What are your hopes and fears for Second Life Mobile?

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, gwynchisholm said:

You’re parroting the same nonsense the rest of the tech illiterate nerds here do and blaming the user for their poor experience rather than questioning why the game performs poorly in the first place. You are the exact example of what I was talking about how I cannot wait for a wave of new users to silence your baseless defense of the poor state of this game and demand positive changes.

Sorry but NO.

You posted specs for a rig, that should handle SL reasonably well, others will confirm that they have similar rigs that deliver 30-40 fps easily with more avatars present. That YOUR rig does not, indicates either problems with the rig it's self, or problems with your viewer settings. 

Literally, either your PC is "broken" or you did something "wrong". SL is far from perfect, and could use improvement, but if your PC is fubared, or you fubar your viewer settings, that is on YOU.

 

1 hour ago, gwynchisholm said:

I’ve personally yet to see that slider so much of anything unless you set it too low, like sub 200kbps, at which point it starts loading stuff mildly slower and joining a new location can be slightly slower. Pretty much anything over 1mbps is identical, even setting it to be unlimited with the debug settings. “May cause issues”. Never saw one. It would be better to know exactly what it did and what it affects, and where this idea originally came from that setting it higher is worse. But I suspect that has a similar origin as a lot of other unfounded views on the technical side of sl, someone had a problem, and nobody could figure out the answer, so something else was blamed.

You and every other "leet gamer" who claims to be a tech guru have been told BY THE VEIWER DEVS, over and over and over, in multiple threads EXACTLY what that slider does, it's a throttle for UDP traffic only, between client and server, it's capped mainly to stop the servers sending UDP data faster than the viewer can process it. This has ABOLUTELY NOTHING to do with your sub-space tachyon beam Faster-than-Light internet.

NOTHING.

Setting it too fast results in UDP packets getting dropped,  the packets that contain important info, such as the UUID's of assets for your viewer to pull down at FTL speeds via http protocols from the CDN over your super-duper internet. SSetting it too low, throttles the rate the UUID's for stuff on the interest list arrives, and thus slows the rate at which the client can try to fetch them from the CDN. You could always page one of the FS devs for more details of the UDP bandwidth Throttle slider, or search old threads.

 

1 hour ago, gwynchisholm said:

Kinda like the whole AMD graphics card thing. 

Again, it's a demonstratble fact that historically, AMD's opengl support has sucked skunk bottom, and that impacts an opengl based software like SL

There have been plenty of threads where AMD cultists have whined about SL running poorly on their rigs, and had Devs reply "AMD's opengl drivers suck" This might also apply to your Intel Arc gpu too, but that would need to be tested, to see what quality of opengl support the cards drivers provide.

 

Oh, last and by no means least...

12 hours ago, gwynchisholm said:

when it fails to load anything quickly and consistently leaves them at single digit framerates because god forbid someone left too many 8K UHD textured chairs in one location at the same time.

If you were one TENTH the tech-guru you pretend to be, you'd know that SL doesn't have ANY "8k UHD" textures, or 4k, or 2k, it's a limited to 1k MAX.

 

[AmeliaJ08]

1 hour ago, gwynchisholm said:

It has to be behind some kind of content wall and can’t be the core focus of the application. Same way you can use Twitter or bluesky or whatever and see adult content, it’s not toggled on by default.

Seems like LL might need some form of age verification in that case, I'd say the way they separate off adult content already is probably sufficient but they might have to start actually asking for proof if people want to tick the fun stuff box.

[Katherine Heartsong]

3 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Don't Apple have a very specific policy of no adult content apps in the app store?

Sections that speak to that in the iOS Guidelines ...

Quote

 

18.1 Apps containing pornographic material, defined by Webster's Dictionary as "explicit descriptions or displays of s3xual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings", will be rejected.

18.2 Apps that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic (e.g. "Chat Roulette" Apps) will be rejected.

 

That should tell you everything you need to know. How LL is going to adhere to these will sure be interesting to see, considering the things that people (and non-peoples) get up to here.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Katherine Heartsong

[gwynchisholm]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Sorry but NO.

You posted specs for a rig, that should handle SL reasonably well, others will confirm that they have similar rigs that deliver 30-40 fps easily with more avatars present. That YOUR rig does not, indicates either problems with the rig it's self, or problems with your viewer settings. 

Literally, either your PC is "broken" or you did something "wrong". SL is far from perfect, and could use improvement, but if your PC is fubared, or you fubar your viewer settings, that is on YOU.

