Drayke Newall

Which facts, the ones that show (in his own biography) that he had a white girlfriend however broke it off with her due to racial connotations i.e. how he would be perceived in the south preaching with a white girlfriend or the rumoured FBI memos (of recordings) of his infidelity and watching a person being raped (admittedly to be used to blackmail him)? No one is perfect no matter who it is or what their ideals are and facts and history on both sides are important to consider to gain a true perspective on a person or a movement. The way America is going with trying to remove everything or anyone that had a hint of racial discrimination from history like it is doing with statues and military bases, I'm surprised they are not requesting something to be done with the FBI headquarters named after the same FBI chief that was so racist he was trying to get MLK to commit suicide and helped keep KKK members out of prison. Perhaps these people feel safer destroying statues and history rather than facing the FBI. EDIT: And no I am not racist and believe in the rights for everyone. Just wanted to clarify that no one is perfect even if it goes against their own beliefs and ideals. EDIT 2: Also forgot to add that perspective and historical perspective especially is needed when talking about issues such as slavery etc. Yes it was bad, and no I don't condone it, however from a historical point of view it was treated as acceptable based on religious beliefs. We have changed and evolved from that, however things are always done and justified by something and no re-writing history can change the fact that slavery was acceptable back then due to it being shown in the Bible as being accepted. We don't just burn the bible, we separate old beliefs from new better ones and continue a religious belief by overlooking the bad aspects that are historical and not present. It's the same as my parents refuse to go to the movie theatre because they were brought up to believe that the movie theatre was worldly and therefore because of what the bible says of not indulging in worldly things they have never been, same with dancing, alcohol, smoking, not allowing tattoos etc. Different time, different place.

Also keep in mind that paying by the month will not work out value for money even with all the inclusions. The only way it works out value for money is paying by the year. There is a post somewhere I did breaking it all down and comparing the value with what you can rent and literally per year you end up saving about 3 dollars even if paying by the year. Additionally, at least in my case, once exchange rate and fees are added on you are better off just renting from somewhere cheaper and then buying lindens every now and then.

Yes a little bit a generalisation however, any of the major VW's such as Second Life, VR CHat, Avakin, IMVU etc fall into the game genre (yes I know SL isn't a game) which influences who populates those worlds. When we are talking about the metaverse as this thread is, most of the pushers of this such as Tim Sweeney are pushing it more towards the gaming side as it is more lucrative and offers far more users of VR tech than other demographics. In addition to this, notice the heading of this webpage as well as the descriptions of all of the VW's https://www.moregameslike.com/best-virtual-world-games/ . Even the very description it offers for a virtual world is a 'simulation game' with players etc. Whilst I would like to say that not all are geared to gamers, they are automatically assumed to be a game and therefore shown to that demographic far more than regular adults. That is why I said that more gamers play a VW than others because they have the best knowledge and tech surrounding that. Take VR Chat for instance, almost its entire userbase are gamers as they are the largest demographic that uses VR tech. In hindsight, I should have said in my post you quoted 'VR Virtual World' as that is where it is all heading. Other than the basic VW's like IMVU almost all proposed and current VW's, apart from Second Life, are geared to gaming as that is the largest demographic that use VR. The average gamer does know a lot about computers and consoles tech wise, you would be surprised. Whilst I'm sure there are plenty out their that don't know much about tech, most do recognise that they couldn't run most modern games at good quality on a 8 year old pc. You also just need to go to a twitch stream where someone is playing a new game and the first thing people ask is usually what comp specs the streamer has so they can get an idea on what is needed to play at good quality. My system is a little more over the top than the average gamer as I also use my computer to render high quality architectural images. That said steam surveys done every year give an indication on the average gamers comp and clearly shows that SL's recommended specs need a major upgrade. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Yeah I kind of did, got carried away haha. As to the mobile app, if that is all LL are going to do then it will be a disaster and will not garner any form of new users or retention and to be honest be a waste of investment money and end up like Sansar - aka a white elephant. Even the third party chat viewer on mobile didn't have that many users, nor did it help in any way to increase SL users or retention. They really need to invest strong in the mobile client to allow the person to do more than just chat as there are more and more people moving to smaller devices and away from desktops.

