So I found this funny article complaining about Second Life

[Bree Giffen]

Maybe an automatic graphics detail adjuster in the viewer that turns down the detail settings when the viewer detects low frame rates and turns it back up in less demanding environments. It would have a little text pop up when the graphics are being changed. I think it's too much to ask new people to do this manually. I think this feature would knock out a lot of complaints of how bad SL is.

[Selene Gregoire]

2 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

The first ten items seem a bit more spot on than the ridiculous complaint about not being able to swim. 1 & 10 and 3 & 4 are the same complaint, but come on, is there anyone who has played SL for more than a few minutes in the last ten years who disagrees with: "Horrible optimization. The game lags even on modern PCs, most notably when there are a lot of effects on-screen. It also crashes at various points in the game for no reason. In fact, the optimization is worse than Garry's Mod."

Me. I've always had to use a potato to be in SL for almost 15 years. (Started out on a Gateway 386.) Yet, I don't have near the issues those with up to date gaming rigs do. In fact I have practically zero issues compared to some I've seen with top of the line gaming rigs. And I'm the one who is supposed to be stupid and don't know what I'm doing or talking about. 

[Amina Sopwith]

This is quite a good one.

https://digg.com/2018/second-life-in-2018 

[Selene Gregoire]

I wonder if I am the only one to ever notice that most of the "articles" that bash SL are written by people who admit to trolling in SL. To me, that says more about the ones writing the "SL sucks articles" than SL.

[Amina Sopwith]

11 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I wonder if I am the only one to ever notice that most of the "articles" that bash SL are written by people who admit to trolling in SL. To me, that says more about the ones writing the "SL sucks articles" than SL.

I didn't take this as an "SL sucks" article; yes, he gently pokes a bit of fun, but he does note that a lot of people have found it very good for making connections and that it's enjoyable. It wasn't so much the mild trolling that I thought was interesting as much as how SL seems to someone who did have a bit of experience of it at the beginning when it was quite prominent and then comes to it now (well, May last year - don't think too much has changed since then), even trying to seek out well-known users for interview.

I liked his thoughts on the parallels between real and virtual social/commercial spaces and what's happened to them both in recent years. I also liked the point about SL, despite being a world where you can be literally anything, so often being a "normative reality"; stairs in a world where everyone can fly. I don't think he meant that to be derogatory; there is obviously nothing wrong with people using their SL that way, and I have done myself. It's just interesting.
 

[Selene Gregoire]

42 minutes ago, Amina Sopwith said:

I didn't take this as an "SL sucks" article; yes, he gently pokes a bit of fun, but he does note that a lot of people have found it very good for making connections and that it's enjoyable. It wasn't so much the mild trolling that I thought was interesting as much as how SL seems to someone who did have a bit of experience of it at the beginning when it was quite prominent and then comes to it now (well, May last year - don't think too much has changed since then), even trying to seek out well-known users for interview.

I liked his thoughts on the parallels between real and virtual social/commercial spaces and what's happened to them both in recent years. I also liked the point about SL, despite being a world where you can be literally anything, so often being a "normative reality"; stairs in a world where everyone can fly. I don't think he meant that to be derogatory; there is obviously nothing wrong with people using their SL that way, and I have done myself. It's just interesting.
 

One of the people he claimed to have tried to contact is someone I have known for many years. Cristiano had good reason for not responding but it's not my place to say what the reason(s) were. And when you think about it, how would one of us react to getting an email from a complete stranger asking for an interview? After what Cristiano was put through I can't say I blame him for not responding.

The author isn't the only one who left SL for many years and then came back. I left for 5 years and only came back a year ago and I've had been in SL since 2004.

I don't know. Maybe I am reading too much into it. I did read that same article some time ago and my reaction to it this time was no different than the first time. It just strikes me as being snooty even with the good things that were said. I'm not saying it wasn't an interesting read, it was. It just feels more like SL bashing than anything else, to me. It gets really old after awhile because there has been so much of that sort of thing written by people who really don't know the first thing about SL and expect it to be just another MMO game, when that couldn't be further from the reality. Yes, he did say that SL isn't a game, per se, but then proceeded to do just like all the others I've read and by the time it gets to the "good" parts, it was already too late. If I had been someone who has never been in SL and didn't know anything about it, the article would have put me off SL completely.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[animats]

The swim problem is kind of sad. A few weeks ago I was in Bay City, and a one-day old couple were trying to use a kayak in the Bay City canals. That's a nice way to go around SL. They were having a terrible time with control, though, and kept hitting the walls. The kayak had them doing a paddle animation, but with no paddles, probably because they didn't know how to attach them.

