Scylla Rhiadra

I haven't! I'll take a look. Do they do Omega appliers? I've decided to go back to my "old" Genus Classic head, with some tweaking, new eyebrows, and the Mycha skin. I'm generally pretty happy with the look now, but I'll certainly check it out! Thanks!

Ok, I have to google that now. The penguins to which I was referring were sadly inedible. But they were kind of cute, slipping and sliding all over the place.

This is a nice little cafe in a very pretty, and largely deserted sim modeled on a small Italian town. I am very fond of it, especially right now. I know I'm supposed to be feeling "Christmassy," but what I really want as I watch the snow falling outside is the warmth of the Umbrian sun, and a really nice cup of espresso.

Perhaps she might accept something in lieu? Tupperware perhaps?

Little bit. Well, he's a bit of a naif, really. An innocent who doesn't quite get things like "rules" and "boundaries." I've done my best to educate him, of course. To make him fit for civilized company. But I fear that I have failed. It's time, perhaps for some other enterprising soul to take on this daunting and somewhat thankless task. PS. As for the details of my relationships with penguins, obedient or otherwise, I'd rather hoped that it might have remained out of the public eye. I would prefer to speak of it no more, but let me just assure those among you who feel concern that it is fully consensual. No flightless birds were harmed in the making of this IM.

Odd. I don't recall ever speaking with you about this unspoken agreement. When exactly did we agree to it?

Meet me at the crossroads at midnight. Maybe we can cut a deal?

I've just looked, and so far as I can see there are no reset buttons (except for effects) on the Slink Master HUD. There is a "Reset Skin to White" button on the separate HUD just for the hands and feet, though. But I never use that, as almost all of the functionality is on the Master HUD anyway. Might have worked, though?

HAHAH!!!! I've got you now, Scorpio!!!

Not at all true. To begin with, penguins hardly ever have horns. PS. Do you think someone could just take his keyboard away, or something?

Hmmm. It's Slink. I've forgotten if there is a reset button. I don't think so? I certainly don't remember seeing one, at least on the Master HUD. There IS a reset button on the Genus Project heads. I know because I've been using it constantly.

Well, thank you for confirming, kinda, that I at least wasn't imagining things. And yes, I like the HUDs a lot. Simple and elegant, and no rezzing involved.

Only one way to find out . . . ROAD TRIP!!!!

Well, probably someone more knowledgeable than I will pop up in a minute to tell me that I must be mistaken, and that whatever happened to my hands couldn't have been caused by the packaging. I have no idea, myself, but I'll admit that even I don't understand how one could have caused the other. All I know is that it sure looked like cause and effect. And the brows are very stylish! Big angry brows seem to be the fashion these days . . . the red fuzzy feathers, maybe less so!

So, I had this sort of weird thing happen to me recently with packaging. i bought a demo and, as per the instructions on the attachment, "wore" it. It ended up being one of those animated things where you suddenly find yourself holding a huge stack of be-ribboned boxed and packages, while the attachment loads the contents into a folder in your inventory. Kind of cute, actually, if really unnecessary. BUT after I detached the packages, I discovered that it had discoloured my Slink hands: suddenly they were a sort of nondescript tan colour. And reapplying my skin didn't fix it: they were stuck that way. I'm not even sure how an animation and attachment could do this: maybe it was something else that just coincidentally happened at the same moment? But those copies of my hands were definitely permanently corrupted. It was no biggy: after a few attempts to fix it, I simply tossed them and attached new copies of the hands, and they were fine. But it has made me a bit more wary about blindly attaching packages I've bought.

Well, yes! Exactly!!! What I imagine is not a new or different viewer skin, but a large pop-up window taking up, probably, most of the screen, with the avi pictured in the middle, and button panels on the left (for mesh body, head, feet, and hands, as well as eyebrows), and on the right (for clothing, hair, and other add-ons). Clicking on buttons would open pop-ups with the maker's options shown; clicking on these would apply the changes. One-stop shopping, with a standardized layout, for apppearance! I really can't imagine that the actual interface itself would be that difficult to make, and makers would have access to whatever code was required to make their goods compatible. What might be difficult would be accommodating -- or anticipating -- all of the options creators put into their merchandise. I'm tempted to do a mock-up in PS. Do you think I could get some sort of commission from LL when they are blown away by the idea and develop a working model???? 😉

My apologies: I should have been a bit less vague in my language. By new user experience (and I realize now that this is very nearly a technical term), I meant not merely the initial tutorials and so forth, but really pretty much everything over the first couple of days, including finding interesting places to visit, learning how to buy and use items, meeting people, and so forth. Really, the biggest challenge is engaging and providing continued assistance over that really critical time. It's not just about making things work: it needs to be about showing why that learning process is worthwhile in the first place. I think LL does a terrible job at that. I may need to differ with you a bit about mechanics, though. The basics of moving, interacting with objects, chatting, and seeing things are probably pretty simple and easy to learn: things like purchasing goods, putting them on properly, and using appliers, AOs and animations is a fair bit more difficult. But even the basics can sometimes be confusing. One of the reasons I hate the official viewer is because I find the chat window system enormously confusing. And even in FS, which is much better designed . . . well, I recently closed the local chat window, and it took me five minutes to figure out how to get it back. But we should probably discount that example, because clearly I am an idiot.

