Drayke Newall

But you are missing the point. Games offer far more instant fun than SL does. So once again no new person is willing to spend money from the get go until they know whether it is worth while to stay. No, no new person is going to leave SL because of a relationship gone wrong. Not finding friends or something to do is precisely why they leave SL as you mention. Now lets break down "things to do". At most if people want to find something to do in SL it is mostly RP communties. Low and behold, you have to buy items aka clothing and appearance to get in theme for these places for new people to find something to do that keeps them in SL. We even have threads in these forums now saying RP communities are asking for Mesh bodies. What's to say I don't have years of experience? You seem to think 'cause you rent out land you are the be all and end all of experience, sorry to burst your bubble, but I have been there done that, even helped newbies over the years etc and my experience as well as posters in this very thread are very different to your experience. You say I can buy a mesh body for $4.50 yet further down you claim $5000 lindens or $18.75 is the cost. Make up your mind. Also for a mesh body you need body L$3-5000, head L3-5000, Skin L$300-1200L, hair L$300-1000L. Unless I am really bad at maths, thats a little more than L$5000. As for starter clothing, I never said no one keeps them for x period. I did say however than without GOOD quality starter outfits that fit all starter avatars it forces people who want to look decent to spend money on the game which at a first look is an instant turn off for new users. You clearly lack any form of understanding of Free Health Care if you believe other countries don't pay for it. As for low cost of transport, I don't know where to start if you think that is the case. Once again free health care isn't free. Your argument is lower taxes, yet seem to not understand how 'free' health care works. Oh dear sounds like your greater than everyone else 'experience' in living in other countries isn't that great after all. Anyway this is all off topic. No they don't have to spend $50. No one has argued that the should. That said the marketing offered gives the impression that those mesh bodies looks are what you get on sign up only to find that the hype or expectation isn't met on sign up. People don't leave cause they don't want to spend money, people leave because the advertisement of the LOOK of the ENTIRETY of SL from the start is different to what's advertised. To get the same experience as advertised one needs to spend money which new users don't want to do until they know they will stay. You are hooked on the wrong point. It has nothing to do with not being willing to spend money in sl. Where is yours that proves the opposite. Good for you. You run polls that have no decreeable way to determine who is new and therefore they are flawed polls. Its certainly funny how you mention jobs are what most of your 'polls' say is needed so they can earn money inworld, but somehow are of the belief that spending RL money on SL isn't a concern to new users in SL.

Certainly agree. I think from memory SARS victims still suffer with damaged lungs. I just get sick of people acting like everything is fine and say its no worse than the flu when the don't realise that the virus is impacting on every aspect of our daily lives not just the body.

Because you are focusing on only one aspect of the issue, the virus. Yes the virus is bad, despite what you say as the death rate is irrelevant when hospitals cant keep up with the patient demand. But there are other factors at play that are far worse than the virus and have long reaching tendrils throughout the modern world. To put a little more perspective on how bad things are with the world. Since February, China have not made 1 single thing in its factories. China make up 1 third of the worlds export market. Most countries have closed their borders to china and therefore any manufacturing that may have happened or will happen isn't being shipped into the market. Those Apple phones you usually get around now that are brand new, guess what, they are now delayed. This then has a knock on effect which means Apple reduces it yearly profit forecast and this then flows onto the stock market. The stock market then goes into free fall due to countries being in lockdown, supply chains being closed and business needing to close up shop for weeks due to no stock. The longer this goes on the worse it gets. This then means countries GPD's don't expand and show negative growth and therefore put them into recession of which most economists now are of the belief another global financial recession like the one in 2008 will happen. Considering Interest rates are already at record lows these offer no buffer to withstand such a thing, meaning it could get much worse than the previous one. To put it further into perspective. The US Federal Government has in place a stock protection team that inject money into the stock market to try and stop any form of drastic market drop that could be bad for economies. They also have in place circuit breakers that when a plunge happens of 7%, 13% and 20% trading is halted for 15 minutes and then stopped for the day at the 20% mark. The last time a circuit breaker went off in the market was in 1987 it went off once called Bloody Tuesday and fell 7%. Take note of the year - how long ago that happened. This week alone, we have had 2 circuit breakers go off and worse still they went of within 10 minutes of the start of trading meaning in the first 10 minutes the market fell by 7%. Despite the PPT injecting money into the market it has still continued to fall. To top it off, yesterday due to the market plummeting at a rate not seen since 1987 the federal government issued a repo bailout of more than the entire US Military Budget for the year. The military budget for the year in the US is close to $1 trillion dollars and they issued $1.5 Trillion dollars. This saw the market rebound almost 1000 points and even with all that money it was removed in the day leading to the Dow Jones closing at 10% down for the day not seen since 1987. To further emphasise the enormity of what is happening in the financial world, on Friday in the US the Federal Government will pay a further $1.5 trillion dollars to try and keep things going. That means a total of $3 trillion dollars spent to try and keep the economy working. To show how much this money is refer to this website and the graph on it. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ny-fed-conduct-1-trillion-repo-over-two-days-stabilize-treasury-financing-market While the markets have boomed for 11 years they are now in free fall. So of course as you say, its no worse than the flu.🙄 EDIT: Just thought I would also say this. The S&P VIX is an index that tracks the Volatility of the market. In 2008 GFC it peaked at 58.95%. As of this edit that index is at 75.47%. Also one just needs to look at this website to see what the world economy looks like at the moment and to give you a clue RED IS BAD. https://tradingeconomics.com/stocks . Also you know its bad when the entire world market is showing red and Zimbabwe's market is one of the very few green on that website.

