Seven Overdrive

Thanks Valerie. I have tried the trial. I do want to upgrade so I can continue to be eligible for future upgrade paths to newer versions. I am just unsure if I need the extended version or not.

I am wanting to upgrade my version of PS CS2 to CS5 and was wondering if the extended version was worth it. I mostly use PS for various tasks related to SL and not much else. Any opinions would be appreciated. Thanks

I too have noticed this issue since recently being able to finally turn on shadows. Blinding facelights have always been an issue, but have become more noticeable with the addition of shadows for me. When I encounter someone using the sun for a facelight, I will ask them about it, and you would be amazed at how many of them don't even have local lights turned on. Usually a snapshot showing them how washed out they look is enough to convince them to remove it. If that doesn't work then I just derender them.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Pussycat Catnap wrote: Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Pussycat Catnap wrote: Just got a message that he backpeddled his candy butt out of the whole thing. There will be no last names: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/rodvik-blogs-no-last-names/ /epic fail. Last names cause massive bail-out rate during sign-up! I think the 'pick a last name later' option is going to be a winner. That's basically a line of BS when compared to the problem of names like Billy123... But I'm more annoyed with the failure to live up to a promise here on Rod's part... Okay. I do think LL has studied where they lose people in the signup process. And they've made lots of changes to increase the #s that get in-world. The idea that you could pick a bad name and replace it with a display name hasn't worked out so well. Though I suppose it's still viewed inside the lab as the eventual solution. I still wonder how many that backed out of creating an account when it was time to choose a last name were just current residents name shopping for an alt. How would LL know the difference between alt makers and new visitors? SL is the biggest barrier to user retention. Not names.

Gadget Portal wrote: It's crazy. A lot of places are actually expecting, even requiring it now. I have never been to a venue that required voice.

Never underestimate the power of meaningless titles so one can feel more special than the others around them. No doubt some will love them. Those with the titles anyway. Most others won't care.

They got rid of last names?! And I thought everyone was just choosing Resident as a last name because it was popular. :smileylol:

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Hellos Knowl, Seven & Melita. I know there are all kinds of views on what privacy is needed or should be used and so on. LL offers certain controls, settings or preferences that purport to provide privacy. In some cases they fail out of the gate. What I'm trying to get at though is how did we get where we are. Were these privacy settings never intended to work? Did things fall apart overtime due to some lack of attention? Did greed overrule privacy? What happened? /me runs off to look up the word 'purport' I think it is simply a cultural issue within the community. Many people have the mindset that others log in for the sole purpose of entertaining them, and should be available to them at any moment they desire. I can't answer if the privacy settings were ever intended to work. I just know they never have. Except for mapping. Blocking that does work.

Knowl Paine wrote: In a recent thread, a Resident's comment helped to remind me that SL is a social platform. If I want privacy, and I have a lot of friends, it is my responsibility to communicate with my friends and tell them what I think is appropriate behavior if they see me on the map at home with a guest and they want to visit. If I want privacy from the entire SL Community, I can offer notice in my profile and set my mode to busy. Residents who are respectable will respect that, those who are unaware are usually apologetic, and then there is that 1% who cannot be reached. You can't win them all. I like privacy and I try to respect it. My concern is, I've met many great people in SL, and it almost always started with a simple "hello". I think it would be a lose if a profile could be completely hidden. Displaying information about activity and status should be a choice. It is a social platform for some. Not all. Even then, that changes with a persons mood. Some days it is strictly a building platform, roleplaying platform or a I just want to be left alone so I can explore by myself platform.

