Philip Rosedale is back as "Strategic Advisor"

[Tama Suki]

23 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Urban Dictionary, best girl.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=WYSIWYG

Now this is what i call a link.

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

Location: Burning Man

[Prokofy Neva]

On 1/17/2022 at 8:08 PM, Katherine Heartsong said:

As someone at a Director level management position out here in RL, and in the tech field, only 25% of LL staff developing this thing? That sure explains a lot.

What's to develop? It's developed already. Now, to make it work! And that requires a degree in both computer science *and* psychology like Gruhmpity Linden has.

 

It's like in a hospital, only a small percentage of the staff are doctors. 30% are nurses. There are a lot of managers and clerks these days.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[ChinRey]

On 1/20/2022 at 9:57 AM, animats said:

(quoting Rosedale)

• Voice does not work socially with latency above 0.2 second.

That is simply not possible to achieve. No matter how fast computers become, transferring data is still limited by the speed of light.

Edited January 21, 2022 by ChinRey

[Innula Zenovka]

On 1/17/2022 at 2:53 PM, Qie Niangao said:

That's certainly my understanding, but I also think they envisioned commercializing Tilia to be a way of turning a cost center into a profit center (analogous to AWS making a business of Amazon's then cyclically idle computing costs). In that endeavor, current progress can't be very exciting, but I don't think we can quantify the current owner's expectations for Tilia.

If anybody has a way of gleaning background info relevant to this non-public balance sheet, I'd guess it might be @Nika Talaj.

This looks like good news for Tilia:

https://www.lindenlab.com/releases/tilia-unity-partnership

[Maryanne Solo]

57 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

This looks like good news for Tilia:

https://www.lindenlab.com/releases/tilia-unity-partnership

That is quite, heavy duty. 😮
Mebee we is gettin NFTs?
Maybe not SL itself but certainly something LL produces in the future.
Second Token anyone ^^? lmaoooo

Edited January 27, 2022 by Maryanne Solo

[Arielle Popstar]

3 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

This looks like good news for Tilia:

https://www.lindenlab.com/releases/tilia-unity-partnership

That is interesting. Wonder if they have an API for Opensimulator as that could expand their market to quite a few other grids allowing creators and developers one solution for multiple markets.

 

Quote

With Tilia, developers building in Unity now have a turnkey payments platform that supports in-game and in-world economies, allowing their users to make and receive payments, and even exchange in-game tokens for real money.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

This looks like good news for Tilia:

https://www.lindenlab.com/releases/tilia-unity-partnership

I just passed that on to one of the devs of one of the Unity based games I play that hasn't reached full release yet. 🤭

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Daniel Voyager]

There will be a special pre-recorded edition of Lab Gab with Philip Rosedale (Philip Linden) Second Life founder / current Strategic Advisor and Brad Oberwager (Oberwolf Linden) Linden Lab Executive Chairman starting at 9am PT on Monday 31st January 2022.

 

 

[Opinicus Extraordinaire]

Philip popped into Natoma just last week to chill out for a good hour or so. It got a bit busy quick.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

13 hours ago, Psyra Extraordinaire said:

Philip popped into Natoma just last week to chill out for a good hour or so. It got a bit busy quick.

 

It's not helpful when he does that.

It's not experiencing the platform the same way the rest of us experience it, he has no idea what we all do between fangirling, any feedback he may receive about anything is deeply skewed.

A bit like way back when people got upset on the forums and Philip would go see them in world in person, only to find them very apologetic. I can't imagine why ... 

[animats]

7 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It's not helpful when he does that.

It's not experiencing the platform the same way the rest of us experience it, he has no idea what we all do between fangirling, any feedback he may receive about anything is deeply skewed.

Hm.

I've watched some of Rosedale's videos, and I spoke to him in world once, but don't really know him. From his talks, he has a vision of SL. That vision does not scale much beyond present levels of engagement. It's a vision of a good virtual world built by users with a commitment to that world. We have that now.

It's a niche. It's probably a bigger niche than SL occupies at present, but it's a niche. As Rosedale points out, it requires a commitment to the virtual world. As such, it appeals to people whose RL life is unsatisfactory. He doesn't go all the way to using the word "losers", but that's what he's edging around saying.

