Interview w Hamlet in The Atlantic

[Dyna Mole]

This has been a fascinating discussion, but it's starting to sound a bit testy.  Please remember to stay on topic and to use tones of polite respect.  Count to ten, maybe?

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Would you mind letting Molly answer the question I asked her? Unless you can read her mind?

Gee, thanks! I spent a lot of time scrolling back and forth through the thread looking for your original question, before my last 2 answers. The way you phrased it in your updates, I honestly thought it was an open question for everyone. 
 

Thanks again for clarifying! I will be more careful when responding to one of your posts in the future. Wouldn't want to create strife, knowing now what I did not know before. 

[Love Zhaoying]

54 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

The "simple" answer is close to what Love already gave. The "simpler" answer is that they are already doing so, on a schedule with no clear cut delineation.

The "simplest" answer includes the following: No one mentioned a timeframe which infers that they continue on with what they are already doing -  do their incremental updates on the same schedule as they have for everything else. Which is what they have been doing.

Thanks, Molly! 😻😹 <= is joke! 
 

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Thanks, Molly! 😻😹 <= is joke! 

The question was also posed to me at one point. I did not answer because I (apparently quite wrongly) assumed that the answer was as obvious as one's nose.

[Silent Mistwalker]

38 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Gee, thanks! I spent a lot of time scrolling back and forth through the thread looking for your original question, before my last 2 answers. The way you phrased it in your updates, I honestly thought it was an open question for everyone. 
 

Thanks again for clarifying! I will be more careful when responding to one of your posts in the future. Wouldn't want to create strife, knowing now what I did not know before. 

You're welcome and I'm sorry I was short tempered with you. I should have said please. 

I learned a long time ago, on forums, usually when someone quotes another and asks a question the question is directed at that individual only. Questions asked in general (of everyone) usually indicate (the question is being asked of everyone) in some way because they may or may not contain a quote.

So that's the rule of thumb I've followed for over 20 years. It's how it's been on every forum I've ever been a member of, except this one. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

How often do you think LL should be updating SL on this incremental thing: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually? How often? We already have weekly updates that drive everyone nuts. Are we adding to that?

my preference is that Linden continue with the release schedule as it is. Release when its ready. The outcome of this is that each viewer on release is is a little bit better in part, than the previous release

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

my preference is that Linden continue with the release schedule as it is. Release when its ready. The outcome of this is that each viewer on release is is a little bit better in part, than the previous release

Thank you. I'm relieved! Because, imo, more frequent updates is one of the last things SL needs.

We are in complete agreement then, near as I can tell.

[sirhc DeSantis]

Before this closes all I will say is Ser Hamlet and one other were here before me and still are. And  the reason I still am. End of

(Hi G=^^= )

[Mollymews]

8 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

If the lab would start making incremental steps to making this platform more user friendly to a user of average intelligence, it would go a long way to stopping and maybe reversing the bleeding they have experienced over the past decade.

i don't think that SL residents any more or less smarter than users of other games.  The issue for new signups I think, and which I also think you are getting at, is as it has always been

new signups, number one question asked is: How do I play this game ?  This was the number one question (in its various forms) on the new resident islands back in the day, and is still the number one question asked today

the problem is that there is no one answer. There is a multiple of answers, all of them correct in the general case. Yet they can all be wrong also, as is dependent on the individual. Which is hard. As when we do stand on the welcome islands (as I have done in the past) we basically have to guess which answer is going to be most helpful to that individual person asking

the worst answer (even tho is correct in the general sense) is: Well, SL is not a game, is a virtual world experience

this is the worst answer as the person didn't ask whether or not SL is a game. They asked: How do I play ?

to answer this question we have to tease out of them what other games they already now how to play, and then point them toward some place inworld which they will find similar-ish, at least conceptually

which today goes: Top your screen: menu World \ Destinations. Have a look thru the categories for the one closest to what you just been taking about. Click on it, then click the Teleport button and it will take you there. And if you get stuck then press the Home button on the toolbar top your screen and it will bring you back here, your Home place

pretty much every time when new signups know to do this, then thats what they do. Pick a Destination and woosh! Which is what you want them to do. Go out into the big world and discover things for themselves. Because this is how this game is played

if it was me, the Boss of SL (not that I am, just if I was). I would tell my staff that I want the Destinations window automagically opened when a new signup arrives at their Home Social Island. Because I want my new sign ups to immediately start playing my game. I do not want them wandering around their Home island, wondering how to start playing my game

[Silent Mistwalker]

18 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

the worst answer (even tho is correct in the general sense) is: Well, SL is not a game, is a virtual world experience

this is the worst answer as the person didn't ask whether or not SL is a game. They asked: How do I play ?

to answer this question we have to tease out of them what other games they already now how to play, and then point them toward some place inworld which they will find similar-ish, at least conceptually

This pretty much is it in a nutshell. That means I agree with Molly up to this point, at least.

