SL new user retention, expectation and usability

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

* Imagining in progress * I imagine that must be quite upsetting. 

Assuming we are imagining your actual situation:

Theresa Tennyson whispers, "We aren't."

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson whispers, "We aren't."

Love shivers involuntarily from the ASMR.

[EliseAnne85]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

* Imagining in progress * I imagine that must be quite upsetting. 

Assuming we are imagining your actual situation: Perhaps this means your rig is lacking in some ways that actually count for Second Life. My 10 year old machine works fine on higher settings.

If we are imagining some hypothetical scenario: Hypothetical scenarios do not raise to the same level of concern.

https://secondlife.com/system-requirements

I cannot imagine a $3000 dollar computer running at 10 FPS @TimKoul.  I think the rig is lacking in something as well.  

However, for lower end machines why don't they build a SL in the sky?  It could say notice:  Your computer is low end, please visit our SL in the sky lands.  You are being teleported there now. (for exmaple)

Speaking of sky lands, why doesn't SL have more skylands?  What do they actually need ground for - the ocean or what?   The ground is way more laggy.  

[Lindal Kidd]

34 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I cannot imagine a $3000 dollar computer running at 10 FPS @TimKoul.  I think the rig is lacking in something as well.  

However, for lower end machines why don't they build a SL in the sky?  It could say notice:  Your computer is low end, please visit our SL in the sky lands.  You are being teleported there now. (for exmaple)

Speaking of sky lands, why doesn't SL have more skylands?  What do they actually need ground for - the ocean or what?   The ground is way more laggy.  

It's not the ground or the ocean that makes life at the surface laggy, it's user-added textures. People slap 1024x1024 textures on everything, just because they can. It only takes a few of those to start giving even the fastest video card a workout.

[TimKoul]

1 hour ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I cannot imagine a $3000 dollar computer running at 10 FPS @TimKoul.  I think the rig is lacking in something as well.

So because you don't understand how something works, it's just easier to blame the rig. Ok.

A high end rig can run Doom Eternal at its highest settings with ray tracing at 60+ fps. And 60 is the minimum. Second Life has an ultra setting and using the same rig barely gets 30-40 fps in ultra. Sometimes lower. That's going to events, a few clubs, mainstores...not just standing still on a platform in the sky.

What I am getting at is that the ultra settings in Second Life makes no sense. You turn on shadows and your fps drops dramatically. Second Life was not designed to be graphically appealing. That's why a 10 year old computer can still run it on mid-high without a problem because 10 year old rigs don't have all the advanced shinies of a modern $3000 rig. A 10 year old rig cannot run Doom Eternal on its highest settings with ray tracing and survive but can absolutely run Second Life without issue.

Second Life doesn't utilize any modern hardware whatsoever and only uses a single core. That's my point and also a huge problem for the Lab when it comes to retaining new users.

Nobody wants a 10 year old computer. And in this day and age, a 10 year old computer belongs in either the trash or a museum and if Second Life doesn't change, the same can be said for the program.

[cunomar]

Again who are you trying to appeal to ?

For nerds SL will always be old tech because it wasn't invented this morning .

I only learned what FPS was because of SL and the best i can recall getting is maybe 28 which on my computer is no different from 10fps when in SL . Not sure where else i should look for it because the most trying thing my laptop does otherwise is play youtube videos .

Windows 10 is hated because they thought it would be fun to force people to be nerds , prior to that people were learning despite having absolutely no interest in how or why it works just so long as it does . Learning used to be fun .

When i look at settings its to turn stuff off hoping to simplify . Those with computer smarts know how to turn stuff on and fine tune .

 

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, TimKoul said:

Second Life doesn't utilize any modern hardware whatsoever and only uses a single core. That's my point and also a huge problem for the Lab when it comes to retaining new users.

This is true, you are absolutely correct. Second Life does not exploit advances in GPUs (e.g.  RTX ray tracing) or multi-core CPUs (so I have been told).

I only use the Ultra setting for photos, when FPS is irrelevant.

Second Life is just NOT a high-end gamer platform and new users that require that will not stay. FULL STOP.

Note that at any one moment, all the online residents of Second Life could be seated in a US major league baseball stadium. Not many of us. Future not bright, no need for shades. Barring an unexpected mass infusion of cash, not likely SL will ever be graphically upgraded.

On the other hand, if the cash did appear... I would be inclined to go in the opposite direction... getting SL to work on mobile devices (I know this has been previously attempted but understand that those attempts were "suboptimal").

 

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, TimKoul said:

Second Life doesn't utilize any modern hardware whatsoever and only uses a single core. That's my point and also a huge problem for the Lab when it comes to retaining new users.

This gets explained a lot here ..

SL does make use of your hardware. It just makes use of it in different ways to a game, the reason it doesn't and cant run like a game is the same as the reason for all the things SL does that games don't do .. on purpose .. because they are bad for performance. They don't make games like SL. If they did, it would be to teach people how not to make games. SL has a a huge amount of work to do each and every frame preparing what's going to be rendered, fetching assets and textures, decoding stuff, moving data between ram and the GPU. 