Yeah did see that but thanks anyway. I think most of the world governments had already been acting like it was a pandemic well before the WHO declared it to be.

It's these kind of comments that show ignorance in the subject as far as this is concerned and whilst I think there is a little to much panic from the virus, I also think people are not taking it seriously enough. Has Covid-19 killed more people that the seasonal flu? No, not yet. Whilst all those weblinks people post saying it isn't as bad as the flu therefore stop worrying they forget a few things when saying such things. You use the swine flu as an example to show this new virus isn't as bad. Perhaps you need to be taught a history lesson. Lets begin in 1918 when the swine flu was classified a pandemic and killed up to 100 million people world wide - you know, the famous one labeled the Spanish Flu. From this the next outbreak wasn't even an epidemic in the 1976 in the USA whereby vaccines were produced for it. This has allowed for subsequent vaccines to be developed quickly based on the previous versions when new strains appear. Between 1988 and 2017 there have been small clusters of swine flu outbreak and in 2009 there was one that was errantly classified as a pandemic. This is the one you are referencing and the reluctance of the WHO to call the current Covid-19 a pandemic stems from their mistake in calling the 2009 swine flu a pandemic. The 2009 pandemic wasn't a true pandemic by classification and adults over 60 already had a mild immunity to the virus. This mild immunity to it, studies have shown, is a result of immunity been passed down from sufferers of the 1918 flu of which the 2009 strain is closely related. The difference with Covid-19 is that it is a new strain entirely and therefore there is no mild immunity to it or older vaccine to build on and its mortality rate is classified as up to 15% to those over 60. The 2009 swine flu pandemic you reference had a death rate of 0.02% in the USA and UK and a 0.01% death rate world wide. Covid-19 has a death rate world wide at the moment to those diagnosed as approx. 3% and 6% in Italy. This is why in 2009 we didn't see countries closing borders or full bio containment measures being used. Also remember that that is diagnosed cases. Just like in 2009 there will be plenty of people that went undiagnosed and died, meaning the stated death count will be higher just like it was in the 2009 flu pandemic. A few other things about the current outbreak people seem to not realise Firstly, the flu has treatments both vaccine wise and when you have it drugs that can reduce the severity of symptoms. For instance the flu shot, whilst not a true vaccine, does in most cases make the symptoms lower and also makes the death rate lower. It also helps contain the spread as in some it acts like a vaccine. This is a main contributor to the death rate being 0.01% Secondly, Covid-19 has a much higher death rate in the elderly and vulnerable person environment. Many countries have an aging population, and whilst people say its ok I will just get milder symptoms, they seem to forget that this virus is 100's of times more contagious than the common cold or flu due to not having a vaccine. This means that a simple visit to a shop to buy toilet paper in all the panic can have a dramatic flow on effect whereby the virus can infect areas that vulnerable people are. It can for instance infiltrate into a nursing home via someone with mild symptoms who touched the toilet rolls and then those rolls were taken to that nursing home. Another huge worry is money where the WHO has specifically stated that the virus can stay on the money for up to to 2 weeks. There also seems to not be the understanding that people with chronic lung issues are also a lot more vulnerable. You might think oh but that's not a very common thing. Well let me put it this way, when was the last time you saw someone with Asthma? This is a chronic lung disease and in the western world Asthma is a very common thing in any age. Thirdly, due to the contagiousness of the virus and due to many needing help breathing at a hospital, it is putting major demand on the health system. This is more what I think is the most concerning in that, the western world doesn't have the hospital beds to cope with the demand. Italy has some of the largest supply of hospital beds in Europe per capita and they have run out to the point where doctors in that environment have stated publicly in social media that they have instigated war time triage methods of determining who lives or dies based on probability and symptoms. The western medical world hasn't seen this kind of triage system instigated in general population ever. Fourthly, It is having a monstrous impact on the economies of every country in the world. Lockdowns such as those in china and Italy to contain the spread means that those countries could potentially either go into deep recession or a major depression. Businesses, are suffering to stay afloat or will be, due to having to pay in some cases their entire staff sick leave despite having to close the business for that period not earning any money. Lastly, the virus began spreading in the northern hemisphere at the final weeks of their winter. If this had hit during the north hemisphere's flu season it would have been even more devastating. A similar scenario happened with the Spanish Flu in 1918 whereby it was mild the first time around due to not being spread during winter but hit bad the next autumn. Conversely, the southern hemisphere is just beginning to enter into their flu season. This means that something like this on top of the flu could mean a much more massive death rate than seen in the north hemisphere. This is something I don't think a lot of those in the North Hemisphere understand in that there are parts of the world where something like this can be terrible if it hits at the right time. Add onto that that by that time a vaccine still wont have been made, you will then have infected people from the southern hemisphere traveling north, possibly prolonging the pandemic or lockdowns. So, whilst yes don't panic and leave some toilet paper for the rest of us, please stop spreading false belief that everything is hunky-dory. Will everything be fine in the future? Sure, so long as you are one with mild symptoms, just have some thought of those more vulnerable however.