Actually, the teen grid wasn't closed at all for those reasons. It was closed simply due to budgeting at the time IIRC and them reducing their costs under infamous CEO's reigns. It was also a case of the other way around. Whilst I cant guarantee that there were no adults on the teen grid, it was more the other way around where teens tried to get on the adult grid and succeeded, just like kids and teens succeed in getting onto the adult grid still. So I pose this question to you, how do the lab vet their users currently? I'll give you a clue, they don't and just rely on a persons honest in date of birth and on a legal ToS just in case a parent sue. If you don't buy lindens you don't need proof of age and can access all G rated sims without payment info on file. This means kids and teens under 16 year old's can still access second life and the fact that people in this very thread have reported such accounts proves this. Whilst I am not a parent though do have nieces and nephews (I know how they get around things), I am sure many parents would much rather a kid and teen friendly area of SL that cant be accessed by adult and adult content, utilises the inworld building system to stop adult content from being made (generally), and has a controlled system avatar in place over one that currently allows underage accounts in to adult possible content and abuse freely WITHOUT vetting. The sign-up for the teen grid was vetted reasonably well and far more than most other games or platforms at its time. For instance do you really think a nine year old doesn't know how to enter in their wrong age or date of birth to access R18+ games on steam that a free or mobile games free on their phones? Even adults just enter a random low year just to get rid of the annoying popup. The company providing the service generally only covers themselves from such things for legal with basic measures and ToS's and leave it to the parents to be the ones liable at most for non supervision. This would be why an update would be needed for a kid separate grid. Could even have a separate non open source kids viewer directly from Linden Lab. The fact is the market is there and SL could be adapted quite easily to allow for younger kids so long as it is managed properly. I would also like to add that LL have already mentioned they are working on a mobile app. I can guarantee if this is the case there is going to be a massive influx of new underage users once it is released to try the new imuv or dress up barbie style virtual world. Better to nip it in the butt now with a kids area than get caught out then when it is released and they cant reasonably stop younger children from downloading and playing on their phone.

It does however bring up an interesting discussion point though. Should SL be made to allow for kids in a different and locked area of the grid? The old Teen grid was a good idea just badly managed. Bringing in a kids and teen grid again may prove more beneficial for everyone and also open more possibility with mobile potential as the demographics for mobile is generally kid to teen game wise. For example the kids grid could be locked to a new Kid's maturity rating and in there allow them to utilise only the inworld creation tools and a kid/G rated updated system avatar that allows for better mesh as well as animal character creation. It would give them the chance to experience second life and building other than just 'minecraft'. Many of the premium and realm zones created by LL are also more targeted to a far younger generation than its regular adult users and therefore could like wise be utilised or new ones built.

Hmm didn't know that short cut thanks. Though as you say and I suggested buttons or the new tab would be far better and easier.

Oh I agree 100% with what you have said dont get me wrong. The problem is that by keeping backwards compatibility LL are shooting themselves in their own foot. Even using your example of Microsoft being more similar to SL; Microsoft, when they release a new platform, dont make their OS backward compatible from the get go. It requires you to then download those additional compatibility patches i.e. you will download a DirectX9 file to play an older game and even then sometimes it just wont work. There are numerous old games and programs that don't work on Windows 10 because they get broken and the only way to fix them is either patches by the game/software maker or a third party. Try for instance the vid of APB Reloaded I posted above. It uses a baked on mesh and outfit (wardrobe) system that is far superior to Second Life. If LL were to try and now improve on the baked on mesh system to something comparable to that APB Reloaded system they will either break their newly released BoM system as content for their 'stage 1' version has already been made and therefore wont work, or they would have to spend countless years trying to adapt the existing code to it (making it even harder and longer to impliment) or the avenue LL usually take, keep the status qou and just don't updated it. That is more how I see things, in that there are times that to improve the system it is 100% a necessity to break the current content even in a perpetual VW so as the platform can improve to a modern standard. I hope that if any LL employee looks at my post here and above that the seriously download APB Reloaded and look at their UI for a clothing wardrobe and BoM system. It is a simple UI interface that is user friendly and allows for (i.e. more powerful) far better outfit customisation than anything SL offers. Their major problem for years has been that the UI and outfit change system is just to user unfriendly and that needs to change. But alas I wont hold my breath that they would even look at the above vid or change it to something better. It is these sorts of changes that will keep SL modern and able to compete with any other VW or MV coming. It would be wonderful but there are still major things that would need to be solved/implemented along with all your points. For the water issue, they still haven't made it possible to remove water from a boat when it is sailing on the water (apart from the old invisiprim system which is not optimised), for people to swim without needing a hud (not new user friendly currently), create voids under water for buildings without windlight tricks etc. For the mesh, they would just say use Animesh of which we know doesn't do what you are suggesting. Animesh should have included the system you state however instead of looking at all possibilities of needs or wants, they did one thing then released it (similar to when they updated mesh and then bento and didn't even think of updating their system avatar to their own detriment, further reducing user retention). The problem with doing this is it just further delays things and shows to the press etc when they talk of the metaverse, that they are just to slow and not forward thinkers. I think linked object hierarchy would work and even know how it could be implemented UI wise however lets be a little real here. LL still haven't even added to their default viewer any way to cycle properly through individual linked objects. Firestorm has 2 little arrow icons to cycle through them when edit linked parts is on, not sure on other viewers. In addition to what you suggest they also need to fully update the edit menu to be far more user friendly. Why don't they have another tab, next to the features tab in the edit/build menu that lists all the linked objects in the build, by name if they have one? This simple UI addition would be of HUGE benefit to creators where they could see the parts of the linked object by name and click on them to edit directly. The bonus of this is, it would also make your hierarchy request possible. All that would be needed would be for them to make it so that in that tab the root prim is at the top and in descending order wherever the object is placed in that list in that tab denotes their hierarchy. Then if a creator wants to change the hierarchy it would be a matter of dragging in that tab list one linked object up or down and dropping it where you want it in that hierarchy. The problem is, it has been a known fact for years that even if you want to add a feature request for a UI change LL will refuse it unless you literally show them how to do it and include UI design for them.

