Second Life® is still a world of opportunities.

[Vivienne Schell]

22 hours ago, Trail Lauridsen said:

It's like LL has given up on SL and just want to extort as much money from the last remaining online people as possible until they announce that SL will no longer be available and pull the plug completely.

Maybe if the  Sansar plan would work. But it does not for many reasons. If LL pulls the plug of SL now, LL would be forced to shut down, due to a lack of any sellable product. This won´t happen anytime soon. SL still is doing very well in it´s niche and makes enough money to justify it´s existance. But decisions need to be made on the top level, as soon as possible, or SL will drown along with Sansar - and LL.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Vivienne Schell

[Luna Bliss]

17 hours ago, animats said:

If Epic (Fortnite, UE4) decides to enter this market.....       CEO of Epic, Tim Sweeney

Thanks for that...I've been researching his plans and it seems the MetaVerse is already underway!   His plans sound so much better than Zuckerbergs, envisioning the MetaVerse as an open place with less control by corporations.

I had no idea Fortnite was that huge, and that it had become a place to socialize too, and build in their Creative game spinoff that allows game building, tied to Unreal & Unity.

I'm not sure if it's competition for SL though, at least not now.....  SL has a uniqueness unlike Fortnite & Creative, but I guess it depends on  the ability of SL to attract new users and what happens as the MetaVerse evolves.

[animats]

20 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Thanks for that...I've been researching his plans and it seems the Metaverse is already underway!   His plans sound so much better than Zuckerbergs, envisioning the Metaverse as an open place with less control by corporations.

Here's his 2019 SIGGRAPH talk. (Audio).

It's impressive. Here's his vision of the Metaverse:

• Intro - proposes the openness of Open Simulator.
• File formats (8-12 minutes in) - discusses the needs for file format standardization so creators and platforms are compatible.
• Federated identities, social graphs, ownership of virtual objects, appearance as open standards.
• "The Metaverse is not an app store". "You can carry yourself, your avatar, across virtual worlds".
• "One single huge shared world".
• Standards for server to server communication.
• Federation model or decentralized model? Do servers need to be trusted? A blockchain? "A lot of it is scams". A blockchain is a decentralized model for storing data and proving ownership. Long discussion of this as an organizational issue and how it can be used to make this work without some central company being in charge. Current blockchains way too slow. "Federation now, decentralization later"? Watch that space. "You wouldn't find cooperation between servers to be a practical issue".
• Huge amount of user-generated content and user-written code. Like web, but web much simpler than Metaverse.
• Interoperability of user objects of different ownership and types".
• Ford introduces a new car, they're going to want to have it drive-able in the Metaverse.
• It's not about Facebook pages, it's not about advertising, it's about experiences.
• Every object should be able to interact safely with every other object. Ford car must be able to interact with Ducati motorcycle.
• Discussion of backwards compatibility of C++ classes. "Modular open-world evolution as a first class design consideration".
• "Completely seamless" shared world. "Not going to be single-threaded single C++". Erlang mentioned. Transactional integrity for sale transactions at least. Atomic transactions. "Transaction model at world scale". "Blockchain does this at a much lower frame rate". "A set of network protocols for negotiating between servers". "Intermediate programmer friendly programming". "Highest level could be a scripting language". "The big heavy-metal software is going to be written in C++".
• Autonomy where creators can make money from their works. Or creators won't create for it.
• "A rich and evolving set of economic models". App store model? Rejects ad-based model. Subscription model? Netflix model? Fortnite creator outfit referral model?
• Skeptical of no-recourse anonymous model (i.e. Bitcoin). Reputation model? Big problem on Amazon; you can buy reviews. "Whole sham economy around that".
• Federation and moderation. "All sorts of bad things being created". "Dangers of social platforms". Trolls, partisans, etc., not porn. This is because algorithms are driven by engagement and negative things generate engagement in social networks. Fortnite seems to have this solved. "It's not many to many in millions. It's short distance". Voice chat helps. It's short distance. It's more empathetic than text chat. Metaverse will have major advantage over other social media because of this.
• "The only way you ever see a commercial thing is if you decide to see it yourself". Non advertising based model.
• "Once a new entertainment experience is rejected, it tends not to come back"Barriers to success for a new start are huge. So migrate existing games to the Metaverse. Discusses how to drive existing games in the direction of the Metaverse incrementally. Epic starting to do this. Voice and video chat going a common format.
• If Fortnite and Minecraft agreed to support each other's avatars, you could have a persistent identity across games.
• Write game objects which would run in any game engine.
• "All these social experiences need some activity to drive them." "You and your actual friends hanging out together" and doing something.
• Questions.

