Community Roundtable May 20, 2024

[Istelathis]

34 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Only because LL lucked out on selling fake land for big bucks to sheeple running over to be fleeced for more  $ per sim then I used to pay for my mortgage. I run a 100 odd regions on my old laptop for the cost of electricity per month but the Lab charges over $200 p/m for just 1 sim.

I have a 1024x1024 var region on OSgrid right now, 

0% CPU usage while I am flying around in it, I just created it a couple of days ago because I would have rather just have OSgrid handle all of my assets, and the grid itself than have more things running on my computer.  The cost of land in SL is absolutely nutty to me, buuut.. I'm not going to hold it against them too much, they have to keep the place running and I have no qualms with having a premium membership for all that SL provides me, I am even thinking of updating to to Premium ploooOoOs 😉

To get a single region in SL, would mean no Hulu, no Prime, no Disney, less food, etc, etc.  If I could afford it, I would because I like Second Life, it is a great platform, it is innovative, the Moles are awesome, I like the Lindens, and hell, it is easy to find noobs to launch into volcanoes.  Plus I like the marketplace, I like that LL takes a role in the servers, I like that they are forward thinking and all of that.

Now, trying to find stuff to fill that region with is difficult, I don't want to pirate things, there is a lot of content

Edited May 21 by Istelathis

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

I have yet to find something that even tells someone who knows a lot about SL how to set up an up-to-date mesh avatar with BOM, must less one for someone just starting SL.

This is very true. I used to help newbies out a lot, and found none of them knew any of the lingo (of course). I'd usually run into them standing around naked and lost in skin or head stores, or friends would gently push them in my direction since I was the only one with that kind of patience.

While I never mind helping, it got to a point where I simply had to stop doing it. It'd take sometimes up to 3+ hours or longer, and a lot of that time was spent going over all the lingo, what vendors are and how to use them, how to use unpackers, features of their head and body HUDs, how to find head skins and body skins that match, how to get rid of that horrid neckline (why oh why does that ONLY ever happen with newbies omg - it's consistent), BOM vs. applier, what are materials and what do they do, rigged vs. unrigged hair, SLUV vs. Evo X, etc. etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love doing makeovers and it's very fun to see the excited "hey look at me NOW!" updates days/weeks after completion once they've got a handle on things, but the TIME it takes to get a person from brand new to maintaining their shiny new up-to-date mesh look without outside assistance is unreal.

I don't even know how to streamline that.

[Cristiano Midnight]

14 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

That statement is what the forum lion would usually call out as "Hyperbole".

 

It is not hyperbole. The SL client has always mimicked 3d design software to its peril. They bolted stuff onto it but at its heart it is still a 3d design tool. Third party clients have smoothed over some of it, but it is still far too complex for the average user. We get used to the complexity - but to a new user starting out, figuring out all of this ***** is hard.

[CaerolleClaudel]

4 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Honestly i can’t imagine logging onto SL from my phone, to send ims maybe, but actually do stuff inworld? nawwwww

It might not be bad on an iPad, esp one of the 13" ones, at least wrt the screen size. However, there are only a couple desktop-class apps for iPad, and those were mostly developed by Apple for a large market. I have not used those, but I have used another that is in the range of the desktop app, and like everything else mobile, the interface is different from the desktop app, and lots of things are hidden in (to me) random places.

As with almost all the mobile apps I have used, things that are simple on a real computer are far more tedious on the mobile app. I do not have really wide experience comparing mobile apps with the desktop versions, but other than that one app, all of the mobile apps are missing features I regularly use on the desktop, and more tedious to use because so much of the interface cannot be directly accessed like on the desktop. Even though you can spend $3000 on an iPad and the accessories you need to get the most from it, other than those few media and graphic design apps, iOS just cannot run desktop level apps.

If I needed to do much portable computing for things like SL, even if there was a mobile app, I would just take the money I would have to spend on (most likely) an iPad Pro, esp the 13" model, and get a really good laptop.

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

So, is there actually a mobile viewer ‘at the moment’? Sorry, I just came back to the Forum and know nothing about that. Is a beta out there or something, or is this just something LL says they are working on?

