Jump to content

Third Party Viewer Policy Changes


Rene Erlanger
 Share

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4232 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts


Chetar Ruby wrote:

 

 WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT OF LOGGING IN IF YOU DONT WANT ANYONE TO KNOW?


The ability to work on something without distraction and interruption is a big point.  It doesn't cut out all of it, as there are other ways to tell your on line if some one really wants to know, but it can tone it down quite a bit.   Its like a lock.  A really determined person can still get in, but it will deter the 'honest' people and people that just don't want to do the work of breaking in.

Busy mode is only so effective and prevents you from receiving things that you may want/need, such as a MP purchase.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 131
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic


Amethyst Jetaime wrote:


Chetar Ruby wrote:

 

 WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT OF LOGGING IN IF YOU DONT WANT ANYONE TO KNOW?


The ability to work on something without distraction and interruption is a big point.  It doesn't cut out all of it, as there are other ways to tell your on line if some one really wants to know, but it can tone it down quite a bit.   Its like a lock.  A really determined person can still get in, but it will deter the 'honest' people and people that just don't want to do the work of breaking in.

Busy mode is only so effective and prevents you from receiving things that you may want/need, such as a MP purchase.

 

So use an alt?  Or even more drastic (I like this one), use a RLV viewer and restrict your own ability to receive IM's.  This'll letcha still get MP purchases, but anyone IM'ing you just gets "It's been blocked, try again later."

Insta-privacy and no distractions.  You get what you want and nothing has to get broken along the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Perrie Juran wrote:

The decision on where to post is based upon where the fewest number of people will see it.  Or where they think they will catch the least amount of heat.

BINGO!  Which is why the Received Items folder change was dumped into Merchants forum when it affects EVERYONE and so far is almost unanimously despised.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

unless i am missing something, it seems like a good thing to me. they want to keep the experience uniform across the board and anything that isn't a shared experience is still ok.

and if i set my online status to offline then i don't want someone to use a script to overide that to see that i am online. that makes the on/off option pointless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

if tpv's would have never broken the offline option in the viewer..we wouldn't be having this change where things are being broken..

nobody would have complained about the viewers and things would still be good..instead people had to know who had them blocked from seeing them online..because who in the hell would dare do that to them..

omg why you haz me show you offlines..you b!tch you not mah BFF anymoorze!!i know cuz i haz better viewerz powerz and can still seez you thatz how i knowz!!dis is insta dramma war..i'm tellin everyone you know that you are onlines!! \o/

lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Feldspar Millgrove wrote:

Regarding the fact that you can tell if someone is online by other means than llGetAgentData.  As acknowleged by LL, there are many ways to do this.  However, LL has made it very clear that anyone using those techniques would be in serious violation of the policy and TOS.  "Don't do it" was what they said.

Now that people are pointing out uses for these calls that are nothing to do with snooping, Oz has said they will discuss the issue further, for TPV's, they shouldn't be using it and Oz's don't use it point still stands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

one question i have in relation to LL wanting to keep the shared experience the same across all viewers is what about the opposite interms of features. like pheonix does not have media on a prim. i was just playing a video in a crowed place and most people couldn't see it because they were using pheonix. will they eventually force developers to include every latest feature?

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Chetar Ruby wrote:


Pussycat Catnap wrote:

Why should RLV be able to override people cheating anyway?

If someone gives up on the RP and decides to break it, they've given up on the RP. They've left the game as it were. Rather than force them to 'play' - boot em out of the game's RP zone.

 

Missing the point.  RLV can't stop people from cheating.  Duh?  Just turn it off and yer free to go.

The reasons for needing that information (someone being connected or not) are numerious, some of them more warranted than others.  But it doesn't matter how warranted they are.  That they ARE warranted, legitimate and responcible uses of that information is.
[snip]

I'd personally just prefer it be left alone.  It's not some godforsaken invasion of privacy to know if someone is conneted or not.  I've already covered this.  WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT OF LOGGING IN IF YOU DONT WANT ANYONE TO KNOW?

 I still don't really understand why you say an RLV trap needs to check online status, unless it's so the trap knows sooner rather than later if it should reset itself because, since the victim has logged back in somewhere else, they presumably don't want to be trapped any more.    

