A clean break and a rebranding for Linden Lab?

[Alwin Alcott]

57 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

How many old SL residents would actually move to a new world that doesn't have anything? What if LL did something like, no mesh importing? Instead, the new clothing creation and prim tools would be used. Perhaps a barrier would not be necessary. 

Thats no answer to your statement as i quoted.

[JeromFranzic]

2 hours ago, Istelathis said:

If it was a large open world of user generated content, which allowed creation of objects in game along with scripting and provided as much freedom of SL I would probably have a go with it.

The problem is instead we would have two different platforms competing for an audience that is already generating money for LL.  The same thing happened to Everquest when they released Everquest 2, they did not bring in many new people they just shifted subscribers they already had between the two different games.  The result was mostly the same people who were playing EQ1 split in both games.  World of Warcraft learned from that mistake, and just updated their existing game as time progressed.  Even for WoW though, their subscription base slowly dwindled as people grew frustrated with the new systems and the demographic for such a s game started to go elsewhere or lose interest.

I personally would prefer we just focus on SL and updating it without driving off existing users.

Yeah, I mostly agree with this.

I'm not an expert on Graphical APIs but I think the OpenGL stack for SL could be upgraded to the last version without having to expect most users to replace their existing inventories. 

It would still force some people to upgrade their PCs but not as much upgrading to Vulkan. (IIRC on the Nvidia side, I think the GeForce 10 series was among the GPUs to be firstly supported via the Vulkan API.)

I do think some of the recent attempts by LL to educate new users have been helpful in navigating SL better from the start. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by JeromFranzic
um... just editing :)

[Bloodsong Termagant]

am i the only one tired of trying to work with kludges to make stuff work in second life, and really wish "sl2" would get here already?

 

i would love to have a world that looks like some modern games (like red dead redemption 2), but that people can build in, and import avatars and animations etc etc into.  and not lag and  crash whenever trying to have an event more strenuous than a bunch of people dancing in place.

 

::sigh::

 

but yeah, most people i mention this to tell me that nobody wants to leave SL.  and their giant inventory.  (oh, and friends/communities.)

 

[Extrude Ragu]

I think the notion that people will dismiss SecondLife simply for being an old name is wrong - There are many brands that manage to appeal to new audiences without changing their name, McDonalds comes to mind.

I think that in order to attract a new audience, we should first believe in our own product and know our own strengths compared to the social media youth spend their time on. Here are some of the things that I think are SecondLife's biggest strengths

• We are social but we are not social media
  
  Unlike other platforms, SecondLife is not full of algorithms designed to pull on your strings and keep you on an emotional roller coaster. SecondLife generally aims to let you have a good time, rather than to manipulate you emotionally into staying here a long time.
  
  Additionally, it's very easy to experiment and change in SecondLife. Since there's no algorithm dictating what you see, and it's easy to surface content that isn't what an algorithm thinks you like, it's very easy to try new things.
  
  In SecondLife you do not have to be a people pleaser or worry about stepping on the toes of the entire planet. SecondLife doesn't put every passing thought you have on a soap box for the entire world to hear, which means that not every thought you have gets turned into a rallying cry for one group or another, ideas generally go through a much longer thought process on SecondLife and discussed in a much more relaxed way.
   
• SecondLife's 'Magic'
  
  I don't know how to explain this, but there is so much magic to be found in SecondLife, all of the user created content, the surprises to be found at every corner, there's so much unexpected and fun stuff to find and do in SecondLife.
   
• In SecondLife, you are not treated like a child
  
  Unlike other platforms, SecondLife doesn't molly coddle you and try to protect you like an over-protective mum. It also doesn't try to protect the world from you. There's no automatic censorship, speech control or anything like that. You don't feel like you are living in someone else's control freak fantasy, it's very open to ideas and exchanges, which I think would be refreshing for anyone coming from a social media platform.
  
  In SecondLife you can talk to people who have views that oppose yours and still have a good time, because again we don't have that social media popularity contest effect.
   
• Your world, your imagination
  
  In SecondLife, there is a lot of creative freedom and tonnes of tools to create and share that simply cannot be found on other platforms.
   

There are so many things that SecondLife can offer to the new generation that TikTok, Facebook, Twitter etc never will and I think that rather than trying to become like these platforms, we should focus on showing the youth why you would want to leave those platforms and come to SecondLife, for many of the reasons I outlined above.

