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)

[FairreLilette]

20 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

It's certainly the thing right now to combine crypto with a virtual world, whether or not LL will try to experiment with that route, it's why it's important for us and LL to continue highlighting the non-technical aspects and advantages of SL, a lot of the people who are VERY into a virtual world like Second Life aren't into it to make money although of course it is important and a crucial aspect in making a virtual world work

I have some ideas on how SL can capitalize on these aspects further with certain specific technical stuff, but it requires them to be in a very good spot and believe that it would indeed help growth

Okay, maybe you have nothing to say...but I think what Second Life and the Linden offer are more stability and it's far less risky using one's own country's currency to buy lindens and far less expensive to buy digital art here.  The other plus that SL has is an amazing camera for people who'd want to sell NFT's (people need to read TOS here though) or just make digital art for themselves to enjoy.  

However, you are bringing Decentraland into the discussion here so I was wondering what you think about it.  I have not even looked at this new decentralized land so I have no idea what they offer...but I'm guessing, it's very, very expensive.  Most NFT makers are charging way too much money for a piece of digital art - thousands of dollars for one piece.  That's way too much money.  "Cryptoland" itself needs to become more stable as it's kind of crazy right now, imo.

 

[Janet Voxel]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

FIX THE BOOOOGZZ

It's not really the bugs, its more of the QoL things that should work that don't.

Imagine being a new user and on top of getting a mesh head and clothes being told to use discord to chat. Uh-Uh.

People are saying, "I'm good with the way it is", but put yourself in the shoes of a new user, not someone that has years of experience. A lot of things are broken that weren't always and you adapted over time to things being broken. When you're new....you're thinking, why is this broken?

 

[lucagrabacr]

17 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Okay, maybe you have nothing to say...but I think what Second Life and the Linden offer are more stability and it's far less risky using one's own country's currency to buy lindens and far less expensive to buy digital art here.  The other plus that SL has is an amazing camera for people who'd want to sell NFT's (people need to read TOS here though) or just make digital art for themselves to enjoy.  

However, you are bringing Decentraland into the discussion here so I was wondering what you think about it.  I have not even looked at this new decentralized land so I have no idea what they offer...but I'm guessing, it's very, very expensive.  Most NFT makers are charging way too much money for a piece of digital art - thousands of dollars for one piece.  That's way too much money.  "Cryptoland" itself needs to become more stable as it's kind of crazy right now, imo.

 

I was replying to a post asking what I thought about crypto and I was criticizing Decentraland, and media that touts it up as the next Metaverse 

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

People are saying, "I'm good with the way it is", but put yourself in the shoes of a new user, not someone that has years of experience. A lot of things are broken that weren't always and you adapted over time to things being broken. When you're new....you're thinking, why is this broken?

 

Theresa Tennyson recalls some of her first experiences in Second Life over ten years ago...

No, they were just "broken" in different ways.

"Why do none of these appearance controls I'm given do nothing to change my hair or skin, despite what they say they do?"

"Why do I suddenly drop below the ground every so often when walking around in this area [Nova Albion]?

"Why is the skirt of this long dress in petals like a floppy Outback Steakhouse Blooming Onion?"

"Oops, the flare of my pants is now following me around like a little dog and it's too much of a pain to try and fix it - I'll just wear different pants."

 

[Solar Legion]

Ok, page three now and I could continue to go through here while reacting to show what things are spot on and what is absolutely ridiculous but ya know what? I'll just sum it back up.

We as end users are not responsible for actively promoting Second Life, period

I'm seeing the exact same, tired voice/users cropping up with their statements regarding ideas to "make things Better" .... who should have no say whatsoever in how the platform evolves over time - no end user should be able to reshape Second Life in such a way. One of the draws/charms - for example - is how hardware compatible it is. Another just so happens to be the ability to use older content without the risk of it being absolutely broken by an update.

For those last bits there, I'll repeat something I have said when such things have come up before: if you're not willing to make the replacements - for free - or to pay for each and every single end user to replace their items or to upgrade their hardware? Sit. Down.

Yes yes, it's a "luxury" bit of software, yadda yadda yadda .... Don't really care. You want to potentially break things or lock out people who cannot afford to update their machines every few years (let alone every year)? Your suggestions are the last thing Linden Lab should be listening to.

