Is Lindenlab choosing a doomed path for SL ? Tell us if the EEP and PBR introduction changed the way you play SL

[BriannaLovey]

Just now, Ina Fairport said:

EEEEKKK.....
 

Yes , that was my first reaction after logging in just after I had installed the last FS update.

 

This last update has changed my SL dramatically. So ugly...!!! I tried several settings but it all looks horrible. FPS is not even bad but the graphics are so bad.

My PC is 11 years old and SL always looked good. Untill today...
I am not often online anymore and I won't update my PC only for SL.
This means a definite farewell.

I know I have said this many times, but you should look at Cool VL Viewer. It has a switch that will allow you to disable PBR. http://sldev.free.fr/

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

You have completely lost touch with reality.

The idea the Lab is arrogantly changing things is your opinion. That you are forced to buy a new computer... no. Watch David Clement's "Let My People Go" to get sense of how people in touch with reality think of force. The Lab is way behind on viewer technology for games. They do their best to help legacy users come along. But when it is at the expense of new users, something has to give.

If you pay attention to the community and especially if you attend user group meetings and talk with the Lab's engineers you know there is considerable pressure to upgrade SL to newer tech.

It should be obvious they will not and cannot cater to your specific needs/desires and stay in business.

Technology is advancing. Microsoft, Apple, all the gaming companies phase out their older products and versions as they move to more advanced tech. The users spending money, want new tech. You are a minority. Wake up.

No. We ARE being forced.

And it's because Linden Lab still remains at the gamerz tech bro level and still think they need to "catch up" with the other "games" -- their engines, graphics, etc. etc. Even their "lootbox" policy which does. not. apply.

It has been the case for 21 years. Maybe they will outgrow it. Maybe not. But they are the ones who are behind, not us.

If a few of the tech bros/fan boyz who attend office hours -- most of us NEVER do -- can sway the LL devs, then there's your problem. THAT. They are out of touch with their user base.

They rushed to do a mobile phone as well to "keep up with the kids."

If they would just see what they have -- just us chickens -- and cater to us -- they'd have more of us, and there ARE more of us than tech nerds playing gamez.

Second Life is not a PC, a phone, or a game requiring a "gaming computer" where the content is all made by the company.

But Second Life is ours.

I fear they will understand this only when they lose it. And us.

 

[Sid Nagy]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No. We ARE being forced.

And it's because Linden Lab still remains at the gamerz tech bro level and still think they need to "catch up" with the other "games" -- their engines, graphics, etc. etc. Even their "lootbox" policy which does. not. apply.

It has been the case for 21 years. Maybe they will outgrow it. Maybe not. But they are the ones who are behind, not us.

If a few of the tech bros/fan boyz who attend office hours -- most of us NEVER do -- can sway the LL devs, then there's your problem. THAT. They are out of touch with their user base.

They rushed to do a mobile phone as well to "keep up with the kids."

If they would just see what they have -- just us chickens -- and cater to us -- they'd have more of us, and there ARE more of us than tech nerds playing gamez.

Second Life is not a PC, a phone, or a game requiring a "gaming computer" where the content is all made by the company.

But Second Life is ours.

I fear they will understand this only when they lose it. And us.

 

I agree that LL still hardly understands the needs of their user base, but on the other hand a 21 years run is impressive as well, so they must be doing things right too I guess.

Edited June 22 by Sid Nagy

[Prokofy Neva]

7 minutes ago, BriannaLovey said:

I know I have said this many times, but you should look at Cool VL Viewer. It has a switch that will allow you to disable PBR. http://sldev.free.fr/

Thanks for that link. The problem I have with it now I recall is that I simply can't get it to download. It says "Unconfirmed" and doesn't finish downloading. I have 235 GB left on my computer, not much, but it should be able to download and execute, and I can't get it to do that. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

9 minutes ago, Ina Fairport said:

EEEEKKK.....
 

Yes , that was my first reaction after logging in just after I had installed the last FS update.

 

This last update has changed my SL dramatically. So ugly...!!! I tried several settings but it all looks horrible. FPS is not even bad but the graphics are so bad.

My PC is 11 years old and SL always looked good. Untill today...
I am not often online anymore and I won't update my PC only for SL.
This means a definite farewell.

Ina, if it's the appearance rather than the performance that is the issue, you should be able to fix that by playing with some different EEP settings, or getting some designed for PBR. (There are even freebies on the MP).

[Prokofy Neva]

2 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

I agree that LL still hardly understands the needs of their user base, but on the other hand a 21 years run is impressive as well, so they must be doing things right too I guess.

Mitch Kapor used to call us masochists -- and left.

Philip Rosedale would say we were all living in little cabins on the edge of a vast wilderness we wouldn't explore. OK, guilty as charged. He has left, and come back, and left again. 