Then one of the couple gave up, and stood. She then sank to the bottom of the canal and couldn't get out. I watched her struggle for a while, and then I IM'd "push PAGE UP". So she did, flew upward, hit the underside of a bridge, and couldn't maneuver out of there because she was now trapped by the bridge girders. Finally she got out, but not gracefully.

This is when you realize that the SL defaults for new users could be better. Maybe the default AO should include swimming. And the Bay City canals should have stairs or a walkway along the sides, like real urban canals usually do. There really is no realistic way to get out of that situation, and that's bad game design.

[Mollymews]

53 minutes ago, animats said:

This is when you realize that the SL defaults for new users could be better. Maybe the default AO should include swimming

i agree

a thing about the new starter avatar AO is that it is hidden.  It is not apparent to the user that they are wearing a AO.  There have been any number of new people who have gone on to obtain another AO, wear it, and don't know why their avatar doesn't animate as they expect, it appears to be conflicted in some unknown to them way.  They just have to know, which they don't without research or another person telling them, to take off the starter AO

i think the starter AO should be a HUD so is apparent for the new person. And as you mention should include swim animations. Swimming in the oceans, like flying in the sky, is a cool thing to discover

[ItHadToComeToThis]

Ohhhh it’s a wannabe Less funny encyclopaedia dramatica clone. Gotcha

[cheesecurd]

We all know the real competition, the best social avatar game, was the Sims Online.

I think the author may have liked that better.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

well that was unexpected 🧻, why are we not giving non 🙀 furries  money just because they want it?  Seems we could be doing a better job of this..  🤑 🤔

 

 

but I agree with this statement. " It's also dangerously addictive. "

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 10/29/2019 at 9:10 PM, animats said:

The swim problem is kind of sad. A few weeks ago I was in Bay City, and a one-day old couple were trying to use a kayak in the Bay City canals. That's a nice way to go around SL. They were having a terrible time with control, though, and kept hitting the walls. The kayak had them doing a paddle animation, but with no paddles, probably because they didn't know how to attach them.

Then one of the couple gave up, and stood. She then sank to the bottom of the canal and couldn't get out. I watched her struggle for a while, and then I IM'd "push PAGE UP". So she did, flew upward, hit the underside of a bridge, and couldn't maneuver out of there because she was now trapped by the bridge girders. Finally she got out, but not gracefully.

This is when you realize that the SL defaults for new users could be better. Maybe the default AO should include swimming. And the Bay City canals should have stairs or a walkway along the sides, like real urban canals usually do. There really is no realistic way to get out of that situation, and that's bad game design.

it's there a walk through when they join that teaches them how to maneuver?

[Drayke Newall]

I think the article was an interesting read (seems like I was the only one who thought that) and whilst yes some of the points are just meh... it is still good feedback for LL to look at to see where they could improve. Lets face it at least they wrote something with points instead of the usual tripe we get of "This game sucks" or "5 mins of playing its all just sex". 

It also is interesting to see his first point stating "The developers, as it is said above, are incredibly lazy." If this is what is being picked up on from a new or returning user, it should be ringing alarm bells. When it is all said and done, in some ways this is true or to put it another way the developers ignore simple things that should be in SL already by default almost like tunnel vision.

Many posts here talk about him being a noob by not realising that you need a hud to swim... I mean come on, give it some thought. Second Life is 18 years old and yet you still need a user created hud to swim in Linden Water? Not only could Linden Lab easily just implement it into the default AO but it would also remove a lag creating HUD from the viewer screen and create a new aspect to many RP areas and other features within the space. I get that LL have the mentality of Your World, Your Imagination, but there are some things that still boggle the mind as to why they haven't been implemented. Would also be nice to be able to create voids in Linden Water for underground buildings with internal spaces, but perhaps that is to much 😝.

Quote

Lindens are incredibly hard to obtain without real money and only by unofficial means. Even something as owning your own land costs money.

This, I think, is also an interesting point to highlight. One, it shows that Linden Lab need to do far more to ensure that new users know about places like Linden Realms, and also secondly shows that with the modern gaming environment and newer generations it has indeed become important to have a secondary avenue of earning the inworld currency in some other way at least in the early stages of SL. Sure you can earn money by creating things or d'ing etc, however more and more restrictions are being put on these and any new user would consider these 'end game'.

Quote

Some clothes are incompatible with the newer avatars. However, the game doesn't tell you anywhere how to change to the older ones, so you might end up purchasing an incompatible item

Another infamous point raised all the time and hopefully somewhat will be fixed with BoM. That said I do think it may be time for Linden Lab to step in and perhaps remove the default system body if they are not going to update it and just provide a better bento enabled body and head mesh overlay. The fact LL offer mesh overlay bodies as default now at account creation while hiding the older system body should say it all.

