September 2018 - A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg

[Lady Magic]

27 minutes ago, PhantomPixel said:

Im confused how you feel ripped off. Your buy down price is still lower than the new reduced price. You have broke even already and saved money. The buy down tier was $199 a month, the new LL sim prices are $249 a month. You have already saved $2400 in the time you have owned a sim that has been bought down. Take out the original purchase price at the time which I think was down to $600ish for the sim and $600ish for the buy down, you have not only broke even but have saved roughly $1200 dollars and each month you pay are saving $50 more. Im confused how you think that you are not getting a good deal here or your bought down sim is only lasting two years. So what if the transfer price is $600 like any other sim. 9/10 times I see sims being sold its usually the purchaser not the seller that pays the transfer fee anyway and that person is going to make whatever transfer money they paid back in 12 months at a saving of $50 per month. 

i am confused too! Is this the place where we post questions for Linden or....for me? LOL. Just to be clear. I paid (and many others) 600 US$  cause the DIFFERENCE between normal and grandfather was 100 US$ per month! Otherwise i wouldn't have paid any dime! OK?  That is what Linden told us! NEVER Linden said that difference would have last a limited number of months. Of course they said "The 195 US$ will be for ever". But they "FORGOT" to say "In  a while we will lower thy nornal tiers". Do you think i would have paid 600$  if Linden would have said the COMPLETE truth? NO, of course. Yes, of course i saved about 1000 $ in two years. And something else in future. And i ma happy with that!  But it is not a matter on how much i saved or not. It is a matter of being honest and trustable. If i would have done that with my tenants, they would have pursued me with sticks!! Ok ? And now let's focus on questions for Linden. Thank you

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

17 minutes ago, PhantomPixel said:

Ebbe Question : Are there any other ways, other than what is already present, that Linden Labs could implement that would allow those of us with less powerful computers to be present in high mesh density sims without either lagging out or crashing entirely. Jellydolls worked semi perfectly for avatars, is there a similar or alternate tech that could be implemented for mesh builds in world. De rendering objects completely can be irksome if you are hanging with friends and they want to move around and explore and you can't follow properly due to you not being able to see anything as you have derendered it all. Would Linden Labs consider adding a complexity cap for mesh to prevent further overly complex and badly designed mesh being uploaded in world?. I understand that would not help the situation with the mesh that already exists inside of SL but it would help for future products. 

This is by no means an ideal workaround, but for now it may help you.
Firstly keep your object LOD setting low:
On the LL viewer: Preferences -> Graphics -> Advanced Settings -> Mesh: Objects.
On Firestorm: Preferences -> Graphics -> General -> Objects & sculpts LOD.

Also, lowering the debug setting RenderMaxNodeSize should help quite a bit.
This will automatically derender objects/mesh only when there is a high density of triangles in a small area.  It's very effective to derender high triangle mesh only.
Just remember to set RenderMaxNodeSize back to the default setting when you don't need to derender high triangle mesh.

[lucagrabacr]

Where's Ebbe's home in Second Life?

Edited August 25, 2018 by lucagrabacr

[Hintswen Guardian]

3 hours ago, Lady Magic said:

i am confused too! Is this the place where we post questions for Linden or....for me? LOL. Just to be clear. I paid (and many others) 600 US$  cause the DIFFERENCE between normal and grandfather was 100 US$ per month! Otherwise i wouldn't have paid any dime! OK?  That is what Linden told us! NEVER Linden said that difference would have last a limited number of months. Of course they said "The 195 US$ will be for ever". But they "FORGOT" to say "In  a while we will lower thy nornal tiers". Do you think i would have paid 600$  if Linden would have said the COMPLETE truth? NO, of course. Yes, of course i saved about 1000 $ in two years. And something else in future. And i ma happy with that!  But it is not a matter on how much i saved or not. It is a matter of being honest and trustable. If i would have done that with my tenants, they would have pursued me with sticks!! Ok ? And now let's focus on questions for Linden. Thank you

 

I'm confused as to how you feel like you should get a further discount. The original post about the tier buy down clearly states it's a $600 one time fee for your tier to be reduced to $195. It doesn't say "For $600 your tier will always be $100 lower than the regular price" as far as I can tell you are still getting your $195/month rate which is what you paid for. They didn't need to say it's for a limited number of months because it's not. Your tier is $195/month until you get rid of the sim. If you believe they have been untruthful then please point it out because I (and I assume many others) don't see it. All I see is people on grandfathered rates getting angry that other people are getting discounts that they aren't getting and that is just being childish.

