Mobile and the Future of Second Life

[Drayke Newall]

40 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

That brings to mind a different platform: Windows 11 devices such as the Surface Tablets. I've never been in a position to try a desktop SL viewer on them, but now you've got me wondering whether an Android app running on Windows 11 (also "a work in progress") might be an option.

Surface Tablets are a little different than most tablets in that they are basically a mini computer and can run any program that can run on a desktop. I can run the full SL Browser or Firestorm on mine just fine. Sure not on ultra graphics but still completely playable without needing a downgraded mobile app such as the one planned for IOS and Android.

Can either use the a keyboard and mouse or the standard surface keyboard and touch pad that can be bought as an added extra.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[EliseAnne85]

23 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

All that scrolling becomes tedious.

All that scrolling if the SL viewer were the same for mobile would cause carpal tunnel syndrome, quite possibly.  They'd have to reduce the functions for mobile.  

[Bree Giffen]

39 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

All that scrolling if the SL viewer were the same for mobile would cause carpal tunnel syndrome, quite possibly.  They'd have to reduce the functions for mobile.  

If you look at your current SL screen on your monitor, you have a lot of wide space around your avatar. On the mobile example shown by SL, the avatar takes up a lot of screen because if you simply emulate a pc screen to a phone the avatar would be a little blob of pixels. If you imagine a phone sized screen on your monitor you will see that there is very little space to work with to show menus. Text has to be a certain size or it will be unreadable. Anyways, I don't think the problem is insurmountable and LL will come up with a good solution. 

[EliseAnne85]

18 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

If you look at your current SL screen on your monitor, you have a lot of wide space around your avatar. On the mobile example shown by SL, the avatar takes up a lot of screen because if you simply emulate a pc screen to a phone the avatar would be a little blob of pixels. If you imagine a phone sized screen on your monitor you will see that there is very little space to work with to show menus. Text has to be a certain size or it will be unreadable. Anyways, I don't think the problem is insurmountable and LL will come up with a good solution. 

For Dinkies and Tinies, it could be easy in that often for those avatars one buys the whole outfit and just choose WEAR, then be prompted to make an OUTFIT.  That's two scrolls.  lol

I can't see scrolling thru our inventory.  There'd have to be a different way it's done or else ouch, carpel tunnel syndrome.  I had carpal tunnel syndrome, btw, it is curable, if one follows doctor's orders and wears the splints during sleep.

[Arielle Popstar]

35 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

For Dinkies and Tinies, it could be easy in that often for those avatars one buys the whole outfit and just choose WEAR, then be prompted to make an OUTFIT.  That's two scrolls.  lol

I can't see scrolling thru our inventory.  There'd have to be a different way it's done or else ouch, carpel tunnel syndrome.  I had carpal tunnel syndrome, btw, it is curable, if one follows doctor's orders and wears the splints during sleep.

On a touch screen one can swipe scroll. In Lumiya as an example, a swipe up in the Inventory window will scroll through quite a few lines with less effort then with a mouse scroll.

[Flea Yatsenko]

On 3/14/2023 at 5:46 AM, Zalificent Corvinus said:

"What is not to understand about"    A sucky mobile based piece of crap total waste of time, effort and money viewer that won't be of any use to anyone who doesn't already use SL on a Desktop/Laptop most of the time, and which will actively drive away the mythical "potential whole new market of customers" that mobile loving morons keep claiming will "save SL".

Outsiders with short attention spans will drop the "MobileLife" app like a hot dog turd in under 5 minutes and never come back, when they find they are stuck in mouse look and cant change their Noob Island SUX fail-atar's appearance like all the old people using actual computers.

They certainly won't even consider spending 10 bucks on their first bunch of shopping tokens, when that comes with a rip-off buck and a half surcharge, never mind the 30% slice to Awful Mac.

The claim that an app running on whyOS will MAGICALLY bring in millions of upscale new customers who only use Awful Mac whyPhones, whyPads and whyLaps, is a pathetic Awful Mac Cargo Cultist pipedream.