Of course, there are changes and new things that SecondLife could also be implementing to show a younger audience that SecondLife is interested in them:-
 

• Mainland that appeals to the next generations ideals
  
  In RL, there is what I perceive to be a big social movement that recognises a societal over-reliance on cars. People IRL are craving to move to places where the primary mode of transport are Walking, Bicycles, Buses and Trains. Many of the new generation view cars not as items of freedom, but as a necessary evil in a poorly designed and dehumanising suburban sprawl. They don't want to live in McMansions with huge yards, they want to live in lively European style towns.
  
  Much of the mainland today is perceivably a wasteland, and I think that building new mainland where the primary way of getting around is walking, cycling and public transit would appeal to the next generation and show them that SecondLife is also thinking about the future and would like to participate in it with them.
   
• Better Communication Tools
  
  The next generation is used to having some of the best communication tools the world has ever known, look at things like Discord where people share their screens with each other like it's nothing. I think there must be a huge culture shock coming into SecondLife and finding that even basic communication in SecondLife doesn't really work very well (think: group chats).

Of course there are many other things SecondLife can do, for example SecondLife's pricing model makes it hard for someone young to own land as land is very expensive in SecondLife.

These are just some of my thoughts, in general I don't think SecondLife should rebrand or change its core principles, because they are in my opinion a selling point rather than technical debt, what SecondLife should do is focus on communication and accomodation.

 

 

[Andred Darwin]

To the OP's point... I think It’s hard to "re-invent the wheel" , even though “SL's wheel” has been quite "squared" for a long time.

I think it's great to see the current improvements to the server and viewer, it's the first time I can "brag" about the SL viewer being 3x (or more) faster (It’s a huge difference) than the Firestorm viewer which my partner uses... (at least until the FS team has a chance to implement the new code... lol… )... communication and script performance on the server improved a lot ... so I think finally some things are changing... and it’s great,   I believe if they continue in that route SL will be fine and maybe even grow again, if not growing already (at least continue to have people coming back to the platform)... the same cannot be said yet for the Web team though… Search, Marketplace…. Every meeting, lots of ideas, lots of “working on it” … time to deliver!!!

I hope they will also tweak a bit the mentality of just profiting over the current users... the new Premium Plus, based on my opinion and hearing from quite a few folks in-world… was a huge disappointment ... SL is already expensive, way too expensive, nothing wrong with creating a plus package… but at the very least the features in that package… ideally would work as intended!

Hopefully they will work their magic to bring costs down, lower the price and market the appealing features to new audiences (Not just a commercial!) and bring new people in.

Anyway, I think overall at least is moving forward!  After quite a few years in SL, I still enjoy it very much and will continue to do so for as long I can….

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Seeing how the showstopper is the inability to port content from SL 1.x to SL 2.x how about a system where the legacy [ie: current] engine and a new improved engine run side-by side with the option to log in with either a legacy viewer that would support all the old content or a new, improved viewer that would work with a newer engine that does not support deprecated content? That way people can try it out and see if they're really going to miss all that old clutter from their inventories that they're probably never going to use anyway. It would allow people the opportunity to migrate to a and experience to a new improved system hopefully with whatever content works with the new system.

[Arielle Popstar]

7 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

What if LL made a completely new client and server with a small continent, new avatars, a new prim building system, new engine and physics, but kept the exact same SL style where the residents make everything. Then they named it a completely new name like 'whatever life'. If you logged into it you'd feel right at home in the virtual world but it would be all shiny and new.  This would not be like Sansar which was made very differently from SL. It would be  hard reset and a starting point but SL would still exist as well. Do you think this would make people think about joining because it is simply not SL with all it's baggage? Maybe new creators would come in knowing they don't have to compete with the established ones. LL would also be able to regain it's control over the base avatars and not be dependent on resident made avatars. This wouldn't destroy SL. It would be like taking a seed from a plant and making a whole new plant. 

Didn't they already do this and call it Opensimulator? Even if they didn't, one would only have to look at the numbers there to see what a rebranded S/L without the baggage would look like. With plenty of free content and regions, there is still not a stampede heading over because maybe todays typical S/L'er doesn't have that pioneering spirit when faced with having to find new friends. The never ending need for new kinky events and drastically reduced Saturday Sale items with ready made living quarters and clubs with mostly non conversing clientele, unless looking for cheap and easy sex to either indulge in or complain about, gives an indication that not many are ready to give up the pampered life and head to unknown shores for new land where they will be faced with empty sims they have to build up themselves. 

