"Centralized Hubs"

[Rowan Amore]

What some people fail to understand is that most of SL avoids mainland.  Most places people go to are on private estates now.  Any populated places, aside from noob sex places on Zindra, are NOT on mainland.  Centralized hubs will turn into just another griefers paradise.  Anywhere new people are funneled will be the same.  

How SL was in the past is not how it currently is.

[diamond Marchant]

54 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's a fix for broken SL chat: it's called "Discord".

The user interface experience of real time SL+Discord is not favorable for some. Also, some residents eschew* Discord along with certain other social media :: cough Facebook ::

*  @Scylla Rhiadra started it by saying "we can cavil reasonably about the priorities"    lovely word, cavil

 

[Arielle Popstar]

5 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

What some people fail to understand is that most of SL avoids mainland.  Most places people go to are on private estates now.  Any populated places, aside from noob sex places on Zindra, are NOT on mainland.  Centralized hubs will turn into just another griefers paradise.  Anywhere new people are funneled will be the same.  

How SL was in the past is not how it currently is.

Where you get that idea? Most people haven't a clue what continent they are on because it isn't stated anywhere that I know of when jumping from place to place. It was only by asking a friend who had a house i seen mentioned in the forums that I had an idea i might have been in  in Bellisera, it was only because Animats mentioned a specific region in Zindra and I went there that I know I have actually been on Zindra. Most of S/L couldn't give a flying fig what continent they are on as long as what they are searching for is where it is supposed to be.

[Coffee Pancake]

37 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

They weren't lag fests

Yes prok. they were untenable lag fests.

What's the worst thing you can do to a someone teleporting to a new location on a DSL modem with objectively no video memory by todays standards .. that's right, flood them with hundreds of full resolution textures from a region bogged down sending out texture data to other residents - this was before the mighty CDN and regions had to serve up everything. It was a garbage user experience built on top of the old style garbage region architecture. Thank programmers we're not suffering that on the daily anymore!

They were the worst eyesores on mainland and always run by the best and most considerate people, escaping them was a chore that felt like you were stuck in treacle held back by rubber bands that would likely snap and send you orbiting off to oblivion.

Philip had a lot of ideas about how SL should work and most of them were junk that got dumped in the trash. Likely after he was forced to suffer them personally for more than 5 minutes.

Nothing changes policy faster than trying to demo the brave new world and having to explain why it's garbage because you're trapped in some idiots bandwidth obliterating mall.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Coffee Pancake

[Rowan Amore]

34 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Where you get that idea? Most people haven't a clue what continent they are on because it isn't stated anywhere that I know of when jumping from place to place. It was only by asking a friend who had a house i seen mentioned in the forums that I had an idea i might have been in  in Bellisera, it was only because Animats mentioned a specific region in Zindra and I went there that I know I have actually been on Zindra. Most of S/L couldn't give a flying fig what continent they are on as long as what they are searching for is where it is supposed to be.

You can easily look at the map and see you aren't on mainland.

[Nick0678]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's a fix for broken SL chat: it's called "Discord".

Mhm.. using a third party Text chat client (Discord) while in a 3D chat client(Second Life), is how things should be done.

It makes perfect sense actually, it's like going camping with the family, using your station wagon... towed by your motorcycle.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Mhm.. using a third party Text chat client (Discord) while in a 3D chat client(Second Life), is how things should be done.

It makes perfect sense actually, it's like going camping with the family, using your station wagon... towed by your motorcycle.

I think it's a great thing,  this symbiosis among the giant Internet companies. It's what Nature intended. See, if you had one of those giant RVs, you couldn't break off with the motorcycle and go riding out in the badlands, you know? And if you didn't have the car, you couldn't take the family easily to the drive-in fast-food etc and tool around town and park easily. It's actually a good solution. 

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yes prok. they were untenable lag fests.

What's the worst thing you can do to a someone teleporting to a new location on a DSL modem with objectively no video memory by todays standards .. that's right, flood them with hundreds of full resolution textures from a region bogged down sending out texture data to other residents - this was before the mighty CDN and regions had to serve up everything. It was a garbage user experience built on top of the old style garbage region architecture. Thank programmers we're not suffering that on the daily anymore!

They were the worst eyesores on mainland and always run by the best and most considerate people, escaping them was a chore that felt like you were stuck in treacle held back by rubber bands that would likely snap and send you orbiting off to oblivion.

Philip had a lot of ideas about how SL should work and most of them were junk that got dumped in the trash. Likely after he was forced to suffer them personally for more than 5 minutes.