Before any of said crowd tries to pull any sort of exaggeration: No, I am not meaning that it should be able to run on an office laptop circa 2005 or any other absolutely ridiculous claptrap you can pull out of your waste ejector. Nor am I expecting top of the line performance out of an off the shelf PC build. One simply should not be expected to shell out hundreds (or more than a thousand) dollars just to hop in or to update their machine to retain usability.

ETA: Right after posting this I noticed someone decided to bring out yet another tired complaint ... Chatting. Specifically Group Chat. Groups. Were. Not. Intended. To. Be. Social. Clubs. One of the very few times where I am all for Linden Lab attempting to introduce a 'new' or side-along feature/function to supplement an existing one.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Solar Legion

[FairreLilette]

27 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

I was replying to a post asking what I thought about crypto and I was criticizing Decentraland, and media that touts it up as the next Metaverse 

Oh, I see.  

I know nothing about "Decentraland" itself but my guess is it's way too expensive to compete with SL, probably thousands and thousands of dollars for a piece of land.

Edited May 31, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A warchief and a lot of red paint.

Not cool.

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

We have people in the hundreds of thousands invested and believing in the concept that is what SL is right now, for one reason or another that's why they stay. With enough words of mouth carrying a unifying vision and promise of what SL can become, to expand on that initial concept, we can ignite all those buried and passive embers of hope

Sorry. Those coals died out 10 years ago and have been nothing but ashes ever since.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

1 hour ago, Solar Legion said:

We as end users are not responsible for actively promoting Second Life, period

Quite right, but...

On of the best marketing strategies is that of customer-referral. We could talk friends into coming along and seeing what it's like, but as Sid Nagy, Janet Voxel and others(*) have mentioned, we'd be trying desperately to explain crashes, grey textures, all sorts of little things that we are coping with but which a new pair of eyes will be seeing and wanting explanations.

"Mummy Mummy, why is the sky purple?"

""Oh, it's EEP, but I haven't worked out how to turn it back to blue yet"

(*) If I've spelled your name wrong it's just my tpoyes

Edited May 31, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Solar Legion]

Just now, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Quite right, but...

On of the best marketing strategies is that of customer-referral. We could talk friends into coming along and seeing what it's lie, but as Sid Nagy, Janey Voxel and others have mentioned, we'd be trying desperately to explain crashes, grey textures, all sorts of little thing that we are coping with but a new pair of eyes will be seeing and wanting explanations.

"Mummy Mummy, why is the sky purple?"

""Oh, it's EEP, but I haven't worked out how to turn it back to blue yet"

That is ... A whole different kettle of fish and couched in language that makes it very clear that oh so many have utterly forgotten that there were issues even back when we first joined. Things we had to learn that simply were not covered by the onboarding process.

Once they are here and giving it a fair shake, then we ought to be at least somewhat open to answering questions or providing information.

We should not be blindly promoting Second Life - that is what I have been saying this entire time.

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

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.

Still Sims 4 with no sign of a 5 in sight. EA/Maxis damn near knocked it out of the park with 4. The only thing that would make if better is if it were an open world, without rabbit holes, and aimed a little bit more towards adults. By that I mean a tad more realistic and less cartoonish furnishings etc. Currently they have just the right mix going to keep me interested. Kits, packs, etc have been leaning more towards less cartoonish lately so that's been a plus.

The way they have set things up, they could expand on 4 for another 5 - 10 years, if not longer.

One of these days someone is going to get the brilliant idea and come up with a virtual world that is a sort of combination of SL, Sims 2, 3, & 4, and an open world galactic survival game.

Yeah, I know. Not in my lifetime.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Silent Mistwalker

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

2 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

We should not be blindly promoting Second Life - that is what I have been saying this entire time.

Sometimes you have to say it thrice (As the Bellman said "What I tell you three times is true")

I think the OP had in mind a more targetted approach, which I don't disagree with, but I do actually agree with you, LL has the funds, they should be the ones promoting it in an effective manner.

The new website is obviously a step in the right direction, but the nextt step is going to be how to get non-SL-users drawn to it.

 

[Janet Voxel]

This is a very simple concept: If people are complaining about something not working for YEARS, clearly it is something people want or need.

This isn't really about people who are here already and who have adapted or just kind of accepted things the way things are, because there are a lot more people that don't. Those are the people LL want, the people that leave for whatever reason. That's how you get to 100k+ users, by improving the existing features. To say groups weren't intended to be social groups...lol. Well, where are the social groups? Why don't we have them? Know what's going to happen to a lot of people that don't have those working features? They'll leave. Why are TPV used more than the standard viewer? That's crazy!