Ok ill accept that and was a bad analogy on my behalf. I do agree they are more complex to render, animate etc however it all comes down to exactly what the poly count of the characters are as well as their resource intensity. I don't expect them to showcase a engine tech demo on that as that usually comes down to the game itself. For instance the tech demo of unreal 5 could be argued that it is a tomb raider game demo that you will only see 70% of the time only 1 character. Why do epic need to showcase such complexities when games in the past using previous versions of their engine have done such things? That is to say, numerous amounts of people controlled characters in one area all wearing different textures and it has handled it fine. The tech demo by Epic for UE5 was purely highlighting their downscaling, new GI and animation settings. All tech demos of engines highlight only the improvements over the older systems. There is no scenario where an engine or game will not have optimised content and will not use textures that are already installed and fetched by the engine from the system. If Molly is looking for a prime example of what he is talking about, take Planetside 2 for instance. Whilst it cant compare with the graphics of modern systems as it was made in 2012, for its day it was leaps and bounds above the competition, it allows for different user selected customisation (not user created like sl) with camo in numerous forms, different weapons from players, vehicle camo, decals, armor selections, effect choices and yet runs perfectly smoothly with no real system drain. Effectively for only 100 people it is entirely possible for the engine to render a different textured and meshed character without any performance hit. Granted it doesn't allow for character customisation to the body shape, face and hair but, like I said, this is a 2012 game where back then it was more often a case of select x body, x head and off you go. What's more games like COD and Battlefield were fixing server numbers to 32 and 64 respectively. Planetside 2 can handle 250 players per server without any form of player render culling (and all in one area attacking one base). Over this it may start to cull depending on load and will only load those near you that are a threat. Its theoretical maximum character limit per server is 2000 and its record player count is 1158 players on one server at a time. So whilst I will agree with you that characters are entirely more complex than a cardboard box they are still assets and having 100 people in the same area with different looks to others is entirely possible without any issue. If a 2012 game can do it I highly doubt a 2021 engine would suffer from it. If you want something more comparable to second life, APB Reloaded (a game from 2010) can handle 100 people per playing district and has a far better character customisation system that SL (the equivalent to slightly under black desert online customisation). It also allows for custom user created clothing (though only using in game meshes so designs can be custom), logos, tattoos, camo, music etc. So no, sorry I stand by my point that it is entirely possible for 100+ people in an area with complex render systems in place. It would be a step backwards for Epic to release an engine that cant handle that. If you're after something what streams textures and meshes made by people like SL well I cant provide such an example as it doesn't exist but that wasn't what Molly was implying. UE5 is entirely around downscaling so even if they were to replicate any of the 2 above games in their system and times the avatar complexity by 10, its downscaling would still, I would dare say, make such things possible without any issue. EDIT Just as an aside and building on character customisation mentioned above this shows how outdated SL's UI is not to mention how badly implemented appearance editing in sl is. This vid below is what the outfit manager in Second life should be like. Simple menu on the right where it access your outfit folder and only requires 1 click to add the clothing. If they could replicate this system as well as the clothing creation system to something like APB Reloaded SL would be improved 1000x and make it be able to weather a lot more from competition, user retention, fun scale 1000 etc. This is the level of inworld customisation that is needed in SL for average users that cant create custom content out of world. Keep in mind this is a 2010 game that is still playable. Without this level of UI friendliness, clean simple look and editing capabilities SL wont go anywhere. For those that are going to say but its user created stuff etc, why cant it still be. Have the user created stuff in the outfit section that perhaps isn't modifiable but allow others to create and sell mesh that is textureless and can add bought textures onto it. To be honest when I first heard LL were doing BoM I was envisaging the above video regarding texture being able to be overlayed, not the mess they made. That is to say THIS is baked one mesh done properly. The same level of customisation with overlays can be applied to objects like cars etc as well so isn't limited to just avatars.