 

Speaking personally, I don't want a "MobileLife" app at all, as firstly, it's a collosal waste of resources that could be better used elsewhere, and secondly, in the unlikely event that it did what the cultists claim, and brought in a huge influx of people who just don't GET SL, it would destroy the platform faster than doing nothing.

New people would be good, but the effort should be to find new people who think like us, SecondLifers who DON'T YET KNOW that they are SecondLifers, and NOT chasing mythical new markets of people who DON'T and WON'T want to be HERE.

 

Desktop and laptop computers are a dying market. This is from 2013, by the way, it's only gotten far worse for PCs, laptops, and desktops. Since this was made we've already had a generation that's over 18 that never was old enough to even use a desktop computer. Just for reference the Android version of IMVU has over 10 million downloads. SL could easily be superior to IMVU on Android.

On 3/14/2023 at 7:16 AM, Qie Niangao said:

I still don't know anything useful about Unity, and I wanted to see again just what was said at Lab Gab about it. In case anybody else wants a refresher, here are the two times I found it mentioned in the transcript (slightly tidied-up punctuation, etc.):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)

Unity is a game engine so it does all the graphics and low level stuff for LL. They just have to make the game engine work with the SL service. The viewer is written entirely by LL with their own engine. I.E. if LL wants a Linux version of the viewer they have to write the code and make it work with Linux. Unity takes care of all of that, there's literally a dialog when you go to compile your game that lets you choose what you want to compile for, and it includes Playstation, Switch, Android, iOS, Xbox, webGL, a ton of stuff.

LL wants to switch from OpenGL to Vulkan, so they'll have to edit the code for the viewer to make it work. With Unity, they just select what API they want from a drop down and the engine does it all. It's very exciting, Unity doesn't just mean mobile, they could easily deliver things like a DX12 Windows client, Linux Vulkan, etc.

Basically, Unity will do a lot of stuff LL has to do manually. I wouldn't be surprised if LL had more plans for the Unity viewer than just Android and IOS, but the Unity viewer is extremely promising yet still pretty short on features and it's not ready to replace anything yet. Anyways it's pretty cool and I think if the Unity version ever got to the point that a lot of people would have two viewers installed and have a higher performing DirectX version on their Windows machines.

 

[WereBeast Alpha]

I hope the new mobile app has some security measures in place. Once IMVU got a mobile app so many underage users flocked to IMVU because it is listed as a Social game in the app stores for phones and tablets. I would like to see Linden lab to prevent minors from flocking to SL. Parents these days don't know how to parent properly and almost every child in the household has phones these days with zero security or parents going through phones. It's a dangerous thing out there i just hope it doesn't turn out to be like another imvu app. 

There are tons of underage minors on the adult side of imvu,  there is a teen server but its not as good as the adult server. The app / company has no limits on verifying ages when buying AP a slim adult rated item. not like what SL has its a bit boring. thats why i mainly moved here to SL to get away from the minor situation.

Edited March 16, 2023 by WereBeast Alpha
added info

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

  Desktop and laptop computers are a dying market. This is from 2013, by the way, it's only gotten far worse for PCs, laptops, and desktops. Since this was made we've already had a generation that's over 18 that never was old enough to even use a desktop computer. Just for reference the Android version of IMVU has over 10 million downloads. SL could easily be superior to IMVU on Android.

You are still conflating "lots of people have system [whatever]" with "therefore they will automatically want product [something]", and claiming that this idiocy "proves" that there is a vast untapped market that will really improve everything.

Cargo Cultist nonsense at it's best.

You come across like a fail-marketeer at a baby food company trying to convince the board of directors to waste millions on adverts targeting SINGLE PEOPLE who DON'T HAVE KIDS, because "there are a lot of them and they have more money to spare and don't buy baby food, obviously a vast untapped market!"

What NONE of the Mobile Cargo Cultists, prattling on about how many teenagers there are with smartphones, has done so far is show ANY evidence that said teens have ANY interest in a product like SL. If they did, Zuckborg's Metacrap-Does-Not-Exist-I-Verse would have more users, but its a colossal multi-billion dollar failure.