There is a piece of equipment that is important to have in a Second Life survival kit: Only with this essential item will you be able to unravel the mysteries of the almighty Linden Labs Soon™

No back page would be termed I would think something like "the solicitation strip of the internet" considering it is advertisement. Brothel is more suitable to SL as it is a place you go to you know 😉. I'm just waiting for these posts to be removed by a mod lol.

Not riled up at all. Just I've never seen a person like you that misreads peoples posts 100% of the time.

No, instead we have people that go around naked on G rated sims, have sex in other peoples homes when they think the owner is AFK, cause drama and abuse of other residents or their choice of life, grief users or sims they don't agree with, actively crash sims just for giggles, pretend to be little boys and girls and have sex trying to not get noticed or banned by LL, need the function in chat areas to ban people due to spam and the very abuse you say only exists in fight games. All this making SL the prior of the world and known for only as "that's the virtual world where you can have sex". I bet those people you talk about would be saying to themselves thank goodness I'm playing a "fighty-fight" game instead of that game that is so expensive, graphically dated and is the brothel of the internet.

I'm sorry, where did you get the idea that anyone meant that every premium account needed a Linden Home. Please read what people say before posting such rubbish. Supply and demand for homes was easily obtainable to Linden Lab from the start as they had the old Linden Home region already built to work this out. Given that many of the homes in this older region were empty, they could have easily said ok we have x homes that are taken so we will provide homes for those first in the initial release +10% extra and then create more supply after if it was needed. Not rocket science. They could have even just looked at how many homes they had on the old home regions and replicated that number exactly and this would have accommodated for everyone that has one and most people that wanted one. You actually stating it took them 1 year to build enough that it "is not difficult to get a home...now" proves that you are exaggerating when you imply they would need 6 years. That is to say, they have met the supply and demand target within a year - if LL actually took the time to calculate a supply and demand figure. IMHO the building of Bellisseria has been very slow (considering it is repeated assets) and could have met supply and demand targets sooner based on the fact that I can build RL subdivisions and individual unique homes quicker, but not going to get into an argument about that. ----------------------------------------------------------- Because it is their responsibility for them to ensure that the new user gets what is advertised in their marketing campaigns, of which they don't. The fact that they are now listening to marketing suggestions of users in another thread on these forums, goes to show they are now trying to fix their mess, but perhaps its a little of "too little to late". All of which comes back to decisions LL have made that made it as such as well as the lack of improvement in viewer features and UI. No, the average person has a decent modern computer. It is only in the SL universe that apparently they expect a graphical demanding platform (for use of a better word GAME ENGINE) to not need the demand of a good PC. The tech forums with posts of people asking for a computer that SOLEY is built to run SL with bare minimum cost shows this as most people build a computer or buy a computer for multiple possibilities, not just to meet the lowest denominator. That is an SL thing and an SL thing only. A simple update in the minimum specs would resolve all this but LL refuse to do this as well and even still listing hardware that hasn't seen an update in 10 years. I'm not sure how long you have been around SL though I could have a guess based on your response, but once again poor decisions on LL behalf led to that which has been talked to death on these forums so I wont mention them here. For perspective, when I was a new user back in 2003 I bought premium straight away as did most people as you got land, could build on that land without 3rd party software, have fun on that land and most of all was provided money every week that you could actually buy multiple things with that $300 lindens (2006 figure). It had nothing to do with there was to much choice as, especially in the hype years, the same choices existed back then (apart from the messed up mesh body system which is another fault on LL behalf). It had everything to do with you could do a lot for what you got with premium and once again in the hype years, I would argue quite convincedly, it was far more fun and community driven than now. Like all economies, SL has suffered inflation and an increase in cost of living. Where back then I could create an entire avatar for $300-$600 Lindens ($1000 at most), which would take 1-2 weeks worth of stipend in around 2006, now it costs around $15,000-$20,000 Lindens. You might ask what is my point? My point is that back when premium and its stipend was decided (finally set in stone to the amount provided today i.e. 2006) it was actually worth it. Now to get that same body using the stipend provided would take me 66 weeks. Irrespective of the house which despite what you say is perfect for new users (it is a primary feature asked for in every MMO even demanded if it isn't in the game already). Also take into consideration that many of the freebie items from large freebie warehouse areas where at least up to par in most cases to what was on offer in stores. This allowed for any new user to go to these places and get a comparable look (perhaps slightly less) to what everyone else had. These places were also advertised on newbie island not only from LL free landmarks provided to new users but also by other residents. It is this statement that shows your age in SL. LL actively contributed to the community in the very "look after new users" way you suggest we take. Back when they were actually engaged with the community (Rod the old CEO put a stop to most of this engagement) they had mentors, LL even made a group for them. They were volunteer users who dedicated THEIR time to helping new users and, new users knew who to ask for help due to LL providing those mentors a specific group, title and support. These mentors would also be stationed on noob islands making it easy for new users to get friendly help straight away whilst learning the ins and outs of the viewer and SL. It was LL who specifically and abruptly stopped the mentor program and despite efforts from users to take it up again, without the LL support it only failed due to their been no official LL support or representation for it. Consequently new users became left in the dark and left to wander the SL plains by themselves (as no mentors were on noob islands anymore) actively trying to work things out for themselves in vein. Due to most users that were not interested in helping as they were engaged in other activities and in most cases not educated enough in SL to tell the right way to do things the new user began to be left by the wayside and from there felt like everyone was rude in SL. So please, enlighten us who is responsible for the mess SL is in as far as the new user experience and possible help avenues go and why it is the residents responsibility to fix it despite, evidence and experience showing, that only LL and its support of specific residents and groups can achieve such things?