But the trouble with this is that by not breaking things it is making the scripting behind the scenes enormously complex whereby they literally cant implement new decent or full features as it either will break existing content or just simply be impossible to implement as it would involve to much work. Look at EEP, it took years to actually implement because of all the systems and code they needed to brush aside to put new code next to and even then it was released with known bugs simply because they couldn't get rid of all of them without affecting other systems. I fully understand them not wanting to ruin their existing player base due to breaking things however, that is also what is holding them back in garnering new regular uses and more profit so as they can compete with any other potential competition. It has been over 10 years since mesh was introduced. If they were to remove sculpties from the system entirely both rezed, in inventory and the ability to upload them, sure it will hurt a few peoples feelings however I'm sure they would get over it. Or even just keep the sculpties people have but remove them from the marketplace so as no new ones can be bought or rezed. People have had plenty of time to update and move away from these things but LL just will not do anything to help the optimisation system. What LL do is akin to a gaming studio saying they are going to release a brand new game but make it so that it only runs on the original unreal engine and consequently hampering any optimisation or feature possibilities that the new versions offer all because some people might have a windows 98 PC. These gaming companies or really any company just wouldn't do that. A better example would be WoW where, they introduced later expansions that completely DESTROYED the entire previous expansions for end game players. This meant that the original game, quests, etc are now impossible to experience. They didn't listen to their current userbase saying but if you do that it will break x or mean I wont be able to get that particular piece of gear. They just did it and ended up increasing their playerbase at the loss of a minority. Business have to break things for things to work in some cases and unfortunately the one platform that absolutely needs it is Second Life for it to progress but they just wont do it. There would be no difference between Unreal 5 tech demo and a demo of 100 characters independently outfitted as those outfits irrespective of numbers would be created by the studios themselves therefore be optimised or at least made to work with the system. They are just simply assets just like a cardboard box would be.

I do think it is that bad though. Second Life has moved from a virtual world to more of a dress up and decorate house chat program. There is nothing wrong with that however, it needs to get back its focus on getting people to build more worlds (regions) so that they can compete with any form of metaverse from these bigger players. If they play their cards right, get region crossings fixed (or increase the sim size like in open sim) improve the UI, add modern scripting functions, VR etc they could start approaching indie developers to create games in second life. A game dev friend of mine for years has been wanting to get a whole heap of sims and do an entire full multi level modern RPG game in SL with questing, open world combat etc but, the region crossings, population size per sim, environmental editing features and lack of experience or scripting functions doesn't make that possible. I know you have been doing a lot with experiences and animesh on your parcel. So you can just imagine the kind of impact press wise it would have if it was announced that 'x' gaming studio has made a Full RPG game within SL that has beautiful graphics and is comparable to many modern RPG games. THAT would be the start of metaverse in SL. That is what the metaverse is and SL could do it before others but they wont as they just cant be bothered looking at features that will allow that. True and agree. LL have managed SL very well with no competition as all others have failed and SL has continued. That said now that many enormously funded companies, and not just new upstarts like before, are looking at a metaverse LL need to start listening to not only what that competition is looking into but also its userbase. I understand that they are the developers etc but there have been hundreds if not thousands of feature requests that just don't get implimented to bring SL up to a more current standard. Many of them practical. For example it was years ago some of us in the forums were talking about textures being downscaled to their mesh surface area, LL never took notice and therefore Epic now release UE5 years later with a similar feature. LL just placed it in the to hard basket like they do most things. Inventory management feature requests have been ignored, updated ao backend requests that allow more have been ignored, auto swim in linden flagged water has been ignored, UI change requests have been ignored, better environment tools have been ignored. Scripting feature requests have been ignored for years. The list goes on. It took us 8 years of complaining about Windlight for them just to look into a new system only for it to be a half baked complicated ui mess of a system. This is why they are falling behind and getting ignored in press releases talking about the metaverse. There is no metaverse in SL or no substantial increase in its technology or usability to even start looking into a metaverse. But as I mentioned in my post before, no person that has VR goggles or plays games which a lot of these metaverse pushers are targeting has a system much less than that. If they released the metaverse next year and announced its specs this year gamers would have no problem with updating to those specs. Keep in mind gaming is bigger than Hollywood as far as people, profit and budget. LL have for to long kept their specs to low and this has impacted on how far they can push the engine and how they are perceived. I have 32gig of ram and a 512 NVMe SSD along with 4TB of other HDD. I have a later released graphics card and an 8 core CPU. I bought this 4 years ago and im not alone in such comp specs. Now it is obsolete in the gaming world and I need to update to run any modern game at good frame rate. Yet here in SL you have people still using hardware that hasn't seen a driver update in 10 years! Just take a look at SL recommended specs (not their min). This will show you why Second Life is a laughing stock and ignored now in press unless Ebbe does an interview. Operating System: Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. - Windows 8.1 should be in the min spec and Windows 10 ALONE should be recomended Screen Resolution: 1024x768 pixels or higher. - You cant even get screens that go down that low off the shelf anymore and it is Recommended! Graphics cards: AMD 4850, NVidea 9600, ATI 5850 - ALL of these cards are pre 2009 cards (I.e. 12 years old) ATI as a company ceased to exist in 2006 and disused by AMD in 2010 RAM: 4 gigs - Show me one person that still uses a PC with 4gigs to play a graphics intensive game. All of the above should be the MINIMUM specs but are in the recommended specs list. The recommended specs should show a person what they need to run Second Life at Ultra reasonably. Let me put it another way. My PHONE has better specs than second life's recommended specs. Its screen resolution is 3200x1440, its cpu is a 2.73 8core, its ram is 16gig... The first thing a person does when they go to play something is to check whether their system meets the recommended or minimum specs. If I had never played SL before and looked at the specs page I would instantly be turned off as to me and 90% of people they would instantly think this 'game' is to old if that is their specs so wont play it. It would be different if it was a game released 12 years ago as that is what you put as the recommended specs, i.e. what its specs were back when it was finished. SL is an evolving platform that is still current so its recommended specs should show that. It would take LL all of 5 mins to update their specs to a more modern recommendation yet clearly they don't even have enough staff to do this. On your first point I agree. Nothing at the moment does exactly what SL does. That said LL for to long has kept the status quo and this has been to their detriment. SL needs to start looking at how they can improve their system so as to entice game companies over to make games, entice real world stores into SL again as a virtual shop front (Avakin who you mention on mobile does have RL stores selling stuff on their platform with success), look at how they can make a museum etc use SL as a virtual experience. Update the engine to Vulcan and then to VR. Fix the backend of region crossings, downscaling of textures and meshes. The sad thing about all this is, Linden Lab have the upper edge. They have the platform already built and running. They don't need to start from scratch and work out how to make it all work. But instead of pushing forward with advancement to a metaverse or improvement of their system, they are too scared of stepping on users toes 'cause all of a sudden their content might break or they might need to update their computer.