 

You and every other "leet gamer" who claims to be a tech guru have been told BY THE VEIWER DEVS, over and over and over, in multiple threads EXACTLY what that slider does, it's a throttle for UDP traffic only, between client and server, it's capped mainly to stop the servers sending UDP data faster than the viewer can process it. This has ABOLUTELY NOTHING to do with your sub-space tachyon beam Faster-than-Light internet.

NOTHING.

Setting it too fast results in UDP packets getting dropped,  the packets that contain important info, such as the UUID's of assets for your viewer to pull down at FTL speeds via http protocols from the CDN over your super-duper internet. SSetting it too low, throttles the rate the UUID's for stuff on the interest list arrives, and thus slows the rate at which the client can try to fetch them from the CDN. You could always page one of the FS devs for more details of the UDP bandwidth Throttle slider, or search old threads.

 

Again, it's a demonstratble fact that historically, AMD's opengl support has sucked skunk bottom, and that impacts an opengl based software like SL

There have been plenty of threads where AMD cultists have whined about SL running poorly on their rigs, and had Devs reply "AMD's opengl drivers suck" This might also apply to your Intel Arc gpu too, but that would need to be tested, to see what quality of opengl support the cards drivers provide.

 

Oh, last and by no means least...

If you were one TENTH the tech-guru you pretend to be, you'd know that SL doesn't have ANY "8k UHD" textures, or 4k, or 2k, it's a limited to 1k MAX.

 

[AmeliaJ08]

31 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

Sections that speak to that in the iOS Guidelines ...

That should tell you everything you need to know. How LL is going to adhere to these will sure be interesting to see, considering the things that people (and non-peoples) get up to here.

Maybe they have no intention of supporting IOS? I don't know, have they specifically mentioned IOS in their previews of the mobile client though?

 

[Rejeanne Cannoli]

I hope it runs on iOS.  All the preview demos I've seen seem to be on Android, which does nothing for me.

If it runs natively on iOS, then it's a hop and a skip from running natively on Mac without OpenGL, and THAT is my real hope.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Rejeanne Cannoli

[JeromFranzic]

11 hours ago, Rejeanne Cannoli said:

I hope it runs on iOS.  All the preview demos I've seen seem to be on Android, which does nothing for me.

If it runs natively on iOS, then it's a hop and a skip from running natively on Mac without OpenGL, and THAT is my real hope.

If Vulkan is used for 3d acceleration with the mobile viewer, it should run on iOS via MoltenVK. Newer versions of Android have Vulkan support in the OS.

[Flea Yatsenko]

12 hours ago, Rejeanne Cannoli said:

I hope it runs on iOS.  All the preview demos I've seen seem to be on Android, which does nothing for me.

If it runs natively on iOS, then it's a hop and a skip from running natively on Mac without OpenGL, and THAT is my real hope.

It's using Unity game engine. Unity can make it work on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, and more.

https://support.unity.com/hc/en-us/articles/206336795-What-platforms-are-supported-by-Unity-

[diamond Marchant]

On 9/12/2023 at 8:07 AM, Flea Yatsenko said:

It's using Unity game engine. 

Now that Unity is switching to a per installation fee model and the entire game industry is freaking out, will Linden Lab be spooked?

[AmeliaJ08]

34 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Now that Unity is switching to a per installation fee model and the entire game industry is freaking out, will Linden Lab be spooked?

That's for new licenses only, apparently.

Assume LL are in contract already. Big development though, Unity are getting very greedy.

[diamond Marchant]

Unity subsequently posted a clarification via X: “Today, a large majority of Unity Editor users are currently not paying anything and will not be affected by this change. The Unity Runtime fee will not impact the majority of our developers.
“The developers who will be impacted are generally those who have successful games and are generating revenue way above the thresholds we outlined in our blog.”
 

So… It seems like the fee is imposed based on revenue and number of installs so Linden Lab may be spared due to smallness.

[Flea Yatsenko]

The mobile viewer will be free, though. So it won't directly generate any revenue. LL's revenue comes from marketplace commission, tier, premium, etc. There will be no revenue from the mobile viewer. It only exists to get new users into the ecosystem to start paying.

LL has to have something worked out with Unity, because there's a chance for hundreds of thousands of installs for $0.