But the point that people come to SL and expect something that looks and runs like a game on gamer hardware is a big deal and something we need to do much better with.

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

SL does make use of your hardware. It just makes use of it in different ways to a game, the reason it doesn't and cant run like a game is the same as the reason for all the things SL does that games don't do .. on purpose .. because they are bad for performance.

Bausch AND Lomb!

A "core" is a synonym for "processor". Computing machinery with multiple cores can execute multiple computations simultaneously. An application, such as a viewer, is said to be multi-threaded if it is composed of independent sub-tasks. A modern operating system running a multi-threaded app on a multi-core CPU can execute sub-tasks simultaneously, thereby improving performance. That is the point. This has been the case since at least the 1960s and is general purpose. For an example of how synchronization of concurrent algorithms was described back then, see the Dining Philosophers Problem as posed by Dijkstra.

Development of concurrent algorithms is often difficult, but the performance improvements can be great.

Edited August 29, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Coffee Pancake]

46 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Development of concurrent algorithms is often difficult, but the performance improvements can be great.

SL does have a ton of stuff that could be farmed out to lots and lots of cores .. the rub comes when you need to get all your ducks in a line to do some rendering. OpenGL does us no favors. 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Coffee Pancake

[Sorina Garrigus]

In the olden days all there was, was mainland. And it was a bit easier to find content then. But with things on islands ... it's kind of hard to find such things. One of the problems is people keep saying Second Life is a game. This is a BIG problem. Because when you come to the "game" Second Life ... there is no game. People should stop telling people it is a game but call it what it is ...  a virtual world. And in that world there are games in it, jobs, businesses etc. But when you call it a game people look for how to play it ... they find nothing of course. 

The other thing is they need a good way to find legit content. I have a board game cafe, a card room (legally played games of course non money) and a video arcade. I am still building another aspect of it but it is hard to reach people. Perhaps LL needs to have a program that can link content to content. Maybe a hud system where you can look for the type of content. Search ... well it is crap especially now a days. Another option is to borrow from things like youtube and netflix and such. have a standardized hud that can help recommend content based on what you done before. That is the problem especially with new people finding content ... that and people calling it a game and they come to find there is no game. So stop doing that. It is just a silly Troll argument. I have a board game store in RL and boardgame hobbiests do the same kind of thing. A game without a ton of strategy like a party game they will say "it's not a game ... it an activity". 

[Arielle Popstar]

Just rename or start advertising it as a virtual dating game and no doubt the user retention will climb drastically and the graphics and lag will become of secondary importance.

[Harmony Evergarden]

Something to consider is that all kinds of people come for all kinds of reasons. Some people come to play Barbies...to shop and dress. Some come to build, some to decorate, some to play families, some to find others with the same physical disabilities. Those people who decorate a new house every week are living the Second Life they choose...it's not a commentary on consumer culture...it is what they came to do. Others came to chat with people who share the same interests or goals, be it Star Trek, fairy tales, 2-D art, travel, or whatever. Every new resident is not a gamer looking to win at a video game. There are lots of people who DO stay for the very reasons I came and stay. 

[Sorina Garrigus]

42 minutes ago, Harmony Evergarden said:

Something to consider is that all kinds of people come for all kinds of reasons. Some people come to play Barbies...to shop and dress. Some come to build, some to decorate, some to play families, some to find others with the same physical disabilities. Those people who decorate a new house every week are living the Second Life they choose...it's not a commentary on consumer culture...it is what they came to do. Others came to chat with people who share the same interests or goals, be it Star Trek, fairy tales, 2-D art, travel, or whatever. Every new resident is not a gamer looking to win at a video game. There are lots of people who DO stay for the very reasons I came and stay. 

Exactly. This is why people that call it a game should just call it what it is ... a virtual world. People call it a game and people come to check out the "game" to find out there is no game. Your description is pretty spot on. 

[Finite]

Sorry shopping and dressing up is a game to me that I enjoy. Mix and matching outfits, telling friends about deals. All that. Is basically what I “play” for. Plus “game”comes off the tongue much easier than “virtual world” and is easier to understand. Besides, SL isn’t the only “game” that could be also considered a virtual world. If you’ve ever followed or watched any nopixel GTA RP you’d know what I mean.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Finite

[EliseAnne85]

10 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

It's not the ground or the ocean that makes life at the surface laggy, it's user-added textures. People slap 1024x1024 textures on everything, just because they can. It only takes a few of those to start giving even the fastest video card a workout.

I think the ground is laggier, not that I'm disagreeing about the 1024's.  But, I was thinking that if SL made skylands and then allowed the viewer to click on an info brochure about skylands and include information on optimization that might be a good way to get a new generation of SL optimization builders.  When I went to building schools no one ever taught me about optimization.  I learned it just by accident by reading about SL stuff one day AFTER I'd made many things.