Newbie: How do I play Second Life?

Answer: That depends on the genres you like to play. What games do you play?

Newbie: rattles off a list of games

Answer: Mention any you happen to play that they play and provide them with LMs to sims that might have something they'd be interested in.

What I've seen in YT vids has been a newbie trying to find places to go and not be sure which portal they should use because there doesn't seem to be any description of any kind as to what you might find beyond that portal. The portal names alone are not quite enough. Those of us who have been here a while are already familiar with SL jargon. Those who are new have no idea what the heck it all means.

LL needs to find a way to provide a little more detail as to what is beyond each portal without depending on volunteers.

 

To clarify a little bit, say a portal is marked Roleplaying. Well what kinds of roleplay? Or maybe the portal is marked Medieval. Does that cover roleplay, shopping, what?

That is oversimplified but hopefully it gets my thoughts across.

[Love Zhaoying]

Oh jeeze, I just realized the overly-obvious: with the "SL is gonna die someday", "no it's not", etc.

The title..being re:Hamlet.. "To be, or not to be!"

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

The question was also posed to me at one point. I did not answer because I (apparently quite wrongly) assumed that the answer was as obvious as one's nose.

It's LL. Nothing is ever obvious with LL.

[Mollymews]

34 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

What I've seen in YT vids has been a newbie trying to find places to go and not be sure which portal they should use because there doesn't seem to be any description of any kind as to what you might find beyond that portal. The portal names alone are not quite enough. Those of us who have been here a while are already familiar with SL jargon. Those who are new have no idea what the heck it all means

i agree

i am not a fan of devices that send new sign ups to random places - not the same as the last. For sure portals are cool. But I am not sure the cool factor outweighs getting sent to some random place - not the same as the last.  For new people I think consistency is pretty important. Click this and get this.  Click it again and get the same result

the Destinations guide shows some description about a destination before we click the Teleport button, and the same thing will happen when we click the same thing a second time

[Silent Mistwalker]

52 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

i agree

i am not a fan of devices that send new sign ups to random places - not the same as the last. For sure portals are cool. But I am not sure the cool factor outweighs getting sent to some random place - not the same as the last.  For new people I think consistency is pretty important. Click this and get this.  Click it again and get the same result

the Destinations guide shows some description about a destination before we click the Teleport button, and the same thing will happen when we click the same thing a second time

So, how could LL incorporate a little more detailed destination guide into the portals? 

Why aren't the two combined in some manner? Linked? Something.

It needs to be something that is not exactly in your face but as close to it as you can get.

I may not be able to code the idea myself, but I can at least kick start something that might lead to a better "find somewhere to go do something" way of doing things. I hope.

[Arielle Popstar]

6 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i don't think that SL residents any more or less smarter than users of other games.  The issue for new signups I think, and which I also think you are getting at, is as it has always been

new signups, number one question asked is: How do I play this game ?  This was the number one question (in its various forms) on the new resident islands back in the day, and is still the number one question asked today

the problem is that there is no one answer. There is a multiple of answers, all of them correct in the general case. Yet they can all be wrong also, as is dependent on the individual. Which is hard. As when we do stand on the welcome islands (as I have done in the past) we basically have to guess which answer is going to be most helpful to that individual person asking

the worst answer (even tho is correct in the general sense) is: Well, SL is not a game, is a virtual world experience

this is the worst answer as the person didn't ask whether or not SL is a game. They asked: How do I play ?

to answer this question we have to tease out of them what other games they already now how to play, and then point them toward some place inworld which they will find similar-ish, at least conceptually

which today goes: Top your screen: menu World \ Destinations. Have a look thru the categories for the one closest to what you just been taking about. Click on it, then click the Teleport button and it will take you there. And if you get stuck then press the Home button on the toolbar top your screen and it will bring you back here, your Home place

pretty much every time when new signups know to do this, then thats what they do. Pick a Destination and woosh! Which is what you want them to do. Go out into the big world and discover things for themselves. Because this is how this game is played

if it was me, the Boss of SL (not that I am, just if I was). I would tell my staff that I want the Destinations window automagically opened when a new signup arrives at their Home Social Island. Because I want my new sign ups to immediately start playing my game. I do not want them wandering around their Home island, wondering how to start playing my game

