I can't be the only one who believe SL's Second Rising is not impossible, what do you think? - Strategic Overview

[Alwin Alcott]

26 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

Linden currently have ...... at that table

as soon there's Linden behind the name, their point of interest and loyalty is for the employer, not the residents.
Promotion is the best tool to silence a critic.

[Lucia Nightfire]

7 hours ago, Cinos Field said:

Compare to some baby cyberworld platform like VRChat, which doesn't really offer anything except standing around in an avatar - so people clearly don't require that - but it's as simple as log in and go, and because it uses motion tracking the animations are good by default.

To be fair, far too many people stand around in an avatar in SL as well. They just optionally blow tons of money to do it.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

11 hours ago, Randall Ahren said:

Seems high for a dated platform on the verge of death.

I've been hearing that horsecrap for the last 14 years I've been here.   it's not dying.

[Silent Mistwalker]

10 hours ago, Chroma Starlight said:

I think what they should think about is how all the online VR spaces can coexist in one virtual reality. Perhaps there could be a common standard that could allow some degree of interaction between worlds (perhaps not full native functionality for guests, but an ability to experience parts of this grid within their own paradigm could be quite interesting for everyone and increase the appeal of each respective service, which would no longer need to try to be all things for all people but could instead cater to different populations and different needs while still allowing for the possibility of better external integration. 

All we need to do is make sure the metaverse doesn't fall into the hands of large corporate operators like Facebook but stays in the control of smaller communities concerned with more traditional things like society and humanity and privacy from eavesdroppers and data aggregators on the simple principle that VR is an extension of our private homes or even bodies to a private business and there's an expectation of high international standards of privacy and integrity that Facebook is simply not-credible to provide because their business model relies totally on violating it fundamentally when they're not trying to edit or curtail their victims' freedom of expression to meet anachronistic and austere standards.

In review:

You really don't want those guys controlling their own households, much less something on The Internet, much less the Metaverse. They will stifle it for a generator or more. We haven't got time for this! They stifled the world in the 80s, they suffocated it in the 90s, they hijacked it the twenty-oughts, and they ransacked it in the 2010s. This is it, no further, right? They're going to stop out of humanitarian concern that none of us have been able to start living yet! We literally cannot wait any longer for them to sort their crap out, they've lost power-on-Earth privileges until all the life they've made go extinct on the planet has been replaced, okay? That's it. They're done. CUT OFF.  
 

We are culturally and spiritually free and corporate Amerika needs to be reminded they have no authority whatsoever, period, full stop, end of sentence, go directly to jail. And so, they don't have to take my world for it because it is all spelled out crystal clear,  no need for sophistry. US Congress has failed to maintain US citizens' reasonable expectations of freedom of expression and protections against wrongful searches on the Internet, but nevertheless, these high standards must be met and we must hold providers' feet to the fire if they've become confused about who's in charge of our reality. It does not belong to the US Federal Government, it does not belong the corporations, and it does not belong to oligarchs. It is not the domain of the state and it is not the domain of any church.

Culture is the higher authority, here. That's how it works in the modern era, and so unless we travel way in time back to dark ages, the entire proposal that Facebook go on existing much less grow to somehow encompass the metaverse is a total non-starter until we have some new Constitutional Amendments reaffirming civil liberties and universal human rights and stating explicitly that, yes, we did in fact mean it the first time we said it.

When we say "no!" to illiberalism, no means no. Okay? Do you understand? No means no. Culture has said stridently "NO!" to illiberalism every single decade for the last 1.2 centuries quite clearly. No means no. Go away or we'll call the cops.

 

They must really hate me then. 

10 hours ago, Chroma Starlight said:

• Plus-sized women
• Mothers
• Women, generally
• Sexual health organizations
• Indigenous groups
• Journalists
• Cannabis advocates
• Europeans
• Artists, museums and galleries
• LGBTQ groups and individuals

 

So if everything you said here was true, I would have died in 1974.

 

The article you quote the list from was published in 2016. Quite a bit outdated now at the end of 2021.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Silent Mistwalker

[Drayke Newall]

4 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

LL can

> Hire a AAA game level artist or someone with equivalent experience / willpower

Second Life is such a closed platform and so niche that no AAA level game designer would even go work there. What would a AAA game level artist do in Second Life when Linden Lab do not involve themselves in creation outside of moles? They also have had someone with plenty of experience in the gaming industry both from a design point of view as well as a overall development, marketing, publishing etc view, something far more superior to a measly level artist.

Rod Humble in 2010, with 20 years of Gaming industry experience seemed to even have his hands tied in that even he couldn't bring about a change significant enough to take Second Life back to hype years only 2 years earlier. Rod Humble wasn't just some unknown that LL got to head the company. He was at the time of his transfer to Linden Lab, the Executive Vice President of EA Games and Led the EA Play label of which he is directly responsible for not only 200 games under that label but also the reason why The Sims is one of the best selling game franchises. Before that he was VP of Product Development at Sony Online Entertainment and Head of the Everquest Studio - a MMORPG.

