Herry Maltz

I love how this forum thread was hijacked by someone wanting a relationship.

I wouldn't say I'm as cheery as Freya, at least in regards to the status of the grid these days. Ever since the game went free to play we've become very much a quantity over quality. Sure if you have your old friends you used to hangout with that still play the game, it might be enjoyable, but most of the people I knew, whether they were from my beta days or days leading up until free to play, they've since moved on to other grids. Things development wise however have changed significantly. With the explosion of X rated goods and services, its definitely become quite an interesting atmosphere. Nonetheless, welcome back. Hopefully you enjoy Second Life more than several others including myself.

Been there and done that. Been on here since the beginning during beta in December 02 from Activeworlds. It was great up until maybe 2010 or 2011 and now I pretty much come on to see recent developments, work with clients and then jump off. Used to be fond of the environment but now days, not so much. Nothing will bring us back to the way things were before the game opened the flood gates and let in all the free users. Now we very much live in a time where its quantity over quality.

I've been investing in a lot of Second Life related business opportunities for years. Feel free to forward me a copy of any business plans you've written if you're looking for a business partner. There's nothing I won't get involved in, though I'm less likely to get involved in the adult areas of the game, unless there's a decent amount of return of said investment and a stellar business plan to go along with the project.

Feel free to drop me a copy of your business plan. I'll look it over and get back to you.

Good luck. Word of advice though and I don't mean this in a rude way. Begging will get you very few friends on Second Life. As mentioned, there's a number of quality free items and things don't cost too much these days so finding yourself some easy employment or converting real money into lindens are always options. Hope everything works out for you.

I've found personally using Singularity that they have most of the popular features that I used in Firestorm. I didn't bother trying out "Cool Viewer" as it was downloading at like 30 kb/s lol. A few graphical problems that I was having with Firestorm is resolved using Singularity so OP should give this viewer a shot. Might fix your problem with the grayness. Personally though, I think I'm going to stick with Firestorm until I have some significant problems that warrants me to switch.

Thanks for those viewer suggestions. I'm checking out both of them to see what they're like. Being a programmer and developer myself, the results will vary but if your using an outdated viewer that's communicating one language and connected to a server that speaks a slightly different language your open to variable results. Granted, I'm not talking about actual language, using it as an example, but its a realistic example that the rapid fire development that Catnip mentioned is a legit problem to some of the issues I've seen in the firestorm chat. Regardless, I hope you find something that works for you, whether you change viewers or get firestorm resolved. Its never a fun time when your having complications on Second Life.

You can try the following. Maybe it will help you. -- If your running Windows 8.1, run Firestorm under Compatability Windows 8. Now, here's some specific options to take note of and tweak if necessary. Graphics > Rendering > Check "Use HTTP for receiving textures" Alternatively, on the same tab I've disabled "Show Avatars That Haven't Finished Loading" which I have found forces the server to download necessary textures. As far as your statement, your using a beta viewer so even though the "game" has been around for ten years your using a viewer that's beta and being actively developed. If you have such a problem go back to the default viewer. Specifically for Firestorm, I'd recommend if you have further issues and my suggestions don't work you can try a few things. - Reset graphics settings to default. - Reset preferences to default. - Uninstall and reinstall the latest viewer (which your currently using the latest). Occasionally I've heard of people having issues downloading certain textures and mesh due to their internet. Though I've not had a problem with it personally, if your behind a firewall that might be restricting packetflow I'd recommend taking a look into that too. Hope one of my suggestions helps you. If it doesn't, navigate yourself in-world to the firestorm support group and see if one of the support staff and or another member of the community can assist you with the specific issue.

I don't really have any specific interests to be honest. I'm an American on the Eastern timezone but my hours vary drastically. I remember it being so much easier ten years ago finding places to visit so much easier. lol.

Gave that a shot and wasn't real interested in what was listed to be honest. Maybe the quality of new establishments has significantly taken a dive or something. I didn't really find much that was interesting to me.

So I'm not exactly new and not exactly returning to the game but I've recently been changing my focus in what I'm interested in within Second Life. I've always been more of a business type individual where really all I've been wanting to do is socialize and hang out around this massive virtual world. What are some great places to visit in world to make friends? I've been pretty stuck in my ways going to the same places for years and haven't really been out exploring too much.

Only accepting one additional client now. Will update when that spot gets filled.

Greetings! I'm looking for the following opportunities. Please read carefully as instructions may be slightly different for a few of the opportunities. - Investment Opportunities I'm looking to fund a few projects that have potential within Second Life. Send me a notecard with all details regarding your project and I will get back to you within a few days to discuss things further. - Management Opportunities I'm currently looking to get back involved with management, preferably with an estate as that's where I have several years of experience with. I haven't actively been an administrator of an estate for about two years as I've been incredibly busy with business consulting but I have some extra time on my schedule to take on additional responsibility. Due to my experience I do not work for commission and haven't in many years. Only serious positions please. - Partnership Opportunities I'm looking to come on as a partner with an existing business or brand and help make it grow. Send me a message followed by a notecard regarding what type of business your currently running and what your lacking and we can sit down and discuss things. - Web Design I'm proficient with web design. Contact me if you need a website for your business/service or brand and I will get back to you with a quote and options for you. - Consulting I have room for two additional clients in my consulting business. I will have an additional client spot opening up in May that will need to be filled. If your looking for a consultant for your business contact me and we can discuss what you need, where you need it and how you can best utilize my services. I handle a wide range of niches and various different aspects ranging from day to day operations all the way to financial. I do not get involved in staff management. I will assist with new hiring screening but cannot and will not assist with firing and or removal of existing staff. All consulting clients are confidential. Contact me for more information. Thank you and look forward to speaking with all of you.

