[The Haunted Halloween season is just around the corner — how will you celebrate?]

Feeling dark and gothic? Come on by the region of Besiope and explore Isiris Mausoleum, a haunted, psychotic journey through the myth of death itself. 

[Mesh goes gridwide: Create, sell, buy & enjoy all-new things in SL]

For the time being I really like the 64 meter prim limit, and will use the V3 to create one or two large prims at a time since the viewer will crash before I can build a 3rd prim.  Yes the viewer was not ready for prime time, and will be very frustrating to use, but we all know LL can't design or build functional viewers for it's own world. I will be fine with waiting for Phoenix/Firestorm to come out with a more professional option.

With regard to mesh, I like editing my content both in world and outside on my pc, but I really like some of the sculpty editing tools designed for use inside SL, and will definitely be giving my business to the person who develops the first decent mesh editor for use inside SL, especially if it will "shrink wrap" around my linked prim objects. Looking forward to seeing all the developments.

So this is cool

[Spring Break Promotion Opportunity on Marketplace]

Well I guess in the US, college and highschool students going on "Spring Break" used to flock to Mexican beach resorts, though with the spate of anti-US drug abductions and killings going on down there this may be less of a trend now. So perhaps spring breakers are flocking to the Bahamas . . . oh yeah didn't an American get killed there too? So relevant spring break items could be:  guns, alcohol, bondage toys, beach cabanas, or even just plain old hog tied corpses.

I guess I should market my prefab beach as the "perfect spot for a kegger and or drug cartel slayings!"

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Well I have gone in and manually selected "General" on my product which was getting automatically slated as "Moderate" by LL.  Now it shows up on my store list where as before it would not, even if I had selected "include moderate/adult" before opening the store list.

I suspect I will have to do this for every item of my inventory which has been surreptitiously rated into oblivion by LL's immaturity bot software. Perhaps manually reassigning maturity level on products several times a day in an ongoing struggle . . . .

 

Or will the product just get delisted after so many automated changes are forced to take over?

 

It would be one hell of a lot easier to just have the list of terms to avoid so I don't have to guess what will work in my product wording.

 

By the way, here is a link to the product in question:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GOTHIC-RUINS/152239

[Maturity Changes in the Marketplace]

Prior to reading this announcement I was completing the keywords on a marketplace product that sells fairly often, my Gothic Ruins, a non mature item. I added some keywords including "roleplay" and "Gor".  Now this listing which is also paid for enhancement, does not appear, even if I have "show mature items" checked.  If I look at my store it is gone.

If I check inventory it still registers as there.  I took the word "Gor" out after reading this thread. The item is still gone . . . I cannot find my own listing in my own store unless I hunt it down using my inventory function.  Likewise trying to use Search to find it is hopeless.  Wow.

 

I had noticed my normal rate of sales had steeply dropped this week, and even wondered if it was a search issue. Now I know it is.

 

LL screwed us merchants and creators yet again.  How would you fuckers like to have your ability to pay your bills repeatedly taken away by capricious and arbitrary decisions?

I have my tier coming up next week and at this newly declined rate may very well not be able to pay it.  5 years of sticking it out through every incompetent decision LL has made. I realize LL doesn't care if we lose our stores, they never did.

[Help Us Test the SL Web Viewer Beta]

I just want to say it frustrates me to see so many SL comrades frustrated by not being able to access this interesting beta. Another case of LL having a premature Betaculation. I really wish LL would consider the bad press they generate with rushing things out before they are ready, when, if they only waited until it was a little more ready, most of that bad press would be modifed to positive public response.

It's not a case of making just a few sour apples unhappy, time and time again, the majority of eager participants feel snubbed by poorly considered releases by LL.

Those of us that got in, can talk it up all we want, but our positive response is deadened by the complete let down that is unnecessarily inflicted on those who, for technical and administrative reasons were not allowed to get in.

[Help Us Test the SL Web Viewer Beta]

To be clear, yes, the test is U.S.-only at the moment.

Sounds like you don't have all the facts. You guys at the lab need to communicate better with each other before you try to communicate with us.

[Help Us Test the SL Web Viewer Beta]

I used Internet Explorer, where I got redirected to start a new account and download the standard viewer. I did set up a new account thinking it was specific to the web browser experience, now I have more than the max limit of alt accounts, and I blame LL for that. A couple more tries on IE and no luck.

I used Chrome and got the same result, constantly being redirected to sign up for an SL account. I can imagine this situation alone would piss off new users expecting a web browser experience. In effect they would feel misled, and tricked into signing up for an account, and then never come back.

I used Firefox, and got the same result, but tried several times and eventually got in.

The first thing I noted was how very simplified the viewer was, obviously not going to be a tool for builders and creators, but rather a tool for socializing (on a limited scale compared to the SL viewer), and exploring. I could not go into mouselook to look up and down from my POV, though camera controls were available as was "camming". The beta only allows you to go to a select few locations, less than 100 I believe, and I understand having it that way for the beta.

Though textures were gray for a while, what struck me was how smooth movement was. As I thought of first time user experience, the dumbed down controls like sound on/off, pick from a palette of locations to visit, and a palette of available avatars, and a very basic help window describing around a dozen available functions, seemed to be very complimentary controls for someone visiting for the first time, or even coming in on business for the first time.  Simple and stupid, and yet showing SL as it mostly is seen on the viewer (minus windlight!). 