[Ceka Cianci]

I think those worlds where they let you move your hands around like they are  some sort of realistic thing when you talk.

I would leave just because of that reason alone.. It would be like watching Ricky Bobby  or Nancy Pelosi  in an interview, only non stop all the time..

I hate when worlds overdue something like that.. I just always think, well if they are overdoing that,  they must be lacking else where pretty good.

Either way, I'm not investing into another world any time soon.. this may even be my last one.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Ceka Cianci

[Marigold Devin]

8 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

What if LL made a completely new client and server with a small continent, new avatars, a new prim building system, new engine and physics, but kept the exact same SL style where the residents make everything. Then they named it a completely new name like 'whatever life'. If you logged into it you'd feel right at home in the virtual world but it would be all shiny and new.  This would not be like Sansar which was made very differently from SL. It would be  hard reset and a starting point but SL would still exist as well. Do you think this would make people think about joining because it is simply not SL with all it's baggage? Maybe new creators would come in knowing they don't have to compete with the established ones. LL would also be able to regain it's control over the base avatars and not be dependent on resident made avatars. This wouldn't destroy SL. It would be like taking a seed from a plant and making a whole new plant. 

Wasn't there something, albeit not made by SL, but with the same open source code, Inworldz.

 

[Kathlen Onyx]

8 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

What if LL made a completely new client and server with a small continent, new avatars, a new prim building system, new engine and physics, but kept the exact same SL style where the residents make everything. Then they named it a completely new name like 'whatever life'. If you logged into it you'd feel right at home in the virtual world but it would be all shiny and new.  This would not be like Sansar which was made very differently from SL. It would be  hard reset and a starting point but SL would still exist as well. Do you think this would make people think about joining because it is simply not SL with all it's baggage? Maybe new creators would come in knowing they don't have to compete with the established ones. LL would also be able to regain it's control over the base avatars and not be dependent on resident made avatars. This wouldn't destroy SL. It would be like taking a seed from a plant and making a whole new plant. 

Too many people have thousands of dollars invested in Second Life they would be reluctant to start over.

[Bree Giffen]

Yes, that's what this is. Just a Gedankenexperiment! Thanks @diamond Marchant

I was just thinking it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for LL to develop a small experimental new world. I see all these little games being made in Steam with just a small team so why can't a small team work on something like this? LL knows how to make a virtual world and how to work with cloud servers. The project could even be designed for a tiny population and have no aspiration to replace SL.  Maybe they'll find something they can bring back into SL. 

[Persephone Emerald]

30 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

Wasn't there something, albeit not made by SL, but with the same open source code, Inworldz.

 

Inworldz looked like Second Life and felt like it on the surface, but there were far fewer people in it and creators couldn't make as much money. There was apparently more content copy-botting, even though the content itself was less sophisticated. They were always a couple years behind SL in terms of mesh, etc. The people were generally nice. They had money trees longer than SL had them because sim owners put money into the trees. Because land was much cheaper, it was good for big roleplay sims, but they still had the problem of not enough people.

It ended up dying due to the owners of the platform not being able to support it financially.

[diamond Marchant]

43 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

I was just thinking it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for LL to develop a small experimental new world. I see all these little games being made in Steam with just a small team so why can't a small team work on something like this?

Yes. But to do anything in this space takes millions (or billions) and Brad seems more into Tilia. If it were me, I might just buy a boat instead (for only 5 million)

Edited August 3, 2022 by diamond Marchant
elaborated

[Kathlen Onyx]

40 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

 

It ended up dying due to the owners of the platform not being able to support it financially.

Correction: it ended up dying because the owner stole everyone's money.

[animats]

6 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Better Communication Tools

The next generation is used to having some of the best communication tools the world has ever known, look at things like Discord where people share their screens with each other like it's nothing. I think there must be a huge culture shock coming into Second Life and finding that even basic communication in SecondLife doesn't really work very well (think: group chats).

This came up today at Server User Group. There's an effort underway to fix lost-messages bugs. But LL is not talking about a redesign.

How would you want this to work? Think in terms of the 3D world, rather then replicating web and phone stuff.

The City of Paris has these signs in public locations to announce events. It would be a nice touch for SL to have those at info hubs. Plus, anyone who wants to place one on their property should be able to do so.