That's quite a list of jobs there. They're all paid?

I'm currently after either a few individuals or a company to partner up with that do region designing which includes building, landscaping and basically setting an entire region up from scratch. This partnership will include lots of exposure with two high traffic venues, website advertising and plenty more incentives. Drop me a message in world!

That doesn't surprise me, so far things are mildly interesting on here.

Exactly. What type of issue are you having? I wouldn't be exactly shocked though if it was something simple that billing should be able to handle, but instead escelates to a different department or something.

With the amount of automation in world I don't see this as a practical adventure. Maybe many years ago but not so much anymore. If you have a proposal laid out, I'll hear you out. Drop me a notecard in world with the proposal and I'll take a peak.

I could be severely off base here, but I get the feeling some of you think steam is a game. Its true that its a GAMING PLATFORM but in a commercial way. Think of it as... Hmm. A virtual eBay just for video games and software that instead of receiving physical copies you receive a download through their service. You can buy and trade games on Steam but Steam is NOT some sort of platform that you play. Its a background service that allows you to play other games. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm not exactly sure how to explain it lol. Steam is nothing but a glorified community of members that have access to buy games of all sorts without having to have separate logins for five game developers and limits how much your personal information has to be out there when buying gaming related things (specifically games) online. As far as those comparing to the griefing and problematic people today, I present to you an example. About two years ago we were supporting a game very similar. An individual was removed from our service. He proceeded to then bypass the ban which consisted of about the same way of banning someone on SL to continue harassing. Steam accounts ARE FREE and so are SL accounts. It may or may not happen a lot, but I definitely see people creating multiple accounts one after another to really get under someones skin if they want to. Steam groups I was able to locate over three hundred clans "dedicated to disrupting gameplay" with the leading group of just under one thousand members. Just imagine this clan coming on this game into a specific area in an organized manner to disrupt the zone. I've seen it before on similar games, other games entirely, ventrilo and teamspeak v oice clients and even within old mIRC (Internet Relay Chat) times. Many of you are definitely underestimating these individuals. You can call me crazy but its definitely something that happens quite regularly. The griefing and problems today don't compare to the problems we face if the wrong people from the Steam service gets their hands on SL, assuming of course SL can handle the extra people on their service as they've neglected to fix things years old.

I agree but I used to run a very large gaming community that supported a number of Steam games. Look at minecraft for example, absolutely terrible graphics with building and yet its popular. Garry's mod with a similar aspect. I ran into many games that were free and on steam, that people would join just to cause problems (aka troll) because it was free and they were bored of their primary game. That's what I'm afraid of seeing here. Then say we do have masses of these individuals bored of their main game and coming on here to cause trouble? I could certainly be wrong, but spending three years dealing with these people on a daily basis... I'm willing to bet I won't be wrong and I can almost guarantee its not going to bring in much in the way of premium memberships which I feel LL is hoping to achieve by this move. Maybe sell some land through private estates but overall far more users at the expense of LL as the cost of providing the service will increase. That was one of the reasons that I ended up shutting down my servers. Another was denial of service attacks on servers that were being popular. Granted, I'm unsure if they could really touch SL with denial of service but I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to do which would be one of the many ways that our experience as paying residents could get messed with. Computer wise, with the price drop in technology its not that hard to get a machine that runs things well. Sure few years ago you'd be paying a grand or more for a decently put together machine but now... Its far easier to keep your machine up to par without spending an arm, leg and ear.

As much as I would like to say this is a positive happening, I'll have to jump on the fence and say this is going to be a really bad idea in many areas and coming from going on ten years of experience, here's my take on the situation. We all saw what happened when LindenLab removed the credit card verification back in 2006, well those that were here of course. Not only did we see a major spike in griefing, we also noticed a massive spike in people that did not spend money but were still using the service. Consider this: All these new people connected to the grid will mean more lag for everybody else and probably about the same amount of premium memberships which is little to none due to the lack of worthwhile incentives that program offers. Not only that fact, but look at the age of users? I've been a user of steam services for many years now and get involved in several games on that service... People are down right nasty on a lot of them. Especially the first person shooters with the racist comments and just absolute nasty behavior. As of lately we've (as residents) had enough of a problem with both problematic people and lag issues throughout various places within Second Life. Many long time members such as myself have enough of a waiting time when it comes to contacting LindenLab on things that we need and with all these new troublemakers? I'm not implying all Steam users are trouble but the majority are. Just watch some youtube videos about some of the FPS and you'll get an idea of what type of racism and behavior we're going to potentially have to deal with in addition to what we already deal with in the game without this added promotion of this platform. Opinions?

I'm noticing a few familiar faces as I venture back on the forums. Its been many years since I've actively used the SL forums to any extent, whether it be on my 02 account or this account. I certainly hope to see some decent posts in my travels. Anywhere specific that usually breeds excellent reading material?

Best bet would be to start exploring neat new areas around the grid. You'll find that a lot of people will start conversations with you, especially if you have something catchy and neat in your profile for them to start a conversation with.

I agree with the abuse toward individuals, specifically the younger population on the grid. Honestly there are going to be people over the adult side of things that blow it way out of proportion. I'm just shocked they removed it in a way. Oh well though. Maybe I should start reading the blog more often? I'd be more informed on things. lol