesday after you become premium

[Aleandro Masala]

Greetings,

Is it possible to delegate a certain group of people who represents second life's business in private estates bussiness with which to interact constructively to future changes?
In this way we will have an extra chance to be able to operate planned and even commercial strategies, 
evaluate future investments in view of changes in some way discussed and why not, agreed.

Best regards,

Aleandro Masala

[Phil Deakins]

3 minutes ago, Aleandro Masala said:

Is it possible to delegate a certain group of people who represents second life's business in private estates bussiness with which to interact constructively to future changes?
In this way we will have an extra chance to be able to operate planned and even commercial strategies, 
evaluate future investments in view of changes in some way discussed and why not, agreed.

Nope. Or at least I hope the answer is a resounding no - for 2 reasons. The only way that such a group would "interact constructively" is to be biased to their own point of view, which isn't the point of view of almost all SL users. E.g. "But we would end up paying more and not getting anything extra for it." Another reason is that, if any such group were to be appointed, why not also a creators' group?, or a tenants' group?, and so on.

[JaneS Crystal]

Greetings Mr. Ebbe Altberg, 

Initially, I would like to thank and express the contentment of the Brazilian community with the existing Community Gateway program. Could you explain about Themed Learning Islands? There are currently 9 Social Islands, will they remain, or will they be replaced by Themed Learning Islands?

Thank you for your time. 

[Dakota Linden]

Greetings all!

Thank you for continuing to submit your questions regarding the Second Life Town Hall with Ebbe!  

In the interest of keeping this thread limited to questions from you, the users, for the Town Hall, some posts have been hidden.  

While Linden Lab loves and appreciates everyone's desire to discuss Second Life, we ask that those discussions not occur in this thread.  If you wish to engage in conversations with each other regarding questions that others have asked, or issues that they have raised, please create a new thread in the General Discussion forum area.  

Thank you and please keep the questions coming!

[Nalates Urriah]

Places Page are being promoted to residents. But, they generally do not show up in Bing, Google, or Yahoo. Without placement in major search engines these pages do not seem helpful for pulling in new people interested in those venues. Are there plans for enhancing Place Pages present in search engines?

Or... providing API's to make the Place Page content accessible in private/custom web pages? Then individuals could design better placing pages and improve the search presence of their regions.

[Roth Grut]

Alternate Accounts and Harassment

An issue that affects many residents:

Most of us live the second life for fun and leisure. Respecting other residents and their opinions, differences and diversity of the world. However, we note that malicious residents are able to create dozens of alternative accounts, with the sole purpose of chasing, harassing and annoying other residents.

Over the years, we have met good residents who have abandoned the second life for this reason. Even being told to report abuse. Many can not cope well with this problem. This should also generate thousands of Abuse Reports - which could be reduced, with more control and less facility to create alternate accounts from the same address.

It would be very good for the whole community if there was any way to limit the number of accounts created by a single device; or other way of controlling the excess of alternative accounts so that malicious residents do not easily hide in alternative accounts. Are there any plans to address this issue?

Congratulations on the initiative and thank you for the opportunity to present this question!
 

[FailedScience]

are there any intentions on adding more avatar control to LSL, or new functions to LSL in general us scripters have been left behind compared to mesh.

[Coffee Pancake]

16 hours ago, MarsyMonroe said:

Also, what will you do to improve the quality of voice servers? 

Voice servers are provided by Vivox and independent of Second Life, this company provides voice services to many game platforms. https://www.vivox.com/partners

Edited April 16, 2018 by CoffeeDujour