If he couldn't do anything what makes you believe a AAA game level designer could do anything? They would be limited by what they have and budgets just the same as Rod was.

4 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

> Make a flagship tailored showcase modern continent equal in appearance to modern standards

How would this be possible in your eyes? How are Linden Lab going to achieve a modern continent equivalent to modern standards when modern standards are either a closed system with downloads (aka sansar or roblox) or a endless continent that has no region crossings or very large areas prior to a region crossing?

Additionally they have already tried this in the past and currently but smaller region size, and it hasn't brought any new hype to second life. EXPLORE | Second Life Work  they also pre-built themes for general people and educators. Also look at bellisseria, is ok until the lag hits.

4 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

> Make it the starting continent for new users

How would this achieve any form of retention to new users when almost all users want to see masses of people playing the game. What would be achieved in them starting off on their own continent when they would be hard pressed to find 10 people to talk to at a time and have little interaction with experienced residents?

It's ok to say "lets just fix the onboarding experience", however how are you going to achieve this? For 18 years LL has tried to work out a viable solution for that and as yet, still haven't worked out a good one even with their latest update to noob island. People want a plug in and instant play experience these days, and that is something Second Life cannot achieve easily due to the complexities of it.

4 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

There are many more that they can do, if they do it RIGHT it will change most people's perception of SL in a rather short period of time c=

Such as?

It is easy to say they could just do this and that. If only it was that easy. Viewer side I would say yes as you have TPV's to bring in ideas. Server side however there is just to much catching up to do and the code and LL timelines just cant even compete with anything new. If they had continued developing on top of the systems they had year after year improving them, expanding them etc. rather than a release and forget attitude, they would have been on par with everyone now if not ahead.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

Linden currently have ...... at that table

as soon there's Linden behind the name, their point of interest and loyalty is for the employer, not the residents.
Promotion is the best tool to silence a critic.

Not really. They're smart enough to know that only through pleasing their customers do they keep their job, as it is we who work and play in SL who actually provide their paycheck.

Same as with my customers...I may create stuff on my own for fun at times with no intent to sell, but when I decide to sell anything I must please my customers if I want to make any $.

[Chroma Starlight]

7 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

The article you quote the list from was published in 2016. Quite a bit outdated now at the end of 2021.

Oh, so you believe this man has changed and reformed his heart. Okay.

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

if it was only about hiring one or two skilled persons who just know how to do it, and can knock it all out in short time then those few people would have done it already. They would have built a Like SL But Better world already, and we would all be logging in over there, instead of here. But we aren't there, we are here, because those  people who we might presume just know, haven't built it

They tried that once already and decided they didn't want the general population of SL to move to Sansar. Don't blame the SL residents for the things the Lindens pull. Many of us wanted to be part of Sansar but LL made damn sure we couldn't be. I don't crash roadblocks. If I can't find an alternate route, I'll either change my destination or stay home. If I wanted to stay home I wouldn't be looking for some place else to go.

[Silent Mistwalker]

15 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Rod Humble [...] but also the reason why The Sims is one of the best selling game franchises.

No, he wasn't.

Maxis, the actual developers of the Sims games, all 4 versions, became a subsidiary of EA in 1997. Maxis was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun. Will Wright is the reason The Sims became one of the best selling game franchises.

[Silent Mistwalker]

17 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

Oh, so you believe this man has changed and reformed his heart. Okay.

Where did I ever say that? 

Do you like it when people accuse you of thinking something when that thought never even crossed your mind? Stop doing that to other people. And stop trying to pick fights to justify your hatred for people who have nothing to do with "the conspiracy to drive Chroma insane" or whatever it is you are always up in arms about.

[Drayke Newall]

18 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

No, he wasn't.

Maxis, the actual developers of the Sims games, all 4 versions, became a subsidiary of EA in 1997. Maxis was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun. Will Wright is the reason The Sims became one of the best selling game franchises.

Publicity and distribution under the EA title is what I meant. Under the EA Play label which Rod headed EA was able to market it to a far wider audience and better than what Maxis could do. Other than simcity and its many, many offshoots, Maxis had all failures in games which is why EA bought them out. I didn't mean development wise.

:EDIT:

If I recall, one of the reasons why Will said he chose EA was because of their wider distribution ability. Also Rod was the head of The Sims label for The Sims 2 and Sims 3.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[lucagrabacr]

26 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Second Life is such a closed platform and so niche that no AAA level game designer would even go work there. What would a AAA game level artist do in Second Life when Linden Lab do not involve themselves in creation outside of moles? They also have had someone with plenty of experience in the gaming industry both from a design point of view as well as a overall development, marketing, publishing etc view, something far more superior to a measly level artist.

