2 Billion USD funding for a metaverse.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

11 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

The sad thing is that, if LL played their cards right they could have come to the forefront of all of these new metaverses. To be honest (maybe I am being optimistic), if they move speedily and make relevant and right decisions as far as avatars (better customisable default avatars), scripting (more scripting or better yet restart Babbage Linden's C+ scripting replacement of LSL), viewer (update to vulcan, cache and inworld creation tools to match competitors) and reduce the over all cost of tier dramatically within the next 2 years they could still beat out all other metaverses which are looking to come online in the next 5 years.

As it stands, Second Life is still the most customisable virtual world out there as far as avatars go. You can be literally anything and still have a high form of reality to the avatar even if playing a robot or furry or a stick man with a top hat. No virtual world beats SL in this regard however other virtual worlds do beat second life in world building and inworld tools.

If LL can start doing some major changes in the right direction quickly it may give competitors that get billions of dollars in funding a run for their money.

100% agree with you on this. Especially the part about how customizable SL is. That's the one thing that seems to be missing in all of this metaverse talk (at least for right now, since we haven't seen much outside of Horizon Worlds). Being able to take off my head, screw on another, change the makeup, style my eyebrows, snatch my own wig, replace it, alpha a hand, attach a pickaxe to it (I'm being silly now), alpha my feet, add furry legs, slap on a tail, add a pair of wings, hop into a wetsuit, and call myself done, is craaaaaaazy. None of these other places have yet hinted to the ability to do that. In fact, not many current games and platforms are that capable, either. SL is so ahead of the game there.

Guild Wars 2 gets the nickname "Fashion Wars" for its ability to let players mix/match individual armor appearances and throw dye around, but even that's extremely limited compared to what we do here. And it's one of the game's biggest draws, so SL could easily market to that crowd, too (which also skews a bit older in demographics), if the necessary updates were made.

Older (late 20s+) players are also very hyped for Palia, which is aiming to be a community social-focused MMO based on fishing/farming/cooking/building/combat-lite games like Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and Animal Crossing. Complete customization over your character/avatar is a huge focus there, too, but we don't yet know how that will be implemented. Still, their Discord is massive (117,000+ members with 45,000+ currently online) and the game is still in Alpha. Won't be out for years. The characters and art are very stylized (almost WoW-like), but since they're targeting the same crowd of current/former MMO players who went nuts over Stardew Valley and its multiplayer update, I don't think players are too bothered by it. The draw there is the group activity/community focus, which could give SL some ideas, as well. Doing things together in groups (building and crafting, in particular) is hugely popular right now. I can't tell you the number of posts I've seen all over the Internet straight up begging devs for X game to add multiplayer. 

There are a ton of ways SL could attract these various markets. They're already so far ahead on customization - just adding a teensy bit more might be enough to get new people curious.

[Silent Mistwalker]

20 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

If you look at Fortnite's evolution, Epic has *kind of* done that, sorta? But not entirely. They still skew very young on there and I know some long-time streamers and players did eventually move away from it. Until they reinvented themselves again with No-Build mode, that is. People came running back for that.

Anyway, for example, Epic has a way of tapping into every new, popular dance and music trend happening on TikTok and capitalizing on it. Whether it's done ethically or not (properly attributing and paying the original choreographers/creators) I do not know (probably not - just a guess, though I assume the songs themselves are licensed). This is on top of making the most clever licensing deals possible for their skins (Marvel, Star Wars, etc.). It sounds silly, but it's kept them really relevant and fresh, I will say that. 

Now, if they can bring that type of "finger always on the pulse of what's going on" style over to their own version of the metaverse, they might be able to keep people around for quite a long time - mayyyybe?

Here's an example of what they do:

 

They may not being doing so illegally.

 

https://www.dancemagazine.com/choreography-copyright/

 

Quote

January 25, 2021

When choreography is created, is it protected by copyright? Yes and no.

JaQuel Knight is facing this question today in his journey to copyright his iconic choreographic work with artists like Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion. Thanks to U.S. copyright law, the process has not been easy. Through a partnership with the Dance Notation Bureau, Knight has been working with Lynne Weber to put his work into Labanotation. On July 9, 2020, he received an approved registered copyright for his “Single Ladies” choreography, making him the first commercial choreographer in pop music to succeed in copyrighting his work.