This is a problem if you want to scale.

Now, there are ways around this, but they have their own problems. One is a two-class system, where there are creators, who get revenue for what they do, and casual users, who just consume content. Roblox explicitly has that. Roblox is YouTube for junior game devs. Post a game, get viewers, profit. Fortnite has some of that, although it's a minor part of the user experience. Ready Player One has that - most of the protagonists are casual players, and Aech is a content creator.

In all those examples, the content is a game, with a start, an end, a goal, and a winner. The world is open-ended to creators, but episodic to casual users.

SL lacks an episodic component. Attempts to add one have been failures. From Paleoquest to Zenescope, they're just not that much fun. SL's tough onboarding means there are not many casual users. So this approach doesn't really work for SL.

What could work? That's a hard problem. LL certainly doesn't have an answer.

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by animats

[Coffee Pancake]

25 minutes ago, animats said:

He doesn't go all the way to using the word "losers", but that's what he's edging around saying.

This is a problem if you want to scale.

I don't think it's a problem specifically of people with unsatisfactory lives or losers. The whole second life is for people who don't have a first life is a branding problem and just invites easy criticism & judgements. I've seen the same critique leveled at MMO players, only at least in their case the game isn't called "Sad sacks united".

Given limited free time to invest in escapism (which the majority of people participate in one form or another, books, binge watching netflix, social media, gaming, drinking, sports ball.. ) SL has a lot of competition, but only brings a very limited niche offering to the table.

You have to be prepared to pursue and make your own fun. I guess as a population split, this is about the same as those who would take a class to learn a new skill and those who spontaneously start studying.

25 minutes ago, animats said:

Now, there are ways around this, but they have their own problems. One is a two-class system, where there are creators, who get revenue for what they do, and casual users, who just consume content. Roblox explicitly has that. Roblox is YouTube for junior game devs. Post a game, get viewers, profit. Fortnite has some of that, although it's a minor part of the user experience. Ready Player One has that - most of the protagonists are casual players, and Aech is a content creator.

In all those examples, the content is a game, with a start, an end, a goal, and a winner. The world is open-ended to creators, but episodic to casual users.

SL lacks an episodic component. Attempt to add one have been failures. From Paleoquest to Zenescope, they're just not that much fun. SL's tough onboarding means there are not many casual users. So this approach doesn't really work for SL.

What could work? That's a hard problem. LL certainly doesn't have an answer.

I think the problem is more focused.

What episodic casual content can we have with the platform as provided that overlaps with the demographics of people sat at their computers looking for escapism?

Perhaps .. games .. and gamers?

If we could make gaming quality experiences here. Not talking about graphics, but rather responsiveness, interactivity and level of creative control. Then that would be a means to tick that box in a big way.

Only we can't make game quality experiences here, the platform just doesn't allow it and the people who would be responsible for making that happen don't play games, don't care to play games, are insulted that this might be considered a game .. or even just hostile to the notion of this being an entertainment and fun related product.

There would also be community pushback as people misunderstand that the intent to make the platform game capable wouldn't preclude everything we already do in SL, and would in all likelihood make it more fun.

I mean, can you imagine driving the mainland roads and it being a comparable experience to driving in GTA.

Or if walking in SL had the same feel as walking about in an MMO.

There is a reason we all stand about .. 

Which all comes back to, It's really not acceptable that the fundamental platform issues we have today are the same ones we had 18 years ago, issues Philip and the rest of our glorious leaders refuse to even recognize as a problem that demands attention and is a primary limiting factor.

Which was all fine .. right up till we had actual competition from media corporations looking to merge their existing franchised content under the same "metaverse" umbrella and our little 3d hangout chat thing being an interesting way to glue all that together ... 

 

[ChinRey]

5 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I mean, can you imagine driving the mainland roads and it being a comparable experience to driving in GTA.

Yes, I can and I do ... imagine it that is.

Here's a part of the landscape I'm working on at the moment - haven't had time to add the houses and plants and stuff yet but you get the idea.

