Question for Lindens.

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

Consider it like this. Already more then 50% of computing devices use a mobile platform or one compatible with it (Chrome OS) so at the very least, S/L could potentially see a doubling of its concurrency if it had a mobile viewer. Also consider that quite a few PC's are not capable of accessing S/L because they don't have a video card capable of running anything other than a text viewer or at best, Radegast. So there would be a greater number of mobile devices having the ability to access S/L vs the PC.

Yes, those are considerations.

Pretty clear-cut, as we all walk around staring at our phones, not at notebooks, laptops, or desktop PC's / Macs / Linux devices. (Yes, the phones may be Linux devices.)

Getting SL to "work well" and render 3D on phones is the issue, I think. (Duh, I am teh smart.)

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes, those are considerations.

Pretty clear-cut, as we all walk around staring at our phones, not at notebooks, laptops, or desktop PC's / Macs / Linux devices. (Yes, the phones may be Linux devices.)

Getting SL to "work well" and render 3D on phones is the issue, I think. (Duh, I am teh smart.)

Quite a few phones have the capability to cast their screens to bigger monitors and the ability to render on a regular phone allowed me to do this already a few years ago:

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Quite a few phones have the capability to cast their screens to bigger monitors and the ability to render on a regular phone allowed me to do this already a few years ago:

D'oh! You got me, I should have known this was a "Lumiya could do it.." trap!

[Paul Hexem]

51 minutes ago, Gavin Hird said:

Every mobile user needs a login slot on the servers, inventory, group, IM and other server resources more or less in the same line as a fully logged in users. The exception being if you only want to make a chat type of login, but that defeats the purpose of mobile users having kit in their hands which are as powerful as yesteryear's desktops and therefore could run a fully logged in experience. 

Again... This assumes that mobile will somehow create significantly more users.

[Arielle Popstar]

12 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

D'oh! You got me, I should have known this was a "Lumiya could do it.." trap!

Not a trap for anyone who has been around for a while and is aware that S/L had a viewer capable of rendering a 3d scene on mobile already 10 years ago.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Again... This assumes that mobile will somehow create significantly more users.

Can't fail to if S/L was give new people access to a direct download of a Lab supported Mobile viewer alongside their regular viewer. In past it was only available to those who dug around a little. I'd agree with Gavin that the rush to use it would put such a load on the servers that S/L couldn't handle it.

[Orwar]

   Putting SL on mobile makes as much sense as putting Minesweeper on an N64. I mean you could, and they did, after turning it into a 3D Mario game - but then is it really Minesweeper or is it a platformer where Minesweeper just becomes a gimmicky game level? 

   If you want a mobile app to chat with people, there's no shortage of options - putting SL on there as a quirky 'yeah but you can kind of sort of also see a virtual world although your interactions with it are going to be pretty fricking severely limited compared to everyone else in it, and changing clothes or building stuff which is kind of the main things people do in that virtual world is going to make cat herding seem convenient'-layer to it doesn't come off as a competitive alternative to Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, or Skype. 

   .. Is Skype still a thing even? Googles it. Yeah. Skype is still a thing. .. .. Wait, why is Skype still a thing? .. .. Woah, ICQ is still a thing?! 

[Gavin Hird]

34 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Again... This assumes that mobile will somehow create significantly more users.

It you place a client in the iOS store, it immediately becomes available to 1.5 billion active users. Even if 0.1% of those downloaded and tried the client, it represents 1,5 million users, which easily could happen within days if hyped up by media.

[Gavin Hird]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Much of the mess comes from different versions combined with issues resulting from amateurs (like me) setting up the networks. Much if not all the mess would be circumvented by using the same version setup by the same network engineers.

It would still need quite a bit of rework to work properly, but not least the backend databases to handle multiple large grids is a scalability issue in itself. 

[Istelathis]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Can't fail to if S/L was give new people access to a direct download of a Lab supported Mobile viewer alongside their regular viewer. In past it was only available to those who dug around a little. I'd agree with Gavin that the rush to use it would put such a load on the servers that S/L couldn't handle it.

