We have the power to make SL a "big thing" again (really) and tip the ongoing narrative, let's do this! c= let's do our part (for our sake)

[Maryanne Solo]

The magic key is 3d creation. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Look at Garys Mod? Which I've never had a go of but I've watched a video or two.
People just import 3d stuff to muck about with it seems. Zero gravity and all that ^^.
SL should have a library of 3d stuff just for this. Playing about.
Most modern games have creation modes or sandboxes to do stuff and the ability to import 3d stuff from libraries
or they supply a library of 3d things.

Do you recall 3Dsmax had G-Max? A free version of 3dsMax specifically tailored to certain games. Ages ago.
It's the only way forward and to make SL be on par with modern games and shake off "the past" I tells ya. 🤔 
U can do it LL! 🥳
 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Maryanne Solo
Typo

[lucagrabacr]

6 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Linden Lab did have capital at their disposal. They had millions of dollars at their disposal for reinvestment into Second Life. Instead of putting that capital into SL and developing it over the past 18 years they squandered it.

• They bought Desura - it failed so they sold it
• They bought Blocksworld - was never updated after 2017 because of Sansar and closed upsetting many people
• They made Sansar - it failed, they lost money. 
• They made Creatorverse - it failed they lost money
• They made Patterns - it failed they lost money

After every time they sold a product above to another company their press releases always stated it is good for everyone them selling off those products because they would concentrate on SL more. It has never happened and they have used the money to reinvest into other ventures always. The latest being Tillia.

Your devotion is admirable but as Coffee Pancake has said we have all tried in the past to make SL popular by spreading the word enthusiastically, but those efforts saw no real change in vision or improvement and wasteful spending not even in SL meaning it is so outdated it just cant be made up to par to current standards. It is also a case for many of 'once bitten, twice shy'.

They had little to no competition, had a lot of old-school thinkers oversight, and they didn't have a unified voice of their userbase showing them what really matters to them and what the future can hold, and why so that they can pitch those to higher ups. They have a lot more experiences now and the Lindens are generally more in-touch, and perceptive.

[Drayke Newall]

41 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

They had little to no competition, had a lot of old-school thinkers oversight, and they didn't have a unified voice of their userbase showing them what really matters to them and what the future can hold, and why so that they can pitch those to higher ups. They have a lot more experiences now and the Lindens are generally more in-touch, and perceptive.

No competition is not a reason to stop investment or improvement on a product, especially in the tech world, else get left behind when it improves which is literally monthly. When they did look at updating it just took too long, many years for mesh to come out, same with animesh etc.

As to your comment about a lot of old-school thinkers and not a unified voice, well not really. They had a lot of forward thinkers until recently.

Take for instance Babbage Linden.  He was the one that worked on Mono scripting. The problem is, part of what he was doing was trying to make it so that instead of LSL people could create scripts in other more common languages like C++ or C# which would have not only dynamically changed what would be possible scripting wise in SL but also opened up scripting to a lot more people that knew C++ but not LSL (i.e reduced the learning curve that still hampers people today). What happened? He was was laid off when the UK offices closed and instead of continuing his work Linden Lab just never bothered and it died. :EDIT: Only Mono remained and even if it was going to take longer or hard to implement C# etc they should have continued with it due to reducing the learning curve.

As for experience, what experience? Do you mean new people that are being employed that dont even know what specific code means that they leave messages within the code like "dont know what this does, dont touch"?

Edited May 31, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[lucagrabacr]

1 minute ago, Drayke Newall said:

No competition is not a reason to stop investment or improvement on a product, especially in the tech world, else get left behind when it improves which is literally monthly. When they did look at updating it just took too long, many years for mesh to come out, same with animesh etc.

As to your comment about a lot of old-school thinkers and not a unified voice, well not really. They had a lot of forward thinkers until recently.

Take for instance Babbage Linden.  He was the one that worked on Mono scripting. The problem is, part of what he was doing was to make it so that instead of LSL people could create scripts in other more common languages like C++ or C# which would have not only dynamically changed what would be possible scripting wise in SL but also opened up scripting to a lot more people that knew C++ but not LSL (i.e reduced the learning curve that still hampers people today). What happened? He was almost finished but then was laid off when the UK offices closed and instead of continuing his work Linden Lab just never bothered and it died.

As for experience, what experience? Do you mean new people that are being employed that dont even know what specific code means that they leave messages within the code like "dont know what this does, dont touch"?