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

They may not being doing so illegally.

 

https://www.dancemagazine.com/choreography-copyright/

 

 

I read about that case a while ago, I think! I don't think it's possible for the average person to copyright dance moves (yet), so it's a bit of a weird gray area right now, as far as TikTok is concerned. Fortnite is probably going to drive that issue to the forefront if they keep doing what they're doing as people are actually paying real money to buy those dances/emotes (didn't Alfonso Ribeiro get miffed about The Carlton Dance being in there, too?), but it's mostly a question of ethics at the present, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of choreographers are annoyed at TikTok trends in general as they rarely ever get the credit when things go viral and some random "star" winds up on late night talk shows in front of millions.

[Drayke Newall]

56 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

What Babbage proposed was to use C# as an alternate Mono compiler, in addition to the LSL binding to the very same library of built-in functions on the virtual world. People have unrealistic ideas of what that would mean. Although the "syntactic sugar" of that language would be welcome, the ability to use existing C# libraries would be extremely limited by script memory, and script memory limits are pretty important to the idea of letting random users script random objects more or less as they please. In a different hypothetical regime where all scripts running on a sim including all worn attachments must be pre-approved by the region owner, it would be practical to allocate much larger amounts of memory (and runtime) to specific scripts.

That's the kind of trade-off SL would face if it were to compete for gamer acceptance. Either way, it's all about customization; the platform design decisions are what customization primitives can be supported under what constraints.

My intent was for it to be updated as a alternative for LSL. Whilst I do realise its original intent was for mono, I believe it should at least be looked at as a viable option to upgrade it as a replacement for LSL. As far as script memory limits, with the current hardware on offer since Babbage was working on it I think it should be feasible. Limitations can easily be put on things to provide control such as script limitations on avatars etc. For example, there already exists a no run script (script entry) on regions that region owners can toggle that allow for only sim scripts to run blocking avatar scripts from running when they tp in.

Such a system can easily be replicated and modified to also allow only objects picked up in the sim by an avatar to run, such as a gun, hud etc. For example make it so that if an experience is available on the region, that experience makes use of temporary attachments and through the experience only those attachments to an avatar can run. Of course this would also mean that the viewer would need to have an inbuilt AO manager like firestorm so that it doesn't interfere with AO huds.

It is also not for just to compete for gamer acceptance, that is a side product. The change would also be for future proofing and retention. As it stands now there is a learning curve to have to learn a new scripting language. Whilst it is easy enough to learn LSL for a scripter it is still a hinderance as any creator who wishes to create that is new to SL must consider if it is worth learning a new language that is solely dedicated to one platform, used no where else and has very limited functions.

This is also the prime reason why Epic removed their custom scripting language from Unreal Engine in place of standard scripting languages many years ago, as for one it was to much to upkeep time wise and money wise (like LSL) and for the second, it was a hinderance for creators who learnt one language and had to learn another for a specific program. When it is all said and done Second Life is a content creation platform like Unreal. The difference being that in second life you can 'run' the programme created as well.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Drayke Newall

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 minute ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I read about that case a while ago, I think! I don't think it's possible for the average person to copyright dance moves (yet), so it's a bit of a weird gray area right now, as far as TikTok is concerned. Fortnite is probably going to drive that issue to the forefront if they keep doing what they're doing as people are actually paying real money to buy those dances/emotes (didn't Alfonso Ribeiro get miffed about The Carlton Dance being in there, too?), but it's mostly a question of ethics at the present, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of choreographers are annoyed at TikTok trends in general as they rarely ever get the credit when things go viral and some random "star" winds up on late night talk shows in front of millions.

It's a two edged sword and there are hundreds of years of choreography. US Copyright ruled the Carlton Dance can't be copyrighted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/arts/dance/carlton-dance.html

Copyright issues are why you won't find any of my work (creative, artistic and choreography) anywhere online. 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

18 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It's a two edged sword and there are hundreds of years of choreography. US Copyright ruled the Carlton Dance can't be copyrighted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/arts/dance/carlton-dance.html

Copyright issues are why you won't find any of my work (creative, artistic and choreography) anywhere online. 

Totally understand. It's so frustrating! One time, I wrote an article with intent to sell it on a big content marketplace and not long after, I found it posted on someone's random site. Of course, they did not purchase it. The site I was selling it on handled the takedown issues but man, I was so done after that. 