Ceka Cianci wrote: but we can also be on an older version of the official viewer and have that happen..some older v2's and v1's still can't see mesh that are being used..just not majority..lots of things can be just client side like that..i get the feeling it's more privacy based than anything.. the altering a shared experience to me sounds more like advantage over another more than what one could do to themselves.. something that will have an impact on someone else's virtual world.. like if you using it made my avatar look all strange to everyone and myself..something like that hehehe also i heard LL may take that on and implement it when it's finished..at least that's what i was hearing when it was first starting up..or at least there was talk about it or something..i think they were talking to each other at one point.. or was that just rumor? if they do that would be awesome.. It was just a guess off the top of my head, but I agree, the privacy invading features of some viewers would probably be along the lines of what the Lab currently means as altering the shared experience. And no idea if the Lab plans on adopting the mesh enhancement that is currently being developed. I hope they do because I want to enjoy mesh clothing too. :smileyhappy:

The only thing I can think of is Qarl's mesh project. I don't know much about it, but if it makes avatars look odd to those using a viewer without it, then I guess that would qualify as altering the shared experience.

Doesn't seem like it would be of much use for me since my inventory tends to grow out of control so quickly. I suppose it could be helpful, sort of, for direct delivery of marketplace items. Why not just have a direct delivery folder or marketplace folder for those items? I would prefer to have a Busy folder that could accept inventory offers silently while I am in busy mode. That would be more helpful I think.

Makes me wonder what the new spending threshold is to qualify for real live help now.

Peggy Paperdoll wrote: Dillon asked: " Ciaran Laval wrote: I agree, although to be fair to Linden Lab they have been talking about additional projects for a while, the actual concept sounds like it could add value to Second Life itself. Would you (or Medhue) mind explaining how you think it might add value? ..." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's my question too. We, as residents, are constantly wanting features or additions to SL the "enhance" our, very personal, experience while in SL. But, really, does it enhance SL for enough residents that it's worth the time it takes to add the feature or is it worth inflating the overall size of the software? The SL viewer is already horrendously large (in my opinion) for how I use SL.......to me, it's full of "bloatware", some of which I'll never even use and most of which have absolutely no value for me. For instance, voice (and the related voice morphing) are a waste of time. It's worthless for me. But, I'm not the only user of SL........for some users voice is one of the most valued features in SL. Along that same line I see requests for things like video chat.........another completely useless feature (if it were to be incorporated into SL). Linden Lab has to wiegh what the additional features would add to the users' experiences in SL and is that addition worth the time, effort and program's performance.......it's a guessing game. When LL announces some new feature in the thinking about it stage we always get thoughts and comments from both sides.......the people who want it and the people who don't want it. We never get a true feel for what it is really worth to the overall user base. Most users of SL don't really care as long as SL does what they want it to do with what SL offers at the moment. Some, if something new is given to them, will use it and maybe even fall in love with it........some won't. I have a hard time getting all excited about someone's assertion that a new feature would "enhance" SL. It would enhance SL for them............but what's important is will it enhance SL for enough users to make it worth it? Programs can be too many things for too many people. Programs like that often become much too complicated, too buggy, or just plain confusing. LL has to think of all that and make their best guess whether or not to go with the idea. That cloud version is an example.......great idea that was dropped (probably because it just wasn't worth it for the overall SL experience...but we'll probably never know the "facts"). It was my understanding that it will be a new product thats only relation to SL will be LL. I for one would be worried about the development of seperate products because, depending on their success, SL could quickly become a dead weight for the Lab rather than its sole income generator as it is now.

Rene Erlanger wrote: I agree with your analysis...that $295 tier rise was aimed at the RL businesses that were flocking in at that time...the likes of you and I became the casualties....as we're stuck with these excessively high Tiers. There are pieces of that Financials that we know to be true or a good approximation. We know Tier income is likely to be around $70-75 mill usd per annum, we know Premium subs income is around $7-8 mill usd...and with the other extra bits of income from Lindex comm and anything else that's chargeable at USD (some land auctions), SIM set-up costs.....that LL are around the $100 Million USD mark. The problem area are the overhead costs and tyring to get a handle on those. We do know the amount of employees and we could apply industry average salaries to those, we could also obtain information on typical rents for the size of property in Battery St. The tricky area for me at least.....would be guesstimating all the Server generated costs, storage, insurance, maintenance, software, hardware, leasing, bandwidth....etc etc If it i had to make a stab at it though....I would say LL's profit margins hover between 10 -15% (15% is very optimistic on my part).....so on $100 Mill revenues.....we're looking at Net Profits before CT Tax around $10-15 Mill.usd So now you can see why your suggestion of reducing the Tiers by $100 per sim per month...is not really feasible and likely to put the company into the red! It's a real gamble to assume that if LL lowers the Tiers by $100 p/mth, more people will buy sims and concurrency might be boosted. You might be right....but what if you're wrong? Is there really a demand to join SL? is there really a demand to own sims? I only see 2 courses that LL could pursue, that might help reduce Tiers in the future.....either a) Spend real $bucks marketing SL across the Internet much like IMVU did over the last 4 years and really grow its concurrency or b) develop other revenue streams non-SL related, so that there's less reliance on SIM Tier income. Agreed on your two points at the end, although, I'm not convinced that any non-SL ventures will translate into major benefits for SL, including the much desired reduction in tier fees. One can hope they would be willing to take the profit from one product to prop up another. I guess the fact that this thread is relatively quiet on the subject, may be an indicator that there just isn't a huge demand for lower tiers after all.