[Arwyn Quandry]

I also have concerns about how adult content will be addressed on mobile. LL has Tilia, so they're not at risk of having a payment processor shut them down for adult content existing in SL, but app stores can be super weird about games that contain it. It makes me wonder if there will be extra age verification hoops to jump through or if they'll restrict access to anything above M if you're on the mobile app. There's also the issue of the weirder adult content that's allowed in SL... Humans with human genitals interacting with each other are kind of the least of anyone's concerns. 

[Flea Yatsenko]

1 hour ago, Arwyn Quandry said:

I also have concerns about how adult content will be addressed on mobile. LL has Tilia, so they're not at risk of having a payment processor shut them down for adult content existing in SL, but app stores can be super weird about games that contain it. It makes me wonder if there will be extra age verification hoops to jump through or if they'll restrict access to anything above M if you're on the mobile app. There's also the issue of the weirder adult content that's allowed in SL... Humans with human genitals interacting with each other are kind of the least of anyone's concerns. 

Not as bad as you think. LL Hosts their own APK for android users to side load. It's a pain to side load on iOS, which is a bummer for iPhone users. But the versions in Play and App Stores are going to be massively limited, probably no adult regions at all. no adult anything on marketplace.

I wouldn't be surprised if the app store versions were limited only to G rated sims and G rated sims suddenly became very, very moderated.

LL has control of everything though, they could easily just flag sims as "App Store Approved Content" and the mobile client from the app stores could only access those sims.

Lots of ways for LL to go about it, none are perfect. But if they host their own APK Android App, LL won't be held to any standards. But sideloading iOS is still a pain and it's going to be the biggest problem with letting mobile users get the full SL experience.

[AmeliaJ08]

15 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

Not as bad as you think. LL Hosts their own APK for android users to side load. It's a pain to side load on iOS, which is a bummer for iPhone users. But the versions in Play and App Stores are going to be massively limited, probably no adult regions at all. no adult anything on marketplace.

I wouldn't be surprised if the app store versions were limited only to G rated sims and G rated sims suddenly became very, very moderated.

LL has control of everything though, they could easily just flag sims as "App Store Approved Content" and the mobile client from the app stores could only access those sims.

Lots of ways for LL to go about it, none are perfect. But if they host their own APK Android App, LL won't be held to any standards. But sideloading iOS is still a pain and it's going to be the biggest problem with letting mobile users get the full SL experience.

I think this is how it will go too. apk for Android users to side load and access all content if they want but Google Play Store/Apple App Store versions restricted to G rated sims only.

Not ideal imo, not enough G rated regions in SL to really show off SL to the wide audience but any other way will cause upset with Google/Apple they probably don't want. At the very least new users could be informed of the imposed limitations and the possible ways of bypassing them on Android at least in a way that doesn't anger Google... if that's possible.

As far as I'm aware side loading on IOS is near enough impossible isn't it? do people still jailbreak their Apple devices to enable this? I doubt it.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by AmeliaJ08

[Flea Yatsenko]

10 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I think this is how it will go too. apk for Android users to side load and access all content if they want but Google Play Store/Apple App Store versions restricted to G rated sims only.

Not ideal imo, not enough G rated regions in SL to really show off SL to the wide audience but any other way will cause upset with Google/Apple they probably don't want. At the very least new users could be informed of the imposed limitations and the possible ways of bypassing them on Android at least in a way that doesn't anger Google... if that's possible.

As far as I'm aware side loading on IOS is near enough impossible isn't it? do people still jailbreak their Apple devices to enable this? I doubt it.

 

 

I looked a little bit about iOS and it's a nightmare, hosting your own local server, signing certificates every few weeks, etc. It's simply not feasible.

I don't think a lot of G rated sims becoming popular in SL would be bad. I think it would be great, actually. Leave the adult/mature stuff alone and it could bring in a whole lot of new users and a different audience. And I think that's what LL wants. As long as they can leave the existing users alone and not change anything for them.

Let's be honest, SL is for power users who have a high end laptop or desktop and that market is doing nothing but shrinking. No matter what LL does to make SL better, it's going to be stuck in a shrinking market. PBR, all this other stuff they add, it's amazing. But it's not going to bring in new users.

