Ebbe Linden

Teager wrote: Ebbe Linden wrote: You asked: 1 - What type of assets are more likelly to be transferable to SL2 and what probably not? (meshes, animations, sculpts, scripts, textures, builds made of normal prims, system clothing ?) We don't have all the answers to this one yet, but several areas will have radical improvements and thus not possible to be fully backwards compatible. Mesh is ok (but with better lighting and other tech you may want to make tweaks) Animations will change (major mprovements as we don't currently do it the way it should be done) Sculpts (TBD, but not as is, but maybe converted to Mesh?) Scripts (major improvement, so will change) Textures ok Prims (TBD, but probably not as is) Avatars will be radically improved as well so a lot TBD Let me start by saying... I'm thrilled to see news of a new, improved grid. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the changes we've been needing and have been unable to build on the old platform. But... seeing that animations will change has made me very nervous. As a creator of mesh avatars which must be fully custom animated, you've just implied that my entire line of work may need to be redone for SL2. So this brings up one major question which, from my point of view, could be the single make-or-break factor for SL2: Will mesh avatar creators finally be able to create and name our own custom armatures? Providing this high-demand feature to mesh avatar creators could allow us to do so much - rigged mesh wings, tails, rigged faces, rigged fingers and toes. And (perhaps now more importantly) would prevent mesh avatar creators and animators from essentially having to start over on our creations. Is custom armature creation a feature we can hope to see with the new grid? I mentioned earlier that we want creators to be able to create user defined skeletons, so it's on the list.

you said: You know why I use a TPV? It's not for the bells and whistles. It's because of a couple of simple little things that we repeatedly asked to be implemented in the Official Viewer that have been ignored for years. Which little things? Thanks!

Drake1 Nightfire wrote: With animations and avatars changing "radically" will mesh clothing have to be re-rigged or will we be able to use the ones we already have? Sorry, too early to know details on this.

Sylva Petrov wrote: Okay, I undestand that the format of animations will be changing. However, will their basic use in-world be changed, or will they remain playable assets kept in inventory? I.E. once created, will they be used similarly to how they are currently used in SL or will they be applied in a very different manner. Please Ebbe, any details you can offer on animations would be a massive help in reassuring myself and my customers that we're game on. I don't eactly know yet...TBD

Racheal Rexen wrote: Hello Ebbe, thanks for taking the time to answer ours questions, My question is if the Adult Community will have a place in the new Virtual world? We have no plans to disallow anything that's going on in SL and is legal. We're proud of the freedom we offer.

winterthyme wrote: That's a useful summary - thanks. A couple of follow up questions: 1. Any indication yet on what the scripting language will be - or which language one should have experience in to fast-track familiarity with the new "LSL"? 2. Any idea when, where and how people will be able to subscribe for alpha and beta testing? Thanks! 1. We're thinking C# but not final decision. 2. Next year, exact dates TBD...

WickedWanda1956 wrote: We obviously fundamentaly disagree. But you are entitled to your opinion as I am entitled to mine. The difference in this situation is that the owner has said that the end is coming in two years (I am sorry there is NO way they keep two games up at the same time, they have enough problems now with just one). I want to thank you for your comments and wish you well but I am just going to wait and see if I get an answer about transfer of Lindens. Again, I have not said there's any end coming. We have made no plans for any SL shutdown. None. We are simply working to make an even better product from the ground up. You will have plenty of time to evaluate it and decide. Your identity and L$ will be the same for both so it will be easy to hop back and forth.

LaskyaClaren wrote: Yeah. This is why I mentioned expediting their modeling and planning, which I hope (and suspect) they are doing. It should be possible to produce reasonably full answers to many if not most of these questions this early on: surely they are not making this up as they go along? What do you want to know?

Gaia Clary wrote: Vince Rallier wrote: But this to me is the biggest thing next to the money issue,is the emotional one.And is the one I think the lindens always overlook.We are real people behind the avatars,real feelings,fears etc.To them we are just dollar signs. I agree fully with you about the emotional part of this. I also can understand how fear and uncertainty can make things turn bad. I too fear the day when i register to that new platform only to see that someone else has already grabbed my avie name. And of course i would so much appreciate to keep my social network intact when stepping over to SL2. But i can not get angry and frustrated about something that i fear that might possibly or possibly not happen in the future. So maybe there will be a common account for both worlds (which would make a lot of sense after all) and this fear (besides other uncertainties) can eventually be taken away from us. well, i prefer to wait until i get informed about what the policies will be. Then its time for me to decide my next step. And sure i would be interested to get informed as soon as possible... I just propose to not step away in anger before there is anything to become angry about. You will certainly be able keep your identity, social network and L$ and you can hop back and forth and decide for yourself where it makes sense to spend your time and energy.

Thank you Coby.

Thanks!

You will be able to use your L$ in both SL and the next platform as you wish. And SL will be around for a very long time.