There is only so much we as users can do. The rest is on LL. It's not like most people are asking for the moon. A simple thing like a working group chat isn't really asking for much to me. Asking for a better graphics pipeline...eh...I'd be happier with QoL stuff before I asked for something like that. But even that? It's 2021, why are we using a near obsolete rendering engine? At the end of the day, I don't think anybody is asking for something unreasonable, particularly if its good for the overall health of Second Life itself.

 

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

One of these days someone is going to get the brilliant idea and come up with a virtual world that is a sort of combination of SL, Sims 2, 3, & 4, and an open world galactic survival game.

Sort of Minecraft in Space?

 

[Bree Giffen]

Decentraland looks like a terrible idea. It's all tied to a highly volatile cryptocurrency market. It's like SL banking x 1,000 where people get involved with the virtual world not for the fun and creativity but for greed and speculation. 

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

Decentraland looks like a terrible idea. It's all tied to a highly volatile cryptocurrency market. It's like SL banking x 1,000 where people get involved with the virtual world not for the fun and creativity but for greed and speculation. 

Perfect for the guy over in the Increased Fees thread who was whining about only making $9 from buying and selling Lindens.

[lucagrabacr]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Sorry. Those coals died out 10 years ago and have been nothing but ashes ever since.

There are still many people out there who are passionate about SL and believe in it c= and not to mention the people who stick around

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

2 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

There are still many people out there who are passionate about SL and believe in it c= and not to mention the people who stick around

That would be most of us in these forums, we're not jut here for the whinge, you know

[Extrude Ragu]

We need Builders Brewery to teach everyone C++ then we can fix the viewer ourselves

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

To be honest, if I was owner of a company that relies solemnly income wise on an eighteen years old software platform, I would maintain that platform as long as I could and as much on a back burner as possible. Using as much duct tape as needed.

And meanwhile I would use as much resources as possible to get a second and third successful cash cow out there.
And I think that is what is happening.
More brainstorming for developments outside of SL than inside of it. Like Tilia.

 

ok... You got a link for the Tilia grid? 😉🤭

I'm just pointing out that currently, there really isn't a substitute for SL out there any where. So what they should be doing, imo, is following in Sims 4 footsteps and build a new engine (with VR opt in/out) using the same "concepts" but with current and future tech capabilities.

[Janet Voxel]

4 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

ok... You got a link for the Tilia grid? 😉🤭

I'm just pointing out that currently, there really isn't a substitute for SL out there any where. So what they should be doing, imo, is following in Sims 4 footsteps and build a new engine (with VR opt in/out) using the same "concepts" but with current and future tech capabilities.

For some reason, when you start talking about improving things or adding features that other successful "games" have people always plug their ears and go "la la la" and LL gets a pass.

That's weird to me.

If you want to grow your user base, that's exactly what you do.

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

It's certainly the thing right now to combine crypto with a virtual world

Not for me it isn't. That stuff has already put me in a position where I can't fix my desktop because I can't afford $1200USD for a graphics card that probably won't be good enough to run the games I have that my 1050 was just enough to be able to play. Barely.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Silent Mistwalker

[lucagrabacr]

7 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Not for me it isn't. That stuff has already put me in a position where I can't fix my desktop because I can afford $1200USD for a graphics card that probably won't be good enough to run the games I have that my 1050 was just enough to be able to play. Barely.

Yeah, I was just mentioning the trend, not necessarily saying it's a good idea c=

[Silent Mistwalker]

48 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Sort of Minecraft in Space?

 

Not even close. Closer to an open world STO, maybe Star Wars. Haven't played any SW games so I can't really say.

[AdminGirl]

I like the OP's vision, but the general perception of SL isn't completely off-base IMO. True, our userbase is decent and there isn't a serious alternative to our virtual world, but sl isn't exactly growing (hasn't been for a long time) and is very bad at staying current. The learning curve is steep, it's getting (too) expensive, the availability of up to date information is lacking, not to mention the ease of getting to it. My general vibe is that they're more interested in making more money out of us than delivering value or making their product better. That's not surprising for a for-profit company I suppose, but that doesn't leave me in much of a mood to go raving about them to other people.

I'm still here supporting sl... tentatively. That's my input for now, but kudos to the OP.