Do you guys think LL is too reserved in communicating the meta appeals of SL to new Residents?

[DeepBlueJoy]

9 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

It was in the OP. First sentence: So sometimes ago in a video, Philip Rosedale mentioned how looking back, Second Life could use a bit of gamification. On principle I disagreed, and still do. But thinking of it now, what makes the physical world interesting is the "gamified" nature of it - where people are not gods (think of it, if you have complete control of, can conjure and do anything you want in the physical world like a god, it would get boring pretty fast).

The interface is clunky and it could use some zhushing up. I'm not arguing that....its a platform that danged near 20 years old. I'm pretty sure at this point, its nearing the limits of what it can theoretically do. And the fact that newer things look as good as they do is a oft overlooked feat.

But my thing is, the part of SL that gets overlooked the most are the social features and yes, the gaminess of SL. Let's not over complicate this. As those features became broken and obsolete or gone, that's when SL started losing users. I say this all the time, you shouldn't have to log on to SL, to meet your friend to jump on Discord, to play a video game, because guess what? You're not on SL anymore! Eventually, you're going to stop logging on to SL. You shouldn't need a discord for a product group, because the groups in SL are that bad that you need a discord. Eventually....you're going to stop logging onto SL because you can fullfill those needs elsewhere. Those are the people that are missing from SL, those are the people that are missing or won't stay. It's not just because SL has a learning curve, if there is something people feel is worth staying for, they'll stay.

 

 

I agree.  I agree. I agree.  Now, I'm gonna go sleep. 

Thanks for sharing and for saying what I wanted to say and saying it better!

Peace,

Blue

[animats]

5 hours ago, DeepBlueJoy said:

It's more "throw them in the deep end and see who swims or sinks."

Literally. I once saw a pair of new users, one day old, trying to kayak in the canals of Bay City. It was going very badly. They had no paddles, but the kayak was pushing them through a paddle animation. They didn't know how to steer, and were banging back and forth between the walls of the canal because they were holding down the arrow keys. They didn't know how to get out of that situation. One stood, came off the kayak, then sank into the canal, because the default AO doesn't understand swimming. And there they stood, underwater in a channel with no stairs or ladders, stuck. I watched this for a while and IMd "Press PAGE UP to fly". They tried that, and hit the underside of a bridge. Then they were stuck in the bridge. Eventually they got out of that mess. But a nice couple had an awful first day.

I wonder if they ever came back in world.

[Ardy Lay]

8 minutes ago, animats said:

Literally. I once saw a pair of new users, one day old, trying to kayak in the canals of Bay City. It was going very badly. They had no paddles, but the kayak was pushing them through a paddle animation. They didn't know how to steer, and were banging back and forth between the walls of the canal because they were holding down the arrow keys. They didn't know how to get out of that situation. One stood, came off the kayak, then sank into the canal, because the default AO doesn't understand swimming. And there they stood, underwater in a channel with no stairs or ladders, stuck. I watched this for a while and IMd "Press PAGE UP to fly". They tried that, and hit the underside of a bridge. Then they were stuck in the bridge. Eventually they got out of that mess. But a nice couple had an awful first day.

I wonder if they ever came back in world.

Yeah....  it's, well.  SL doesn't have the limiting paths and boundaries a lot of games appear to have.  I don't really play games now so I don't know what contemporary games are like.

As an exercise, I created a new Second Life account, logged in and tried to not do anything that I had learned over the last 12 years.  It's hard to do, but I think I managed to find several ways to error on the first and second islands I got directed to.  I tried to text chat on the first.  That's not allowed.  I missed the operating specific cues on some signage.  I got stuck between a sign and a wall, fell off a path into water and banged my head on damn near everything until I gave up and resumed guiding my avatar with the mouse and no I don't mean clicking on the ground.  I get it but don't like that method for some reason.  I would love there to be a way to take smaller steps and to walk slowly.  Imagine trying to navigate in your home if you could only walk full speed, run, or jump 4 meters up!  Turning in place and walking a curved path are a challenge, and so is taking one step in any direction.

I managed to get stuck under a structure when I tried to hop a low wall, went up 4 meters, hit my head on a roof overhang and fell in a gap between the structure and the landscaping around it.  I fell out of a boat and got wedged under a rock and could not get around it because I could not take one step one way then one another, and couldn't tell you how many times I have gotten body parts in my camera.

Long term Second Life Residents just deal with this stuff.  I made a video of all this and watched it three times.  It was kind of funny and quite frustrating.

I really do not know how to improve the avatar motion controls but surely somebody on the development and user experience team can figure something out.

The area I spend the most time in has had many "navigation aids" added by various residents over the years and people new to Second Life still manage to fall off the bridges and platforms.  I tried simulating the experience of a slow computer by running Folding @ Home while running Second Life Viewer.  I think I know what "update lag" feels like now and I can understand the barrier climbing as possibly they just held the key down too long waiting for their avatar to move.