Thx

This may have been answered already (I haven't read through all the replies) but yes, there's an alpha viewer which is in private alpha  

Grumpity Linden gave an update last month in Lab Gab.   Inara Pey has the details and links

https://modemworld.me/2024/04/19/lab-gab-april-2024-update-mobile-mirrors-policies-summary/

[CaerolleClaudel]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

There's Basic Plooooose, Premium, and Premium Plooooose.

It's called Plooooose because that's how an LL staffer pronounced it when they launched it.

 

No, it's a statement, you CANNOT try the 5th rate SL experience that is MobileLife fail-viewer beta unless you are paying $250 a year for the Premium Plooooose.

 

OK, thanks. I do know what a beta is, but I was lost on the rest.

[CaerolleClaudel]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes. Details at the link: https://secondlife.com/premium  - click on "See Even More Benefits".

Interesting that none of them seem to mention land ownership? I owned a parcel once, and I thought I had to go Premium to do that...but it's been a while and I likely am mistaken.

[Coffee Pancake]

19 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

It is not hyperbole. The SL client has always mimicked 3d design software to its peril. They bolted stuff onto it but at its heart it is still a 3d design tool. Third party clients have smoothed over some of it, but it is still far too complex for the average user. We get used to the complexity - but to a new user starting out, figuring out all of this ***** is hard.

The SL client is programmer art.

Endless programmer art.

The kind of art reserved for internal tooling, stuff no one but the devs will see, good enough. Functional.

3rd party viewers can only do so much without painting themselves into a corner. This is why the most popular viewer is the one with the most options. It lets the user fiddle with things to make the best of a bad job.

SL's users are fundamentally gamers, that is to say, consumers of media. The expectation and skill set they bring to the table is not reflected by the product they are trying to use, then being told RTFM or go away.

The mobile client is a step in the right direction, but as with everything Linden is going to miss the fundamental reasons anyone decides to be here.

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, CaerolleClaudel said:

Interesting that none of them seem to mention land ownership? I owned a parcel once, and I thought I had to go Premium to do that...but it's been a while and I likely am mistaken.

You need to be premium to own mainland (and Linden Homes), if you rent land from another user (mainland or private region) you do not.

[CaerolleClaudel]

1 hour ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Yep LL is working on a brand new mobile viewer. 😂

There used to be a mobile text program, it would show your location on the map, but other than that it was for texting. I searched on the apple store, but it’s no longer there. 

I used Lumiya way back in the day when I was Hosting. However, I only used it to send notices while I was at work or otherwise away from home. IIRC really tedious to use and poorly featured, but worked well for that one thing, and helped me a lot. I think if were hosting a lot, an updated app even with just IM and Notice capabilities would be great. I would be hard pressed to do full SL on a mobile device, though, and I can't imagine doing it at all on a mobile/smartphone, it would have to be a tablet.

[Qie Niangao]

11 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

[…]

If I needed to do much portable computing for things like SL, even if there was a mobile app, I would just take the money I would have to spend on (most likely) an iPad Pro, esp the 13" model, and get a really good laptop.

Yeah. It would be interesting if somebody were to "benchmark" SL on the more graphics-capable Windows ARM (Snapdragon X) laptops of the bunch announced this week. They've been busy hyping the CoPilot performance but maybe those are all CUDA cores under the hood, to beat Apple's M4 AI processing—whatever any of that is actually measuring. Not that they'll be inexpensive to start, though.

But the iPad… is something else. I love ProCreate on my old iPad Air, but an iPad is really not a computer substitute. And yet I can definitely see using it for SL in "content consumer" mode. I've had Splashtop for years, too, and concur with @Cristiano Midnight, it's very slick and performs way better than any other remote desktop software I've used, and that's how I'd use the iPad for content creation… except it's always going to be slightly worse than doing it directly on the PC it's remoting. There's no way to use the fabulous Apple Pencil to somehow benefit the SL experience.

Instead, we wait for the mobile viewer to redefine the interface for mobile devices. Not being a Premium Plus subscriber, I don't know how that's going, but I'm not hearing raves yet.