I am fully aware of that, but that wasn't the pretence of what I was showing and I think your are missing the underlying point of my post. Unreal 5 is a game changer where normal, LOD's and badly optimised content is out the window all because they have come up with a method of reliably downscaling insane detail to a non factor. Even though Unreal 5 isn't out till next year, if it was out tomorrow no developer will build a scene with a statue of 30mil triangles directly imported from zbrush and multiple that by 300 as in the tech demo. As you say it is pushed to the extreme and even SL doesn't have that much of content (if any) that is of that insane nature unless griefing. However even a reasonably high quality model that shows all detail without the need for a normal or LOD would see the benefit with this system. For a virtual world like SL that has been plagued by badly optimised content, unreal 5 shows that it can be downsized quite reliably which, if SL can be made to do the same server side before sending it to the users client (for example downscaling of texture to correlate to the surface area of the mesh they are applied to that many people have been wanting for years) it would see beneficial results. I'm not suggesting insane things like the tech demo, however a system of downscaling similar could be applied to SL if the coding allows to make the optimisation a non factor as well. If Epic continue with this, which they will, it will only get better leaving SL in the dust if they release a VW. As far as storage goes, people are used to it with modern hardware. Take the current games on PS4 or Xbone many can only be installed about 4 times on a terabyte drive due to the file size. People are used to that. The issue with SL is that it hasn't seen its cache system updated in years with only promises to do so. Where they should be updating it so that your favourite regions can be designated to stay in cache and having a overwriting separate cache for random travels, they have stuck with the latter further increasing issues and frustration. Like usual SL and virtual worlds are a different beast due to streaming, I know that and that wont change. If however, they can ultimately use and improve streaming from a central location to peoples PC's then such processing will become meaningless as it would be done elsewhere. That is where we are moving to and what these metaverse thinkers are driving towards. Lastly, many places are pushing faster internet speeds with some getting gigabit connections. In South Australia (Australia being the backwater of internet speed in the western world) the city area has access to 10GB/s speeds. The only limiting factor (other than cost) would then be realtime processing, however this is why I mentioned in my previous post that development will continue despite people not upgrading and with cost in a few years time being lowered to reasonable levels. Most people that are interested in virtual worlds (or really VR) are gamers and therefore they don't buy stock comps. They make sure that they get reasonable systems. Most systems these days gaming wise have at min. 32gb ram as it is cheap (i.e. more than the 16gig in the PS5 demo), not to mention ME2's and have the power you suggest as for VR goggles it is needed. EDIT The flywheel diagram in one of the links animats posted shows how epic is moving to the metaverse. With their recent release of Epic online Services (of which just this may they did this https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonchandler/2020/05/05/virtual-reality-concert-in-helsinki-attracts-over-1-million-spectators/#6a2c0c201281) as well as unreal 5 it is moving at a quick pace for some form of new Virtual World.