Well now that real competitions are raising that does make them more receptive. Experience with the business and concept of the metaverse in general, and of failures that they are less likely to experiment with the kind of things you mentioned which have failed, and listen even more closely to the community

The key is within the Residents, the Lindens are chained by a professional code of conduct to not say or do certain things. A lot of the solid vision, pressure and visible interest of certain things have to directly and organically come from us, that requires a unified vision and movement which synthesize the overall desires of the various SL communities out there, and communicate them in an impactful way

[Sid Nagy]

A run of 18 years, based on the same ideas created or better stumbled upon 18 years ago.
Software that holds so long normally has overhauled the concepts every 4 to 5 years completely.
Sims, sims2 etc. Every time based on what is technical possible at that moment.

LL never wanted to make that effort. SL is still bound to things that were possible and defined 18 years ago. They went for backwards compatibility. There should be a Second Life 5 by now or at least in beta release. What do we have?  Second Life The Original, with parts still looking as if in beta.

Let's say I invite someone into SL. He/she makes the effort to sign in, and I guide them to my Bellisserian home.
What will happen on their screens?
Grey, tons of grey. Not for seconds but for minutes. And then the textures keep adjusting and adjusting with no end.
Really inviting to stay or start for yourself right?

Okay that's my house, on to my boat. Nice. All aboard let's go.
100 meters into it: bump,  bump,  bump.
A few meters further, rinse and repeat.  Bump, bump, bump.
Two minutes later: rinse and repeat again, with as special feature that the boat is gone and we are all standing on the bottom of the sea.

Hey guys, how are you liking it so far?  An adequate avatar only sets you back about 40 USD. That shiny house of mine only 10 USD a month.
Do we meet again next week at your SL place?

Yeah right.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[lucagrabacr]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

A run of 18 years, based on the same ideas created or better stumbled over 18 years ago.
Software that holds so long normally has overhauled the concepts every 4 to 5 years completely. Sims, sims2 etc. Every time based on the technical possible of that moment.

LL never wanted to make that effort. They went for backwards compatibility. There should be a Second Life 5 by now or at least in beta release.
What do we have Second Life The Original, with parts still looking as if in beta.

Let's say I invite someone into SL. He/she makes the effort to sign in, and I guide them to my Bellisserian home.
What will happen on their screens?
Grey, tons of grey. Not for seconds but for minutes. And then the textures keep adjusting and adjusting with no end.
Really inviting to stay or start for yourself right?

Okay that's my house, on to my boat. Nice. All aboard let's go.
100 meters into it: bump,  bump,  bump.
A few meters further, rinse and repeat.  Bump, bump, bump.
Two minutes later: rinse and repeat again, with as special feature that the boat is gone and we are all standing on the bottom of the sea.

Hey guys, how are you liking it so far?  An adequate avatar only sets you back about 40 USD. That shiny house of mine only 10 USD a month.
Do we meet again next week at your SL place?

Yeah right.

That about sums up the experience I have getting my friends and people into Second Life, yet despite all that some of them stay. We have something special here and that's the most important thing, the rough patches can be smoothened up with enough pressure and incentive

[Drayke Newall]

12 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

Well now that real competitions are raising that does make them more receptive. Experience with the business and concept of the metaverse in general, and of failures that they are less likely to experiment with the kind of things you mentioned which have failed, and listen even more closely to the community

The key is within the Residents, the Lindens are chained by a professional code of conduct to not say or do certain things. A lot of the solid vision, pressure and visible interest of certain things have to directly and organically come from us, that requires a unified vision and movement which synthesize the overall desires of the various SL communities out there, and communicate them in an impactful way

They have a backlog of hundreds of ways to improve. Users have even posted in this thread those same suggestions that have been made time and time again for years by numerous users. If they take them up great, but they also need to make them available within a reasonable timeframe. That timeframe needs to be within 6 months of there inception not 3 years. That is something history shows LL not capable of doing so like many others I wont be holding my breath.

Then you have what Profaitchikenz Haiku who posted earlier where they are given the suggestions to fix or improve things and those users are told by LL staff that is too hard so they dont do it. I remember long ago someone wanting something fixed or changed placing it on Jira and Linden Lab said it was to hard (something to do with the UI or its design, I forget). The user went out of their way to show how it can be done and LL used their method. That is not how things should work, why should the user provide the method for doing it just because LL cant be bothered until someone does the work for them?

:EDIT:

And everything @Sid Nagy said above my post.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Saz Ninetails]

No technical advances? What about Bento, BOM, animesh, EEP.

 

What is missing that you actually want? Obviously there are going to be some limitations due to the platform which is why they tried stuff like Sansar starting from the ground up, but that was aimed at a different market really being VR and so would only attract a small number of SL users. One thing I love about SL is the access to all, even those on low end PCs and its a great platform for those with disabilities.