[CaerolleClaudel]

29 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

This may have been answered already (I haven't read through all the replies) but yes, there's an alpha viewer which is in private alpha  

Grumpity Linden gave an update last month in Lab Gab.   Inara Pey has the details and links

https://modemworld.me/2024/04/19/lab-gab-april-2024-update-mobile-mirrors-policies-summary/

Thx, I will have a look!

[CaerolleClaudel]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

You need to be premium to own mainland (and Linden Homes), if you rent land from another user (mainland or private region) you do not.

Thx! They do mention getting a Home, but I didn't see anything about the Premium tiers enabling you to buy land. I guess something else people have to poke about to figure out?

[Extrude Ragu]

57 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Advertising SL to the WRONG crowd is worse than not advertising it al all.

Well I mean there are two routes there right.

1. Improve whichever paths sucks like combat or w/e (which ll already have momentum on with combat 2.0, gamepad support etc)

2. Change how/where SL is advertised. (Is LL actively advertising secondlife anywhere at all?)

 

Either way, point is for every problem you present there's probably a solution. It's a case of picking your poison, and doing it in a way that is likely to get the political willpower to get done.

If you had to choose which which paths were first shown to a user at a pick their own SL adventure, where would the paths lead/why?

 

 

[Arielle Popstar]

4 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Thx! They do mention getting a Home, but I didn't see anything about the Premium tiers enabling you to buy land. I guess something else people have to poke about to figure out?

The one year I took a premium subscription, I found the process a convoluted mess where the RTFM's made it even more confusing. Finally from asking the right people and crossing my fingers I did manage it but I'd wouldn't care to repeat it with the new ones available.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Well I mean there are two routes there right.

1. Improve whichever paths sucks ....

The path that needs the most work is social tooling. SL is a social place first and foremost.

The social side of SL, personal, group or activity & special interest, all depend on being able to interact with other users. This isn't just simple local chat and IM like we're IRC.

We're not losing users to some other game or platform. We're losing them to discord.

 

[CaerolleClaudel]

7 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yeah. It would be interesting if somebody were to "benchmark" SL on the more graphics-capable Windows ARM (Snapdragon X) laptops of the bunch announced this week. They've been busy hyping the CoPilot performance but maybe those are all CUDA cores under the hood, to beat Apple's M4 AI processing—whatever any of that is actually measuring. Not that they'll be inexpensive to start, though.

But the iPad… is something else. I love ProCreate on my old iPad Air, but an iPad is really not a computer substitute. And yet I can definitely see using it for SL in "content consumer" mode. I've had Splashtop for years, too, and concur with @Cristiano Midnight, it's very slick and performs way better than any other remote desktop software I've used, and that's how I'd use the iPad for content creation… except it's always going to be slightly worse than doing it directly on the PC it's remoting. There's no way to use the fabulous Apple Pencil to somehow benefit the SL experience.

Instead, we wait for the mobile viewer to redefine the interface for mobile devices. Not being a Premium Plus subscriber, I don't know how that's going, but I'm not hearing raves yet.

Thx!

I realize that everything I have said in this thread is mostly from my own perspective, and this esp so: Even though for the same money laptops generally are far better than iPads at the things I do, I really do not have a use case for a laptop. I don't really do any serious work away from home, and for me laptops suck for consuming content when lying in odd positions on the couch, not do they work well for typing on the couch; either I sit them in my lap and get a neck ache, or sit them on a tv tray and have a hard time typing. A tablet works best for consuming content on the couch, and if I have to try to be productive on the couch, I prefer to sit the tablet on a tv tray and use a BT keyboard in my lap. That way both the 'monitor' and the keyboard are in pretty decent places ergonomically. I do the same thing when away from home, I just use my iPad and the BT keyboard.

I think the yet another new Pen for people to buy that is compatible with only a limited range of devices is mostly for use with drawing and graphic design on the iPads? I don't know if the new features help with the hardcore video apps or not. I can't see LL making something that made use of the Pen for anything other than a selection tool, though.

[Cristiano Midnight]

25 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The SL client is programmer art.

Endless programmer art.

The kind of art reserved for internal tooling, stuff no one but the devs will see, good enough. Functional.

3rd party viewers can only do so much without painting themselves into a corner. This is why the most popular viewer is the one with the most options. It lets the user fiddle with things to make the best of a bad job.

