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

[Solar Legion]

2 minutes ago, Finite said:

I didn't mean as to host it. I meant as to have most of where we visit already stored as in how most other games are. When I travel in say GTA or WoW or any other game I am loading them off my harddrive since they are already installed opposed to constantly having to download and load as what happens in SL.

Which. Cannot. Happen.

None of it is built even remotely similar to GTA, WoW or any other game that uses pre-built assets in any way, shape or form.

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Except EA had nothing to do with the original marketing as they didn't own Maxis at the time, 

Considering EA were the publishers of The Sims (2000) of which entails distribution and marketing then I would have to disagree. Additionally the provided the funds to make The Sims through the acquisition money as well as provided a larger dev team for the game to be produced.

"Following EA's acquisition of Maxis, Wright was given the team he needed to put The Sims into full production." History Of The Sims

"In 1997, Maxis was acquired by EA, giving the team funding for another project." The Sims

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I'm sorry. I'm the wrong person to be tooting Rod's horn at. I left SL for many years because of what he was trying to do.

Wow really? What was he trying to do that you were so against? He brought us the destination guide, mesh, materials, dynamic lighting, shadows, dof, mega prims, pathfinding and even tried to fix things his predecessor did like bringing back non-profit discounts. Sure LL communication fell during that period but that started in his predecessor reign thought got worse under Humble who was all for privacy. Even fitted mesh, experience tools and Linden Realm (which was an effort for Lindens to see how complicated building is) were started under his tenure. On top of that he tried to get a mobile app going in 2013.

As far as what was released under his tenure I thought he did well meeting most of what he said he wanted to do. He also improved the daily sign-up as well as tried to reduce the new user experience and improve the viewer. Mark Kingdon on the other hand...

:EDIT:

Additionally, Will Wright was on the board of directors for LL at the same time Humble was CEO and even Will's gaming background couldn't help improve SL.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Finite]

31 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

With most other games the environment won't change unpredictably. In SL I've been at a club event where the owner started rebuilding the club in the middle of it.

Yes I understand that. Most sims don't change that regularly though and if they did they could update in the background or something. I dunno. I was just making a suggestion. Otherwise I feel people should just temper their expectations some on how they feel SL should perform when it is nearly completely reliant on whatever the current speeds are of hardware and the internet.

[animats]

There's a lot of anger here. Some of it justified, some not.

Let's review the big issues.

• Not enough investment in the LL platform, while over-investment in unsuccessful side projects. SL is profitable. But the profits are not going into improving SL.
• LL has convinced itself that SL cannot be fixed. There is a "can't do" attitude internally, recognized by users who attend the various user group meetings.
• The path for new users is too hard. Anyone doubting this should spend a few hours at Firestorm Help Island.
• Things that are easy to set up on some other platforms are hard in SL. You can have meetings in SL, and people do this, but it's hard to set them up if presentations are involved. You can set up role playing games in SL, but you have to build your own role-playing system to do so.

Non-problems:

• A system with user-created content has to be slow. Not really. That's a problem with the viewer architecture and implementation, which is 1999 technology, not the content. All that high-detail content is an asset. It just needs better automated processing for efficient display. (I've written about what can be done, I've implemented some demos, and anyone who wants to discuss the technicalities of this can message me.)
• Nothing can be done because the code base is so old. The third party viewer developers don't seem to have a huge problem with this. (I've put code in Firestorm myself. The viewer code is under-commented, but the original architecture is rather clever.)

Those are excuses, not real problems.

That summarizes the big issues. Comments?

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Finite said:

I didn't mean as to host it. I meant as to have most of where we visit already stored as in how most other games are. When I travel in say GTA or WoW or any other game I am loading them off my harddrive since they are already installed opposed to constantly having to download and load as what happens in SL.

I think people have this performance expectation that SL should run like other games when it's currently impossible since the game is completely web based.