But you don't seem to get the argument. They may be there looking at new clothes etc, but new clothes don't fit the newbie outfits as all clothes these days are made for the major mesh bodies. You say that you only need 1000L$ but this is just so insanely wrong. No new user wants to look like the starter avatars, they all want to look like those that they have seen in the marketing campaigns. Go ask them or just read some of the external out of the SL sphere posts of people that have left. It on average, for a newbie to look anything like the mesh avatars that are shown in the advertising campaigns, will cost them $50 USD just for the body, hair, skin, head and any other body accessories such as tattoo etc. Then on top of that they have top buy the clothes. For a new user the spending that kind of money with the possibility they will leave in a month isn't worth the investment and instantly puts a negative thought into the new users mind that this 'game' is to expensive. Sure there are some that stick around for the long haul, though the majority leave cause it is cost prohibitive from the start. No. Just no. Once again no new user will get premium as they are not sure whether they are going to stay around. Even if they did, to get a decent body like the marketing campaigns they will need months of stipend to actually save enough and by that time they would have left. Comparing SL new users to WoW is just ridiculous and shows a lack of your understanding on the mentality between gamers and what they would expect in SL. Which is why in my first post I said it is not worthwhile for LL to advertise to the game market unless they change the first experience accordingly. When a person pays $15 for WoW a month they get an entire game, objective, avatar cusomisation (within theme), ground mounts, flying mounts, all inworld armor and clothes, questing, objectives, hairstyles, guilds, RP communities, chat, adventure, auction house, in world currency is earnt to buy from the AH, a game that is regularly updated with QUALITY updates and things to do etc. I could go on and on. They get all that FOR $15 USD. On the flip side in Second Life premium gets them what? no full and decent objective driven game, armor or clothes that need to be bought with real money, hairstyles that need to be bought with real money, mounts that need to be bought with real money, communities that need to be found but are no where near what games provide, a marketplace that costs real money, and no way to earn in world currency. In other words they have to spend MORE money over their subscription to 'PLAY' the game. Everything bar the house in the premium model is worthless to a new user and even the house generally is as well due to them then needing to spend even more money just to furnish it. So no, don't even compare the value of a SL subscription to the value of any subscription model game as you will not win such an argument. The difference is fortnite is free but they base avatar looks comparable with those that can be bought with cash. The other issue is that a new user doesn't need to buy an entire new avatar to wear those items. It is a simple I like that and so i'll get it. In SL a new user hyped from the marketing campaign has to update their body from the starter avatars to wear any decent clothes, then from there they have to work out which mesh body they want but find issues that some skins don't work for those bodies so have to be careful and research what skins go on which bodies and which heads go on which bodies and which clothing goes on which bodies. The entire process is 1000's of times more complex than system like Fortnite where they login, select a character then buy outfits that suit that avatar with no ambiguity or thought as to whether it will fit or not. All users I have talked to and all reviews out of the SL blog shere I have read point to a few things as to why they leave and top of the list are the cost of the 'game', the starter avatars are to different to what they saw and updating them is confusing and expensive, and that it is hard to find something to do as all sims they go to are empty. So yes it is very much the clothing and avatar issue that is the cause of lack of retention. You are missing the point again. They want to look as advertised FROM THE START in the base body form and it is extremely difficult to actually buy decent clothes for the starter avatars. It is to much of a complicated process for the new user to have to learn not only the viewer but the complexities of what will work with which body. Many new users even state that they wasted so much money in buying clothes only to find they didn't fit for the starter avatars or mesh ones as they EXPECT everything to fit (due to every other game or platform being this way). 2500L$ is not enough to get the look the advertisement hyped and as I said before no new user is wiling to INVEST in SL until they know they will like it therefore they leave because they don't look like what was advertised. Also you have to remember that not everyone lives in the USA. This is a major gripe of mine when I see people saying it only costs x USD. Good for you, however unlike games and many other services like Netflix, WoW, fortnite etc, which cost $15 (or whatever) per month in another country IN THERE OWN CURRENCY (as they have found statistically by charging the same everywhere they will get more users) LL have refused to do this and so what costs $x for the USA costs far more for other countries. For example it costs an extra $6 in my currency to get the same amount of lindens your $10.75 gets. Your argument will probably be that is only $6 but it all adds up in a budget especially when every other western country in the world has a higher cost of living than the USA. You also must not forget markets change and even now another GFC is looking likely which will severely impact on peoples spending habits. This has been my experience as well when talking to multiple new users and your quote of what he said is a great example of what I just replied with above.

