End of an Era, no more Pods.

[Mollymews]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think as in real life, the government should be in charge of roads and mass transit, and not private companies

i think that this gets to the heart of it really

is the demand for a taxi service (rez on demand) or a bus service (always running) ?

if was neither of these things and just about seeing stuff moving, to add colour, then it would be more interesting colour for me to see animals wandering on the roadsides, birds flying, fish swimming, and things like that

if the consideration is about new residents then a portal from the Social Islands to Train, Bus, Airport, Ferry terminals where the vehicle is Sit N' Go. Already rezzed at the platform/pier/tarmac/bus stop/etc. Person sits and off it goes. (self-replicating vehicles are quite good for Sit N' Go. On sit then change to TEMP_ON_REZ, rez/replicate a copy of itself in the same spot). Stand up, or get dumped on region crossing, and it auto-deletes itself because temp, even on no-script parcel

so after setting aside these two considerations then, Is it a bus service that is wanted or a taxi service ? And some people want a bus service, because they don't mind waiting on the side of the road until a bus comes along. Which leads to a thing

the thing is why would a person wanting to take the bus, not want to walk to the nearest bus stop ?

Edited August 23, 2020 by Mollymews
or dumped

[Asadora Summers]

7 hours ago, Asadora Summers said:

Good evening, Hi, Hello, How are ya'll?

 

If you are looking for updates:

The Pod Riders Group in-world - We have an update and Q&A chat time in group, so far it's been happening at 2pm EST (11am SLT)
We also have an official discord server - the link is in group notices.
Please don't be offended upon joining the in-world group and the answer to your question is: Check Group Notices - consider it your welcome to the group!

I want to thank everyone who has sent their well wishes to Yavanna. All the IMs and notecards of thanks and support, will be copied and pasted into email and sent to her. As we all know offlines can get capped. Logging in and being slammed with offlines it can be a bit stressful. And no one likes stress.
I'll be sending the Thanks and Support email to Yavanna tomorrow evening UK time.
So there is time for those of you that want to send on thanks and support to do so.

If you would like to speak to me directly not a problem, hit me up in world please.
I may be slow in responding to replies here, but I have faith that someone from the Pod Riders group will point it out to me

To all that have shared their memories, emotions and experiences with the Pods in a positive fashion, thank you.
It truly means a lot.
You've done Mainland proud.

Kind Regards.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Bock McMillan said:

I am trying to remain positive, but... There was nothing positive about the video you shared.

You assumed, on the word of a person that is recovering from a lethal and/or crippling disease and by her own admission is very tired, that all the information you had received in the note card from that person is correct. Based on that assumption you made an highly emotionally charged 20+ minutes long YouTube-video supporting the "allegations" made in the note card. 

 

Oh dear me. Aren't you making an assumption yourself about me?
Here is some positivity for you: I'm absolutely happy to continue living my life not defending my emotions nor words to someone who has a forum title of 'newbie'. If you would like to continue this inspiring debate regarding the pods themselves, please do contact me in world. I would utterly love to sit down and have a chat with you.

And have an awesome day!
 

[BJoyful]

1 hour ago, Bock McMillan said:

I am trying to remain positive, but... There was nothing positive about the video you shared.

You assumed, on the word of a person that is recovering from a lethal and/or crippling disease and by her own admission is very tired, that all the information you had received in the note card from that person is correct. Based on that assumption you made an highly emotionally charged 20+ minutes long YouTube-video supporting the "allegations" made in the note card. 

That is a very good point.  We do tend to believe that our feelings are good judges, but they are more like 'adjectives' (describing the impact of the facts).  In some situations our worry leads to an appeal for help by someone who can judge fairly.  Certainly in this case I did feel OP's concern and helplessness and the Pod-genius Yavanna's exhaustion and need to get better from illness which IS Yavanna's priority at this moment, higher than her need to make sure we all get our regular pod service ♥  I'm sure we have all run into a few things in SL over time, which don't work right.  We file a ticket or try to contact the owner and hope they will fix it ♥

This post did have a strong impact and maybe re-kindled some fond memories of Pod travels (certainly has made me realize I have been taking for granted they will always be there) but it also caught the attention of Patch, who has said LL will do their best to help in any way possible to the best of his abilities. and I think he has proven over and over that Patch does make good decisions for the best interests of the Residents, even when making the most difficult ones.