Avakin Life has 100m+ downloads, so there would be quite a few people that would download it I think.  What SL would retain to become regular users is beyond me.  The entire interface of the viewer would have to be drastically changed, and people may be put off by the bandwidth use required by SL if they have a limit on their mobile devices.  The way the world is rendered would probably need to be changed entirely to take advantage of mobile chipsets, it would be a huge undertaken if they wanted to make SL look decent, and not drain the batteries of devices too quickly.

People are pretty demanding now when it comes to gaming, so LL would have to really make it a polished experience or we would just see complaint after complaint, a low rating, and quite a financial loss if they were to make a mess of it all.  A low rating on google or apple would ruin it, as that is what most people rely upon when they download anything.

Then we would have to consider the adult activities that happen on SL, Google, and Apple would have a huge say in how SL operates, which would drastically change the landscape of Second Life and likely put off the existing customers.  

If LL wanted to create a mobile app, I think it would be better to just start from the ground up, an entirely new platform built specifically around mobile apps, designed around the expectations of Google and Apple.  The problem with this then, is that it will likely come at the expense of SL and we would likely see SL put on the back burner while finances and attention were placed on creating a new product.

You should give Avakin Life a try if you haven't already, you might like it.  It is kind of like SL, as close as I have played around with.  It is a cute little app to play around with when you are missing SL and haven't access to a PC.

Here is my little avatar, at my lodge. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Istelathis

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Orwar said:

.. Is Skype still a thing even? Googles it. Yeah. Skype is still a thing. .. .. Wait, why is Skype still a thing? .. .. Woah, ICQ is still a thing?! 

Sadly, AIM is no longer a thing.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Gavin Hird said:

It you place a client in the iOS store, it immediately becomes available to 1.5 billion active users. Even if 0.1% of those downloaded and tried the client, it represents 1,5 million users, which easily could happen within days if hyped up by media.

we've only had 80k and that hammered the doors shut, years ago, it's not been put the pressure on like that since, I hope with this aws they use now, it scales and handle the demand if 1.5 million come knocking.   last time everything went nope and went offline here

[Coffee Pancake]

On 2/12/2023 at 9:22 PM, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Giggling about a platform banned from Twitch for adult content and appearing on its prohibited games list surrounded by some of the most vile game titles I've ever seen advertising on TV during prime time.

We were banned on Twitch long before they settled on adult content  .. Catznip actually did all there app integration work back in the dark days before OBS, the final step of which was to show your application and apply for an API key. They sat on it a week and refused us because "it's impossible to determine ownership of all content on screen" .. we would not have gone to the trouble had SL been banned.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We were banned on Twitch long before they settled on adult content  .. Catznip actually did all there app integration work back in the dark days before OBS, the final step of which was to show your application and apply for an API key. They sat on it a week and refused us because "it's impossible to determine ownership of all content on screen" .. we would not have gone to the trouble had SL been banned.

 

Them that wants us off the Twitch are just afraid of us. Mark my words!

ETA: And furthermore, I betcha the "big game companies" paid Twitch to keep us away.  Imagine if it were EASY to get into Second Life.  The other games would be left along the side of the internet highway, with their sad faces all boo-hoo-hooing.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Coffee Pancake]

4 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I hope with this aws they use now, it scales and handle the demand if 1.5 million come knocking.  

It does not.

If anything the wall might be a lot lower than 80k as there has been no need to engineer with those numbers in mind.

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Them that wants us off the Twitch are just afraid of us. Mark my words!

The reply we got from Twitch was weirdly personal and had been clearly escalated up from the peon with a rubber stamp.. At this point the only way we're ever getting on Twitch is if LL fall for the trap and approach twitch and negotiate .. 

The death of SL is LL doing a Tumblr and banning adult content due to perceived gains from external companies.

[Qie Niangao]

Just now, bigmoe Whitfield said:

we've only had 80k and that hammered the doors shut, years ago, it's not been put the pressure on like that since, I hope with this aws they use now, it scales and handle the demand if 1.5 million come knocking.   last time everything went nope and went offline here

That really was ages ago, back when they were still using a relational database (like everybody else back then) for nearly everything, so even before the AWS migration the servers were way more scalable.