Moving one's avatar might be the first thing one tries to do after logging in the first time.  The signs on that island prompted me to move.  Some things I observed while I was there was some avatars flying where that should not be possible, striking the domed roof and rattling around up there.  Dunno what's going on there.  I didn't see anybody but me sitting on the seats when prompted to do so.  I tried to set an example by moving from seat to seat, hoping somebody might see me and try it themselves.  A couple of them did.  Then I started just clicking things.  I found some objects that chimed and tried to play a recognizable melody.  One other started playing with those while I was there.

On the second island, I was just about the only one moving around.  There were 15 or so standing around the landing point, some were playing gestures that are in the Library and other were playing gestures that are certainly not in the library.  There was some really loud music clips looping and three avatars were doing a lot of shoving.  I fled that area and went around in search of things to poke and look at.  There were some interesting game-like challenges intended to teach a few things, those seemed to make sense.  One was apparently being abused at the time.  Somebody I could not see was touching all the touch targets on it way faster than seemed possible.

The tutorial HUD confused me with it's directions a couple of times but I think I just mis-read it.  Telling me to cheat in the maze was amusing but an interesting way to make me try the proffered camera controls.  The room filled with portals was somewhat intimidating.  Once I understood what they were and that I could use a landmark to return, I decided to try them out.  Two of them didn't seem to work and one took me to a place that was apparently being renovated.

Paddling that boat against the current was an exercise in frustration.

Finding the right thing to sit on at the beach lounge took too long, I think.  But I saw another just walk right up and sit there for their points when I returned later to have another look around.

[DeepBlueJoy]

7 hours ago, animats said:

Literally. I once saw a pair of new users, one day old, trying to kayak in the canals of Bay City. It was going very badly. They had no paddles, but the kayak was pushing them through a paddle animation. They didn't know how to steer, and were banging back and forth between the walls of the canal because they were holding down the arrow keys. They didn't know how to get out of that situation. One stood, came off the kayak, then sank into the canal, because the default AO doesn't understand swimming. And there they stood, underwater in a channel with no stairs or ladders, stuck. I watched this for a while and IMd "Press PAGE UP to fly". They tried that, and hit the underside of a bridge. Then they were stuck in the bridge. Eventually they got out of that mess. But a nice couple had an awful first day.

I wonder if they ever came back in world.

Stuff like this happened to me. After walking around for 10 minutes underwater (dark) in a man made ravine with vertical sides, and discovering that flying was not allowed there, I think i ended up logging off and putting 'home' in the log in, which took me back to (i think) the training island from which i was immediately ejected (i had no home) But at least i was out of the ravine!

PS: pretty sure i logged off several times and returned to the same spot first. Either it did not occur to me to teleport or i could not, don't remember why.

Edited May 15, 2020 by DeepBlueJoy

[Ardy Lay]

9 minutes ago, DeepBlueJoy said:

Stuff like this happened to me. After walking around for 10 minutes underwater (dark) in a man made ravine with vertical sides, and discovering that flying was not allowed there, I think i ended up logging off and putting 'home' in the log in, which took me back to (i think) the training island from which i was immediately ejected (i had no home) But at least i was out of the ravine!

PS: pretty sure i logged off several times and returned to the same spot first. Either it did not occur to me to teleport or i could not, don't remember why.

I took my real first experiences in Second Life very slowly.  I had no preconceived notions of what to expect of the interface.  I had read about a group that has a hangout in SL and wanted to visit them.

It's been a while so my memory will be questionable.  I logged in to a cityscape populated by people that all looked mostly alike.  Male humans in white shirts, blue pants and red shoes, female humans in a pink suit with a skirt and pumps.  Everything appeared pretty quickly.  I don't recall loading delays, even though I was on a dial-up Internet connection running a Pentium 4 processor and an Intel CAD workstation graphics system.  I think this fast loading was because the initial download included a directory called local_assets that was filled with the textures of the initial two regions I was routed through.

There was a guide on the screen telling me to look for stuff, follow arrows and read signs.  This guide directed me through many exercises, including moving about, jumping, flying, walking under obstacles like the parking garage in the cityscape.  I recall a task where I was directed to select a vehicle from a small group and use it to run over a 'cyber rat'.  I explored this first region some.  It was odd that many streets ended at guardrails and sheer cliffs but I reasoned that was a resource limit of some sort.

After I performed some task the guide had been waiting on, I was directed to try changing clothing.  I seem to recall one exercise being to make a new shirt from a small supply of blanks and textures and to select a color for it then save the result.  There was something about wearing different shoes from inventory too, I think.  After that I was directed to move to another location to learn to teleport to another region.  That region still seems to have a representative on the SL Grid today.  It was an island with paths, cliffs, streams and a parrot to talk to.  I had to move a beach ball, fly over a ravine then walk to a structure and select a next destination.  I was given a landmark and a notecard.  Then I was teleported to Ahern.  This is where things really got hectic.  The landing point was a mass of avatars all piled up in a shrubbery, apparently unwilling to move.  I managed to fly up and off to a nearby region I later learned was called Lusk.  The people there seemed to not be floundering about so I just stood there for a while, until another avatar plowed into me and I was displaced sideways a bit.  A few greeted me and one suggested I try moving out of the path between the landing point and the vendors.  This place did take a while to load, so I didn't see what they were describing yet.  I moved away from the blue path marked on the floor and that elicited a positive response.  I think the computer ran out of free memory and crashed after about 20 minutes of sucking on the phone line, trying to fetch textures and whatever else it was wanting.  In the mean time I saw such a variety of people standing and sitting around chatting or, apparently sleeping, that I decided to relax here and try to figure this Second Life out.