This is the place to post our concerns and ask for the help or advice of those who can provide it.  That part seems to be working just fine.  So lets relax and give Yavanna the time she needs to get better and give LL the time to do what they can to help and appreciate Residents like OP who do what they can to help.  I'm sure her actions were taken with the very best of intentions and she deserves a big vote of approval for taking those precious moments and give them to someone else. ♥  This is why I LOVE SL.

[Zero Starchild]

After all is said and done I am absolutely certain the pods will return in full glory.

 

[BJoyful]

22 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

the thing is why would a person wanting to take the bus, not want to walk to the nearest bus stop ?

That made me wonder if maybe a personal HUD Pod-Rezzer may work?  Those could work for anyone who knows what they are and wants to grab a tour.  I do think it's important for Noobs to see the pods in action and wondering where they were going was what first attracted me to them.  Maybe the automated ones could run from the Noob-spawn places to the nearest Pod Station, which explains what they are and how to use them, and great links to the routes?  

[ChinRey]

47 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

I'm not very techie and very new to LSL, Basic and C+ and C++ so I don't understand the server cost of scripts very well, but I think you might know more about that?

The load a manual rezzer script would cause is trivial. An autoamtic rezzer would be a little bit heavier to run but still nothing that should cause any sim any serious problems.

[BJoyful]

16 hours ago, Rob Huntsman said:

There's alot of communities dying in SL, not just pods. They're more video games released every year, and some that are just like Second life (IMVU, Smeet, Chit Chat city, etc). 

In short though, Second life has a bucket list of problems such as high cost for sims, players not being able to find anything to do besides shop & gamble, and terrible computer performance on modern computers. It's not a real shock SL is hemorrhaging players.

My goodness, I hope you don't work in Public Relations or Support for a living.  I don't think you are trying very hard to find something to do besides shop & gamble?  Have you got a Passport in SL?  They are issued by some Continents and offer lists of places to visit and collect stamps to add to your Passport HUD.  This passport has introduced me to some great places to explore and very interesting places to visit.  I've not been disappointed in a single destination which provided a stamp... of course I didn't want or expect to be disappointed either!  All things must change and only the ones which are unable to evolve or adapt disappear.  In your list I've only heard of IMVU and that has been from people in SL who also use it or who wanted a more realistic world they can move freely around instead of navigating from one dot to another.  No other virtual world has a comparable contiguous Mainland which could even come close to SL's.  No other 'game' is comparable to the opportunity to enjoy a virtual life. We work, explore, socialize, learn and are limited only by our imagination as to what we can add or experience in SL.  It's our duty to entertain ourselves, not the other way around. ♥

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

The load a manual rezzer script would cause is trivial. An autoamtic rezzer would be a little bit heavier to run but still nothing that should cause any sim any serious problems.

Yeah. My earlier point was really just that these Pods pose a very low demand on sim resources, whether they're just passing through or rezzing from scratch. In stark contrast to earlier generations of vehicles by another resident, it's simply not a valid argument to say they're causing any kind of lag. There may be other reasons or excuses in objection to the Pods running without occupants, but it's disingenuous to raise the resources canard, and I just won't entertain it further.

I and others have already explained why other means of summoning Pods are not as effective. We might stop inventing yet more ways to gild this lily.

[BJoyful]

15 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

And I can also point out that as annoying as ice cream trucks

And sometimes the Ice Cream trucks make us want ice cream, when we'd never have thought of it unless we heard the bells or saw the Ice Cream truck. 🍦

Edited August 23, 2020 by BJoyful
typo (smh)

[AlettaMondragon]

1 hour ago, BJoyful said:

That made me wonder if maybe a personal HUD Pod-Rezzer may work?  Those could work for anyone who knows what they are and wants to grab a tour.  I do think it's important for Noobs to see the pods in action and wondering where they were going was what first attracted me to them.  Maybe the automated ones could run from the Noob-spawn places to the nearest Pod Station, which explains what they are and how to use them, and great links to the routes?  