I make RLV traps and cages, too, and it's simply never occurred to me to call llRequestAgentData (which is what the function is called) like that.   As I said in an earlier post, I can see you might need it for very specialised prison RP, but most people want traps and cages that give up waiting automatically after a while rather than maybe sit there waiting for a week or so, with no one else able to use them, in case the victim shows up again.

Certainly, I'm upset about LL breaking necessary and legitimate uses for the function, and upset, too, about LL breaking existing scripts and products this way -- even if (as is the case for some applications) there's an easy work-round,  LL simply shouldn't do that sort of thing, to my mind.   And for a lot of applications -- such as vendors that send gifts and subscribeomatics -- there simply isn't one.   

And it's not that people want to log in without anyone knowing -- which might be nice, but you've never been able to do that.   However, there is a setting to show your Online Status only to friends and groups, and not to everyone.   And, while I agree few people can have been bothered about vendors and subscribeomatics checking their online status before trying to send stuff out, LL seem eventually have decided that having one particular TPV that simply ignored everyone's preference in this regard simply wasn't acceptable.

Unfortunately, to my mind, they've taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and here we are now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Bouttime Whybrow wrote:

one question i have in relation to LL wanting to keep the shared experience the same across all viewers is what about the opposite interms of features. like pheonix does not have media on a prim. i was just playing a video in a crowed place and most people couldn't see it because they were using pheonix. will they eventually force developers to include every latest feature?

No, what the policy says is that you can't have stuff that only renders properly if you're using a TPV.   For example, a couple of years ago, there was some experimental code tested that made sculpties flexible (it turned out to be far too laggy, and they started work on mesh, instead).  Some TPVs briefly included the code, so I could set sculpties to flexible using Cool SL (as then it was called) for a month or so, and see them being flexible, but they looked hideous to everyone else.   That wouldn't be possible now.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I'm scan reading and in a rush.  Does this mean that we will no longer be able to have free/temp previews of textures before deciding to upload that some of the TPVs provide?  That's one non-feature of the LL viewer I don't wish to share in thank you very much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Innula Zenovka wrote:

 I still don't really understand why you say an RLV trap needs to check online status....[snip]

 

 

It's really not important.  What is important is there is perfectly legit uses for this function to work as it was originally designed.  Changing it will break content and achieve ABSOLUTELY nothing what so ever other than break it for.. what?  As I said, unless you plug about a dozen more 'holes' in online presense hiding, its utterly pointless to plug one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Ceka Cianci wrote:

if tpv's would have never broken the offline option in the viewer..we wouldn't be having this change where things are being broken..

nobody would have complained about the viewers and things would still be good..instead people had to know who had them blocked from seeing them online..because who in the hell would dare do that to them..

omg why you haz me show you offlines..you b!tch you not mah BFF anymoorze!!i know cuz i haz better viewerz powerz and can still seez you thatz how i knowz!!dis is insta dramma war..i'm tellin everyone you know that you are onlines!! \o/

lol

The TPV's didn't "break the offline function."  They only completed a simple hoop to jump through.  Way before there were TPV's, I knew how to check if someone was online.  The ability to know is still there even with this function being killed. At least for now.

Sometimes I just like to wander the Grid by myself.  If a friend IM's me I just respond that I am taking some "Me Time."  If they can't respect that they won't stay on my friends list very long.

Really, the way I see it is that removing this function is not going to stop the Drama's that the lab is trying to circumvent.  It may reduce it some, but it is not going to stop it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Innula Zenovka wrote:

 I still don't really understand why you say an RLV trap needs to check online status, unless it's so the trap knows sooner rather than later if it should reset itself because, since the victim has logged back in somewhere else, they presumably don't want to be trapped any more.    

 

um, my only cage checks to see if the owner is online.  If they go offline then the victim is released a short while after.  I guess this will continue to work since it checks for the cage owner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sy Beck wrote:

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I'm scan reading and in a rush.  Does this mean that we will no longer be able to have free/temp previews of textures before deciding to upload that some of the TPVs provide?  That's one non-feature of the LL viewer I don't wish to share in thank you very much.

