ChinRey Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 Apparently every month more than 250,000 people try Second Life for the first time, hardly any of them ever come back again. This video explains why. The comments explain it even better so although I've embedded the video here, I suggest people click on it to go to YouTube and read them. Now, this is going to offend a lot of good SL users and there's bound to be a lot of objections, so to answer some of them in advance: Yes, I think this is pretty much how most "outsiders" view Second Life - those who have heard about Second Life at all, that is. I'm not saying SL should try to broaden its audience, that's a different discussion. But if it should, the kind of people who made this video and commented on it, are the people we need to recruit. To do so, all the issues shown in the video (the lag, the render failures, the problems figuring out the controls, the problems finding the interesting spots, the hostile natives, etc.) have to be fixed. The fixes have to be done by SL/LL. The potential new users are not going to change. A better/more thorough beginners' tutorial isn't going to help the interface related issues. The only solution is to make the interface more intuitive for newcomers. Telling people they should switch to this or that TPV or go to this or that place or change this or that setting in their viewer, isn't going to help. I don't think there's any point telling the universe it isn't fair, I've tried several times but it doesn't reply. But feel free to try again if you like. Taking offence hasn't helped so far. This is going to be painful to watch for any SL enthusiast. You have been warned. 3 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyelaNewLife Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 So first off, I *think* he spent half the video at Bardeco/Kekeland, which is a (now closed) horrifically laggy sim that has always had problems with rendering. Not exactly SL at its most reliable but that doesn't change how poor the core engine is, nor should you pass the blame onto content creators or people with Belleza avatars. Also yes, everyone that does the "ACKTUALLY Second Life is a virtual experience and not a video game" routine does indeed sound as obnoxious as that dude in the video. Stop doing it. No one cares that much. It's okay to play a video game as an adult, you don't need to justify it by inventing a new definition for SL. The only issues that I spotted were stuff that tutorial doesn't cover at all, like the flying control mini-window or editing/detaching body parts. The current tutorial is extremely outdated and basic, and regardless of what else changes it needs a massive overhaul. Potentially a popup-based one that teaches you about each window as and when you open it, rather than overloading you with a wall of information in the starting tutorial. How exactly would you make the interface more "intuitive", without stripping away function? That last bit is important. Most new accounts for any game out there will try it once or twice and never come back. This far from unique to SL. What is relatively rare for a game is that the number of new accounts that stay long-term are enough to keep the overall population stable for over a decade; I can count the number of other instances this has happened on my fingers. Something about SL is giving the population a trend-defying longevity, and that is a rare and precious thing that is not appreciated anywhere near as much as it should be. Even if that's in spite of LL's best efforts, not because of them. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThorinII Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 (edited) Quote the problems figuring out the controls Like, moving your avatar with the arrow keys, and flying with Page Up or Down? Where's the problem to figure that out? Actually, the Newbie Islands and Community Gateways where the newbies arrive do explain these controls in detail Quote to make the interface more intuitive for newcomers. Actually, the interface once WAS intuitive. Back then in Viewer 1.x! Which is also the reason why I would recommend everyone to try out FS in Phoenix Mode (aka "Vintage"), or the Cool VL Viewer. ETA: I think the most significant number of newbies are leaving pretty fast after their first login because SL is not a VIDEO GAME. There are no quests to run (ok, except Linden Realms), no Boss to fight, no experience points to win, no levels to gain - it's a virtual world where everything's up to the user. Edited November 26, 2018 by ThorinII 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar Legion Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 Oh look, a video recorded by the exact type of person we don't want or need in Second Life: A mindless Gamer who believes "everything should just work" and for whom even a step by step tutorial on even the most basic of controls would be deemed "too hard to figure out" ... Sorry, no. It does not highlight what you believe it does. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyelaNewLife Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 2 minutes ago, Solar Legion said: Oh look, a video recorded by the exact type of person we don't want or need in Second Life: A mindless Gamer who believes "everything should just work" and for whom even a step by step tutorial on even the most basic of controls would be deemed "too hard to figure out" ... Sorry, no. It does not highlight what you believe it does. The one thing above all that the video highlights is that SL is essentially a sandbox. It does not spoonfeed you content; you either make your own fun (however you personally define that) or you wander around aimlessly moaning about how "there's nothing to do" like this dude. There is nothing you can do to make SL appeal to that type of person, without destroying the existing userbase. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar Legion Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 As much as a loathe the comparison to "normal" games .... There are quite a great many - often popular - ones where your "tutorial" amounts to being tossed in head first and told not to die. That doesn't even touch a few of the still going MMOs out there .... Heaven forbid some of those that found Second Life "too hard to learn" attempt to play an old school MUD/MUCK or similar ... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionalein Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 Wait the dude tries voicing people that don't have voice on?... RTFM gamer dude! 6 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThorinII Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 (edited) 2 hours ago, ChinRey said: I'm not saying SL should try to broaden its audience, that's a different discussion. But if it should, the kind of people who made this video and commented on it, are the people we need to recruit No. Just no. Not at all. In my opinion, this kind of people is neither wanted nor needed in SL. There are too many mindless gamers in here already. I rather think the kind of people we need to "recruit" are the creative ones: The artists of all sorts, the creators, the kind of people who are able to create their own place, their own fun, their own entertainment here within this world. I even think just advertising SL as a game (like, via Google Ads, or via Steam) has been very unfortunate. Edited November 26, 2018 by ThorinII 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionalein Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 (edited) 4 minutes ago, ThorinII said: I rather think the kind of people we need to "recruit" are the creative ones: The artists of all sorts, the creators, the kind of people who are able to create their own place, their own fun, their own entertainment here within this world. From a CSR point of view I also highly welcome more of those. Anyone who actually tries to understand what they are doing is so much less pain when they have an issue, hell they often even tell you their whole analysis process saving you finding out what was wrong. Edited November 26, 2018 by Fionalein 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethan Paslong Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 oh my lord, i would mute and derender this guy within a minute ... he's simply annoying 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar Legion Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 2 minutes ago, ThorinII said: No. Just no. Not at all. In my opinion, this kind of people is neither wanted nor needed in SL. There are too many mindless gamers in here already. I rather think the kind of people we need to "recruit" are the creative ones: The artists of all sorts, the creators, the kind of people who are able to create their own place, their own fun, their own entertainment here within this world. I even think just advertising SL as a game (like, via Google Ads, or via Steam) has been very unfortunate. About the only "gamer" type that would find Second Life more appealing are the Role Player types - especially those from the purely text based/chat room days. Then again that's personal experience: Observation and my own beginnings with Second Life. Heck, at one time an old AOL RP "realm" tried to get their foot in the door: Rhy'din's own Red Dragon Inn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phorumities Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 21 minutes ago, Solar Legion said: As much as a loathe the comparison to "normal" games .... There are quite a great many - often popular - ones where your "tutorial" amounts to being tossed in head first and told not to die. That doesn't even touch a few of the still going MMOs out there .... Heaven forbid some of those that found Second Life "too hard to learn" attempt to play an old school MUD/MUCK or similar ... maybe we could give every noob a gun and teleport them to a life enabled sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionalein Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 (edited) 4 hours ago, Ethan Paslong said: oh my lord, i would mute and derender this guy within a minute ... he's simply annoying As much as I hate to condemn an entire generation - but here it comes, brace yourself: MILLENIALS! Edited November 26, 2018 by Fionalein 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelindaN Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 On my first day back in May (2018) I must say it was touch and go. What would have made a big difference on day 1 would have been an IM from a 'Mentor '. Nothing special just a Hi! and welcome. Maybe there are too many day 1s for this to be workable. I very nearly didn't bother coming back, but finding the Marketplace was what showed me that there was a huge potential for being creative. Because I've never gamed, I had no expectations, and that is a very different place to be than buzzing with an adrenalin fuelled gaming mentality. I haven't seen anything in SL which would feed that type of new entrant. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 A quarter million abandoned accounts each month does not mean a quarter million people tried SL. I would guess substantially less than one percent of those accounts had a human involved in the sign-up process. Of course it doesn't help us guess about these things because the Lab holds the detailed data very close to the vest. It's probably even more depressing: Practically nobody tries SL anymore but the sign-up page is still host to a few half-assed DoS trials. And yet, there are a few actual humans signing up, I suppose. So: It seems hopelessly frustrating for new users who expect to use voice (probably most of them) to instead stumble into the general SL population where voice is pretty rare. This guy at least noticed when somebody typed a response, but that's rare too. It's amazing any new user is patient enough to suffer the current avatar customization process: generations of largely incompatible methods and obsolete controls. Only an OCD few will hang around long enough for the world to rez at current performance standards. Only the Lab can help here; there's nothing to be gained by wringing our hands about how much bandwidth user-generated content demands in practice, never mind how much less it might theoretically need. Certainly there's no point "telling people they should switch to this or that TPV" -- not only won't they do it, but even if they did, no TPV much improved user interface discoverability -- mostly the opposite, in fact, nestling everyday controls amidst a bewildering array of tabs and floaters from which the most advanced users might choose an option once a calendar quarter. This is another one the Lab would have to address, with no help from TPV developers "scratching their own itch." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitsy Buccaneer Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 On the page for that video, he calls SL a 'dating sim' and says he found it in a sidebar advertisement. From what I've seen, sidebar advertisements tend to invite players to sign up without knowing much about the game. (My experience with this was from a couple years ago when I was really ill and looking for easy ways to fill some time. Didn't want to kill things, which ruled out most games so I did want to know what it was about first. I'd usually just end up looking on the wikipedia page for it.) If SL is advertising itself in this way, it's only natural we're going to end up with lots of players signing up who don't know what it's about or have an incomplete idea based on the soundbyte from a particular ad. Might things go better if SL's marketing went back to putting greater emphasis on the open-ended 'create your world' aspects? It's what really sets SL apart. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 And yet it’s not that different from when I was new and found it all utterly fascinating. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar Legion Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 4 minutes ago, BelindaN said: On my first day back in May (2018) I must say it was touch and go. What would have made a big difference on day 1 would have been an IM from a 'Mentor '. Nothing special just a Hi! and welcome. Maybe there are too many day 1s for this to be workable. I very nearly didn't bother coming back, but finding the Marketplace was what showed me that there was a huge potential for being creative. Because I've never gamed, I had no expectations, and that is a very different place to be than buzzing with an adrenalin fuelled gaming mentality. I haven't seen anything in SL which would feed that type of new entrant. Years ago, there actually was a Mentor Program (I was one of them). The program was terminated and while some went on to make their own "post orientation" mentoring groups or to join up with the later Community Gateways .... Some of us simply became jaded where the newest of the new users are concerned. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted November 26, 2018 Author Share Posted November 26, 2018 32 minutes ago, Solar Legion said: Oh look, a video recorded by the exact type of person we don't want or need in Second Life Please read my post before you reply to it. I made it very clear to anybody who can read English that I'm not saying SL should try to broaden its userbase. I'm only pointing out what it would take to do it. 38 minutes ago, Solar Legion said: A mindless Gamer who believes "everything should just work" and for whom even a step by step tutorial on even the most basic of controls would be deemed "too hard to figure out" I can promise you with no reservation whatsoever that people with no gaming experience will find all those problems even harder to solve. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionalein Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said: On the page for that video, he calls SL a 'dating sim' and says he found it in a sidebar advertisement. From what I've seen, sidebar advertisements tend to invite players to sign up without knowing much about the game. OFF TOPIC: Wanna know where I last saw those sidebar ads? On the Firestorm webpage,... Duh @Linden Lab, when was the last time someone told you folks you need to rethink your PR strategy,... seriously, YES Firestorm users are highly likely to log into SL - good job Google Analytics did there - but NOPE they will not be new users nor returning runaways ... well at least the FS team gets some ad money to continue developing Linux viewers ... Edited November 26, 2018 by Fionalein 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar Legion Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 Do read my initial response a bit more carefully Chin. You've read your own reactions into it. I can assure you, there have been plenty of new users with no "gaming experience" that have found Second Life to be no more difficult to learn to use than operating a toaster. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikka Luik Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 Agree with Qie about how many actually log into world as opposed to being some sort of auto account generation. From the Lab numbers (format is SL timestamp, signups, logged in) Sign up SLT : 2018-11-26 04:55:01 : 57071004 : logged in : 31442 Sign up SLT : 2018-11-26 03:55:01 : 57070699 : logged in : 30273 305 in a one hour stretch At around 4 am west coast time... Spend any time at a welcome place to watch how many 'new´avs actually appear. I don't know all the possible (what do the kidz call it) 'spawn' points but seeing actual records from them would be nice. I have seen that vid before and more like it. Usual youtube rubbish =^^= As for the not-a-game ongoing debate, after all this time I just glaze over when it comes up. Performance? Well never stopped me nor the supposed complexity. I am not a gamer so have no idea how it relates. Maybe it is either drop in pow pow or extreme hand holding. As for numbers, it seems we can get negative signups too Sign up SLT : 2018-11-25 22:55:01 : 57069317 : logged in : 31241 Sign up SLT : 2018-11-25 21:55:01 : 57069352 : logged in : 34052 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Huntsman Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 This looks about right, noobs coming into SL no clue where to go or do. All the popular spots suck, IDK why they're even popular. And all the spots are "Underrated" that are fun don't even get shown in the destinations list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChinRey Posted November 26, 2018 Author Share Posted November 26, 2018 1 minute ago, Solar Legion said: Do read my initial response a bit more carefully Chin. If you say so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela Galli Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 2 minutes ago, Haselden said: This looks about right, noobs coming into SL no clue where to go or do. All the popular spots suck, IDK why they're even popular. And all the spots are "Underrated" that are fun don't even get shown in the destinations list. Who do you think submits destinations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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