Etalia Cristole

I’m just going say this and then I’m gonna disappear for another year or two: We just went through something that’s never happened before in human history during a time where we had this kind of technology, second life blew one of the biggest opportunities they’ve ever had (during the pandemic). Instead companies like zoom took over. Second life had the market cornered and they still screwed it up. Now Facebook has their own virtual world coming out, which we all know will be done better because linden seems to hate its customers even more than Facebook. Back when I ran my consulting corporation I tried my best to help Linden not fail, but I couldn’t even get these people to return my phone calls. This company is just way too pigheaded, they think they know everything, as bad as Roberts with star citizen. Second life has wasted opportunity after opportunity; at the end of the day when the company fails it they only have themselves to blame. They have what could be an incredible platform, they have a great name, they have all the foundations, a virtual currency on the actual stock market, and they keep royally screwing things up. It’s like they want to fail. And no I couldn’t be bothered to read the rest of this thread because it sounded like a bunch of lunatic one sided political extremists; and they’ve already ruined everywhere on the Internet including Twitter, Reddit, the news media, etc. No one has time for the children, whether they’re actually a child age or not the entire party is nothing but a bunch of ignorant idealist children.

The REAL issue is LL should have updated the standard AV model years ago. I don't see how making the edges of your AV more rounded could break anything. Adding extra polygons to the standard AV which was created over 10 years ago would NOT break any existing clothing. Mesh bodies are a workaround, not a solution to the problem; they just go over your standard body, it's like putting a band-aid on a wound. Why over 10 years later have we not seen one update to the core SL standard body wire frame?

The Mesh Project has a free full body mesh AV. I use that one if I want to get naked but for 99.999% of the time I only use prim hands/feet as a full mesh body is basically useless. Save your money, SL2 is around the corner and nothing you buy now will work in SL2. Lastly, if you want to see how terrible mesh has been implemented, feel free to look at my post here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Fashion/Giant-butts-have-invaded-SL/td-p/2816168 Unless you are a fatty don't bother with mesh clothing as they won't fit correctly and unless you plan on running around naked don't bother with a mesh body. Odds are you have already spent plenty of money on regular clothes, which don't work with mesh bodies. Why spend another truck load of cash on the overpriced mesh stuff [which never fits right] when the entire virtual world is going to be obsolete in about a year?

Who came up with these standard mesh sizes? XXS is NOT XXS. I guess the majority of this world is now overly fat and so apparently we all have to be in the virtual world too. My AV is 5'7" tall and 118 lbs according to a body scanner in a high end developers store; that's not an abnormal size, in fact it's 6 lbs under ideal weight for that height by Dep of Health standards. Apparently though in second life it's even smaller than XXS mesh as every single piece I try makes my ass look huge. I adjust sliders but it doesn't matter, mesh clothing is made for fat asses. There has always been an issue in SL with the average height of people being 8+ feet tall [most people have no idea they are unnaturally tall in SL, as it's the norm and I blame LL for not putting a hight in numbers on the slider], but this new giant ass trend is terrible. Every piece of mesh clothing is made for giant asses and disgustingly large breasts. I'm sorry if I don't find stretchmark ridden giant balls of flabby fat on my chest and ass attractive, but if you want my $L it's time to start developing clothes for non-fatass avatars. So disgusted. I am done shopping in SL, I will keep my money thanks. I leave second life for a year and come back to empty sims, great clubs all shut down, most AAA devs all gone, items with script errors that now don't get updated because most of the great devs have left, and all of my LM's to once packed sims no longer work. The virtual world now feels like the final days of an MMO game. All the money spent, time put in to make a perfectly proportional avatar, and these mesh abominations are what we get for "standard" sizes? Keep your mesh clothes, I will keep my normal sized (jagged) ass which LL should have fixed years ago before people gave up waiting and jumped ship. Full mesh bodies are even more of a joke, with their giant asses and flawed implementation [Qarl's mesh deformer project ignored instead they use some garbage system of "standard" sizes]. I understand how mesh works and why regular clothes don't play nice, but why am I going to spend the outrageous kind of money these mesh clothing devs are asking to re-buy all of my outfits when non-backwards compatible SL 2.0 is six months from beta and about a year away from release? To make my ass huge? No thanks, mesh hands/feet added to normal/prim clothing is good enough until SL 2.0 comes out. I have such a love hate relationship with SL, and the love is waning like the world itself. What happened to you Second Life? 2007 Was my first AV and in 2009 I made this one; I have seen the virtual world peak in 2009-2010 and then start crashing down. I had a prem membership for years to try and support LL with development costs. With all the amazing things that have been added, it still feels like a patchwork mess. I hope LL learned their lesson and SL 2.0 fixes these issues. Not holding my breath.