Neither SL nor Active Worlds are games like GTA or WoW. They are not games. They are virtual 3d social and creative environments and that is about all the two have in common with the majority of MMO games. The two are not going to "run like other games". They can't due to the simple fact that they are not, never have been and never will be games. There are no goals, no levels, no badges, no awards, no bonus experience points, unless you are playing one of the games that was actually created in SL or by LL within SL. The top common reason(s) for coming to SL is not to play a game but to socialize and create. That isn't to say that those people don't on occasion play said games within SL but SL itself is not and never will be a game in the traditional sense of the word even if a lot of people seem to enjoy playing mind games. That last bit begin said tongue in cheek.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

10 minutes ago, animats said:

Not enough investment in the LL platform, while over-investment in unsuccessful side projects.

Out of our control.

11 minutes ago, animats said:

LL has convinced itself that SL cannot be fixed. There is a "can't do" attitude internally, recognized by users who attend the various user group meetings.

Also out of our control. In fairness to the Lindens I have previously criticised for this attitude, they may well be under constraints of limited budgets, resources, or de-prioritised for reasons we are unaware of.

12 minutes ago, animats said:

The path for new users is too hard

This is something I think we should be doing ourselves, creating newbie-friendly places and steering newcomers to them. We can make our own mentor group with volunteers and get that activity going again. One thing though we have to get right is to make sure the destinations we select are usually populated. There's nothing worse for a hopeful newcomer than to arrive at a recommendation to find it empty. This means we are going to have to get people from a selection of timezones involved.

 

14 minutes ago, animats said:

Things that are easy to set up on some other platforms are hard in SL.

I don't see that as a problem, I see that as a challenge.

 

16 minutes ago, animats said:

A system with user-created content has to be slow

Also out of our control

18 minutes ago, animats said:

Nothing can be done because the code base is so old.

Also out of our control while the server code is proprietary.

So there's two areas we can do something about.

I'd suggest people get working on the Newcomer activity Plan and the implementing required systems ideas. It's something we can do and probably get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of, but griping about the areas we have no control over is a path to misery.

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

Considering EA were the publishers of The Sims (2000) of which entails distribution and marketing then I would have to disagree. Additionally the provided the funds to make The Sims through the acquisition money as well as provided a larger dev team for the game to be produced.

"Following EA's acquisition of Maxis, Wright was given the team he needed to put The Sims into full production." History Of The Sims

"In 1997, Maxis was acquired by EA, giving the team funding for another project." The Sims

Wow really? What was he trying to do that you were so against? He brought us the destination guide, mesh, materials, dynamic lighting, shadows, dof, mega prims, pathfinding and even tried to fix things his predecessor did like bringing back non-profit discounts. Sure LL communication fell during that period but that started in his predecessor reign thought got worse under Humble who was all for privacy. Even fitted mesh, experience tools and Linden Realm (which was an effort for Lindens to see how complicated building is) were started under his tenure. On top of that he tried to get a mobile app going in 2013.

As far as what was released under his tenure I thought he did well meeting most of what he said he wanted to do. He also improved the daily sign-up as well as tried to reduce the new user experience and improve the viewer. Mark Kingdon on the other hand...

:EDIT:

Additionally, Will Wright was on the board of directors for LL at the same time Humble was CEO and even Will's gaming background couldn't help improve SL.

This is too far off topic now. Sorry. 

It's all water under the bridge any way.

[Finite]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Neither SL nor Active Worlds are games like GTA or WoW. They are not games. They are virtual 3d social and creative environments and that is about all the two have in common with the majority of MMO games. The two are not going to "run like other games". They can't due to the simple fact that they are not, never have been and never will be games. There are no goals, no levels, no badges, no awards, no bonus experience points, unless you are playing one of the games that was actually created in SL or by LL within SL. The top common reason(s) for coming to SL is not to play a game but to socialize and create. That isn't to say that those people don't on occasion play said games within SL but SL itself is not and never will be a game in the traditional sense of the word even if a lot of people seem to enjoy playing mind games. That last bit begin said tongue in cheek.

Yes I totally understand that they are entirely different "games". I was speaking about the manner of which those games operate and are stored and run off your hard drive. I wasn't comparing genres or saying SL should be the same genre as those.