In Epic's case, though, I do find their practice rather shameful. Of course, it's not illegal, but it's just so shady. Crediting the choreographers on a dedicated page on their Fortnite website wouldn't be difficult for them and would at least show some good faith.

Wait...hang on...it appears they've started doing that?

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/choreographer-sues-epic-fortnite-emote-kyle-hanagami-rcna23075

Epic Games began crediting creators last year, Billboard reported, and it directly pays creators to use their viral dances after multiple creators, including "Renegade" choreographer Jalaiah Harmon, called it out.

But some creators, like Hanagami, have continued to accuse Fortnite of taking their dance moves without permission or proper compensation.

HMMMM.

[Coffee Pancake]

There is a strong argument for upgrading SL systems with a view towards gaming.

Everything we need to change to make creating responsive gaming possible in SL, makes everything else we do more responsive, less laggy and more fun.

• Simple client side scripting - Huds that respond instantly.
• Physics - Driving and walking stops feeling like wading though mud.
• Avatar substitution - Enter a game parcel and BAM your avatar is whatever it needs to be for that game, leave and BAM you're exactly back to normal.
• Per avatar content - You only see objects and NPCs relevant to your position in the game, not everything all the time (hunts, if you have collected the thing, the thing vanishes .. but only for you)

The addition of gaming in SL as a pastime doesn't detract from playing house or dress up, and it's unlikely we're going to get big corporations moving in to make games, but we will get a wealth of small indie creators making fun things to do and stuff we already buy, we also have a huge wealth of ready made stuff on the SLM that game makers can use to build out there projects.

Indie games is a huge market catering to individual hobby creators all the way up to well funded studios.

What types of games could we see in SL .. all types, everything from casual social games though to immersive experiences that redefine everything.

[Quistess Alpha]

8 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

What types of games could we see in SL .. all types, everything from casual social games though to immersive experiences that redefine everything.

Or, we could just continue to have more fancy board games like we already do

[Silent Mistwalker]

17 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Totally understand. It's so frustrating! One time, I wrote an article with intent to sell it on a big content marketplace and not long after, I found it posted on someone's random site. Of course, they did not purchase it. The site I was selling it on handled the takedown issues but man, I was so done after that. 

In Epic's case, though, I do find their practice rather shameful. Of course, it's not illegal, but it's just so shady. Crediting the choreographers on a dedicated page on their Fortnite website wouldn't be difficult for them and would at least show some good faith.

Wait...hang on...it appears they've started doing that?

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/choreographer-sues-epic-fortnite-emote-kyle-hanagami-rcna23075

Epic Games began crediting creators last year, Billboard reported, and it directly pays creators to use their viral dances after multiple creators, including "Renegade" choreographer Jalaiah Harmon, called it out.

But some creators, like Hanagami, have continued to accuse Fortnite of taking their dance moves without permission or proper compensation.

HMMMM.

Now you're getting the picture.

And even those they credit may not be the original choreographer. There are only so many dance moves a human body can make. Then there are the combinations of dance moves from the difference genres. It's tangled web.

I don't even play Fortnite or any Epic game.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

There is a strong argument for upgrading SL systems with a view towards gaming.

I like your suggestions! I'll go even simpler, though. Just bringing the SL back to SL might be enough for now. What I mean is this...

Problem: Newbie wants to understand how to wear a decently complex avatar complete with alphas, HUDs, and attachments/mods. Answer - So here's this YouTube tutorial that may or may not apply to your situation...

Problem: Creative person wants to start building a custom house on their land after hours of shopping and not finding what they want. Answer - Hope you're very skilled in 3D modeling!

Problem: Fashionista is not overly thrilled with her top's color choices. Answer - Full perm mesh is available in a similar style - how are your Photoshop skills?

Problem: Photographer wants to enhance his photos a bit. Nothing major. Just a few tweaks here and there. Answer - So about Photoshop and GIMP...

Some of this is easier to fix than other things. Building with mesh in-world is probably going to take a LOT of updating, though. I wouldn't expect that to be a thing (it'd rock, though).

Buuuut, something like having an in-world photo mode overlay (think Cyberpunk 2077's), might be enough for some people to not have to tab out and check their Adobe subscription status. Even better if it came with a library of built-in simple poses to use that don't require spending money, learning Blender, or swapping viewers. 