Oh and "just for reference by the way" SL has over 60 MILLION registered accounts, so boasting of the number of IMVSPEW app downloads, again doesn't really mean a lot. Stop drinking the damn cultist koolaid.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Zalificent Corvinus

[Drayke Newall]

41 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Oh and "just for reference by the way" SL has over 60 MILLION registered accounts, so boasting of the number of IMVSPEW app downloads, again doesn't really mean a lot. Stop drinking the damn cultist koolaid.

Avakin Life a mobile virtual world has over 200 MILLION registered accounts and over 1 MILLION daily users (compared to Second Lifes 200,000). So what's your point again?

[Zalificent Corvinus]

10 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Avakin Life a mobile virtual world has over 200 MILLION registered accounts and over 1 MILLION daily users (compared to Second Lifes 200,000). So what's your point again?

The point is that spamming figures for different products doesn't mean that SL on a phone will be "a runaway success". Nor does it mean that importing large numbers of temporary visitors who don't WANT SL will be good for SL. Remember all the posts about the boasts of how many thousands of signups SL gets every day, and how FEW of them STAY?

Sucking in 1 million Avakin users into SL with a phone app is meaningless if 999,999 of them leave forever within 5 minutes. Just wasting resources on an app won't magically generate new permanent residents, unless you also devote resources to altering SL into what Avakin users want.

It's like @Arielle Popstar constantly bleating about how SL would be SO much better than IMVSPEW if it was radically altered to make it EXACTLY like IMVSPEW, even if that drives off all the SecondLifers who DON'T want to use IMVSPEW or a clone thereof.

Avakin is 5 times as big as SL, does that make it 5 times better? Does it mean Avakin users are 5 times keener to use SL? Why are all those Avakin users NOT migrating to Meta, or VRChat, or whatever fake claimant to the title of "metaverse" idiots are touting this week?

It's the same nonsense. 

"Lots of people like eating oranges, therefore orangutan pies will sell like hotcakes because oranges and orangutans both start with 'oran'!"

 

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

The point is that spamming figures for different products doesn't mean that SL on a phone will be "a runaway success". Nor does it mean that importing large numbers of temporary visitors who don't WANT SL will be good for SL. Remember all the posts about the boasts of how many thousands of signups SL gets every day, and how FEW of them STAY?

Sucking in 1 million Avakin users into SL with a phone app is meaningless if 999,999 of them leave forever within 5 minutes. Just wasting resources on an app won't magically generate new permanent residents, unless you also devote resources to altering SL into what Avakin users want.

It's like @Arielle Popstar constantly bleating about how SL would be SO much better than IMVSPEW if it was radically altered to make it EXACTLY like IMVSPEW, even if that drives off all the SecondLifers who DON'T want to use IMVSPEW or a clone thereof.

Avakin is 5 times as big as SL, does that make it 5 times better? Does it mean Avakin users are 5 times keener to use SL? Why are all those Avakin users NOT migrating to Meta, or VRChat, or whatever fake claimant to the title of "metaverse" idiots are touting this week?

It's the same nonsense. 

"Lots of people like eating oranges, therefore orangutan pies will sell like hotcakes because oranges and orangutans both start with 'oran'!"

It is never solely about whether those users will migrate to Second Life from such apps. Sure that is the end goal, however, in business for the research of potential markets, such numbers are useful as it indicates that there is a market their to tap into and provide examples of what people want as far as an app goes.

For example IMVU has a total of 50million registered accounts and 10millon monthly users. Avakin has a total of 200million registered accounts and 1million daily (not monthly) users. LL can then work out from this that people are far more interested in what Avakin offers over IMVU so gear their app more towards that. I.E, better UI, avatar customisation and world editing.

The primary reasons why Second Life fails to retain its users on its PC platform is due to the high cost, complex viewer, limited scripting and graphics and lack of 'things to do' for a new person. Those are the issues that LL need to ensure doesn't follow onto the mobile platform and if they can achieve that the retention will improve. The good thing about those 'reasons' mentioned is that they also will improve the main viewer retention as well.