Valerie is wrong. There is a viewer for Android, Lumiya which is a full 3d viewer client that runs great on quad core Android tablets. www.lumiyaviewer.com/ There are not any full 3d viewers on the ipad because none of the ipads have enough processing power. Apple fanboys will try and tell you how great Apple products are, but people don't buy Apple expecting cutting edge technology. Steve Jobs made it very clear time and time again that Apple's philosophy was to focus on reliability and simplicity over cutting edge specs. For example, the new ipad mini is just an ipad 2 in a smaller package, even though it was released at the same time as the (full size) ipad 4. I am not here to start a flame war, I am just pointing out that if you are looking for a phone or table that will run pc type apps, you should probably look for an Android device. Android is not as simple, but hardware specs on mid to high range Android products blow away anything Apple has on the market. In the interest of full disclosure I am typing this on an ipad, though I also own an android tables and smartphone. I own the paid version of Lumiya for Android and it runs well on a Galaxy S3 and Nexus 7 tablet. In a few months (June 2013) the new Android tablets will be entering the market with the new Tegra 4's that have specs that blow away what the Nexus 7 is using now (Tegra 3's). I can only imagine how well the viewer will run on these new devices if I am getting 12-14 fps on the current Tegra 3 Nexus. This is with full 3d, including avatar rendering, flexi, etc. Its full blown Second Life. You will not see that on an ipad any time soon. My point is that there are tablets that run full second life, just not iPads.

Well said. I just finished typing out a long reply on the same subject here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Time-to-renew-your-Second-Life-Premium-account/m-p/1400065#M52430 No reason to post it again as its on the forums but for those who care, thats my take on the matter. I am in the same boat and while its been fun, I will probably be jumping ship. I tried to hold out; I stuck around a lot longer then a lot of people I have known over the years in Sl, but you need to know when to punch out or get dragged down into the abyss by a sinking ship. While its a cool idea, I can't help but wonder if LL decided to add AI & NPC's to SL because soon there will be no RL people left to interact with on the grid. It sure feels that way now. Oh, and thanks for not increasing land tier prices but IMO thats kind of like if oil companies said they wont raise gas prices now that they have reached $5.50 a gallion. Why don't you just shoot your subscribers in the chest with a 12g shotgun and hand them a bandaid as consolation? You can even add "Don't worry we wont shoot you again, at least not this year". Doesn't matter anyway, at this rate most people will bleed out before you get the chance for another shot. I guess I should just shut my mouth; its your world you have the right to drive it into the ground if thats what you want to do. I just hope you have the self decency left over not to cry "what happened" when your business finally takes a dirt nap. Then again, you have already planned for this which is why you are investing in so many other things not related to Second Life all of a sudden. I guess its good to have a contingency plan when you repeatly ignore your paying customers.