[Garnet Psaltery]

3 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

Where's Ebbe's home in Second Life?

Ebberywhere!

[Phil Deakins]

10 hours ago, Lady Magic said:

i am confused too! Is this the place where we post questions for Linden or....for me? LOL. Just to be clear. I paid (and many others) 600 US$  cause the DIFFERENCE between normal and grandfather was 100 US$ per month! Otherwise i wouldn't have paid any dime! OK?  That is what Linden told us! NEVER Linden said that difference would have last a limited number of months. Of course they said "The 195 US$ will be for ever". But they "FORGOT" to say "In  a while we will lower thy nornal tiers". Do you think i would have paid 600$  if Linden would have said the COMPLETE truth? NO, of course. Yes, of course i saved about 1000 $ in two years. And something else in future. And i ma happy with that!  But it is not a matter on how much i saved or not. It is a matter of being honest and trustable. If i would have done that with my tenants, they would have pursued me with sticks!! Ok ? And now let's focus on questions for Linden. Thank you

But none of that was your complaint. Your compaint was that the transfer fee  ($600) isn't lower than it is for other sim owners.

[Micaela Amore]

How is our grandfather doing, and if he dies, are we all invited to his funeral?

Last price drop Linden said "Also, these changes will not impact any grandfathered or “bought down” land prices since those are still below the newly-reduced rates." 
The word "still" in that sentence seems to imply that next price drop the advantage of having grandfather land may disappear.
If one would buy grandfather land from someone now (most ask 600 dollars for it), and have linden transfer it to you for another whopping 600 dollars, it will take 2 years before you make it back.
So an honest nonevasive answer from Ebbe on the state of our grandfather would be nice. 

 

By the way, I also think that 2 years 100 dollar a month profit from a 600 dollar investment is not that bad, and its still 50 a month now. 

Edited August 25, 2018 by KingArwin

[Qie Niangao]

With the range of ambitious enhancements in development, have you considered shifting some emphasis from viewer-controlled features, instead letting those features be controlled by script?

We see new viewer windows and controls being introduced for (at least) new Animesh, EEP, Bakes on Mesh, and Estate Access Management features -- and each project's timeline extends to develop and test those viewer features. And of course the viewer itself must expand in footprint and user complexity to hold all these features, whether folks use them or not.

It's too late to change projects already in-flight, but can you add a check-box to initial project planning:
      ☑     Does this feature really require viewer-side control?

Yes, in some cases it's unrealistic to completely replace viewer control of new features, particularly when the interaction adjusts how the viewer locally handles scene data. But there are plenty of cases where what's being controlled is server-side, visible to all viewers but controlled by one user at a time; there's just no reason not to make those script-controlled instead of delaying the feature for UI work in the viewer.

If it seems scripts don't have sophisticated-enough user interface widgets to manage the new features: welcome to my world! -- and consider how much more could be gained by extending those script UI features, besides supporting whichever project initially needs them.

[ClaudiaOoOo]

im looking forwards very much to the new name change option . dont mind really at all paying to do so but must say the idea of people still being able to trace me with my old name i find crazy , if i wanted these people to trace me id inform them of my new name change . can you explain just why new new name cant be the fresh start id be purchasing

[Phorumities]

On 8/24/2018 at 6:21 PM, PhantomPixel said:

Ebbe Question : Are there any other ways, other than what is already present, that Linden Labs could implement that would allow those of us with less powerful computers to be present in high mesh density sims without either lagging out or crashing entirely. Jellydolls worked semi perfectly for avatars, is there a similar or alternate tech that could be implemented for mesh builds in world. De rendering objects completely can be irksome if you are hanging with friends and they want to move around and explore and you can't follow properly due to you not being able to see anything as you have derendered it all. Would Linden Labs consider adding a complexity cap for mesh to prevent further overly complex and badly designed mesh being uploaded in world?. I understand that would not help the situation with the mesh that already exists inside of SL but it would help for future products. 

why not have a complexity cap in the viewer? then just like jellies for avatars you could have jelly builds

[PhantomPixel]

2 hours ago, Phorumities said:

why not have a complexity cap in the viewer? then just like jellies for avatars you could have jelly builds

