What happens when SL becomes very popular very fast?

[Andred Darwin]

1 hour ago, EliseAnne85 said:

You started your post about the economy, yep.  And this morning I just read we are possibly going into a long period of stagflation which means higher prices, higher unemployment and slow growth.

I believe what will take the Western world out of this slow growth is newer energy.  The whole world will change, including computers.  Chip makers are already now making energy efficient chips; those are in the pipeline being made now. 

ALM is a resource hog and what happens if Nvidia stops updating those resource hog chips? and full stop

In my country where I live our power grid is maxed out now and we get notices to reduce our power useage in emergency messages. 

ALM and PBR are both going to be resource hogs and LL and the need to reduce energy are two speeding trains out of control heading right towards each other ready to collide. 

By the time LL gets to trying to introduce PBR, people will have less money and Nvidia may just not even update these kinds of gaming chips that exist now which are power hogs.  Also, with PBR, I don't want to spend more money on stuff nor have to pay to upload four textures.  All companies trying to push up prices will find people will go elsewhere where it's cheaper.

Yes most places will go through some challenging times, economy, energy, etc...  my point was about the new user experience (which is the topic ... I guess... ) and what I wanted to bring up, is that there are options on the viewer to adapt the experience according to what your machine can do... ( be that make full use of your hardware or even reduce power consumption like you mentioned ), but its not easy to do that... and for sure it is one area of opportunity (along quite a few ) ...  I've seen the reaction of a new user, a few weeks ago while showing SL to a couple friends at their house.... a very "powerful" machine, and SL looked horrible with the default settings right after the installation visiting a place at the Destinations Guide... a few tweaks after, which are almost impossible for a new user to do right out of the gate,  the experience was completely different, I have also seen the reaction of someone when they learned a bit about EEP,  tweak the viewer LOD based on where they are in-world... how to make custom pictures... use the Black Dragon viewer, etc... the comment was... "omg its a new SL for me", the first impression matters...

In some machines, ALM can be a resource hog... but for others it would not really matter... that was my suggestion, make a lot easier to tweak it...

PBR I think it will be great, can reduce the number of textures and  scripting  if they can manage to implement it... may also bring more fun to tweaking objects /meshes in-world... ( you would not need to depend on the creator of a house for example for nice textures, or deal with Blender and alike... just change the material you either created or got it some other way, its way easier to create/use a material than wait for it to render in Blender, etc.. walls, bricks, roof, wood, etc... provided the object is set with mod permissions, that "old house" can become new  and shiny again with very little effort ).

Its easy to see and understand why users here at the forum are so "negative" about SL ( me too sometimes ) ... SL history of events ( old management ) explains everything... but I think its getting better, a lot better.. a few years ahead of any competitor in most areas (Philip got it right! lol) ... I like the idea, I like the game, and enjoy it a lot using it a few hours a week... also... in-world, you don't see that much "negativity" we see here, in fact completely the other way.. if anyone is new to the forums reading this...  just take it as is... just a forum... some people will try to come up with ideas, opinions, news (some quite good ones) and you may even learn a thing or two,  some are here just cause SL became their first life... and some just don't have anything else to do... 

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Andred Darwin said:

In some machines, ALM can be a resource hog... but for others it would not really matter... that was my suggestion, make a lot easier to tweak it...

I would think ALM is a resource hog period because it requires a bigger power supply.  I just don't know what these new energy efficient chips are going to be but they will use up less energy.  lol

As far as new users, 'what to do' as Sid says is important and looking good is important but there shouldn't be very much lag when one signs on as they don't have that big inventory.

I am not looking forward to PBR as it sounds like a resource hog to me if ALM has to be on at all times.  Resource hogs are going out of style is what I'm saying.

[Blaise Glendevon]

But have you considered not playing Second Life on the Antikythera mechanism, tho?

EDIT: OK. That was a little snarky. But, I'm serious. It's great that Linden Labs goes out of their way to try to retain old-timers on antiquated machinery. That's the kind of community building that keeps SL's biggest drawing point - its people - active. But there has to be a line somewhere where we decide "We need these developments to continue to grow the creativity of our content creators."

