Future of the metaverse, and all that

[Arielle Popstar]

22 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

According to Drayke Newall, not updating a page is a sign of LAZY.  Tell those gits over there at Open Simulator that you expect better of them.

If memory serves correct, the only reason it was updated to an official .91 release was because of my expectation/hounding them to do so. I promised myself to not do that again.

[Istelathis]

I wonder if SL were to go under, how many people would migrate over to OS.   

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Istelathis said:

I wonder if SL were to go under, how many people would migrate over to OS.   

0.001%

No "official" marketplace.

No "official" DMCA process.

No "official" exchange.

No "active" Governance.

You connect to who knows who's servers

etc.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Lucia Nightfire

[Sid Nagy]

15 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I wonder if SL were to go under, how many people would migrate over to OS.   

I can't speak for others, but if SL were to go under, I'm done with virtual worlds.
No way that I start somewhere all over again.

[Istelathis]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

I can't speak for others, but if SL were to go under, I'm done with virtual worlds.
No way that I start somewhere all over again.

I would still play MMORPGs, but I haven't found anything nearly as immersive as SL, especially when it comes to user generated content.  I don't think SL is going to go down anytime soon though, thankfully.  

[animats]

3 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well no, last update to trunk was today. Pay no mind to the latest stated stable as they are not updating that page much anymore. An alternative which many find better is here.

Oh, thanks. I haven't followed Open Simulator closely enough, and I really should. I just looked at the home page news.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

2 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

2 hours ago, Istelathis said:

I wonder if SL were to go under, how many people would migrate over to OS.   

0.001%

Oh in that case I'd go because it's exclusive.

[Ardy Lay]

2 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Oh in that case I'd go because it's exclusive.

Heh, yeah, sounds like it excludes the stuff that makes it real.

Not saying it can't be done, just saying $25 simulator hosts, soft databases and whatever OS Grid was using last time I tried them was a fun toy for a little while but the flimsy infrastructure and very short feature list kept getting in the way, at the time.  (It's been years.)  Also didn't help that most of the people I met were "Banned from Second Life" and proud of it.  Most, not all.

I didn't really try any of the other grids that were using Open Simulator.  I think it it was easy then everybody would be doing it, but, free things tend to collapse when the load exceeds the revenue.  Or wait, that's math.

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, animats said:

There's already Open Simulator. Last update 2019.

Really good idea, but like all the federated social networks, failed to take off.

Open sim is our Gimp. It's fine, really, totally fine ... oh look lets use literally anything else.

If Photoshop ever went open source, Gimp would implode over night.

SL is the same. For plan B to work, it HAS to be actual SL.

2 hours ago, Istelathis said:

I wonder if SL were to go under, how many people would migrate over to OS.   

A tiny percentage. 

[Drayke Newall]

7 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

According to Drayke Newall, not updating a page is a sign of LAZY.  Tell those gits over there at Open Simulator that you expect better of them.

🙄 No, not updating one page of release notes is not a sign of laziness when it is done elsewhere. Not updating an entire website and doing one or 2 pages is. Or did they just loose interest and say oh that's enough we updated the main page and premium page that's all that matters, right?

No company does a rebrand of their logo and replaces a logo on one page every 1 year, well except LL. This year we got an update to the logo on marketplace. Is next year going to be the Wiki? The forum topics? The Places directory? Maybe it will be the Support Page? Maybe, they secretly have a banned gacha machine and spin it every year to see what they get.

How about that update of experience tools to grid-wide they, you know, promised at experience tools release. Then it was promised again in 2018 SLB18 roadmap to be a premium feature... still waiting.

Speaking of premium...how about that promised update to Premium for more features back in 2018 or even the new premium tier that we were told they are working on, but you know, three years later... still waiting. Does the removal of actual support people to a bot count as a feature?

How about those improvements to marketplace mentioned back in 2018 to reduce clutter and give marketplace a facelift? 

