[Linden Lab is building a NEW virtual world]

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...

First off, thanks for the reply.

Every organization has a reputation.   You come here and act shocked and clueless as to why a significant portion of your playerbase distrust you.    That is why I listed past problems.  LL EARNED a bad rep with many, accept that or not, it takes more than a new CEO and a promised new world to overcome that.

I never said LL did nothing right.  I said they did enough things that were wrong, copped attitudes with the players when confronted with bugs, etc. enough to make a subset of customers distrust anything they say.  I expeienced the things I listed firsthand, watched communities destroyed and friends leave due to decisions of the 'great people' at LL..PLEASE tell me why I should disregard past behavior trust you?

And as far as the best virtual world, I think perhaps it would be more correct to say the ONLY virtual world.   You can get away with a lot (and have) when you are the only game in town.  Not to say I have not had fun in SL, but not as much as might have been with better decisions by the powers that be.

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. 

Thank you for that.   It was a very good call.    And I would not expect you to force anyone inworld.  I rather miss seeing the various Lindens inworld and actually interacting with them, seeing what they like, what they have built, etc..   I remember when a (now ex-) Linden showed me a build he made with some of my builds.  And another (ex-) that had a clock I gave her as a gift in her inworld home she was decorating.  I had a little more trust for Lindens when one knew their choices affected them as well instead of just being faceless bots in it for a paycheck.  I am currently transitioning out of SL and VR...made that decision last night...but when I was more active and engaged, I'd have not minded meeting you inworld.  Hell, probably would have given you one of my (now dated) prim builds just for fun.

Ebbe says: I don't think doing that would be a meaningful difference in the success of SL. 

Agree to disagree ont his one.    I've had many friends over the years leave over the crashes and such from the LL client.  I use Firestorm for this very reason, even though I'd prefer to use the LL client, but it runs badly and crashes for me...and it lacks features.

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. 

In some ways better, in others worse.   From a TECHNICAL standpoint, better.   But the population drops cause by some of the fiasco's I listed in the 'history/reputation' part you glossed over, not so much better socially.

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...

Again, agree to disagree.    I am not privy to internal discussions, but I can't shake the feeling this is more a reaction to HiFi and Oculus/Facebook than anything else.   Let's draw in the masses with eye candy at the expense of the folks currently here.   That's cool, but it didn't work with the corps and tie-ins like CSI..the casuals came and left.

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. 

Again, agree to disagee.   I can only go by your past actions and reputation as a company.   I read your posts today, a lot of content apparently means 'mesh only' since you said that the scripting will change / prims will change and sculpts MAY be imported as mesh.   Since everything I have that I would want in SL2.0 is prim/sculpt-based and scripted with LSL (INCLUDING most of my AV), you confirmed a lot of my fears...I will be losing most everything and starting over unlike incremental changes where I'd lose it a little at a time.    And glad you mentioned about the names not being lost...That is a very wise decision on your part!   Would have been nice had you actually mentioned it at some point previous to my post.

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 **Only uploaded images may be used in postings**://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-wink.gif" border="0" alt=":smileywink:" title="Smiley Wink" />

I would LIKE to believe you, but I have never seen a business that kept the old product going alongside the new.  The old product either got killed off, or put into maintenance mode, so as not to compete with the 'new and improved' product  To take a page from games, how much DLC gets published for Game v1.0 when Game v2.0 hits the shelves?  Basically, none.

I honestly have no desire to try 2.0, Ebbe, so we won't be seeing what I think of it.  But it is a nice sentiment.     You seem like a decent enough person, Ebbe, and I am sorry if I offended you.  I say what I am thinking and I don't play sugar-coat words with others, but you REALLY need to consider the relation between past behavior and reputation and the negative reaction to the vagueness of your announcement.  I wish you luck on your new project and on trying to keep SL 1.0 going.

 

[Linden Lab is building a NEW virtual world]

> So you think SL can continue forever and still be competitive enought to matter in the future? 

Yes, IF LL does the following and earns trust / makes changes.   I've been here 9 years+ and my trust for LL and its revolving door CEO's is nearly nonexistant.

LL has a track record of overpromising and underdelivering, as well as jumping on the latest fad / shiny / company groupthink.  Examples.