My post wasn't referring to where or what to do but more on how to do it and how LL has not addressed many aspects that make S/L have such a steep learning curve. Things like a more effective and efficient UI for inventory, trying out and purchasing products from the MP,  better build tools that keep up with the changes to mesh, purchasing vs renting land, viewers for new platforms that are overtaking Windows, better search tools, and a host of other upgrades the Lab could have been putting in over the years that would make this platform easier to use for both the old and new residents alike. Things that have been discussed on the forum for ages but in spite of promises and handwaving from the Lab, they simply don't and won't do anything to make the life of regular residents easier and instead continue relying on old and antiquated workflows and methodologies. People don't leave here so much because they can't find something to do but more because anything they do do, requires oodles of studying and resulting frustration in trying to create the look or function they want. I honestly feel for those people who haven't the ability to spend a good amount of inworld time per week in doing even some basic functions because of the inherent inefficiencies of the many aspects in S/L that simply do not need to be as such. 

 

[Mollymews]

5 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

So, how could LL incorporate a little more detailed destination guide into the portals? 

Why aren't the two combined in some manner? Linked? Something.

It needs to be something that is not exactly in your face but as close to it as you can get.

I may not be able to code the idea myself, but I can at least kick start something that might lead to a better "find somewhere to go do something" way of doing things. I hope.

with portals a way it could be done is to use them to provide a LDPW-curated experience for new signs

one portal leads to another set of portals which lead to a set of generally related experiences

LDPW has already made this distribution system and it works quite well. There is a portal at the new signup's Home which goes to The Portal Park - which is a hub for LDPW-curated games. Access to each different game is thru another portal. (I would change the name of this to Games Hub)

taking this method further

say we made a Home & Garden portal at the new signups Home place. Where could this lead too? It could lead to the Home & Garden Hub. And the portals there are named Newbrooke, Fantassaria, etc. Go thru the portal and placed at the respective community centers. Person turns up. Oooh! cafe! ooh! cakes. Click. Experience auto-wear and nom nom. Ooh! look, a bicycle. Wonder if it goes. Click. It does! I am on it. Cool!  Then have a bit of a ride or walk round, and go past all these little homes and gardens. And then maybe start to think, I could quite like to get me one of these

another portal could be The Seaside. The Seaside Hub could lead to Surf N' Sand, Boating, Fishing, etc. Pick Boating and end up in a refurbished region in the Blake Sea, like Half Hitch fro example. On arrival the HUD auto-attaches and get prompted to Pick a boat. Like a yatch, motorboat, jetski, etc. Boat is rezzed and we sitting on it. Then get prompted, Want to change to a more appropriate outfit? Like say we started with the lady avatar with the little dog in  our purse. So we think yeah! Am bit overdressed to go boating. Click Yes and we now wearing a nice top, mid-calf boating pants and a nice pair of boating shoes. We still got on our hat and sunnies and our little dog. Who by now we calling Rufus. Then off we go in our boat as best we can. And say to Rufus to not get too excited, because you might fall in the water and get eaten!! by that shark that just swam under our boat

curated experiences. Train stations, airports, with trains and planes that go somewhere. Like for example Hau Koda Airport. there are no planes. Why cannot there be an airport with planes? Go into the terminal and the annnoucer says. Plane to Somewhere Else is now boarding at Gate 1. And we think cool! Go out thru Gate 1 onto the tarmac. Is a plane. How do we get inside it? I wil try walking up the stairs. And when we do then is bump sit - we kinda already know about bumping into objects in other games. Bump and voila! We sitting in the plane. Then it says: Want to be the pretendy pilot? Click Yes and we now wearing a pilot outfit and sitting in the pilot's seat. Still with Rufus in our little bag as we become quite attached to him by now. And off we go to Somewhere Else. Same with trains, trams, buses and horses even. All of this kinds of vehicles following predefined paths. And to make this all happen then there is already a system that does pre-defined paths, the pod system (which Linden can come to some compensatory arrangement if they haven't already)

for me the thing is how to keep new people moving? And in moving then teach them stuff. Like showing/giving them outfits. For example say they went to the Surf N' Sand. Popup outfit HUD. One piece bathing suit, two piece bathing suit, or top and shorts. then the HUD goes: What color would you like? And the person goes: I will like the yellow one please. Click. We just taught the person how clothing texture change-out HUDs work
 

i saw the Linden advert a while ago now for more LPDW hires, where new starter avatar skills were mentioned. I dunno exactly what Linden meant by this. I just like to think it may be something like what I have been chatting about here