I just renewed and it will be my last 3 months as premium. My first account here was in 2007. I didn't do much with Sl until 2009 when I decided to start fresh with a new name, which meant back then a new account. I have been premium ever since, now about two and a half years. I have spent a good amount of money in SL, in fact far more then i should have spent but as someone else said, hobbies cost money. In three months I will make the call if its still worth using SL. If I decide to stay, I will just pay rent on private land. For the cost of my premium account I can rent land thats larger and has more prims with the equivalent of the 300L stipend left over in my bank account as real ($) USD. Free housing is useless for people like myself who have been around for a while. The 512sqm land I own is far nicer then then the free housing, and because I own land I can't get that housing anyway. While I will never get back the 8k I dropped for this corner parcel bordered by LL protected ocean, its a loss I plan to accept. Hell, whats the point of a view when they allow people to buy up mainland and sublet it; spam your view with a plethora of rented skyboxes? I can't even sail in or fly over the protected ocean so thats useless besides preventing total "view-spam". I don't want to sound like a bitter naysayer, but a lot has changed in SL over the years. I have watched this VR rise and am now witnessing its fall. Anyone who has been a round for a while can't deny they see it too. The population has seriously decreased, the quality of items for sale has reached an all time low now that a lot of builders have moved on, most of the destinations I used to love are gone, etc. From a scientific standpoint its fascinating. We're watching a society and its virtual civilization die right before our eyes. Linden did a lot right over the years, more then I think they get credit for but lets be honest, they did a lot wrong too. People might have stood besides them if they actually admitted their mistakes and corrected them but I see more arrogance then solutions. The following is just my opinion. Based on what I have seen over the past year the only conclusion I can draw is that the Lindens have realized the "End of Days" is near and are just riding the gravy train as long as they can till the money runs out. At that point they will probably cut their losses and move onto another project. For those who have played an MMORPG till the final days before it gets shut down, you should know the feeling. While SL has not yet become that empty and lifeless, its not far off. Back in the day even the smallest club had a few people at all times, now only three of four big ones are left that ever have people consistently in that zone. This mirrors over to every aspect of SL including recreation destinations, shopping, gaming, etc. We can debate what has caused the decline in SL till we are blue in the face but its hard to argue against inflated land prices, aggressive land prim limits, the loss of casinos/gambling, a CS department that has been outsourced, and a management company that refuses to get with the times and embrace a now very mobile community. Christ, Android has Quad Core tablets with Quad Core cell phones arriving to the market next month. We should have seen a SL mobile client at least a year ago. Seamless integration with the World Wide Web has been hindered by the lack of an HTML client and the absurdly overpriced cost of land. I think if land prices were drastically reduced, a mobile app was made and HTML client/plugin was created, we would see a huge rise in SL again. I would like to think one day I could log into my Google account, surf the web in a browser and each page I go to have the option to enter its virtual world hosted in something like Second Life directly from that browser window. VRML tried to accomplish this but not having one host run the virtual world and store your avatar, items, etc makes every VRML webpage a stand alone environment. This is why there are next to no VRML pages on the web. Second Life could be the answer but I just don't see the effort or motivation on the part of Linden Lab. Just like in real life human history, every civilization reaches a plateau and then suddenly implodes or slowly declines till it reaches total collapse. After the collapse, whatever is left over of the previous society rises up out of the ashes and rebuilds even bigger and stronger then the last civilization. The circle then repeats itself. Thats human history and it appears that virtual worlds may share the same fate. If they truly want to save second life we need virtual Armageddon; wipe the slate clean and start anew this time doing better planning when it comes to mainland layout and building restrictions for certain areas. Go balls to the wall when designing mainland; spend the prims and make it a beautiful place. Leave enough room as open space to maintain the lands beauty. Keep commercial and residential separate. You should be able to sail or fly around the world, automatically teleporting when you reach a regions border to the adjacent region. Large open water zones should be public access. The list goes on but why bother typing it out when no one is listening anyway.

If you max everything out (Most modern "Store Bought" PC can NOT handle SL on max settings BTW) and fine tune the settings in your graphics card's settings as well (16x AA/AF... etc) , SL does not look that bad. I would LOVE a new graphics engine but I am not holding my breath. My main issue with SL graphics is Avatar bodies, which look ok standing up in a pose but awful when in most other "natural" positions. Sit cross legged on the ground and your legs are boxy, pelvis is all out of whack, etc. Mesh in theory will fix some of these issues but as of now, you have to buy a new mesh for each outfit and have no customization options. I did some research about mesh and while there is a chance I am wrong, it doesn't look like you will ever be able to buy a mesh body and then skin it, add accessories, clothes, etc. The way it seems to work is you buy an avatar mesh thats entirely preconfigured. I think this is how mesh works in all applications which is why in its current state, prim based graphics are still fairly impressive for what that can do "on the fly". The other issue is "Show body in mouselook" which could be the coolest feature if they just expanded on it a little more. I really want to see a setting where it limits the camera angle to those of the naturel movement position of the human head and fix the issue of looking down "into" your own shape. Animations should also effect your view in mouselook. Ideally, moving in mouselook should look natural, like your camera view is attached to your head which moves with your body and not its current fixed position. LL can solve a lot of the body issues with simply making the wireframe they use for avatars more complex. In reality they need to be about double the complexity over what they are currently. I really hope they do this soon because as stated above its going to be a while before mesh avatars become mainstream. Second if they could come up with a realistic mouselook view that used the physics engine correctly, things would be much better. As stated above a lot of the visual beauty of SL is 90% based on the artist that makes the reign. With prim count allowances where they currently set and the cost of land, most of the bland graphics are due to affordability, not graphics limitation. On this point, I think LL needs to give a little more back to the community. The price of hard drive storage space has dropped considerably. Server CPU processing power is far more then it used to be and the cost has also dropped. With this in mind, land prices are way too expensive! IMO 512sq land should be eliminated and the minimum land size should be 1024 for the same price as 512 currently runs. Prim count should match or exceed the area of the land, so for a 1024sq plot you should get 1024 prims. If, and thats IF they did this, I could also see eliminating people from using 1 prim boxing scripts to improve server speed. Lastly, mainland needs a "take out the trash" day. A complete reset and remake of the world. Call me a snot all you want, if you look at SL from SL space, you can see how visually trashy the world looks. I wish they were more strict with residential vs commercial land and had public regions with "housing authority" style government. There should be a section of mainland with requirements when building. Private servers can police land they rent so that one tool doesn't go screw it up for everyone else. Everyone here knows what I am talking about; the guy who goes putting up a purple house with pink shutters and flashing lit billboard ads exactly at the height of your skybox instead of ANY other area section of space/height they own. Also, LL really needs to crack down on people who buy property on the mainland and then rent it out. I am sick of having neighbors who buy a plot of land then rent it out to 20 people by making 15 prim skyboxes 20 tall in a row. You should NOT be allowed to sublet on the mainland.