[JanuarySwan]

18 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

We've never seen LL doing anywhere near "the best it can". LL has made many missteps over the years that have often made SL more difficult to get into rather than easier, and the presentation has always been an extremely low priority for LL. Not to mention LL has made costly mistakes with the content creation tools which have directly lead to all of SL's worst performance woes, which is why the general perception of SL is that it looks worse than a 12 year old game, but runs like crap even on modern hardware.

 

I basically agree with things Beth, TDD and Penny brought up but also did not read the whole thread yet.  Their points were enough to go on for me for now.

The 17-year-old "old betsy" could use an overhaul to accommodate for the extremely resource heavy mesh avatars.   I mean does LL really think 90 of the current mesh heavy avatars can fit per region?  It is probably more like 20 resource heavy mesh avatars per region.  I've wondered about this?  Am I right?  Am I wrong?  Can 90 of these resource heavy mesh avatars honestly fit and work per region?  I think it's a little out of touch with reality but I'd like to hear what other's have to say on this.   

TDD123 on first page mentions a way to optimize texture problem in SL.

Beth suggested a way for Strawberry Linden to communicate inworld upon arrival via videos.  There are TV's available now where everyone can watch the videos no matter what time they arrive.  Inworld videos sounds like a fantastic idea.  As far as the old viewer coupled with new technology avatars....?????????????????

[Vivienne Schell]

Gamification sounds great, but define gamification. A game can be a shooter, strategy, riddle, social....it´s a wide, wide range. Games get developed for a certain target audience, for a clearly defined purpose and need a specifically coded game engine to work sufficiently, for a clearly defined potential user base. As a result, people who play Minecraft do not log into Minecraft for celebrating motorised madness in hi end 3D. They log into GTA for that, if they are interested in motorised madness at all.

Second Life was constructed to serve a wide range of interests, and this it does pretty well. Unfortunately, due to technical limitations, the underlying user sandbox model and the impossibility of serving each and any interest perfectly, no specific interest can be served in a "pro game" manner.

In fact, one CAN script a "game" within SL. It IS possible. There are various sophisticated roleplay systems around, some even include web interfaces, game inventories, experience keys and whatever. But scripting such stufft is a very tough task, even for a RL professional, and apparently there is not much money in that, because the demand is not really breathtaking.

Probably, LL could improve and easen the user experience by adding a set of system native functions beyond the experience key. Something even a not-so-familiar-with-scripting user can apply to a sim (or many sims) without much hassle, by a few mouseclicks. Pre-made sets of scripts to access these function, some decent range of  "games" and such. That might be an improvement users would probably love to see - but you never know (or did anyone predict that the breeding of pixel horses would become a money pit?).

But SL did not fail in going mainstream because of a lack of "gamification". And it won´t go mainstream if that might be added. There (still) are many more , much more significant obstacles in the way.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Vivienne Schell

[Wulfie Reanimator]

39 minutes ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Gamification sounds great, but define gamification. A game can be a shooter, strategy, riddle, social...

Gamification does not mean "turn into a literal game," but adding game-like elements. Gamification can already be seen in a lot of places, such as earning "points" for spending money on a company or literally earning "levels" and "achievements" in a school environment for completing assignments or meeting other additional goals. Those are the most game-like examples, but "points and levels" are not required.

It's a way of creating "artificial" incentive to motivate someone to do something. I say "artificial" in quotes because it's not really artificial, but it depends on your perspective. While there might be inherent incentive for you to do something, adding a layer of gamification gives you clearly defined goals to reach for. Working towards those goals gives you focus and reaching them will get you those little dopamine rushes that help you stay motivated to keep doing the thing. It's fairly basic human psychology.

 

You mentioning Minecraft is actually a pretty good example of gamification. Originally there was no way to "beat the game," there were no achievements at all for finding/crafting stuff, and there was no recipe book. You would be literally dropped into an endless world with no goals or purpose. Many people struggle with that.

"What am I suppose to do next?" -> "Anything you want!" -> "This is boring."

Since then, Minecraft has added a lot of direction without taking away any of the freedom from those who could make their own fun. That's exemplary gamification.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[JanuarySwan]

13 hours ago, Mollymews said:

it drives new people to distraction when they start editing and adding stuff to their avatars and there is no Undo function. For established users we know about Detach, and that Wear replaces when Add does not, etc.  New users don't know this, it has to be learned. Whereas Undo does not. Undo is a widely known function learned from other experiences prior to signing up to SL

Yeah this too ^^^ Right on!  Right on!  

To expand on no undo feature:  As the system stands now with copy/modify, many users don't even know what that means.  What copy/modify means is that you make a copy first and then attempt to modify it, that way you still have the original.  