No one is asking for a replica of IMVU or Avakin to replace Second Life, just take them as an example of how LL could potentially make SL better. For example, I certainly wouldn't complain if second lifes avatar customisation system less convoluted and was more streamlined.

A mobile app isn't such a negative thing as it is making Linden Lab look outside the box on how to make improvements in things such as UI, lag, engine updates, etc all the while offering Second Life to a larger userbase.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[Qie Niangao]

8 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

What NONE of the Mobile Cargo Cultists, prattling on about how many teenagers there are with smartphones, has done so far is show ANY evidence that said teens have ANY interest in a product like SL. If they did, Zuckborg's Metacrap-Does-Not-Exist-I-Verse would have more users, but its a colossal multi-billion dollar failure.

This somehow argues the market for the least expensive platform, Android, is the same as the market for VR, a platform more expensive than anything even on that chart. Maybe someday VR will come to the masses but I wouldn't bet on it happening within Zuckerberg's lifetime. There are a bunch of reasons why VR remains niche de la niche, but cost is very definitely among them—and very definitely a big reason Android has continued to expand globally (and, globally, very definitely not only for "teenagers").

(That said, I'm not sure how much the "computing platform" of that graph corresponds to devices that could play games, as opposed to embedded computing in mass consumer devices.)

Nonetheless, while the "cargo cult" analogy is belabored at best, the actual point seems valid: we just don't know what share of the vast and diverse mobile market could find appealing any possible variant of the SL experience. Or maybe the Lab did market testing. How would we know?

[Zalificent Corvinus]

5 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

The primary reasons why Second Life fails to retain its users on its PC platform is due to the high cost, complex viewer, limited scripting and graphics and lack of 'things to do' for a new person. Those are the issues that LL need to ensure doesn't follow onto the mobile platform and if they can achieve that the retention will improve. The good thing about those 'reasons' mentioned is that they also will improve the main viewer retention as well..

YOU say those are the "primary reasons" for lack of retention.

That doesn't mean they ARE.

I've never met a noob complaining on their first day that "the scripting here is so limited, I am leaving".

I've never met a noob complaining on their first day that "the PC I used to log in with was too costly, I am leaving".

I've never met a noob complaining on their first day that "the viewer has too many options, I am leaving".

 

Graphics being "old and dated", yeah, but your fellow mobile cultist, @Arielle Popstarhas specifically railed AGAINST "new shiny" graphical improvements, so it seems mobile cultists are sending mixed messages here.

"Lack of things to do", is another matter, the whole "your world, your imagination" thing only works for people who HAVE an imagination, and your proposed "dumb it all down" ensures that you will attract people who DON'T have an imagination. THIS is why you will fail.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

5 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

LL can then work out from this that people are far more interested in what Avakin offers over IMVU so gear their app more towards that. I.E, better UI, avatar customisation and world editing.

 

5 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

No one is asking for a replica of IMVU or Avakin to replace Second Life, just take them as an example of how LL could potentially make SL better. For example, I certainly wouldn't complain if second lifes avatar customisation system less convoluted and was more streamlined.

But that is exactly what you just proposed.

"We sell orangutans, let's look at the figures for oranges, and use that data to see what people who use oranges want, and then make our orangutans more like that"

I still remember one of your posts in a previous incarnation of this thread, where you demanded that LL should

1. Dumb down the viewer despite their previous attempt at doing so being a colossal disaster.

2. Crowbar in what you referred to as a "bleeding edge 3D modelling app" despite that INCREASING viewer complexity by at least one order of magnitude.

3. Incorporate un-intuitive "slide out of the edge of the screen" UI elements from a game reputed to have one of the worst UI's EVER, because despite "hidden until you find it by accident" UI elements INCREASING viewer complexity and unfriendlyness, YOU thought it would look cool.

and 4. Try to ensure it still looked almost exactly like viewer 1.