I know I bashed ya about Windlight tonight, and I stand by that but I just noticed a new option in Viewer 3 many of us have been asking to be added. You can now turn off sound made by others obnoxious gestures! No longer do we have to be dancing in a virtual club trying to listen to music, tormented by annoying sounds others are making. Hell, if I wanted that crap I would go to a real club. : ) Anyway, THANK YOU very much for adding that feature. I know it was not [rightfully so] at the top of your priority list, but its very appreciated. Again, thank you. EDIT: Now if there was only a way to mute gestures in chat, life would be good and my block list would be 1/100000th of what it is now. Half the grid could be talking to me and I would not know it because they are muted.

Phenom II X4 555 BE (Unlocked) Overclocked 3.6ghz GeForce GTX 560 Ti Overclocked Corsair 4096MB DDR2 SDRAM PC6400 (Gaming Ram - Low Timing/Cas) GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H Motherboard Thermaltake 850-Watt TR2 RX PSU Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Thats my system; its a little over a year old accept for the PSU and GFX card which are about a month old. I built it and took into account everything from matching the FSB with my ram speed, to making sure I had the lowest ram timing I could find. I am getting 10 FPS in public places with every graphical setting maxed, AA 16x/AF. When alone in my virtual home I get about 20 FPS. Pathetic for those system specs, I know. The problem is Windlight, the graphic engine SL uses. I can max out GFX with ANY modern game and get at least 20 fps at all times, usually much more too. Most of the time I am locked in at 60 FPS because I want to sync with my HDTV refresh rate, and 120 FPS is too much to ask from modern games with this hardware. Flight Sim X runs maxed out with a lot of HD addons very well. Crysis 1 & 2 run maxed out with great framerates. Second Life however, just kills my system. Again, that system will run anything you throw at it right now with great framerates BUT Second Life. I would love to see some screen shots of someone with every graphic setting maxed, including hardware, in a crowded public place, that gets more then 15 FPS. Unfortunately its not the hardware fault, its crappy programming and the garbage graphics engine they use to run Second Life. I am not trying to piss in your Wheaties, I just don't want you to be let down like I was when I picked up my new GFX card. It runs everything but SL great, but my main reason to upgrade was SL because I game on the 360/PS3, not my PC.

What it comes down to is they need two different viewers; one for builders and one for everyone else. I like the current viewer for end user stuff but agree its awful for building. I used Emerald till the devs stole my information and posted it as a torrent, like so many other people who used their viewer. I never grief, only used one account, and have always followed SL's TOS so there was no reason they should have been logging my info. The whole "We did it to prevent griefers" was a total lie. This is why I refuse to use Phoenix as its a lot of the same devs. Unfortunately, like you have pointed out, the newer viewers are not builder friendly. Honestly though, I kind of think LL expects builders to use 3rd party viewers anyway, or they would be doing a better job making their package builder friendly. It seems their focus is on the end user, which I am ok with as long as someone out there supports a viewer that is tailored for builders. Now if we could just get a real graphic engine and not this Windlight crap we would be doing much better then we are right now.

I was able to run SL on a Netbook that had a GMA 450 with everything GFX wise turned off getting about 5 FPS. I used this free app called GMABooster to pick up another ~5 FPS. Not great, but it runs. Your GFX card is clocked lower then what it should be which is where GMABooster comes into play. Nine times out of ten, a GMA GFX card is clocked at 200 mhz instead of 400 mhz which it can handle w/o an increase in voltage. Its kind of an overclock hack but does not really effect battery life or increase heat. Keep in mind that card is really, really old. Even if you bought the laptop yesterday, that gfx card has been in production for many, many years and is well behind the times. You will be hard pressed to get ANY laptop to run SL with any real graphic settings turned up. Part of this is the crappy graphical engine they are using called Windlight. You can try GMA Booster and hope you can pick up a few more FPS but don't expect much. Sorry I don't have better news. No matter how hard it tries, an elephant is not going to be able to screw a goldfish. You are kind of in the same boat. http://www.gmabooster.com/

