What is the reason why you prefer to choose Secondlife than the other metaverses ?

[aryluke]

 

[animats]

Have you ever seen the crypto "metaverses"?

This is Decentraland.

 

This is Cryptovoxels.

Yes, that's what the crypto-based metaverses that get all the press coverage really look like.

There are good virtual worlds, and then there are crypto virtual worlds.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

To be fair, all these new virtual worlds are still in their infancy and while crypto-based worlds may be an elaborate cash-grab there are some that could be legitimate contenders given enough funding. 

What we have in SL today is the culmination of nearly two decades of an army of amateur content creators industriously churning out new content on a daily basis, and while it may seem like an insurmountable task to generate the same amount of content for a new platform, when you're investing billions into a virtual world, hiring professional content developers to start populating that world with high quality content in order to attract users probably isn't going to make that much of a dent in your budget.

It's easy to compare a mature platform like SL with these new metaverse wannabes and sneer (especially since most of them really do suck right now), but technology keeps advancing and the current state of real-time graphics is light years ahead of anything you'll find in SL. 

Sure, you'll always be constrained by the nature of live-streaming content, but even taking that into account the level of achievable realism is such that if any of these new virtual worlds were to really focus on avatar creation and providing high quality content and advanced content creation tools, etc. then SL could be on shaky ground.

[animats]

3 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

It's easy to compare a mature platform like SL with these new metaverse wannabes and sneer (especially since most of them really do suck right now), but technology keeps advancing and the current state of real-time graphics is light years ahead of anything you'll find in SL. 

Yes. Roblox and Epic are pushing the technology hard. The crypto crowd isn't even trying. It's not clear yet how innovative Horizon/Meta/Facebook will be.

(The NFT crowd has other problems. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is finally starting to crack down on NFTs. NFTs for things that already exist, like Bored Ape NFTs, are probably OK. NFTs for presales of land in virtual worlds that don't work yet are speculative investments. Back in 2018, the SEC went after the Initial Coin Offering business, and we don't see those much any more. The SEC shuts down about two "cyber" investment schemes a month, and they're running about 2-3 years behind in that area.)

[Aishagain]

/me yawns mightily and wanders off to log in....(to SL).

[Coffee Pancake]

SL is where my friends are.

 

[Quistess Alpha]

SL runs on "Ghetto graphics". . . on linux to boot.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Quistess Alpha said:

SL runs on "Ghetto graphics". . . on linux to boot.

You would not believe some of the tech trash I've had SL running on .. it's one of the first things I try to get going when tinkering

[Istelathis]

I'm old, and the other metaverses cater mostly to a younger audience.  From the videos I have seen, they are mostly social platforms with little emphases placed on building or exploring, so that is another strike against them for me.  I mostly just use SL (and OS) to build, script a bit, play a few games, listen to music at clubs while earning linden, or explore - as far as I know the other virtual worlds are mostly just large 3d chatrooms.  I would not find that to be fun.  I think SL offers more for people who are not social butterflies. 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Istelathis

[BJoyful]

Mainland is why I love SL.  I love geography, history and orienteering, exploring and sailing ♥

 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

I can only exist in one.  I aint losing my ears for anyone.

[Cali Souther]

I like the virtual world aspect,  vs it being a game (I do play games too, but) SL is a nice relaxing virtual world where I can admire people's work / talent / creativity.  

I can dance all night,  chat up friends or just explore.   It's an enjoyable experience for me.

[Codex Alpha]

1) Because the others died.  Sansar, HIFI

2) Because there are no entry barriers in Second Life. Day One  you can start creating, sharing and even if fast enough be selling what you make with very little requirement or prerequisite other than "It's my work I will be uploading"

- VR Chat requires you to grow your friends list to a certain level before even being able to upload into the world

- VR Chat and others require outdated Unity engine version or their own custom SDK to upload to worlds (more barriers)

- Sinespace and others are similar to this requiring their own proprietary upload methods from custom SDKs

3) Second Life has a marketplace. Though $$$ is not my driving factor in creating things, it is most certainly a nice feature to be able to create some $$ for yourself, to pay your premiums, to have $$ to respend into the marketplace, and if you're making enough sales, the ability to transfer it out to real world dollars to help you pay for software, computer upgrades, etc so that you can continue to do so. Also, there is always a possibility that you can make some decent passive income for yourself to supplement your life - who wouldn't want that? You win, linden lab wins.