This image is from another user's forum post regarding his experience, note the reflections on the water. Looks pretty good for a web browser.

So, mostly, I am favorably impressed, though I would say the map options need to be increased, and many more tweaks need to be implemented into this basic user experience or you will bore first time users to death with this browser based visit.

I agree with a large amount of comments on other forums that state, welcome area 4chan griefers and a large variety offensive individuals are still one of the lead causes of people never returning to SL or opening their minds to take it seriously, with all it's potential. Clean up the welcome areas, or keep browser based visits away from social trouble zones (Or better yet, get rid of welcome areas altogether). Don't let the potentially large influx of browser users get chased out by the A-holes that chase new viewer users out now.

I expected not to like it as much as I do, I think it has potential to be much better, and I believe it could be a major win if developed with greater care than LL has given past developments. So please, proceed with caution LL and use some common sense to make this extremely useful development pay off.

[Next Steps for Mesh Import]

Meshes bring SL up to the point that everyone else was at 15 years ago.  How much longer should we wait?  Until there are no bugs and everyone is satisfied with the way everything runs?  I dont think that will ever happen.

I don't know Jamay, maybe you are right. But I hope they keep this thing in the open beta for as long as it takes to integrate it seamlessly into our already dysfunctional system.

I know the innovators hate to hear the "fix it all first" argument. But the real crisis for SL these days stems directly from breaking what works and not fixing what doesn't. Add to that throwing in new variables before they are ready like Viewer 2, Marketplace, and GSA search, and you have a business that is losing it's ability to grow.

I want meshes, but they are pointless if they decrease functionality because they got rushed out like so many other things.

[Next Steps for Mesh Import]

 

And please don´t mention "performance improvements". Nothing they ever did really improved performance. And i fear that mesh import will not "improve" anything at all. business as usual. Nice ideas,.lousy implementation.

See? That's a good argument.  Really most of us just want SL fixed and functional, and after that happens would be a good time to work on adding new content capabilities and all the tweaks that will be required to integrate them into the existing framework.

From a creative stand point meshes have a lot of potential. The question is, does LL really need to be dealing with them right now?

[Next Steps for Mesh Import]

I will say this, mesh is kind of interesting but it's not what we need to be worrying about with LL right now. I have watched so many changes over the years, these new tech changes never have half the impact they are predicted to have, but less visible changes seep in and kill businesses overnight, chase out users who have lost functionality and don't care to figure out why. Those are the changes people should keep putting pressure on LL about.

LL's inability to make a viable viewer 2, and even less viable search are the true killers of the SL experience for creators, explorers, and especially newbies.

So if you want to come down on Mesh, insist that LL fix the bigger problems first, before trying to work in a new bell and whistle. They really should halt all innovations until they can make the basics work right. After SL's functionality has been returned to users, then would be a good time to float in meshes, because they are cool after all.

[Next Steps for Mesh Import]

As an old school "Prim Builder", and then later on a sculpty maker with at least a couple sculpty products that have been very successful. I don't feel a real threat from the meshes or even the mesh creation requirements. Yes I have had my business stepped on repeatedly by all kinds of LL changes, but things like sculpties helped, did not hurt my business, though some of my items are now obsolete when 1 prim can do what 11 prims did before and better (And yet someone still bought the 11 prim version just a couple days ago, sheesh I better unlist it). But I'm not expecting some kind of revolutionary change from them in SL. I just don't get that feeling from what I am seeing.

Dante Breck said:                                                                                                             Meshs uploaded to the grid will have an associated prim cost based on their size.  The math formula is still being finalized but the viewer itself will show the builder before uploading how many prims their mesh will be and its associated cost.

So there is a cost to using them, except perhaps on avatars as body parts, garments, etc( and that is a whole other can of worms that could be something for creators to think about). I can pretty much agree, meshes will supplement buildings and or furniture as ornate window frames, detailed doors, hyper-realistic columns, and so much more, but will have to be combined with standard prims all the same for any viable production.  That's what happened with sculpties, they make great arches, but suck as 1 prim buildings. Prim counts drive the prefab market, even more today than before.  What is easy to see is that Meshes, Sculpties and Standard Prims will all be linked together into interesting objects. But to be successful it will all have to be LOW PRIM.

Editing Meshes, well here we go again.  When Sculpties came out, several intrepid SL names actuallly made customized editors. Sculptypaint  (free) is still my favorite for some things, and Sculpt Studio which can only be used in world has produced some of my most complex shapes. Both were created by SL residents and came along shortly after sculpties went mainstream.  Now LL never created their own sculpty editor though I really think they should have and made it part of the tools we all get with the viewer.   I will say that LL really should obtain some low end Blender type program and integrate it in with future viewer releases as well, or at least put it on the download page. It would be a win all the way around to do so (and while you are at it LL throw in a basic sculpty editor too). People can get started on those and move up as they get more familiar with the process.

I like this video brought up earlier in this thread, very cool and simple way to model meshes:

So yes this new brand of competition concerns me, yes I don't know how to do it . . . . .yet.