 

Alright, I guess I'll step in here as well with a few points. Generally, having more pod-stops and even a "Pod App" HUD to call a pod to a certain place would be technically possible. As some others already pointed out, it wouldn't consume less resources in the affected regions. The pods have a really low resource usage anyway.

 

The one thing that is really useful for some newbies, as it was for me as well, that when you join SL and have absolutely no idea about anything at all, and accidentally happen to end up on a mainland road while exploring random places the first time, you don't know anything about vehicles in SL, and you probably start to walk down the road. And the first moving thing to come by would be a pod, which you can hop on for free, and it takes you to places, and even tells a lot of info about everything! I spend a lot of time out on the roads, I've seen this happening quite often. Just as it was in my case, other new people starting to explore SL happen to wander on the road or preferably on the roadside, and I witness them hopping on the pod that comes by in either direction. It always reminds me that I've done the same, and it inspired me to get my own vehicles and be more active on mainland, and to spend time to try to make it better for those that use the public lands. If the pods don't cruise automatically on the roads (and other public places), newbies likely won't be able to even notice them. Walking past a building that says "YavaScript Pod Station" won't really make them stop and fiddle with things to realize they can rez a pod. I know. Even with my 10+ years of experience in games and virtual worlds, when I joined SL, while exploring things in the first month I had barely any idea of what I'm doing or where I am at all. My super-quick learning ability kicked in gradually only after getting a basic knowledge of things.

 

I also want to share a real life example in regard of "why would you take a public transport vehicle on the move instead of at a stop". This might be even two examples combined. I've done a lot of trips with friends and alone in real life, exploring my country by going out to places by train, bus, etc, and then to explore an area on foot, with nothing more at hand than what I had in my backpack. Now when you're out in the middle of nowhere, you can't even search on the internet on your smartphone, without sufficient signal. And when you're tired by the end of the day and every step makes you want to sit down and rest, you don't want to walk to a bus station or train station or something. You don't even know where it is. It has happened a lot of times that I only realized there was a bus service in the area because I saw the bus passing while I wasn't even near the road, and when I got to a bus stop I saw that the bus I've seen was the last one of the day. It's definitely better if you're at least on the road already, and you can hop on the bus "on the move". And this is what people have done in the early years of public transport everywhere in the world, and this is what they still do today in many countries. Mostly in the western culture we don't do this anymore since it's dangerous to hop on and off moving vehicles, and not effective for the provider of the service to stop for anyone in the middle of nowhere instead of only stopping at stops and keeping their schedule. In those parts of the world where this mentaility hasn't evolved yet, they still hop on and off the vehicles, even ride on the top, or hang on the sides, and buses and trams are more likely to stop to pick up someone wandering in the middle of nowhere. While definitely not the safest way to travel, it does give people one important thing: Freedom. They're not restricted to only board public transport at stations and stops, and not restricted to how they can actually use them.

 

That being said, and since this is SL, there are some aspects mentioned above that don't even apply here: 1, The public transport vehicle (like the Pod) won't be behind schedule by picking up passengers between stops; 2, There are no safety concerns for which you shouldn't hop on a moving pod. As a third point, I could even mention that SL is about the freedom we can have here, that we can't have in RL due to physical and legal restrictions. If I wanted to take this argument to an absurd level, I'd say, if anyone has a problem with how the Pods and some other automated vehicles in SL work, avatar flight could be entirely removed from SL as well if we don't want to have things here that are not realistic or don't fit in the environment.

 

Also, the Pods have technical advantages not even to other automated vehicles on Mainland only, but to most vehicles in SL in general: 1, They are small and have a neutral look; 2, They are set to PHANTOM. There's no way they can obstruct anything, at all; 3, They don't make any sounds while moving, except in railcar mode on the SLRR, where they simulate making contact with the rails; 4, They drive properly on the right side of the road (left side on "Sharp"), if you're not fond of driving through the phantom pod, you can properly overtake them, which makes them a proper AI traffic simulation. This point might not be important to many people, it definitely is for me, and yes, 99% of mainland road traffic were the pods, and it felt heartbreakingly lonely to drive on the roads already, now without the pods it is like driving in a post-apocalyptic world as the only survivor. Yeah, feel free to criticise this as being subjective and emotional, it's a vital part of being human.