But, optimization was on my mind also when I thought why not just make some skylands and make them optimized because people aren't joining SL to look at the ocean or the sky.  They want socialization and fun, or learning how to be a content creator, or slex.  But for lower end laptops, I think skylands and optimization might work.  They could receive some tp's to teleport around and look.  People creating skylands would have to agree to optimization so I was thinking why not SL itself just make the main skyland sims and optimize them.  Then if they rent a private skybox at least they'd know how to look for some optimized content.  

[Scylla Rhiadra]

21 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I think the ground is laggier, not that I'm disagreeing about the 1024's.  But, I was thinking that if SL made skylands and then allowed the viewer to click on an info brochure about skylands and include information on optimization that might be a good way to get a new generation of SL optimization builders.  When I went to building schools no one ever taught me about optimization.  I learned it just by accident by reading about SL stuff one day AFTER I'd made many things.

But, optimization was on my mind also when I thought why not just make some skylands and make them optimized because people aren't joining SL to look at the ocean or the sky.  They want socialization and fun, or learning how to be a content creator, or slex.  But for lower end laptops, I think skylands and optimization might work.  They could receive some tp's to teleport around and look.  People creating skylands would have to agree to optimization so I was thinking why not SL itself just make the main skyland sims and optimize them.  Then if they rent a private skybox at least they'd know how to look for some optimized content.  

I may be wrong about this, but I think the reason that platforms and skyboxes are currently less laggy than ground level is because they are less built up.

If you start crowding a particular altitude with structures and stuff to accommodate lots of people, it's likely to become just as laggy as the ground.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra
The ground is "laggy." I am "leggy."

[Ardy Lay]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I may be wrong about this, but I think the reason that platforms and skyboxes are currently less leggy than ground level is because they are less built up.

If you start crowding a particular altitude with structures and stuff to accommodate lots of people, it's likely to become just as leggy as the ground.

Wow.  You nailed it without having to quote Yogi Berra.  I was struggling with that.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Wow.  You nailed it without having to quote Yogi Berra.  I was struggling with that.

"I'm smarter than your average be . . ."

No, wait. That's the wrong one, right?

[Ardy Lay]

Just now, Scylla Rhiadra said:

"I'm smarter than your average be . . ."

No, wait. That's the wrong one, right?

I think either is valid in an open forum.

[EliseAnne85]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I may be wrong about this, but I think the reason that platforms and skyboxes are currently less leggy than ground level is because they are less built up.

If you start crowding a particular altitude with structures and stuff to accommodate lots of people, it's likely to become just as leggy as the ground.

Don't think I didn't wonder that myself because of course I did.  It's logical.  The thing is:  I'm not a geek, I don't know how many altitudes there are or how much  "stuff" we are talking about.  If the idea I had is possible, keep the structures to a minimum, use optimization, etc.   

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Don't think I didn't wonder that myself because of course I did.  It's logical.  The thing is:  I'm not a geek, I don't know how many altitudes there are or how much  "stuff" we are talking about.  If the idea I had is possible, keep the structures to a minimum, use optimization, etc.   

Again . . . not a geek either! But I don't think there are particular "altitudes" (although I do know that altitude can effect how some mesh appears) as such. It's about how much is within draw distance that your computer has to render. Overall, optimized mesh, more sparse (and less complex) structures, smaller textures that are reused (tiled, and so forth) is going to have the same kind of positive impact on the ground that it would in the air.

In the meantime, the SL sky is already pretty polluted with junk -- skyboxes, platforms, abandoned vehicles and god-knows-what-else -- all of which can be a hazard for flying. I don't think there's anything wrong with putting some stuff in the air. But building a "facility" there for people probably doesn't make a lot of sense?

[EliseAnne85]

15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

skyboxes, platforms, abandoned vehicles and god-knows-what-else -- all of which can be a hazard for flying. I don't think there's anything wrong with putting some stuff in the air. But building a "facility" there for people probably doesn't make a lot of sense?

Many events I go to are in rented skyboxes with a much sparser landscape because the event is about the people not the stuff, and there isn't lag.  It still looks nice, more like an open meadow for an outdoor concert.  If people want to just socialize and have fun, or find romance or are looking for slex, why cut them out when their computer can't handle it? 

I know the sky is littered.  I have several landlords I've worked with over the years.  I rented a sky space on abandoned mainland.  It had virtually no lag and it was littered with stuff people weren't even using but all that litter caused me no lag.  I've heard there are different altitudes but I don't know what it means or how it would affect anything.  

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Just rename or start advertising it as a virtual dating game and no doubt the user retention will climb drastically and the graphics and lag will become of secondary importance.

at the very least take the "remote meetings" slug off the website and put in one about making friends and dating.

Everyone wants more friends. No one wants more meetings. How is this not obvious.

[Finite]

37 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

at the very least take the "remote meetings" slug off the website and put in one about making friends and dating.

Everyone wants more friends. No one wants more meetings. How is this not obvious.

Agreed totally. If they couldn’t draw a market for that during Covid it will never happen.