How about the SL wiki that is the place people go to for how to do things in Second Life and where support sometimes send you to. Redundant pages and still shows as featured a one line article made back in 2015! Worse yet, says things like: "Please go to the simulator user group for questions related to pathfinding. Andrew, Maestro, Falcon, or Stinson Linden should be able to help you with any technical questions". Odd seeing as there is no such user group. Are those Lindens even around still? The transcripts are from 2012.

How about this wiki gem: "It is currently in development and will launch in early 2012". Perhaps this on the same topic: "When will Linden Lab provide more details on Direct Delivery? We will be opening up Direct Delivery on Aditi for Beta testing in December to all merchants, which we expect will answer a lot of users' questions regarding Direct Delivery."

That's odd. I am sure that direct delivery has been released by now. Maybe I am wrong after all that is one of the featured news. Can I attend this beta test this coming December?

If that isn't laziness then I dont know what is. The very fact that they cant be bothered to update things like this is not a great look for any potential users. The metaverse for second life can not take place until Linden Lab actually do something and start taking themselves seriously.

BTW for those wanting Linden Lab to release a road map they already have one. Why bother releasing a new one when the old one hasn't been completed yet: 

Now compare that to Roblox's roadmap here. That's just the developer one as well. Sure they have more staff but everything on their roadmap is almost complete for the year. 3 1/2 years later and Linden Lab haven't completed theirs yet. Despite their staff size all of that roadmap should have been completed by now. The definition of a roadmap is what is planned for release that year not for the next 10.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Moondira]

The laziest people are armchair analysts, slouching down in that comfy chair while enlightening us all.

[Quistess Alpha]

Tangentially relevant:

 

[Arielle Popstar]

20 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

0.001%

No "official" marketplace.

No "official" DMCA process.

No "official" exchange.

No "active" Governance.

You connect to who knows who's servers

etc.

and:

No "Linden Lab" telling you what you can or cannot have.

For a lot less money then it costs you for a region on S/L, you can have a whole grid exactly the way you want it. All the additional perks and features you have been wanting in S/L you can either code in yourself or find someone willing to do so. You can set it up as a closed garden or open to the hypergrid. Extra inworld building tools? There have been people there who have talked about the possibilities but just need someone motivated enough to start pushing for it. And it already has everything S/L has other than pathfinding which the devs chose not to include but animesh, bento and Bom are already included with the additional features of Varregions, NPC's, and Hypergrid to allow jumping to other grids for some additional social outlets.

Considering some of your recent posts expressing the understandable frustration with the Lab not moving anywhere fast with its roadmap, Opensim might be worth checking into.

[Ardy Lay]

Tell us why you are still here. Addressed to nobody in particular, but RANTS will follow saying you know who I am addressing.

I am still here because:

• I don't care about those mayhem games people are calling "the metaverse"
  • Roblox
  • Fortnight
  • etc
• I tried Open Simulator based OS Grid and a few others and found little of interest, except some of the builds, but I could not move around in SOME of them because the network response time was horrid.  In others the physics was not running and the only way to move was to teleport.  Oh, and on that note, teleporting was really slow on one grid, but reliable, and on another it was not slow but was very unreliable.  I had to resort to logging in to the desired destination.  Often that didn't work and I ended up at some other location.  I suppose I got what I paid for there.  About half of the people I met were flying a "Banned from Second Life" group title.  The other half seemed to busy doing something else as they were not doing anything noticeable in world, which felt very familiar.  😉  Oh, and I encountered places where I could pick up for free things I had paid for in Second Life.  I know some of it was legitimately placed there by the person that created it.
• I tried Open Simulator on my own hosts, that worked, mostly.  Some scripts I had written in SL would not work, probably something not implemented or implemented differently.  I didn't check because I assumed that would be something I would have to start over with.  Moving about was different.  Avatar walking and flying speeds were quite different from in SL.  Physics was, in general way different.  Building seemed okay.  Coalesced objects were nasty though.  Not sure what was going on there.  I suppose these things seemed weird because I had learned on Second Life.  Expecting Open Simulator to be just like Second Life was probably wrong.  I found a lot of content I could download and use however I wanted.  Uploads to my own little virtual world were free, but the power to run the servers was not.  If I try again I will be able to use more energy efficient hardware.  Only two people ever found my site to visit me.
• I was going to try Nebraska, but, the purchase price and maintenance costs were prohibitive.  An acquaintance that worked in an organization that was trialing Nebraska said it felt exactly like Second Life, except, it's too damn fast.  She attributed that to all software components being dedicated to their organization and in a single rack of host computers.  But, this would not be a public place anyway.
• Sansar provided some amusement but seemed very restrictive to a newcomer.  After having a text chat with some people at my point of entry I moved on then discovered that text chat was not available anywhere else!  (I am told that changed later.)  I wandered around trying to understand what some of the places were but what I found was like dioramas in glass jars.  Exploring was mostly catalog based.  I could not just walk or fly to other 'places'.  Again, not what I was accustomed to, but maybe not a fatal flaw.  I didn't get to try building or scripting.  Those seemed to be reserved.
•  
• The other "places" out there have not yet been visited by me.  Definitely not knocking them.  I haven't tried them!