 

Four mutually contradictory demands for "improvements" to the viewer, from one person. Frankly, you are the last person I'd ask for advice on viewer improvements.

[Qie Niangao]

I mean, viewer oranges or orangutans, SL avatar customization needs massive, slash-and-burn simplification.

Ask any newbie.

Yeah, SL has compelling avatars but after two decades of "creative" user-generated avatar content, they're a whole obsessive hobby unto themselves, and when dolly dress-up takes an advanced degree, this thing is doomed on any platform.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

6 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I mean, viewer oranges or orangutans, SL avatar customization needs massive, slash-and-burn simplification.

Ask any newbie.

Yeah, SL has compelling avatars but after two decades of "creative" user-generated avatar content, they're a whole obsessive hobby unto themselves, and when dolly dress-up takes an advanced degree, this thing is doomed on any platform.

Does it? When was the last time you talked a "newbie" through putting together a mesh avatar? Last two times I did it were under 2 hours each, the normal one was an hour, the "slow and needs a dumbed down viewer" took almost two hours.

Try watching some youtube videos of hardcore streaming gamers trying some new game, spending the entirety of the first 1 hour video 'creating their new character" in systems far less flexible and customisable than SL.

MMO's, try the new player / new character systems, tutorials for games with far more buttons and sliders in the clients than SL, where the tutorial introduction map/missions take several hours to complete, just for basic stuff, like moving and fighting. But people seem shocked that SL takes more than 10 minutes.

The 10 min "pick a prefab avatar and don't change it" version was Sansar, a complete failure of a system. 

I keep seeing the usual suspects demanding simplification, to be more like an MMO, while apparently not realising that most mmo's seem to have a lot more complication than SL.

Star Trek Online for example, where the UI usually had 20 toolbar buttons by default and often had 30-40 toolbar buttons, all hotkeyed with 1-0, crtl,alt and shift keys, and where avatar customisation ran across three FULL screens.

This is what worries me, people SO Koolaid-Keen on simplifying SL to the point where it is NO LONGER SL, dumb everything down to the "morons with 5 minute attention spans who want to pick a prefab avatar and voice spam sexy singles in their zip code" level, and claim that this won't RUIN SL for most of the existing userbase.

 

I'm not a fan of the "SL is full of really old people over 25 who are nearly dead and have 3 digit IQ scores, lets get rid of them and chase single digit IQ teenagers who hate everything about SL" untapped new markets movement that's guaranteed to kill off SL as we know it.

[Drayke Newall]

3 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I've never met a noob complaining on their first day that "the scripting here is so limited, I am leaving".

No but the lack of content that can be provided to make those users stay is limited due to that scripting therefore affecting retention. But what do I know, it's not like Linden Lab have any plans to release this year new code for such a reason... Oh wait...

3 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I've never met a noob complaining on their first day that "the PC I used to log in with was too costly, I am leaving".

Did I say that they complain that a computer is to costly? No. I said that Second Life has a high cost especially at start up. But what do I know, its not like Linden Lab have any plans to reduce this start up cost by making a new avatar so as a user doesn't need to buy one from a creator to look as good... Oh wait...

3 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I've never met a noob complaining on their first day that "the viewer has too many options, I am leaving".

Actually they do. Perhaps you should look outside of talking to noobs inside SL and talk to the ones that left. Avatar customisation is hugely more complex than it needs to be.

3 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

"Lack of things to do", is another matter, the whole "your world, your imagination" thing only works for people who HAVE an imagination, and your proposed "dumb it all down" ensures that you will attract people who DON'T have an imagination. THIS is why you will fail.

Where have I said to dumb down the viewer? I haven't said anything as such at all. Making improvements to the viewer to streamline its functions and bring little used features to the forefront to have a use, etc, is not dumbing it down.

Why should a person have to go to their inventory to do most avatar customisation when within SL is an outfit window made specifically for avatar customisation?

A system hardly known or used. A system that if made better to allow for all customisation (i.e. adding clothes etc) would dramatically not only reduce inventory performance issues, but improve user retention as well.

