Sigren Panthar

Unhtil now, I have only crossed the sims I like to explore in a small warbug airplane. There is usually a slight stutter, and then I am through flying in next sim. Naturally, I assumed from this experience that all these tales of bad sim crossings in vehicles were from people with low spec PC's and/or bad connections etc. Until that is, I decided to tour some mainland roads on my motorcycle. I can only describe it as a nightmare. When going across the sim edge, every time I would find myself tumbling into the ground in slow motion or flying way up in the sky, for a good 10-15 seconds. Any new person coming to SL from some of the modern gaming websites would most probably not come back. Clearly, for reasons I am to tech ignorant to perceive, this is a difficult technical problem for LL to solve. But. That does not alter the fact that a) they need to solve it and b) should have solved it if - as seems to be the case - this problem has been around for some time.

Ahhh, yes. That would have been my reply that was removed - along with a post I put in the SL viewer forum - as I had the temerity as a paying customer to criticize LL's customer service record and priorities. As both my posts were pulled, and this forum is seriously censored to deflect any critique of LL, this will be my last post in these forums.

Really? Pray tell me when LL listened to the residents concern re' IP spyware?

The IP gathering spyware/software used by paranoid sim and club/mall owners is still going strong. Paranoia re. griefers and copybotters - which the creators of the IP spyware, naturally, inflame - and a lack of faith in LL's ability to deal quickly with these issues, forces many to buy these things. Redzone was not banned by LL because they gave a monkey's about your privacy. It was on sale for a considerable time, before LL acted and banned it and the creator. The reason LL acted was because a lot of residents had the temerity to force a Jira way up high, so LL actually had to earn their wages for once and act. Even then, the main reason they acted was because the anti-IP gathering-spyware group known as Greenzone was becoming very successful in splitting the grid into approved non-spyware using clubs and malls, and blacklisting the clubs and malls that were paranoid/desired being able to ID an alt for whatever reason. Creators were being affected simply by having a vendor near a redzone device that they themselves were unaware of and some other creator had set up. The false positives Redzone gave were astonishing; a friend who bought it to find out exactly how it worked, scanned me with it. According to the redzone device I had 6 alts. Whilst I have some alts, they are considerably less than 6, not to mention the fact that none of the 6 were even correct and mine. Truly woeful. Yet, virtually identical systems still flourish in SL. Sim/club/mall owners still fall for the 'it will stop griefers and alts hitting sploders (shouldn't they be banned as gambling, in any case?) and midnight mania boards, etc.' I have suspicions that there also exists another alt detecting system at large in SL, that is more accurate at alt detecing. Time will tell. However, it will be residents that raise any red flags. LL will do the bare minimum, and belatedly, as they did with Redzone which they knew full well about months and months before the whole thing got too big for them to ignore.

...for some reason(s) unknown to me, I am unable to edit my post. It was not all crammed in one paragraph, when I wrote it, but that's how it appeared in the reply.

You raise some good and valid points. I tire regularly of the '...it's against TOS!!!' ranters. As if LL is the wise old man in the cave, as opposed to a corporation with questionable customer service. TOS is for one thing and one thing only, to reduce any legal entanglements LL could get into, and to cover these where possible. That's it. TOS is not for the greater good of the average resident, by and large, although this is not to say that TOS is a bad thing; rules/guidance are needed, and for the most part, the TOS is quite sensible and reasonable. However, the discrepancy between spam and advertsing is, indeed, a grey one. The problem arises when some seem to get an easier ride, for various reasons, from LL with TOS. The classic, imo, being gambling. There are certain devices in LL that appear to be out and out gambling machines. However, certain individuals manage to - coughs - convince LL they are 'games of skill, whereas others with devices of equal 'chance' appear to fall foul of the TOS. As for the OP's group or sim. Zombie Samurai has a certain ring to it, don't cha think? ) I may just go check it out.

As I have already mentioned in a previous thread on the subject, the 'touch screen' feature is ergonomically very bad, indeed. Regardless of whether Win 8 was actually brilliant otherwise, this feature alone would stop me upgrading. Touch screens are fine for phones and tablets, but to stretch to touch a desktop pc screen involves shoulder and spine flexion that over time will be a pain...quite literally. At present., I sit quite comfortably, flicking my fingers over a track ball, giving me even better camera control than a mouse. Even if I type, my arms are relaxed and not stretched upwards to a dumb touch screen. Even phones and tablets, though, I don't think are ideal for touch screen, I recall how many of us used to abhor the slightest finger smudge on older phones, and would constantly be wiping them to try keep the screens pristine. Now, because of the gimmick of touch screen technology, suddenly smudged displays are fine.