But, what Molly suggests is really what's needed because most users will not understand what copy/modify was originally intended for in that you copy first prior to any attempts of your own modification.   And, this misunderstanding of step 1) Copy the item and Step 2) Now begin to modify the item has led to just about rigged everything and there are many avatars that cannot use rigged period, leading to more confusion.    

Edited May 15, 2020 by JanuarySwan

[Bree Giffen]

Pac Man if made like SL would be  pac man sitting in an empty maze. You could change how pac man looks by adjusting the color, size and how fast his mouth moves. You could also change the walls of the maze, adjust the colors, put in a pretty texture on the background. Adding dots and ghosts turns pac man into a game. Another pac man player added dots into pac man but you need to go the arcade across town to play it. 

[JanuarySwan]

16 hours ago, Janet Voxel said:

Unpopular opinion: Phillip Rosedale was 100% right.

See, here's the thing with a lot of people that post here: they've been around since 2007 or 2009 or whatever (and make it a point to point that out....repeatedly), many here have some degree of technical knowledge be it, scripting, content creating, actual coding, etc. People that post here are kind of the 1% as far as SL goes (be proud you nerds!). So, it becomes in effect...an echo chamber. I'd say another 30%-40% of users become interested in one of those things at some point, I know I did, but that was 3-4 years in for me.

The other 60-something percent are completely uninterested in any of those things and they don't want to be either. Maybe, some might get into photography or machinima, but not truly technical stuff.  SL could be a gateway for scripting, 3d modelling, making games, etc, but I don't think we should worry too much about that. So it's not that we should be asking "How do we get more people into those things?" its like fitting a square peg into a round hole. IMO, it would be the wrong direction to go in. I've been talking to a lot of new people lately and they don't seem to interested in creation. What's been neglected are the social aspects of Secondlife and *gasp* yes, the gameification of SL.

There's a very popular game on Nintendo Switch called Animal Crossing which basically does key things you can do in SL. You have your little land, build a little house, you do little chores, you earn money, buy more land, build a bigger house, rinse and repeat. It's so popular, you can't even buy a Switch! And these are adults playing it. Why is the Sims still popular? Because its gamified. People can sit there and watch their little sims do wacky things all day long and its a game about nothing!

Meanwhile the social aspects of Secondlife have diminished:

Why is it groups are broken?

Why doesn't a conference with two other people work properly? TWO people!

Why does the destination guide still take you to empty sims?

The social aspects of Second Life has diminished so much, the people that come here for that are super disappointed and leave. There's nothing wrong with SL being a little more gameified. There's nothing wrong with adding a kind of social game to SL. People have tried, there's a fairly popular game within SL called Be You. It basically turns your avatar into a Sim. People that are into that sort of thing love it. Nothing wrong with that. People do want to play games in SL and we shouldn't brush that element off or minimize it. I'd bet when LL got rid of skill gaming, a large chunk of users left. Nothing really replaced that.

Whoever said there needs to be a do over, I agree with 100%. But there needs to be some careful consideration when it comes to other things besides content creation particularly the social aspects.

To Luca, as far as what you wrote in your OP...I pretty much agree with everything Janet Voxel has said in regards to the "gamification" aspects.  I think Janet has nailed it here other than a possible problem in that socialization may be a bit difficult due to the heavy resources of the newer un-optimized content most users prefer.  So, content needs to be taken into consideration as well as what most users prefer, and the un-optimized content most users prefer should not go over-looked by the Lindens as to how to support it.  It's a money maker for the Lindens too; the future is here and goes beyond the old Classic avatars now.  

adding:  BOM seems to make avatar complexity a whole lot lower than it used to be and can cut avatar complexity in half if not more as long as no jewelry is added.   AND, the FPS increase about 12-18 for me with a BOM avatar (in crowded places - definitely an improvement for crowded places).  LL is also supposedly going to cloud servers or has? (I'm not sure if completed yet) but cloud servers may reduce lag as well, although some have suggested lag could increase.  But, perhaps BOM and cloud servers may improve the socialization of SL or at least provide the means to have more socialization if desired without jelly dollie.  This BOM/cloud server transition is just currently taking place AND during perhaps the heaviest traffic load in history for the internet with stay at home issues due to the coronavirus.  So, the true effects of BOM/cloud server and lag improvement may not fully be known for a while due to many being at home now because the internet itself is lagged at this time.  

Edited May 15, 2020 by JanuarySwan

[Vivienne Schell]

4 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

It's a way of creating "artificial" incentive to motivate someone to do something. I say "artificial" in quotes because it's not really artificial, but it depends on your perspective. While there might be inherent incentive for you to do something, adding a layer of gamification gives you clearly defined goals to reach for. Working towards those goals gives you focus and reaching them will get you those little dopamine rushes that help you stay motivated to keep doing the thing. It's fairly basic human psychology.

I certainly get that. But in case you do not know, TP to the Wild West continent or the Amazon River, get the HUD there and enjoy. Everything you mention is available in SL, and it does not really give you a headache to set it up or dig into it - as a user.

Of course, the Wild West, Amazon River and other SL "gamified" scenarios are by far not as perfect as Minecraft or comparable environments, which were and are developed by professional coders/software designers/content creators/communication designers and artists for a specified goal. Second Life, in regards to ANY content creation, - giving it some "sense" or "goal" included - still is a giant user sandbox which offers multiple directions. That´s it´s basic character, and if you change that you change the entire conception of Second Life and by that you turn Second Life into something which isn´t Second Life anymore.