SL's users are fundamentally gamers, that is to say, consumers of media. The expectation and skill set they bring to the table is not reflected by the product they are trying to use, then being told RTFM or go away.

The mobile client is a step in the right direction, but as with everything Linden is going to miss the fundamental reasons anyone decides to be here.

Ultimately a lot users simply want to play Barbie dream house with pixel bumping. SL is an aspirational fantasy simulator. 

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Interesting that none of them seem to mention land ownership? I owned a parcel once, and I thought I had to go Premium to do that...but it's been a while and I likely am mistaken.

The "land tier" means how much land you can own. 

[Extrude Ragu]

4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

We're not losing users to some other game or platform. We're losing them to discord.

Yeah, that's a good point. I'm already in a habbit of messaging friends I've made on SL on discord, even when they're online on SL.

And usually it's simply because the chat works better. I can send funny pictures and gifs, files.. Share stuff from my phone to discord... they can play that one youtube video back right there in the chat... Group chats actually work how you'd expect them to... etc.

[JUSTUS Palianta]

8 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The path that needs the most work is social tooling. SL is a social place first and foremost.

The social side of SL, personal, group or activity & special interest, all depend on being able to interact with other users. This isn't just simple local chat and IM like we're IRC.

We're not losing users to some other game or platform. We're losing them to discord.

 

This is a serious issue LL is completely ignoring.  A 3D Chat Platform with broken Chat isn't really good for anything.  

[Cristiano Midnight]

23 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yeah. It would be interesting if somebody were to "benchmark" SL on the more graphics-capable Windows ARM (Snapdragon X) laptops of the bunch announced this week. They've been busy hyping the CoPilot performance but maybe those are all CUDA cores under the hood, to beat Apple's M4 AI processing—whatever any of that is actually measuring. Not that they'll be inexpensive to start, though.

But the iPad… is something else. I love ProCreate on my old iPad Air, but an iPad is really not a computer substitute. And yet I can definitely see using it for SL in "content consumer" mode. I've had Splashtop for years, too, and concur with @Cristiano Midnight, it's very slick and performs way better than any other remote desktop software I've used, and that's how I'd use the iPad for content creation… except it's always going to be slightly worse than doing it directly on the PC it's remoting. There's no way to use the fabulous Apple Pencil to somehow benefit the SL experience.

Instead, we wait for the mobile viewer to redefine the interface for mobile devices. Not being a Premium Plus subscriber, I don't know how that's going, but I'm not hearing raves yet.

Touch is never going to be as precise as a mouse on a desktop. Still, the controls in Splashtop work incredibly well for me, and you can use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard with it, though I never do. Granted, I customized the hell out of the controls through trial and error, but I ended up with a pretty great interface.

[CaerolleClaudel]

4 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The one year I took a premium subscription, I found the process a convoluted mess where the RTFM's made it even more confusing. Finally from asking the right people and crossing my fingers I did manage it but I'd wouldn't care to repeat it with the new ones available.

Honestly that is how I have learned to do almost everything in SL, is by getting guidance from people I knew in-world. I realize that in my rants I have forgotten about YouTube tutorials, but in web searches I have done, I don't know that I have gotten that far. To be fair, I have almost zero experience with video games, and most gamers would not even consider the two I have experience with as real games, lol. So, perhaps @Zalificent Corvinus is correct and most people come into SL already understanding many of the concepts. I guess I have known people in SL who gamed, but I have never really known anyone who seemed to be a serious gamer though, so I dunno. I had the idea that most people who came into SL were mostly new to MMO games (though I see SL as not a game lol).

[Coffee Pancake]

3 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

Ultimately a lot users simply want to play Barbie dream house with pixel bumping. SL is an aspirational fantasy simulator. 

Imagine where we would be if Linden understood that and focused on delivering that first and foremost.

Everything else we do happens when we grow out of humpy barbie, or humpy barbie isn't online right now.

[CaerolleClaudel]

4 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

The "land tier" means how much land you can own. 

OK, I am as always an idiot: I see now that you have to expand the comparison table, which has quite a lot more info, including info about tier (which I did know about lol...I actually owned some land for a while and put my own house on it, with (IIRC) my SL Home parcel just going to waste).