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

Oh goodness, am I the first one to say why some folks are in SL? Okay, ahem ...

SLex. 

There, no more elephant in room.

For me it's being able to create and sell my art easily.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Katherine Heartsong

[Chris Corvinus]

I choose to stay because I have friends here and honestly the level of creativity just isn't there with all the others. And the others look like kid cartoons. But I will say that Second Life is dead last when it comes to stability and if a metaverse ever came along that offered something similar to Second Life, I would jump ship in a heartbeat.

[Extrude Ragu]

On 4/20/2022 at 9:18 PM, entity0x said:

- Sinespace and others are similar to this requiring their own proprietary upload methods from custom SDKs

I tried to upload to Sinespace in the past, it's even worse than that, once you figure out all the SDK stuff, it turns out that each and every item you upload to sinespace has to be approved by a member of Sinespace staff.

[Codex Alpha]

10 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I tried to upload to Sinespace in the past, it's even worse than that, once you figure out all the SDK stuff, it turns out that each and every item you upload to sinespace has to be approved by a member of Sinespace staff.

True that!

Edited May 5, 2022 by entity0x

[Henri Beauchamp]

Here are the main reasons why I joined in SL and won't change for any existing metaverse (listed in no particular order: they are equally important to me):

• The SecondLife (TPV) clients run natively on Linux (and better/faster than on other OSes); I won't have joined a metaverse without native Linux support.
• SecondLife is adult role-play friendly (or at least not hostile to adult activities); my first motivation for joining SL was to find more (adult) role-play opportunities and in a modern, 3D environment (I was coming from the MUCKs/MUSHes/MUXes worlds, so the 3D aspect was a novelty !).
• Anonymity  is respected (i.e. no SL resident can get the RL identity of another resident if they don't want to give it up).
• SL avatars and world is ”realistic enough” (I hate the toonish look of most other metaverses).
• SL entry was free (I won't have joined a paying metaverse), even if I now spend money in it (but I also earn money in SL, which compensates).

Here are bonus reasons:

• There is no advertisement in SL.
• There is no constraints on how you join (i.e. you do not need a social media account or any other account type that could potentially give up your RL identity).
• The SL client is Open Source, meaning I could customize it... and ended up forking it to create the Cool VL Viewer, which is what I want the SL client to be for my own needs and preferences.

[So Whimsy]

I choose to stick with SL because it's by far the most established metaverse and has the most to offer. Moving elsewhere would feel like a huge downgrade.

[Coffee Pancake]

9 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

• SecondLife is adult role-play friendly (or at least not hostile to adult activities); my first motivation for joining SL was to find more (adult) role-play opportunities and in a modern, 3D environment (I was coming from the MUCKs/MUSHes/MUXes worlds, so the 3D aspect was a novelty !).

For me it's not that there is adult content as an end if of itself, but by allowing such content, the full range of interpersonal interactions up to and including adult content is also permitted. It removes the temptation to self censor and doesn't limit the emotional bandwidth on offer. Everyone does way more flirting and teasing than pixel humping.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I already have 15 years invested in SL.  I honestly don't see it dying before I do - or at least not before I'm too old to care.  Thus, why start over, especially in a world that looks cartoonish and seems to be very much integrated around social interactions and/or social media apps.

[Ardy Lay]

In Second Life, residents are the product only when they want to be the product.

[Flea Yatsenko]

Second Life still has a ton of value in the fact that most modern websites and "metaverses" want to mix your real life with your virtual life as much as possible. Second Life is old school, back when your account was completely separated from your real life and you were pseudo-anonymous. People don't want their real life tied to their virtual identity, the entire purpose of Second Life is to live out a literal second life away from your first. If people wanted the two to mix, you'd see people's real life Facebook and social media all over their SL profiles.

SL's competition is either Meta and big social media, which wants to just harvest your real life data and merge your digital and real personas, and these crypto things which are very infantile and most are probably just get rich quick schemes by the people who made the platforms. That was huge when crypto was new in the early 2010s, lots of fake coins that would get pumped and dumped at the peak by the creator, then they die forever.

I tried Metaverse and it's horrifying. They mix your real life with virtual life as much as possible and there's all these warnings about "good behavior", it legit scares you at some point you're going to break some rule without realizing and aggressive moderators are going to come down on you, on your virtual self which is tied to your real self. Big tech is scared of people complaining about sexual harassment (it does happen a lot in VR though) so they try and overly clamp down on things because they don't want negative press at all. Just everything, like you enter the metaverse and you get a feeling that they want your real life tied into everything and they're terrified of getting negative press for any sort of controversial behavior so they shove rules and warnings in your face non stop. It's completely off putting when you are reading all these warnings on an account tied to your real life. IIRC there was already some media hubbub about virtual groping or whatever and they added safety bubbles and whatever.

I've never had those such problems personally anywhere online (like getting in trouble/banned), but the messages are still ominous and threatening. It's just not a welcoming environment when you join something and the first things you see are warnings about how your account will be banned if you break rules. But it's way easier to be your other self on Second Life and there's not really any consequences to living out fantasies or whatever. And SL really has that going for it in a way other platforms don't. Plus there's so much content here, you don't realize it until you go to another platform and try and search for stuff and there's just no results. SLMP search might be disappointing a lot of times but at least there's stuff for it to try and search through.

[InnerCity Elf]

I'll admit to being a superficial visual creature, I like exploring regions and events and roleplaying, and SL visuals are pretty good for immersion, and by far the best I've seen as far as virtual worlds go. That, and many of the other reasons stated by others already. I can't see anything in the virtual worlds ring that would entice me at the moment, and it looks as if it might stay that way for a long while, if not the rest of my days. I've looked into a few platforms where you can build your own regions cheaply, which is great, but Avatar customization is pretty much non-existant there, and I've been spoilt by SL with its fantastic creator community in that regard, I don't want to go without.

[Codex Alpha]

That all being said, I'm still pretty pissed off about LL's Sansar - and how it could have been a natural progression and addition to Second Life, for PC users and VR users alike. I for one severely enjoyed the PBR simplified workflow, auto-decimation of models (though I always make mine efficient anyway - some say too efficient "Use more polys it's okay!"), access to free and affordable land ($15-20 a month with 4sq Km and effectively unlimited Li?), make it and upload an object with collisions EZ-PZ, gorgeous rendering engine. Wasn't perfect, but it was definitely SOMETHING TO MOVE TOWARDS.

Yes Second Life this, Second Life that, but I am increasingly becoming disinterested in all the workarounds, tricks, baking, special attention that I must spend just to get anything into SL - and frankly it's a lot of energy for very little ROI. Sansar was the future, and they and the haters who hated it blew it too.

I look back at my productivity and what I was able to create in my time at Sansar, and then I look at what I accomplished in 10 years in SL, or financially have access to - and that's where you see SL's failures.

Land is still too expensive for very limited prims, 16 x 1024 textures on 1m objects and high poly counts lagging out everyone, and although I have learned and grown big time via Second Life... 10 years and not much to show for it or remains is really not that impressive...

I could post an image about stuff I did in SL over 10 years, but it pales and is shamed in comparison to

10 Months in Sansar:

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of what I was doing, working on, and selling on my store. My SL Store is an embarrassment in comparison.

The point is, although we can appreciate Second Life for what it is and was; trying to resurrect something so old rather than encouraging people to move to a newer and progressive platform (THEY COULD HAVE! NO EXCUSES!) - it simply doesn't compare and should NOT ignore where they need to go AND SOON.

For creators the less time we spend getting our creations inworld, and having the ability to build and showcase those - and not limited to Li or extreme land costs and area - lets many of us reach our potential.

I just don't see it in Second Life that much anymore - and I feel most of the time I'm creating, uploading and working with handcuffs on.

PS. So pissed about Sansar, not sure many even understand the pain and heartbreak felt by seeing such a platform cease to exist in any meaningful capacity... Still hurting from it, mmkay? :-(