 

• The Tao of the Lindens as illustrated by Philip Linden making decisions take ages for consensus rather than management made decisions.
• Refusing to actively fight griefers for YEARS until grid crashing became a fad and started costing LL money.  Some Lindens were actively friends with members of various groups causing issues with SL, others had a near-religious sense of hands-off anarchy they projected on the world due to lack of action.
• The corporate phase where they were your customer (like content creators will be in 2.0) and residents were to be just eyeballs for the corps...that lasted until the hype died and the corps moved on to the next big thing.  I believe LL even developed a walled-garden version of SL for internal corp use...how's that one selling for ya now?
• The OS phase, where a few rabid open source Lindens and their followers inworld managed to get the client open sourced...some good, much bad from this, including the drama that lead up to banning Emerald client.

LL has also shown a track-record of dishonesty and playing favorites. Examples:

 

• Back when sims increased in price, certain land barons 'discovered' this and that purchases would be grandfathered at the old price... It was only when it leaked to the general publicthat the offer was extended to all sim owners.  So as a resident I am supposed to feel good about 'content creators as your customers?'
• The homestead fiasco.  People were told there would be no price increases, then two weeks later, price increase.   Countless homesteads closed after that and there were lots of bad feelings towards the lab.

And a track record of  releasing broken and incomplete shineys, then rushing to the next project and denying bugs or promising fixes that never come or come years later. Examples:

  

• Mesh rolled out such that creators needed to include 3-5 sizes for each clothing item.   Only grudgingly, much, much later were additional AV bones added, even though they were mentioned in the initial descriptions of mesh implementation and got somehow dropped during development.
• Sculpts rolled out with broken uploads.    Sculpties worked find in Beta, in RELEASE, they were somehow broken and lossless sculpt files uploaded fine, lossy uploaded jagged and broken (I may have the types reversed, graphic artist I am not).   Sculpted gears I had used in beta suddenly were jagged and had to be reuploaded and builds changed at release.   LL's Devs at the time denied there was a problem over and over...it was somehow OUR fault as builders.   Then when the next patch came out, they were magically right again.   Stealth fixed to save face?

These are what I remember off the top of my head, I am sure others could add more.  Now you see why folks keep saying they don't trust you or the Lab not to screw residents in favor of content creators?   Or to release a SL 2.0 that is just as broken/buggy/incomplete as the current one or possibly even worse?   You really need to work on resident perceptions....of course content creators are going to fawn all over you and new SL2.0, you just declared them to be the new world's gods, but what about the rest of us?

 

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.

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).

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.

 

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.

 

> 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.

 

> 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.  

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.

[Linden Lab is building a NEW virtual world]

> The way I see it is LL can either spend a ton of resources hobbling along on SL 1.0 or they can just start over with something better and use those resources to improve their features.

OR they could do what older MMO's have done, revised the graphical engine, optimized, rebuilt the client.   Sadly, they take the easy way out as they always have.    Look at sculpts, rolled out and forgotten.  Mesh, rolled out and forgotten forever until finally (and grudgingly) they add a few more bones for rigging purposes on AV's.     You seem to be under the impression that 2.0 is magically going to be better.  This is LL....and regardless what ebbe (and all the past CEO's singing the same song since King Philip) says...It is the same bunch of devs (for the most part) working in the same environment / office politics as always.     I've been here 9 years now....they have a track record of releasing broken and badly structured code and promising 'fixes' that never seem to happen or happen YEARS after release...then fecklessly heading off to the next project which they will half-a** complete, over and over.

2.0 is going to be no exception to this, unless they fire the whole company and hire new devs without a history of taking the easy route and releasing half-complete.

 

> What would you rather have? An SL where Lindens spend their time fixing a broken MySQL Cluster and dealing with it not working half the time, or an SL where Lindens have a stable platform they've developed learning from what went wrong with the initial product and developing new features?

I'd rather have 1.0 with its broken server clusters and such.   I am here for the duration of SL 1.0 and will not be moving to SL 2.0...I have NO desire to have to shell out cash for lindens to attempt to replicate even a fraction of my current inventory.   I have also ceased buying Lindens and probably will downgrade from premium in the near future.

The only part of this announcement I approve of is that SL will no longer be open source, regardless of their features, TPV's have delayed LL rollouts while they play catch-up.

[Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 + Viewer 2.7.4.235167]

Same issue, all versions of the LL client.   It went from an occasional thing to being totally unable to log in tonight.   Strangely, the Firestorm client works fine....get in no issues.   However, I do NOT want to use a 3rd party client...but it amazes me the LL client can be broken over every iteration of the code and yet TPV's work..

And no, not going to file a Jira...have no interest in trying to figure out something that complex and filled with folks that seem to exist merely to close entries.