The only thing you get off the internet from those are the communication when playing online of where you are and where other players are and the text communication and what not. Otherwise they are all loaded off your hard drive and not constantly being downloaded and redownloaded.

I just feel if somehow SL could have more content stored locally than it does now rather than it being completely web-based it would have a higher ceiling in terms of performance than it currently does. Whether or not it's possible now or if it will be ever IDK. I'm not a game  designer or anything like that.

[Silent Mistwalker]

58 minutes ago, Finite said:

Yes I understand that. Most sims don't change that regularly though and if they did they could update in the background or something. I dunno. I was just making a suggestion. Otherwise I feel people should just temper their expectations some on how they feel SL should perform when it is nearly completely reliant on whatever the current speeds are of hardware and the internet.

As someone who only recently managed to get a desktop that is capable of running just SL alone (not any other MMO or game I play) on ultra, my expectations have never been above high. For many years, I was luck to be able to run SL on low to medium.

As for games I do play the most graphic intensive one requires a minimum recommended of a GTX 1660 4G with a min of a 1050 2G. The desktop that was a recent gift has a 1660. This is the highest I have ever owned in the more than 30 years I've been online.

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 minutes ago, Finite said:

Yes I totally understand that they are entirely different "games". I was speaking about the manner of which those games operate and are stored and run off your hard drive. I wasn't comparing genres or saying SL should be the same genre as those.

The only thing you get off the internet from those are the communication when playing online of where you are and where other players are and the text communication and what not. Otherwise they are all loaded off your hard drive and not constantly being downloaded and redownloaded.

I just feel if somehow SL could have more content stored locally than it does now rather than it being completely web-based it would have a higher ceiling in terms of performance than it currently does. Whether or not it's possible now or if it will be ever IDK. I'm not a game  designer or anything like that.

If you do the searching you'll find the old threads (some really ancient) where all this and why it isn't so has been discussed. It all goes back to the older machines. I'm not sure it's a good idea to go back to what was once so adamantly opposed and removed some years ago. Sorry, not sure exactly when it was. It may have been as far back as Emerald days/early Phoenix days.

[Finite]

12 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

As someone who only recently managed to get a desktop that is capable of running just SL alone (not any other MMO or game I play) on ultra, my expectations have never been above high. For many years, I was luck to be able to run SL on low to medium.

As for games I do play the most graphic intensive one requires a minimum recommended of a GTX 1660 4G with a min of a 1050 2G. The desktop that was a recent gift has a 1660. This is the highest I have ever owned in the more than 30 years I've been online.

Ha yes I totally understand this. 2 years ago I went from a 780 (which was actually a pretty decent card to have but fried) to a 1660 to the 2080super I have now. MMOs i can play at max settings at over 100fps. GTA is roughly 60-80 fps for me at max I think last time i played it. SL is like 15-30 regularly and 45 or so on my home sim. My little nephew just recently got a 3060ti as part of a pre-build.. No not hating at all....

[Silent Mistwalker]

13 minutes ago, Finite said:

Ha yes I totally understand this. 2 years ago I went from a 780 (which was actually a pretty decent card to have but fried) to a 1660 to the 2080super I have now. MMOs i can play at max settings at over 100fps. GTA is roughly 60-80 fps for me at max I think last time i played it. SL is like 15-30 regularly and 45 or so on my home sim. My little nephew just recently got a 3060ti as part of a pre-build.. No not hating at all....

I went from a 1050 to the 1660. Talk about running SL like a scalded cat. ZZZZOOOMMMM!! lol

The CPU on this mobo is actually not quite as powerful overall as my old one. This is a 3.0GHz, the old one is a 3.2GHz. The 1660 makes one hell of a difference.

[Maryanne Solo]

SL needs a youtube vid/s showing exact controls on whatever device with a mouse/keyboard overlay on how to do exact things.
Accompanied by a downloadable pdf or as many formats possible to make things easy to find out. 