[BriannaLovey]

10 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Thanks for that link. The problem I have with it now I recall is that I simply can't get it to download. It says "Unconfirmed" and doesn't finish downloading. I have 235 GB left on my computer, not much, but it should be able to download and execute, and I can't get it to do that. 

Just wait for it.

[Istelathis]

True story, to get my new PC without making too much of a sacrifice, I am going to sell mah blood.  My previous laptop was six years old (I believe) the plastics around the hinges had disintegrated as the oils had dried out due to the heating.  The 1050 at the time, could handle PBR but not by any means fantastically.  Plus with all of the new stuff coming out for computers as of late, mostly AI, it was time to for an upgrade.

So, I went against my better judgement, got a credit card that has no interest for 12 months and purchased a computer for under $1000, an inexpensive monitor, and 32gb of additional ram.  Donating plasma should have it paid off in less than two months, and I expect to have the desktop for another five years with upgrading, before I move on to something else.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 8-Core Processor               (3792.78 MHz)
Memory: 48278 MB (Used: 504 MB)
Concurrency: 16
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 11 64-bit (Build 22631.3737)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 7949 MB
Graphics Card Memory (Detected): 7949 MB
Graphics Card Memory (Budget): Unlimited

 

This may be an option for some of you looking to upgrade your computer, but don't have the money handy.  Look for a place that buys yer plasma, where I live there is usually a bonus for the first month.  I get $800, for I think it is about 8 donations, with being a new "donor".  I have setup my first session for next week.

 

I am kind of happy, that I have a reason to upgrade my computer again.  Not just for SL, just for running things.  It felt as though technology was getting stagnant, and there was no need anymore to upgrade.. unlike the 90s and earlier 2000s where it felt like my computer almost required to be upgraded or replaced every couple of years.

 

12 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Philip Rosedale would say we were all living in little cabins on the edge of a vast wilderness we wouldn't explore. OK, guilty as charged. He has left, and come back, and left again. 

He is gone again?  

😔

I'm starting to develop abandonment issues.

Edited June 22 by Istelathis

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No. We ARE being forced.

And it's because Linden Lab still remains at the gamerz tech bro level and still think they need to "catch up" with the other "games" -- their engines, graphics, etc. etc. Even their "lootbox" policy which does. not. apply.

It has been the case for 21 years. Maybe they will outgrow it. Maybe not. But they are the ones who are behind, not us.

If a few of the tech bros/fan boyz who attend office hours -- most of us NEVER do -- can sway the LL devs, then there's your problem. THAT. They are out of touch with their user base.

They rushed to do a mobile phone as well to "keep up with the kids."

If they would just see what they have -- just us chickens -- and cater to us -- they'd have more of us, and there ARE more of us than tech nerds playing gamez.

Second Life is not a PC, a phone, or a game requiring a "gaming computer" where the content is all made by the company.

But Second Life is ours.

I fear they will understand this only when they lose it. And us.

 

I would agree with you up to the point of your reasonings on the Mobile viewer. That was initiated by a bunch of us who were using Lumiya regularly when SL/Oz switched over from fetching assets through HTTP instead of UDP which broke the viewer in some ways and that for some was the only option they had. It was at that point that a group of us from the Lumiya group massed together at one of the Linden meetings and voiced our concern and that if SL intended to continue on breaking Lumiya with the inventory fetching changed, they would need to come up with their own mobile viewer since Lumiya was no longer being maintained.

It was most definitely not "keeping up with kids" as Lumiya had been active by then for 7 odd years and over a half million residents had gone so far as to buy a license for it and now the Lindens where breaking it with their protocol changes.

Not that I have much hope if and when they finally roll out their version that it will be as functional as Lumiya was, but at very least you and quite a few others wouldn't be sitting in the dark while you wait for repairs or upgrades to your desktop.

[Persephone Emerald]

3 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Personally I think if the Lindens were really interested in making SL more attractive to new people and even the general populace, they could have done much more with fixing many other things that wouldn't have required everyone to upgrade their hardware to see the pretty projectors.

If they don't get soon make SL more playable with enhanced Marketing tools, Dressing and Inventory tools, they will just continue on the suicidal path they been on for some years that's just making the platform learning curve increasingly steep to a point where the only new people that come here are retreads who are giving SL another kick at the can, which is already a thing. Brand new people who have never been to SL before are an increasingly rare breed.

How about updating the ground textures and Linden foliage on Mainland?

How about fixing Group Chat so it actually works, so groups don't have to use Discord?

How about fixing all the problems with SL Marketplace?

It's nice to have mirrors, but personally I'm fine with the pre-PBR graphics choices.