[Sammy Huntsman]

 

6 minutes ago, animats said:

Here's his 2019 SIGGRAPH talk. (Audio).

It's impressive. Here's his vision of the Metaverse:

• Intro - proposes the openness of Open Simulator.
• File formats (8-12 minutes in) - discusses the needs for file format standardization so creators and platforms are compatible.
• Federated identities, social graphs, ownership of virtual objects, appearance as open standards.
• "The Metaverse is not an app store". "You can carry yourself, your avatar, across virtual worlds".
• "One single huge shared world".
• Standards for server to server communication.
• Federation model or decentralized model? Do servers need to be trusted? A blockchain? "A lot of it is scams". A blockchain is a decentralized model for storing data and proving ownership. Long discussion of this as an organizational issue and how it can be used to make this work without some central company being in charge. Current blockchains way too slow. "Federation now, decentralization later"? Watch that space. "You wouldn't find cooperation between servers to be a practical issue".
• Huge amount of user-generated content and user-written code. Like web, but web much simpler than Metaverse.
• Interoperability of user objects of different ownership and types".
• Ford introduces a new car, they're going to want to have it drive-able in the Metaverse.
• It's not about Facebook pages, it's not about advertising, it's about experiences.
• Every object should be able to interact safely with every other object. Ford car must be able to interact with Ducati motorcycle.
• Discussion of backwards compatibility of C++ classes. "Modular open-world evolution as a first class design consideration".
• "Completely seamless" shared world. "Not going to be single-threaded single C++". Erlang mentioned. Transactional integrity for sale transactions at least. Atomic transactions. "Transaction model at world scale". "Blockchain does this at a much lower frame rate". "A set of network protocols for negotiating between servers". "Intermediate programmer friendly programming". "Highest level could be a scripting language". "The big heavy-metal software is going to be written in C++".
• Autonomy where creators can make money from their works. Or creators won't create for it.
• "A rich and evolving set of economic models". App store model? Rejects ad-based model. Subscription model? Netflix model? Fortnite creator outfit referral model?
• Skeptical of no-recourse anonymous model (i.e. Bitcoin). Reputation model? Big problem on Amazon; you can buy reviews. "Whole sham economy around that".
• Federation and moderation. "All sorts of bad things being created". "Dangers of social platforms". Trolls, partisans, etc., not porn. This is because algorithms are driven by engagement and negative things generate engagement in social networks. Fortnite seems to have this solved. "It's not many to many in millions. It's short distance". Voice chat helps. It's short distance. It's more empathetic than text chat. Metaverse will have major advantage over other social media because of this.
• "The only way you ever see a commercial thing is if you decide to see it yourself". Non advertising based model.
• "Once a new entertainment experience is rejected, it tends not to come back"Barriers to success for a new start are huge. So migrate existing games to the Metaverse. Discusses how to drive existing games in the direction of the Metaverse incrementally. Epic starting to do this. Voice and video chat going a common format.
• If Fortnite and Minecraft agreed to support each other's avatars, you could have a persistent identity across games.
• Write game objects which would run in any game engine.
• "All these social experiences need some activity to drive them." "You and your actual friends hanging out together" and doing something.
• Questions.

My biggest issue here and I have more issues with this whole thing. Censored Speech, like you see in certain games. So would this algorithm block out certain words, and other things. I try my best to self censor myself here, but in world. I usually do drop a few cuss words. When you talk about algorithms, are you talking about YouTube based Self Learning AI, or something entirely different?