Second Life has been exciting, frustrating, educational, boring, entertaining, disgusting, irritating ...   But you know what?  That's life.

I do hope for more from Linden Lab via Second Life but I really doubt blathering about it here has any effect.

[Quistess Alpha]

41 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

<list of OpenSim features>

You forgot the biggest one: Blatant piracy and entitled pirates: Never buy on Open Sim!

Edited September 16, 2021 by Quistess Alpha

[Arielle Popstar]

11 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

You forgot the biggest one: Blatant piracy and entitled pirates: Never buy on Open Sim!

Well no, the pirates and piracy is in S/L,  Opensim is just one of the dumping grounds for the content.

[Arielle Popstar]

26 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Tell us why you are still here. Addressed to nobody in particular, but RANTS will follow saying you know who I am addressing.

I am still here because:

• I don't care about those mayhem games people are calling "the metaverse"
  • Roblox
  • Fortnight
  • etc
• I tried Open Simulator based OS Grid and a few others and found little of interest, except some of the builds, but I could not move around in SOME of them because the network response time was horrid.  In others the physics was not running and the only way to move was to teleport.  Oh, and on that note, teleporting was really slow on one grid, but reliable, and on another it was not slow but was very unreliable.  I had to resort to logging in to the desired destination.  Often that didn't work and I ended up at some other location.  I suppose I got what I paid for there.  About half of the people I met were flying a "Banned from Second Life" group title.  The other half seemed to busy doing something else as they were not doing anything noticeable in world, which felt very familiar.  😉  Oh, and I encountered places where I could pick up for free things I had paid for in Second Life.  I know some of it was legitimately placed there by the person that created it.
• I tried Open Simulator on my own hosts, that worked, mostly.  Some scripts I had written in SL would not work, probably something not implemented or implemented differently.  I didn't check because I assumed that would be something I would have to start over with.  Moving about was different.  Avatar walking and flying speeds were quite different from in SL.  Physics was, in general way different.  Building seemed okay.  Coalesced objects were nasty though.  Not sure what was going on there.  I suppose these things seemed weird because I had learned on Second Life.  Expecting Open Simulator to be just like Second Life was probably wrong.  I found a lot of content I could download and use however I wanted.  Uploads to my own little virtual world were free, but the power to run the servers was not.  If I try again I will be able to use more energy efficient hardware.  Only two people ever found my site to visit me.
• I was going to try Nebraska, but, the purchase price and maintenance costs were prohibitive.  An acquaintance that worked in an organization that was trialing Nebraska said it felt exactly like Second Life, except, it's too damn fast.  She attributed that to all software components being dedicated to their organization and in a single rack of host computers.  But, this would not be a public place anyway.
• Sansar provided some amusement but seemed very restrictive to a newcomer.  After having a text chat with some people at my point of entry I moved on then discovered that text chat was not available anywhere else!  (I am told that changed later.)  I wandered around trying to understand what some of the places were but what I found was like dioramas in glass jars.  Exploring was mostly catalog based.  I could not just walk or fly to other 'places'.  Again, not what I was accustomed to, but maybe not a fatal flaw.  I didn't get to try building or scripting.  Those seemed to be reserved.
•  
• The other "places" out there have not yet been visited by me.  Definitely not knocking them.  I haven't tried them!