I know, I know. I'm throwing like, a dozen ideas out there today. My coffee's making my brain work overtime I think. 😂

For those who haven't seen it:

 

[Coffee Pancake]

41 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Problem: Newbie wants to understand how to wear a decently complex avatar complete with alphas, HUDs, and attachments/mods. Answer - So here's this YouTube tutorial that may or may not apply to your situation...

Avatar dress up needs an overhaul. Lets start with unboxing content.

I would like to see a dedicated unpacking object, with limited options to create a standardized way to distribute content. Different inventory icon, no scripts required, support for creating a folder structure and all that.

 

41 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Problem: Creative person wants to start building a custom house on their land after hours of shopping and not finding what they want. Answer - Hope you're very skilled in 3D modeling!

They always had to be to some degree, even with prims. There is still a complex system to learn and most of the skill comes in the form of artistry and just takes dedication and practice, there is no short cut  .. and if we going to demand people learn a complex tool set and how to express themselves with it, lets at least lean on industry standard workflows for which there is an astronomical amount of non-SL specific guides and tutorials.

Being able to have local mesh in SL would be a big step forward - update the model in blender, see the model in world.

41 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Problem: Fashionista is not overly thrilled with her top's color choices. Answer - Full perm mesh is available in a similar style - how are your Photoshop skills?

Being able to paint textures directly on mesh in world would be wonderful, but again .. we're running face first into offering a limited toolset that just can't hold a candle to what can be accomplished with the mesh open in blender.

Painting mesh textures in PS is a mistake and should be avoided at all costs, its bad that the full perm mesh market in SL forces people down this road.

A marketplace for full perm content, designed for SL and eventual resale,  that then comes with a download to open in blender is the better way, and is how all existing 3d marketplaces work. Piracy fears are misplaced, if your work is any good at all, someone just stole it. Better to not pretend there are protections and build systems in SL that support FP creators to get their product to market and into SL in a robust and verifiable way that enable the vast majority of legitimate users.

41 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Problem: Photographer wants to enhance his photos a bit. Nothing major. Just a few tweaks here and there. Answer - So about Photoshop and GIMP...

, something like having an in-world photo mode overlay (think Cyberpunk 2077's), might be enough for some people to not have to tab out and check their Adobe subscription status. Even better if it came with a library of built-in simple poses to use that don't require spending money, learning Blender, or swapping viewers. 

I'm really not a huge fan of the current "jazz it up in place" workflow for SL photography, this is kind of why BD has any users at all. 

The better workflow that results in far superior actual end results is to capture a neutral well balanced image that focuses on composition and lighting, and then open that in RAW photo editing software like the excellent (and free) RAW Threapee (https://www.rawtherapee.com/) .. or Lightroom if you're already paying the Adobe tax.

At it's simplest, this makes it possible to get strong punchy images that aren't blown out or crushed to oblivion, and that's just scratching the surface of what you can do by using the right tool for the job. If there is even the slightest chance a picture from SL is going to be opened in Photoshop, not mucking the raw capture up with in viewer stuff is really important.

There is no way we can hope to incorporate the range and scope of features that something like that brings to the table.

 

Anyway, just rambling .. 

 

[Paul Hexem]

39 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I would like to see a dedicated unpacking object, with limited options to create a standardized way to distribute content. Different inventory icon, no scripts required, support for creating a folder structure and all that.

Honestly, SL is way overdue on all kinds of standardization. It's another thing where LL really dropped the ball.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Problem: Creative person wants to start building a custom house on their land after hours of shopping and not finding what they want. Answer - Hope you're very skilled in 3D modeling!

Attempting to compete with dedicated 3D apps by trying to provide a set of in-world mesh building tools isn't exactly "bringing the SL back to SL" though.  As Coffee pointed out the original SL building tools are all still there, and LL added mesh so that people could use dedicated 3D apps to produce better content, investing further development time trying to compete with those apps seems a little pointless.

That being said, if LL wanted to invest time in updating in-world building then they could always adapt the voxel based terrain system that they're secretly working on (🙄🙏) and implement a new voxel prim type which could be sculpted using basic in-world tools and then potentially "baked" into a mesh complete with automatic lod generation and some preset uv mapping options.  If they wanted to be really fancy they could include a basic vertex painting tool and start supporting vertex color based texture blending, that would make building landscapes in-world really interesting.