There is so much wrong here, speculation, suggesting things I said that I never said, or somehow suggesting that I, or the great people here are responsible for what happened five or ten years ago....but here we go, I'll respond to some of this stuff, but I'll skip all the stuff about problems in the past...that was the past...and by the way, all that "crazy" stuff has given us the best virtual world there has even been and still is. So somehow people here managed to do something right over the years... Then you say: Now, How could SL 1.0 be future-proofed? Get the Lindens back inworld - I remember the Linden Village area, inworld meetings, Lindens just hanging around just talking to passers by. I haven't seen a Linden since M was CEO and their inworld presence got cut back. It was reassuring to have staff inworld...proof they used the product they created. Ebbe says: I removed the restriction that was in place for Lindens to be inworld. I'm not going to force people in there, but nothing is stopping them now. I go in as much as I can to hang out and chat with people. Ditch the TPV's - Figure out the best features of the various TPV's and implement them in YOUR client and OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE. There is no reason residents shound need a TPV to get MORE features, higher FPS AND less crashes than the official client. Third party software should not hold back releases so they can implement features. If you really feel you need TPV's, release new code even if it breaks their browsers and let them catch up. I use firestorm, but losing it would be a small price to pay for faster releases (not that we have to worry about that, SL1.0 being in maintenance mode and all). Ebbe says: I don't think doing that would be a meaningful difference in the success of SL. Incremental Graphics and Infrastructure Upgrades - To use MMO's for an example as they are the closest thing to SL, you could redo the graphics and optimize to fix the dated looks.. You could optimize the back end for current standards on a regular basis. Instead you decided to build a product to compete with your flagship product. This did NOT fill me with any degree of confidence or any great desire to remain a premium or use the Lindex. Ebbe says: We have. SL is a lot better today than it was a couple of years ago. But there is a limit to how much better we can make it...and how much effort it takes to move forward incrementally. If you did all the above, ESPECIALLY the Incremental upgrade of graphics and infrastructure, with gradual depreciation of things that just cannot be carried forward, I see no need for a 2.0 SL. We could get there by evolution rather than revolution. Ebbe says: That is your opinion. But I know that the more distant future will have to go way beyond what incrementally can be done to SL. And it's either us or someone else... > We are going to do our best to make it smooth, but if we have to make a crappy product with crazy complexity and poor user experience to preserve some very specific content compatability we don't want to cause those problems. Make it smooth, I really doubt you can, based on past rollouts of new features. If you need to depreciate various pieces of older content, do it and explain why. Don't depreciate the entire world, which is what you are doing. Rewrite what you have to current standards. I'd rather lose a fraction of my inventory rather than 9+ years of collecting, outfits, and memories...and possibly my AV name. Ebbe says: Again, your speculating a lot. You won't lose your name. A lot of content will work fine. Some won't. And that would be true regardless if we improved SL incrementally or started from scratch to get modern tech and capabiliteis done right. > A lot of what you have will be possible to move across and more specifics will come through over time. You should not have announced this until you have specifics. First it was no compatibility, maybe, now its a lot of compatibility. Make up your minds. It appears you announced early, shooting for some kind of PR boost, but all the vagueness and 'we can't answer that now' has just destabilized things for many. Ebbe says: I never said "no compatability". Where did you get that from? I said that we will not sacrifice how good a next generation virtual world can be due to backwards compatability (something you say is ok to do). Quite frankly, and this is strictly me speaking for me, I will be staying with SL 1.0 until you pull the plug, then I will find another home that does not involve giving money to LL. I have NO desire to have to rebuild my VR life and possessions in a 'like SL, only better' SL 2.0, not with LL's track record." Ebbe says: Let's see what you think when you see it. And sticking with SL is fine, it will be around for a very long time

Yes, spot on.

You asked: 1 - What type of assets are more likelly to be transferable to SL2 and what probably not? (meshes, animations, sculpts, scripts, textures, builds made of normal prims, system clothing ?) We don't have all the answers to this one yet, but several areas will have radical improvements and thus not possible to be fully backwards compatible. Mesh is ok (but with better lighting and other tech you may want to make tweaks) Animations will change (major mprovements as we don't currently do it the way it should be done) Sculpts (TBD, but not as is, but maybe converted to Mesh?) Scripts (major improvement, so will change) Textures ok Prims (TBD, but probably not as is) Avatars will be radically improved as well so a lot TBD Again, we will have years to sort this all out together... 2 - Is SL2 to be considerd "another grid" in which case the TOS of most full permission creators would prohibit the transfer to that grid? If that is the case, could LL speak a word of power and decide that for full permission items that CAN be transfered, the new SL should be considered as the "same grid" ? ToS will not be an issue. 3 - Will at least the L$ currency remain the same and will available balances be usable in both worlds? Yes 4 - Will the 2 worlds be connected in any way and will an avatar be able to move from one to another with the same name and profile and groups and friends? And .. some of its inventory.. Identity and friends will be preserved. Inventory depends on above decisions under #1 but we clearly want as much of existing work to be possible to leverage as long as it will not impact how good the new platform can be.

I pretty much only said these things: We are embarking on a huge project to build a better virtual world from the ground up. We are not going to constrain how good it can be by forcing some levels of backwards compatability (Sine then I've added some detail that identity and social connections and Lindens$ will come across and quite a bit of content as well, but with content we need more time to figure out exactly what will be backwards compatible, people will have plenty of time to see how this plays out and get a chance to try the new while still also hanging out in SL) We will continue to invest in SL and keep improving and have no plans for any shutdown. The rest is all speculation that has since then popped up.

You are jumping to all kinds of assumptions here. If you listen to the chat I had with the TPV crew you won't hear me say what you're suggesting I say or what you suggest it means.

Not sure what you mean by "tax issues". Yes, Lindens will go across just fine. I wish you all the best.

Yes, it's still to early to know those details. Probably FBX, but again, early... Goal is to empower creators to do any content we can (including skeleton), but again, early...

We will bring people in early but it's too early now...I don't even know exactly when we can, but it will be next year.

Mesh should not be a major issue to carry over.

Thanks Loki. I can't wait to see what you'll create in SL and then I'm just totally drooling over what you will be able to create in the next gen product!

Thanks!

Thanks! You can explore SL with the Oculus today if you have an Oculus...

I did not say I was shutting anything down. Where did you get that? I said we're going to invest in our future success in a major way. If you have long term interest in our (and your) success that should be good news to you. If you think I should have told you much later that we're making that investment, when I would have more details, then ok, consider that a mistake I made. Many people want to know that we are doing that and are very happy to hear it. You did not want to know that now, but rather hear a more detailed plan say six months from now?