Remedies to declining SL?

[Bree Giffen]

22 hours ago, Klytyna said:

Are you confessing to spiking the staff eggnog with illegal, experimental "CIA brainwashing Test Camp" drugs?

Klytyna, I haven't spiked anything this Christmas. I've been evangelizing VR by making everyone play Beat Saber. Everyone loved it and no one got sick. You should get one. It's amazing. 

[Callum Meriman]

I hope they can add the muliplayer mode they announced earlier in the year.

[rainbow Fairymeadow]

On 12/22/2018 at 9:56 PM, Bree Giffen said:

SL needs a reboot. Not a Sansar reboot but an SL reboot. Some might say that SL has already made a huge leap in the past few years. Everything made out of prims and system avatars have changed to mesh produced with outside programs. That's quite a sea change. The problem still remains that SL is too complicated. There are just too many mouse clicks needed to do things. There are a lot of tutorials but a good design needs to be intuitive. The mesh rebirth seems to show that SL can survive a reboot. This idea needs something more though. It needs all the building tools to be built into the viewer again. An easy to use 3d -creation tool built into SL with animation, sound and scripting. I think that's asking a bit much of LL though. 

I have to say updated in world building is something I have been hoping for, for a long time. After all the years I have been building in SL I now have to learn a whole new complicated program ( Blender) which probably wouldn't be that hard if the mouse controls weren't reversed lol. I actually prefer just working in world. As I was saying, I now have a ton to learn without the patience or time to learn it as RL takes a lot of my time. I loveeee being in Sl and creating things. I am a jewelr, I put together floral arragements for weddings and small house deco. I now design eye textures. I use SL as an outlet for my creativity that I was unfortunately never able to grasp in RL. I am also creative in rl, always wanted store of my own but just never seized the opportunity. In SL I can Have the stores, and can reach out to SOOOO many people from all over the world, far better than just one state of the USA lol. Still would just be much easier for me to just build while I'm standing on my platform in the sky or sitting on my beach listening to tunes.

I honestly will be in SL for as log as its around. I have made so many friends in here over the years. I have collected a whole world of things I would never have in RL lol. I LOVEEE to ride my motorcycles.

The Yeah there are DIFFERENT people and lifestyles, but hey, in RL its the same. Just not so in your face. To explore or not to explore, that is the question... I explore but I know where my TP button is in a jiff lol.As for telling rl people about SL. I tell everyone! There is just so much to tell. I work at a gaming sim late nights on a different Avi, and I actually tell people its like my second job and how it all works. 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by rainbow Fairymeadow

[Janet Voxel]

32 minutes ago, rainbow Fairymeadow said:

I have to say updated in world building is something I have been hoping for, for a long time. After all the years I have been building in SL I now have to learn a whole new complicated program ( Blender) which probably wouldn't be that hard if the mouse controls weren't reversed lol. I actually prefer just working in world.

 

 

You actually can change the mouse buttons in preferences. I also think Blender 2.80 has them the “right way”. I always say if you can build in SL, you can learn Blender.

People preferring to work in world was why I was saying it’s kind of important to improve the creation tools. While the addition of mesh improved SL in a lot of ways, we lost a lot of creative people just because they wouldn’t make the leap to Blender. Part of it was a lot of them preferred working inworld. Moving people out of SL to create was a strange side effect of mesh.

 

[animats]

52 minutes ago, janetosilio said:

You actually can change the mouse buttons in preferences. I also think Blender 2.80 has them the “right way”. I always say if you can build in SL, you can learn Blender.

People preferring to work in world was why I was saying it’s kind of important to improve the creation tools. While the addition of mesh improved SL in a lot of ways, we lost a lot of creative people just because they wouldn’t make the leap to Blender. Part of it was a lot of them preferred working inworld. Moving people out of SL to create was a strange side effect of mesh.

Yes. When I'm working on mesh, I'm logged into SL on the beta grid in an empty sandbox sim, not working in the world that has users. Building should be more of a social experience. New Babbage people speak of the days when watching others build was a major form of entertainment there. Also, you can't build cooperatively. A collaboration between a texture artist and a structure designer can be fruitful, but we don't have that option in real time.

Blender is a pain. And I say this as someone who's used Autodesk Inventor to design parts and then made them on a CNC milling machine. While SL needs in-world building, it should look more like SketchUp or Archimatrix than Blender.

I have the 9-page Blender hotkey guide on my desk. Unfortunately, the Blender 2.36 hotkey guide, rather than one for Blender 2.79, because the Blender user interface changes with each release and thus most tutorials and question answers are out of date.

Edited December 28, 2018 by animats

[Pussycat Catnap]

On 12/24/2018 at 6:35 PM, Bree Giffen said:

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. 

I need to read the context...