 

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Problem: Fashionista is not overly thrilled with her top's color choices. Answer - Full perm mesh is available in a similar style - how are your Photoshop skills?

Just one reason why multi-layer materials with dedicated mask textures should be a thing.  The ability to use seamless tiling base textures with decals, or have a separate layer for different parts of an article of clothing, and then be able to swap the textures or tint each layer independently would greatly improve the customization process and would remove the need to create so many hi-rez textures for every colour option, etc.

 

TLDR:

[Ayashe Ninetails]

21 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Anyway, just rambling .. 

No don't worry, so am I! I just get a lot of ideas in my head when I'm in other games and I'm like "omg imagine if SL had..." I know I'm not being 100% practical. I'm just worn out, I think, lol.

I don't expect half of this stuff to ever make it into the platform. It'd require a lot for it to happen. I think my main issue with how things are right now in 2022 is that I've met plenty of new people who came in expecting things to just work - either like The Sims, or like an MMO, or like some other big popular game or platform, and it takes quite a lot of explaining on my part to get them into the absolute basics, like building an avatar (if I happen upon naked people flailing about in skin stores completely baffled, I do my best to help them out). The questions are usually the same - where's my new skin, why don't I look like the head ad, which shape do I use ok but what if I want to look like the skin ad ok but why does it distort my face then, what are all these icons, why is there a neck seam, how do I find a free body, why don't clothes fit, what do all these words mean, wait I have to learn logos???, etc. I'll spend an hour or so with them, friend them when they finally get tired of fighting with things in case they want to ask me questions another time, and...they're gone never to return again. 😵

I've taught friends who are established residents the very basics of building (grouping, linking, and unlinking, mostly) when they wanted to do the simple task of moving furniture around and reducing their prim counts. Had to teach a friend who is NOT new to SL how to shop, believe it or not (vendors and unpacking confused the absolute heck out of him - buy vs. pay especially). I've also helped people understand windlight and photography basics. Funny thing is they react similarly to new users, mostly asking the "why is this so complicated" questions. A lot of people are so used to more streamlined systems by now (working with a character creator vs. putting things together bit by bit from an inventory) that sometimes it's just a lot of work to walk them through how to do it here. Wears us all out! And none of this has even touched on skipping over to external programs to tinker with things that way (which I refuse to teach)!

I'm used to it I guess, since I started so early, but had I had the 20+ years of modern gaming experience behind me as I now do and just started SL today, I'd have nooooooo idea what's going on either!

 

3 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

TLDR:

Agree with everything! I don't think SL should try to compete with Blender or anything btw. I think my point is just that some people are so used to being able to fire up Build mode in The Sims or drop blocks in Minecraft and it's like well...about that...

[Coffee Pancake]

39 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Attempting to compete with dedicated 3D apps by trying to provide a set of in-world mesh building tools isn't exactly "bringing the SL back to SL" though.  As Coffee pointed out the original SL building tools are all still there, and LL added mesh so that people could use dedicated 3D apps to produce better content, investing further development time trying to compete with those apps seems a little pointless.

Although getting the prim exporter into the official viewer would be a good step.

I often mock up builds with prims, export those with FS to blender, and use that to give me a reference to work to. SL has weird scales for things so accurate modeling tends to result in tight cramped spaces that look out of place.

Just pulling the prims back into SL as a mesh is a terrible idea, the resulting content is about as junk as junk gets even if it does save a few Li.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

10 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Although getting the prim exporter into the official viewer would be a good step.

I often mock up builds with prims, export those with FS to blender, and use that to give me a reference to work to. SL has weird scales for things so accurate modeling tends to result in tight cramped spaces that look out of place.

Just pulling the prims back into SL as a mesh is a terrible idea, the resulting content is about as junk as junk gets even if it does save a few Li.

I like to flesh things out with prims sometimes, just to get an idea of scale and how something will feel as you're walking around it, but have never bothered exporting them.  I use them more as a tool for "concepting" in-world but I can see the value in being able to export complex linksets, etc. to make it easier to convert some of the older content to mesh (but importing exported prims without doing a little retopology and some sensible uv mapping first would just be silly).

