Does Linden Labs Not Care About Secondlife?

[xxSweetMuskxx]

I've been wondering this lately. I've played for a long time. Secondlife has a decent userbase. I've definitely seen though that the number and quality of people have declined for sure.

There are so many problems that are either very easily fixable or at least so easy to see.

1. The main website. It's straight out of 1999. Listing things on marketplace is so tedious because of the god awful UI. This is the easiest to fix. Won't take even 3 months and more than a couple 1000 dollars. Does Linden Labs not make any money? I'll be surprised.

2. Mobile app? Imvu, despite it's limitations has gained a lot of popularity. Why doesn't Secondlife have a mobile app? They even blacklisted the one that was half decent. Why do that? That would've increased the range of Secondlife so much.

3. Extremely complex avi system, at least for a beginner. There is a very distinct gap between the starter Avis and other bodies like legacy, inithium etc etc. This is probably the hardest to fix, but it's so daunting for a newcomer. If there were slightly better starter Avis, more people will stay.

4. Other little things e.g. updating inventory in the beta grid. There's a beta grid where you get free lindens to test things you create before you upload them to the main world. It's supposed to have all your main grid inventory. The only way to update the inventory in that is to contact support and raise a ticket. It's been that way for at least 5-6 years.

 

Is Linden Labs not making a profit? Many of the brands like legacy have much better websites than Secondlife itself. Hell many Sims in SL look better than SL website.

It has become so obvious to me that SL is going to die if Linden Labs doesn't get it's ***** together. That will be a shame.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

I disagree.

In particular: there is a mobile app in development which has been highly publicized.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Alwin Alcott]

7 minutes ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

Does Linden Labs Not Care About Secondlife?

 

answer is easy, they do care.
But this doesn't mean your points are invalid. There are some things that need attention.

11 minutes ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

It has become so obvious to me that SL is going to die if Linden Labs doesn't get it's ***** together. 

My main account is 18 yrs old, since that time thousends of time hearing that the sky is falling. 
Will it die, yes for sure , some day, but not to to be expected it will be today or tomorrow.

Is the main website really so bad? It think it's pretty functional, a diiference in taste doesn't mean it's bad. Comparing it to inworld brands isn't right. Their targets aren't the same. In general Linden Lab is a provider, they make the room Second Life to play in, brands are the toys to play with.

[xxSweetMuskxx]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I disagree.

In particular: there is a mobile app in development which has been highly publicized.

Yeah... It has been in development for some 5 years. It doesn't take that long my friend.

[Arielle Popstar]

As long as the lab can maintain a demand for its land, the rest of it can go to pot and they'll still be okay. 

[xxSweetMuskxx]

5 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

Is the main website really so bad? It think it's pretty functional, a diiference in taste doesn't mean it's bad. Comparing it to inworld brands isn't right. Their targets aren't the same. In general Linden Lab is a provider, they make the room Second Life to play in, brands are the toys to play with.

Oh the main website is extremely clunky. No phone UI in 2023. No recommender system. And you'll see that if you want to sell on the marketplace the UI for listing things is just so outdated. It's at a point where it's not like oh it's a thing we can do. It's a thing they should definitely do pronto but they seem to just not give a ***** at all.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

Yeah... It has been in development for some 5 years. It doesn't take that long my friend.

Your original statement seems to ignore the fact it is now so deep into development, LL has shown us actual previews of it. 

You aren't my friend. Your post is pretty baseless.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Your original statement seems to ignore the fact it is now so deep into development, LL has shown us actual previews of it. 

You aren't my friend. Your post is pretty baseless.

Not really, the lab is famous for promises of soon that they do not deliver on. Or release half finished and never do anything more.

[Alwin Alcott]

5 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Not really, the lab is famous for promises of soon that they do not deliver on. Or release half finished and never do anything more.

but that isn't the subject here at this moment, if it were, the example of the OP with that "bodycreator" should be blocked,, removed and closed. It's been the most long lasting consumer abuse in the past.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Alwin Alcott

[Randall Ahren]

16 minutes ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

Yeah... It has been in development for some 5 years. It doesn't take that long my friend.

Could LL do something like the Zwift app? The avatars in Zwift remind me of SL. It's a fun app for exercising. When someone passes you, you get a message that says try to catch them. So you pedal harder on your stationary bike and you pass them, and then they pass you, and you pass them again, and the next thing you know you're exhausted and out of breath and got a really good work out. The Zwift app costs $15.99 per month. That's more than the $11.99 SL charges for premium monthly.