Nothing changes policy faster than trying to demo the brave new world and having to explain why it's garbage because you're trapped in some idiots bandwidth obliterating mall.

You're just selectively remembering them, but if you go out and actually look at them -- and had you visited them back in the day -- you would find they weren't lag fests.

When you landed at Brownlee -- which actually has more on it now in the form of a Mole juice bar then it back in the pre-p2p days, you were in a stubby telehub building, Chicago style, the Mole favourite, which was not at all a texture burden. You had plenty of grass and trees -- Nature! -- all around you so there was no building to rez. No textures. As you walked over to the few stores there -- Outy's Particle Station was one surely you'd approve of -- you would see everything fine, even the particle examples. 

Everyone but you and a handful of tekkie oldbies shopped at them, rented at them, and produced most of the commerce of SL on them.

The Lindens have been unable to recapture that freedom and prosperity ever since. Chasing a tekkie dream of p2p, they only bought the ability for griefers to pinpoint and land on your head better.

I remember the first thing I did when p2p was put in, since I had Philip's friendship card back in the day and his map location was shown, I TP'd on to his head so he'd be aware of what he had just unleashed.

I honest to God think he hadn't thought of that at all, like a lot of engineers, they don't think in the round always.

But even suffering personally for 30 seconds with me landing on his head made him heed another endless oldbie whine -- how can I have friends but hide from them? I don't want to cut their cards, but they bother me.

So he then introduced more granularity where you could hide your log-ins and yourself on the map.

Once again, most of the telehubs were not in fact "bandwidth obliteraing malls". In fact, a majority of them didn't even have malls, which are time consuming and expensive to run -- you had to be able to bid very high on the auctions to buy the very expensive land which the Lindens set at a high price deliberately, knowing that it was good for commerce. And that's how they made money.

How did they make money after that?

Well, not as well, for awhile, until finally they got islands working better.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Spending money is not at all a terrible thing, and in SL, your entertainment dollar stretches very far. I just got an "ugly Christmas sweater" for only 50L on FLF for example and I'm completely happy with the start and finish of my holiday clothing shopping lol.

People spend money anyways, and why not have them steered to places where they will get help, find Blaise's YouTubes or whatever because it is hella hard doing all that stuff. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the motivation of the helper being that they get paid for their content, if not for their time.

This is how liberal democratic societies under the rule of law work in RL, including your own RL society, and how they can work in SL. You can move the socialism slider up or down, ,but newbies already get an enormous amount of socialism in SL and the Lindens really do need to spend more time and attention on how their co-creators of this world get paid -- or they will leave. The devaluation of the Linden dollar is a big problem.

The Lindens will do what they're going to do, with their little friends, regardless. But it should sting. They should realize there is some cost to this old groove. And adjust it. It would cost them nothing except some small amount of staff time to vet the self-uploaded ads and in fact enhance their world. I suppose they could even put the ads in a queue like requests to be in Destinations. After all, they handle that with alacrity more or less so there's no reason why they couldn't handle an ad system *that pays them* in either sinks or sources.

My concerns about focusing too much upon this as a marketing venture aren't really ideological: for well over 99% of residents, the stakes and sums involved in "capitalism" are so low that it what we have here is mostly a pretty harmless simulacrum of a real capitalist economy.

Rather, I'm concerned about the impressions it might convey to new residents. SL is much much more than a giant mall (although, yes, it is that sometimes) and money pit.

The additional point is that most noobs will have no idea how to spend their money, or what they should expend it on. For most, first priority will be avatar customization, and our "system" for that is so byzantine and involved that they will have absolutely no idea how to go about purchasing the bodies, heads, skins, hair, etc. that they would need to upgrade their appearance. Do we really want to send someone who's been in SL for a few hours off to LeLutka to buy a head? So what exactly will we advertise to noobs if not such things? Land? Houses and furnishings they have nowhere to place?

I'm hoping that the forthcoming NUX bodies will mitigate this problem somewhat, make it less imperative that they immediately upgrade to new bodies and heads (because there will be mesh clothing and hair that will work with these already), and also "training" them in how mesh bodies, heads, skins, BoM, HUDs, etc. work.

[Prokofy Neva]

35 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

My concerns about focusing too much upon this as a marketing venture aren't really ideological: for well over 99% of residents, the stakes and sums involved in "capitalism" are so low that it what we have here is mostly a pretty harmless simulacrum of a real capitalist economy.

Rather, I'm concerned about the impressions it might convey to new residents. SL is much much more than a giant mall (although, yes, it is that sometimes) and money pit.