Please stop screwing around with this Windlight crap. It's too bad Blue Mars is going Mac only, because at least they had the sense about them to use a MODERN graphics engine, in fact they went right to the top and picked the CryEngine (Crytek) which is what Crysis was made with a few years back. I have heard several times the excuse that they want their viewer to be available to a broad range of hardware, which is why we have such a pathetic excuse for a graphics engine here in SL. This is crap, in fact if you actually spent some money on a real graphics engine for your program MORE people would be able to take advantage of Second Life. I built my PC about a year ago, and while its not the most advanced gaming rig out there, it will give a significant portion of Second Life users a run for their money. Why is it then that I am getting 10 FPS with visuals that look like they are from the early 2000's? Yes, I have everything graphics wise maxed out, but I should not be getting such poor performance. It's this garbage Windlight. I can run Crysis on max everything and get great framerates. I can run Crysis 2 on max with great framerates. In fact there is not one single thing I have thrown at this PC which wont run on max settings and get at least 20 FPS with every enhancement turned on both the software and hardware side. Phenom II X4 555 BE (Unlocked) Overclocked 3.6ghz GeForce GTX 560 Ti Overclocked Corsair 4096MB DDR2 SDRAM PC6400 (Gaming Ram - Low Timing/Cas) GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H Motherboard Thermaltake 850-Watt TR2 RX PSU Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Whats even worse is your garbage viewer refuses to let go of control over handling the graphics load, something that is better suited for my HARDWARE, not your crappy software. No matter what settings I choose in my graphics card hardware profile, second life always ends up taking over and overriding things. This has been WELL documented on your website by many people with nVidia cards. Ironically, I hear its even worse with ATI due to the poor Open GL support by AMD/ATI. If I force AA/AF in my hardware settings and tell the driver to override Second Life, then turn off AA/AF in your viewer I loose AA/AF. Its NOT suppose to work that way. No other application I have ever run has done that, its your garbage programing and this garbage viewer. Whats worse is all 3rd party viewers are based off this crap and thus suffer from the same problems. Christ, how much money did LL make last year and why do you refuse to just invest in the future with a real graphics engine; something that is modern, universally used and well supported? Why are we stuck with this cheep imitation knock off you have created because you refuse to buy a real graphics engine? Instead of trying to offer me a free couch because I am a premium member, why not invest in something that will actually keep me using Second Life? There is no reason that a year old PC homegrown, worth almost $1000 (and were talking newegg pricing not inflated retail store like bestbuy), running a top of the line graphics card and high end CPU should be having problems with your viewer. I can run far better quality, more advanced, more intense graphic related programs with much higher FPS no problem. Part of the fault is how things are done in second life. Its true that high prim objects (like hair for example) are more complex then a lot of other methods of drawing avatars. This however is your own fault. Because you have chosen to use such a crappy graphics engine, end users are forced to create objects that are way higher prim then they would need to be if you were using a different engine. To get the quality of visuals in SL you have to work 10x as hard, then if it was designed differently. For example, in other graphic engines avatar hair does not need to be so complex to get the same graphical eye-candy but in SL it does because of the nature of your viewer and engine. When are you going to give up on your ancient archaic, fail of a graphics engine and invest in a commercially done, quality engine? I have watched SL fall apart over the past few years. My original AV was created in 2007 and since then things have gone down hill. SL has not kept up with the times and LL refuses to invest in the future unless its on their terms, which has been shown time and time again to be whatever can be cheaply thrown together. I don't want a damn free virtual couch, I want my very expensive high end PC to run your viewer efficiently, and with the same performance I am getting from modern software titles. That should not be too much to ask. Lastly, besides a long standing premium membership, I have also spent considerable money in SL. If you plan on keeping people who invest in your company around, your going to have to do better then this Windlight crap. Stop being cheep and go buy a real graphics engine. The Cry2 engine is cross platform, works on PC, Mac, Linux, PS3 and 360. I read somewhere they were working on Android/iOS compatibility too. CryTek was also able to optimize this new engine to work with lower hardware specs, which is why the Xbox 360 can run the game @60 FPS. Maybe instead of wasting time and money on your home grown crap, you should invest in that package instead?! EDITED (Because I can't seem to spell "compatibility" correctly)