Rod Humble in 2010, with 20 years of Gaming industry experience seemed to even have his hands tied in that even he couldn't bring about a change significant enough to take Second Life back to hype years only 2 years earlier. Rod Humble wasn't just some unknown that LL got to head the company. He was at the time of his transfer to Linden Lab, the Executive Vice President of EA Games and Led the EA Play label of which he is directly responsible for not only 200 games under that label but also the reason why The Sims is one of the best selling game franchises. Before that he was VP of Product Development at Sony Online Entertainment and Head of the Everquest Studio - a MMORPG.

If he couldn't do anything what makes you believe a AAA game level designer could do anything? They would be limited by what they have and budgets just the same as Rod was.

How would this be possible in your eyes? How are Linden Lab going to achieve a modern continent equivalent to modern standards when modern standards are either a closed system with downloads (aka sansar or roblox) or a endless continent that has no region crossings or very large areas prior to a region crossing?

Additionally they have already tried this in the past and currently but smaller region size, and it hasn't brought any new hype to second life. EXPLORE | Second Life Work  they also pre-built themes for general people and educators. Also look at bellisseria, is ok until the lag hits.

How would this achieve any form of retention to new users when almost all users want to see masses of people playing the game. What would be achieved in them starting off on their own continent when they would be hard pressed to find 10 people to talk to at a time and have little interaction with experienced residents?

It's ok to say "lets just fix the onboarding experience", however how are you going to achieve this? For 18 years LL has tried to work out a viable solution for that and as yet, still haven't worked out a good one even with their latest update to noob island. People want a plug in and instant play experience these days, and that is something Second Life cannot achieve easily due to the complexities of it.

Such as?

It is easy to say they could just do this and that. If only it was that easy. Viewer side I would say yes as you have TPV's to bring in ideas. Server side however there is just to much catching up to do and the code and LL timelines just cant even compete with anything new. If they had continued developing on top of the systems they had year after year improving them, expanding them etc. rather than a release and forget attitude, they would have been on par with everyone now if not ahead.

Having a starting area like this would IMPROVE first user experience: 

An example of what a level artist can do, of course with SL's engine it won't look as good but even just counting the mesh & design work it's a definite improvement over what we have. Of course a good artist can also make it so it won't lag with proper optimization, and make sure there are no weird things like object popping in from low draw distance (by tailoring the space so the surrounding area that is visible is within draw distance)

Then we can tweak the default camera preset to make it more modern, which is super easy to do from debug settings

We can also replace the current HUD on welcome areas with more modern-looking ones, that's properly and efficiently guiding the users through the hoops

 

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE WITH VERY LITTLE COST - we gotta escape this closed-mindedness, stop thinking about SL from what you have seen inside SL and you'll see all the possibilities! c=

 

Another thing with presentation: modern dev diaries. A continuous series of /modern/ styled development vlog, the possibilities of what we can do to improve SL's image is endless, it's why it's so frustrating to me when people keep making u-turns to what we have on SL when envisioning these things, of course we're going nowhere that way

 

There are so, so, so many more that can be done for very little cost it's insanity that we're not even considering those

Tagging @Patch Lindenfor reference 

[Qie Niangao]

45 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Rod Humble in 2010, with 20 years of Gaming industry experience seemed to even have his hands tied in that even he couldn't bring about a change significant enough to take Second Life back to hype years only 2 years earlier. Rod Humble wasn't just some unknown that LL got to head the company. He was at the time of his transfer to Linden Lab, the Executive Vice President of EA Games and Led the EA Play label of which he is directly responsible for not only 200 games under that label but also the reason why The Sims is one of the best selling game franchises. Before that he was VP of Product Development at Sony Online Entertainment and Head of the Everquest Studio - a MMORPG.

If he couldn't do anything what makes you believe a AAA game level designer could do anything? They would be limited by what they have and budgets just the same as Rod was.

I have no expectation that a "AAA game level designer" could do anything at all with SL, but just to be clear about Rod Humble's tenure, if anything he wasn't budget-constrained enough. It was his time as CEO that saw the Lab buy Desura, LittleTextPeople, and Blocksworld, launch Patterns and Creatorverse, and oversee the death throes of the earlier-acquired Avatars United. A whole lot of money and time was squandered back then.

[lucagrabacr]

We're so trapped, we are believing that the upper limit of design and presentations of SL are things based on SL's relative standards that we have seen so far, and then believing that improvement can't be made in those regards.