Edited October 14, 2022 by Blaise Glendevon

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

It's great that Linden Labs goes out of their way to try to retain old-timers on antiquated machinery.

..not everyone has money - it's not all about being "an old-timer"!

[Blaise Glendevon]

10 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

..not everyone has money - it's not all about being "an old-timer"!

Even the new enhancements we're talking about here don't require bleeding edge super high performance gaming machines. But you can't play SL on an emachine from 1999 forever. 

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

Even the new enhancements we're talking about here don't require bleeding edge super high performance gaming machines. But you can't play SL on an emachine from 1999 forever. 

I’m not sure an emachine would’ve made it to 2022

[Ceka Cianci]

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

While we're talking about the global economy, generally recessions and such have been good for my sales in SL. It's a lot cheaper to go shopping in SL, live your alternative life in SL, etc than it is to go out. It always seems like when times are bad in RL there's more demand to have a "not a lambo" parked outside your big virtual mansion in SL.

The last time things were bad globally, it was back when the banking crisis hit in the mid to late 2000's.

SL was inexpensive entertainment back then.. You didn't have to really invest anything like you do now to get an avatar up and running.. there was no mesh back then and Lindens cost 2 times less than they do now and prices were no where near as high as they are to go shopping in world..  you could set up an avatar and go on a shopping spree with 2k in your pocket..

Just streamer word of mouth to get set up in SL, they are saying around like 20K lindens, that's mesh head mesh body  some clothes and some accessories.

You didn't have as many options for online entertainment on the net back then as you have now, let alone inexpensive entertainment.  people being stuck in the house for two years, we can sure bet that they found a lot of those things to keep them entertained already..

I think if we were going to get a boom in SL from the global economy problems, we would have already seen it picking up. because it's not something coming, but something that's already been here and just getting worse.

I just don't think it's gonna be the boom like we had the last time.

 

[Blaise Glendevon]

25 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I’m not sure an emachine would’ve made it to 2022

I'm also not sure Firestorm runs on the Antikythera mechanism, either. I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole. 

 

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I'm also not sure Firestorm runs on the Antikythera mechanism, either. I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole. 

 

I know, I'm just laughing because I had an emachine back when I started SL and had a hard time running SL back then.

[vanettda Lassard]

When I paint a particularly awesome painting I invite everybody to enjoy my expository emotion and artistic torment. Mostly they don’t “get it.” They say, “Why don’t you paint flowers? Everybody loves flowers. Van Gogh painted flowers,” When a client asks for illustrated wheel barrows, THEN my family and friends “get it.” They swoon over my wheel barrows (I added flowers to the bin). I have no emotional connection to the work, but it pays the bills.

When I was a n00b, and SL was young, I evangelized SL like a long awaited second coming. I wanted my wife, brothers, parents and friends to join me on this extraordinary adventure. They didn’t get it. After a while I just stopped trying.

As a college instructor, I brought hundreds of students into SL, taught them the basics, and then used SL in my classroom. Two are still using it on their own. Two out of hundreds? After reflection… that seems about right.

For my whole life I’ve thought differently. I was an odd duck. I often stood alone with my solitary visions and was(am) completely comfortable with it. I don’t think that Linden Lab can add or do anything to effect this statistic. They can implement tech or interface or experience “flowers” to the experience, but most will still not “get it.”

I am probably cynical. We stalwart few are special. We “get it” although a lot of us can’t describe exactly the “it” we are getting. I view every resident that’s stuck around for a few months as gifted. We are rare and beautiful. Honestly, along with retention, LL should reward those of us who have stayed. I want my gold star lapel pin for a decade (or a year, or five years) of loyal service. 

[Blaise Glendevon]

4 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I know, I'm just laughing because I had an emachine back when I started SL and had a hard time running SL back then.

I am familiar. That sad trying to play the games on a machine that sounds like an industrial potato slicer life. 

[Ceka Cianci]

4 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

I know, I'm just laughing because I had an emachine back when I started SL and had a hard time running SL back then.