There is one big problem - to me - with Win8. The touch screen. Touch screens are ok - but not fantastic, due to inevitable smudge we simply would not tolerate on PC screens....erm, until Win 8 lol - but they are better suited to hand held phones or tablets. It may not seem a huge thing, but moving a mouse takes minimal lower arm movement - and even then, many of us get repetive strain problems from time to time. Moving your whole arm, from shoulder elbow wrist finger extended, to touch a PC screen is an entirely different kettle of fish. It's a royal pain in the ass, and a gimick best avoided. Yes, Win8 can be mouse driven, but most reviews I read say it sucks, too.

I have a security orb on my two skybox homes. I installed it for reasons similar to another post, namely I had some unpleasant visitors once, who were threatening and abusive, and I could not initially eject them; they seemed to have some way of thwarting the normal land perms eject. I did eventually eject them, but my female friend who was with me was so upset due to these malicious intruders that I went straight out and bought a security orb. It reports anyone entering my parcel, and gives them 30 seconds to vacate. These ones with a 10 second warning are a bit much, imo, by the time you rez you are booted back home. Most people will leave no problem, and 99% of them I send a polite IM to explaining they are welcome, but I have the security orb to keep out the not so nice visitors. It is a much more elegant solution than ban lines, and a purchase I have never regretted.

The camera controls, or to be more accurate avatar moving via clicking avatar, holding in and moving mouse to steer, have changed on the latest LL viewer The only reasons you would think they have not is you must not use the v2/V3 LL viewer, but a V1 based viewer. To the OP, yes you are correct. You need to discard the LL viewer, and use Nirans or Firestorm, and avatar will move as you are used to. For some reason these controls are all to hell on the LL viewer. Surprise surprise. Mind you, you missed a treat, as it seems you were fortunate to miss the first V2 shambles of a viewer. The latest V3 LL viewer is a huge improvement, but still poor vis a vis Firestorm and Nirans, especially. I wonder if heads ever did roll for that initial V2 mess? Knowing LL, probably not. The guilty party/parties probably got a raise.

That sounds wonderful......for the what? Less than 20% - if that - of SL who could not only attend but also afford it? We in the western world are in a greater, longer depression than the '30's. I wonder how many genuine, RL' hippies' could dream of such nonchalence regarding such a trip? I will be honest, at first I thought it a satirical leg pull until I read the entire post. It must be nice. Your idea is well intended, no doubt, but I detect a certain detachment from reality for most of us on SL. Let them eat cake :matte-motes-wink:

I once got exactly the same thing with my alt. The only thing I could possibly think I did, was visiting an old naturist beach,naked, naturally, and lo.....the sim had closed and it was a residential parcel, not even a G parcel but an M. I got a security orb message requesting I leave, but before I could even do so.......and we are talking seconds here .......I got another message saying 'you have been banned for two hours by ***** Linden, please logout'. No details as to what ban was for, but being naked in a resident parcel was the only thing I could think it was. The other slightly bizarre thing was, when I landed in the parcel, there was no one else around on my map. Not a soul. I can only presume the Linden was invisible, but one wonders why on earth they would bother lol. I took my ban on the chin, and had some tea. However, it would help enormously if the message had detailed the transgression. It might have been something else entirely that was not even my fault, or it might have been something I did in ignorance earlier in the day, but it is plain stupid punishing a crime that you are completely unaware of. No emails were received, either, from LL re. this. Other than this crime against humanity, I have been squeaky clean on SL. Annoying, doubtless, to the numerous shills I occasionally douse on the forums.

...do you think it will take that long?? lol

Hmmm, this is precisely the problem; we have people like this running SL. His 'tweet' is ambiguous. Could mean anything. However, it is more than likely it does not augur well for us in the log term. But, here we have a Linden on his way out thanking...wait for it....not the poor sap residents, who have paid his wage and Friday afternoon parties, but instead he thanks..... LL. What also speaks volumes is the fact he does not choose to make a post in the forums connected with the job, but does the social media thing. Good riddance. It beggers belief we do not seem to have anyone at LL who realises the residents are customers (whilst a PIU, myself, running two parcels, even the 'free' residents contribute by simply being there, keeping the numbers up and making it a VW that new residents want to play and stay in)

You did indeed, and you may like to go back to that thread and see my reply to the 'redtop' you refer to. On these forums, you must realise there are full grown shills, not just 'mere' LL apologists, but shills with a specific job to do in these forums; this is to mock, deny, dissemble any valid critique of LL's abysmal regard for their customers. Secondly, yes, griefing is slowly getting out of hand. Again LL know full well and do not give a monkey's, the shills know full well and mock, deny, dissemble ad nauseam. For a more accurate feel of the SL residents as a whole, you better off posting on the SLU forums