Quote

It's also dangerously addictive.

I Lol'ed

[Drayke Newall]

On 10/30/2019 at 12:46 PM, Mollymews said:

i think the starter AO should be a HUD so is apparent for the new person. And as you mention should include swim animations. Swimming in the oceans, like flying in the sky, is a cool thing to discover

Why should it be a laggy hud or take up precious screen real estate?

Wouldn't it be better for the Second Life Viewer or TPV's to introduce a feature where you buy an animation, right click it in the inventory and select add to AO? Whereby, it automatically sorts it into the correct viewer AO area (i.e. a stand) because a new feature is implemented where animations are made to have a flag set to them that identifies them as to what animation they are? (Stand, Walk, Run, Sit, Swim, Gesture, etc.)

That is the mentality the developers should have in looking forward. Improving the user experience, not keeping old systems where you have to buy a hud, drag it on the ground, take the animations out or put them in, edit a notecard and then take it to the inventory and wear it again then get pop-ups saying "x HUD is script heavy and may lag the viewer" every time you log in.

[Theresa Tennyson]

20 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Another infamous point raised all the time and hopefully somewhat will be fixed with BoM. That said I do think it may be time for Linden Lab to step in and perhaps remove the default system body if they are not going to update it and just provide a better bento enabled body and head mesh overlay. The fact LL offer mesh overlay bodies as default now at account creation while hiding the older system body should say it all.

It's been years since they've done that.

[Drayke Newall]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

It's been years since they've done that.

Are you saying they use the default system avatar now or something? I don't quite understand what you mean... or maybe I didn't explain it correct.

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Are you saying they use the default system avatar now or something?

Yes.

[Drayke Newall]

2 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Yes.

Well then I feel sorry even more for the new user then and am speechless. Not only are they stuck with a badly made system body with numerous weighting issues, badly made male body etc, but limited in almost all clothing options etc.

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 10/28/2019 at 9:18 PM, PropaneNightmares said:

Check it out. https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/Second_Life

Interesting nugget if you dig down into the page history - the original first entry in the list was:

1. It was in development hell for nearly 14 years, even more than Duke Nukem Forever. For a lot of years the project was thought to be dead because of little support.

Eventually someone edited it out because it simply had no connection to reality but that's where "stable and early release" line probably came from.

[Mollymews]

59 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Why should it be a laggy hud or take up precious screen real estate?

Wouldn't it be better for the Second Life Viewer or TPV's to introduce a feature where you buy an animation, right click it in the inventory and select add to AO?

yes it would be better, As it would be to have a lot of other types of HUD plugins built-in to the viewer with which the user can interact via the UI in a consistent way

for example, in another world (not SL) when we walk onto a dance floor, viewer pops up a viewer UI dialog with a list of animations, we can either close/ignore the dialog  or pick a dance.  From the dance floor builders pov, it is really easy to set up. Rez a dancefloor object, populate it with dance animations, set it to Active and done

my suggestion about the starter AO in SL, was because it doesn't require any development work. Instead of including a hidden AO in the outfit (as is done now). Make the AO visible to the new user

[Drayke Newall]

41 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

was because it doesn't require any development work.

Dance floor idea is really good and would be possible to do I would have thought under the same animation flag idea and some extra lines added to the LSL scripting. The problem comes in what I quoted from your post and reflects the same statement in the posted article in the OP that the development team comes across as lazy. I'm sure this isn't the case as there would be numerous unseen fixes etc done, however the feature upgrades to user retention, optimisation and UI friendliness are few and far between.

Certainly is interesting to see how other VW's do things differently and in some ways better.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Drayke Newall

[Drake1 Nightfire]

On 10/29/2019 at 7:21 AM, Coby Foden said:

Let's see...

Any chance of a little Fast Times At Ridgemont High scene?

[Pixie Kobichenko]

😂😂😂Not the one you wanted, but we had to keep it PG.  @Drake1 Nightfire

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Pixie Kobichenko

[Rob Huntsman]

Not sure how that is funny? This article is actually incredibly accurate, thus many others just play other video games. Due to reason three lag.

Perhaps take off those rose tinted glasses?

Edited November 1, 2019 by Haselden

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 10/29/2019 at 9:51 AM, Lyssa Greymoon said:

The first ten items seem a bit more spot on than the ridiculous complaint about not being able to swim. 1 & 10 and 3 & 4 are the same complaint, but come on, is there anyone who has played SL for more than a few minutes in the last ten years who disagrees with: "Horrible optimization. The game lags even on modern PCs, most notably when there are a lot of effects on-screen. It also crashes at various points in the game for no reason. In fact, the optimization is worse than Garry's Mod."

"All these oranges have skins. In fact, they're thicker than the ones on those tangerines."