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What is Your Prediction for SL in 2021?


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1 minute ago, RowanMinx said:

All I can say about that is that for me, noses are THE most difficult part of editing a mesh head and it took me quite some time to get rid of a turned up nose look.  

/me shrugs

/me shrugs back because that's so weird.  Straight noses are so easy in my experience.  

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In my crystal ball I see... A mutation of the 'Rona that sends everyone back into extreme isolation again which drives an invading horde of former SL critics seeking any kind of social interaction regardless of how embarrassing it might be. Concurrency rates will explode. Residents who have left will return and continually ask those around them what the hell is bento and does it come with duck sauce? In an effort to cater to its older (RL age) demographic an SL version of Jeopardy (SLeparty) and Wheel of Fortune (Disk of SLuck) will become a popular hosted event with mesh recliners replacing dance pads. Zindra and SLex in general will become passé, yielding ground to a new continent dedicated to ultra religious ideals. The newest club on this island will be called Noah's Arc-ade featuring Hymns and Bingo (SLingo) games. Instead of vampires and bloodline devotees, missionaries will stalk the mainland with special HUDS that keep track of contacts and conversions. Elon Musk will invent a new, cheap, quantum processor that will finally let all users walk around full sims, at 100FPS, with graphics turned up to full. Orange clouds will disappear except for those selling the ironic orange particle cloud as an avatar option. Donald Trump will buy a collection of islands, setting himself as King and calling all other sims fake. 

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46 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

in most professional dev teams there are individuals who do have lots of knowledge/experience in a wide range of devices/platforms including mobile, and I think that the Linden dev team would be no exception to this

Maybe but it is worth noticing that even some Linden and ex-Linden developers have complained about LL's lack of differention between different fields of software development. The developers and programmers are expected to be jacks of all trades and masters of all too. At least that's how it used to be. Recently LL advertised for a Vulkan specialist, maybe that's a sign that things have changed?

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9 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Maybe but it is worth noticing that even some Linden and ex-Linden developers have complained about LL's lack of differention between different fields of software development. The developers and programmers are expected to be jacks of all trades and masters of all too. At least that's how it used to be. 

That doesn't seem to apply to mobile development from the way I was/am hearing in the TPV meetings. Keira Linden seems to be in charge and spokesperson for that.

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Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

That doesn't seem to apply to mobile development from the way I was/am hearing in the TPV meetings. Keira Linden seems to be in charge and spokesperson for that.

Well, as I said, there are signs LL has changed their policy there recently so let's hope.

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8 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

I disagree with all of this and wonder if you've ever seen a Classic head on ULTRA with pixels bumped way up?  They look downright real.  I cannot get that sense of real with a mesh head even at a distance...it's more "doll".   I'm sure most people are not rezzing nor using ULTRA nor bumping their pixels up either at first...let alone ever.

I run SL on ultra all the time so yes I am aware of how they look and in my opinion they are still flawed. At certain angles especially the side they are very low quality compared to what they should be. Additionally you need to have good windlight settings to make it look good as well.  I am not suggesting a direct copy of mesh heads available on the marketplace as I do agree they are very limited, half the sliders don't work on them and some look downright weird.

That said, what I meant is that the default head can and should be updated to a mesh quality that is the same as the other heads on the market. That is to say add more vertices/polygons so as they can look as real as possible without relying on shading of the skin which only provides a realistic look from certain angles. Zooming in on the ear when you have it as a pixie ear shows how low quality the mesh is as it starts to get very jaggy. The nose you can see individual flat polygons on it.

All I can suggest is compare Second Life's default head to those that are available in modern games. Second Life's head compared to those is very unrealistic. If LL want to grow Second Life, modern games are what they need to be equivalent to in terms of graphical standards go as that is what the potential user pool is used to. That is why the comments exist that SL looks outdated and old.

8 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Plus, I'm going to have to add, Classic avatars are often shunned and rejected.  What SL is now is start as a reject and that's not right to do to somebody.