An already made system that can easily be modified to allow for all avatar customisation as 90% of the coding is already there. But according to you that is dumbing down the UI?

2 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

1. Dumb down the viewer despite their previous attempt at doing so being a colossal disaster.

Never said such a thing. Dumbing down a viewer is removing features. Improving features is not dumbing down nor is making the UI more user friendly, easier to find things, having systems that belong in 'x' place be there and not in 'y' place.

On the contrary, I want them to add features, especially those they have taken out such as the full windlight and nimbus cloud system that Linden Lab promised to add in their 2007 acquisition announcement. A system that would increase user retention, decrease performance issues, remove unnecessary temp prims flooding sims, etc.

2 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

2. Crowbar in what you referred to as a "bleeding edge 3D modelling app" despite that INCREASING viewer complexity by at least one order of magnitude.

When did I ever say to add a "bleeding edge 3D modelling app"? All I have ever said is allow for prims to be joined into one object and extend the cutting of a prim further using boolean commands. That is not increasing viewer complexity at all. As a matter of fact it is reducing it as it removes the need for multiple linksets, multiple additional textures, extra loading etc. It also increases user retention as it allows people to build in world competitively giving those new users something to do.

You know, the same tools that Second Life's co-founder Corey has stated should have been added when mesh was released.

I also said they need to bring in a better material system that had more options than Normal, Diffuse and Specular. Seems LL agreed as we have PBR coming soon.

2 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

3. Incorporate un-intuitive "slide out of the edge of the screen" UI elements from a game reputed to have one of the worst UI's EVER, because despite "hidden until you find it by accident" UI elements INCREASING viewer complexity and unfriendlyness, YOU thought it would look cool.

Such a thing would in no way increase the viewer complexity. Also very odd how you say a slide out menu is the worst UI element ever, considering every UI imaginable now has such a system. If it is good for, other games, Microsoft office, Windows 10 and 11, Autodesk, Adobe, blender, firefox, chrome, edge, android, mobile ios, facebook, gmail, outlook, synology os, etc.

But hey, what do all those multi billion dollar companies know about UI design when you say such UI design is bad.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[Qie Niangao]

21 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I keep seeing the usual suspects demanding simplification, to be more like an MMO, while apparently not realising that most mmo's seem to have a lot more complication than SL.

Whatever "usual suspects" you're choosing to attack, If you mean me, you're surely correct that I have no idea what an "MMO" player expects, nor do I particularly care. I've been saying (for years) that the SL avatar customization UI is not only complicated, but more importantly, fraught with internal incompatibilities because no standards have ever been so much as proposed since the original system avatar, and as a result we have a bewildering array of avatar and head HUDs that are arguably the worst amateur UX designs anywhere in tech, competing to find new ways to unexpectedly and inexplicably render other features inoperable. The result is just embarrassing, and if that's standard fare for an MMO, that industry should be embarrassed too.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

6 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

No but the lack of content that can be provided to make those users stay is limited due to that scripting therefore affecting retention. But what do I know, it's not like Linden Lab have any plans to release this year new code for such a reason... Oh wait...

That is one of the most pathetic strawman arguments I've heard from you, most newbies who give up do so LONG before they have seen enough to denounce the scripting, and the lack of content caused by that, they are far more likely to complain about there being an overload of content to choose from.

 

11 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Did I say that they complain that a computer is to costly? No.

 

8 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

The primary reasons why Second Life fails to retain its users on its PC platform is due to the high cost

A statement that implies that costs will automatically be lower on non-PC platforms, implying that the PC is the cause of the high cost, rather then the users choice of customised avatar.

 

15 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Where have I said to dumb down the viewer? I haven't said anything as such at all. Making improvements to the viewer to streamline its functions and bring little used features to the forefront to have a use, etc, is not dumbing it down.

Why should a person have to go to their inventory to do most avatar customisation when within SL is an outfit window made specifically for avatar customisation?

A system hardly known or used. A system that if made better to allow for all customisation (i.e. adding clothes etc) would dramatically not only reduce inventory performance issues, but improve user retention as well.