I think that it should be left up to the SL user to decide on what kind of "gamification" is OK, which grade of "gamification" is OK, when and where "gamification is OK, and on what exactly the darned sense of life is. LL could make that process easier and more flawless for both sim owners (to provide such content) and users, and also fix the underlying technical diseases like broken group chats and all this, but that´s it.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Vivienne Schell

[Prokofy Neva]

On 5/14/2020 at 8:06 AM, lucagrabacr said:

So sometimes ago in a video, Philip Rosedale mentioned how looking back, Second Life could use a bit of gamification. On principle I disagreed, and still do. But thinking of it now, what makes the physical world interesting is the "gamified" nature of it - where people are not gods (think of it, if you have complete control of, can conjure and do anything you want in the physical world like a god, it would get boring pretty fast).

Of course the fundamental appeal of "gamification" is a sense of objectives, things to look forward to and achieve. And we as humans in part measure our sense of fulfillment through comparative reasoning, either towards nature or other people - for example, the way most of us live today are many folds better than people who live in the bronze age, but we're probably not that much happier, because we measure our success and sense of fulfillment by comparing the relative state of others and the world through comparative reasoning, while if people who lived in the bronze age see how we live today, they would probably be clueless to how we can be unhappy with everything we have.

Think of Minecraft, people who play it feel fulfilled and happy for surviving and building things. In part it's because the base state of the game is "it's the wilderness, if you don't do anything you die of starvation or killed by monsters" - so when they manage to survive and build things that help them survive, it gives them a sense of fulfillment because it's way better than the base or default state, surviving is better than dying and civilization is better than the wilderness.

Now, one might think that it's impossible to create such a sense in Second Life that is innate or inherent to Second Life itself (not a game within it), because everyone already can do, become and create anything right? But there are things outside those things, meta elements that people can achieve or excel in and be better at compared to others who might not specialize in those things, in Second Life. Things that are not simply given or granted to you the moment you enter Second Life, that you can do, work towards and be better at.

To many Residents these things might simply be things that they can buy - lands, homes, bodies, heads, etc. To creators and business owners these things might be the quality of their creations, the success of their businesses. To people who run a community or an organization these things might be how many people are active in, or join their community, or follow their cause. There are so many of these (which LL themselves have promoted through their videos) so maybe that's why LL probably haven't emphasize these too much in the new user experience, but these are the meat and bread of Second Life so why not put more of them in new user areas so new people can be less confused and "don't know what to do"?

So what if new user areas, an element of the UI, or the onboarding welcome experience emphasize these meta aspects with curated examples? Or if not examples (so that there won't appear to be any favoritism), maybe promotional posters or banners?

Without gamifying Second Life, we can create or cultivate a first impression environment where people are imbued with the idea and understanding that these things exist, happened, can be achieved and can be done in Second Life. To communicate the sense (and truth) that, "Hey, if you dedicate yourself and put your heart to it, you can achieve or do great things here" - which a lot of Residents know, but most new people don't.

As of now, as far as I know, the only thing that does this in new user areas is the "get your own home / land / friends / relationship / things" billboards which are usually coupled with the "click here to buy L$" stand - which are fine and are certainly doing SL a lot of good, otherwise LL would have not put them in those places. I understand that LL probably don't want to overwhelm new users with too much information and I'm sure their reasoning is scientific and solid, but I just think there isn't enough of these.

What do you guys think? Is LL too reserved or holding back too much in this regard?

 

 

I think LL has to be careful how they advertise the huge capacity for sexual expression and even sex work in SL because in some jurisdictions, it might lead to the banning of SL. And I think it's good that they have a separate continent for explicit, public adult behaviour.

As for the other things, like a DJ career or creating fashion or a breedable pet -- LL does advertise those things.

Advertising does in fact illustrate these things. And with their romance stories of people meeting in SL and marrying in real life, LL does subtly play up the social/sexual aspect of SL for many -- and that's a good thing.

I have never found a better explanation than the one Philip Rosedale (creator of SL gave) back in the day: that in the real world, you have atoms, and you are limited in how much you can manipulate them -- you might place a chair or start a fire but there are limits everywhere imposed by gravity and government and many other things. But the virtual world is made of pixels, not atoms, or bytes or whatever, and these you can manipulate at will in all kinds of ways, change the ground, change the sky (even before Windlight you could at least turn off the sun), change your clothes with thousands of options, change your house with a click, etc. And that's very compelling.

The average person, however, never learns a tenth of what is needed to manipulate pixels because it's hard.

I have several customers who had put a real-life religious community or other type of non-profit community inside SL and I'll be interested to see if those people learn SL well enough to enjoy it. In the past, during the big business boom, I had RL businesses and even a RL tourist agency from RL Ravenglass, but they all gave up, too expensive, too hard, too insecure. 

I once complained to Philip that while it was historic that there was now a Cory Doctorow book created in SL, the books were too hard to make (and still are) and distribute. And other things didn't exist. "Someone will make everything," he said impatiently. I have often reflected on that idea. "Someone will make everything". Because mainly they have.