Whilst the existing userbase has left the classic avatar in droves, it is for a reason, but it is also just not them. The very fact that new users state needing a new mesh body as a reason they didn't like SL shows that the default body is bad.

Ask any mesh body creator and they will tell you that the default mesh body and shape of the male default avatar is incorrect and wrong as far as proportion goes. This is why many creators use the female shape over the male shape. Furry body makers in particular have used female shapes for males for over a decade due to this, they even used the female shape for the default avatar.

6 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

BDO --- I so love that game!  LL should take some tips on how to market SL from them. I also in training to be a GM for them too!

It is a good game and if only SL had its body editing system.🤤 If only that body editing existed in combination with APB Reloaded character editing and creation system, I don't think SL would have any issue in reaching and keeping a much more vast userbase.

Their marketing is on point and I agree LL should adopt a similar approach which, is why I posted their website as an example. It would literally be a copy paste. Machinima from SL at the top, Marketplace link instead of shop link up the top. News where news is, screenshots where screenshots are, features where features are, new join character selection where characters are and second life surl map where the map is with purchase land now link on it.

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5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

That's perfectly normal. How many free subscription web sites have you signed up to but never got around to use? There is one MMORPG that boasts they have "billions of users". Yeah right!

Okay, sure, but why the precipitous change?

Can anything be learned from a sudden change in a number everyone knows is 90% bogus?

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3 hours ago, Mollymews said:

by institutional knowledge I mean the company/team as a whole, not as a collection of individuals some with personal experience/knowledge

in most professional dev teams there are individuals who do have lots of knowledge/experience in a wide range of devices/platforms including mobile, and I think that the Linden dev team would be no exception to this

this is not the same tho as a dev team as a whole (as an institution) having an in-depth knowledge of the SL backend and also having extensive experience of surfacing this particular back end on a mobile device. Institutional knowledge/experience which comes when the work is formally initiated by the company  

If I may I'd like to point out that Alina Lyvette created Lumiya without being privy to the institutional knowledge of S/L's backend and yet developed a very usable app. I have to wonder if in some cases that backend knowledge is more of a hindrance that will overly complicate it and slow the development down to a crawl. It is already going on months now for the text part and it is still barely usable. Apple's own problems further complicate it to a point where it is my opinion they should just shelve the ios part for now and concentrate on the android app as coding for it is well established and there is already a good ui plan in Lumiya. No need to reinvent that wheel.

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1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

Additionally you need to have good windlight settings to make it look good as well. 

We need good windlight for mesh heads too.  So, I don't see the reason for stating this?

 

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

That said, what I meant is that the default head can and should be updated to a mesh quality that is the same as the other heads on the market. That is to say add more vertices/polygons so as they can look as real as possible without relying on shading of the skin which only provides a realistic look from certain angles.

Oh, I thought you were saying the Classic default head is not worth upgrading to have more polygons.  I think it might be.  And, I'm assuming more polygons into the equation here that's why I'm showing you my pictures on ULTRA with pixels bumped way high in camera as well.   But, again, will LL do anything about it?  I doubt it but I don't know how they expect to get new blood into SL if someone rezzes in a world who is a reject.  

 

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

Whilst the existing userbase has left the classic avatar in droves, it is for a reason, but it is also just not them. The very fact that new users state needing a new mesh body as a reason they didn't like SL shows that the default body is bad.

I think rejection plays a huge part in that as does the cost, not just the look.  Plus, feeling out of place and/or feeling poor as well.  

Additionally, I think another problem not addressed by LL or the residents, is users need a chance to be a part of the world and to make sure they like it before shelling out 40-50 dollars for an avatar.

Edited by FairreLilette
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19 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I doubt it but I don't know how they expect to get new blood into SL if someone rezzes in a world who is a reject. 

I've never treated anyone any differently if they're new for looking new.  I'm always more than happy to help with any and all questions they might have.  I chat with new people all the time.  I don't think residents in general reject NEW people who look new.  It's expected.  What I do tend to be cautious of are the people who have been here for years and still have an avatar with all freebies.  I do realize some people don't spend RL money here but come on, it just takes a small amount of time and effort to at least look like you didn't just fall off New Resident Island or wherever.