Second Life has been exciting, frustrating, educational, boring, entertaining, disgusting, irritating ...   But you know what?  That's life.

I do hope for more from Linden Lab via Second Life but I really doubt blathering about it here has any effect.

I started in S/L but during a chaotic period here when many bannings were taking place, I found Opensim and started playing with servers over there. It was more relaxed and easier to meet people and get help at that time. Took the occasional trip to S/L as it was like a trip to the big city, nice place to visit but couldn't afford to live here. Just the last couple years I rented a spot and log in regular while still maintaining a presence in Opensim. Each has their pro and cons.

Quote

I tried Open Simulator based OS Grid and a few others and found little of interest, except some of the builds, but I could not move around in SOME of them because the network response time was horrid.  In others the physics was not running and the only way to move was to teleport.  Oh, and on that note, teleporting was really slow on one grid, but reliable, and on another it was not slow but was very unreliable.  I had to resort to logging in to the desired destination.  Often that didn't work and I ended up at some other location.  I suppose I got what I paid for there.  About half of the people I met were flying a "Banned from Second Life" group title.  The other half seemed to busy doing something else as they were not doing anything noticeable in world, which felt very familiar.  😉  Oh, and I encountered places where I could pick up for free things I had paid for in Second Life.  I know some of it was legitimately placed there by the person that created it.

Back in 2010 there were a lot of banned S/L people coming to Opensim but majority did not stay long when they found a way to get back. Not sure what the deal was in S/L at the time but pretty sure I read of people getting caught in some sort of crossfire and getting the boot from here.

Quote

I tried Open Simulator on my own hosts, that worked, mostly.  Some scripts I had written in SL would not work, probably something not implemented or implemented differently.  I didn't check because I assumed that would be something I would have to start over with.  Moving about was different.  Avatar walking and flying speeds were quite different from in SL.  Physics was, in general way different.  Building seemed okay.  Coalesced objects were nasty though.  Not sure what was going on there.  I suppose these things seemed weird because I had learned on Second Life.  Expecting Open Simulator to be just like Second Life was probably wrong.  I found a lot of content I could download and use however I wanted.  Uploads to my own little virtual world were free, but the power to run the servers was not.  If I try again I will be able to use more energy efficient hardware.  Only two people ever found my site to visit me.

2-3 years ago the lead Opensim dev added another script engine option as well as a physics engine that is much more compatible with S/L and if one has access to the server code, some physic functions can be tweaked to personal preferences. Personally I find no real difference on the physics side but only know by reports from others that the scripting is much closer than it used to be.

There are external sites that allow one to place a beacon on their regions to announce a region is up and how many on it like here. Still nowhere near the resources S/L has for finding content and people but quite a bit better than it used to be and combined with the server code app by Ferd, it is pretty easy for newer people to setup a self hosted, hypergrid enabled grid without too much trouble. To Opensim people, the metaverse is already here regardless what Roblox and Fortnight are planning for some time in the distant future. So for me, should S/L ever close its doors, I would just continue on without it and revert back to all Opensim.

[Istelathis]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Still nowhere near the resources S/L has for finding content and people but quite a bit better than it used to be and combined with the server code app by Ferd, it is pretty easy for newer people to setup a self hosted, hypergrid enabled grid without too much trouble.

Dreamgrid is nice, I have it running on an older laptop.  Fred recently implemented smart start which makes it easy to have a lot of different regions on your grid, it is like how Kitely starts their regions when you teleport in.  It is nice having several regions available for me at any time, with no cost involved.  There is a ton of content out there, especially from dreamgrid to use.  I have the old slum city in one region, with a zombie game running that I designed, then a huge open area just for sailing on a boat I purchased from Kitely, plus I have a fantasy themed forested area.. not to mention the freebie malls provided by dreamgrid, then also a farm.  I also have Hypergrid enabled, and like exploring different people's regions.  They rarely are populated though, but still it is fun to check them out. I know there are activities that are scheduled though, I just like large random gatherings which are more predominate in SL.  