 

All in all, whether the Pods should run automatically on mainland or not, is not a technical question, but a question of freedom. Why wouldn't they run freely on the roads, on the SLRR and on and above waterways, while they don't violate the rights of others? Those that don't want to see them based on anything they've mentioned, is just as subjective and depending on their personal taste, as the way many of us love the Pods. Just because one doesn't like how something looks, won't make a valid point questioning its rights to be in sight.

 

[Edit: Corrected my typo in "evolved"]

Edited August 23, 2020 by AlettaMondragon

[Rob Huntsman]

40 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

My goodness, I hope you don't work in Public Relations or Support for a living.  I don't think you are trying very hard to find something to do besides shop & gamble?  Have you got a Passport in SL?  They are issued by some Continents and offer lists of places to visit and collect stamps to add to your Passport HUD.  This passport has introduced me to some great places to explore and very interesting places to visit.  I've not been disappointed in a single destination which provided a stamp... of course I didn't want or expect to be disappointed either!  All things must change and only the ones which are unable to evolve or adapt disappear.  In your list I've only heard of IMVU and that has been from people in SL who also use it or who wanted a more realistic world they can move freely around instead of navigating from one dot to another.  No other virtual world has a comparable contiguous Mainland which could even come close to SL's.  No other 'game' is comparable to the opportunity to enjoy a virtual life. We work, explore, socialize, learn and are limited only by our imagination as to what we can add or experience in SL.  It's our duty to entertain ourselves, not the other way around. ♥

I do much more then just shop & gamble on Second Life. I was talking about you're average player.

Click the "Destinations" button in your viewer. Here are the regions advertised for Second Life.

1.) Clubs

2.) Stores

3.) Gambling (Skill gaming regions.)

4.) RP regions filled with bots using all the same IP address.

Destinations is what I met for what most players can expect in second life. For example, they're dozens of videos on youtube where the average guy just logs in and trying to find stuff to do through Destinations. New players don't know whats fun or good, and the developers are just hearding new players to random stores, clubs, & places filled with bots..

This is why they hired that one youtuber "Strawberry Singh" to find stuff for people to do in SL.

However, I do believe there needs to be more diversity in the "Destinations" catalog. For example,  Games section needs to be split with gambling, and other true games like Capture the Flag, Chess, or any other board game. It shouldn't be JUST gambling. My point can go on for roleplay, etc

Edited August 23, 2020 by Rob Huntsman

[BeautifulXu]

I don't want to gamble, it's hard enough getting a few lindens as it is. If we gamble maybe we could  win a make-over or dances or Or you can come to a party on the 7th of every month and get something.

[Prokofy Neva]

6 hours ago, AlettaMondragon said:

 

Alright, I guess I'll step in here as well with a few points. Generally, having more pod-stops and even a "Pod App" HUD to call a pod to a certain place would be technically possible. As some others already pointed out, it wouldn't consume less resources in the affected regions. The pods have a really low resource usage anyway.

 

The one thing that is really useful for some newbies, as it was for me as well, that when you join SL and have absolutely no idea about anything at all, and accidentally happen to end up on a mainland road while exploring random places the first time, you don't know anything about vehicles in SL, and you probably start to walk down the road. And the first moving thing to come by would be a pod, which you can hop on for free, and it takes you to places, and even tells a lot of info about everything! I spend a lot of time out on the roads, I've seen this happening quite often. Just as it was in my case, other new people starting to explore SL happen to wander on the road or preferably on the roadside, and I witness them hopping on the pod that comes by in either direction. It always reminds me that I've done the same, and it inspired me to get my own vehicles and be more active on mainland, and to spend time to try to make it better for those that use the public lands. If the pods don't cruise automatically on the roads (and other public places), newbies likely won't be able to even notice them. Walking past a building that says "YavaScript Pod Station" won't really make them stop and fiddle with things to realize they can rez a pod. I know. Even with my 10+ years of experience in games and virtual worlds, when I joined SL, while exploring things in the first month I had barely any idea of what I'm doing or where I am at all. My super-quick learning ability kicked in gradually only after getting a basic knowledge of things.