I'd still much rather have some form of "local mesh" though.  The idea of having the ability to rez a "blank scene" in-world and associate it with a local file then being able to edit that scene and see the results appear in real-time around you is very appealing (and not unlike what Nvidia is currently spending all their money developing)!

[animats]

A good start would be to have a game development creator group. Invite some of the Lindens. There needs to be some back and forth between what's possible in the SL architecture and what's needed for basic gaming. Bear in mind that SL used to be bigger than Roblox. Gamers do provide a large pool of prospective SL users. And they tend to have machines with reasonably powerful GPUs.

I'm neither a serious gamer nor a game dev, so I won't say much about what gamers need. Everyone agrees that performance is a problem, of course. We'll see how much the "performance viewer" helps. It's good to see LL management on this, after years of neglect.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 4/11/2022 at 12:13 PM, Sid Nagy said:

https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/sony-and-kirkbi-invest-in-epic-games-to-build-the-future-of-digital-entertainment

Wow, that could be interesting for the future.

Yes, but it's for games and I don't want to be in a game.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, animats said:

A good start would be to have a game development creator group. Invite some of the Lindens. There needs to be some back and forth between what's possible in the SL architecture and what's needed for basic gaming.

Agreed, I think a practical approach would work well. Pick a game, and see how far we get trying to recreate it mechanically in SL, feed that back into LL development and then just keep iterating. It's a good way to highlight areas that need work with clear solutions.

39 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yes, but it's for games and I don't want to be in a game.

Everything we would need to do gaming in SL, would have the knock on benefit that everything else we do in SL would improve.

It adds a strong and easily accessible goal for people coming in, make games. play some games.

.. and as no one games or makes games all the time, getting a home, playing dress up and social stuff are all going to get an uptick.

If someone joins SL, rents one of you places, do you really care what they get up to away from home?

 

I very much get "SL isn't a game", and it's not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have games as something to do while we're here. There is a time and a place for everything, and we should be aiming for everything rather than struggling to define SL by what it isn't.

[Prokofy Neva]

12 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Agreed, I think a practical approach would work well. Pick a game, and see how far we get trying to recreate it mechanically in SL, feed that back into LL development and then just keep iterating. It's a good way to highlight areas that need work with clear solutions.

Everything we would need to do gaming in SL, would have the knock on benefit that everything else we do in SL would improve.

It adds a strong and easily accessible goal for people coming in, make games. play some games.

.. and as no one games or makes games all the time, getting a home, playing dress up and social stuff are all going to get an uptick.

If someone joins SL, rents one of you places, do you really care what they get up to away from home?

 

I very much get "SL isn't a game", and it's not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have games as something to do while we're here. There is a time and a place for everything, and we should be aiming for everything rather than struggling to define SL by what it isn't.

That's not true whatsoever.

It's only true if you are a gamer or a coder with the gamer guy culture.

There is no "knock on benefit" to having security orbs "teleport home" as if you have died in battle, and now you are returned to your "home base" or "spawn point" (the game function from which that pernicious orb feature was drawn). You could bounce an intruder away 16 m or whatever, and not disrupt their whole life. And so on. There are other features of game/code culture that were built into SL that should be dismantled, and not seen as something that gives us a "knock on".  

If people want to play games, they should go to Steam or wherever the games are. SL doesn't have to be coded around this particular use case or population. And few of my tenants play games. I have some tenants that have built things like bowling allies or various parlour games or non-gambling card games, but that's not what is meant by "games". Games in your lexicon essentially means war games. And I'm not for turning SL into a war game any more than it is already.

You imagine (project?) that if you appeal to some narrow interest of mine, that then you can sell this idea. But the idea has to be good for the whole world. And war games are not good for the whole world. They have their place, but their culture is not one that should pervade all of virtuality.

Serious developers don't come to SL to make games; they go to Roblox, remember? Remember how we were told about all the marvelous things you can develop in Roblox? So go there, by all means.