SL is my favorite though, it feels more refined there is always something going on, the market place has more to offer, it feels more alive.  Plus, I like the mainland too much, I enjoy driving along the roads and exploring everyone's creations.. plus boating while often a lag fest in SL, is more enjoyable due to the same reason, there is a lot to see and it is always changing.  Plus I have yet to find a decent fishing system in OS. The only thing I really like about OS over SL, is the free land.. well that and NPCs are a nice addition for gaming.  

I wonder if SL were to ever go open source, if people could likewise run servers on their own computers and if so how they would curb piracy.  I think if it were as a last ditch effort, it would retain a lot of people, but content creators would not be too pleased I'm sure.  

Edited September 16, 2021 by Istelathis

[animats]

To move forward, Linden Lab needs more developers.

Here's the current list of open Linden Lab jobs for Second Life.

• Customer Account Specialist, Second Life
• Customer Support Representative
• Senior Product Manager, Second Life

None of those involve software development.

Here's the current list of  open Roblox jobs in engineering only: (Product, art, operations, administration, finance, etc. not listed.)

•    Senior ML Engineer - Bots & Spam
•     Backend Engineer - Global Infra
•     Build Engineer - Game Engine Core Systems
•     C++ CORE Software Engineer
•     Client Platform IT Engineer
•     Computational Geometry Software Engineer - C++
•     Computer Graphics Engineer, Avatar Emotion
•     Continuous Deployment Platform Engineer
•     Deep Learning Engineer, Avatar Emotion
•     DevOps Engineer
•     DevOps Software Engineer, Studio
•     Engineering Manager - Application Platform
•     Engineering Manager - Big Data Infrastructure Team
•     Engineering Manager - Economy
•     Engineering Manager - Game Engine Languages
•     Engineering Manager - Game Engine Systems
•     Engineering Manager - Native Foundation
•     Engineering Manager - Roblox Studio
•     Engineering Manager - Studio SDLC
•     Engineering Manager, Native Foundation - Services
•     Engineering Manager, Social Communications
•     Engineering Manager, Storage Platform (Cache)
•     Engineering Manager- Microservice Platform
•     Engineering Manager- Microservice Platform
•     Frontend Engineer - Developer Services
•     Gameplay Automation/QA Engineer
•     InfoSec - Security Software Engineer
•     InfoSec - Systems Security Engineer
•     Lead Analytical Data Engineer
•     Lead Gameplay Engineer - Reference team
•     Machine Learning Technical Director - Game Engine
•     Network Capacity Engineer
•     Network Operations Engineer
•     Platform Engineer, Global Infra
•     Principal Backend Engineer, Avatar Core Services
•     Principal Backend Engineer-Avatar Marketplace
•     Principal FE Engineer, Co-Experience
•     Principal Front-End Software Engineer - Trust & Safety
•     Principal Graphics Engineer, Avatar Emotion
•     Principal ML Software Engineer - Game Engine Security
•     Principal Software Engineer
•     Principal Software Engineer - App Experience
•     Principal Software Engineer - Application Platform
•     Principal Software Engineer - Cloud Platform
•     Principal Software Engineer - Data Access
•     Principal Software Engineer - Growth Core
•     Principal Software Engineer - Matchmaking
•     Principal Software Engineer - Trust & Safety
•     Principal Software Engineer - UI Editor
•     Principal Software Engineer - Universal Content
•     Principal Software Engineer, Avatar Gameplay - C++
•     Principal Software Engineer, Avatar Motion - C++
•     Principal Software Engineer, Social Connections
•     QA Automation Engineer - Universal Apps
•     Rendering Automation Engineer
•     Research Scientist
•     Roblox OS Full Stack Senior Engineer
•     Roblox OS Lead Data Engineer
•     SRE - Network Traffic
•     Senior / Principal ML Engineer - Account Security
•     Senior / Principal Software Engineer - Account Security
•     Senior Analytical Data Engineer - Experimentation
•     Senior Animation Engineer
•     Senior Backend Engineer - Avatar Marketplace
•     Senior Backend Software Engineer - Growth Platform
•     Senior Capacity Planning Engineer