To say everyone is rejected who is new and looks new is just not so.  But the one thing most of them do ask me is how to update their avatar.  I do agree that it needs to be an easier process or that the starter MESH avatars need to be brought up to at least the standards that would allow people to clothe them properly.  To give them a mesh avatar that there is no clothing available for is ridiculous.  At least back when it was the classic avatar, all clothing worked.  They immediately are at a disadvantage with the current starter mesh.

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1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

If I may I'd like to point out that Alina Lyvette created Lumiya without being privy to the institutional knowledge of S/L's backend and yet developed a very usable app. I have to wonder if in some cases that backend knowledge is more of a hindrance that will overly complicate it and slow the development down to a crawl. It is already going on months now for the text part and it is still barely usable. Apple's own problems further complicate it to a point where it is my opinion they should just shelve the ios part for now and concentrate on the android app as coding for it is well established and there is already a good ui plan in Lumiya. No need to reinvent that wheel.

i think is a lot of merit in what you mention. I get why Linden chose to do Apple first with the Apple-signalled change to graphics rendering on their platform, but I do wonder like you if Android might have been the better choice, at least in terms of a proof of concept. Altho that may have already been the case, dunno

on the indie developer who can turn out apps. A thing is that with indie projects in these instances, is all care and no responsibility. If an indie app breaks/stops, or becomes unmanageable because other RL factors then the indie dev can just walk away. And they sometimes/often do

with a enterprise (like Linden) comes a lot more responsibility, if not to the customers then to the stakeholders/shareholders. For sure an enterprise can be shut down at any time by the board/shareholders, but is not done without a lot of careful thought, and is not dependent on a change in the life of any one person 

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27 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

To say everyone is rejected who is new and looks new is just not so. 

I'm not saying it's 100% from all residents as there is no such thing as 100% anything other than death in this life; not everyone even needs to pay taxes in rl.  Many residents don't reject anyone even if the avatar is still a Classic after years.  But, honestly, many might not get a job nor a date until an upgrade to a mesh avatar is more along what I'm speaking about.   Also, Classic avatars are most welcome to hang out with us tinies and many do.  

Edited by FairreLilette
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As far as Lumiya goes, I've been waaaay too busy with first life to have been up to date with the game. Today is the first day I've heard of it.

 

The TOS is tight, and I like it. As for google, well, I don't work for google and a alternative app downloaders exist. As for the developer of it, I have this to say; I think you did a fantastic job according to the tech reels I've seen, but have yet to try it.

 

Sorry I don't post here at al. The forum layout hurts my eyes for some reason.

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On 1/9/2021 at 2:17 PM, Jackson Redstar said:

I'm lost here.....

LL had to be looked over by the trade authorities because of its subsidiary, Tilia, which handles the payments and the conversion from Linden dollars into real US dollars.

However, when I said there was no bitcoin involved, which should make it easier, I had forgotten that while Second Life doesn't involve bitcoin (the Lindens dollars are sort of like Sears & Roebucks' old Green Stamps), there is Uplands, which uses Tilia.

https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/21/uplandme-blockchain-game-will-use-linden-labs-tilia-for-virtual-property-transactions/

And Tilia was in the news again with Upland when some "virtual estate" sold for a real US $23,000, a replica of Wall Street.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/12/29/2151445/0/en/Virtual-Property-of-the-famous-New-York-Stock-Exchange-Sells-for-US-23-000-in-Upland-Metaverse-Auction.html

I personally don't get this and it seems like some sort of crazy tulip mania. When land in SL sells for US $4000 (an entire sim on great sailing water like Blake Sea will go for that), it makes sense to me because whoever spends that crazy amount can start making it back with rents or re-sales.

But what can you do with an expensive replica of Wall Street? Unless they think this is really the wave of the future and Upland is going to be the official virtualization of New York City? 

It just doesn't draw me but maybe someone can explain more about it.

So it any rate Upland runs with blockchain, and they use Tilia, and Tilia is part of what had to be examined with the sale of LL.I don't know any of the details.