Nope. It's not allowed. I don't give you permission. I was speaking, really, more of the predictable responses here to this particular issue, rather than to SL residents as a whole. As a general rule, I think your characterization is on the money: SL users are less goal-oriented, less hurried. We don't button mash or race the clock, and that's because the platform gives you no incentive to do so; indeed, you can't really enjoy or experience SL unless you take care and time over it. But it's probably also true that it's impossible to generalize too much about the user base here: it's an enormously diverse one, I'd have thought, representing all kinds of different approaches and responses. And, for what it's worth, because *I* am not a gamer, and value the kinds of unique things SL offers -- art, music, immersive environments, and so forth -- I like to think that the platform generally appeals to a more contemplative (if not necessarily "elite") type of person. But it's also true that I've met a great many in-world who are not like that. What if the viewer had a built-in interface, mimicking somewhat the kind of interface used for customizing game avatars, into which any new body or clothing item was automatically loaded? And that interface was designed in such a way that changing appearance was intuitive and standardized across different merchant items and systems? Surely that would be possible? It would probably make a HUGE difference to new users. 'Xactly!

I knew I liked you. 🙂

I'm sorry this has happened to you! The people who post here are pretty much, in my experience, the most knowledgeable, and among the most helpful, residents of Second Life. They are often themselves creators, and certainly are more experienced and committed to the platform than most. They care a great deal about SL, and they are also (the vast majority of them, anyway) welcoming, generous, and caring. But, unfortunately, they don't control the fundamental mechanics of the platform, nor are they responsible for designing an economy that is, to a very large extent, founded upon the principle of caveat emptor. For what it's worth, I've been in and out of SL for over 10 years, and have bought more than my fair share of things here, and I've never had the kind of experience you have had. That's not to say that I doubt you, and I've known others who have: my point is simply that it's actually fairly unusual. And there is an excellent chance that, with some patience, it will be resolved in a good way. This kind of difficulty is, in some ways, the price we pay for a platform where almost everything is created and made available by other users. On the one hand, that fact drives innovation and imaginative new ideas here, and empowers us all: you too, with a bit of work and perhaps (but not necessarily) some money, can learn to build anything you want here, and maybe even sell it. But the downside is that there is no simple recourse when problems do arise: we don't have a single "customer service" desk. I hope that your problem is resolved and that you persevere in giving the SL experience a shot. It's really a pretty cool place, despite the occasional speed bumps. And it's populated by some of the most engaging, generous, and creative people I've ever known.

And that is of course why user-generated content is so important here: the impetus for innovation comes from "us." But also why a bit more coordination (and maybe imagination) from LL would be worthwhile.

This. As a returning oldster attempting to master mesh avatars for the first time, I have found this difficult enough (Maitreya? Catwa? Slink? What????); I can't imagine how awful it must be for someone who either has no background in this sort of thing, or is used to a simple one-stop customization process. I really really value the fact that content in SL is user-generated and all, but this is an area where a little more centralized guidance from LL might have been a good thing. At the very least, something like the Omega appliers system should have been in place before creators started producing their own proprietary systems.

Oh, of course. That is entirely your right. But we're not really talking about one individual here; the issue is far broader than that. And as for screening for idiots -- to judge from my in-world experiences, we do a pretty poor job of that too. (vide the thread on "worst lines".)

"Hmmph. Kids these days! Back in my time, we had to walk five miles through pixelated snow just to see another user. We built our virtual worlds out of old shoe boxes and the stumps of chalk we rummaged from the bins at school! Oh, and hey, GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!"

Oh, this conversation again? We should string 'em all together, from 2009 forward, into a giant thread of 600+ replies. And actually, that's sort of what is disturbing about this: that we still have to have this conversation, because the new user experience still sucks, the official viewer is still crappy, and the learning curve for the basic mechanics of the platform is still too high. Surely after 9 or 10 years, this should all have been improved? The other thing that I find kind of disturbing is the endless reiteration (also a constant refrain over the past 10 years) of the pseudo-elitist notion that SL attracts only the very best, most intelligent, and deeply creative people (for proof, just look at us, right? Right?), and that those who don't get into it, or don't have the patience to wade through a really pretty awful initial experience, are clearly idiots whom we don't want here anyway. Because it would dilute the brilliance that is us, and might even provoke change of something that is obviously exactly as it should be, because, after all, we like it, don't we? The circularity of this argument is breathtaking: Second Life is obviously great because of the high calibre of people here, who are obviously excellent judges of quality because they "get" and like SL. I am not a gamer (the only games I've ever played are Portal, because Chel, and Undertale, because Undertale), and I absolutely do not want SL remade and tailored for the particular taste and needs of those who are . . . but it's a little odd to always be saying "SL is an open sandbox that can be anything you make it, and can appeal to any taste," except when it doesn't, in which case your taste is obviously corrupt and stupid. I don't see this as an either-or proposition: we tolerate a pretty wide range of tastes here already, and I don't see why more traditional gamers cannot also be accommodated in ways that don't impinge upon the experience of others. And I think leadership here really needs to come from LL: it's not the job of users to attract and retain new people, nor are we in a position to make the fundamental changes that are required.