•     Senior Data Engineer - Growth Acquisition & Activation
•     Senior Data Engineer, Data Infrastructure
•     Senior Engineering Manager, Collaborative Development
•     Senior Engineering Manager-Avatar Core Services
•     Senior Full Stack Application Engineer, Global Infra
•     Senior Full Stack Engineer - Account Integrity
•     Senior Full Stack Engineer - China Core
•     Senior Full Stack Software Engineer - Growth
•     Senior Full Stack Web Engineer
•     Senior Game AI Software Engineer - Simulation - C++
•     Senior Game Networking Engineer
•     Senior Game Rendering Software Engineer - C++
•     Senior Gameplay Engineer - Reference Team
•     Senior Gameplay Engineer, Avatar
•     Senior Graphics Engineer, Avatar Emotion
•     Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Game Discovery
•     Senior Manager, Test Tools and Infrastructure
•     Senior Mobile Software Engineer - Notifications Platform
•     Senior Search Ranking Engineer
•     Senior Search Software Engineer, Backend
•     Senior Software Engineer (Backend) - Developer Services Resources
•     Senior Software Engineer (Data) - Search and Discovery
•     Senior Software Engineer - Accounts - Identity Management
•     Senior Software Engineer - App Experience
•     Senior Software Engineer - Application Platform
•     Senior Software Engineer - Bots & Spam
•     Senior Software Engineer - Cache
•     Senior Software Engineer - Client Application Architecture
•     Senior Software Engineer - Content Sharing, Studio
•     Senior Software Engineer - Data Access
•     Senior Software Engineer - Data Infrastructure
•     Senior Software Engineer - Developer, Content Platform
•     Senior Software Engineer - Game Engine Languages
•     Senior Software Engineer - Interface
•     Senior Software Engineer - International Growth
•     Senior Software Engineer - Personalization
•     Senior Software Engineer - Productivity Tools
•     Senior Software Engineer - Social
•     Senior Software Engineer - Trust & Safety
•     Senior Software Engineer - Universal Content
•     Senior Software Engineer - Video Platform
•     Senior Software Engineer, Avatar Gameplay - C++
•     Senior Software Engineer, Avatar Tools
•     Senior Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure
•     Senior Software Engineer, Economy Platform
•     Senior Software Engineer, Payments & Fraud
•     Senior Software Engineer, RTC Client
•     Senior Software Engineer, Resources
•     Senior Software Engineer, Simulation Core - C++
•     Senior Software Engineer, Video Playback - C++
•     Senior Software Engineer- Cloud Platform
•     Senior Software Engineer- UI/UX
•     Senior/Principal Graphics Engineer - Avatar Appearance
•     Senior/Principal Software Engineer
•     Senior/Principal Tools Engineer - Avatar Appearance
•     Site Reliability Engineer
•     Software Engineer - Data Access
•     Software Engineer - Game Engine Core Systems
•     Software Engineer - Game Engine Core Systems
•     Software Engineer - Native Foundation
•     Software Engineer - Studio Modeling
•     Software Engineer - Trust & Safety
•     Software Engineer, Audio - C++
•     Software Engineer, Audio Machine Learning
•     Software Engineer, DevOps
•     Software Engineering Lead- International Growth
•     Software Engineering Manager - Automation Platform
•     Software Engineering Manager, Studio Modeling
•     Sr ML Engineer : Recommendation, Ranking & Personalization
•     Sr. Site Reliability Engineer for Storage Platform
•     Sr. Software Engineer
•     Sr. Software Engineer, Developer Monetization
•     Studio Marketplace - Software Engineer (Fullstack)
•     Technical Director, Developer
•     Technical Director, Economy
•     Technical Director, Social
•     Technical Director, Universal Apps
•     Technical Program Manager - Core Data
•     Technical Program Manager - Global Data Infra
•     Technical Program Manager - Global Developer Infrastructure
•     Technical Program Manager - Observability
•     Technical Program Manager - Social Platform
•     Technical Program Manager - Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
•     Test Tools and Infrastructure Engineer
•     Tools Engineer
•     UI Software Engineer, Studio RIDE

And that's why Second Life is being Left Behind.