Another big issue is with the whole creator thing, are we gonna start seeing heavy regulations towards creators?

Since you seem to refer to Fortnite and Minecraft a lot. What will define a metaverse perse? Are we gonna define any sort of online interactions, like say on Elder Scrolls online to GTA online as a metaverse?

To my last point, how are you gonna push for people in these worlds to "do something"? Will this mean that social interaction be required?

 

Look I have a lot of issues with this, as there are some metaverses that are geared towards kids, and this means that creators would have to be very careful with what they put out. Which stifles creative freedom, not enhances it. In a perfect world, this would work. But this world ain't perfect, and with the whole fiasco with YouTube, I am kinda weary on this approach.

[animats]

5 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

My biggest issue here and I have more issues with this whole thing. Censored Speech, like you see in certain games...

I'm summarizing a talk by the CEO of Epic Games above. Those aren't my opinions. You can listen to the audio of the talk yourself.

[Luna Bliss]

6 hours ago, animats said:

Here's his 2019 SIGGRAPH talk. (Audio).

It's impressive. Here's his vision of the Metaverse:

• Intro - proposes the openness of Open Simulator.
• File formats (8-12 minutes in) - discusses the needs for file format standardization so creators and platforms are compatible.
• Federated identities, social graphs, ownership of virtual objects, appearance as open standards.
• "The Metaverse is not an app store". "You can carry yourself, your avatar, across virtual worlds".
• "One single huge shared world".
• Standards for server to server communication.
• Federation model or decentralized model? Do servers need to be trusted? A blockchain? "A lot of it is scams". A blockchain is a decentralized model for storing data and proving ownership. Long discussion of this as an organizational issue and how it can be used to make this work without some central company being in charge. Current blockchains way too slow. "Federation now, decentralization later"? Watch that space. "You wouldn't find cooperation between servers to be a practical issue".
• Huge amount of user-generated content and user-written code. Like web, but web much simpler than Metaverse.
• Interoperability of user objects of different ownership and types".
• Ford introduces a new car, they're going to want to have it drive-able in the Metaverse.
• It's not about Facebook pages, it's not about advertising, it's about experiences.
• Every object should be able to interact safely with every other object. Ford car must be able to interact with Ducati motorcycle.
• Discussion of backwards compatibility of C++ classes. "Modular open-world evolution as a first class design consideration".
• "Completely seamless" shared world. "Not going to be single-threaded single C++". Erlang mentioned. Transactional integrity for sale transactions at least. Atomic transactions. "Transaction model at world scale". "Blockchain does this at a much lower frame rate". "A set of network protocols for negotiating between servers". "Intermediate programmer friendly programming". "Highest level could be a scripting language". "The big heavy-metal software is going to be written in C++".
• Autonomy where creators can make money from their works. Or creators won't create for it.
• "A rich and evolving set of economic models". App store model? Rejects ad-based model. Subscription model? Netflix model? Fortnite creator outfit referral model?
• Skeptical of no-recourse anonymous model (i.e. Bitcoin). Reputation model? Big problem on Amazon; you can buy reviews. "Whole sham economy around that".
• Federation and moderation. "All sorts of bad things being created". "Dangers of social platforms". Trolls, partisans, etc., not porn. This is because algorithms are driven by engagement and negative things generate engagement in social networks. Fortnite seems to have this solved. "It's not many to many in millions. It's short distance". Voice chat helps. It's short distance. It's more empathetic than text chat. Metaverse will have major advantage over other social media because of this.
• "The only way you ever see a commercial thing is if you decide to see it yourself". Non advertising based model.
• "Once a new entertainment experience is rejected, it tends not to come back"Barriers to success for a new start are huge. So migrate existing games to the Metaverse. Discusses how to drive existing games in the direction of the Metaverse incrementally. Epic starting to do this. Voice and video chat going a common format.
• If Fortnite and Minecraft agreed to support each other's avatars, you could have a persistent identity across games.
• Write game objects which would run in any game engine.
• "All these social experiences need some activity to drive them." "You and your actual friends hanging out together" and doing something.
• Questions.