I once had a very rare 5 minutes to talk to Marissa Meyer who was then at Google. This was when I covered Techcrunch like 7 years ago or something. I noticed that some of the new apps for music or videos had their own self-contained search systems -- they weren't Google. Google could not capture what was happening inside of them. Did this pose a challenge to Google, I asked. I could literally see the gears working -- I truly think she hadn't thought of those new apps (which now don't even exist any more as Spotify or YouTube killed all the competition) in that way. And like Philip, she said impatiently, "Some will make them all searchable." And of course that someone was Google, and only to a much lesser extent, Bing.

(BTW, Sergei Brin once told a funny story about how early Google used to search games online and turned up enormous amounts of junk about people getting magic swords or stepping along paths to castles or whatever and how they eventually learned to bypass those things. I don't *think* Google can search the chat or voice or actions inside SL. But maybe it can, in some way. There is robots.txt of course but does that really keep Google even from compiling a list of what it can't search, which is still something.

There's always someone who will make a thing, and LL can't exactly advertise Bento moveable bits, can they? I think they do what they can. But someone is going to make a virtual world where things are easier. Maybe Facebook (I don't think it will be Google as they can't overcome their terrible engineering culture enough to make social media that isn't brutal). Or maybe Zoom or some company you might not think is in this space.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

On 5/14/2020 at 11:57 AM, Beth Macbain said:

I still think LL ought to hire you, Luca.

I believe LL is being way too reserved when it comes to on-boarding new residents. In the past year, I've created several new alts to upgrade so I can have more Linden Homes. I love LL, and I am an unabashed fan-girl, but the experience from the second you log in for that first time is just awful. I don't know how to make it better. I've but a lot of thought into it and I have a lot of suggestions, but I really think the entire thing needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the beginning.

People see the slick ads and photos showing beautiful avatars in extraordinary areas doing fabulous things, then they log in and see none of that, and there is nothing in the new user experience that shows how to go from looking like an idiot to looking like, and seeing, the things they saw before they logged in. 

While I wouldn't say that it's misleading, because all of those things are possible in SL, I would feel frustrated and disappointed and, perhaps most of all, lost. 

I know SL pretty well. I know how to move and get around and find things and do stuff. I've still not created an alt that has actually figured out how to get off the new user island and move to the social island or welcome area or whatever they are. The experience has somehow managed to be both overwhelming and underwhelming. It goes through all the basics of how to move, which is fine and needed, but it automatically attaches a HUD without explaining what the hell it is or how often residents are going to be encountering HUDs. Right there could be one of the first steps to change. Give the new resident the HUD and then walk them through how to attach it and what its function is. 

@Strawberry Linden makes really awesome tutorials. Why not have those available inworld right there for people to watch? Teach people the things they're really going to need to know - teleporting, how to put on and take off clothing, hair, skins, shapes, etc. Notecards and their function. We all have these default folders - gestures, objects, scripts, textures, photographs, etc. - what are those? How do I use search and what are some good things to search for? What are the the access ratings and how do I change those? What is my profile? How to I update it? Walk me through my preferences and where to find them. What are Linden dollars? How do I get them? Give me a way to easily ask questions and get fast answers. 

Walking, running, and jumping is all good and fine, but there is so much more that people desperately need to at least have the opportunity to learn before they're let loose. 

As I've said a billion times, there is an easy, workable, inexpensive way to achieve this: put ad boards in the welcome areas that businesses pay for, that advertise everything from shopping malls to boutiques to dance clubs to reading circles to art shows to meditation -- and let newbies click on them and go to the places of interest, and the business owners will be motivated to teach them the basics for how to enjoy poetry or art or fashion or whatever the topic is -- because they will become paying customers.

This is how real life works, and it's how online virtual life should work.

In fact, the telehubs used to have resident ads that had fireworks at Riverwalk or art shows or my rentals or clubs or what have you. There were rules (PG) and they turned over every 2 weeks, there was a limit to how long you could have them. Make them paying for a reasonable but not too-low price, and you will have another source of sinks. You don't have to struggle through mass-teaching of how to build, or finding "what to do" for people who need some spoon feeding especially at the beginning -- you put market forces to work. You don't have to have an elaborate welcome infrastructure that only a few big businesses can pay for and who are the beneficiaries of A/B tests -- anyone can pay $500 or $1000 like a classified (which are too crowded to be effective) and achieve onboarding with motivation.

It's only the aversion to commerce of the few forums regs and Lindens who are socialists that prevents this. But someday when Facebook or some other big company makes something like this, they won't have these allergies and we will get to see how it works.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 5/14/2020 at 3:30 PM, animats said:

It's called "Fortnite Party Royale", and it opened a few weeks ago.

Yes. The place to start is the clothing system. That needs to be simplified. A "How to look good in SL" area and class would help. (Caledon Oxbridge, surprisingly, doesn't have one.) New users are often sent to the Free Dove or Freebie Galaxy, which are designer bargain bins. If you don't know what you're doing before you get there, you'll get horribly confused, get items that don't work for your avatar, and may end up with some off-brand avatar for which little clothing is available.