But of course, not even Arton's or Kaliska's cars handle well enough for that level of driving experience and if they can't do it, nobody can.

The question is, would it even be possible to do something like that in an online shared virtual world that also has to cater for lots of other activities (and passivities) and if so, what changes to the software and the scripting language would be needed?

[Quistess Alpha]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

what changes to the software and the scripting language would be needed?

Well for some obvious answers, larger regions with less in them to cut down on region crossings, and more ability to tell the viewer what's "up ahead" so it can fetch assets before you get there.

The ability for LSL to redefine movement parameters might also come in handy. Vehicles could probably be more responsive if the viewer could be more assertive about avatar position rather than having to rely on the server for all the input handling.

[Istelathis]

7 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I mean, can you imagine driving the mainland roads and it being a comparable experience to driving in GTA.

I would love it if we had the ability to use analog controls that functioned properly for our cars, after reading your post I decided to try driving through the mainland with my controller and noticed it had no effect no matter how slightly I used them.  I searched around to see if vehicles can use analog, but did not find any and am unaware of lsl supporting it.  I further found that they did not have an impact on my movement speed, which would make a huge difference.

I think outside of waiting for assets to load, one of the major drawbacks for driving, at least for me, is the inability to remain in a lane and having to constantly correct my steering.  One thing I like about GTA 5 is the ability to pick up my controller, as it is a much better driving experience.  Without using it, much like SL I find myself correcting my steering often.  I can say the same with Cyberpunk 2077.  

This is my first time trying SL with a controller, and I am unsure if analog is something that can be scripted for vehicles, if not I think this could be a drastic change and improvement for drivers.  

Edited February 13, 2022 by Istelathis

[Quistess Alpha]

5 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I am unsure if analog is something that can be scripted for vehicles, if not I think this could be a drastic change and improvement for drivers.  

Good point, the only 'analog' control you can get in SL is what direction you're facing in mouselook. Hypothetically, your viewer could 'tap' the direction keys for you, leaving a direction pressed for longer or shorter periods of time based on an anolog input, but I don't think any viewers do that.

[animats]

8 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Or if walking in SL had the same feel as walking about in an MMO.

Please go on. You may be on to something. How should walking be different in SL?

45 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I decided to try driving through the mainland with my controller and noticed it had no effect no matter how slightly I used them. 

Right. You can hook up a joystick, but all it does is operate the arrow keys. There's no proportional control.

It would be tempting, as an experiment, to send joystick info. The "control" event sends 32 bits from viewer to simulator 30 times a second, and LSL can read all of them. But only 12 bits are used, leaving 20 free for expansion. If you sent 4 bits each from 4 axes of joystick, you could make a standard two-joystick game controller talk to SL. Each joystick would have 16 positions, so it would feel smooth. You'd have to script a vehicle to read that data. Someone should put that in a third party viewer and try it out. I'd like to see one of Kelly Shergood's helicopters set up for that, so you could operate cyclic, collective, and throttle properly.

[Paulsian]

Recently Published Article about Second Life: I like the ending. It's a mystery. 

Second Life Beat ‘Metaverse’ Projects to The Punch (gamerant.com)

Second Life Beat ‘Metaverse’ Projects to The Punch

BY JOSH LIDDLE PUBLISHED 5 HOURS AGO

Quote

 

The world’s biggest tech giants are betting on the metaverse. Meta (once Facebook) envisions a future of virtual and augmented reality for both work and play. Microsoft recently acquired Activision Blizzard and its monumental amount of IP, describing this as part of its strategy for creating the “building blocks of the metaverse.” Many have pointed out that no tech giant has delivered a metaverse in any meaningful sense of the word. However, the core ideas of the modern-day metaverse push may have been realized in Linden Lab's Second Life project, which is currently seeing a resurgence.

[....]

While Second Life might not represent the broader vision of the modern metaverse, it was arguably the closest thing at an earlier time. One of Linden Lab's current projects, the Tilia Pay system, is designed to support economies in virtual worlds, suggesting Linden Lab is still interested in developments outside Second Life. At any rate, with decades of experience under its belt, it will be worth paying attention to Linden Lab's journey, and where it is headed to next.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Quartz Mole