The additional point is that most noobs will have no idea how to spend their money, or what they should expend it on. For most, first priority will be avatar customization, and our "system" for that is so byzantine and involved that they will have absolutely no idea how to go about purchasing the bodies, heads, skins, hair, etc. that they would need to upgrade their appearance. Do we really want to send someone who's been in SL for a few hours off to LeLutka to buy a head? So what exactly will we advertise to noobs if not such things? Land? Houses and furnishings they have nowhere to place?

I'm hoping that the forthcoming NUX bodies will mitigate this problem somewhat, make it less imperative that they immediately upgrade to new bodies and heads (because there will be mesh clothing and hair that will work with these already), and also "training" them in how mesh bodies, heads, skins, BoM, HUDs, etc. work.

New residents aren't children or poor people or actual RL migrants or refugees. They are ordinary people like you or me who have disposable time and money -- which is why they even come to a virtual world in the first place. They can have one or two less lattes.

Maybe avatar customization ISN'T their first priority -- the library avatars now are perfectly adequate.

Yes, you want to send people to Lelutka to buy a head. I don't want to do that after 18 years, even, but a new person should be able to see that option -- and see it quick, and see it in a fair manner, where other companies' heads are also shown or rotated in. That's why the old rotating ad system was really a good solution.

As you know, it is terrible that people, new or old, should be judged by their appearance. 

[cunomar]

13 hours ago, animats said:

Neumogen

Gets no results in the search box ?

 

Found it via google and after falling through the air for close to 30 seconds i landed in what seems a big place to walk about so thanks for that .

Edited December 24, 2022 by cunomar
add

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

As you know, it is terrible that people, new or old, should be judged by their appearance. 

Makes more sense to educate those who judge, than to provide ever more increasingly easy ways for newbies to "improve" their appearance. Unless you were being ironic.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

11 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Self-interested land barons already control swathes of the Mainland in part because the Lindens run a very flawed auction system with no transparency so that we cannot see who jacks up every auction with bids so that only an actual end-user on that sim most interested in that land pays an inflated price for the land. If these names could be known, along with their alts, they'd make a lot less sales and they might find simple shame would work on them to stop this atrocious practice.

I HATE land barons.  I remember on an auction I was bidding on this nice parcel and last minute a baron swooped in and snagged it.  Shortly after I got an offer to buy the land at an greatly inflated price.  One of the things that deflated my interest in SL.  A few months later I sold my club off (due to drama from some performers) and took a step back.

I still troll around the mboard here now and then.

[Arielle Popstar]

21 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

You can easily look at the map and see you aren't on mainland.

Feel free to point out how I would know that because I see nothing on the map that tells me what continent I'm on or where the other continents are.

[Rowan Amore]

38 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Feel free to point out how I would know that because I see nothing on the map that tells me what continent I'm on or where the other continents are.

Seriously?  All those little dots out in the water are private regions.  The large land mass is mainland.  You honestly don't know this?  Never wondered why you can't sail off private islands?   This might help you...

Maps of Second Life | Austin Tate's Blog (ed.ac.uk)

Also, when you open About Land it will tell you Mainland or Estate.  

Edited December 24, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Arielle Popstar]

31 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Seriously?  All those little dots out in the water are private regions.  The large land mass is mainland.  You honestly don't know this?  Never wondered why you can't sail off private islands?   This might help you...

Maps of Second Life | Austin Tate's Blog (ed.ac.uk)

Also, when you open About Land it will tell you Mainland or Estate.  

Yes seriously and even your explanation doesn't clarify it nor point out what in the map tells me what continent I am on or what continent I am going to. The fact that you had to use a link to an external blog which again doesn't say much, tells me there is not much clear information where these continents are for the majority of S/L residents and is only known to maybe a few of the forum geriatrics, who determine it by looking at map clues rather than a clear labeling. I'll stick to my point that few in the general population have much of a clue and could care less.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

I doubt Rowan was trying to suggest that residents are looking through landmarks and saying "I'm not going to that sim, I just don't like the continent it's on...", I believe the point Rowan was trying to make is that the majority of popular destinations are hosted on private regions rather than any of the mainland continents.

It's not about residents choosing to avoid certain continents, it's about the majority of people responsible for creating and maintaining these destinations choosing to house them on private regions.

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I doubt Rowan was trying to suggest that residents are looking through landmarks and saying "I'm not going to that sim, I just don't like the continent it's on...", I believe the point Rowan was trying to make is that the majority of popular destinations are hosted on private regions rather than any of the mainland continents.