Of course, SL did that already, and it was a flop. Older users will remember when big companies had a big presence in SL. Will there be a round 2 of that? Could it work? What would it take? It flopped in SL because the companies were not thinking like they should have and also because the SL engine was (and forever will be) just not able to handle the needs of the companies expectations or their customers. What Tim Sweeney and other current 'pushers' of the metaverse are thinking is completely different and I bolded those in your quote above. Scenario 1 Realtime 3D presence: Go to a local shopfront/corner shop,/doctors surgery where they have a whole heap of those new 3D measuring machines that measure you completely and accurately, then once you have scanned your self its uploaded to a secure area on your metaverse account and you can virtually go to a clothing store and buy clothes (realistic looking) that fit perfectly and delivered to your door. From a customer perspective, far easier, quicker, no trying on in a store fitting cubical etc., guaranteed fit always and potential cheaper prices. From a business perspective, low overheads due to only needing a warehouse and the ability to have a greater range of products on the shelf due to unlimited VR space. Or a virtual super market, museum etc, all of which have been pushed to insane levels since the covid-19 lockdowns. Just think about it museums in the space of 2 months have pushed to get their entire artifacts online virtually. The lockdown has pushed the metaverse enormously. Scenario 2 game partnerships: I create a general avatar that I can use anywhere. I can shop, go places, see things etc virtually and realistically. All the while being whatever I want to be avatar wise. Then say I want to go play a game. Virtually my VR self 'teleports' to that game which is located on a linked number of regions, remembers where I last logged off (or make it you have to log off in a specific zone like a tavern etc) and as soon as I appear in that game region, my clothing, avatar, accessories are automatically changed to a character I created for that region that is in theme with that game. For instance in a simpler form, I go to a virtual museum in my normal avatar virtually and get a IM from my friend who wants to play WoW VR. I IM him back and say sure be there in a sec. Go to my virtual world hologram map and click on the pulsing map marker for WoW VR and am teleported to the Stormwind Tavern all the while automatically changing during the teleport to my night elf character and WoW VR UI loaded ready to play. Then get bored go to a different game region and now I'm ready to play Minecraft in my pixilated glory. That is what they are looking at, not a glorified outdated chat dress up ken and barbie program that SL has become. SL in its current form or thinking will eventually fail as it has stagnated. It is also why it SL isn't talked about in those articles you post. It is just to slow on the uptake with no forward critical on trend thinking and with them missing out on SL2 years ago where they could have been the forerunner to all of this (as users were wanting), opted for the failed Sansar instead. They have missed their chance. For example, the latest Unreal Engine 5 tech demo. If you haven't seen it go see it and you will see why Epic is positioning itself as a streaming VR behemoth for the metaverse with its unreal engine 5 and storefront. While Linden Lab are concentrating on pathetic problematic non realistic looking things like EEP or working out ways to make money Epic, are looking at ways in improving EVERYTHING so as it can stream across the internet as quick as possible. Additionally Unreal Engine 5 looks to solve a lot of Second Life's issues that have plagued SL for years meaning it can be done. SL has been plagued with unoptimized content for years dragging the system down, causing lag etc. Epic on the other hand look directly at this and release its latest engine (yes, SL is just an engine like UE5) that from what it seems and has been tested as on the new PS5 can do the following: Allow for global illumination (aka dynamic) Downscales dynamically triangle count Allows for scenes due to this downscaling of BILLIONS of triangles down to a more reasonable streaming and rendering number without loss of HIGHLY realistic environments Effectively REMOVES the need for a normal map whilst allowing for movie quality scenes that are NOT pre rendered From this downscaling keeps textures at 8k with no lag, frame rate issues etc all on a relatively very good spec modern computer (PS5) Due to this downscaling allows for enormous scenes horizon to horizon with each object seeing no optimisation from outside creation tools or the need for LOD models Allows for dynamic animation where the ai can accurately position the avatar according to its environment Allows for particles to move along with the environment or other particles/objects It is this forward thinking that is allowing Epic's CEO to tout a metaverse and those with a brain can see he is positioning his company for that. He is actively through deals with game deplorers luring them into using his Unreal Engine with exclusive Epic Store deals. What this allows him to do is set a metaverse up where all games will be on it due to them using Epics engine. Whilst I would love SL to be the forerunner or even just compete, I just cant see this happening. They still haven't solved the lag issues, region crossing issues etc which have plagued it from day one. However forward thinking companies like Epic have clearly looked at SL and seen its issues, as from their latest engine they clearly show knowledge of the problems SL has been plagued with. Optimisation and its streaming problems is showing results in getting it solved as well as region crossings where it is horizon to horizon. Add to this cloud gaming/hosting and SL is finished. Also before people start saying that internet speeds will be the downside of this and all the above solves nothing streaming wise, considering most have decent net now and developments don't slow for those that wont upgrade, the streaming will only get better. Just last week it was announced that a few partnered universities in Australia have tested in the wild (i.e. not in a controlled environment) a new (simple and adaptable to current infrastructure) method of linking fibre that allows for transfer speeds of 44.2 TERABYTES/s between users. Whilst probably a few years away for consumers the fact that inter-continental or interstate transfer speeds can go up to this speed will solve latency and download.