[Mollymews]

30 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

My post wasn't referring to where or what to do but more on how to do it and how LL has not addressed many aspects that make S/L have such a steep learning curve. Things like a more effective and efficient UI for inventory, trying out and purchasing products from the MP,  better build tools that keep up with the changes to mesh, purchasing vs renting land, viewers for new platforms that are overtaking Windows, better search tools, and a host of other upgrades the Lab could have been putting in over the years that would make this platform easier to use for both the old and new residents alike. Things that have been discussed on the forum for ages but in spite of promises and handwaving from the Lab, they simply don't and won't do anything to make the life of regular residents easier and instead continue relying on old and antiquated workflows and methodologies. People don't leave here so much because they can't find something to do but more because anything they do do, requires oodles of studying and resulting frustration in trying to create the look or function they want. I honestly feel for those people who haven't the ability to spend a good amount of inworld time per week in doing even some basic functions because of the inherent inefficiencies of the many aspects in S/L that simply do not need to be as such. 

 

i like to be fair to Linden as best I can. The Linden viewer is quantums better today than it was 19 years ago, 10 years ago and last year. In the beginning there was zero context sensitive help built into the viewer. Today the viewer is overflowing with help info that explains every aspect of the viewer. We just have to care enough to read it

some inworld things as well are better today than they have ever been.  Back in the beginning days new premiums got a empty First Land parcel and a good luck with that. Today new Premium gets a nice little home in a curated setting

making stuff has always been hard to learn in any free-form setting. Open up GIMP, Photoshop, Blender, Maya, is all hard.  Banging prims together inworld, texturing them, scripting them, animating them. This is hard as well to learn. Is hard because is largely because SL is a free-form expression canvas. Unlike say Minecraft or the easy to use closed-form character outfitter in games like say the free-to-play Prominence Poker which I just found on Steam a couple of days ago

in the closed form inventory system, which are typically surfaced as paged and tiled glyphs, then we restricted to just a few dozen, sometimes a few 100s inventory items. As this UX style doesn't scale well into the 1000s and 10s of 1000s

would be nice tho if we could have an inventory display more similar to Windows File Explorer. I sometimes wonder if we could have just that.  Like log in just to our inventory (and nothing else) using a Linden Inventory Explorer program, with all the capabilities that these kinds of programs have. I would like this myself   

[Coffee Pancake]

58 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

would be nice tho if we could have an inventory display more similar to Windows File Explorer. 

We could .. folders listed on one side and contents on the other. 

SL already has everything needed to make that work.

The question is how does this improve file management tasks over having more than one inventory open, keeping in mind a lot of the extra information about stuff you're hoping to see wont appear instantly as the viewer doesn't get all the information right off the bat.

A page of thumbnails will take a few seconds to start loading in, likewise for extra object properties and so on.

We've not done this in Catznip as the feeling is it would just end up being a slower more frustrating experience that blocked more of the screen.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We've not done this in Catznip as the feeling is it would just end up being a slower more frustrating experience that blocked more of the screen.

yes I understand about trying to do a File Explorer-like within the viewer. I was more thinking about a independent standalone program solely for this one purpose

altho if we ever got something like this then if it never came with a Preview display then people would say: How come I can't preview my avatar and my clothes on my avatar. I would like to be able to see them because I don't want to delete the wrong stuff by mistake. Same with my furniture, plants, houses, vehicles, etc

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We could .. folders listed on one side and contents on the other. 

SL already has everything needed to make that work.

The question is how does this improve file management tasks over having more than one inventory open, keeping in mind a lot of the extra information about stuff you're hoping to see wont appear instantly as the viewer doesn't get all the information right off the bat.

A page of thumbnails will take a few seconds to start loading in, likewise for extra object properties and so on.

We've not done this in Catznip as the feeling is it would just end up being a slower more frustrating experience that blocked more of the screen.