It's not about residents choosing to avoid certain continents, it's about the majority of people responsible for creating and maintaining these destinations choosing to house them on private regions.

How about, I don't like the owner of that Private Region?

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

How about, I don't like the owner of that Private Region?

That's probably far more likely given the number of threads complaining about people getting banned from some random region because of a dispute with the owner/staff but, other than the occasional clash of egos, I honestly doubt that the majority of people that randomly hop around from sim to sim looking for popular places/people to interact with know or even care who the owner of the region is.

[Rowan Amore]

17 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I doubt Rowan was trying to suggest that residents are looking through landmarks and saying "I'm not going to that sim, I just don't like the continent it's on...", I believe the point Rowan was trying to make is that the majority of popular destinations are hosted on private regions rather than any of the mainland continents.

It's not about residents choosing to avoid certain continents, it's about the majority of people responsible for creating and maintaining these destinations choosing to house them on private regions.

Thanks, Fluffy.  That was my point exactly.   I assumed most people knew how to distinguish easily when they are on mainland.  I may not know what continent but I DO know when it's mainland simply by opening the about land tab.

 

22 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Yes seriously and even your explanation doesn't clarify it nor point out what in the map tells me what continent I am on or what continent I am going to. The fact that you had to use a link to an external blog which again doesn't say much, tells me there is not much clear information where these continents are for the majority of S/L residents and is only known to maybe a few of the forum geriatrics, who determine it by looking at map clues rather than a clear labeling. I'll stick to my point that few in the general population have much of a clue and could care less.

See Fluffy's explanation above.  

[Arielle Popstar]

10 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Honestly, the content of the post in question seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

Had the first sentence of the post said "What some people fail to understand is that most of SL (region owners) avoids mainland", it would have been as you understood it. However, it was not written that way.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Had the first sentence of the post said "What some people fail to understand is that most of SL (region owners) avoids mainland", it would have been as you understood it. However, it was not written that way.

The first sentence was

On 12/23/2022 at 9:39 PM, Rowan Amore said:

What some people fail to understand is that most of SL avoids mainland.

and the very next sentence clarifies the point being made by saying

On 12/23/2022 at 9:39 PM, Rowan Amore said:

Most places people go to are on private estates now.

It really helps if you read all of the post and try to understand the context of what's being said rather than simply reading until you find something you disagree with then replying.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Yes seriously and even your explanation doesn't clarify it nor point out what in the map tells me what continent I am on or what continent I am going to. The fact that you had to use a link to an external blog which again doesn't say much, tells me there is not much clear information where these continents are for the majority of S/L residents and is only known to maybe a few of the forum geriatrics, who determine it by looking at map clues rather than a clear labeling. I'll stick to my point that few in the general population have much of a clue and could care less.

I'll make this simple for you as you are obviously having trouble understanding how the map works...

The BIG patches of land are... Continents.

The tiny patches of land are... Private Estates.

The yellow dot indicates... Your Location.

 

If you can't tell that the yellow dot isn't on one of the BIG patches of land, then the "research skills" that you boast about using in all your posts are literally not worth a damn...

[Rowan Amore]

Go to almost any of the winter regions featured in the Destination Guide.  A vast majority are on Private regions as are most stores and clubs.  When to Teleport.to.Destination and the map.opens, it's quite obvious when it's on a.private estate as it's completely isolated.  There were a few place in Winter that were on mainland which again was obvious as you could see the continent if you zoomed.out.

People buy private estates to build what they envision.  Some will rent on private estates to have their store.  

I didn't say people avoid mainland specifically BECAUSE it's mainland but because what they are looking for or interested in is on a.private estate.  Zindra being the exception if people are looking for Adult although many of the most.popular adult venues aren't on mainland.

[Arielle Popstar]

30 minutes ago, Zalificent said:

I'll make this simple for you as you are obviously having trouble understanding how the map works...

The BIG patches of land are... Continents.

The tiny patches of land are... Private Estates.

The yellow dot indicates... Your Location.

 

If you can't tell that the yellow dot isn't on one of the BIG patches of land, then the "research skills" that you boast about using in all your posts are literally not worth a damn...

This map of the S/L grid with the various continents shows Private regions/estates adjacent to each other and the tiny patches being just private islands, so it appears a Private Region is not necessarily just a one of in the middle of a non contiguous sea but can also be a part of a contiguous land mass/continent other than the Mainland.

• Want to build and control a Second Life experience with or without adjacent neighbors. 

 

Feel free to continue handwaving.