[lucagrabacr]

2 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

They have a backlog of hundreds of ways to improve. Users have even posted in this thread those same suggestions that have been made time and time again for years by numerous users. If they take them up great, but they also need to make them available within a reasonable timeframe. That timeframe needs to be within 6 months of there inception not 3 years. That is something history shows LL not capable of doing so like many others I wont be holding my breath.

Then you have what Profaitchikenz Haiku who posted earlier where they are given the suggestions to fix or improve things and those users are told by LL staff that is too hard so they dont do it. I remember long ago someone wanting something fixed or changed placing it on Jira and Linden Lab said it was to hard (something to do with the UI or its design, I forget). The user went out of their way to show how it can be done and LL used their method. That is not how things should work, why should the user provide the method for doing it just because LL cant be bothered until someone does the work for them?

LL employees are human too so they are certainly not perfect, especially with limited resources compared to big tech out there which can pour billions into things. And yes that's certainly not how things should work in an ideal world but it is what it is, and depending on how you see it SL is our responsibility as much as it is LL's

[Sid Nagy]

Stop that 'poor Lindens' act.
LL is a professional company, with professional staff after all these years, not a startup with 5 employees and 3 computers in moms garage.

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[lucagrabacr]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

Stop that poor Lindens act.
LL is a professional company, with professional staff after all these years.

 

It is rooted in a rather sound observation. There is a huge discrepancy between the passion and care the Lindens show on a personal level compared to what's seemingly in LL's mind, and if you check sites such as glassdoor you will see reviews which say that higher ups did constrain them a lot, or at least they used to

[Sid Nagy]

In every organization you find employees unhappy about what the managers want and what they personally find best to do.
But in the end after meetings and discussions, the bosses decide and that is the course to follow.
That was the case in every school I worked for, including me at times.
And what I hear from others, that's how things work everywhere.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[lucagrabacr]

2 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

In every organization you find employees unhappy about what the managers want and what they personally find best to do.
But in the end after meetings and discussions, the bosses decide and that is the course to follow.
That was the case in every school I worked for, including me at times.
And what I hear from others, that's how things work everywhere.

I don't think that's always the case, but it doesn't matter where it came from or how, in the end if Second Life is in a better place it's ours to enjoy as well

[Alwin Alcott]

10 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

 in the end if Second Life is in a better place it's ours to enjoy as well

true  .. totally.
But, dragging the new blingy homepage in the discussion, if you show something that is a virtual mercedes with even a wink to Rolls Royce, but when driving you find a Volkswagen Beetle motor in it, the disapointment is húge... and that is not the users fault, or them( the user) to repair.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[Drayke Newall]

48 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

LL employees are human too so they are certainly not perfect, especially with limited resources compared to big tech out there which can pour billions into things. And yes that's certainly not how things should work in an ideal world but it is what it is, and depending on how you see it SL is our responsibility as much as it is LL's

I wouldn't call 171-200 staff as a limited resource considering other tech companies can manage with much less and update quicker with better quality and create new games in a final format within 3 years. Sansar for instance was released unfinished in alpha and was in development for 5 years before release.

Hearthstone by Blizzard has 12 staff working on it, Pearl Abyss who develop multiple massive games such as Black Desert Online (which they update monthly with fixes, new events and new content every year whilst have the ability to create new games whilst updating older ones like upcoming Crimson Desert) have 141 staff.

It is not the users responsibility to do Linden Lab staff's job for them be that marketing or fixing issues unless users want to like moles or TPV creators. They provide us with content and we pay for that.

You're just making excuses on behalf of LL when over the past 18 years they have never understood what Second Life is or who their users are.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[lucagrabacr]

2 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

You're just making excuses on behalf of LL when over the past 18 years they have never understood what Second Life is or who their users are.

I don't believe so but even if that's the case doesn't make it not worth for the Residents to help SL which is ultimately something we collectively find enjoyment, use or meaning in regardless of whose responsibility it is to make it better

[Drayke Newall]

5 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

I don't believe so but even if that's the case doesn't make it not worth for the Residents to help SL which is ultimately something we collectively find enjoyment, use or meaning in regardless of whose responsibility it is to make it better

Just because a 'resident' doesn't promote Second Life due to 'reasons' doesn't mean they dont help to make it better.

:EDIT:

I know you didn't mean that but is sure read that way.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Janet Voxel]

25 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

true  .. totally.
But, dragging the new blingy homepage in the discussion, if you show something that is a virtual mercedes with even a wink to Rolls Royce, but when driving you find a Volkswagen Beetle motor in it, the disapointment is húge... and that is not the users fault, or them( the user) to repair.

I think this is key and they put the cart before the horse on that one.