What I am really looking for is your "free" home not to take up my premium's free 512sqm tier slot that I already own. I paid L15,000 for my land and there is no way I am going to abandon that for your "free" home, which makes free housing useless for me. Basically people like me get nothing out of this free housing offer which sucks. Even more salt in the wound is your free houses don't take up any prims so people like me are left with the decision to abandon the land we paid so much to get, only to live in a less desirable area which has no privacy and is totally overcrowded, or keep our land and not get the benefit of a home (shell) that doesn't take up any prims. Free housing is a premium benefit that does nothing for a lot of us that have been a (premium) member of this community for a long time*. Better yet, why don't you just give people who already have land an extra 117 prims to use however they want? If that's not possible, how about an extra stipend for those who don't use your free housing. As stated by someone else, I already have enough stuff an no where to put it because I am maxed out on prims. At this point my membership is not worth the cost. I can use the money I pay linden for premium to rent land from someone who will give me a 1024sqm for the same amount I am paying linden monthly. For example: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Parcels-for-Rent-Estate/COMMERCIAL-LAND-Lionheart-20-connected-sims/td-p/1070799 About 180 Prims works out to about $16 for 3 months. And that estate gives me privacy and land that borders the property looks well made and not gaudy like free housing! I pay $22 (3 months) to Linden for 117 prims. Even if you work in the stipend I get weekly, its still not worth paying linden for premium. More prims, same cost, more privacy, more control over my land, a better location free from the ugly housing thats offered "free", why would I stay premium? *This is not my first SL AV, my other was from May 22, 2007; I made this new one because I wanted to change my name and at the time there was not that option available.

@ Canis.BaxtonHave a seat..have a seat on that pose ball right over there...so why are you here? hehehe LMAO. "Just the tip; just for a second; just to see how it feels". Its been over 12 years since I stumbled through those awkward teen years exploring my sexuality but I am sure many people can relate with the "joke" above. I know I am not the only one who has heard that in one form or another. The problem is a generational gap between those who were born with the Internet and those who were born before it; myself being right in between. I have seen people my age go both ways on the spectrum. I personally am very open. I say whats on my mind, don't do handshakes , and think that 70% of the people I live around need to pull that pole out of their backside. American society is wound so tight we are a powder keg just waiting to explode. I can relate to the younger generation, those who grew up with the instant gratification of the Internet. When I was in grammar school we had to look stuff up in a paper encyclopedia. This obviously limited the content of the material we had access too. Now, whether you are 12 or 80, if you want to see someone screw a horse, boom three minutes and a google search later and there ya go. Have at it. I use that extreme example because that kind of instant access to anything and everything sets a certain social overtone. Unfortunately, the older generation can't understand this as they have not grown up with this kind of technology. As stated above, I don't want teens on SL for my own protection. We don't need to protect the "children" (16-17yr olds) as first off, I don't care what the law says they are not biologically children, and second, most if not all have engaged in more adult things then most adults. Pre-16ry olds are usually very immature. Having to deal with their squeaky little voices while playing 18+ mature rated video games like COD has been bad enough. I have no idea why/how they have access to an adult game but its obvious that parents either don't care or have no clue. Its ironic that if they don't care its ok for their "kids" to blow up, mutilate, stab in the neck with a combat knife, shoot in the face, etc random strangers and their friends but heaven forbid they see a virtual tit call the police and get the lawyers. Misguided BS and stupid ignorant parents with archaic ideals IMO. But that's the world we live in and we have to play by those rules till things change, which means wait till the older generation is put in a "home" and eventually die. I think things will change over the next 40 years and become more relaxed, but till that happens as adults we need to protect ourselves. My personal feeling is that most teens are obnoxious. Hell I dated a 21 yr old recently and could barely deal with the BS drama. It lasted two weeks and while the sex was amazing, the headache that came with dating a younger person was not worth the benefits. Its not their fault, for the most part we were all like that when we were that age. Between 16-19 and again from 19-21 are the two biggest changes in your life. I went through it myself, I have watched younger friends go through it, its just a fact. The first jump you start to form an identity and the second you gain individuality. While I personally do not want to deal with people going through these changes, I could tolerate their presence on the grid if the laws were different in this country. Unfortunately, the laws are what they are and as its been said in the 100 posts above this one; this is a freakin liability to all adults. Just leave them in the playpen till their overprotective, fundamentalist parents pull their heads out of their own backsides and realize the world is not the same one as they grew up in 50 years before. Ya it sucks to be a teen, but it sucked for us when we were a teen and when you teens eventually come full circle and have children of your own, it will suck for them when they become teens. Cest La Vie.