Right now there's no reason to make a G rated sim. In fact it's discouraged. Why make a G rated sim and risk getting in trouble for breaking the rules when you can just make it adult and the same people are going to show up? Now, if you make a G rated sim and it means you get a lot of mobile users to show up and get involved, you're into something. And mobile users are generally pay pigs. I.E. running a G rated sim that mobile users like would probably become very lucrative. I'd actually like to see SL go back to that, that's how it was 10 years ago and now it's just sex everywhere. I'm not saying get rid of it, calm down. But to get more options for just social places and to make it so the people who run those places can make money off of it, that's what I miss about SL and I really hope mobile brings in new users who can bring that back.

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I.E. running a G rated sim that mobile users like would probably become very lucrative. I'd actually like to see SL go back to that, that's how it was 10 years ago and now it's just sex everywhere

I don't see any Adult sex in M rated regions.  It has to be hidden from public view, which is simple to do.  I doubt any region owners are going to move to a G-rated region to run a club, or open a clothing store, or sell avatar parts.  Mobile could be limited to M-rated regions.  That at least seems sane. 

You think that limiting mobile users to G-rated regions will attract that many?  If I recall, interest in sex starts at a rather young age and  peaks in teen age years, and slows down for some, rather slowly.  SL, a social "game" where sex is not allowed for younger mobile users (and most over 21), doesn't exactly compute for me. What kind of "sex" is allowed in a G-rated region?  Sounds like you are proposing bringing back the teenage grid for mobile users.

[Persephone Emerald]

If users want to buy a skin for their avatar, they're going to need access to Moderate rated content. If they want to buy genitalia, then they need access to Adult content. Does anyone remember how annoying G-rated skin with underwear painted on it was? Even the teens on the Teen Grid found ways around that. I don't think mobile users would put up with only G-rated content for more than a few days.

[Flea Yatsenko]

9 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I don't see any Adult sex in M rated regions.  It has to be hidden from public view, which is simple to do.  I doubt any region owners are going to move to a G-rated region to run a club, or open a clothing store, or sell avatar parts.  Mobile could be limited to M-rated regions.  That at least seems sane. 

You think that limiting mobile users to G-rated regions will attract that many?  If I recall, interest in sex starts at a rather young age and  peaks in teen age years, and slows down for some, rather slowly.  SL, a social "game" where sex is not allowed for younger mobile users (and most over 21), doesn't exactly compute for me. What kind of "sex" is allowed in a G-rated region?  Sounds like you are proposing bringing back the teenage grid for mobile users.

SL mobile is going to have to play by Apple's rules if they want to appear on the App Store.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america

iOS is the majority of mobile devices in the US. You really don't have to shoot the messenger here, LL Is going to have to play by Apple's rule or else the mobile SL client is just going to be deleted from the App Store forever, with no way to reliably sideload. Like it or not the mobile client being on Play and App Stores is probably going to see a resurgence in something like a teen grid.

You're free to look at the App Store guidelines or look at the App Store to see if you can find anything that remotely offers what you mention as adult content.

Roblox has "17+" content and to access it you have to upload a government ID and I don't know how it works in iOS.

Fact is because of Google and Apple's rules, you're not going to be able to download the SL mobile client from an app store and have the "full SL experience" some of you want. No need to kill the messenger, but Apple can tell LL they don't want SL mobile on iOS for pretty much any reason. If you think Apple is going to be fine with people having sex in private areas on their phones, you're nuts. That's pretty much porn.

Again, you can stop with your laughing emojis or whatever. I'm not the one that's got a problem with this stuff, Apple and Google are. And LL is going to have to do something about it.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

58 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

Again, you can stop with your laughing emojis or whatever. I'm not the one that's got a problem with this stuff, Apple and Google are. And LL is going to have to do something about it.

I laughed at your previous post because I KNEW already that the MobileLife Fail-Viewer on Awful Mac whyOS was a dead duck, for the G Rated only reasons you gave.

The funny part is you still seem to think that a G-Rated only MobileLife, will be some kind of success, and bring in a "vast untapped new market" of people who will ACTUALLY PAY MONEY to use a crippled SL.

 

The market you seem to think LL should be chasing, is one that by and large, will have NO interest in SL at all, least of all a G-Rated SL, and who have very limited spending power, if any.

 

"Hundreds of thousands" of vacuous teens with no payment info on file, is NOT going to cover the dev costs WASTED on the MobileLife Fail-Viewer, let alone "turn the decline around".

 

You'd have more luck chasing "leet gamerz" on a console based viewer than chasing teens with no credit cards, who don't want to be here anyway. For all that the "leet gamerz" would laugh at SL's attempts to be a first person shooter, they might still stay for the smut, and spend money on stunt crotch attachments and mesh avatars and sexy clothes, and a place to take their dates back to for slex.