[Quistess Alpha]

41 minutes ago, Maryanne Solo said:

SL needs a youtube vid/s showing exact controls on whatever device with a mouse/keyboard overlay on how to do exact things.
Accompanied by a downloadable pdf or as many formats possible to make things easy to find out. 

Ideally the interface should be easy enough to use in the first place that such isn't needed. If there must be a how-to-sl tutorial system, a demonstration system built into the viewer (automatically opens windows and points big red arrows at things) would be my recommendation rather than something you have to search for outside SL (how would they make sure the info got to the top of "how to do X in SL" searches etc.?)

One of the unique challenges SL faces in tutorializing things, is that unlike games, SL doesn't have any sort of "gameplay loop"; different types of people (Ex. creators, roleplayers, photographers) all use the different viewer systems more or less frequently.

Easy to use and find tutorials in-world for whenever you want to pick up a new skillset could be a nice new-user feature.

[PixelBerry]

Second life got a whole lot of more issues than the ones already stated, there are four things that I see as important to fix to make Second life enjoyable for newcomers, performance, a better way to seperate pg and adult content/sims within Second life, a better viewer that is easier to understand for newcomers, why is there not a built in tutorial rather than huds? And having less sims kicking out newcomers because their account is not 30 days old, saw a youtube video that demostrated that very well.

Edited September 19, 2021 by PixelBerry

[Alwin Alcott]

9 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

This is something I think we should be doing ourselves, creating newbie-friendly places and steering newcomers to them. We can make our own mentor group with volunteers and get that activity going again. One thing though we have to get right is to make sure the destinations we select are usually populated. There's nothing worse for a hopeful newcomer than to arrive at a recommendation to find it empty. This means we are going to have to get people from a selection of timezones involved.

Newcomer help wil only work if newcomers leave the idea of "i want it and i want it now" at the door.
Next to the steep learning curve how SL works, tháts a real problem.
 

[Drayke Newall]

38 minutes ago, PixelBerry said:

I've suggested this idea briefly in a comment on the Second life forums, but do you know how you can cross if an object is copy, modify or transfer? Why is there not such a thing for adult, mature and pg? That way if a sim is pg, only pg items can be worn, if a sim is mature, only mature or pg items can be worn, and if it is a adult sim, mature and adult items can be worn. There could be a tos on what items go into what tag, if people break that tos people report it and so on. 

Some objects already have scripts that allow certain objects to hide or detach when entering a certain region. For instance many adult huds have a option to autohide certain attached objects when entering a G region. As to mature and adult well technically it isn't needed as mature allows for adult items to be displayed on an avatar just not 'used' (ie nudist beach) and adult areas allow for everything.

Additionally to your comment regarding Twitch, Twitch does not ban nudity perse in games if those games have nudity in them and are not ESRB rated Adult. This is the same with user-generated content so long as when the person is streaming and the nudity isn't the focus and time spent is as quick as possible for say just getting through that area, then it is fine.

The reason why Second Life is not allowed on Twitch is simply because it is banned due to not having an official ESRB rating and containing adult content and predominantly. As such due to SL not being rated by ESRB and no comparable game has ever existed to compare ratings to it, the Twitch moderation team then decided to ban it. List of Prohibited Games (twitch.tv). If for instance SL was rated by ESRB as M17+ which allows sexual content (just not prolonged or graphic) it would be allowed on twitch.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[Quistess Alpha]

34 minutes ago, PixelBerry said:

a better way to seperate pg and adult content/sims within Second life

What about the current g/m/a system do you see as not working?

[PixelBerry]

12 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

What about the current g/m/a system do you see as not working?

Such as people dressing very skimpy in a pg sim, people walking around naked in stores, people walking around in bdsm gear and being leashed at stores or any sim that they like, spankers, moaners in pg sims etc. Having pg, mature and adult sims don't really seperate them, which is why I'm wondering why they didn't implement pg, mature and adult tags for objects and clothes, like they did with copy, modify and transfer, that way people wearing adult tagged items can't access a pg or a mature sim for example, or people wearing pg items, or toddler items or being a toddler can't access an adult sim.