A 13yr old in RL looks 13yrs old. A 13yr old in SL can look like anyone at any age. By not having teens on the adult grid, even if someone looked like child AV's you knew they were an adult. Now you just don't know. There needs to be a way to tell whether someone is over 18 or under 18, simple as that. I am not going to TP every person who IM's me to an adult zone just to see if they are really an adult. And to the person who says "don't hook up with people in PG zones" it has nothing to do with that at all. I am not worried about hooking up with a kid, I am worried about getting an IM, not knowing they are a kid, and talking with them like they are an adult. This includes cursing and talking about adult stuff. I personally don't consider a 16yr old a kid, but the law does. Again, this has nothing to do with sex. As I said, in RL you can look around to see if there is a kid standing there before you curse or make an adult comment. With kids on the SL grid you can't do that because people make their own AV however they want. If they are going to go through with this they need to make an option to tag Teen AV's with a red glow or something very obvious, other then just a note in a profile, which as of now we don't even have that! Also teen's IM's shoult be tagged with a big blinking "I'm a Teen". I don't care if it paints a target on them for the kid-touchers. Not my problem. It DOES protect me from saying something I shouldn't because now I know they are kids. One of my fav sims is PG not because its a family friendly place, in fact its a bar/club that plays classic rock. They keep it PG to keep out the naked people. You can swear as long as its not every other word and they have no problem with adult conversation like "going to get another drink, getting wasted tonight!" Just because a sim is PG does not make it kid friendly. Perfect example. Walk into any college classroom and you would consider it a PG setting right? That does not mean that topics being talked about in that classroom are kid friendly. Its not about sex, I don't go whore myself out to everyone on the grid, hooking up in public places. Its about being able to relax knowing everyone on SL is at least 18+ so you don't have to watch every thing you say.

@ Boaz Sands Thank you. Exactly. Does anyone think LL is actually going to protect the adults here from legal troubles? If something happens on your PG sim they will throw you under the bus faster then you can blink. Its been LL's policy all along and its not going to change. By doing this they are opening up every adult to the possibility of legal issues and saving themselves the cost of having to run two different grids. LL will practice CYA and dodge any legal issues. What they are doing is throwing it on the residents, making their decision to do this our problem. All I here above is we need safeguards to protect the children, how about some safeguards to protect the adults from the children or the children's parents? You turn on the news and every day its more nonsense. A teacher accused of being incorporated with a child, come to find out he told them to go change because their skirt was too short and causing a disruption. The parents respond with police complaint saying the teacher had to have been looking at their girl to know her skirt was too short and to think that had to be a pervert. Even if the teacher wins, his life is ruined all because a parent let their kid out of the house dressed like a whore and couldn't handle being told the truth. This happens every day. Every day another news story. I am just sick of it and don't want SL to turn into a place where people have to worry about who is around when they type in chat, etc. Unneeded stress. /Exit conversation. I have said everything I have need to say, besides nothing is going to stop this from happening. As the guy stated above, if you are a pg sim owner you might want to bump that up to moderate to protect yourself legally.

If Sony did not remove Other Os from the PS3 (and I refused to update to loose that feature) I would log into PS3 Home tonight and take screen shots. You might understand why I hate little kids. Nothing but harassment from little boys looking for photos or to cyber. Its out of control. For those who think SL is bad when it comes to sleazebags, this is NOTHING compared to how it could be if they let kids onto an adult grid. Understand I do not consider a 17 yr old a brat/gremlin but a 13 year old is a problem. I don't care if they are restricted, its still a problem. Do you think when you enter a sim, there is going to be a big red flag that comes up "warning children's event" or anything of that nature? How do I know someone is a kid, do I have to look at every AV's profile in a 3k radius around me? As of now you still cant tell who is age verified and who isn't in most areas of the grid. Its really not the kids I am worried about, I can deal with them to a point and can TP to an adult zone to avoid them. Its their parents. Its a risk i don't want to take. Why should any of us have to worry about this? We log in now and don't think about interacting with kids because they cant be on the main server. Sure, there has to be a few under 18'ers out there who lied but because they are not suppose to be there they seem to keep themselves in line. Its like an under 21 at a bar, they don't want to stick out. I know it seems like I hate kids, hell i said that in a few posts above. Really, its not all kids, some are quite mature and intelligent. The problem is they are a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Is the reward of more people on the grid to interact with worth a bunch of horny little boys and zealot parents? Is it worth the FBI showing up at your door because you made an off the cuff sexual comment that 99% of adults would consider nothing, but that 1% says is corrupting their children? If the law was not such a mess right now when it comes to online interactions, and if someone could guarantee that linden lab would take full responsibility for any legal action involving an adult who was wrongfully accused of inappropriate action with a kid on SL, then fine let them on. But they will never do that because they know like the rest of us, this is one giant mess waiting to happen. I wish the world was not like this, I agree with you. In most places around the world 16 is an adult and I 100% support that philosophy. But I am not risking my life over hanging out with a 16 yr old online. Remember till about 100 years ago, a kid became an adult at thirteen. People were married at that age. Its modern society that can't figure out what age kids should be adults. I have no problem interacting with a 16 yr old if they are mature. The problem is that some members of our society think this should not happen, and its those members that can ruin all of our lives. Cone on, everyone here knows this is a bad idea. Its a problem waiting to happen. I am trying to mitigate risk. If you go to a bar, you figure the person you are talking with is over 21 or at close to that age. As of now we know that anyone on the adult grid is over 18 or lied in which case we should be covered. I like knowing when I go into a bar people there are adults, just like I like logging into SL and knowing I am on an adult grid. If everyone has a problem with this then help by voting the legal age of an adult to 16 in the USA like the rest of the world. Problem solved. But I can see it now... there is a parent reading this saying "protect the children" and you are the ones I am worried about.