Thank you for clearly demonstrating that despite your self proclaimed expertise and experience, you apparently are totally unaware that you can already add and remove items via the appearance window without going to your inventory window, and have been able to do so since at least the introduction of viewer 2.

That YOU have no clue how to use SL says more about YOU than SL.

 

20 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Also very odd how you say a slide out menu is the worst UI element ever, considering every UI imaginable now has such a system. If it is good for, other games, Microsoft office, Windows 10 and 11, Autodesk, Adobe, blender, firefox, chrome, edge, android, mobile ios, facebook, gmail, outlook, synology os, etc.

More disingenuous strawman BS. Windows has a start menu button on the toolbar, clicking it causes the start menu to appear, go figure, wow complicated UI right?

SOOOOO much better to have UI elements that are completely invisible until you ACCIDENTALLY move the mouse pointer to the section of the screen edge that triggers the slide-out you weren't expecting and probably didn't want.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Whatever "usual suspects" you're choosing to attack, If you mean me, you're surely correct that I have no idea what an "MMO" player expects, nor do I particularly care. I've been saying (for years) that the SL avatar customization UI is not only complicated, but more importantly, fraught with internal incompatibilities because no standards have ever been so much as proposed since the original system avatar, and as a result we have a bewildering array of avatar and head HUDs that are arguably the worst amateur UX designs anywhere in tech, competing to find new ways to unexpectedly and inexplicably render other features inoperable. The result is just embarrassing, and if that's standard fare for an MMO, that industry should be embarrassed too.

The ONLY way to achieve what you want would be if LL erased ALL user created content, and made the use of user created items impossible, and hired a content creation team to make all official content to a SL standard.

Can you guess how long SL would last if they did that?

Most "operator content only" mmo's have their own standards, they don't make their mmo look exactly the same as rival mmo's, or function the same.

Tell me, when you drive a car in RL, do you complain that the dashboard isn't exactly the same as a different make of car, and that there should be standards requiring all car brands to look the same, drive the same, and be the same?

Shock horror, amateur content creators are amateurs, and don't subscribe to non-existent standards that were never proposed.

 

And lastly, since YOU didn't mention cloning mmo's, a reference to people demanding SL clone some mmo can hardly be a reference to YOU, let alone an "attack".

Paranoid much?

[Qie Niangao]

20 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

The ONLY way to achieve what you want would be if LL erased ALL user created content, and made the use of user created items impossible, and hired a content creation team to make all official content to a SL standard.

Says you.

[Arielle Popstar]

5 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Tell me, when you drive a car in RL, do you complain that the dashboard isn't exactly the same as a different make of car, and that there should be standards requiring all car brands to look the same, drive the same, and be the same?

At least there is a degree of standardization where a gas pedal is operated by the right foot, wiper stalk behind the steering wheel as well as the left and right indicator light. Not some silly crap where double tapping the radio power button turns off every other accessory, unlike double tapping a pair of heels in inventory that then attaches to the left hand and strips off every other attachment on an avatar because for some stupid reason, every creator defaults their item to attach to the left hand setting a booby trap waiting to be sprung to strip one naked. Then instead of a simple revert button to go back to the previous clothing state, one goes through the long drawn out process of finding and reattaching all the previous items one was wearing.

Face it, the lab has done nothing of significance to simplify the workflow and processes involved in building or outfitting the avatar because they simply don't give a crap about residents who have to use that on a daily basis. This is probably a result of their making their money from Landbarons and creators rather than residents so that viewer usability is not a paramount consideration for them. The viewer processes are basically last century and it is surprising you flailing about defending that. I do hope you aren't a viewer dev because that means you are part of the problem and we are not likely to see any effective solutions coming from you.

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

That is one of the most pathetic strawman arguments I've heard from you, most newbies who give up do so LONG before they have seen enough to denounce the scripting, and the lack of content caused by that, they are far more likely to complain about there being an overload of content to choose from.