On another platform, the thumbnails once in cache, load almost immediately and the graphical representation makes it much simpler to locate the desired object then to for example have to wear several hairs trying to find the right one by their textual name. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

10 hours ago, Mollymews said:

with portals a way it could be done is to use them to provide a LDPW-curated experience for new signs

one portal leads to another set of portals which lead to a set of generally related experiences

LDPW has already made this distribution system and it works quite well. There is a portal at the new signup's Home which goes to The Portal Park - which is a hub for LDPW-curated games. Access to each different game is thru another portal. (I would change the name of this to Games Hub)

taking this method further

say we made a Home & Garden portal at the new signups Home place. Where could this lead too? It could lead to the Home & Garden Hub. And the portals there are named Newbrooke, Fantassaria, etc. Go thru the portal and placed at the respective community centers. Person turns up. Oooh! cafe! ooh! cakes. Click. Experience auto-wear and nom nom. Ooh! look, a bicycle. Wonder if it goes. Click. It does! I am on it. Cool!  Then have a bit of a ride or walk round, and go past all these little homes and gardens. And then maybe start to think, I could quite like to get me one of these

another portal could be The Seaside. The Seaside Hub could lead to Surf N' Sand, Boating, Fishing, etc. Pick Boating and end up in a refurbished region in the Blake Sea, like Half Hitch fro example. On arrival the HUD auto-attaches and get prompted to Pick a boat. Like a yatch, motorboat, jetski, etc. Boat is rezzed and we sitting on it. Then get prompted, Want to change to a more appropriate outfit? Like say we started with the lady avatar with the little dog in  our purse. So we think yeah! Am bit overdressed to go boating. Click Yes and we now wearing a nice top, mid-calf boating pants and a nice pair of boating shoes. We still got on our hat and sunnies and our little dog. Who by now we calling Rufus. Then off we go in our boat as best we can. And say to Rufus to not get too excited, because you might fall in the water and get eaten!! by that shark that just swam under our boat

curated experiences. Train stations, airports, with trains and planes that go somewhere. Like for example Hau Koda Airport. there are no planes. Why cannot there be an airport with planes? Go into the terminal and the annnoucer says. Plane to Somewhere Else is now boarding at Gate 1. And we think cool! Go out thru Gate 1 onto the tarmac. Is a plane. How do we get inside it? I wil try walking up the stairs. And when we do then is bump sit - we kinda already know about bumping into objects in other games. Bump and voila! We sitting in the plane. Then it says: Want to be the pretendy pilot? Click Yes and we now wearing a pilot outfit and sitting in the pilot's seat. Still with Rufus in our little bag as we become quite attached to him by now. And off we go to Somewhere Else. Same with trains, trams, buses and horses even. All of this kinds of vehicles following predefined paths. And to make this all happen then there is already a system that does pre-defined paths, the pod system (which Linden can come to some compensatory arrangement if they haven't already)

for me the thing is how to keep new people moving? And in moving then teach them stuff. Like showing/giving them outfits. For example say they went to the Surf N' Sand. Popup outfit HUD. One piece bathing suit, two piece bathing suit, or top and shorts. then the HUD goes: What color would you like? And the person goes: I will like the yellow one please. Click. We just taught the person how clothing texture change-out HUDs work
 

i saw the Linden advert a while ago now for more LPDW hires, where new starter avatar skills were mentioned. I dunno exactly what Linden meant by this. I just like to think it may be something like what I have been chatting about here

I didn't quite read the whole post but I definitely get the gist. Not quite what I had in mind but yeah. What you describe could be done using Experiences could it not? I was thinking there has to be some way to... combine is not really the right word but all I got at the moment so... combine the onboarding process with the Experience feature and somehow include a destination guide in that.

Meh. Pipe dreams. 🙄🤭

[Luna Bliss]

7 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

On another platform, the thumbnails once in cache, load almost immediately and the graphical representation makes it much simpler to locate the desired object then to for example have to wear several hairs trying to find the right one by their textual name. 

I think you win the thread!  The SL interface, overall and not just regarding inventory search, needs to orient more toward the visual. Presently, so much of it looks like it was created for scripters.

In other games a visual interface is more prominent, and that's what users seem to expect these days.  Even Blender & Photoshop became more visually oriented in recent years so that their programs were easier for new users to manage.

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

On another platform, the thumbnails once in cache, load almost immediately and the graphical representation makes it much simpler to locate the desired object then to for example have to wear several hairs trying to find the right one by their textual name. 

If you're referring to the platform I think you are, it's nothing like SL. Thumbnails in inventory would drag people's computers down so badly it would probably kill it in short order. Do you really want to open your inventory of 100k and have to wait hours for it to load? Inventory already has enough issues of its own that never really get addressed, please, don't make it worse!

[Coffee Pancake]

7 hours ago, Mollymews said:

yes I understand about trying to do a File Explorer-like within the viewer. I was more thinking about a independent standalone program solely for this one purpose

Radegast text client - https://radegast.life/

[Silent Mistwalker]

10 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Radegast text client - https://radegast.life/

Scroll down please so I can finish reading the story? 😊