They'd still need to prepare if a ten-fold increase in logins were coming, and even then some services would hit as yet unknown bottlenecks, but this sort of thing happens all the time with successful apps.

A scalability problem is the very last reason they don't buy Superbowl ads.

[Love Zhaoying]

22 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The death of SL is LL doing a Tumblr and banning adult content due to perceived gains from external companies.

Ok, so long as we still have our Freenises.

LL will do the right thing, they always do.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Love Zhaoying
OUR not ARE, sheesh! * eye roll at self *

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Gavin Hird said:

It you place a client in the iOS store, it immediately becomes available to 1.5 billion active users. Even if 0.1% of those downloaded and tried the client, it represents 1,5 million users, which easily could happen within days if hyped up by media.

Go read the app store guidelines .. we are not getting a pass for a full fat SL experience without massive changes that will have significant social outcomes.

An app store presence is not a guarantee of anything. There are ~ >2 million apps on that store.

It would be a true Faustian bargain.

[Qie Niangao]

Did I miss the part where it's explained how Lumiya was just fine on the Google Play Store, but any other viewer will require SL pass a purity test?

[Love Zhaoying]

11 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Did I miss the part where it's explained how Lumiya was just fine on the Google Play Store, but any other viewer will require SL pass a purity test?

Makes me wonder, was the "Metaverse SL" app ever on the Play or other stores, or just iOS?

It had a very basic interface, but I think it could connect to different grids not just SL.

(I had used it, but never Lumiya. Because "Lumiya" sounds like a rejected spell for Harry Potter. Just kidding. Not really.)

[Gavin Hird]

18 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Go read the app store guidelines .. we are not getting a pass for a full fat SL experience without massive changes that will have significant social outcomes.

An app store presence is not a guarantee of anything. There are ~ >2 million apps on that store.

It would be a true Faustian bargain.

You keep claiming it will never happen. Try again!

[Gavin Hird]

38 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

we've only had 80k and that hammered the doors shut, years ago, it's not been put the pressure on like that since, I hope with this aws they use now, it scales and handle the demand if 1.5 million come knocking.   last time everything went nope and went offline here

Before that, the crash in Feb 2008 was epic. The grid just got slower, and slooower and slooooower, and was gone for 3 1/2 days.

[Love Zhaoying]

21 minutes ago, Gavin Hird said:

Before that, the crash in Feb 2008 was epic. The grid just got slower, and slooower and slooooower, and was gone for 3 1/2 days.

I bet, with proper motivation, that LL could surpass that record.

Think big! Set your sights sky-high!

[Ayashe Ninetails]

48 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We were banned on Twitch long before they settled on adult content  .. Catznip actually did all there app integration work back in the dark days before OBS, the final step of which was to show your application and apply for an API key. They sat on it a week and refused us because "it's impossible to determine ownership of all content on screen" .. we would not have gone to the trouble had SL been banned.

This part (the bolded) I absolutely believe. Twitch is rather squeamish when it comes to content and IP and DMCA. Seems every day a streamer gets banned and Vods get muted/purged. Usually over music. Often over watching someone else's YouTube content.

Still, it's not a great look to appear on that list. It's...definitely something. 😳

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

33 minutes ago, Gavin Hird said:

Before that, the crash in Feb 2008 was epic. The grid just got slower, and slooower and slooooower, and was gone for 3 1/2 days.

And before that the infamous Massive Grid Stress Test of 2005 during which they tried to squeeze a whopping 4000 users onto the grid at the same time!  😮 

Quote

On Sunday July 24, we are planning to have a massive stress test on the
grid, inviting everyone to stay logged in between 7-9pm PST to prove
that the grid can withstand ~ 4,000 concurrent users. We've also planned
exciting give-aways and prizes as an incentive to gather as many people
together as we can.

While we did experience some problems with the asset server this past
weekend (which were fixed on Monday), our database load is currently
running very close to zero and we feel we can handle the increasing
number of Residents on the grid. So, be prepared to see Second Life at
its busiest July 24!

(I can't remember for sure if they managed it or not, but have a vague recollection of the total number of users getting pretty close before the grid finally collapsed and LL declaring it a success anyway)

Edited February 16, 2023 by Fluffy Sharkfin