Remedies to declining SL?

[KathrynLisbeth]

Hmmm?  A Nexus Thingamajig.   OH!   Like the Old Tele-Hubs?  From before Direct Point to Point Teleports?    Interesting. 

 Oh Oh!  And the land values around the Nexus (Nexi, Nexus-es-es?) will shoot up again, right?   So will 'revitalize mainland'!   

 Oh oh oh!  Maybe can even charge L$ for teleporting?  So people will buy more L$.   

 </supersarcasm>   

[Selene Gregoire]

8 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

Is it possible that had you had a bit of forewarning that it's not going to be easy, but there are lots of people waiting to help you make the adjustment, that you might have had a better experience? You had the fortitude to stick it out but many do not. I'm just thinking if people had a better understanding of what they will be getting into they wouldn't jump ship so easily.

I agree with prior posts that say there's not one magic bullet that will be the cure all. It certainly takes studying your target market and very precise ad campaigns to get those people to give it a try. Regardless of the approach, there's nothing about SL that's easy.  

The problem is, quite bluntly, LL does not have the first clue who or what the target market should be/is. Every time a demographic group increases in population, LL ignores them. They have ignored what the residents of SL want/need in respect to SL. They do NOT understand the audience they already have (and have had for 15 years). How will they ever understand something when they don't even know what it is? 

[Callum Meriman]

But SL is for education and business meetings?

Isn't it?

[KanryDrago]

7 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

I get it Klytyna. You don't want it. BUT, in order for this to work you still have to be a part of it. Maybe, all the people who opt-out can walk through a special nexus to the destination portal. It would be a shorter walk than the regular NEXUS walk. Better? It has to be mandatory for the sense of community. Also, to address Callum's concerns, any nudity would be covered with black bars rezzed over you. I think the client viewers can detect if you are naked. They can also detect if you are male or female and put the censorship bars over the right parts of the anatomy. The main reason for my suggestion is to remedy the decline of SL. I think this would promote SL and encourage more people to try it. 

We dont want it and if we opt out it will be by going to somewhere that doesnt put us through crap like that. The question you should be asking is how many will you drive off compared to how many that will attract....my suspicion is the latter number is approximately zero.

"Hey come to sl its really great and one of the best bits is they make you rub shoulders with a lot of idiots before you get to do what you want to do!!!!" now does that really sound like a selling point?

[KanryDrago]

Ok I am often negative on ideas for improving SL retention and in most cases I think I am justified as they are often a case of "I would like this so everyone else would" type. However being christmas and all for you heathens I will try and be positive and suggest something that might be both uncontroversial and help.

Simply put a welcome pack of maybe a dozen notecards, Tutorials on certain things such as editting your shape, how the avatar system works explaining shape, alpha's, skins etc. Also a notecard full of landmarks to get free stuff and a couple of notecards to places to visit organised by category such as for example "Silly fun places Duck racing at Quackerstone".

This welcome pack however would not be written by the Lindens (though they would have to set it up so newbies got it maybe a vendor in starting areas) It would be written by people like us. We could for example have a thread for each notecard where people could suggest bits to include and forum users could vote them up and down. With each thread having a curator that pulls the highest voted items into a single post which can then be picked up for the pack every three months. Hopefully even with some feedback from the newbies so we can improve things with each notecard having a link to its discussion thread at the bottom.

Happy christmas all

[KanryDrago]

Oh and another good idea would be a new player forum section, where new players can ask questions and people that wish to can answer. A section where maybe trolling gets you a black mark

[Callum Meriman]

2 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

We could for example have a thread for each notecard where people could suggest bits to include and forum users could vote them up and down.

It's a nice thought Kanry. We could even (mis)use the answers section to do this

[KanryDrago]

1 minute ago, Callum Meriman said:

It's a nice thought Kanry. We could even (mis)use the answers section to do this

There is an answers section?

[KanryDrago]

1 minute ago, KanryDrago said:

There is an answers section?

hehe you laugh but I just went up to the forum list and couldn't see it so either I am too hungover or its well hidden

[Cindy Evanier]

1 minute ago, KanryDrago said:

hehe you laugh but I just went up to the forum list and couldn't see it so either I am too hungover or its well hidden

Its way down at the bottom under the international and adult forums

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/forum/109-answers/

 

[Callum Meriman]

There are some very helpful people down there.