 

I also want to share a real life example in regard of "why would you take a public transport vehicle on the move instead of at a stop". This might be even two examples combined. I've done a lot of trips with friends and alone in real life, exploring my country by going out to places by train, bus, etc, and then to explore an area on foot, with nothing more at hand than what I had in my backpack. Now when you're out in the middle of nowhere, you can't even search on the internet on your smartphone, without sufficient signal. And when you're tired by the end of the day and every step makes you want to sit down and rest, you don't want to walk to a bus station or train station or something. You don't even know where it is. It has happened a lot of times that I only realized there was a bus service in the area because I saw the bus passing while I wasn't even near the road, and when I got to a bus stop I saw that the bus I've seen was the last one of the day. It's definitely better if you're at least on the road already, and you can hop on the bus "on the move". And this is what people have done in the early years of public transport everywhere in the world, and this is what they still do today in many countries. Mostly in the western culture we don't do this anymore since it's dangerous to hop on and off moving vehicles, and not effective for the provider of the service to stop for anyone in the middle of nowhere instead of only stopping at stops and keeping their schedule. In those parts of the world where this mentaility hasn't evolved yet, they still hop on and off the vehicles, even ride on the top, or hang on the sides, and buses and trams are more likely to stop to pick up someone wandering in the middle of nowhere. While definitely not the safest way to travel, it does give people one important thing: Freedom. They're not restricted to only board public transport at stations and stops, and not restricted to how they can actually use them.

 

That being said, and since this is SL, there are some aspects mentioned above that don't even apply here: 1, The public transport vehicle (like the Pod) won't be behind schedule by picking up passengers between stops; 2, There are no safety concerns for which you shouldn't hop on a moving pod. As a third point, I could even mention that SL is about the freedom we can have here, that we can't have in RL due to physical and legal restrictions. If I wanted to take this argument to an absurd level, I'd say, if anyone has a problem with how the Pods and some other automated vehicles in SL work, avatar flight could be entirely removed from SL as well if we don't want to have things here that are not realistic or don't fit in the environment.

 

Also, the Pods have technical advantages not even to other automated vehicles on Mainland only, but to most vehicles in SL in general: 1, They are small and have a neutral look; 2, They are set to PHANTOM. There's no way they can obstruct anything, at all; 3, They don't make any sounds while moving, except in railcar mode on the SLRR, where they simulate making contact with the rails; 4, They drive properly on the right side of the road (left side on "Sharp"), if you're not fond of driving through the phantom pod, you can properly overtake them, which makes them a proper AI traffic simulation. This point might not be important to many people, it definitely is for me, and yes, 99% of mainland road traffic were the pods, and it felt heartbreakingly lonely to drive on the roads already, now without the pods it is like driving in a post-apocalyptic world as the only survivor. Yeah, feel free to criticise this as being subjective and emotional, it's a vital part of being human.

 

All in all, whether the Pods should run automatically on mainland or not, is not a technical question, but a question of freedom. Why wouldn't they run freely on the roads, on the SLRR and on and above waterways, while they don't violate the rights of others? Those that don't want to see them based on anything they've mentioned, is just as subjective and depending on their personal taste, as the way many of us love the Pods. Just because one doesn't like how something looks, won't make a valid point questioning its rights to be in sight.

 

[Edit: Corrected my typo in "evolved"]

You have a fantasy about newbies, and a belief, and you can't back it up with facts.

All you have to do to prove this is to give us the numbers for how many people randomly ride the pods, and of these, how many are younger than 30 days. Even allowing for alts, that might give you some reliable figures about this claim. But you don't have those numbers; only the Lindens do. So you don't know whether your belief is fact; none of us do.