I agree with this and it is the same as far as I am aware in Australia. You need to display it and ensure that it is agreed upon by the end user via either checkbox or signature. Additionally and separately to the above, I would like some clarification as to the clause in the ToS specifically 6.5.VI wherein it states: "At Tilia’s request, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Tilia, etc... (VI) Tilia’s use of the information that you submit to us, or to a Provider for use in connection with the Tilia Service". (emphasis mine). The clarification requested above is in relation to privacy and how this clause seems to contradict its privacy policy, more specifically, holding Tilia to account should their privacy policy be breached accidently or purposely via its heads or employees. This clause in the ToS gives across the impression (and reads as) that should a breach take place and our private information that was given for use in connection with a tilia connected service the end user is not allowed to sue Tilia (due to indemnity) or its parent company (that being Linden Lab) for the illegal distribution of private and person information of its users.

Did someone with a time machine just spill the beans to which now has resulted in a time paradox thereby resulting in a altered future!? Where have you heard Blender will be taking over Second Life in 2071?

This is what happens when an Architect has the wrong thing on his mind whilst designing. Lets see how many people see what I am talking about...

For UV light I believe probes are still a thing... *Shudder*

As sad as it is, given the nature of America, even if citizens did have to pay I don't think nationalised health care will ever be introduced there. To many people are opposed to it and from what I've seen will always be considering USA still doesn't have it despite it being the most expensive place for hospital care in the developed world.

Very true. I'm curious as to what happens to those that are treated in a hospital and whether in America insurance will cover the expenses or will the government actually decide to pay for all the treatment, ventilators, drugs etc. Given America is extremely expensive for their hospital care, will citizens have a huge bill after recovering from Covid-19?

Right and that would so work. 🙄 But hey, considering LL introduce features a minority want perhaps suggest it and they might introduce it 3 years from now. Just as 3 years later and looking to be 4 years we are still waiting for them to move the servers to Cloud of which they claim will fix some lag issues as well as reduce tier. Believe it when I see it.

I agree. Same sort of thing goes for the lockdown free Sweden which is only going to get worse. Well hard to say, as they mandate for the protests is for everyone to go back to work. They seem to have not even thought about these sort of things. Take Georgia (I think) for instance, they are suggesting tattoo parlours to reopen, despite social distancing not being possible as well as a high probability of contamination through the use of needles etc. Then you have Las Vegas who are suggesting going back to full open casinos where hygine (wiping down slot machines as well as issues about contamination on cards and chips) is an issue. The Mayor's excuse there is "we have always got virus' why is this one so different, completely oblivious) I was trying to be nice.😝 The problem with the USA stimulus is they acted as if it was just a financial crisis like 2008 whereby they thought "lets just hand out ONE $1200 cheque". In a normal recession scenario this is generally enough as it injects money back into the economy by getting people to spend that $1200 on a product in a store. Many other countries however, saw that the pandemic meant unemployment for months and complete closure of those stores that any sort of 'normal' stimulus injection would not work. As such they moved to a more appropriate method whereby they initiated a wage subsidy and varying rationalised mandates such as in Australia where for 6 months a landlord cannot eject a tenant for lack of rent payment. By doing this method it meant that whilst yes, unemployment will rise, businesses still manage whilst locked down and also can pay their staff through government subsidies and therefore don't need to fire their staff. Without these sort of subsidies in America it has meant an enormous increase in unemployment requests, as people are not earning any money even when furloughed. The mere thought that companies wouldn't pocket any handout money meant to go to employees in America was a pipe dream that only politicians didn't see would happen. True, and is why a different tactic was necessary which many other countries instigated but America didn't (refer above). It is also easy to see how any economic stimulus at this time will effect the future economy. It would mean huge government debt needing to be paid back which will also mean a curtail to spending on needed infratructure and welfare. America is to interested in getting back to work for the wrong reasons, those being trying to make invisible money (stocks) to keep growing so that their capitalism model doesn't flounder and to have people being paid due to them not introducing wage subsidies. The problem with this is that even if they did go back to work, sure people will get paid and life will go on, however due to their erroneous spending during this time just to keep the stock market going will mean massive issues in the future not to mention issues when America has to increase their ever expanding debt ceiling next year. I think what should be taken from this is that we need a true independent health organisation that has the ability to move freely without needing permission to access a potential pandemic hotspot, meaning less time for cover-ups. Secondly we need to make sure that the organisation isn't corruptible and has the guts to put travel restrictions on a country immediately and without permission from the country that has the virus. Most of all however I hope the world has seen what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket manufacturing wise and starts bringing manufacturing back to other countries.