That's my understanding yes although I fail to see how this is a feature that breaks the "shared experience" since if I upload a temp texture in my funky viewer, even mortals in their LL viewer can ALSO see the same texture on a prim.

So from this you can take it that they really really want that L$10 although Oz Linden did say during the audio something about it being better if people didn't have to pay the L$10 to upload a texture (i'm hopelessly misquoting Oz there) but Smarmy Linden (I don't know which one he was but he came across that way) said that "people could just go to play Linden Realms and in a couple of hours earn a couple of dozen L$ instead".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that it's always been able to see if someone's offline or not and that we didn't need to use a particular TPV to do it.

But I don't think that's the point.   To my mind, there are many legitimate reasons a script might need to check someone's online status, and several illegitimate ones too.   

But certainly, at least to my mind, it wasn't legitimate when the Emerald devs made it possible for users of their -- now banned, of course --  viewer simply to set the viewer to ignore preferences other people had set, simply "because we can," and it's unfortunate, to say the least, that Phoenix didn't remove features like that as well the ones they were told, at the time,  they had to.

To my mind, a great many problems could still be avoided if LL were simply to say TPVs aren't allowed to ignore, in what's displayed in the viewer, other people's online privacy settings, and leave it at that.    Then they could review the situation some months down the line and see if any remaining abuses of llRequestAgentData are so sufficiently serious to merit attention that might adversely affect the many legitimate uses of the function.

As a compromise, at least in the short- to-medium term, I think that has a lot to recommend it. 

In point of fact, I'm not even sure that the Phoenix bridge does call llRequestAgentData or if it uses some other method to determine your status.   Maybe someone who knows more about making viewers can assist here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sassy Romano wrote:


Innula Zenovka wrote:

 I still don't really understand why you say an RLV trap needs to check online status, unless it's so the trap knows sooner rather than later if it should reset itself because, since the victim has logged back in somewhere else, they presumably don't want to be trapped any more.    

 

um, my only cage checks to see if the owner is online.  If they go offline then the victim is released a short while after.  I guess this will continue to work since it checks for the cage owner.

Yeah, that will be unaffected.  But we were talking about checking if your prisoner had relogged somewhere else, which doesn't seem to me to be very necessary most of the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sassy Romano wrote:


Sy Beck wrote:

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I'm scan reading and in a rush.  Does this mean that we will no longer be able to have free/temp previews of textures before deciding to upload that some of the TPVs provide?  That's one non-feature of the LL viewer I don't wish to share in thank you very much.

That's my understanding yes although I fail to see how this is a feature that breaks the "shared experience" since if I upload a temp texture in my funky viewer, even mortals in their LL viewer can ALSO see the same texture on a prim.

So from this you can take it that they really really want that L$10 although Oz Linden did say during the audio something about it being better if people didn't have to pay the L$10 to upload a texture (i'm hopelessly misquoting Oz there) but Smarmy Linden (I don't know which one he was but he came across that way) said that "people could just go to play Linden Realms and in a couple of hours earn a couple of dozen L$ instead".

No, people don't see temp textures.  I've often asked friends their opinion on a sculpt or a texture and they look blankly at me either seeing an unformed sculpt or a plywood prim.

[ETA and lol @ Smarmy Linden]

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Innula Zenovka wrote:

I agree that it's always been able to see if someone's offline or not and that we didn't need to use a particular TPV to do it.

But I don't think that's the point.   To my mind, there are many legitimate reasons a script might need to check someone's online status, and several illegitimate ones too.   

But certainly, at least to my mind, it wasn't legitimate when the Emerald devs made it possible for users of their -- now banned, of course --  viewer simply to set the viewer to ignore preferences other people had set, simply "because we can," and it's unfortunate, to say the least, that Phoenix didn't remove features like that as well the ones they were told, at the time,  they had to.

To my mind, a great many problems could still be avoided if LL were simply to say TPVs aren't allowed to ignore, in what's displayed in the viewer, other people's online privacy settings, and leave it at that.    Then they could review the situation some months down the line and see if any remaining abuses of llRequestAgentData are so sufficiently serious to merit attention that might adversely affect the many legitimate uses of the function.