[Arielle Popstar]

15 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Thanks for that link. The problem I have with it now I recall is that I simply can't get it to download. It says "Unconfirmed" and doesn't finish downloading. I have 235 GB left on my computer, not much, but it should be able to download and execute, and I can't get it to do that. 

Try a different browser maybe. Sounds like a message you'd get from Microsoft Edge.

Edited June 22 by Arielle Popstar

[Henri Beauchamp]

25 minutes ago, BriannaLovey said:

I know I have said this many times, but you should look at Cool VL Viewer. It has a switch that will allow you to disable PBR. http://sldev.free.fr/

Yes, perhaps too many times... As the author/maintainer of this viewer, I kindly ask you to stop bombarding this thread with the same advice, again and again.

I am glad you find my viewer to your taste, but I do not want it to be associated with any form of spam.

Thank you.

[Nofunawo]

Interesting how many people here know what "THE SL" user wants and how SL should be. Didn't know I give them permission to talk for me. Must have missed the letter.

Learned SL is something for masochists and freaks...for me SL is the thing that gives me space for my imagination and skills like no other. 
Some of which I learned the hard way over years of SL. Doing mesh, scripting...and now it's a wonderful playground full of possibilities. 

And now this world, which is still wonderful for me, has been updated and looks better than ever. Great. 
Do I have to get used to it? Yes. I'm happy to. Decent EEP, a bit of tweaking here, getting used to material textures...yay.

Stuff to explore.

Edited June 22 by Nofunawo

[Prokofy Neva]

15 minutes ago, BriannaLovey said:

Just wait for it.

It never comes.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It never comes.

Neither did Godot, but it made for a wonderful play.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 minutes ago, Nofunawo said:

Interesting how many people here know what "THE SL" user wants and how SL should be. Didn't know I give them permission to talk for me. Must have missed the letter.

Learned SL is something for masochists and freaks...for me SL is the thing that gives me space for my imagination and skills like no other. 
Some of which I learned the hard way over years of SL. Doing mesh, scripting...and now it's a wonderful playground full of possibilities. 

And now this world, which is still wonderful for me, has been updated and looks better than ever. Great. 
Do I have to get used to it? Yes. I'm happy to. Decent EEP, a bit of tweaking here, getting used to material textures...yay.

Stuff to explore.

Happy to speak for "the SL User" because I have had hundreds of thousands of customers come through in the 20+ years I've been in SL.

Mitch Kapor called us masochists; I don't.

I'm as big a fan of SL as any, and love to explore and make things and hang out and go to see art works and live music.

I resent having an ugly plastic shiny picnic tablecloth forced over the world and it's more than fine that I feel that way.

 

[Flower Caerndow]

After reading all the wailing and gnashing of teeth here on the forums about how horrible PBR is I had to download it to see.  Guess I am one of the masochists too

But I was pleasantly surprised by how good things looked when I logged in with the updated Firestorm viewer.  My old favorite EEP setting, one I purchased a while ago on MP, did not look as beautiful as it did before PBR but still usable, and the midday setting was much better.  I did redo some of my preferences and got much better FPS by unchecking the box for mirrors and reflective stuff and turning off shadows, which I always do anyway.  My computer is not a laptop but a few years old, not top of the line but not a potato either and it didn't seem to run much hotter than usual.  Things rezzed a bit slower than before but not as long as expected from what I had been reading. 

Do not believe all the negativity on the forums and groups - and adjust your settings!

[Nofunawo]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Happy to speak for "the SL User" because I have had hundreds of thousands of customers come through in the 20+ years I've been in SL.

 

So, please be informed you don't talk for me. Thanks! 

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, RicDelMoro said:

Do any of you know any NOOB that has a maximum of 6 months in SL ? Or how long has it been since you seen a legitimate noob, one of those who doesn't even know how to use an AO ? 

I run into them constantly.. But I'm also kind of putting myself in their sights with the groups I am in and them hitting me up for help.It's been a couple of weeks and really with me being on less than before, I don't run into them as often and before.. But I do run into them pretty often still..

Enough to where I can get them well enough informed that they leave with better security information and  about husd and mesh bodies and heads and  all that goes with that.. There is so much more that we go into and it takes a good day of running them through things to where they know their way around those things..

It's a lot of fun seeing them get excited about what we can do in here and each thing they learn how to work..

[BriannaLovey]

19 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Yes, perhaps too many times... As the author/maintainer of this viewer, I kindly ask you to stop bombarding this thread with the same advice, again and again.

I am glad you find my viewer to your taste, but I do not want it to be associated with any form of spam.

Thank you.

As you wish. I will take a break!

[Infierna Bloodrose]

Going to chime in here with a bit of an overnight update. I love how things look in PBR  for the most part. It's beautiful but going to take a lot of getting used to because I actually have never ran around with even the old advanced lighting on. I did notice something that is going to cause me personally a LOT of work and will be major.