And it has voting!

[KanryDrago]

10 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Its way down at the bottom under the international and adult forums

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/forum/109-answers/

 

Ah you mean the section. See I dont see that as too useful. What I think they need is a single forum section where new players can go and ask questions and it needs to be near the top. Faced with that section a new player who just wants to know "Where is  good place to get new hair?" is going to wonder where to stick the question

It is not highly visible however is the main issue

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by KanryDrago

[KanryDrago]

2 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

There are some very helpful people down there.

And it has voting!

Well if we got a Linden to buy into the idea that could make it happen (the handing to new players bit) I would be happy to put some work into it. Though I suspect the first argument would be what notecards should there be

[Cindy Evanier]

2 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

Well if we got a Linden to buy into the idea that could make it happen (the handing to new players bit) I would be happy to put some work into it. Though I suspect the first argument would be what notecards should there be

I think your idea is good.  However, trying to get people in SL to actually read something is another issue.  

[KanryDrago]

To highlight the visibility issue, I have been here on these forums for a while and never realised the section was there as I guess I got down to where we were doing sections such as land forums and thought they were becoming more irrelevant so stopped scrolling

[KanryDrago]

Just now, Cindy Evanier said:

I think your idea is good.  However, trying to get people in SL to actually read something is another issue.  

Yes you can lead a horse to water. However it is at least something some would read and once set up it requires little maintenance. If it only makes a handful a month stick around its a gain in my view and its at least non intrusive unlike and requires little work on the labs part

[Cindy Evanier]

9 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

Yes you can lead a horse to water. However it is at least something some would read and once set up it requires little maintenance. If it only makes a handful a month stick around its a gain in my view and its at least non intrusive unlike and requires little work on the labs part

I have a "New to Second Life - Click Me"  picture and content giver in the foyer of my store.  It gives a notecard mainly with links to find  help and links where to get some free stuff (I probably need to update it).  I have no idea if anyone ever clicked it and over time it has moved from an obvious place to a less obvious place.  I will go back and revisit it this week and update it.  Just to do my little bit  

[Blush Bravin]

2 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:

I think your idea is good.  However, trying to get people in SL to actually read something is another issue.  

Wish I could like that answer about five times instead of just once.

2 hours ago, KanryDrago said:

Ah you mean the section. See I dont see that as too useful. What I think they need is a single forum section where new players can go and ask questions and it needs to be near the top. Faced with that section a new player who just wants to know "Where is  good place to get new hair?" is going to wonder where to stick the question

It is not highly visible however is the main issue

 

I think a lot of new people never even look or know about the forums. It would be helpful if the Q&A section was accessible from the viewer. A button that takes someone directly to that section or a new section specifically for noob Q&A.

[BelindaN]

SL is a sandbox. I didn't know what that meant until after I joined.

It's my playroom. I go there to hang out with those I like, and to dress up. I sometimes play with the toys. One day I might build something.

It's a place to explore yourself and who you really are, but its also a place where you can do what you want to do and be who you want to be.

That's a hard concept to sell to those who lack imagination. This place has only one limit and that's your imagination.

That's how I see it. 🎅🖖

[Janet Voxel]

Does SL even have an official discord? It's little things like that.....That's your social hub right there. That way you have the option to see someone if you want, you can get real time help, etc, etc. 

[Skell Dagger]

13 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

It's responses like this that make the idea of a NEXUS even better. It should be a mandatory place you have to pass through every time you log in. You don't need to stop and chat with anybody. Simply log into SL and walk through the nexus to another portal that takes you wherever you want to be. Every other SL resident would be doing the same thing. In that short walk you'll be reminded that there are people,  a lot of people, in SL doing things that you're not doing and maybe they don't want to rub shoulders with you either but at least the sense of community will be felt. It's like an an endless parade of interesting people on display for everyone to watch.

(Bolding mine.)

Do you visit busy events in SL?

Yes? Good, then you'll know that 40 avatars is about the maximum for a region before it slows to an absolute crawl (and in less optimised regions it slows to a crawl even before then).