I can only add to this *more* anecdotes -- way more -- where I see many sims and many pods, not just that one sim and one road you see -- and none of them have riders. None. Maybe every month or so, there might be a rider. But generally, they have no riders. Anyone with scripts that count vehicular traffic and also count avatars and do the math. Most do not have riders.

The idea that a newbie can know how to right-click and ride a pod so much easier than he can...click on a pod at a station that says "take a pod and explore the mainland" -- just boggles the mind.

They do not have a "neutral look". They are small little creepy pods from outer space that do not fit the themes of the overwhelming majority of sims they spam across, which are not outer space or the Jetson's. 100% of the ones I see are empty -- so your raptures about efficiency are raptures about bots, about machines. Let's say someone can actually get the figures for us -- a glimpse of which we can see at the existing rezzing stations where it says "0" or "1" used before you. It will still prove to be at most 90%. 

I'd rather have real people who stumble along, have trouble at seams, run into things -- and also maybe strike up a conversation or stop at a roadside yard sale and buy a gatcha, than these efficient outerspace machines.

Once again, if you put the stations every other sim, you can still find them easily when you have a whim to travel across the blasted post-apocalypse mainland (as you seem to imply), yet they won't spam all day and eat up resources and fill the view.

[Prokofy Neva]

8 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i think that this gets to the heart of it really

is the demand for a taxi service (rez on demand) or a bus service (always running) ?

if was neither of these things and just about seeing stuff moving, to add colour, then it would be more interesting colour for me to see animals wandering on the roadsides, birds flying, fish swimming, and things like that

if the consideration is about new residents then a portal from the Social Islands to Train, Bus, Airport, Ferry terminals where the vehicle is Sit N' Go. Already rezzed at the platform/pier/tarmac/bus stop/etc. Person sits and off it goes. (self-replicating vehicles are quite good for Sit N' Go. On sit then change to TEMP_ON_REZ, rez/replicate a copy of itself in the same spot). Stand up, or get dumped on region crossing, and it auto-deletes itself because temp, even on no-script parcel

so after setting aside these two considerations then, Is it a bus service that is wanted or a taxi service ? And some people want a bus service, because they don't mind waiting on the side of the road until a bus comes along. Which leads to a thing

the thing is why would a person wanting to take the bus, not want to walk to the nearest bus stop ?

Well as others have pointed out, there could be a HUD that summons them, for those that have that irresistible whim to hop on something and travel.  Like an app calling ride share.

[Prokofy Neva]

13 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I think you have explained the problem more so. Most of us like and accept them and therefore the pods become part of the backround scenery whereas your seeming intense dislike draws your ire to each one seen, amplifying how frequently they are seen as your eyes search them out specifically.

Love the pods and you will no longer be flooded by this negativity towards them.🍦

I realize this is hard to accept, but "most of us" on the forums is a tiny, tiny number.

There isn't any "most of us" in any sense of "the population of SL" because if there were, *there would be people in them. And there aren't*.

I'm standing on a sim watching them go by now. Not a soul. Ever.

Um, I'm not "flooded with negativity," although pop psychology may be something you enjoy. I am speaking the truth about them in a very sober and rational way. They are spam. They have no people in them. Anyone willing to see the truth can just go look.

The Lindens know this. And they want free load testing or they cave to the tiny forums cartel opinion because they're their friends or their alts.

Even so, the Lindens are capable of really seeing the whole of this situation, they know full well that most of them have no riders, so they can do the math and also conclude that it's time to grow up now and stop having your customers do your load-testing for you, now that you are going to be a real company that has been bought by a real company. 

[Garnet Psaltery]

23 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm standing on a sim watching them go by now. Not a soul. Ever.

Perhaps they know you're watching.  I like the pods; they are innocent fun. 

[AlettaMondragon]

57 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

You have a fantasy about newbies, and a belief, and you can't back it up with facts.

All you have to do to prove this is to give us the numbers for how many people randomly ride the pods, and of these, how many are younger than 30 days. Even allowing for alts, that might give you some reliable figures about this claim. But you don't have those numbers; only the Lindens do. So you don't know whether your belief is fact; none of us do.