And again your point is moot as I have already stated in my previous post that it is simply bad organisation from LL. I am well aware that there was a limited amount of houses but like I said, LL should have done a supply and demand calculation to solve this. I mean come on, they didn't even create enough new house supply to transfer all of the people that had an older Linden Home. So I will say again Step 1: look at how many actually own an old Linden home Step 2: build the equivalent new Linden Homes to match the old linden homes and release them ONLY once all demand is met Step 3: move all existing premium users WITH an old Linden Home into the New homes (i.e. don't allow new accounts or those that don't have a linden home on their account) Step 4: Create new Linden Homes for all new subscribers. Which steps did Linden Lab take when they released the new homes... They started with step 4. You are taking the assumption that the 'free samples' would have affected the current house owners by using the way LL released the homes badly. If they had done it properly at the start by meeting the current demand and building a +10% into the first phase they wouldn't have had any issue at all. When the older homes were released there was no shortage as they finished the entire Linden Home area PRIOR to releasing it to the userbase. Also as far as I am aware there is now plenty of homes available for new subscribers so introducing a 30 day trial now would be fine which is what my very initial post suggesting it implied (never did I mention they SHOULD HAVE I said they COULD). In other words why do I care that there wasn't enough supply to meet the demand when there is now and any form of trial introduced now will not be impacted by it. That's what happens when you post a blog post from July last year, it is not current nor is it relevant.

But therein lies the problem and as I mentioned that is the relative complaint of new users. The avatars are substandard despite any form of upgrading due to the limitations imposed on them from the get go in that clothing is hard to find for them. The marketing reflects one thing but offers an entirely different option. Whilst yes, you are correct that the whole point of the marketing is to bring in new people, it is not the main area that needs to be looked at and is only one aspect of any marketing campaign. It is the retention (and potential referral) of those users and by all accounts that seems to not be happening. The general consensus is that money is hard to earn in SL for a new user to buy those things to at least get them started and without them having that initial cash they will not stay as they see it instantly as cost prohibitive irrespective of the actual cost. No new person (in any game or software) is instantly going to invest money, however little or large, into a platform straight away to update their look and if the default look doesn't satisfy the expectations that the marketing has hyped they will just leave. After all, SL is a glorified dress-up and decorating world.

Never said everyone did unless with the smiley your being sarcastic. I said if they had calculated it to accommodate the current supply they would have been fine and everyone would have been able to get one and those that didn't would have simply passed it to new subscribers.

Not sure, though the concensus I have seen from new user reviews is that the avatars are of poor quality, not realistic looking and generally (at least with the mesh ones) are hard to actually find clothes etc for. All clothing now is made for the popular mesh bodies. Sure, it may fit the poorer quality default avatar body, however there would be issues with this in that you will need to make your own alpha layer, all well beyond the experience of a new user. The issue here is that when a person looks at all the marketing done by LL showing all these good avatars that in some cases can look comparable to a lot of modern games, they join SL EXPECTING to look like that (or at least comparable) from the get go at least base avatar wise. That is what marketing is and what effect it has on a potential customer. Not to show what you can look like after many dollars spent on a different body but what you will look like from the start. Even modern games that have item stores, whilst yes advertise using some of those items worn, they also have a standard default avatar that looks just as good with or without buying items. In a way modern games doing this has driven this mentality. Instead in SL they find out that their avatar doesn't look anything like the adverts, cant find clothes, or hair or tattoos or skins that fit them and therefore require massive investment to actually look semi comparable. What happens? We get new users coming into the forums or posting in other external unrelated to SL blogs etc., that SL doesn't look like modern games, avatars are bad looking and that there isn't any in world way a new user can make enough money to buy an avatar and accessories they can actually dress up etc to a comparable standard they have seen in the marketing campaign. No, I am not suggesting they should be handed everything on a silver platter when they join however, what you market is what you should get reasonably bare minimum. That is the expectation of marketing on a customer side it give the user an expectation of something and if that isn't met with the same standard upon trying then they leave. If I was to market to my RL clients that if they use my service they get X quality in a bare minimum package and they instead get an inferior quality than what was advertised then, that marketing campaign isn't just a failure but also will get me negative reviews and therefore a bad reputation and lack of customers. We see this in SL whereby their first experience differs from the marketing campaign and therefore their expectations go from high to low and in turn negatively review which hurts the system rather than improve it. I agree. There use to be a time when the free LL library was updated regularly but they seem to horde their items now rather than releasing them to users. For instance not every premium person may like the community nature of Bellissaria, however like the houses. The might think of buying a mainland parcel to get a little more freedom but like the houses in Bellissaria and want that on their free mainland parcel but cant due to this.