What would you deem an acceptable time in which to undertake this 'Nexus Walk' among others? One minute? Two minutes? Five? For how long at a time, and for how many times must we endure this 'walk' before "the goreans, the furries, the clubgoers, the brazilians, and everyone else in SL" become, well... I don't really understand what you're aiming for here.

Is it familiarity? I see those kinds of people out and about all the time so I don't need to be shoved among them every time I log in, like some ghastly cocktail party where I can't even reach the bar because I'm lagged to hell and rubberbanding back and forth between the vol-au-vents and the cheese-n-pineapple-onna-stick.

Is it the forging of new friendships among those battling to reach the end portals before the griefers and lag get to them and make them log out forever in frustration? Thank you, but I'd rather choose the very few people that I add to my contacts list after prolonged and repeated conversations with them, not after rubbing shoulders in a mad dash to a portal that will take me to my home.

OK, so let's assume LL beefs up the servers that host these Nexus regions so they can comfortably tolerate 40 avatars without lag. Let's see now... the average logged-in number of avatars is approximately 40,000, so that means we would need...

...10,000 Nexus regions, give or take a thousand or so. (And let's just close our eyes to what would happen if the grid went down at some point and everyone tried to log back in at once.)

Lastly: Show Friends Only is a thing for the simple reason that those who have lousy connections or older/slower/less powerful computers simply cannot go to busy regions with a lot of other people without it enabled, because otherwise they can't move at all. But - in your Nexus idea - what would be the point of derendering everyone, when everyone is supposed to be seen? What would the solution to all those other laggy avatars be then, hm? Everyone has to change their settings before each log in? Lower LOD to 1? Set Graphics Prefs to 'minimal'? Switch off particles (y'know, in case of landing poufers and griefers)? Oh! Oh, wait! I've got it! Let's force everyone to log in on system avatars, and they can change into their laggy mesh bodies once they finally reach their homes! Of course!

Edited December 25, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[Callum Meriman]

[Ren Toxx]

14 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

It's responses like this that make the idea of a NEXUS even better. It should be a mandatory place you have to pass through every time you log in. You don't need to stop and chat with anybody. Simply log into SL and walk through the nexus to another portal that takes you wherever you want to be. Every other SL resident would be doing the same thing. In that short walk you'll be reminded that there are people,  a lot of people, in SL doing things that you're not doing and maybe they don't want to rub shoulders with you either but at least the sense of community will be felt. It's like an an endless parade of interesting people on display for everyone to watch.

I learned long ago that there’s people even less sociable than I am, just as there’s many who are far more sociable.

What’s more, I learned long ago to not just respect those differences, but even cherish them.

So, hell no to the “forced nexus” thing. I want choice. And I want others to have choice too.

[Oct Oyen]

Happy holidays people!! Go easy on the eggnog (just throw up a little in my mouth thinking about it)

Didn't LL used to send out weekly newsletters via email? I agree with the notion that many residents know more about SL than some of LL employees (Torley Linden been the exception). A simple solution is have LL hire residents who are passionate about what they do in SL. Running the newsletter, being mentors or ambassadors...etc. The cost of hiring contractors would be a small pocket change compare to what LL is burning outside of SL, coughsansar.

BTW, there seems to be more drama addicts here than I remember. Did SL universe closed or something?

[Asylum Habilis]

8 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:

I have a "New to Second Life - Click Me"  picture and content giver in the foyer of my store.  It gives a notecard mainly with links to find  help and links where to get some free stuff (I probably need to update it).  I have no idea if anyone ever clicked it and over time it has moved from an obvious place to a less obvious place.  I will go back and revisit it this week and update it.  Just to do my little bit  

When I started looking at mesh avatars it was because i saw a furry that was just amazing looking. I ended up at a shop marveling at all the colors and parts. I found a shop that had a notecard like this, telling me all the stuff you need and how the parts and skins are different and purchased separately. Without that, I might have bought something I couldn't use and then been on an expensive hunt to retro fit the whole thing! Anyway, I feel like notecards are very helpful for those of us that take the time to read them, and I feel like those of us that take the time to read them are probably more successful when it comes to enjoying the game.