 **Any and all** of my built items that used the SL shine feature that we've had since  god created the prim are now coated in a thin film ranging from blue, bluer,  and bluest depending on if I used low ,med or high SL shine. This looks bad and is unacceptable for my standards of what I feel proud to sell. I'm just a  hobbyist. I've made some cool things  and have managed to make some nice stuff using substance and A LOT of trial and error. I cant compete with the top designers who  do things at pro level and have massive  training in digital creation But I've had fun with it  and have some stuff I'm proud of.

I'm REALLY going to have to start over  with what has been an entire Second Life of amassed ways of building . That's just how it is. This new PBR is not going away  and all the crying in the world isnt going to change a thing. Who knows... maybe my stuff will be better for it in the end.

What this means is I  will be closing my store within a few days and starting again from the ground up.  Anything anyone bought from me that now looks weird under PBR I can't do anything about. 

I actually uninstalled the newest PBR viewer even though I think its quite pretty and had gotten it running smooth . It's making my head spin and honestly after a couple  hours of it my eyes hurt.  I've always been one of those people who runs around second life with NO advanced lighting on so this is like.... DAMN!

Its dark/ its bright/ Im glowing like a god.. wow pretty. Where'd my fence go ? Its dark over here and the grass is the same dark  which is which? ( fiddles with settings more)-- OMG the jewelry I made is all milky blue  *cries* ! Oh no, the latex outfit I textured and used a tweaked specular map on looks  half milky blue here and there and is  topped with white speckles!   Eeep... my partners cup he's drinking from has no shape I can discern since its nothing more than a white glow that's lighting up both our faces to radioactive levels. Gives up ...logs out... logs back in. logs out, logs in...  etc

This  was my second life last night.   lol

Ill sort through things in lighting I understand and that's not  shining like the angels descended from heaven on me.  Its very pretty but I'm gonna need to jump in a bit slower now that I know what's coming.  I got A LOT to fix ( while I can still use lighting that's bland enough to see by ).

I'm wondering about the future me building or even just decorating. I always liked to have a nice flat  even toned midday light to do my base work in. If it looked good in that, it was going to look good whatever else happened to it. That will ALL be gone soon  and 'm finding that sad.

For now I'm basking in the last  boring gleam of the old environment that all have known for 21 years and, salvaging what seems like it may work for the future trip to Mars ( or whatever shiny planet) we are all embarking on.

Happy journey to all who stay  in the rocket!  Were going on an advennntuuuuuure! lol   Buckle up!   

 

[Qie Niangao]

28 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Neither did Godot, but it made for a wonderful play.

Gee… Not even a spoiler alert? [ETA: /sarcasm]

This thread reminds me so much of the hue and cry when Windlight was introduced, a change that required upgrades for a large share of machines back then and really changed the lighting of everything in-world in ways for which builds and especially avatars were not prepared.

People rage-quit en masse and it was the end of the platform—until they were back in a week or so, having tired of using their secret newbie alts. Plus ça change.

 

Edited June 22 by Qie Niangao
also added that "thread" is what reminds me of Windlight, not Godot

[Cackle Amore]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No. We ARE being forced.

And it's because Linden Lab still remains at the gamerz tech bro level and still think they need to "catch up" with the other "games" -- their engines, graphics, etc. etc.

 

Well to be fair.. from what I recall hearing about a previous higher up that had final say on what projects could be worked on, they probably didn't have a chance to have their 'gamerz tech' phase till recent years

I guess who ever took their place when they stepped down is much more open to ideas with how many new features they been working on lately.

Edited June 22 by Cackle Amore

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

That is also not what LL say, they claim to have done hardware surveys and believe the users use systems capable of running this.

Yeah...

But...

LL also claimed, a few years back, that 60% of us used Awful Mac whyPhones, despite a) having exactly NO means to determine what brand of phones any of us used, and b) not bothering to ask any of us.

That's why their FIRST attempt at a Mobile Fail-Viewer, the text only one they dropped just as it got accepted for the app store, was Awful Mac only.

Because "60% of SecondLifers use whyPhones" said some LL back-office type who in fact didn't know anything of the sort.

Also bear in mind their estimates of what hardware is upto running SL have ALWAYS been called out for being on the LOW side.

 

[Extrude Ragu]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

How about updating the ground textures and Linden foliage on Mainland?

How about fixing Group Chat so it actually works, so groups don't have to use Discord?

How about fixing all the problems with SL Marketplace?

I know what you're trying to say, but I just want to point out that LL staff are generally quite specialised. The people who work on the web properties are a different group to those who work on the viewer for instance.

In software development you can't really take one staff member who maintains one project and put them on another and expect them to be effective. There's a lot of specialised knowledge at play.