"That's just how things are on SL" - well of course perhaps eternally if we keep looking at the same pond and rearranging the same set of stones to construct our vision

It's really a mindset thing I can't fathom the notion that what we have are SL's upper limits

[Drayke Newall]

2 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

Having a starting area like this would IMPROVE first user experience: 

An example of what a level artist can do, of course with SL's engine it won't look as good but even just counting the mesh & design work it's a definite improvement over what we have. Of course a good artist can also make it so it won't lag with proper optimization, and make sure there are no weird things like object popping in from low draw distance (by tailoring the space so the surrounding area that is visible is within draw distance)

That looks no different to what Linden Lab have had in the past and currently. Even the iteration before the current noob island was fine layout wise to what you have shown, just more less graphic detail due to as you said the engine.

2 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

Then we can tweak the default camera preset to make it more modern, which is super easy to do from debug settings

Default camera wouldn't help in retention. It would be good, however not needed for retention. No one would come into SL and think, I am not playing this game because my camera is to high.

2 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

We can also replace the current HUD on welcome areas with more modern-looking ones, that's properly and efficiently guiding the users through the hoops

You mean like it currently does with the new noob island they released this year? What you have suggested here is no different to what is in the latest version of noob island.

[Silent Mistwalker]

15 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Publicity and distribution under the EA title is what I meant. Under the EA Play label which Rod headed EA was able to market it to a far wider audience and better than what Maxis could do. Other than simcity and its many, many offshoots, Maxis had all failures in games which is why EA bought them out. I didn't mean development wise.

:EDIT:

If I recall, one of the reasons why Will said he chose EA was because of their wider distribution ability. Also Rod was the head of The Sims label for The Sims 2 and Sims 3.

Rod built on what Will had already established.

Quote

In an interview, Mr. Wright said he decided to leave EA because he wanted to design interactive games for devices beyond just game consoles and PCs

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123921387246401913#:~:text=Digits&text=In an interview%2C Mr.,where we would conceivably be."

Will left because of what EA was doing with Spore. 

[Chroma Starlight]

31 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Where did I ever say that? 

It's strange to me that anyone would believe what Facebook is and what it is for would have changed. Facebook is Zuckerberg and it's for, well...
 

 

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Chroma Starlight
One Site to rule them all, One Site to find them, One Site to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

[Rowan Amore]

12 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

we're not even considering those

Have YOU taken these concerns to a Users Meeting?  WE can't do anything.  THEY can.  

[Istelathis]

7 minutes ago, lucagrabacr said:

Having a starting area like this would IMPROVE first user experience: 

I think you have a lot of great ideas, but the problem, as far as I believe, it is that people generally gravitate toward the simplest solutions they can find.  SL is a relatively complex platform, that takes users months to understand.  I think, that if SL wanted to attract more users they would have to streamline the platform to the point that it would drive a lot of us off, but even if they did take that approach it would not guarantee a larger audience.

SL is a product of its time, and I love it for being so.  I would hate to see it chopped up and put back together to make it resemble modern VR platforms.  

[lucagrabacr]

1 minute ago, Drayke Newall said:

That looks no different to what Linden Lab have had in the past and currently. Even the iteration before the current noob island was fine layout wise to what you have shown, just more less graphic detail due to as you said the engine.

Default camera wouldn't help in retention. It would be good, however not needed for retention. No one would come into SL and think, I am not playing this game because my camera is to high.

You mean like it currently does with the new noob island they released this year? What you have suggested here is no different to what is in the latest version of noob island.

That looks great (and I hope LL don't take this as me not appreciating the hard works that they have done) but it can certainly be better

And no, we didn't have things that look as good in term of welcome area, it's really possible though

[lucagrabacr]

6 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Have YOU taken these concerns to a Users Meeting?  WE can't do anything.  THEY can.  

I have talked with some Lindens about it, I'm talking about it here so we also have better expectations of what's possible so that more of us (or anyone checking the forums) can see that SL still have things up its sleeves c= 

Edited September 18, 2021 by lucagrabacr
typo

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 minute ago, Chroma Starlight said:

It's strange to me that anyone would believe what Facebook is and what it is for would have changed. Facebook is Zuckerberg. 

STOP trying to make it look like I said something I NEVER SAID OR EVEN THOUGHT. I am not a villain. I don't even use Facebook. Or Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Discord or any of those platforms. I am not the horrible person you are trying to convince everyone else of.

But don't worry, I won't ever bother to reach out to you again. You've bitten the hand that offered compassion too many times. 

 

[tailpa]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

STOP trying to make it look like I said something I NEVER SAID OR EVEN THOUGHT

SHE'S NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU.

SHE DOES NOT HAVE PASSION ABOUT YOU.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU, OKAY?

RELAX, WE ARE ALL HERE FOR FUN, RIGHT?

[Rowan Amore]

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

19 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

It's strange to me that anyone would believe what Facebook is and what it is for would have changed. Facebook is Zuckerberg and it's for, well...

I wish Freakbook would just implode and we all move on.....