Some of the posts here and in other threads express concern about an investment company buying another company, and the impression that it will flip it or strip its assets or something. How can you strip assets from SL? They are all attached to the virtual world. How can you flip SL? It's a really odd bird to own in the first place. It's a very niche product. So you have to really be in it for the long run.

As you can see from the other thread. Soft Linden rushed into (which was very unusual) to reassure people with his take on this sale -- the belief from Lindens and insiders is that the sale is not about flipping but about love and care. Well, we'll see.

What is the value of SL? It's not a user's list. It's not virtual property which has no ability to export anywhere else (well maybe it can to Open Sim grids but they have paltry populations. My impression is that there is not a lot that is portable about SL; it's here, and the value of it is where it is. And that's not just because of copyright. What can you do with your AI kitty cat on Twitter or in Microsoft's social virtual world? It's not the same.

M Linden (Mark D. Kingdon, who didn't last long) focused on content creators as the big value proposition, feting them and featuring them as indeed they are still featured in SL ads today. But meanwhile he would talk this line, about how the killer app of SL, the big value was "each other". 

I always thought that was ridiculous. It implies that "it's the people" as users say tearily about their favourite game when it changes or closes or they have to leave it -- when really, it's more about shopping or dressing up or building or sex. Sure, "it's the people". People are the great joys and sorrows of SL. But it's really hard to say "the people" are the central element of SL's attraction, quite frankly. If it were only "the people," you could go on Facebook or some other app -- which of course zillions of people do -- and have an easier and happier and more rewarding time with "people". I know old people who are on Facebook all day long, and young people on Twitter all day long, including some who used to be in SL before Twitter became a big thing. So obviously it gives them more endorphins.

Maybe instead of being a unicorn, as they call those start-ups valued at a billion, SL is whatever the opposite is, what a company is when it's no longer a start up, 17 years in, not a barn stormer, but chugging along. A turtle? A sloth?

Or maybe to borrow from another set of metaphors popularized by Isaiah Berlin -- the hedgehog and the fox. The fox knows many things, as his story goes. The hedgehog knows one big thing.

What is the one big thing that SL knows? That users can monetarize their time here.

Not socialize. Monetarize.

They can create things and if they are particularly clever and talented and make pets, vehicles, buildings, mesh bodies, weapons, etc. they can make a living, even.

But even unskilled like me can put together models and make something that might sell to a niche audience. Or sell gatchas. Or rent or sell land.

Or there are sex workers -- although I actually don't think there are that many of them because I think it's really a niche within a niche. Those people who log on to SL for sex can find real partners and not pay for sex, and they are a niche as most other people will use other sites for socializing and sex, even leading to real dates, even during a pandemic. So it's my belief that the number of people earning any kind of money from sex work is not great, and those earning money from selling skins or clothing or housewares make much more money because people like shopping and photographing themselves as much as they like sex, even more (as they will do those activities in SL, but leave their sex lives for the real world).

No other platform lets you make money on it. Indeed, they very much discourage you by having TOS that don't protect intellectual property. It's very hard to use Instagram to make any kind of money from your photography until you get over a certain number of users, and even then, other sites like Pond 5 are easier and -- and don't gouge as much as those like Shutterstock.

But in SL you can sell your art works and photos without any interface, using the same tools any of us have of search (which is broken) ads (which are insufficient), events, word of mouth etc. Inworld, no fee will be taken out as on the MP, but even the MP fee is trivial to the 30% or more that these other platforms take from artists.

To be sure, you will not have much luck selling your works at the same price as you could on the Internet or real life. But you can sell your creations in SL. That is a very big deal. it is such a big deal that the total amount of the revenue is $450 million a year for the *users*, not the company, which has separate revenue. Yes, some of that revenue gets cut by having to pay tier and fees to catch out and other business expenses. But it's cash, nonetheless.

No other platform has that; those that do take enormous gouges out of your proceeds (to the point where it is almost not worth trying to sell books on Amazon any more).