But it's been my experience that as public random nudity in SL has become less common, the place has become less popular. To boost things around here, we need to get more naked people. Well... at least if the guys can finally figure out how to match skin tone with their prop...😋

That said, I remain unconvinced about the decline of SL. My population meter on my land hasn't been going down at all and is more or less the same these days as it was 8 years ago. There was a big dip about a decade ago when the world outside realized this place wasn't a get-rich-quick-scheme... and that 'a house in virtual land' was really the same thing as a house for your MMO character or tomogachi pet...

But after that things seem to have stabilized... the same people are arguing that SL is dying as were arguing that SL is already dead back in 2011...

It's like we're on the corner with an 'The end is Nigh' placard... and we've penciled in 'nigher', and the scratched that out and drawn 'soonish' above it, but put a line through that and added 'kinda coming'.

Discussions about how SL is failing remind me of the scene in Futurama where Fry encounters a protest stand advocating for legalizing marijuana... a thousand years later... still going... except that one's actually happening now. But the joke is still funny.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Pussycat Catnap

[Coby Foden]

2 hours ago, janetosilio said:

You actually can change the mouse buttons in preferences. I also think Blender 2.80 has them the “right way”. I always say if you can build in SL, you can learn Blender.

Blender 2.80 beta has the mouse buttons by default the "right way". The UI has got a major overhaul too. Finally Blender UI starts to look user friendly.

[Oct Oyen]

Blender can do everything from 3D modeling, rigging, video editing and the list goes on and on, which why it's very difficult to learn; especially for people without formal training in arts/designs. The fundamentals of 3D modeling (specially polygonal modeling) are the same in every 3D modeling programs, extrusion, loft and sweep...etc. Each program executes the process slightly different from one and other. Each one also has a tone of additional tools for making complex models easier, thus learning curve is way steeper than 2D program like Photoshop.

I think LL can do what Autodesk is doing with Maya LT , a simplified 3D modeling program that focuses on game content creations. But use Blender's opensource code and UI instead, keep it simple by providing just enough tools to learn the fundamentals of creating contents for game standard formats. And makes it super easy to test the creations in SL via direct upload and fee-free trial period.

Use the same UI as Blender, it'll make transition to Blender seamlessly when they outgrown the simplified program. If it's done right, it can be the go-to program for learning 3D modeling and a training-wheel for Blender which is a fast growing community. It's a good way to market SL as a sandbox. One key advantage SL has over other sandbox like Unity and Unreal, is there's a vest world with active population outside of sandbox where one can socialize with others and see how their creations are being used. On the flip side, other sandboxes don't have the lag issues as SL's aging engine has. For any physic based creations, the lag is a deal breaker.

[Pussycat Catnap]

40 minutes ago, Coby Foden said:

Blender 2.80 beta has the mouse buttons by default the "right way". The UI has got a major overhaul too. Finally Blender UI starts to look user friendly.

/downloads

Thanks for that update. But does this mean all my books on "how to learn Blender for people who can get off their lazy butts and actually do these exercises" are no longer any good, or still useful?

 

[Janet Voxel]

2 hours ago, animats said:

Yes. When I'm working on mesh, I'm logged into SL on the beta grid in an empty sandbox sim, not working in the world that has users. Building should be more of a social experience. New Babbage people speak of the days when watching others build was a major form of entertainment there. Also, you can't build cooperatively. A collaboration between a texture artist and a structure designer can be fruitful, but we don't have that option in real time.

Blender is a pain. And I say this as someone who's used Autodesk Inventor to design parts and then made them on a CNC milling machine. While SL needs in-world building, it should look more like SketchUp or Archimatrix than Blender.

I have the 9-page Blender hotkey guide on my desk. Unfortunately, the Blender 2.36 hotkey guide, rather than one for Blender 2.79, because the Blender user interface changes with each release and thus most tutorials and question answers are out of date.

I mean, for a free Swiss Army knife 3d modeling program that gets better with each release it kind of behooves you to stay up to date with it. 

Also no one complains when they’re updating their viewer. The basics are still the same so there’s no excuse. 😛

funny story: when I was learning Blender it was on 2.74 or 2.75. I was a member of Builders Brewery group and I asked in the chat a rigging question. Crickets....the person that decided to finally answer had 2.4 something. Most frustrating experience of my life.

[Coby Foden]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

/downloads

Thanks for that update. But does this mean all my books on "how to learn Blender for people who can get off their lazy butts and actually do these exercises" are no longer any good, or still useful?

The UI changes are really big ones. So it might be confusing while using Blender 2.80 beta and trying to follow the instructions made with the old style UI.
I haven't tried yet how confusing that actually might be. Anyway, I do like the new UI a lot. It looks very well organized, a lot better in many ways than the old one.