I remember when I started that i though lag was just a way of life.. then upgraded to some not so great dell.. LOL

When we got the one we have now which I think is our 3rd or fourth computer.. I could run SL and a few other programs , like photoshop a bunch of browser tabs plus be watching youtbe tutorials all at the same time..

When it was just SL with good performance, it was a whole other world.. hehehe

[Janet Voxel]

15 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I am familiar. That sad trying to play the games on a machine that sounds like an industrial potato slicer life. 

That may be the only thing a salesman tried to warn me about before I bought. But hey, I was broke and it was like $299. Except SL did this to it.

12 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I remember when I started that i though lag was just a way of life.. then upgraded to some not so great dell.. LOL

When we got the one we have now which I think is our 3rd or fourth computer.. I could run SL and a few other programs , like photoshop a bunch of browser tabs plus be watching youtbe tutorials all at the same time..

When it was just SL with good performance, it was a whole other world.. hehehe

Yeah, a Dell with a GT 240 was an upgrade from an emachine. Then I got with my husband, then boyfriend and he built me a PC that could handle more than one thing and I could actually SEE SL lol

Edited October 14, 2022 by Janet Voxel

[Ceka Cianci]

12 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

That may be the only thing a salesman tried to warn me about before I bought. But hey, I was broke and it was like $299. Except SL did this to it.

Yeah, a Dell with a GT 240 was an upgrade from an emachine. Then I got with my husband, then boyfriend and he built me a PC that could handle more than one thing and I could actually SEE SL lol

The first one I had, my father built and it was good for things like before there was highspeed internet..My brother liked unreal tournament.. and it lasted until one day I let the mouse cord get wrapped around my foot, then went to get some tea and pulled it off the stand.. hehehehe

Nobody said a word, we all just looked at it  for a few moments..

That thing, my father constructed a fan from a heat devil space heater to cool the cpu and the case.. but it was so loud when you turn that fan on ..lol like a plane taking off..

That's when we got the dell which was already used  when we got it.. hehehehe

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

Even the new enhancements we're talking about here don't require bleeding edge super high performance gaming machines. But you can't play SL on an emachine from 1999 forever. 

But on the "oldbies" topic, on these Forums, I recently had to explain to someone:

- What "NSFW" meant

- What "AFK" meant

- That not everyone could read their literally cursive font.

Yes. So they probably use a potato.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

That may be the only thing a salesman tried to warn me about before I bought. But hey, I was broke and it was like $299. Except SL did this to it.

So, SL did to your Dell what Bane did to Batman! At least it wasn't a "finishing move"..

[Janet Voxel]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So, SL did to your Dell what Bane did to Batman! At least it wasn't a "finishing move"..

It was the emachine SL did that to. It's back was broken for good though.

I ran with the Dell until about 2017 or so. Even a low end graphics card made a big difference.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Janet Voxel

[EliseAnne85]

2 hours ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I'm also not sure Firestorm runs on the Antikythera mechanism, either. I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole. 

 

I'm not engaging in a bit of hyperbole.  We *are* in a global energy crisis that could weigh on economies for years to come.  That said, updating is fine but I've said I believe LL needs two viewers to see who migrates to the new viewer or not, somewhat approaching it like they did Sansar.  Also, I simply think it's bad timing to except people to get a new computer to run ALM at all times.  The economy is what it is.  

When many of us migrated to SL during the banking crisis in the early 2000's, we all did not need to buy a new computer during that terrible economic time of The Great Recession.  The economy of today is different plus we are on the cusp of changing to energy efficiency including computing.  

The new metaverse needs to not only be easy to use, affordable and fun.  It needs to be energy efficient too.

[Arielle Popstar]

4 hours ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

But have you considered not playing Second Life on the Antikythera mechanism, tho?

EDIT: OK. That was a little snarky. But, I'm serious. It's great that Linden Labs goes out of their way to try to retain old-timers on antiquated machinery. That's the kind of community building that keeps SL's biggest drawing point - its people - active. But there has to be a line somewhere where we decide "We need these developments to continue to grow the creativity of our content creators."