Your point? They could have offered the 30day free trial years ago even before the new houses. Clearly, I run my RL business differently than LL as if this was my business I would have told my employees that we don't open the new Linden Homes up until current supply can be met. In other words take how many current subscribers there are and then make that many homes first then release. There after continue to update as they are to accommodate further subscribers. But given past and present experiences with LL its no surprise they released it without the appropriate numbers. Just look at experiences where we still don't have grid wide, or EEP where despite being told otherwise they will be releasing it with bugs and all. Just because LL messed up (again) and couldn't work out a basic supply and demand calculation prior to releasing something doesn't mean that a 30 day free trial for new users is bad and wouldn't work.

Perhaps I should clarify. I am well aware and appreciative of the moles and the work they do, however they are a unique situation as far as residents go in that the are paid (albeit very little) for this. I am also well aware that they have been working tirelessly on various projects especially new housing development. That is not what I meant. What I meant is actual community representation outside of the moles - without payment or a specific last name. Many users would love any form of request from LL to improve the system etc for free without a specific last name. Many have even offered, but never have been taken up on the offer due to LL policy. Does LL approach top body makers with a request of a simplified or even slightly poorer mesh body system that allows new users to have a decent body that whilst limited actually looks good that then doesn't make them feel like they are a noob compared to all the top bodies you pay 1000's of Lindens for? No. (I expect incoming "but that will impact on user creation or sales" responses which wont be answered) Does LL approach a well animator to actually update the inbuilt avatar animations to something decent and then remove the need for new users to even need a hud ao, know what it is or need to know how to use it in an already confusing viewer? No. Does LL approach mesh content creators to design stuff for the gifts or LL inventory library, of which could be actual useful items and also advertisement for smaller stores? No - Speaking of which the LL library hasn't generally been updated with quality (read decently) items for years. Does LL approach well known game designers within SL that make awesome experiences to design their starting zone to be fun, adventurous etc to improve on new user retention? No. Now as I mentioned, the moles are good at what they, however please show me a major advertising campaign that showcases a specific object or city or zone that they have created that has been used as part of the advertisement of SL? Unless they have done this recently with Belliseria then I can assume that you wont be able to. The last I heard about was Insilico which they did to death and LL generally also according to the ToS don't even need permission to go film there to advertise. It was also one of the most unoptimized places within SL and not a good use of advertisement for a new person who would go their and lag. That is what I meant. Whilst everyone would agree that the moles are appreciated in what they do and have contributed greatly to Second Life, my faith in them went down slightly the last time I was at Belliseria of which I posted about in a thread previously. When they build Belliseria using old physics tricks around trees instead of proper physics shapes, or with objects that have a higher land impact and download impact than any modern variant on the MP impact to size wise or when homes have 2 layers of objects one with prim and the other with mesh combined together using multiple textures, or use prims and mesh (instead of just mesh) to make a bridge without modern smoothing techniques to remove the awkward hexagonal look etc. then as I said in the previous thread about optimisation, they and LL need to step up their game. I'm sorry to say that but, from what I saw it is true especially with optimisation on everyone's mind. I fully agree and is why in another thread I even said its wonderful to see LL actually participating in the community again after so long. I might add though for it to happen, despite all the requests for it over the years, it has taken their (Linden Lab's) entire world to be shaken with the closing of Sansar for us to see this many Linden's posting regularly in a thread.

The same reason they don't get creative people to make better avatars, or animations, or sims, or etc. It has been LL position since year dot not to get involved with the userbase in such things, which I think many would agree to be a mistake, but that's just how it is.

Not to mention it will give them 4 weeks of stipend to spend, potentially eliminating the major gripe of new users stating they have no money to buy anything. This would be in essence the hook, with as you mention not wanting to give up the home the line and the bonus L$1000 the sinker for good uptake of LL premium. Another good thing to help even further would be a sim accessible for 2 weeks only to new premium users that offers every single monthly gift made for free.