So I take that value proposition of SL seriously and I think the investors did, too.

How does this translate into a prediction? I hope it doesn't translate into any more fees for anything or any hikes in fees. 

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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19 hours ago, AmberWildcool said:

I have the same problem ~ i cannot get rid of that turned up nose which makes Amber's profile so ugly  😉

If you had read the whole thread I posted photos of my Classic head and show how you can really see a real turned up nose with the Classic head.  I also said on my mesh head it looks like a piggy nose meaning it's not attractive and does not look like a real turned up nose like on the Classic avatar.  

First Photo - Classic Head turned up nose - Click on the pic to enlarge to really see the nose on the Classic head.  

Second Photo - Mesh Head Turned up nose  with turn up at 100% and there is NO turned up nose.  However, the mesh head has the upturned nose at 100% in that photo.  

 

fairre.png

Snapshot_1389 (2).jpg

Edited by FairreLilette
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On 1/7/2021 at 11:47 AM, Bree Giffen said:

I think the new investors want retention to keep SL stable and generating income. Quality of life improvements like a push for fixing bugs and fixing long term issues. For existing residents this would be the most noticeable change. 

Gaining new customers is possibly not super important as I don’t think a huge growth in SL is expected by the new owners. Maybe expanding into mobile and consoles. 

With all the remote networking it’s possible LL will move it’s offices to a smaller location.

My last prediction is that no one will ever be satisfied with the new last names in 2021.

Yep considering they haven't released any yet.... just saying. I wish they would already.

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I have hopes, dreams and predictions

My hopes are investment into mobile/app options and a Marketplace 2.0.

My dreams are a mega sized region (4x size) with 30K prims.  

My predictions are with the world situation that will continue in 2021, that SL will continue to be here.  Looking at the fine balance of fees versus tier model, I suspect the cash out fee may increase slightly during 2021 as regulation will continue to cost Tilia as a MSB.

Edited by Charlotte Bartlett
typo
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4 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:
4 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

In 2021, LL (and/or their new owning company) decides to just throw in the towel and leave the forums to disintegrate on their own.

*plays spooky your prediction came true music*

Fortune Teller GIF - FortuneTeller CrystallBall Psychic GIFs

Thank goodness they finally proved me wrong.

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Looks like I'm late to the party, but I have a few comments about things I feel strongly about.

There is an easy, proven way to have the equivalent of a fully-functional graphic viewer on a smartphone: run the viewer on a server and stream video to the phone. It's been done. It works. LL should take that approach if it wants to attract more new, younger users, and SL is nothing without graphics. Young adults are using computers less and less and their phones have become permanent appendages. If LL cannot attract more of them, SL is destined to slowly decline. The development costs a re bound to be far less than the cost of writing a client for phones.

Next to the need to provide the full SL experience on tablets and phones, the greatest obstacle to attracting new users is the complexity of the avatar and the the amount new users have to learn before they can fully participate. LL needs to ditch their commitment to complete backward compatibility. They need to set a sunset date a couple of years ahead for the classic avatar, or alternatively let it continue, but make it possible to have a mesh avatar without an underlying classic avatar. We also need to get past this bizarre thing of having a separate body and head. That could be an option for those desiring it, but LL needs to incentivize production of good-quality, inexpensive, one-piece, i.e., simple, cheap, avatars. People need to be able to start having fun their first day in SL. I seriously doubt that I would have persisted if getting started had been as hard in 2007 as is is now.

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On 1/9/2021 at 4:15 PM, RowanMinx said:

All I can say about that is that for me, noses are THE most difficult part of editing a mesh head and it took me quite some time to get rid of a turned up nose look.  

/me shrugs

Amen to that.. Noses are hard..

It took me forever and a day to get my nose where i wanted it.. That was on a Genus head  where noses seem a bit easier, but they are still hard on any of them for me..

Everything else seems to go pretty smooth.. like eyes and lips and chin and so on.. The nose is like the center piece that can make or break what you are going for..

Here is mine.

It might not be the clearest picture but it's the most recent.

50768782427_28463928f3_b.jpg

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