When you make a world viable for humans to live and prosper in, games will naturally follow. You didn't first invent discus throwing or the Olympics, and then built Rome. First you built Rome, and Rome wasn't built in a day. Then came games.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[alexbluesea]

On 4/11/2022 at 2:46 PM, Cali Souther said:

hahaha @ Barbie & Ken......     I agree,  and obviously (by their large user base) so do the masses...    but even the upgraded version is still too cartoony for me.  Not only that,  but while there may be adults there,  it does seem to be an overwhelmingly younger clientele.  I am not putting it down in anyway,  they are doing a lot of things right!    I just prefer the look and feel of SL better, and maybe a more mature crowd.   

I did get addicted to Minecraft for awhile.  First,  because my sons played it and it was a way to spend time with them.  Then,  I found myself playing it on my own, but that's because it's creative and you can get lost in building.   I never did much socializing there as some do,  for the same reason - it felt like a younger user base.

 

Second Life - for the woman who never outgrew decorating her dollhouse. 

I... I want that dollhouse

[Anna Nova]

I look at the pictures of Robolox and think 'a little development, and that could overtake SL in realism'.  Okay, I wouldn't use it today, but 2024?  Maybe.  With that income they can afford a lot of very good developers.  Interesting what @animatssays about the boss.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

You didn't first invent discus throwing or the Olympics, and then built Rome.

How popular would the Olympics have been if having more than a handful of competitors and a dozen spectators broke the laws of physics in the same way that lag affects the physics engine in SL?

The number of profiles I've seen where people list the games they play outside SL suggests there are already plenty of people that would enjoy playing a variety of games in-world too, but until LL makes the necessary improvements and provides the tools/features required to create games that work and are fun to play those games will never exist so we'll never know for sure.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[Prokofy Neva]

38 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

How popular would the Olympics have been if having more than a handful of competitors and a dozen spectators broke the laws of physics in the same way that lag affects the physics engine in SL?

The number of profiles I've seen where people list the games they play outside SL suggests there are already plenty of people that would enjoy playing a variety of games in-world too, but until LL makes the necessary improvements and provides the tools/features required to create games that work and are fun to play those games will never exist so we'll never know for sure.

I rarely hear people complain about lag, in fact, because they don't attempt to play games in SL. In the last three months with hundreds of people coming through, I can recall one person who moved out "due to lag," and she moved to another sim of ours that in fact had more scripts on it, go know. Most people actually don't drive, either but those who do don't find the sim crossings the horror implied on the forums.

I can't think of a single profile I've viewed recently -- and I see a LOT of them -- that had any games on it. You simply have a different sample, and you shouldn't take it for the norm. The Lindens never really faced a major demand from their user base for games. They lay on these games of their own which don't have a lot of uptake; they know this to be the case. So they haven't made it a priority. There are three things to do in virtual worlds: a) play house b) play store c) play war. The Lindens have always enabled a) and b) but not much of c) -- and with good reason.

[Drayke Newall]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

When you make a world viable for humans to live and prosper in, games will naturally follow. You didn't first invent discus throwing or the Olympics, and then built Rome. First you built Rome, and Rome wasn't built in a day. Then came games.

Firstly, what does Rome have to do with the Olympics?

Secondly, Rome was built in a day - they decided to create Rome and Rome was there. It's empire however wasn't, which is where the saying comes from.

Second Life is 19 years old and has more than enough foundation to finally move forward. Second Life is built, the games should come. There is a reason why the gaming industry is worth $250 billion and a reason why the entertainment industry is worth $720 billion. It isn't because they waited 19 years to think ok we have built a console or have built a movie theatre now its time to make a game or a movie. Entertainment is what drives people to come back and SL has lost its entertainment value.

Additionally, games in Rome were the lifeblood of the city and without those games Rome wouldn't have lasted 1229 years let alone 1 year. It was fundamental to their culture and also to the rise of the Roman Empire.

Without those games, Rome wouldn't have kept the public focused on their empire.

Without those games, Rome wouldn't have had the money to develop its empire.

Without those games, Rome wouldn't have become as popular and as big as it was.

Likewise:

Without those games, Second Life can't keep the public focused on its Empire.

Without those games, Second Life cant get the money and investment to develop its Empire.

Without those games, Second Life cant become popular or as big as is should be.

RP is a major draw for Second Life. The majority of its users are RP'ers (even adult). RP is a game but restricted due to not being able to develop those games hence the RP'ers are leaving.

Look we get it Prokofy, you dont like games and want SL to stay as it should. The thing you need to accept though is you are not the only person under the sun.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Drayke Newall