As a compromise, at least in the short- to-medium term, I think that has a lot to recommend it. 

In point of fact, I'm not even sure that the Phoenix bridge does call llRequestAgentData or if it uses some other method to determine your status.   Maybe someone who knows more about making viewers can assist here.

"But I don't think that's the point.   To my mind, there are many legitimate reasons a script might need to check someone's online status, and several illegitimate ones too."

This will always be the issue, benefits verses detriments.  How someone uses a tool.

A rule that says, you can not include a feature that 'auto displays' on line status could make sense.

At best right now all the current solution accomplishes by breaking this function is to create a domino effect of creating other problems while making it appear that LL cares about privacy.  I am not saying that they don't, but the track record has been it's just an illusion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sy Beck wrote:


Sassy Romano wrote:


Sy Beck wrote:

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I'm scan reading and in a rush.  Does this mean that we will no longer be able to have free/temp previews of textures before deciding to upload that some of the TPVs provide?  That's one non-feature of the LL viewer I don't wish to share in thank you very much.

That's my understanding yes although I fail to see how this is a feature that breaks the "shared experience" since if I upload a temp texture in my funky viewer, even mortals in their LL viewer can ALSO see the same texture on a prim.

So from this you can take it that they really really want that L$10 although Oz Linden did say during the audio something about it being better if people didn't have to pay the L$10 to upload a texture (i'm hopelessly misquoting Oz there) but Smarmy Linden (I don't know which one he was but he came across that way) said that "people could just go to play Linden Realms and in a couple of hours earn a couple of dozen L$ instead".

No, people don't see temp textures.  I've often asked friends their opinion on a sculpt or a texture and they look blankly at me either seeing an unformed sculpt or a plywood prim.

[ETA and lol @ Smarmy Linden]

My experience with this has been hit and miss.  Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't but I'm not sure of a common denominator.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Perrie Juran wrote:


Ceka Cianci wrote:

if tpv's would have never broken the offline option in the viewer..we wouldn't be having this change where things are being broken..

nobody would have complained about the viewers and things would still be good..instead people had to know who had them blocked from seeing them online..because who in the hell would dare do that to them..

omg why you haz me show you offlines..you b!tch you not mah BFF anymoorze!!i know cuz i haz better viewerz powerz and can still seez you thatz how i knowz!!dis is insta dramma war..i'm tellin everyone you know that you are onlines!! \o/

lol

The TPV's didn't "break the offline function."  They only completed a simple hoop to jump through.  Way before there were TPV's, I knew how to check if someone was online.  The ability to know is still there even with this function being killed. At least for now.

Sometimes I just like to wander the Grid by myself.  If a friend IM's me I just respond that I am taking some "Me Time."  If they can't respect that they won't stay on my friends list very long.

Really, the way I see it is that removing this function is not going to stop the Drama's that the lab is trying to circumvent.  It may reduce it some, but it is not going to stop it.

ok let me turn these into a question?

if this was never implemented in the tpv viewers would things be getting broken soon?

with so many other ways to see peoples online status..was this something we needed or was it something added that would make a viewer more popular?

i know a lot of people that got them for more than bouncy bewbies lol

this was a popular reason besides the bewbies hehehehe..

so i guess my main question is..did tpv's bring this break on??

 

i don't have anything against tpv's..i love them..but that option was one that i made voice about when devs came here asking about features that were under debate and wanted our advice in these forums about..i just didn't think it was smart since some tpv's were already getting a hard time because of privacy reasons..

and now here we are lol

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sy Beck wrote:

No, people don't see temp textures.  I've often asked friends their opinion on a sculpt or a texture and they look blankly at me either seeing an unformed sculpt or a plywood prim.

[ETA and lol @ Smarmy Linden]

I expect it might depend on the age of the texture.  I've just brought in an alt having just uploaded a texture which I applied to a prim.  The alt could see that the moment I applied it, then I applied a sculpt map.  Sculpt changed for both me and the alt as I expected.

Listen to the audio, you'll understand what I mean :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

False - the capability to see who is truly online has existed prior to the advent of Third Party Clients.