Nothing stopping continued development but it does not need to come at the expense of a mandated hardware upgrade. Therein lies the point. Plenty have pointed out that even though they could run ALM, they prefer not to. A creator can choose to make their stuff in a way that might not be visible to that segment of the market but then that is their choice and all the power to them but just as there are plenty of r/l high end products that I will never be able to afford or maintain, the choice to purchase those should be left to me the consumer.

[Maryanne Solo]

The new razzle dazzle Meta virtual headset will fix everything for the entire metaverse!
Including everyone In SL!
-> Only <- $1500 Aud! 😲😆😂
and the poor old journalists still stutter and stammer trying to find a purpose for..... when attempting to explain the metaverse.
@ $1500 Aud, the stoopid thing should work BY ITSELF and not require plugging into a PC at all.

and therein lies the problem....
They're trying to sell the metaverse to the cell phone crew because the PC mob are too smart to pay that much for useless rubbish.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

14 minutes ago, Maryanne Solo said:

They're trying to sell the metaverse to the cell phone crew because the PC mob are too smart to pay that much for useless rubbish.

 

Or maybe they see the writing on the wall that since the PC is a slowly dying market and the mobile one is gaining more and more ground, they better come up with something to stay ahead of the curve. The cell and mobile are a necessity nowadays whereas high end gaming computers increasingly a luxury. Platforms that have no support for web and/or mobile connections will not survive or even be able to develop any sort of mass appeal. 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

With all this talk about how much additional power the new ALM only viewer will consume I'm just curious as to how it compares to the power consumption of the time machines y'all are using to travel to the future in order to test this new viewer which they haven't even finished writing yet?  

[Istelathis]

41 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Or maybe they see the writing on the wall that since the PC is a slowly dying market and the mobile one is gaining more and more ground, they better come up with something to stay ahead of the curve.

From my understanding, Moore's law had died a few years ago and there is little more that we can do to make transistors smaller. We have hit a point that in order for computers to be more powerful, they will need to be bigger.  There is talk of quantum computing to solve this, but we are still far off.  Due to this, I think we will actually start to see larger machines, as well as cloud computing in the near future.  

I think we will likely see faster connection speeds in the future, but the processing power of something that can fit in our pockets is not likely to increase significantly using the same architecture that we have been for decades.  For general gaming, it is going to require larger and larger computers I would imagine, either for streaming games or running them on our own computers.  I think it could go either way, depending on the consumers, some people will want to own the games and software on their own computers and others will be fine with paying a monthly fee for them and stream them through whatever device they prefer. 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Istelathis

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Istelathis said:

There is talk of quantum computing to solve this, but we are still far off. 

I hadn't even gotten to this part yet.  I heard quantum computers could be mainstream five years or less and that was about six months ago.  Many large corporations in America, I've heard, already have them.  

But, back down to reality and what is happening today and what is happening today could be a deep and prolonged period of stagflation.  I am leery of LL's timing for a new viewer where you can only see the stuff if you have a powerful computer and have to upload four textures which means raising prices and getting people to buy the new shiny, but that doesn't work well during bad economic times except for more essentials items and for even essentials people find ways to cut costs like making their own clothes or buying in bulk and splitting goods up.

The best thing the new LL is doing is making the new mesh avatars which could help newbies save money.  The whole world is walking on eggshells economically right now.   I just say it's a time to be cautious.  Let people migrate to the new viewer when they have the money to buy new hardware and don't force ALM.  I preferred the click on windlight system and still miss it - a lot.  Sometimes this new EEP and ALM lighting looks a bit "cartoony".  It's too bright or something...?    I dunno.  But, I am not a fan of it.  I used windlight and ALM to take photos and I thought it looked terrific, not cartoony.  

Edited October 15, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Rowan Amore]

9 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Sometimes this new EEP and ALM lighting looks a bit "cartoony".  It's too bright or something...?    I dunno.  But, I am not a fan of it.  I used windlight and ALM to take photos and I thought it looked terrific, not cartoony.  

All my recent pictures in the picture threads are region EEP settings with ALM on.  You can do some pretty amazing skies with EEP.  I can also gently brighten a dark scene without actually messing with the colors the region has set for different aspects of EEP.  I might move the sun around also to cast the shadows in a better direction.  It's really more adaptable to your preferences than WLs IMHO.