[lucagrabacr]

Just now, Drayke Newall said:

Just because a 'resident' doesn't promote Second Life due to 'reasons' doesn't mean they dont help to make it better.

I never said that, I was just addressing your argument implying only LL should, and that it's LL's sole responsibility to make SL better

[Alwin Alcott]

5 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

I don't believe so but even if that's the case doesn't make it not worth for the Residents to help SL which is ultimately something we collectively find enjoyment, use or meaning in regardless of whose responsibility it is to make it better

I would turn the whole subject the other way round ... it's time that LL shows us they really find enjoyment in SL, and not just the few that work on Belliseria, but also Ebbe and the investors... tell us... what are your plans ? Since the sale of Sansar and the overtake we heared nóthing, less presence on the forums, less inworld... and a total lack of connection with the residents.
Keep as it is? ...doomed
cach cow.?... doomed
 

[lucagrabacr]

3 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

I would turn the whole subject the other way round ... it's time that LL shows us they really find enjoyment in SL, and not just the few that work on Belliseria, but also Ebbe and the investors... tell us... what are your plans ? Since the sale of Sansar and the overtake we heared nóthing, less presence on the forums, less inworld... and a total lack of connection with the residents.
Keep as it is? ...doomed
cach cow.?... doomed
 

I'm sure they mentioned that they have a plan for SL in general post-acquisition, though no matter how good it is it won't matter much if we can't break the barrage of constant misinformation about SL out there or convince people that SL is still alive and is one of the best virtual worlds out there c=

[Drayke Newall]

3 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

I never said that, I was just addressing your argument implying only LL should, and that it's LL's sole responsibility to make SL better

Even if it wasn't in regards to promoting my point still stands as I believe as a user it is LL's sole responsibility to make SL better. Different if we are talking about content creation within the world, but in this case we are not. That is to say, it is not the users responsibility to promote Second Life adequately, appropriately and truthfully. Just as it is not the users responsibility to make an effort to fix bugs or implement features for LL because LL dont know how to or find it too hard, unless you want to, like TPV creators.

As a user, sure I may say to a friend "have you played SL why not give it a go?", but that is entirely different to what you are asking in your OP as such efforts are not going to be sufficient to bring about the change you are looking for. Only massive factual and relevant marketing FROM Linden Lab can provide that change.

[lucagrabacr]

7 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

As a user, sure I may say to a friend "have you played SL why not give it a go?", but that is entirely different to what you are asking in your OP as such efforts are not going to be sufficient to bring about the change you are looking for. Only massive factual and relevant marketing FROM Linden Lab can provide that change.

There have been cases where user efforts help substantially or transcend official marketing efforts in salvaging something from possible relative obscurity, mostly happened with open source IPs or indie games, but doesn't mean that can't be the case with SL as well. And not to mention it will also help LL understand the users better if they are more vocal

Edited May 31, 2021 by lucagrabacr
adding details

[Drayke Newall]

17 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

I'm sure they mentioned that they have a plan for SL in general post-acquisition, though no matter how good it is it won't matter much if we can't break the barrage of constant misinformation about SL out there or convince people that SL is still alive and is one of the best virtual worlds out there c=

Can you please explain to us what misinformation you think there is outside of SL that is giving SL a negative light. As far as I am aware all information out there is factual.

• It is laggy and has low frames despite modern powerful PC's
• It has long load times on textures and objects
• It can only support at most 40 people on a sim until Lag hits,
• It is hard to learn
• it has a high initial cost
• It is full of adult content
• It has griefers
• It doesn't have an objective or anything as a hook
• It's viewer is complicated
• It is old (like Sid mentioned it is V1 and  not V5)
• etc.

Unless I am missing something all of the above negatives about SL that are covered in blogs etc. now are factual.

7 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

There have been cases where user efforts help substantially or transcend official marketing efforts in salvaging something from possible relative obscurity, mostly happened with open source IPs or indie games, but doesn't mean that can't be the case with SL as well

True, though an indie developer is only making at the start when he needs that help at most (if) $20,000 per year. Likewise open source is crowd funded because the creators do it not for profit. LL on the other hand earn over (at last known estimate in 2011ish) over $100,000,000 per year. Why should users do the work for LL when they earn that much.

If you have the inclination to promote for Second Life do it, but for me LL earn enough to do it themselves without the need for the users who PAY them to do their jobs.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Sid Nagy]

I don't know about the figures you mentioned, but at the tier rates they ask, SL must be a profitable business model for them.
Maybe that is the whole problem.
Too easy money to really bother to develop things. No need to keep staff up to par with modern technical developments, what competition is doing and what majorities of the user base really desire. Or what people were looking for when they first signed up for SL, obviously did not find and then never returned again.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Sid Nagy