It is still a valid point and in no way a strawman argument as content is what makes people come and makes people stay. If those new users travel around sl and find out that boat has terrible navigation, movement and controls, switch to another boat and it is the same then yes that lack of scripting ability WILL and DOES affect that new persons opinion.

They dont need to know that x script is missing or y script does this. They experience it and that is enough based on what they have experienced in other software, games and platforms.

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

A statement that implies that costs will automatically be lower on non-PC platforms, implying that the PC is the cause of the high cost, rather then the users choice of customised avatar.

What the hell are you on about. I am not implying anything. I only have data and experience from the PC platform of the viewer as that is all we have at the moment. It is a known fact that new users dont stick around because of the cost to buy a decent looking avatar is high. There are even threads in these very forums from said users saying as such.

I wrote PC Platform to make sure that you didn't think I was talking about the mobile view. Everyone else seemed to understand what I meant...

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Thank you for clearly demonstrating that despite your self proclaimed expertise and experience, you apparently are totally unaware that you can already add and remove items via the appearance window without going to your inventory window, and have been able to do so since at least the introduction of viewer 2.

That YOU have no clue how to use SL says more about YOU than SL.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the category in the outfit menu labelled shirt that has a list of all the shirts in my inventory or those I saved as an individual entity not part of an outfit that I can add from that shirt menu without having to find them in my inventory.

I am not talking about an item saved to an outfit or an item the avatar is already wearing, which somehow you think that is what I am talking about. The fact that you didn't even know what I was talking about shows you have no idea what people are asking for when we are talking about streamlining and improving the viewer.

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

More disingenuous strawman BS. Windows has a start menu button on the toolbar, clicking it causes the start menu to appear, go figure, wow complicated UI right?

Who said I was talking about the start menu? Perhaps you haven't seen the notification menu that slides from the right. Or the menu that Microsoft edge has that you click a button and a menu slides from the right. Or the same on literally every software, game, OS, etc, created since 10 years ago.

Also who cares if its a slide out menu or a separate window.

Give me my screen real-estate back! Where I dont have to have a separate build, inventory and chat window open when I build. One window that allows me to flick between each menu is perfectly fine. I want to see the SL world not a screen of windows, HUD's and a tiny fraction of the world. THAT is what I am suggesting.

47 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

And lastly, since YOU didn't mention cloning mmo's, a reference to people demanding SL clone some mmo can hardly be a reference to YOU, let alone an "attack".

No one here is saying to clone MMO's lmao. You seem to have this idea that we want a UI exactly like an mmo. No one has ever said that. We have provided examples of ui elements that function and may work. We dont want a copy of the UI of an MMO. We want the way that they manage things.

For example you think I am suggesting to clone the UI of an MMO or Avakin life where you can choose 5 heads etc and that is it for avatar customisation. Nothing of the sort. What I and some others are suggesting however to streamline things is to update the outfit menu to something like this:

Where the appearance menu/outfit menu is used to not only save outfits (right of image) but also have a section where you can preview and wear a shirt, pants etc in a categorised menu that is in the same place as other avatar customisations and separate from the inventory removing the need to remember where it was put.

But it doesn't stop there, then there is attachment point issues, wear vs add, items not rigged appearing on the avatar in odd rotations, ao's affecting other bento items when they shouldn't, animations moving attached items not rigged to a different position, eyes tracking issues, huds, more huds and more huds, lagging sims. Things that should have standards, you know, if I have a ring for the finger it attaches to the finger bone not my eye and appears on my finger.

If you think adding things to an already existing window is copying the UI of an MMO or fixing known issues with dressing and editing the avatar then... well... I dont know what to say to that.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Drayke Newall
added other issues needing fixing other than UI

[Rowan Amore]

Just to clarify who is being referred to as the "usual suspect(s)"?   Do you mean the one(s) who can't make a post without demeaning everyone?  Those?

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

21 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Just to clarify who is being referred to as the "usual suspect(s)"?   Do you mean the one(s) who can't make a post without demeaning everyone?  Those?

 

 

I thought "the usual suspect(s)" just means "people I disagree with"! lulz!