Let's hope we get to experience it before the U.S. burns up and floods out     

[OptimoMaximo]

3 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Let's hope we get to experience it before the U.S. burns up and floods out

If Epic games starts doing something, you'll see it released in a reasonable amount of time and in a good working order. It's Epic we're talking about, not LindenLab

[Kyrah Abattoir]

A metaverse without adult content is not a mataverse worth having -_-.

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

A metaverse without adult content is not a mataverse worth having -_-.

It sounds like there would be tonnes of rules and regulations that would totally ruin it. And then the bigger issue, that still has me bugged. It would probably redefine the whole idea of metaverse.  I don't think that people in SL, would want to play with Fortnite, Minecraft, PUBG or any other online universe players. This is why we have all those separated, so we can enjoy our time from these other games. That and having a much more heavily regulated currency, using bitcoin and some sort of blockchain. I don't think that would be economically smart. Each of these games, has their own economy. Merging them, would not really prove to be useful. So yeah, in conclusion. All of this, plus what you stated, would not be worth having.

[Luna Bliss]

13 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

17 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Let's hope we get to experience it before the U.S. burns up and floods out

If Epic games starts doing something, you'll see it released in a reasonable amount of time and in a good working order. It's Epic we're talking about, not LindenLab

Do you ever think that maybe we expect to much from LL though?   I mean they're a small company and not with a lot of funds really, especially when compared to something like Epic games..

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, halebore Aeon said:

Each of these games, has their own economy. Merging them, would not really prove to be useful.

Maybe the Metaverse would be like a 3d internet -- there would be greater communication between all the facets in the same way we can go from website to website, but within this type of scenario there could still be walled-off games or spaces like SL.

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you ever think that maybe we expect to much from LL though?   I mean they're a small company and not with a lot of funds really, especially when compared to something like Epic games..

I honestly think as humans, we expect a lot out of a lot of companies RL. You can also see it starting to leak to SL now too. Whatever happened to people being patient, and waiting for that next piece of techhnology? In SL, whatever happened to people being patient and waiting for that new outfit from your favourite store? Or even your favourite accesory, hair, skin etc. Basically it comes down to, consumers want results right away. Doesn't even matter if there is bugs in them. When they get it, they will complain that there are bugs, or that it's crappy. Well it's kind of our fault, because we expect too much too soon, you get what they can do in that short amount of time.

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

Maybe the Metaverse would be like a 3d internet -- there would be greater communication between all the facets in the same way we can go from website to website, but within this type of scenario there could still be walled-off games or spaces like SL.

I can see where you are coming from. But you gotta think about it, from what I read one of the points, is a joint economy, or a much heavier regulated system. Think of it like YouTube's algorithms. Although it sounds awesome on paper, or in thought. Would be be absolutely beneficial for everyone?

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

because we expect too much too soon

I agree, this very much seems to be the age of the spoiled consumer...

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Luna Bliss said:

I agree, this very much seems to be the age of the spoiled consumer...

This is why in SL, you are starting to see quality dwindling with a lot of creators. Tis the age of the event, and well with creators pumping out new items practically every week to meet a deadline. Unless the consumer smartens up and realizes, that hey I would rather have quality over quantity. Then we will start to see an implosion on the event scene, and maybe even the creator scene as a whole.

[Luna Bliss]

6 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

I can see where you are coming from. But you gotta think about it, from what I read one of the points, is a joint economy, or a much heavier regulated system. Think of it like YouTube's algorithms. Although it sounds awesome on paper, or in thought. Would be be absolutely beneficial for everyone?

I don't know, I only know I like the Epic games guy who imagines the Metaverse better than I like Zuckerbergs fantasies.

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

I don't know, I only know I like the Epic games guy who imagines the Metaverse better than I like Zuckerbergs fantasies.