The problem is that whilst that is the case, it requires everyone following the orders to ensure that happens. At current, America appears to have flattened the curve but are now putting that at risk with all the protests going on. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2 weeks as far as infection rates in the USA as social distancing certainly isn't being conducted by protestors. Of course what doesn't help either is a President that encourages it or as per his latest speeches, his complete lack of knowledge in confusing the situation by mentioning things like injecting people somehow with disinfectant or blasting them with harmful UV light. As a world leader he should only be providing facts in his briefings not ridiculous theories like these or his malaria drug failure. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8251605/Donald-Trump-suggests-bizarre-treatments-coronavirus-including-injections.html Or Trumps top economic advisor suggesting everyone goes back to work with a space suit on. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8251353/Trumps-economic-adviser-suggests-putting-everybody-space-outfit-open-economy.html Whilst I certainly hope immunity can happen I think a lot of people are relying too much on it and thinking immunity is a sure thing. Nothing of the sort has been proven yet and even the top of the medical fields are saying there is no evidence to suggest that it is possible and results showing that reinfection may be possible. The main reason governments have locked down the countries is precisely because there is no evidence to say as much and why they are waiting for a vaccine. Despite the fact a vaccine isn't at all proven possible as yet. Where the other issue is, is mutation. Whilst it may appear to be slow at mutating at the moment, the virus struck at the end of the northern hemispheres flu season which means that the risk of cross mutation between various coronavirus' such as the flu was minimal. That is not the case in the southern hemisphere or colder areas and therefore still runs a greater risk of someone catching both and cross mutation happening meaning all that immunity talk goes out the window. There are still way to many unknowns about the virus to claim that immunity is a thing. That's all well and good in theory, however practically in most situations it would be impossible. Social distancing in some business etc is just not possible. Economically, it is also a little fuzzy as far as what would have been more impactful to the economy. Sure America have spent trillions of dollars while in lockdown (mainly to people that didn't need it mind you), however giving the virus free range without lockdown could in theory have proven just as much if not more troublesome for the economy. If an entire business gets sick from the virus they don't open for say 1 month due to people being infected. That business not only looses money but also has to pay sick leave, meaning financially the business itself is just as worse off as it would have been in lockdown. Additionally, it would mean a higher death count which even at what was predicted to be the lowest 200,000 would cause far more fear to the populace than whatever fearmongering the media has done as most citizens current justification for returning to work is that "its not even as bad as the flu death rate". This would mean further panic buying, increased people staying at home irrespective of whether an order was in place etc. Whilst locking down and enforcing social distancing may have an economic impact, if they are followed it can lead to a better outcome where the country can reopen quicker. Look at Australia and New Zealand or even a few other EU countries. Their citizens followed the orders and are now reducing the restrictions and are potentially looking at getting back to work quicker and with an almost 0% infection rate. Granted travel will still be restricted for some time. You also have to look very carefully at the unemployment rates and what exactly they entail. For instance, furloughing does not in most circumstances mean you are unemployed however statistically, if you apply for a benefit to cover your wages during that furlough period you will be counted as part of the unemployment rate. Furlough means you are only temporally without a job for a period only to in most circumstances have your job back after that period.

Ok fair enough didn't know that but still, it's something that overly complicates things where it shouldn't. For something that would have been very easy for LL to implement to just show old alias' in the profile that are a searchable field (as they are not subject to privacy laws or ToS's) we now get another convoluted system that requires a person to firstly know of such a script, then to have to get that script from the marketplace, run that script (and know how to do it etc, as we all know how dim some people can be with such things) just to find out details that should be accessible just like other platforms do in the profile. But that said, I am also of the opinion that if you have bought a name change you should be able to switch back to the old one and new one free of charge given they are both still technically associated with your account. But that's irrelevant to this thread.

Whilst yes this is true you are missing the bigger picture. As far as I am aware, you cannot do a search of their old name as search doesn't look into the description fields of the profiles even if they type it there. This will mean you still need to know the new name of the person to find them or their store. For example, I talk to a friend and ask him to recommend someone that makes a nice tree. They cant remember the shop name but can remember the username of the person (as they don't use a display name and the username is unique). As such, I then go and search for that username only to find it isn't listed and therefore I never find that person that sells it. This means not only do I miss out on that nice tree, but the shop owner also doesn't get a sale because of word of mouth failing due to the username change. As far as I know the same applies to even shop groups and land searches where it only searches the name of the parcel or the name of the group and/or the name of the creator of the group. If the shop owner places the name in the keywords in marketplace it may come up, but I would dare say that wouldn't be allowed as it would skew the keyword search. Whilst yes, my example may be not common it does however show (as one example of probably more) a clear flaw in the system with username changing of where knowing a persons old avatar name without asking the person for it is sometimes necessary.

There is a vast difference between personal information privacy and a username/avatar name. Whilst you are correct they are under no obligation to tell you, there are some cases where it is handy to know and beneficial for the person who changed their name. LL should take the method Steam and other platforms use by which on the profile you can see a dropdown box that lists all previous alias. Claiming that an avatar name is protected under personal information is a stretch and to be honest, I would take the stance that the refusal of the person to provide it would only mean they have something dubious they want to hide given that, an avatar name is a throw away commodity.