I agree, as a single adult I do NOT want kids on SL. It should be 18+ IMO. Its bad enough I have to game with them on Xbox 360 & PS3, now they are moving to the adult server in SL? Bad idea. This is a legal liability for everyone; have you been paying attention to the news? We live in a police state where you can be arrested for anything w/o just cause. The guy making coffee naked in his own house, who was arrested when a cops wife trespassed on his land and looked in his window? The teen girl who was arrested and is now a registered sex offender because she sent photos of her own body to her boyfriend? Fundamentalist delusional parents who do not properly raise their children and then blame society for their own parenting downfalls is spreading like a plague. Last year a married couple who made p0rn for a living went to jail for a year because the government said their p0rn was not tasteful enough for American society as it "simulated" rape. Things are getting out of control and the last thing adult second life users need is to worry that some parent is going to get the feds involved because their kid decided to interact with legal adults online. Things like that will ruin people lives. We are living in a really bad time for this to happen, and its only going to get worse. Personally I don't care what p0rn your kid looks at, I don't care what violent video game they play, if you are a parent and you don't think your kid is into some sort of sex, drinking, drugs, etc you are probably delusional. With that said, its not my place to babysit your children. I was not the one who made a mistake and had kids; I'm smart and take precautions. SL is a virtual world and is an amazing escape from the mundane RL. Its bad enough that society feels like its everyone responsibility to raise each others children. Its bad enough that I have to deal with these fundamentalists telling me what is and is not appropriate to watch on TV or what websites I should or should not view. I don't give a crap about your kids virtues; keep them out of my way. Don't tell me how to live my life. I am an adult and you have no right to tell me how to live my life and what content I should view. We all know though, the news will catch wind of this and say that kids are being exposed to adult stuff, which will be the end of adult SL. Lastly, because LL seems to ignore the community, if they are going to merge these under age gremlins with the rest of the adult SL community, we NEED to have some sort of notification in our profiles that we are age verified and 18+. As of now it just says payment on file and resident, but it does not tell you if someone is over 18. I would love to see in the same profile area as the information above a line added for those who are age verified adults in red text, or something that no one can miss when looking at a profile. While its not better then keeping your little indigent children out of our sandbox, at least we will be able to tell them from the adults. I am not going to welcome teens to the grid; I am going to ignore them. I have seen what PS3 Home is like with little kids. Its another virtual world run by Sony on the PS3. They thought it was a good idea to mix kids and adults in a PG setting. Its nothing but little boys sexually harassing every female AV they see on the screen. Its brutal. You can't go 5 minutes with out getting spammed by these little boys. Worse, they don't take no for an answer. I brought six people over from another virtual world to SL so we could escape the little brat kids, now you decide to drop them off at our doorstep for us to babysit? Not acceptable. Keep kids off of the adult second life grid.

No, I wont because of fundamentalist parents. You know the definition of impairing the morals of a minor? If i accidentally swear in front of them that can be considered a crime. If they bring up a topic that has some sort of sexual overtone even if its not directly about sex, that can be a crime. I have LE in the family and see what goes on in this country. I hear it all the time how parents are trying to get adults arrested for anything. All you have to do is accuse someone of something, no proof needed. A life is ruined. When our government forms an anit-p0rn squad, you know its the beginning of the end. Google FBI Anti-Porn. I am not talking about kid-touchier p0rn too; just regular adult porn. Like i stated in my post above a married couple having consensual sex were charged and served a year in jail for simulating rape with each other. Its out of control. All I have to do is say you interacted with my child in a way I do not think is appropriate and its all over. Even if you win in court, its going to cost you a lot of money and ruin your life. People will never look at you the same again because in the back of their mind they will always be that question. It should not be this way; our society has gone crazy. I agree with you that things should be different, but at this point as I approach 32, I am not about to have my life ruined because of some crazy whack job parent. I don't know where you live, but here in New England, especially in some of the places that have a lot of money, parents will press charges for even looking in the direction of their kid. Again, its not right but because people refuse to stand up for what is right and stop the nonsense in this country, its what we have to deal with.