What is LL doing?

[Kyra Reiter]

I have been enjoying, for the most part, Second life for over 4 years now... and I dont know what it is the fine Lindens are doing but in the past 6 months i would say SL has gotton far worse then it ever was!   I remember the days of bad sim crossing, of crashing regualrily, or things getting attached to my bottom....  but many of those things were caused by a slower computer i had and since been fixed with a top line graphics card and better sytem... but now i crash on tps, i cant attach things some days, textures wont rezz on otehr days  and the lag! OMG!!   what ever it is you are doing lindens... please STOP!!

[WADE1 Jya]

Hey Kyra! I agree things have been patchy over the last few months... I think it is because Linden Lab is working to get Second Life really ready for prime time, there is big things in the works starting with complete overhaul of the sign-up process to SL, and mesh on the way to improve quality of all user generated content.

The servers and stuff need a lot of work (which is tough to go through) because Second Life currently can't handle much more than 80000 avatars online at the same time. We want it to scale up to millions.

I think in the end it will all be worth it :matte-motes-bashful-cute:

I consider it as road is under construction :matte-motes-sunglasses-3:

[Kolby Nissondorf]

I agree. Im sure the Lindens will do there best to fix the problems though.

[Acheron Gloom]

Yep, please stop trying to make things better for us Lindens.

 

It surely must be /you/ causing any issues? Right? 

 

Right...?

[Nalates Urriah]

You don't say which viewer you are using. If you are using a series 1 viewer you are likely to have more and more problems as time passes. Both Tateru and I have blogged about those isses and quoted what the Lindens are saying in regard to series 1 viewers.

SL is undergoing a massive upgrade. For years people have complained about bugs that have lasted for years. In 2010 Phillip shifted that. Each day more and more of those bugs are fixed. Many reveal flaws in the foundation of SL software. Those flaws can be bugs or design concepts. Those that are design concept problems are being fixed too. Changing them to fix the problem and improve performance reveals other places where the changed concept has an effect and then those areas of the software have to be changed too. Some simply cannot be anticipated because the older SL software was not that well documented.

Four years ago they knew the related issues would surface and create problems. So, rather than fix them they tended to create work arounds. Now, they tackle the problem and create real fixes. So, in some ways things are worse and some things are better.

Region crossings and rez time along with general lag are being address. If you haven't noticed it getting better, get yourself a series 2 viewer and check it out.

I've only been here a little over 3 years. But, things work better now... most days. The last two weeks have seen unusal problems and the roll back of server updates. Some complex issues are on the verge of being fixed. Each attempt moves the process farther along. With any luck some of those fixes will roll to the main grid next week. Click the link to my blog in my signature and read up.

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Kyra Reiter wrote:

I have been enjoying, for the most part, Second life for over 4 years now... and I dont know what it is the fine Lindens are doing but in the past 6 months i would say SL has gotton far worse then it ever was!   I remember the days of bad sim crossing, of crashing regualrily, or things getting attached to my bottom....  but many of those things were caused by a slower computer i had and since been fixed with a top line graphics card and better sytem... but now i crash on tps, i cant attach things some days, textures wont rezz on otehr days  and the lag! OMG!!   what ever it is you are doing lindens... please STOP!!

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Please oh please don't ask the Lindens to stop improving Second Life. If its been about 3 years, maybe your top of the line isn't so top anymore, and yeah, try a new viewer also. Really, LL has a lot invested in SL, they really want it to work, its like, their job.

[Kyra Reiter]

Some of the replies have been insightful, while others are a waste of space.  But i will thank those who gave positive and informitive replies.   I wouldnt be active this long if i didnt think LL was making advances in the net worth being a part of... I will look forward to the day it runs smoothly

[Luc Starsider]

There are several things to consider here. Some things are up to LL to fix or improve, but a few are either because of internet connections not performing optimally - connections from your pc and all the way to LL's servers - or because creators in world have made things in a way that cause issues.

Region crossings have been pretty bad the last months, in my experience, but lately, I have seen improvements. Going from spinning off into outer space when driving a (slow) boat across a sim border before, to practically not noticing it nowadays is something I appreciate quite a lot. A lot of work is being carried out to improve things further.

Even region crossings are affected if - and when - something is not working right along the lines from pc to server. Crashing an being logged out are, from what I have seen, common when an internet connection is not performing optimally. LL can not do much about this.

Then the lag. Moving around in sims that are created using textures that are way higher resolution than they have to be - using a 1024x1024 px texture on a cherry hanging on in a tree is only going to make your pc work harder using more resources than necessary and cause lag. Use of scripts can easily cause lag - this is often debated but I'm in no doubt they do cause lag - and make the experience poor. Textures and scripts are, for the most part, in the hands of fellow residents, and not easily fixed by LL.

Basically, a lot of blame is being put on LL when other sources are to blame.

- Luc -

[Linda Brynner]

I don't have much problems, my sl is very very silky and smooth, but i'm still using 1.23.5 When i must i stick to viewer 2.7.2 and turned off automatic updates since this iteration finally seems stable.

What is said by workers at Linden Lab does not always add up or actually is true since they mix it with commercial interests. I've seen it so many times now. Philip has declared that 1.23.5 will be available as long 2 is not stable and solid enough... and it still is not upto the level he would expect i'm sure.

And how many at LL are actually understanding Philip's creation in depth like him?

What actually is going on is that with the new CEO a policy has started which is, faster updates. Any IT company announcing that means one thing, a lot less beta testing simply because QA just can't keep up. Therein the new CEO does what average IT businesses do today: getting out new stuff as quickly as possible to not fall behind on competition.

Untill now i have not seen a very solid viewer2 for that matter since 2.3. With every new iteration since the new CEO very serious showstop problems are part of each update is what i have seen yet. Programmers even mix up program code and buttons on the UI and so on to cover up bugs or they just blend them, et cetera.

LL's capacity simply is too low i think and yet they want to be on top. It is a delecate balance, but sofar i don't think they have yet arrived as a quality IT company like Twitter, WoW, et cetera.

What i see is a rapid changing SL, specially when mesh import will be available and the downfall of the idea of a virtual (micro) economy. However with the current policies and management i don't see users coming back. Since 3 years total logins are at a down trend and i have not seen a reverse development yet.

SL's hay days are over since 2008, but who knows where it is all going...

At the moment they don't seem to be able to combine rapid development with quality. Excellent companies really can.