Any questions?

 

 

 

[Drayke Newall]

4 hours ago, animats said:

And that's why Second Life is being Left Behind.

No. The reason why SL is left behind is because they haven't made any major contributions to Second Life for near 14 years.

I know, I know. I hear everyone saying "but EEP was a major update just released". No EEP was an update to a system that LL acquired in 2007, bastardised and did nothing to for 13 years. There was no feature updates to it - nothing. In Lab true form, they released a substandard feature update with promises to make it better and did nothing after release for 13 YEARS! Sounds very similar to Experiences, EEP, animesh, pathfinding, etc.

To give you and idea:

Even in its current EEP form it is less capable than the original Windlight (developed by Windward Mark Interactive which you know, LL bought in its entirety including all their tech and their game development of Alliance and the 5 founders of WMI moved to LL's now closed Boston studio). Do we have weather effects in EEP like Rain, Thunderstorms, fog, snow, dust storms etc? The original Windlight did yet still missing in Second Life after 13 years and an update to EEP. We dont even have a proper sun system where we can have a true pitch black zone. No, we have to use prims to get a dark effect in a cave as the sun is projected everywhere no matter what, even through objects. Like before however, original Windlight system had it.

Windlight was a full atmos. rendering system that included weather, lighting effects, sun effects, everything. It was at the point where movie studios at the time were interested in it due to its capabilities. When Linden Lab took it over they used one or two systems (lighting and sun) from it,  bastardised it and left it as that.

Unfortunately, not much is left on the net showing what Windlight originally had and could do as most pics/vids were for WMI's game Alliance. The link below shows the blizzard and rain effects and also shows how much of just the sky interface settings are missing from even EEP not to mention other systems. Even as blurry as the quality is, you can see more tabs and toggles than current EEP.

Alliance: The Silent War Official Movie 2 - GameSpot

It doesn't stop there though. Also acquired at the same time was Windward Mark interactive Nimble 3D Cloud system. Another system Linden Lab bastardised to the point it became useless, perhaps not even used at all. I hear people saying "but SL has had clouds in it for years" - yes, but at an unreachable point in the sky where it looks nearly 2D. No matter how high you fly in that prim plane you will never reach those clouds. I am not sure whether the current SL clouds are Windlight or Nimble - hard to tell but looks to be the former. Doesn't change the fact that LL own the Nimble tech, was part of Windlight but removed by LL and have done NOTHING with it since bought AS PART of Windlight.

The Nimble system (which LL, as mentioned bought and own) was intended for flight simulators where you could actually fly in, though below and above those fluffy volumetric clouds. Instead of adding that or even expanding on that; 14 years later those clouds look like they did many, many years ago - even after EEP. A horrible unreachable stain in the sky.

So you say it is a staff issue, I once again say it is a LAZINESS issue - or if not that, a fundamental flaw at the top of management and through the entire Linden Lab staff members in not having ANY clue as to what they should and shouldn't do.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

12 hours ago, animats said:

Any questions?

Yes. If they're short of that many people, how on earth are they managing to keep anything going?

 

Being cynical, advertising that many positions doesn't mean they want to recruit that much staff, it might be a sign of ambition with the intention of attracting investment.

 

The only thing I've heard recently that has me slightly worried about SL's future is that they're still running 32-bit processes. Upgrading to 64-bit isn't a trivial exercise. (As the Arianne rocket team found out when they went from 16 to 32 bit a few years ago).