Pretty much what I was getting at but I was also taking into consideration the difference between "jellydolling" 100 max avatars than "jellydolling" 30k max objects, hence why I wrote similar or alternate tech. Perhaps there was a specific reason why that was not introduced alongside jellydoll for avatars, or maybe they didn't want people to not see SL. Hopefully my question gets asked and we get a decent non evasive answer

Edited August 27, 2018 by PhantomPixel

[PhantomPixel]

5 hours ago, ClaudiaOoOo said:

im looking forwards very much to the new name change option . dont mind really at all paying to do so but must say the idea of people still being able to trace me with my old name i find crazy , if i wanted these people to trace me id inform them of my new name change . can you explain just why new new name cant be the fresh start id be purchasing

The point is to change your current avatars USERNAME not your entire SL identity forsaking all old ties, friends lists etc etc. If you want that....create a new avatar and pay for the name change on there. You realise its not just as simple a task as changing a name on a computer somewhere. There are multiple databases, accounts, marketplace, objects, server links etc etc that will all need updating. The point of people being able to search you via your old name still is so that people who know you, or want to hire you, or someone you once knew that returned to SL that wishes to look you up etc etc (inserts 32234242 other similar reasons here) can do so.

[Micaela Amore]

I can't edit my post anymore, but I hope that when I say "So an honest nonevasive answer from Ebbe on the state of our grandfather would be nice. " it's clear that I don't mean to even suggest that normally his answers are anything else than honest. Also, I understand that when someone talks about future things it's often needed to be evasive because nothing is set in stone yet.

[Phil Deakins]

9 hours ago, ClaudiaOoOo said:

[...] but must say the idea of people still being able to trace me with my old name i find crazy , if i wanted these people to trace me id inform them of my new name change.

It cuts both ways. On the one hand, when changing a name to get rid of a stalker, for example, it would be good if the stalker couldn't see what your previous name was. On the other hand, changing a name to get round an inworld ban that you got with your previous name, or to continue with someone who wants rid you of, would work if you were not recognisable by your previous name, or the person hadn't kept a record of your UUID.

Either way isn't crazy.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Qie Niangao]

4 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

... or the person hadn't kept a record of your UUID.

This gets at an important technicality here: If the Lab didn't provide a way to track identities through username changes, others would. Private "whitepages" databases provided name-to-key lookup for years before the Lab's very recent introduction of llName2Key() and llRequestUserKey(), and we can be sure those services would have been provided privately if the Lab had not assumed the responsibility. It's just a matter of efficiency that the Lab does it, rather than the kludgy, stalkery way it had to be done otherwise.

(And yeah, it has to be done, one way or another. I'm sure there are innocent reasons to want to start afresh with a new identity--while keeping all one's old inventory--but there are plenty of nefarious reasons, too.)

[Fionalein]

Ohhh Qie this brings up a nice question:

What is the Lab's take on users storing other user's usernames in external databases without their consent? There has been some debate recently wether this is legal by the GDPR laws. (As only you, the Lab, know who is EU based I see a lot of legal pitfalls here)

Edited August 27, 2018 by Fionalein

[Phil Deakins]

I thought we'd done that question to death once or twice.

[ChinRey]

On 8/23/2018 at 7:42 PM, Linden Lab said:

Here is where to submit your questions for the upcoming Town Hall with Ebbe!

Here's my question to Ebbe then:

How do you envision the future of Second Life?

[Phil Deakins]

QUESTION:

Can we have script editing (and maybe other) boxes freed from the main viewer window, please? It is surely a simple matter of not confining them to the main window - at least it is in Visual Basic, or whatever it's called now - which is a simple checkbox option. The benefit for writing scripts would be that the window(s) can be moved to another screen and not get in the way inside the main viewer window. External editors are used for that purpose, so it would do away with the need for them.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Hintswen Guardian]

Will the Horizons resource pack be updated to include the textures?

[Qie Niangao]

(Oh, yeah, speaking of resource packs...) 

Why have recent Premium gifts deviated from longstanding tradition of Modify permission and (often) full-perm embedded assets such as animations, sounds, textures, and even scripts?

That tradition was central to giving new users the sense of Second Life being theirs to make -- analogous to how we all first tasted html using "view source" in our browsers.

The assets themselves aren't all that special, nor are the gifts frankly, but making them more permissive would send a valuable message, and might again make the gifts worth collecting for Premium members.