A new user should leave the entry area with one look as good as the ones shown on the Second Life home page.  Anything less leaves new users feeling they've been had. One really good look. From there, they can discover the joys of shopping and dressing.

(Attention Marketing: LL, please stop sticking new users with "70s Disco Guy".)

I've never understood why people equate the success of a virtual world with how many people you can crowd on to a sim to listen to a rock concert.

Most people don't go to rock concerts; even those that do might prefer a more quiet club where performers like Frogg & Jaycatt are playing who know you and talk to you instead of a mass experience where you are merely in a shard watching the same thing as zillions of other people but not actually interacting with those masses and still limited to chat with the same room or the same friends' list. What is the value in this?

Most people enjoy exploring solo or with friends of places that are NOT crowded. They socialize just with a partner or a small group of friends. The mass-ness of the "party royale" is NOT what they seek. So why are we putting that as a gold standard? I used to call these debates when I heard them 15 years ago "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin".

I will say that one proof that Fantasy Faire is actually magical is this: you would click on a sim and try to teleport to say, a rave party or a tour or something, and it would say "Sim Full" and the managers would have set that setting very high. I would see even like 70, not the 40 or a shopping event. But if you TP'd to the sim *next* to the pile of green dots, you could always walk into the "full" sim. Maybe it's because I was on a petite or Dinkie avatar and took up less space, but I always sneaked in that way..

I should also point out that many people use the system avatars without complaint until they are oriented. I noticed that people coming to BillionsofUs, which has resumed in Second Life, were selecting the old guy in the tux with the rose -- which I have put on my permless alt to test things. There's plenty of nice clothes.

And somehow people manage to spend even the $5,000 on Catwa heads or whatever. Not like it's a RL mink coat. I started the survey as promised about what is the hardest thing in SL. Naturally it's a small sample (32 people in a sim with a lot of newbies) and now the OP can come and skew it, but that's ok, it will remain here for years and eventually be more useful. Here are the answers:

Lag/Poor Graphics
17
53%

Rent/Land Too Costly
4 votes
13%

Clothes/Avatars too Costly
4 votes
13%

Nothing to do/can't find
3 votes
9%

Too hard to make friends
1 vote
3%

Griefing/Poor Governance
3 votes
9%

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 5/14/2020 at 3:30 PM, animats said:

 

A new user should leave the entry area with one look as good as the ones shown on the Second Life home page.  Anything less leaves new users feeling they've been had. One really good look. From there, they can discover the joys of shopping and dressing.

(Attention Marketing: LL, please stop sticking new users with "70s Disco Guy".)

And yet, you're wearing a free avatar from White Tiger and you're still here. 

Edited May 15, 2020 by Theresa Tennyson

[animats]

6 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

And yet, you're wearing a free avatar from White Tiger and you're still here. 

I know. I haven't found a mesh avi I like better. Also, I drive vehicles a lot, and don't need the headaches of mesh avatars coming apart.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I've never understood why people equate the success of a virtual world with how many people you can crowd on to a sim to listen to a rock concert.

Most people don't go to rock concerts; even those that do might prefer a more quiet club where performers like Frogg & Jaycatt are playing who know you and talk to you instead of a mass experience where you are merely in a shard watching the same thing as zillions of other people but not actually interacting with those masses and still limited to chat with the same room or the same friends' list. What is the value in this?

Most people enjoy exploring solo or with friends of places that are NOT crowded. They socialize just with a partner or a small group of friends. The mass-ness of the "party royale" is NOT what they seek. So why are we putting that as a gold standard? I used to call these debates when I heard them 15 years ago "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin".

The entire streaming industry begs to disagree. Rock concerts costs money to host and patron, and they're limited by physical scale and locale. Live content has had massive growth in recent years with practically unusable chat when there are tens of thousands people spamming emotes, and they're way more profitable in general than any concert, but I digress.

While there are definitely lots of people who like solo or small group content (I'm one of those people, for example), being able to find and host a large crowd of people shows off your platform in a great light for potential. It shows you can do it and that people are actually interested. A large platform doesn't mean anything if it's empty. A popular platform will suffocate if it doesn't scale with demand. Besides, being able to shove hundreds of people into an area means that you can have dozens of those "small groups" of people. Even small-scale people like me won't mind there being a large crowd as long as I have my little group I can focus on.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Paul Hexem]

Just fixing the camera and keybinds to match the rest of the gaming world would go a long way towards helping.

Edited May 16, 2020 by Paul Hexem

[Ardy Lay]

16 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Just fixing the camera and keybinds to match the rest of the gaing world would go a long way towards helping.

That would probably not help me.  I don't even know what's wrong here.  SL is pretty much all I navigate.  What is the standard for the rest of the gaming world?  A link to a standards document would be nice.

[lucagrabacr]

Been reading the replies over the week, thanks for chiming in you guys, whether you agreed with my assessment or not.