[Persephone Emerald]

21 minutes ago, animats said:

This came up today at Server User Group. There's an effort underway to fix lost-messages bugs. But LL is not talking about a redesign.

How would you want this to work? Think in terms of the 3D world, rather then replicating web and phone stuff.

The City of Paris has these signs in public locations to announce events. It would be a nice touch for SL to have those at info hubs. Plus, anyone who wants to place one on their property should be able to do so.

I think that looks horrible. Paris shouldn't look like Las Vegas or Times Square. I wouldn't want to see that in SL either.

[Codex Alpha]

10 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

What if LL made a completely new client and server with a small continent, new avatars, a new prim building system, new engine and physics, but kept the exact same SL style where the residents make everything. Then they named it a completely new name like 'whatever life'. If you logged into it you'd feel right at home in the virtual world but it would be all shiny and new.  This would not be like Sansar which was made very differently from SL. It would be  hard reset and a starting point but SL would still exist as well. Do you think this would make people think about joining because it is simply not SL with all it's baggage? Maybe new creators would come in knowing they don't have to compete with the established ones. LL would also be able to regain it's control over the base avatars and not be dependent on resident made avatars. This wouldn't destroy SL. It would be like taking a seed from a plant and making a whole new plant. 

You're asking the people who rejected Sansar en masse if they  would move to a newer platform instead of staying on SL.

I welcome anything new. I'd be there, but the same people would NOT be.

[Codex Alpha]

1 hour ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Too many people have thousands of dollars invested in Second Life they would be reluctant to start over.

This is not really the best argument for anyone to make even if they did spend thousands of dollars.

I know many gamers that spend hundreds and thousands over time just on cosmetic items, experience boosts, etc in their favourite FPS Shooter games, that they only played for 1-2 years. With micro transactions in every game nowadays, people are spending that normally.

It's just that many SL creators are in the upper and older age bracket, with much time invested into SL, and are understandably concerned especially if they rely on it in full or part of income.

However, everything progresses, and I too will get older and face the same issues - but I don't expect a company or anyone to be held back on my account...

A move to a more modern system was admirable, and needed. One can only expand on an old SL so much until a complete rewrite is needed.

For me, now spoiled by newer platforms like Sansar and others - along with the prevalence of accessible game engines like Unreal, Unity and Godot, it is becoming harder and harder to warrant continued investment of time and money into an old SL.

If anything Sansar failed (in part) because they tried to attract the older crowd from SL and ignored the younger generations (graduating from Roblox and other younger audience platforms) into Sansar as the next step - almost seemingly not wanting them at all in their attitudes.

Like any business, if you're not growing, you are stagnating.. and if you're stagnating you are dying.

And with LL's observably glacial pace at doing anything who knows what the future brings for it - while all of us age out of the equation instead of packing up our tents and making camp on a new platform.

[Ceka Cianci]

Ya, it's our fault they had a bad plan.

[Asadora Summers]

Just some thoughts after reading the posts...

In Second Life, there are choices. One can choose to have a inventory of 190k or not choose to have that much. 'SL baggage' is not on the user side, it's more on the LL side, for example things on Mainland such as Linden trees not being updated in 20 years, which falls under the LDPW. Instead of concentrating on the newer popular continents, how about going back to the older continents and updating them to where people would use those continents to their fullest potential.
I do not think there is anything wrong in LL using the content of established creators for Linden Events or the like. I actually think it's a good thing because it shows that LL is making the attempt after all these years to keep in touch with those that make SL what it is and what SL is and what we all make it to be.