Perhaps the sellers without land could be limited to a few listings on MP, while land owners get more. Not sure how well that would go over though. Such a policy might stir up another hornets nest with the community. Another thing to consider with that idea would be figuring out what land holdings would count. Would people who rent from a thrid party be eligible for the increased listings on the MP too? I am not a heavy shopper in SL and usually do search for things on MP before going to the in-world store to see the item. Honestly it has been a very rare occassion that I have run into a MP seller that didn't have an in-world store, so I am not sure how big of a problem it actually is.

Then they can slowly bleed to death. LOL I do remember when they increased private islands to $295.00 per month, they made the statement that it was because people were willing to pay that, and many were, eventually after the grandfathering and protests in the forums died down. They really had no choice but to pay or not own an island anymore. But that was also when they were heavily trying to turn SL into a business platform. Of course companies could afford fees like that. Now that the whole business love affair has passed, LL is left with just us commoners to support them. So if i read you right, they can only slowly bleed to death at this point rather than cut prices to try and grow participation in the platform again? And it is true.. I am not an accountant. Then again I wouldn't be very keen on listening to accountants about a company's finances that have never had access to the books either. :matte-motes-wink:

Porky Gorky wrote: Tier prices are too high. Tier prices are no longer sustainable. Comments like these seem to be appearing more frequently in posts on this forum. I would like to hear some tier decrease advocates explain how lowering tier could improve SL and the sustainability of LL. If Linden Labs cut tier they would loose profit. They would hope to generate growth by cutting tier, but this is a risky gamble. So what is the current perfect price for tier in this financial market? Where should the price breaks be? Lowest possible price tier for users = Growth for SL = ultimately more revenue for LL. If you were in charge of finance for SL how would you achieve this? Aren't they already losing profit by slowly losing sims each month? I would buy a sim the moment they rolled back tier for private islands to $195.00 USD per month. I don't see this as a risky gamble as more people would be able to afford more land. Estate owners could lower their prices and more people could afford to rent from them. The cost of providing a venue to help keep people engaged in SL would go down considerably for content creators as well. I really do not see a losing situation there. It would be a great stimulus all around.

That build you showed in the link is gorgeous and is the type of quality we need to see more of in SL.

Yes I understood you about proportion and that is what I meant. There are wildly different variations in avatar proportions out there that make people feel like their avatars look good, even if some were made though the lens of a fun house mirror. In a world like SL, proportion is most certainly a matter of personal opinion and taste. Your world, your imagination, applies to avatars too. I did base my shape on a proportion chart used for drawing the male form, but customized it to suit my tastes and preferences. I prefer a bubbled rear end, but so far, every pair of mesh pants or shorts I have tried have changed the appearance of my shape to be flat and uninteresting in the seat. Same with hoodies I have tried. I end up having toothpick arms with narrow shoulders or huge incredible hulk arms. I thought this was what SL was all about. To express our uniqueness and creativity, not to conform to a standard set by a few designers. Mesh just isn't that important to me, clothing wise, to have a shape I don't want to have. I am happy to stick with sculpty enhanced clothes until the selection improves to accommodate more variations in avatar proportions, or we do get the derformer tool.