I was going to make another thread, but when writing it I thought it would be more fitting to be posted as an addition here (not to mention someone mentioned Fortnite's Party Royale in the thread, which I included in what I was writing, so);

Forbes recently published an article titled, "‘Fortnite’ Party Royale Will Become ‘Second Life’ On Its Way To Being The Metaverse"

Now as most of us probably already know, this is just one of many nonsensical articles throughout the years where people slapped Second Life in the title just for the sake of making fun of it without really understanding it, nothing worthy of writing about and post here in the forums.

This one is a little bit different however in that, even industry veterans and insiders (who are probably tired waiting for SL or an SL-esque virtual world to go mainstream) are kinda starting to lean on the notion that, "If it's more successful, then that must be how one makes a virtual world the RIGHT way". Of course there's nothing wrong with success, making more money or profit.

But the danger is that if success alone, not foundational values or structure of a virtual world, became the prominent determining factor in what makes a "virtual world" or a "metaverse", then we'll have people and companies who have the talents and means of building such a world, veering further away from the original concept and spirit of the virtual world. 

The virtual world as we know it here as Second Life Residents is that it's not just a place right, but a world with its own set of rules based on certain values and philosophy that are built on the spirit that people can go to this place, connect with other people and express themselves however they want without any limitation, and truly build a world, or community of their own, or whatever they want. And possibly make a living out of it if they have the necessary talent.

And I think that's even more reason why SL or LL must show even more pride of itself, show a certain vigor, EXCITEMENT, THE FUTURE, don't be so timid. Act like there's a whole bunch of opportunities and possibilities out there for the taking and people will believe it so long as it's genuine.    

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, lucagrabacr said:

But the danger is that if success alone, not foundational values or structure of a virtual world, became the prominent determining factor in what makes a "virtual world" or a "metaverse", then we'll have people and companies who have the talents and means of building such a world, veering further away from the original concept and spirit of the virtual world. 

The virtual world as we know it here as Second Life Residents is that it's not just a place right, but a world with its own set of rules based on certain values and philosophy that are built on the spirit that people can go to this place, connect with other people and express themselves however they want without any limitation, and truly build a world, or community of their own, or whatever they want. And possibly make a living out of it if they have the necessary talent.

And I think that's even more reason why SL or LL must show even more pride of itself, show a certain vigor, EXCITEMENT, THE FUTURE, don't be so timid. Act like there's a whole bunch of opportunities and possibilities out there for the taking and people will believe it so long as it's genuine.

As a devil's advocate, it doesn't really matter what core values or philosophy you have if it's not something the majority of people believe in. I like SL, I've been here since my literal childhood (I made my first account when I was 13, lol). There's fun stuff here. But there are also so many problems (technical, social, psychological) that make Second Life very difficult to dress up to people while staying both appealing and genuine.

SL sits in a weird middle-ground where it won't appeal to the regular gaming crowd (being too primitive or aimless, seen as just a 3D chat), nor your average tech-illiterate normie who doesn't have time to sit on a computer playing barbie with a computer that can't run SL with comfortable framerates. (Some of them even think 12 FPS is okay and/or don't understand how it could be better.)

Edited May 17, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 5/14/2020 at 8:06 AM, lucagrabacr said:

So what if new user areas, an element of the UI, or the onboarding welcome experience emphasize these meta aspects with curated examples? Or if not examples (so that there won't appear to be any favoritism), maybe promotional posters or banners?

Without gamifying Second Life, we can create or cultivate a first impression environment where people are imbued with the idea and understanding that these things exist, happened, can be achieved and can be done in Second Life. To communicate the sense (and truth) that, "Hey, if you dedicate yourself and put your heart to it, you can achieve or do great things here" - which a lot of Residents know, but most new people don't.

As of now, as far as I know, the only thing that does this in new user areas is the "get your own home / land / friends / relationship / things" billboards which are usually coupled with the "click here to buy L$" stand - which are fine and are certainly doing SL a lot of good, otherwise LL would have not put them in those places. I understand that LL probably don't want to overwhelm new users with too much information and I'm sure their reasoning is scientific and solid, but I just think there isn't enough of these.

What do you guys think? Is LL too reserved or holding back too much in this regard?

 

 

I take it you use Firestorm.

The Linden Lab default viewer, which is what newbies are given, does have a curated selection of current interesting/impressive places that they can directly visit on the loading screen of the viewer, as well as a feed of various blogs.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 5/14/2020 at 6:34 PM, DeepBlueJoy said:

The beginner learning curve is not a high hill.  It's a wall... a slick, very intimidating wall.

It's a 5,000 - 10,000-L$ (15 - 30-US$) wall too, unless you have nothing against looking like a total bum.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[lucagrabacr]

9 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I take it you use Firestorm.

The Linden Lab default viewer, which is what newbies are given, does have a curated selection of current interesting/impressive places that they can directly visit on the loading screen of the viewer, as well as a feed of various blogs.

Yeah, Firestorm has it too as the destinations guide.

But there are much more to SL than just that and showing curated destinations, and blog posts alone doesn't really convey that there's more to SL or living in SL than just what there seem to be, and if these things which can communicate to the new users a sense or the idea that there are great things that they can achieve or do in Second Life, are focused on the new-user areas or experiences, it won't be too intrusive either to the long-time Residents who might already know about these things