1. 20 years is a long time to remain a constant for a mass amount of users
2. The users who frequent SL are loyal and have put in time and money, but also creative and established relationships that spill into the physical world.
3. No other virtual world platform can offer the plethora of communities that are formed in SL
4. There is freedom in SL. A freedom that is personalised to each person dependent on what mood they are in for that day. Don't want to socialise for a day? Sure, no problem. No one is going to give you a negative rating for that.
5. In SL there is no actual pressure to conform, if one doesn't want too. If one wants to conform, they can do that too.
6. I agree with a previous poster that SL is not a social media platform. It is a virtual world. A virtual world can't be compared to something which doesn't hold the same amount of personal and emotional investment like how a tik-tok post that isn't more than 30 seconds long fails to offer.
7. Back in the day, we used to have a rating system on our profiles, but LL got rid of that because of not wanting to create a competitive environment. Personally, I'm glad they got rid of the rating system.
8. Back when LL formed SL, the intent was to create a user based content created world with the ability to share it with others. This is what has made SL a very special place for so many of us. 
At the end of the day, those of us that pay to have premium or premium plus or those of us that have a basic account, it is all of us that makes SL what it is. Those that are newer to SL might not know the history of SL, so they do not know that not everything is given to them from the higher ups. Just like the physical world, SL is not a place for expectations, because if you expect to have things provided for you already, or to make your choices easier, one is setting themselves up for failure. I do not mean to sound harsh, so if I come across that way I do apologize. It was not intended.
All in all, whatever changes may come it's the user base that will be paying for it in one way or another. Which will lead to eventually LL having it's own demise handed to them on a prim platter.
If it's not broke, then don't fix it. Sure, there are things in-world that need to be fixed, but someone always manages to find a way around it. That is the glorious beauty of Second Life,  it's full of resources that can be used by people, and people using their own skill-sets in order to fix something for the people, (Kudos to the Furry community!) or to show how to get around a problem. After 20 years, this is the result of Linden Lab's declaration in the beginning 'Second Life is a social experiment.'
We took that experiment over. We pay for that experiment. We are fine the way we are. And thanks for all the prims.

[Akane Nacht]

2 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

I was just thinking it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for LL to develop a small experimental new world.

I'd sure give it a try (if it was free to play). My issue with the sansar experiment was, I crashed repeatedly (not the fault of my pc or network). It reminded me greatly of Blue Mars - nice visuals, for the few seconds I can look at them. Since then I've spent a lot more time in open world games, and the bar for performance and what will hold my interest (and get my money) has raised considerably. I'm still in SL out of simple habit, not even all that attached to my inventory as I don't use 90% of it anyway. Sad to say it, as I really like the idea behind SL.

[NevaehHeartstrings]

It was former Lindens who created Cloud Party,  that was years ahead of Sansar/High Fidelity in terms of many things but it got bought up, shutdown without a care in the world for it's userbase(residents) so with SL its like that old faithful car you need to get to work in, it sometimes stalls out, sputters about, you just gotta keep turning the key a bit, baby it a little, while patting on the dash saying 'come old friend you can do it, you can make it!'

[Alwin Alcott]

4 hours ago, animats said:

The City of Paris has these signs in public locations to announce events. It would be a nice touch for SL to have those at info hubs. Plus, anyone who wants to place one on their property should be able to do so.

IF it is possible to make a split in the sort you want to show,  ánd constant moderation and action on the posted = shown events.... otherwise no thanks. It's now the most simple thing to simply ignore, but that has been a huge mess and cluttering of adult and other totally useless promotions.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Alwin Alcott

[Always Incognito]

6 hours ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

It was former Lindens who created Cloud Party,  that was years ahead of Sansar/High Fidelity in terms of many things but it got bought up, shutdown without a care in the world for it's userbase(residents) so with SL its like that old faithful car you need to get to work in, it sometimes stalls out, sputters about, you just gotta keep turning the key a bit, baby it a little, while patting on the dash saying 'come old friend you can do it, you can make it!'

I loved Cloud Party, it was amazing. I dont understand How it could just dissappear like that. It had such potential…

Edited August 3, 2022 by Always Incognito

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

A clean slate SL clone is an interesting concept. But for many reasons already stated above, it's unlikely to succeed.

It'd probably be more meaningful to sanitize the existing SL grid. That is, to clean up all the junk, especially on the mainland, that's been idly lingering around since the dawn of SL. I'm also curious what gives with the vast numbers of stacked rentals, literally hundreds of thousands of them, scattering the skies of mainland SL, eating up valuable space and energy for naught. It's almost as if some desperate wannabe land barons cling onto these, hoping that people will suddenly start to rent and live in them.

[Update] I quickly hopped into SL for a gloomy outlook of said stacked rentals:

A lot of them seem to be quite new even. One of those boxes you can rent and decorate with a measly 50 LI-worth of items:

That's high quality real-estate, right out of the box, that is.

This one was erected in December 21, so it seems, people are trying to reinvent the quick money making scheme over and over again. I guess, for the sake of freedom and habeas territorium, we just have to live with it. It's also making a point that, most likely, on a 'clean SL slate', the same ***** is going to happen all over again.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Arduenn Schwartzman