I have stated this before - There are people whom I want nothing to do with. Sadly, they frequent places I frequent. instead of going to these places and then teleporting out when these "people" arrive, it is easier to know when they are online so they can be utterly avoided.

And no - muting doesn't do jack squat to solve this.

When I say nothing to do with these people I meant I do not even wish to be in the same sim. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Ceka Cianci wrote:


Perrie Juran wrote:


Ceka Cianci wrote:

if tpv's would have never broken the offline option in the viewer..we wouldn't be having this change where things are being broken..

nobody would have complained about the viewers and things would still be good..instead people had to know who had them blocked from seeing them online..because who in the hell would dare do that to them..

omg why you haz me show you offlines..you b!tch you not mah BFF anymoorze!!i know cuz i haz better viewerz powerz and can still seez you thatz how i knowz!!dis is insta dramma war..i'm tellin everyone you know that you are onlines!! \o/

lol

The TPV's didn't "break the offline function."  They only completed a simple hoop to jump through.  Way before there were TPV's, I knew how to check if someone was online.  The ability to know is still there even with this function being killed. At least for now.

Sometimes I just like to wander the Grid by myself.  If a friend IM's me I just respond that I am taking some "Me Time."  If they can't respect that they won't stay on my friends list very long.

Really, the way I see it is that removing this function is not going to stop the Drama's that the lab is trying to circumvent.  It may reduce it some, but it is not going to stop it.

ok let me turn these into a question?

if this was never implemented in the tpv viewers would things be getting broken soon?

with so many other ways to see peoples online status..was this something we needed or was it something added that would make a viewer more popular?

i know a lot of people that got them for more than bouncy bewbies lol

this was a popular reason besides the bewbies hehehehe..

so i guess my main question is..did tpv's bring this break on??

 

i don't have anything against tpv's..i love them..but that option was one that i made voice about when devs came here asking about features that were under debate and wanted our advice in these forums about..i just didn't think it was smart since some tpv's were already getting a hard time because of privacy reasons..

and now here we are lol

 

I really don't have specific answers to your questions. 

I think like any tool, it can be used for good or bad, or shall we say in a good way or a bad way.

I don't get offended if someone marks to appear off line to me.  But if it goes on for several days I wait till they are offline to send a simple message, "Hey, hadn't seen you for several days, hope all is ok?"  Seriously, 90% of the time the next day I'd log in and see an IM to the effect of, "OMG, I'm sorry, I forgot to turn you back on." 

I understand that some people don't like having their online status available because of griefers.  If LL was more proactive about dealing with griefers it would reduce that problem.

Beyond avoiding griefers or a merchant or creator needing some private time to work, why any one in SL should feel so strongly that they need to be invisible I don't know.   (I don't  mean that as a criticism, just my thought on the matter).

My comment was actually mainly about being factual that the TPV's didn't break the function, it was already there for anyone to use.  In one sense I give them Kudos for being upfront about something that people were doing surreptitiously anyways.  

I know you can find pros and cons to any of the above I've said. 

I use a TPV for a two fold reason, it runs best on my computer and I prefer it's interface.  The on line status indicator at least for me is way down on my list of reasons for using the TPV.  I would gladly exchange that ability if someone comes up with a Mesh viewer that ran half way decent on my computer.  I'm one of the 25%'ers who aren't logging in with Mesh.

Damn. I'm tired today.  I hope I'm being coherent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Sassy Romano wrote:


Sy Beck wrote:

No, people don't see temp textures.  I've often asked friends their opinion on a sculpt or a texture and they look blankly at me either seeing an unformed sculpt or a plywood prim.

[ETA and lol @ Smarmy Linden]

I expect it might depend on the age of the texture.  I've just brought in an alt having just uploaded a texture which I applied to a prim.  The alt could see that the moment I applied it, then I applied a sculpt map.  Sculpt changed for both me and the alt as I expected.

Listen to the audio, you'll understand what I mean
:)

 I believe they die after a relog.  I also know you cant transfer the raw texture.

I do remember also working on a tattoo with a friend.  When I was on another SIM and they transferred the test tattoo to me I couldn't see it.  But when I was on the same SIM with them and they did the transfer I could see it.  I don't make clothing so I cant tell you anything beyond that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4232 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...