If they did, you would be less likely to see lewd stuff in a pg or a mature sim, and would make Second life more streamable among other things, and would actually seperate it better for the people who doesn't want to see those kinda things.

After all 16 year olds can join Second life, and I bet there are people who are younger in it as well, seeing how I was 13 when I first joined Second life in 2007.

It wouldn't be perfect of course, how can Second life tell whenever a person is simply naked, but it would be far better I think that way regardless.

Edited September 19, 2021 by PixelBerry

[Finite]

15 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Some objects already have scripts that allow certain objects to hide or detach when entering a certain region. For instance many adult huds have a option to autohide certain attached objects when entering a G region. As to mature and adult well technically it isn't needed as mature allows for adult items to be displayed on an avatar just not 'used' (ie nudist beach) and adult areas allow for everything.

Additionally to your comment regarding Twitch, Twitch does not ban nudity perse in games if those games have nudity in them and are not ESRB rated Adult. This is the same with user-generated content so long as when the person is streaming and the nudity isn't the focus and time spent is as quick as possible for say just getting through that area, then it is fine.

The reason why Second Life is not allowed on Twitch is simply because it is banned due to not having an official ESRB rating and containing adult content and predominantly. As such due to SL not being rated by ESRB and no comparable game has ever existed to compare ratings to it, the Twitch moderation team then decided to ban it. List of Prohibited Games (twitch.tv). If for instance SL was rated by ESRB as M17+ which allows sexual content (just not prolonged or graphic) it would be allowed on twitch.

I think it’s a quite a bit more than that. I always thought it was more to do with the likelyhood of stream snipers coming in and spawning (Richards) everywhere. 

 

Twitch has officially classified Second Life as Adults-Only on its website, therefore prohibiting anyone from streaming Second Life on its game video sharing service. (The company discussed this with NWN last March.) SL blogger Ciaran Laval is upset:

Yes there are adult themes in Second Life, but there are many parts of Second Life with Doctors, universities, hobbyists, sci-fi fans, artists and inexplicable curiosities if you look.

This is all true, but Twitch, which actually has former Linden Lab staff working for it, knows how Second Life actually works. I didn't explain this very well the last time the topic of Adult content in SL came up, and there's still clearly some confusion among the community, so let my try explaining again:

Due to griefing and other factors, extreme, pornographic, violent, explicit and/or offensive-to-many content often appears everywhere in Second Life - no matter what the region rating.

 

https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2015/05/twitch-second-life-adult-content.html

Edited September 19, 2021 by Finite

[PixelBerry]

16 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Some objects already have scripts that allow certain objects to hide or detach when entering a certain region. For instance many adult huds have a option to autohide certain attached objects when entering a G region. As to mature and adult well technically it isn't needed as mature allows for adult items to be displayed on an avatar just not 'used' (ie nudist beach) and adult areas allow for everything.

Additionally to your comment regarding Twitch, Twitch does not ban nudity perse in games if those games have nudity in them and are not ESRB rated Adult. This is the same with user-generated content so long as when the person is streaming and the nudity isn't the focus and time spent is as quick as possible for say just getting through that area, then it is fine.

The reason why Second Life is not allowed on Twitch is simply because it is banned due to not having an official ESRB rating and containing adult content and predominantly. As such due to SL not being rated by ESRB and no comparable game has ever existed to compare ratings to it, the Twitch moderation team then decided to ban it. List of Prohibited Games (twitch.tv). If for instance SL was rated by ESRB as M17+ which allows sexual content (just not prolonged or graphic) it would be allowed on twitch.

The amount of items that got those scripts are very low and are only uh nether bits as far as I'm aware, and I know that it wouldn't solve the whole twitch thing but it would make it better if it was improved, don't you think?