 

The Teen Grid died for a reason, it should STAY dead.

[animats]

5 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

SL mobile is going to have to play by Apple's rules if they want to appear on the App Store.

"Gatekeepers" such as Apple will not be allowed to retain that power for much longer. In six months, the European Union's new "gatekeeper" antitrust rules become effective. There will be non-Apple app stores.

 

[Arwyn Quandry]

On 9/14/2023 at 6:25 PM, Flea Yatsenko said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the app store versions were limited only to G rated sims and G rated sims suddenly became very, very moderated.

LL has control of everything though, they could easily just flag sims as "App Store Approved Content" and the mobile client from the app stores could only access those sims.

I was camming around the world map this evening and remembered something: All Linden Homes are on Moderate sims. Which means if they did opt to restrict to G sims only, they'd either need to make some G-rated Linden Home regions, or prepare for some disappointed mobile-only premium buyers.

The tricky part with just saying it's app-store approved content is that even if the sim and its furnishings are all PG-13, the very fact that the sim is rated M impacts what people are allowed to do on it. People can show up nude as long as their unit is flaccid on an M region or have sex in a private area of the sim, which aren't allowed in a G region and would run afoul of app store guidelines.

[Kathlen Onyx]

20 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

SL mobile is going to have to play by Apple's rules if they want to appear on the App Store.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america

iOS is the majority of mobile devices in the US. You really don't have to shoot the messenger here, LL Is going to have to play by Apple's rule or else the mobile SL client is just going to be deleted from the App Store forever, with no way to reliably sideload. Like it or not the mobile client being on Play and App Stores is probably going to see a resurgence in something like a teen grid.

You're free to look at the App Store guidelines or look at the App Store to see if you can find anything that remotely offers what you mention as adult content.

Roblox has "17+" content and to access it you have to upload a government ID and I don't know how it works in iOS.

Fact is because of Google and Apple's rules, you're not going to be able to download the SL mobile client from an app store and have the "full SL experience" some of you want. No need to kill the messenger, but Apple can tell LL they don't want SL mobile on iOS for pretty much any reason. If you think Apple is going to be fine with people having sex in private areas on their phones, you're nuts. That's pretty much porn.

Again, you can stop with your laughing emojis or whatever. I'm not the one that's got a problem with this stuff, Apple and Google are. And LL is going to have to do something about it.

The app ratings are there for parental controls. There are apps on the apple store that are rated 17+ that have adult themes. 

Reference

Age ratings

The age rating is a required app information property used by the parental controls on the App Store. 

[Jaylinbridges]

22 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

Again, you can stop with your laughing emojis or whatever. I'm not the one that's got a problem with this stuff, Apple and Google are. And LL is going to have to do something about it.

I have not used any laughing emojis in this thread to you or anyone else.  If I don't agree with someone's opinion I will either ignore the post or reply as I did.  Get your targets straight.

This IOS/Apple app rating is for the parents or owners of the I-phone to decide.  LL will probably just use the 17+ rating. Parents can still turn off parental controls for their children, because their 15 yr old Lolita daughter is already married with two kids and a husband - too late for her.  These I-phones must be advanced as hell if you can get pregnant using one.

LL might restrict mobile users from Adult regions, which would still allow the Apple 17+ rating for parental control.  New users would need to use a laptop or desktop system for Adult access.  That's a good thing - much better graphics.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[AmeliaJ08]

6 hours ago, Arwyn Quandry said:

I was camming around the world map this evening and remembered something: All Linden Homes are on Moderate sims. Which means if they did opt to restrict to G sims only, they'd either need to make some G-rated Linden Home regions, or prepare for some disappointed mobile-only premium buyers.

The tricky part with just saying it's app-store approved content is that even if the sim and its furnishings are all PG-13, the very fact that the sim is rated M impacts what people are allowed to do on it. People can show up nude as long as their unit is flaccid on an M region or have sex in a private area of the sim, which aren't allowed in a G region and would run afoul of app store guidelines.

Wow that is a good point. This could get very messy, I'm sure LL must have thought about it though... surely...

I don't think just winging it works especially with Apple, they'll find a problem if things remain as they are currently and all accounts have access to moderate content.

I really hope that the necessary changes don't have too much impact on the grid in general but maybe we'll start getting real age verification in SL?