Edited September 17, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

Now I feel like crying. If anybody wants to know what's wrong with the way LL has handled SL, look no further.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 hour ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Yes. If they're short of that many people, how on earth are they managing to keep anything going?

 

Being cynical, advertising that many positions doesn't mean they want to recruit that much staff, it might be a sign of ambition with the intention of attracting investment.

 

The only thing I've heard recently that has me slightly worried about SL's future is that they're still running 32-bit processes. Upgrading to 64-bit isn't a trivial exercise. (As the Arianne rocket team found out when they went from 16 to 32 bit a few years ago).

That means that although the various clients such as FS or Sing are 64-bit, the back-end stuff is still running in 32-bit?

[Drayke Newall]

4 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Now I feel like crying. If anybody wants to know what's wrong with the way LL has handled SL, look no further.

The saddest part of all of it is that EEP proved so hard and long for LL to introduce despite most features being simply reinstating those old Windlight settings they removed.

The fact that they had such a hard time in reintroducing features (literally 1 or 2 new features) from a system they bastardised just shows how bad the scripting server side has become and how unknowledgeable Linden Lab staff are now of their own server scripting and bought assets. That in itself should show that any form of major update to Second Life other than maintenance mode is next to impossible now and probably why they haven't done anything with Second Life since really pre COVID, they just can't.

When they announced they were updating Windlight to a new EEP system I instantly thought awesome we are going to have the actual Windlight with weather and those beautiful clouds. Was so disappointed in the outcome of EEP in that it was a UI design, with sellable settings (which was in SL when they added Windlight but then removed) and adding a moon. That is literally all they did and it took them over 2 YEARS! to add.

Just think how much more optimised Second Life would be if we didn't have to render temp prims everywhere just to simulate rain, snow, decent clouds etc. and it was all done in the viewer.

Also as side note, looking at the UI for the windlight settings in my above post, it looks UNCANNILY similar to viewer 2.0 Windlight UI down to even the colours. Kind of makes you think now who actually did that viewer UI, was it actually done by the acquired WMI staff? Perhaps the reason why LL cant do anything new with Windlight is that they fired those staff members and they took with them any expertise in those systems with them. Just like Corey Linden, Babbage Linden and so many more.

Dont even get me started on the possibilities the Desura platform offered Linden Lab only for them to just sell it.  A fully interactive UI driven marketplace for Indi games and profile system that, could have been linked into the second life viewer... now let me think what could they have used a UI driven marketplace system for in the second life viewer rather than an external website...

Edited September 17, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

5 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

That means that although the various clients such as FS or Sing are 64-bit, the back-end stuff is still running in 32-bit?

So I understand, (the information came from the Server User Group via Animats in a discussion about increasing the amount of script memory available )

By itself, 32-bit software isn't intrinsically bad, the viewers are mostly 64-bit now not because it's better, but because target PCs are 64bit, the build systems (Visual Studio/Mono) are 64-bit, the support libraries are 64-bit, etc. And the amount of memory a viewer is going to require shoots past the 4G limit of 32-bits quite rapidly with mesh-loaded regions. The processes which actually run those regions don't have to be 64-bits, they obviously work well enough at 32-bit since the many processes are only handling a fraction of the total memory load that the viewers see.

Up through version 0.8.2.1 Opensimulator also was 32-bit, but with the release of the 0.9.0.0 version they moved to 64-bit executables. There goes the reason for my keeping my old 32-bit Windows XP machines running.

Porting a 32-bit program to 64-bit isn't just a case of feeding the code to a new build system, there are various little traps to be hunted out through the code, for example, a programmer might have been happily incrementing a register variable knowing that once it exceeded a certain value it would then become negative or at least revert to zero and so needed no additional checking, a 64-bit register is going to take significantly longer to achieve the same result, and so if such a coding tactic has been used, usually to slim down the code or speed up execution by removing the odd instruction here or there, the missing instructions then have to be put back, which leads one back into the same problem scenario that caused the original programmer to leave hem out in the first place... Just one of many little issues.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku