1 second Orb timing, is it necessary

[Codex Alpha]

Yeah, they post such good info and insights on the scripts used, then it gets lost in an unrelated topic

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

Yeah, they post such good info and insights on the scripts used, then it gets lost in an unrelated topic

Luckily, the helpful people will always respond regardless of the topic! 

In my opinion, if they only helped in the related topics, I would be much worse off.

[Rolig Loon]

10 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

Yeah, they post such good info and insights on the scripts used, then it gets lost in an unrelated topic

But it is related, if only to address the concern that security orbs are an unnecessary drag on server resources.  My point is that even if everyone on a region has a security orb firing once a second, it's making a trivial difference to load on the servers. 

As I said earlier, I don't think there's any answer to the OP's question that can satisfy everyone.  If this thread has shown anything, it is that the half dozen people who have been arguing back and forth for 17(!) pages have irreconcilable differences of opinion. From a technical perspective, though, I'm just saying that you can't use server load (and by inference, lag) as an argument against a rapid-firing orb.

[Codex Alpha]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

But it is related, if only to address the concern that security orbs are an unnecessary drag on server resources.  My point is that even if everyone on a region has a security orb firing once a second, it's making a trivial difference to load on the servers. 

As I said earlier, I don't think there's any answer to the OP's question that can satisfy everyone.  If this thread has shown anything, it is that the half dozen people who have been arguing back and forth for 17(!) pages have irreconcilable differences of opinion. From a technical perspective, though, I'm just saying that you can't use server load (and by inference, lag) as an argument against a rapid-firing orb.

Sure, I didn't mean to make you feel like you have to defend yourself, just commenting that I value yours and other's opinion on SL related things, that sometimes get lost and I'm like "Now I know someone mentioned this before, but what topic was it..." later

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

@Phil Deakins, do you care to weigh in on "1 second Orb timing"? Is it "necessary" (per the OP), or ?

I'd like to know your opinion!

I already did, back on page 4 or 5. Imo, 1 second is ridiculous - and totally pointless.

I did post that the image the OP showed had chevrons, indicating that there were other notifications underneath. I suggested that the 1 second one was the last of a series of warnings which were sent out at n second intervals. The time left being put in the warning, in that case, only 1 second left.

E.g. the system could have been set for 16 seconds, with a warning sent at 5 second intervals, each stating the number of seconds before removal.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[AnthonyJoanne]

11 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

To me it seems counter-intuitive to have a "Mainland" or public area, but then to allow it to be a gauntlet of orbs and ban walls.

Ok - that's where I think the problem is:

Mainland is not public area.

Mainland is made up of two different types of areas:

1. Linden controlled. Roads. The large swathes of land which LL 'own'. Water ways. That sort of thing.

2. Privately controlled. This is area which is 'owned' by people other than LL.

Currently LL let the residents access the mainland that they control. Which is nice of them and makes sense because otherwise SL would just be a series of disconnected and unrelated scenes ... like Sansar.

The rest is private property.

Mainland was clearly designed and implemented with that basic concept in mind: That land you 'buy' is private property.

Private property is, by definition, the opposite of 'public area'.

Some people choose to have their private property open to the public. Other people do not.

The reality is that no part of the basic concept of mainland is that you be able to move across the entire space unhindered because mainland is NOT public area.

Hopefully that will clarify things.

12 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Ban lines are effective. I can't enter their parcel at all, and arguably are the least offensive measure, as there is no control being taken over my avatar - or teleporting me back home out of the region - and losing my place.

No - ban lines are not effective.

From the wiki

Quote

If the parcel is simply not pubic access or restricted to certain Residents/groups, then the lines go up to 50 m above the terrain mesh.

Arguably this 50m limit is one of the reasons why security orbs exist.

The other reason is that you can penetrate ban lines easily by finding a seat/bed/whatever on the other side of the line and sitting on it.

If banlines extended to the max height, AND prevented you from interacting with anything on the other side of the ban line, I suspect security orbs wouldn't need to exist on the mainland.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

9 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

The other reason is that you can penetrate ban lines easily by finding a seat/bed/whatever on the other side of the line and sitting on it.

Are we sure about that? Unless there's a trick with which I'm unfamiliar, that sat-upon thing would need to be above the banline range. (My guess is that this is determined by the origin of the root link, not by any offset the avatar may attain by link or root sitTarget—which is testable, but this is already pretty far in the weeds).

Not specific to this post: there's a lot of tacit reasoning by RL analogy in this thread, and that's not necessarily a safe bet. Notions of "rights" and "property" apply only to the extent they're part of a contract with the service provider. It's generally good business for the Lab to interpret its "land" products in ways that encourage such analogies, so such analogies often work, but there's nothing in the ToS that requires the Lab to treat "land" more like RL private property than like a public blog page. That said, "land" remains the Lab's largest profit center, so they're highly motivated to maintain the illusion, in Governance as well as Marketing.

Also, those analogies are convenient to a particular viewpoint, right up until they're not. A landowner may wish to have "private property" "rights" on their "land" but not welcome the absolute RL prohibition on interfering with "aircraft" passage overhead.

[Gabriele Graves]

If you try to sit on an object within the ban lines you get a dialog with the message:

"You cannot sit because you are not allowed on that land."

If you are banned while sitting then you are ejected after 15 seconds just as if you weren't sitting.

Obviously with general ban lines that would mean everything would have to be at 50m or less above the terrain for there to be no exceptions.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Mollymews]

17 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Are we sure about that? Unless there's a trick with which I'm unfamiliar, that sat-upon thing would need to be above the banline range. (My guess is that this is determined by the origin of the root link, not by any offset the avatar may attain by link or root sitTarget—which is testable, but this is already pretty far in the weeds).

your guess is right. back in the day Linden changed where the avatar camera position and physics shape is positioned for a seated avatar. A change which was done back then to defeat seated phantom avatars

then some years later when parcel visibilty was introduced, this wasn't addressed and can be exploited to peep inside a banline box while seated on the neighbour parcel

i last tested this ages ago and found it to be true, when we discussing on this forum about avatars over the banline box.  I dunno if Linden have done anything since to fix it

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Since ban lines etc. only work so high, that makes it more obvious why orbs got so popular (with the popularity of skyboxes, etc.).

[Coffee Pancake]

55 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Since ban lines etc. only work so high, that makes it more obvious why orbs got so popular (with the popularity of skyboxes, etc.).

Ban lines also make great trampolines.

Find a parcel with regular bans lines, fly over to the center, stop flying and fall right onto the top of the protected parcel.

Boing! Boing! Boing!

For added hilarity, you can shout to anyone in the house below you " HEEEEYY YOU !! HALP !!! LET ME IN !!!! "

Boing! Boing! Boing!

[AnthonyJoanne]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Are we sure about that? Unless there's a trick with which I'm unfamiliar, that sat-upon thing would need to be above the banline range.

To be quite honest I'd have to say "I'm not sure if it's changed".

It's been some years since I used that trick at ground level ... so I tried it out.

At ground level, you are correct - it no longer works.

Once you are higher than 50m above the ground mesh - it works fine as a method to enter a parcel.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Love Zhaoying
Text color issues

[Sammy Huntsman]

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

(Copied from "Make Us Laugh" thread, but written for this thread.)

If 0-Second Orbs Are Outlawed, Only Criminals Will Have Them!

(A short Play by Love Zhaoying)

Scene: Mainland shop.  Only the shopkeeper is present. A tough-looking avatar enters, and speaks with a stereotypical "Mafia" accent. (Presumably, this is a "Bronx" accent, combined with an Italian-American accent. No offense is intended to either New Yorkers, or to those Americans of Italian descent.)

Shopkeeper: "H'lo, let me know if you need any help. Everything has a Demo version!"

Tough Guy: "T'anks! I see you have an Orb..."

Shopkeeper: "Yes, we're quite proud of it."

TG: "Well, it would be a shame, should something happen to your nice Orb.  Those aren't legal anymore, you know."

Shopkeeper, visibly beginning to sweat: "I don't want any trouble..that Orb was Grandfathered to us!"

TG: "You know, should the authorities find out about this nice Orb,  it could be..difficult for you!"

Shopkeeper:  "What do you mean? I didn't do anything!"

TG: "There are some nice swimming animations available. I'd hate to see you at the bottom of the Blake Sea, swimming with the prim fishies, if you know what I mean!" (Tough Guy cracks his knuckles menacingly.)

Shopkeeper, shaking in fear: "No, no, no! I'll do anything - tell me what I can do!"

Tough Guy: "Well, me and my company, we like to offer what we call an Insurance policy. So long as you pay up, and on time, the authorities never need to know about your little Orb problem."

Shopkeeper: "Is that all? If I pay you, then you'll leave me alone?"

Tough Guy: "Yes, that's all. Just sign this here piece of paper."

Tough Guy hands the Shopkeeper an official looking document, which says, "Second Life No-Fault Teleport Home Insurance Policy"

(Scene)

This play sponsored by the Second Life No-Fault Teleport Home Insurance Company.

This one was actually good. I had a hard time reading it in a bronx accent as I was laughing too hard. Lol 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

This one was actually good. I had a hard time reading it in a bronx accent as I was laughing too hard. Lol 

Thank you!

[Sammy Huntsman]

5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Thank you!

you're welcome. Yeah here is my trying to impersonate the accent and laughing to hard. Yeah You need to make that into a video on YouTube. Lol. I would love to see that skit come to life. 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

(Copied from "Make Us Laugh" thread, but written for this thread. Re-posted due to no font choices on editing.)

If 0-Second Orbs Are Outlawed, Only Criminals Will Have Them!

(A short Play by Love Zhaoying)

Scene: Mainland shop.  Only the shopkeeper is present. A tough-looking avatar enters, and speaks with a stereotypical "Mafia" accent. (Presumably, this is a "Bronx" accent, combined with an Italian-American accent. No offense is intended to either New Yorkers, or to those Americans of Italian descent.)

Shopkeeper: "H'lo, let me know if you need any help. Everything has a Demo version!"

Tough Guy: "T'anks! I see you have an Orb..."

Shopkeeper: "Yes, we're quite proud of it."

TG: "Well, it would be a shame, should something happen to your nice Orb.  Those aren't legal anymore, you know."

Shopkeeper, visibly beginning to sweat: "I don't want any trouble..that Orb was Grandfathered to us!"

TG: "You know, should the authorities find out about this nice Orb,  it could be..difficult for you!"

Shopkeeper:  "What do you mean? I didn't do anything!"

TG: "There are some nice swimming animations available. I'd hate to see you at the bottom of the Blake Sea, swimming with the prim fishies, if you know what I mean!" (Tough Guy cracks his knuckles menacingly.)

Shopkeeper, shaking in fear: "No, no, no! I'll do anything - tell me what I can do!"

Tough Guy: "Well, me and my company, we like to offer what we call an Insurance policy. So long as you pay up, and on time, the authorities never need to know about your little Orb problem."

Shopkeeper: "Is that all? If I pay you, then you'll leave me alone?"

Tough Guy: "Yes, that's all. Just sign this here piece of paper."

Tough Guy hands the Shopkeeper an official looking document, which says, "Second Life No-Fault Teleport Home Insurance Policy".

(Scene)

This play sponsored by The Second Life No-Fault Teleport Home Insurance Company.

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by Love Zhaoying
Had to re-post, could not copy from Dark mode post due to no editing feature for fonts

[Bagnu]

People are laughing now, not arguing. That's great!!!

[Orwar]

16 hours ago, Bagnu said:

People are laughing now, not arguing. That's great!!!

   Laughter should be banned, too!

[Silent Mistwalker]

50 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   Laughter should be banned, too!

I tried being human once. It was awful.

[Bagnu]

2 hours ago, Orwar said:

   Laughter should be banned, too!

There seem to be ban lines for that too LOL!!!

[Istelathis]

The simplest solution that I can think of, would be to put in place phasing which would be dictated to by group.  This phasing would ensure only members of the group selected could see and interact with items with the group tag, likewise, only members that belong to that group could see one another.  The physics of the objects would only apply to the group members as well, for everyone outside of the group, any objects and members would appear to be nonexistent.  Of course, such a selection would have to be enabled by the owner of the parcel.

By doing this, security orbs would no longer be necessary, those who are outside of the group would never see any of the objects designated to the group, nor the individuals who belong to it - for that matter they would not be able to see them.  There would be no interaction possible so long as a flag was set to enable such phasing.

In this way, the explorers can continue on exploring, and those that seek refuge from others can remain hidden.  Security orbs would not be needed by most people, outside of those who are renting multiple areas overlapped in the same parcel.

People could still decorate their land, as they see fit, for the public to see, by not placing the objects in the group that would be set to phasing.  As such, objects that they want to be public will be visible, objects that they want to be exclusive to their group, will remain hidden from the public eye.  This style of phasing would allow group members to still interact with items not set to the group.  

Ultimately, for the parcels with phasing enabled, the server simply would not send the data for the items on the parcel with the group tag.  The non member's client would not receive any data those objects, including physics.  For that matter, they would not be sent data on the group members who are on that land.  To the non group member, it would simply not exist, nor would the people on that land.  

That data for the objects on that land, as well as the people, would only be sent to group members so long as a phasing flag was set by the owner.

 

LL could further extrapolate off of this, by allowing multiple group tags to be set on land, which would give land owners a lot of flexibility, especially with gaming.  One group could be selected for one set of objects and avatars, another for yet another group of objects and avatars, a parcel of land could have multiple scenarios set, each depending on the group tag.  Also, in this way, renters who overlap their rental parcels could set multiple group tags for their parcels for rent, and the renters would never see one another so long as the phasing flag is set.  

 

Buuuuut.. this does not seem to be a very popular idea.. so I will leave you with this 😝

Edited June 5, 2022 by Istelathis

[Gabriele Graves]

Let's say for arguments sake that they did introduce a kind of phasing such as is suggested here.  I expect LL would create a new continent or retro fit it to somewhere like Bellisseria where people are expecting a more managed experience.  The default view from the outside of each parcel would be a non-empty parcel will one of the homes selected as kind of default view for others so as not to have blank parcels all over the place.

Why do I think this wouldn't be applied to mainland?  Far too difficult for one thing but looking back at the precedents that LL have established previously.  When Zindra was introduced to coral all adult content into one continent when land maturity ratings changed, they asked people with adult interests to swap their parcels for Zindra parcels.  No changes were done to mainland.  When Bellisseria was introduced, they kept the existing Linden Homes and are hoping people who have them eventually choose a Bellisseria parcel.  No changes were done to the existing Linden homes.

Therefore I expect no major changes will occur to the mainland product based on these kinds of precedents but, perhaps, they would create a new phase-based continent for those who want to live based on that concept.

I have my doubts that there would be enough uptake to warrant this kind of significant development however.
 

EDIT: Also remember is it very likely that only about 20% of mainland is owned by ordinary residents and so it would be trying to fix a problem that largely does not exist.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[belindacarson]

17 pages in but still: zero second orbs are 100% legal 🙂

[Istelathis]

1 hour ago, Gabriele Graves said:

  I expect LL would create a new continent or retro fit it to somewhere like Bellisseria where people are expecting a more managed experience. 

It would probably be a systemwide service, much like the options to allow scripts to run, parcel media, be seen by those outside of your parcel, etc.  You would have a checkbox to enable such phasing, along with which group(s) the phasing would be set to.  Those without the group tag enabled, would not have the the objects rendered for them, in addition much like not being able to see people outside of your parcel (if you have it selected) people would not be able to see non group members and vice versa. 

Think of it like this, when you go into any region, all of the region's data is downloaded to your client within a specified range.  If phasing were implemented, that data is not downloaded to your client unless you belong to the group.  

No real changes would occur, unless people wanted to have phasing on their property.  It would become another option for them, to the people who want privacy, they would have a new layer of privacy - where even zooming into their parcel will not disclose any items on their land they want to remain hidden - if they so wanted that privacy.  Alternatively, they could set up a plethora of objects, such as houses, trees, decorations, which could be visible to everyone, but they could likewise have objects that are set to phasing which no one would ever be able to see unless they were part of the group.

I think this is superior to ban lines, or security orbs, it provides residents the privacy they want, while allowing explorers to roam freely.  It likewise gives residents the ability to put on display what they want others to see, while hiding objects they would rather remain to be hidden.

In addition to privacy, it would allow residents the ability to make decent themes, depending on what group setting one has in place if LL were to allow multiple group phasing to occur.  What could be a barren desert for one group, could shift into a jungle for another.  It would provide landowners the ability to have multiple scenes on one piece of land, in addition, it would cut back on any lag - as those without the group tag would not need to download the data.

 

I doubt it will ever happen, but it would be pretty cool if it did.  I don't think we would see barren landscapes, instead, we would only see what the land owners and renters would want us to see.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Istelathis