Any standardized sizing they attempt to do with rigged mesh will only be appealing to those that don't mind if their shapes are altered to someone elses ideal. SL is not RL and many people have very differing ideas of how a human body should look. Of course maybe there is a niche market there to serve all the caricature human shapes out there. I hope the deformer works well and happens soon. I personally like mesh. Just can't wear any of it yet.

Pamela Galli wrote: Jenni Darkwatch wrote: Most of what's on MP right now is crap. LI way too high, whole meshes practically uploaded straight from free modeling pages (the good majority of cars is straight from free mesh pages, though not all is). My bottom line: If I, as a totally sucky 3D modeler, can create an object with lower LI or better looks, it's badly made. For nonhuman avatars, mesh is a total god-sent. Have a look at the WaterHorse mesh deer avatar. There's simply _no_ non-mesh animal avi that moves better. Not a single one. And no full mesh animal avi that does, actually. For building, the fact that it allows texturing parts separately AND that we can determine what an object looks like at lower LOD makes it superior to sculpts for a lot of things. Not for all - but for a lot. Example #1: Mesh text board vs. regular text board. Regular text board has 1 prim per 10 chars. Mesh has 16 chars per "prim". Mesh wins. Example #2: Building a 1LI water bucket. Sculpt has to use a baked texture. Mesh can have different textures for different parts, even animated water if desired. Mesh wins (and is less than 1LI anyway, whereas sculpts usually aren't). The number one biggest pile of crap about mesh is this: To create mesh we pretty much have to use external tools. They're free, sure. But they're the effin worst piles of steaming software doo on the planet. Or at least in the top ten of the worst user interfaces, ever. LOL! It's true -- nothing has ever made me feel more painfully stupid than Blender. But that is true of any 3D program I have tried. BTW: Jenni made such an informative post in the mesh forum about how the two ways to count prims works, and how everyone can cut a LOT of prims on some types of objects, I put it on a page here http://lagalleriasl.blogspot.com/p/prims-land-impact-by-jenni-darkwatch.html I read Jenni's post and everything I tried the trick on either increased the LI or had no effect at all. Works if I link a few prim cubes together but didn't work for anything I have purchased. And I agree... Blender is tough to learn.

My laptop has a GeForce GT 555M graphics card in it and I can turn on all the bells and whistles without a problem. Even in busy places and that card is only considered mid-ranged. Laptops with capable graphics cards do cost more than desktops for sure, but it is nice not having to be tethered to one spot in the house.

I have a few mesh items that I like, but have yet to find any mesh clothing that works for me because I simply don't like how they alter my shape. I guess that is the rigged mesh that is causing the problem with avatar shapes though. I wouldn't mind non-rigged mesh clothing that was modifiable to better conform to my shape. The main thing that draws me to mesh or sculpty objects that you rez in-world is the quality of the item, like if they have baked in shading and highlights. If not then I keep looking for a similar item that does. Land impact is also a factor since I cannot afford the high subscription rate charged for 15000 prims anymore.

Maelstrom Janus wrote: Thank you Rodvik for allowing me to pay an arm and a leg to enjoy sl.... and devalueing my sl land- or is it your sl land - to such a point where a full region is only worth something to a greedy land dealer prepared to pay a fraction of a linden per square metre for it... Thanks also for the increased crashes on teleporting and the phenomenal lag when more than three people get together in a region.. And thanks most of all for being able to find these people who no matter how bad an example of 'value for money' sl becomes always manage to play the lickspittle.... As for 'not increasing tiers' ( what a laugh)...give it a go man and see how long sl lasts..... The map will look as if its got the worse case of jaundice seen outside a tropical illness hospital Gad its no wonder sl gets away with diminishing value and poor customer service with some of these fawning forum dwellers !! This post sums it up for me. You'll get my thanks Rod when you lower tiers across the board. Linden homes and premium sandboxes just do not cut it for a certain segment of SL that wishes to do more with the platform than play dress up, shop and chat. Here's to hoping LL gains some sense about their high subscription fees for land in 2012.