[Natalia Genna]

SL is not going to grow much the way it is at the moment.  Unfortunately, it attracts people who want to keep it exclusive or for themselves.  Does not work to attract new users as it is.

[KanryDrago]

8 hours ago, Natalia Genna said:

SL is not going to grow much the way it is at the moment.  Unfortunately, it attracts people who want to keep it exclusive or for themselves.  Does not work to attract new users as it is.

I think you mischaracterise people here, its not that people want to keep it exclusive, it is rather that people wish to keep SL somewhere that they want to hang out. History is littered with companies in the computer entertainment industry that have changed their product in the pursuit of new users only to find that the new users either don't turn up or don't stay. The changes however do have enough impact that existing users no longer feel it is a product that they like so the net result is they leave and they are not replaced with new users.

Two examples spring to mind the most famous being starwars galaxies and the NGE, also to an extent world of warcraft where they changed the game in pursuit of the more casual gamer during wrath of the lich king expansion and the new gamers did come stayed a couple of months but a lot of long time users when meh this isnt the game we loved anymore.

In the two examples I cite the only thing the users that dropped lost was the time they had invested. In SL however many long term users have not only the time they invested but inventories that cost them 100's of thousands of lindens. Of course they are wary of large scale changes and what it will do to alter their experience in sl. They also have the history of the labs to see where time and again the labs have shown they have little insight into their user base with changes they have made in SL. Nor have they shown they understand how to attract a new demographic, you only need to look at Sansar for proof of that.

I would love to see SL grow in population, I would not however love to see SL throw away its existing user base to pursue a promised land of new users which either never turn up or are merely as ephemeral as may flies

[Pussycat Catnap]

15 hours ago, KanryDrago said:

I think you mischaracterise people here, its not that people want to keep it exclusive, it is rather that people wish to keep SL somewhere that they want to hang out. History is littered with companies in the computer entertainment industry that have changed their product in the pursuit of new users only to find that the new users either don't turn up or don't stay. The changes however do have enough impact that existing users no longer feel it is a product that they like so the net result is they leave and they are not replaced with new users.

Did someone just covertly summon the elderitch being known as 'M. Linden' all up in this place?

Do we need to get Constantine in here to banish that beast back to the dimension from whence it came?

😨

[Kurshie Muromachi]

@janetosilio, @animats 

Here's an online 3d modeling tool I've mentioned in the past that could be useful in ways within SL. Look at some of the elaborate examples and it's pretty impressive to see what people make with it. It's not super complex like Blender but perhaps creatively attractive for general users.

https://www.vectary.com

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by Kurshie Muromachi
sorry tabbed and submitted empty post by accident

[Cristiano Midnight]

One thing I've noticed as I've explored other virtual worlds lately like VRChat is that most people I've talked to have not even heard of Second Life. I'm sure that seems like an alien concept, but I don't think LL does a good job of marketing Second Life to new users.

[Garnet Psaltery]

5 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

One thing I've noticed as I've explored other virtual worlds lately like VRChat is that most people I've talked to have not even heard of Second Life. I'm sure that seems like an alien concept, but I don't think LL does a good job of marketing Second Life to new users.

The BBC recently ran an article on WoW which included a headline quote "It's like a second life".

Edited December 30, 2018 by Garnet Psaltery

[Cristiano Midnight]

8 minutes ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

The BBC recently ran an article on WoW which included a headline quote "It's like a second life".

That phrase "a second life" is used a lot, which also doesn't help. SL was always a terrible name.

[Oct Oyen]

11 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

One thing I've noticed as I've explored other virtual worlds lately like VRChat is that most people I've talked to have not even heard of Second Life. I'm sure that seems like an alien concept, but I don't think LL does a good job of marketing Second Life to new users.

SL is the 2nd result when Google "virtual world", 1st is wikipedia on virtual world. I think that's why LL doesn't do much if any marketing for SL.

SL is more like a 3D chatrooms than what most people think of virtual worlds. Almost all of communication are text based, people rarely use voice in local channel; which isn't a bad thing in some scenarios. But it's an odd "VR" experience for new comers when they find themselves in a popular sim where everyone just stands still because of lags and it's dead silence except for stream music.

11 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

That phrase "a second life" is used a lot, which also doesn't help. SL was always a terrible name.

The topic of rebranding SL has been brought up many times, it's a no go for LL.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Oct Oyen

[KanryDrago]

10 minutes ago, Oct Oyen said:

SL is more like a 3D chatrooms than what most people think of virtual worlds. Almost all of communication are text based, people rarely use voice in local channel; which isn't a bad thing in some scenarios. But it's an odd "VR" experience for new comers when they find themselves in a popular sim where everyone just stands still because of lags and it's dead silence except for stream music.