 

It's my personal experience, you know, I was a newbie when I joined SL. You've been one as well ages ago. I just don't have an idea what you've been doing back then. Go out to the roads, drive on them, instead of sitting constantly on your "50 sims at the same time", you'll see much more. One thing you're right about, I didn't count how many times I've seen newbies riding pods, but it was a common sight on the roads. I spend a lot of time on mainland roads monthly - about 3 hours per continent per week in average, coming from small patrols that last for less than an hour, to full Sansara, Satori and Jeogeot ones that can even last 10 hours that I have to break into several days - and it is enough time to see how things work on the roads. Sitting at one place, even if it's 50 places at the same time, is an entirely different experience. If you'd say you've never seen people riding pods in the Waterhead-Ravenglass area though, I wouldn't believe you, sorry.

 

57 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

They do not have a "neutral look". They are small little creepy pods from outer space that do not fit the themes of the overwhelming majority of sims they spam across, which are not outer space or the Jetson's.

 

The overwhelming majority of sims they spam across are abandoned lands. Anything fits in the theme of 17 year old deprecated bare terrain. When it comes to sims full of beautiful fullbright privacy screens and plants, or plywood prim builds, sure, they don't fit in the theme. They look much better than the theme. And if you take a look at the sims that have really nice builds on them, a few futuristic pods from "outer space" surely don't take away anything from the looks. Those really well made builds are not the majority of sims, they're unfortunately a minority. As I've said originally, this is a matter of personal taste. You just don't like the pods. It's okay. I don't like your anti-Bella Pointe petition boards either, yet I don't complain, I just laugh.

Wait, I even forgot: the pods have an open body, and don't even have fancy forcefields to keep air inside. They cannot be from "outer space" with that design. Of course when you realize there isn't even air in SL, you might want to get a rebreather quickly...

 

57 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Once again, if you put the stations every other sim, you can still find them easily when you have a whim to travel across the blasted post-apocalypse mainland (as you seem to imply), yet they won't spam all day and eat up resources and fill the view.

 

[14:32] Script info: 'YavaScript Pod V5.0 (MCT)': [10/10] running scripts, 304 KB allowed memory size limit, 0.030130 ms of CPU time consumed.

Yeah, definitely eating up resources. I swear I could even feel the sim shaking under my feet while I checked the pod's script stats, and it obscured the Sun from my view as it passed by on the road. Not.

Edited August 23, 2020 by AlettaMondragon
Comment on "outer space"

[BJoyful]

1 hour ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

Perhaps they know you're watching.  I like the pods; they are innocent fun. 

You are one of the Pod People! 😏  I really need to go for a pod ride now!  🙋‍♀️

[foneco Zuzu]

I just wish the path that LL was following lately, meaning gathering, joining and listening to users in World just didn't end and was replaced by the terrible approach of simply ignoring users all together!

 Is patch still the model to follow or we are going back to 2010?

[BJoyful]

2 minutes ago, foneco Zuzu said:

 Is patch still the model to follow or we are going back to 2010?

I think he's been on top of this since Friday...  we are Patch'd 😉

[Mollymews]

9 hours ago, BJoyful said:

That made me wonder if maybe a personal HUD Pod-Rezzer may work?  Those could work for anyone who knows what they are and wants to grab a tour.  I do think it's important for Noobs to see the pods in action and wondering where they were going was what first attracted me to them.  Maybe the automated ones could run from the Noob-spawn places to the nearest Pod Station, which explains what they are and how to use them, and great links to the routes?  

the new resident Social Islands are teleport access. So I think that a dedicated portal to  Mass Transit Terminal destinations might be good. A fixture of Destinations Guide as well.   And at the Terminals then educative stuff about vehicles as you say

on the ooh! I wonder where that is going!.  Yes that's a good reason for a always running transit service.  I quite liked the railcar that used to run between Mocha and Purple regions. It was colourful and it looked like it fitted in. I had a home nearby back in those days, would sometimes see people on it. And I would sometimes walk to the Olive station and catch the railcar down to Purple

and when I think about it, what makes me go meh! when I see a pod is that they are boring. I get why they look as they do, to be unobtrusive. But mass transit vehicles like trains, buses, ferries, aeroplanes should be visually interesting. Is why i liked the railcar

and is the one thing I did like about the Otoole vehicles (dumb as they were navigation-wise). They were colourful.  I even used to like the tank. And when it would come by my then roadside parcel I would drive my bulldozer onto the road and have a battle. Could win the battle by preventing the tank from leaving the roadway parcel until the auto-return killed it. Then one day those vehicles went phantom on collision. And I was like: you cheater! 