But just imagine this, having to share the space with other online games that are predominately kids. Like Minecraft, or even Fortnite. There would have to be some censorship, when it came to what you said. That and if you allow all those places to interlink, you are opening flood gates to some trolling, that you only see in those types of video games. So it's a catch 22, it sounds nice. But it would need to be heavily regulated due to 1 kids, and 2 how online games are structured and the people who play them. Imagine logging onto Second Life, and someone very toxic goes after you, or imagine that same idea from Fortnite to Minecraft. This wouldn't be mutually beneficial at all. Or better yet, imagine the behaviour(and I am saying the people who primarily grief premium members of Fallout 76 in SL) from people in Fallout 76 coming to SL. That is what I am more conce

rned about.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, halebore Aeon said:

you are opening flood gates to some trolling

There could still be some controls for all the various games in the same way we can't access every website or all parts of it without some controls the website owner places...the difference would be that we could have the same avatar, or our 'stuff' would work everywhere....since all would be speaking the same coding language..

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Luna Bliss said:

There could still be some controls for all the various games in the same way we can't access every website or all parts of it without some controls the website owner places...the difference would be that we could have the same avatar, or our 'stuff' would work everywhere....since all would be speaking the same coding language..

This is where the issue lies too. LL would have to totally build SL from the ground up, and unless they came up with a solution to allow creators/landowners in during the alpha or beta. Then people would have to invest 1000s of usd just to get their SL back on track. That would mean LL would lose a lot of customers as a whole if they did make us start from scratch.

 

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

This is where the issue lies too. LL would have to totally build SL from the ground up, and unless they came up with a solution to allow creators/landowners in during the alpha or beta. Then people would have to invest 1000s of usd just to get their SL back on track. That would mean LL would lose a lot of customers as a whole if they did make us start from scratch.

Well, I think we're talking about many many years into the future...a fun fantasy.  But yes, it does not seem it could work currently.

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well, I think we're talking about many many years into the future...a fun fantasy.  But yes, it does not seem it could work currently.

That is very true, but unless LL did this.

1.) they basically enabled amnesty for uploads, and gave some sort of discount on creators and landowners for the land they owned. Which would allow creators and landowners time to reestablish their businesses

2.) They gave creators early access to the new grid, so they had time to resetup before grand reopening

Yeah that would be a thing in a distant future, but that is just an idea that I want to put out there. If LL wants to update the engine running SL.

[OptimoMaximo]

43 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you ever think that maybe we expect to much from LL though?   I mean they're a small company and not with a lot of funds really, especially when compared to something like Epic games..

Well, it's small compared to Epic, but their yearly revenue is more than enough to fund serious development. The fact is that they want the net to stay untouched and not invest, paying the least amount in devs salaries for the least amount of work time and the least amount of effort. Basically they want to reap a field of corn using 1 seed. 

[DeviL125]

Second Life still has much more potential than sansar ever will because it is further developed. A price hike is the OPPOSITE of what they should be doing. I have been saying for years the ONLY thing LL needs to do in order to revitalize Second Life is reduce land prices at the root and a bit the cost of Linden$. Allowing the development of sims again. I myself am a builder of Roleplay sims and a bit of a content creator (though I don't release enough because I am never satisfied with my work lol) What I see continuously from people I know in world is they just can't afford to have the home they want, they can't really exist anywhere affordably for a hobby or game... and for us sim owners the cost of a sim is like that of a real life apartment, with very little likelihood we will get any return from that unless we are simply content creators selling things massively (which there aren't enough players to buy unless you are a long time established vendor) Roleplay much like the world of the sims is the CORE of Second Life, it is why we dress up, buy furniture, build homes, create characters. The expense at the beginning of the line, the land.. and the cost of L$ puts a huge damper on this. MOST "players" of second life are not content creators. In this case it is a better marketing choice on LL's part to sell quantity.. rather than selling to a few for higher profit margins. FINALLY there are more and more people capable of running this virtual world smoothly with better PC and Network technology... and now LL is giving people the shaft.

[Minthel OHare]

On 11/23/2019 at 6:43 PM, MarissaOrloff said:

..... max fee of $500usd essentially giving them a transaction discount. Then again only very few can achieve that.

I certainly not in that "few" group but I didnt know about that, trying to figure out actually, how can I learn more about that . 500$ is fee amount I suppose, so thats %10 of profit, and  to get that discount , one can earn at least 5000$ ?