This is a typical Zwift avatar:

Edited August 5, 2023 by Randall Ahren
Correct typo.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Alwin Alcott said:

but that isn't the subject here at this moment.

It is a reflection of the priority they give to the site and in world usability for the average resident.

[Ted McGregor]

1 hour ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

It has become so obvious to me that SL is going to die if Linden Labs doesn't get it's ***** together. That will be a shame.

Companies run out of business very quick if only making losses.

Funny how people have been claiming the death of SL for years now.

You are certainly not the first and won't be the last to say it.

[xxSweetMuskxx]

9 minutes ago, Ted McGregor said:

Companies run out of business very quick if only making losses.

Funny how people have been claiming the death of SL for years now.

You are certainly not the first and won't be the last to say it.

They are not making losses yet. We were never at the cusp of a metaverse revolution. Over the last 2 years the new membership counts of IMVU, and VRChat have skyrocketed. 
Of course, profit is the only rule, but anyone who is into SL and has a VR headset also plays VRChat without exception. The only thing keeping SL in business is the adult content friendliness which allows a lot of freedom. 

[Ted McGregor]

5 minutes ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

They are not making losses yet. We were never at the cusp of a metaverse revolution. Over the last 2 years the new membership counts of IMVU, and VRChat have skyrocketed. 
Of course, profit is the only rule, but anyone who is into SL and has a VR headset also plays VRChat without exception. The only thing keeping SL in business is the adult content friendliness which allows a lot of freedom. 

The only thing keeping SL in business is keep making profits. Do you have any clue how much that is ? If you don't, you cannot feign insight into their demise.

[Conifer Dada]

2 hours ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

I've been wondering  . . . . .

3. Extremely complex avi system, at least for a beginner. There is a very distinct gap between the starter Avis and other bodies like legacy, inithium etc etc. This is probably the hardest to fix, but it's so daunting for a newcomer. If there were slightly better starter Avis, more people will stay.

 

Linden Lab are releasing new starter avatars, which are mesh and modifiable. Unfortunately the two that have appeared so far are disappointing.

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

Is the main website really so bad? It think it's pretty functional, a diiference in taste doesn't mean it's bad. Comparing it to inworld brands isn't right. Their targets aren't the same. In general Linden Lab is a provider, they make the room Second Life to play in, brands are the toys to play with.

It is actually pretty bad. It is a jumble of different page themes from different decades that makes the website, support, account and marketplace very disconnected. Most companies, if not all, have a single theme across all of their web content. This way a new person looking at it is presented with a good example of how 'interested' the company is in updating their content etc. This then reflects on providing the impression of "if their web content is this good' then they care about their product.

Whilst I agree that comparing second life's website with in world brands isn't right, how about comparing it to a similar platform. Second Life is a content generation platform and whilst also a virtual world it operates similar to unreal engine in that people create content using second life as a content creation platform.

If you then compare Second Life's website to Unreal Engine's website: Unreal Engine, there is a vast difference in both the modern look and professionalism of the website as well as the coherence of the theme. This includes the homepage, forums, and their marketplace. All operating in the same theme. Compare that to something like SL's website and they have a different theme for almost every single page.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

11 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

If you then compare Second Life's website to Unreal Engine's website: Unreal Engine, there is a vast difference in both the modern look and professionalism of the website as well as the coherence of the theme. This includes the homepage, forums, and their marketplace. All operating in the same theme. Compare that to something like SL's website and they have a different theme for almost every single page.

Very pretty, but what exactly does unreal engine do? I never saw a link that said join today and play. Is there even a world or is it just a creator platform?

I'm not interested in creating a world. I just want to log into one.

[Sid Nagy]

SL is the only goose that lays golden eggs for LL.
After all these years and several attempts to create other things, SL is the only success to show for.
Tilia might have taken off, if the Metaverse hype would have been an instant success, but it wasn't.

So to answer the question: Does LL care about SL?  Yes of course they do. They need SL. It is their livelihood.
They are professionals and given the fact that many Lindens are on the job for many years, proves to me that they like what they are doing.

LL kept SL in business and relevant enough for 20 years now. That is a pretty long run for a game\platform. Most games don't last that long.
So they must be doing a few things right, otherwise they would never have come to the SL20B milestone.