[Alwin Alcott]

12 minutes ago, PixelBerry said:

Such as people dressing very skimpy in a pg sim, people walking around naked in stores, people walking around in bdsm gear and being leashed at stores or any sim that they like, spankers, moaners in pg sims etc. Having pg, mature and adult sims don't really seperate them, which is why I'm wondering why they didn't implement pg, mature and adult tags for objects and clothes, like they did with copy, modify and transfer, that way people wearing adult tagged items can't access a pg or a mature sim for example, or people wearing pg items, or toddler items or being a toddler can't access an adult sim.

for me these things have more to do with etiquette than maturity rating.
Do some things disturb me, yes.. but it's not g/m/a, it's behaviour.
For me a toddler can be more irritating as a ( for the occasion) inapropriate behaving guy or girl, because those toddlers often force you in their RP with the idiot mwummy dwaddy stuff.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[CoraxCorv]

On 9/18/2021 at 4:39 AM, Istelathis said:

Gads, if the forums are the face of second life, then we are all doomed.  

I dont think so. And I dont believes this whole "SL is almost dead". Of course its a lot less then a few years ago, but people tend to create Bubbles and communities to "life" in and If another Bubble doesnt share any kind of interest U most likely never run into them. A lot of Times I have been really surprised when I actually left my own comfort zone.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by CoraxCorv

[PixelBerry]

2 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

for me these things have more to do with etiquette than maturity rating.
Do some things disturb me, yes.. but it's not g/m/a, it's behaviour.
For me a toddler can be as irritating as a ( for the occasion) inapropriate behaving guy or girl

Eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Let's just not forget that there are 16 years old and younger people on Second life, I'm not a anti adult person by any means, and I do not get disturbed easily but I do react on what people decide to do in a pg or a mature area, where potentionally young people hang at, and not everyone are into seeing those kinda things and can get scared off per se.

I'm just thinking in a way that would make Second life more inviting for new people in general.

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Finite said:

Twitch has officially classified Second Life as Adults-Only on its website

That is the gist of it actually. Notice how what you stated said that "Twitch has officially classified" where as most games have an official ESRB rating to determine the category instead. Due to SL not having that classification Twitch assumes the role of the Rating system and therefore refuses it based on their own guidelines.

From the link I showed "This nonexhaustive list is regularly updated and games may be added/removed in such situations where the status of the official ESRB rating changes or the content of an unrated game changes to bring it within our Community Guidelines".

The non ESRB rating is the main factor with second life. If for instance the ESRB rating for Second Life was M17+ then the game is allowed and the content that is streamed becomes the liability of the streamer and then Twitch's streaming guidelines come into play for the streamer to ensure what is and isn't shown on their stream.

Just as for instance you can download nudity and sex mods for Skyrim, however Skyrim can be streamed just not with those mods.

From Twitches Guidelines on user generated content games:

"User-Generated Sexual In-Game Content

Focusing your broadcast around sexual content or in-game nudity in an otherwise allowed game will result in enforcement action against your Twitch account. When interacting with in-game nudity or sexual content in a permitted game, users may only spend as much time as is required to progress. In addition, users may not engage in simulated sexual activity or erotic roleplay—which includes the specific behaviors listed under Sexually Suggestive Content above—with other players in online games. 

Games that primarily consist of user-generated content, in-game roleplay, or interactions in virtual reality are not exempt from this policy."

The spawning of unwanted content during a stream obviously is a concern but no different to a person playing an MMO which has nudity doing the same or rping in text and action.

:EDIT:

Take VRchat for instance this is Twitches take on AR avatars with regards to that game and nudity:

"VRChat is categorized as a game on Twitch, and in-game virtual reality models are not subject to our policy on Nudity and Attire. This content must still comply with our policy on Nudity and Sexual Content in Embedded Media and Games however, so you may not modify your game to include nudity, or make sexual elements a primary focus of your broadcast."

Also twitch states this:

Prohibited Sexual Games and Game Modifications

"Games featuring nudity, pornography, sex, or sexual violence as a core focus or feature are entirely prohibited"

Is nudity etc SL's core focus or feature? I would say no it is a 'mod' that people buy on a marketplace and add to their game. SL's base game has no nudity in it at all or sexual actions. It is added to the game by users through modification.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Drayke Newall