[Callum Meriman]

Do you plan on finishing the continents that were not finished?

Zindra for example just ends abruptly.

We could have a simple 1 region wide border of protected land sloping down then water, (use openspace regions so it's not too many servers). Then 1 region wide water around the entire continent to make it all sailable, again, openspace should be fine.

Or make it land that can be sold, it will be snapped up fast by the land barons.

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Leviathan Flux]

I have been playing SL for 10 years as an active content creator and dedicated RPer and leader in RP community.  I have been attending meetings with Lindens for developing Bento and Animesh, and those that are actually working at making SL better don't seem to have a lot of support.  Linden Labs always seems to be focusing on trying to make new projects that don't go anywhere instead of trying to help SL achieve something greater.  LL has always had a vision for what they wanted SL to be and ignored what it really was.   Instead of maintaining sims that have been unchanged and unused for 10 years, why doesnt SL stop worrying about backwards compatibility for garbage models from 10 years ago and update the materials, lighting, and physics to compete with other games.  Why wont SL support it's user base and help provide RP/combat continents, sims for fashion/shopping events, building/scripting education, and other active communities?

[KathrynLisbeth]

This is kinda a specific technical question, and it may be better answered by staff, or is already a jira somewhere... but.   

Given that chat (say, whisper, and shout) is broadcast in an circle  &  Land is generally in squares and rectangles. Including the consideration that Linden Homes are closely packed and often rectangles, arrayed such that portions of the neighbors house & land are closer to your avatar than part of your own land.

Is there any work being done to have scripted objects that chat on channel zero (nearby / local chat)  respect a setting that would function similar to restricting avatar view and chat. 

For example:  If I set my parcel to not let my chat be broadcast to the neighbors, there is no need for them to hear that I am using the 'boing-boing' animations on my furniture (No worries, is just jumping up and down on the couch).   Conversely there is no need for me to hear their scripted dohicky say how "***** so ***** that ****** and ***** with ***** made ****"

Now more often it is a neighboring mainland parcels dohicky that is chat (Shout) spamming "blah blah... buy this.... blah blah .. so and so is evil"

It's not really something that bothers me, Click Click, block and move on.

But do you think that having an actual land setting so your customer can set their area to 'auto mute' things like that would be 'A good thing?'   And could we see something like that Soon?

 

Similar to that, MOAP (Media on a Prim) use is based on a circular distance from the avatar.   So like in the case of Objects chatting on nearby chat.   One can be watching Youtube on MOAP on their own land,  but unbeknownst to them... their neighbor is tuned to (maybe even without their knowing) something.something/stealyerstuff/scamsite.   

Now that may seem a bit "OMG! THE END IS NIGH!"   So correct me if I am thinking on this wrongly, but the browser built into the viewer is basically a older version of chromium, right?  Without the option to add stuff like uBlock extension (Add blockers, script blockers, etc), right?    So maybe having the ability to blanket stop MOAP at parcel boundary would be 'A good thing'?  

Edited August 27, 2018 by KathrynLisbeth

[Whirly Fizzle]

1 hour ago, KathrynLisbeth said:

or is already a jira somewhere... but.   

Adding the JIRA list 

1 hour ago, KathrynLisbeth said:

Given that chat (say, whisper, and shout) is broadcast in an circle  &  Land is generally in squares and rectangles. Including the consideration that Linden Homes are closely packed and often rectangles, arrayed such that portions of the neighbors house & land are closer to your avatar than part of your own land.

Is there any work being done to have scripted objects that chat on channel zero (nearby / local chat)  respect a setting that would function similar to restricting avatar view and chat. 

This has been requested on JIRA but not imported as far as I can see.

BUG-2095 - "Avatars on other parcels can see and chat with avatars on this parcel" does not affect object chat
BUG-3079 - Feature request: add parcel option to restricted scripted chat across parcel boundaries

2 hours ago, KathrynLisbeth said:

Similar to that, MOAP (Media on a Prim) use is based on a circular distance from the avatar.   So like in the case of Objects chatting on nearby chat.   One can be watching Youtube on MOAP on their own land,  but unbeknownst to them... their neighbor is tuned to (maybe even without their knowing) something.something/stealyerstuff/scamsite.

BUG-10636 - Project Valhalla: Make the new media player suitable as a private media player
This feature request was accepted.