And of course, if one asks 100 residents about what LL should develop or enhance or repair first, most likely there will be at least 50 different things mentioned. And of course a company can't handle 50 improvements and developments simultaneously. Development always goes step by step, in a slow pace.
And they do: SL improved a lot over the years. One simply can't expect major changes withing weeks or months. We have to be realistic about that.

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Sid Nagy
Yes it is Saturday. My "Edit the text" hobby day!

[Sid Nagy]

4 hours ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

 And you'll see that if you want to sell on the marketplace the UI for listing things is just so outdated. It's at a point where it's not like oh it's a thing we can do. It's a thing they should definitely do pronto but they seem to just not give a ***** at all.

As a merchant I hope they leave things as they are as much as possible.
I know what I need to know to list my new products.
I certainly will not do a happy dance if I find out one morning, that I have to relearn a lot of things, just because some people wanted to change the look and feel of it.

Adding a listing in a shiny new environment will not make it more fun to do.
The real pain in  the *** with listing a product is writing the right descriptions, features, options, processing the right pictures, tucking away the L$ that come in after the listing is completed etc.

[xxSweetMuskxx]

50 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

And of course, if one asks 100 residents about what LL should develop or enhance or repair first, most likely there will be at least 50 different things mentioned. And of course a company can't handle 50 improvements and developments simultaneously. Development always goes step by step, in a slow pace.
And they do: SL improved a lot over the years. One simply can't expect major changes withing weeks or months. We have to be realistic about that.

I don't disagree with you. But a website for an internet based company is the first thing any prospective player sees. These days, it doesn't even take that much effort or money to get it in a very modern sate. 
e.g. if you had a hobby car and you don't give it a fresh coat of paint but still claim you care about it, it will be a claim hard to digest, right? 

[AmeliaJ08]

No, I'm sure they care very much since Second Life is the reason they have what I assume are well paying tech jobs.

I would agree there has been a little resting on laurels and I agree that SL is probably due very big updates but there's also obviously a strong LL philosophy of not tearing down anything and somehow moulding the current day product in a way that keeps the past 20 years of SL going, at least technically speaking. There is a lot of things that need fixed, a lot of things that could be improved without breaking 'historical' content and a lot of entirely new things that could be introduced without breaking the old. I hope one day we'll see some of it.

Also it's very obvious that SL has next to no competition, there's stuff that comes close but nobody else is operating a virtual world with such permissive rules. While I love the SL/LL philosophy (it's very early internet and that's great) it probably doesn't encourage them to try and keep up with progress much since nobody else is doing it.

It's also the case that it wasn't LL that made all the things so complicated, a lot of it is because the users did.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by AmeliaJ08

[Arielle Popstar]

3 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

As a merchant I hope they leave things as they are as much as possible.
I know what I need to know to list my new products.
I certainly will not do a happy dance if I find out one morning, that I have to relearn a lot of things, just because some people wanted to change the look and feel of it.

So are you saying there is nothing the Lab could do to make the process more effective and efficient? I would have thought at the very least the ability to made one listing for all the different colours of an item would be a good start.

To me the site and its different themes and styles looks like it is cobbled together with bailing wire and duct tape. The default login page for the forums as an example, almost needs a microscope to read it on mobile. No doubt there are plenty of other pages on the site that are not mobile friendly.

[colleen Criss]

@xxSweetMuskxx

here are some suggestions: Design better, make a UI , make an app, I'm sure you could. If you are really worried you could purchase an SL lifetime package you You will be here until they close the servers! 

Cheers  

[Rowan Amore]

9 hours ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

They even blacklisted the one that was half decent.

If you mean Lumiya, the creator is to blame, not LL.  They abandoned it years ago.  If a viewer developer doesn't wish to be included in LL's 3rd party directory and supply the necessary documentation, that's not any fault of LL's.

7 hours ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

The only thing keeping SL in business is the adult content friendliness which allows a lot of freedom.

This observation has already been discussed ad nauseam.  Aren't you glad no one expects or even suggests LL banish adult content?

[MissSweetViolet]

8 hours ago, xxSweetMuskxx said:

The only thing keeping SL in business is the adult content friendliness which allows a lot of freedom. 

Fishy how this view has suddenly made a reappearance......hmm.