Linden trees are still around. But they do suffer the same issue with people creating alts. That said this can be easily resolved by LL just actually enforcing their alt limit rule which as far as I am aware they haven't done so for many a year. The problem is that there is no one at the starting area to guide them. The days of mentors been gone has led to no one to help newbies from the get go. As far as nothing to do, whilst generally true, this is also a by product of LL poor utilisation of what they have. The experience that new users should have is land at noob island, go through a quick basic tutorial with a prize at the end of a high quality avatar, skin and accessories. Even better would be a token that gives the new user 30 days of premium for free (aka a free trial) so they are introduced to premium as well as showcased owning and decorating a home. The mentors at the newbie area (could be similar to moles) would be there to answer questions or even offer a more advanced building tutorial for example. From the newbie area, after completion of the basic tutorial they should be automatically teleported to Linden Realms where they can participate in the game to earn money, with explanations as such and also offer other money making avenues as suggestions. Give them a basic start and a good experience on how to 'play' second life and what is possible in SL whilst earning money. The Linden Trees used to be really popular back in hype days (with new users not alts), with even if I recall the hud being offered for free at the starting region. Now those are never heard of by the new users despite being around with the possibility of earning quite a lot of lindens. The more trees around the more lindens on offer. In the hype days you also had numerous freebie places. Unfortunately places like freebie warehouse etc, whilst still around, still generally only have free items of poor quality or made decades ago. These need to be updated with decent products and advertised by LL through the intro to SL. By doing the above the new user start will be a good cross section of the fun SL can be and all the while learning, meeting, playing and earning lindens. If you want to go even further upon your sign up and avatar creation on the website have a list of things people like. If for instance they like adventure manga's when they tick that and go in world they are sent to a sim that is themed like an adventurers guild hall whereby the have to go and register at the guild hall desk (this could be register for payment info on file) and from there they could go to Linden realms to earn lindens and experience (or another custom zone). They could also have a guild recruiting board which is a place RP sims could advertise their particular RP zone "like a guild". The above example could be expanded for exploration with Paleo world, or it could even be expanded by LL actually finishing cross region experience hunts whereby they could get a monster hunting experience to hook them in. LL should be offering the hook for people to see what SL is. Relying on the community at the start is to much for a new user as there are so many places to go, most of which are either empty or boring (sorry to say). Noob island could also be converted to a game system whereby apes have stolen all of your belongings and clothes leaving you only with minimal coverings (and a decent avatar). The goal is to find your clothes through the region by fighting the apes or doing puzzles to find your belongings. Hidden treasure chests could also offer some small linden prizes. All through this process it guides the user on how to use the viewer and controls, including basic prim creation. There are so many possibilities to improve the new user experience, however there has always been the mentality in LL that all that needs to happen is sign in, quick tutorial then your on your own.

Ah I see, I only mentioned it as I was told in the forums by a Linden that I need to go take my questions and ask it in person at the meeting. No mention of submitting it etc. Just shows how convoluted the process is and the average person would find it to bothersome to even try.

This ties into a post I made in another thread where LL need to look at approaching (as much as I hate the word) 'influencers' that are outside of the SL userbase. It's fine to run adverts, however 70% of the population are missed with that form of advertising due to ad blockers or due to the randomness of ad generation. Also taking the avatar customisation ad as an example, usually on youtube you can skip the ad after 5 seconds. That means that in those 5 seconds you have to make the ad so engaging that the person wont skip. With the exampled ad, was it engaging in the first 5 seconds? No, all I saw was what the average person would think is a website sign in process. Certainly not an ad I would have kept running to see what SL is or even actually know what the ad was showing about SL. Directly approaching people with like minded video or social media outlets and offering them a small sponsorship (or just approach them and say give it a try) means that these people directly do a fact based and personal opinion based ad within their social stream that can not be blocked and directly shows the platform to likeminded people who would be interested in such things. Taking that surfing advert as an example, how many surf interested people will that ad reach? How many disabled people who want to surf irl and cant but want to feel some form of the sport will the advert reach? The ad is targeted to a specific group of the population, however the ad itself is just a general ad to the population. If I type into search, "sports to do with a disability" am I going to get that advert for SL showcasing the proven positives the platform can provide for such people? No. If I search "want to surf but not near beach" or the like, will I get the ad for SL showing that you can experience it in a somewhat basic form (this is why VR should have continued to be worked on for SL)? No. Targeted ads work far better than general ones and approaching influencers with 1000+ followers also provides direct advertisement to the right market. Like I mentioned I've never seen a SL ad so have no idea what criteria you need to have them show, however, I'll bet my hat that they generally show as game related, which has proven to not be the right audience.

Yep. It is refreshing to see so many Lindens taking the feedback in the forums in the marketing thread. It is also why I think and have been requesting for years that they should have a Second Life feedback section within the forums itself as it shows when LL employees post, that they are listening to their userbase. Jira is an awful platform for feedback. It is designed to be a bug submission system and the general userbase will never visit there. A new user wants to see in the official forums regular posting by staff members, not just forum moderators as it give the impression to them that they are engaged in the community as well. This used to be the case many years ago when LL actively interacted with the community though it fell to the wayside. Then there is the issue of the inworld meetings. Sure they can still have them, but telling people (like I have been told in the past) that I need to submit my questions in those inworld meetings or they wont get heard is ridiculous for a platform that spans timezones. I am not going to log on in the wee hours of the morning just to submit a question or feedback. This is where the issue you mentioned comes into play. Only those few residents that visit these inworld meetings are listened to and so they get skewed data and opinions of what is and isn't wanted.