Perhaps stop believing your sl experience is the same as for the rest of us. You also claimed you never meet genuinely new people too

I use voice more than 50% of the time and also meet new to sl people all the time. Maybe you need to expand your horizons

Edited December 30, 2018 by KanryDrago

[Oct Oyen]

13 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

One thing I've noticed as I've explored other virtual worlds lately like VRChat is that most people I've talked to have not even heard of Second Life.

Never heard of VRChat until you mentioned and just spent an hour there without VR goggles. It's pretty awesome. Thanks Cristiano!

[Pixels Sideways]

On 12/27/2018 at 12:32 AM, animats said:

Well, the Sinespace people bolted in-world editing onto their system last summer.

Sinespace has this working. Linden Labs needs to catch up.

 

It looks like a very cool mesh model editing system.  However it apparently only works with windows PC's, not Macs per the text at the end of the video.

[Pixels Sideways]

On 12/28/2018 at 10:29 AM, animats said:

Yes. When I'm working on mesh, I'm logged into SL on the beta grid in an empty sandbox sim, not working in the world that has users. Building should be more of a social experience. New Babbage people speak of the days when watching others build was a major form of entertainment there. Also, you can't build cooperatively. A collaboration between a texture artist and a structure designer can be fruitful, but we don't have that option in real time.

Blender is a pain. And I say this as someone who's used Autodesk Inventor to design parts and then made them on a CNC milling machine. While SL needs in-world building, it should look more like SketchUp or Archimatrix than Blender.

I have the 9-page Blender hotkey guide on my desk. Unfortunately, the Blender 2.36 hotkey guide, rather than one for Blender 2.79, because the Blender user interface changes with each release and thus most tutorials and question answers are out of date.

Sandboxes are still places to build collectively.  There are private and public sandboxes, premium membership sandboxes and LEA has a public group sandbox which a lot of folks use to create things individually and collaboratively.  

For creating mesh content, check out the Mesh Generator (you can find it on MP) -- it's an inworld tool that that allows you to use inworld building prims then it converts them to a mesh dae file which you download to your computer then upload the mesh model into SL.  You can texture up to 8 faces/materials as well.  It has add-ons for different shapes too.  By no means is it equal to Blender or pro modeling software but it's a great interim inworld tool to create mesh content while learning 3D modeling programs.  It's not cheap but for me was worth the investment especially to whip out simple mesh elements.   I've seen some amazing work people have created with it.

[femhalf]

On 12/22/2018 at 9:56 PM, Bree Giffen said:

SL needs a reboot. Not a Sansar reboot but an SL reboot. Some might say that SL has already made a huge leap in the past few years. Everything made out of prims and system avatars have changed to mesh produced with outside programs. That's quite a sea change. The problem still remains that SL is too complicated. There are just too many mouse clicks needed to do things. There are a lot of tutorials but a good design needs to be intuitive. The mesh rebirth seems to show that SL can survive a reboot. This idea needs something more though. It needs all the building tools to be built into the viewer again. An easy to use 3d -creation tool built into SL with animation, sound and scripting. I think that's asking a bit much of LL though. 

The closest thing to a reboot currently, is High Fidelity.  The last time i checked, it has almost all the freedoms as SL does.  The lack of content creators is a major problem though.  The ones in SL do not want to migrate yet, if ever.  There's also the clunky UI and frustrating creator pipeline that gives creators pause, so i can understand why they are hesitant.  Their blockchain model is also another factor, as well as their currency and marketplace.  Not many creators are willing to abandon an established process for a different model.

The next best thing is Sansar, but it is has a lot more restrictions than either SL or Hi Fi, specifically adult content, which is probably a deal-breaker for many SL users.

I seriously doubt Linden Labs would create a sequel to Second Life after putting so many resources and work into Sansar.

SL users need to make a choice when the inevitable arrives.  Migrate to another platform, such as Opensim, Sansar or Hi Fi, or stay until the bitter end when SL finally shuts down.

edit:  oops, i forgot to mention Sinespace.  That's another alternative and probably the closest thing to SL besides opensim.  It also has one of the worst UI's i have ever used.

Edited December 31, 2018 by femhalf

[KanryDrago]

3 hours ago, femhalf said:

 

SL users need to make a choice when the inevitable arrives.  Migrate to another platform, such as Opensim, Sansar or Hi Fi, or stay until the bitter end when SL finally shuts down.

edit:  oops, i forgot to mention Sinespace.  That's another alternative and probably the closest thing to SL besides opensim.  It also has one of the worst UI's i have ever used.

SL will undoubtedly outlive Sansar, opensim and hi fi have been around quite a while and have failed to gain traction. The labs won't be closing down SL anytime soon as it still makes them a lot of money. The only thing that does as Sansar is a bottomless pit of money sucking