[Holocluck Henly]

14 hours ago, Bock McMillan said:

You assumed, on the word of a person that is recovering from a lethal and/or crippling disease and by her own admission is very tired, that all the information you had received in the note card from that person is correct. Based on that assumption you made an highly emotionally charged 20+ minutes long YouTube-video supporting the "allegations" made in the note card. 

Is that what you got from it? hmmm.

@Qie Niangao The pods don't perceptibly impact regions. Also the value of making connections to other pod routes at places or catching the next one after a bad region crash have proven valuable. That doesn't even factor in when people are curious and hop on. They take two passengers, so we're happy when an empty one comes along; earlier this week in Satori we had to wait for another going our way. Spent time checking something out nearby that we noticed from a previous pod ride.

btw this afternoon someone hopped onto my railcar for a bit.

If anyone tells you that nobody uses them... people use them. It's just not rush hour traffic.  tbh I used to hoverboard the routes often about 8 years ago, but people come and go from mainland, and those several friends I traveled for a visit just arent around. 

[Phrynne]

I have been riding podcars for about 8 years now -- they are one of the reasons I bought land in Jeogeot, because I liked the look of it from the road.  I think they are a great benefit to the Mainland; they allow people to see a lot of places they ordinarily might not be able to find.  I continue to ride them several times a week, because I enjoy it.  Isn't that what Second Life is supposed to be for, enjoyment? 

What is gained by those who dislike them so much?  Who benefits from this dislike?  Calling a simple and neutral design "ugly" or "creepy" says so much more about the speaker than it does about the design.  

As for the number of people riding them -- I often see at least one other person on a podcar when I am out and about, and no, I do not always ride the same one.  I am trying to increase my knowledge of Second Life's various locales, and this is an easy way to do it.  No, it's not rush-hour traffic -- but 'rush hour' happens at different times in different time zones, and SL is extremely international.  Why does it have to be rush hour to please anyone?  Can't leisurely touring be acceptable?  It has certainly felt like rush hour sometimes when there were other vehicles on the road that aren't podcars, such as the red panel truck that barely dodged around me several times and the flying unmanned green hovercar that tumbled directly over my head.  The roads in Mainland aren't nearly as empty as some may think.

Yes, it would be wonderful if it were possible to keep open the routes that intersected, so that one vehicle could connect with another.  I wish that would happen.  But at least they are still there at the stations, and the possibility of rezzing cars.  In the absence of podcars on the roads, I will continue to ride what is possible.

 

[Zero Starchild]

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

 

I'm standing on a sim watching them go by now. Not a soul. Ever.

 

If your standing NOW watching empty ones go by then that is false. If no one is sitting in them NOW they go poof and do not travel far. I want more pods more more more I love them

[Prokofy Neva]

37 minutes ago, Ziggy Starsmith said:

If your standing NOW watching empty ones go by then that is false. If no one is sitting in them NOW they go poof and do not travel far. I want more pods more more more I love them

For more than a decade, I have watched them go by, and all of them are empty. All. I only hear on the forums that they are actually ridden.

I just saw them go by. Is it that they rez and someone jumped out of them and they live for a second? I don't know. If they now poof as soon as people jump out of them and never rez and keep going empty over sims, great! That's how it should be.

What's false is a) people's claim that they ride them -- they don't, but have some nostalgic memory how they did that one time; b) the claim that outside the forums, there are vast numbers of people that ride them -- they have not ridden them. 

Again, the Lindens know this -- they have few riders, such as to justify their constant streaming as spam over sims. The Lindens have the facts on their server records. So it's silly to keep arguing about it and playing "gatcha".