Sad thing is I could probably find you many posts from 10 years ago and up till now that basically say the same thing you have said yet, it always falls on deaf ears. Until LL pull their head out of the "we don't get involved with the world" sandbox and actually listen to decent feedback nothing is going to change. The other issue is there are a select few that LL seem to listen to who have rose coloured glasses on and give LL feedback that everything is fine and so nothing happens. Call me cynical but it has been shown time and time again to be the case.

As someone who has never seen an SL ad on the internet (I know shocking), it was good to see in that blog post what they do look like, however looking at them, I myself thought they were poor in the same sense as what Rathgrith posted but also in other ways. Why do I say they are poor? Firstly, the image advertisements offered no discernible context to any specific audience and just gives the appearance that you picked a picture off the net and added 'Join for Free' button. Whilst I understand that its a small image space for advertising there can certainly be a lot that can be placed in such a small space to get your point across. None of the picture adverts provided any form of showing what a person can expect to do in SL (apart from the DJ one) or most of all why they should join. A picture just showing an avatar with black wings or a picture of two avatars close to each other offer no incentive for anyone to see what it is all about and don't get me started on the cheesiness of the summer one. With these image adverts LL need to make sure that they encompass exactly what SL is like and all its positives with in a precisely imaged and worded advert. Things like be anyone or anything or bring your imagination to life or meet someone from another country without going there. Those are the core fundamentals of second life (now at least considering inworld creation is so poor) and encompass everything that SL is, Be anyone, create anything and meet everyone. That should be the focus of adverts and they should be done in a creative (non cheesy) manner to reflect the personality second life has. Showcase its strong points not just 'here's a random picture of two people close to each other with a join now button'... That is done to death by the likes of the sims, or imvu or any other dress up or meetup virtual world/game. Think of something different and more engaging. For example (and keeping in the theme that SL offers) of how impacting image marketing in a small space can be images like these need to be produced: This image (one of a series) is simple yet brings across the point in a directed manner. Reading a book you can become anyone. There is no ambiguity in the picture and is a perfect example of how to advertise the reason WHY you need to try something. In this case reading. SL has the same characteristics of a book in that you can be anyone or live any life or be anywhere in any time. Focus on that and show it. Don't just show a picture that shows nothing or reveals nothing about what you can do in SL. Be creative. For example get a picture of a famous crowded landmark and blend it seamlessly into the SL built equivalent and simply caption it "To crowded to see? Join SL now and skip the queue". Whilst yes, they will see it isn't as good as the real thing, it showcases to the new user what can be seen and done in SL all the while engaging them in something they are passionate about, travelling and seeing the sites. As to the video marketing ad's, they are better but are still flawed. As some have mentioned, don't showcase things that are badly implemented in SL like the sword fighting scene in that advert for role play. Just watching it with the bad animations, poor look avatars and not to mention horrendous blood splatter looks like a game made in 2005. It wont appeal to many if any. By all means focus on the RP aspect of SL as it is a major drawcard and bonus of it, however if you want to engage people don't show them things that put SL in a bad light or will disappoint them down the track. For RP focus on old school RP, or acting. Those kind of things that don't showcase combat which just doesn't work at all in SL due to the limit in scripting and etc. Focus on things like Harry Potter themed RP where you can attend classes, be a wizard, act it out as if you were part of it with custom hud, custom spells etc. Get permission to use a snippet of the classic Harry Potter music (though that might be a tough ask!). Never mention anything in the advertising about making things as, like Rathgrith mentioned, it gives the false impression that you can create beautiful things in world. That ship has sailed due to the prim system not being updated. Either fix it or just don't advertise it unless you can somehow advertise creation with 3rd party software in a good way (good luck with that). With the 'avatar customisation/fashion' advert, within the space of 15 seconds you could have skipped all of the sign in to SL irrelevant stuff and started off with a moving (dancing) avatar changing into various outfits slowly (with no jerky camera movement) and then over the course of the advert it speeds up showcasing many more outfits and avatar looks (and not just human) all while the avatar moves. Instead, all you did is made a really jerky off putting advert that, with the camera moving around like it does, just makes it really hard to focus on the main subject (the avatar) as your eyes are constantly trying to focus on the right place. To make it even more engaging and to showcase multiple aspects of SL you could have the background changing with the outfits fitting the outfit theme. So a dance club with a dance outfit, and medieval outfit with a medieval background. Within 15 seconds you could have by the end showcased 100's of outfits and backgrounds, all the while also giving the impression that there are hundreds of possibilities not just 4! Lastly, whilst the surfing advert was interesting, try not to mention things like "the best thing about this beach is that no one is here" it gives the wrong impression. No, it doesn't give the impression that it is an exclusive beach in some hideaway place only locals know of therefore it is quite with no one around. All it does is highlight to people that SL is vastly unpopulated. You want to give people the impression that it is full of life, not just one person surfing and Drax being the extra 'cause there was no one else.