Vivienne Schell
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Posts posted by Vivienne Schell
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Phil, just try to explain the Second Life land model to a newbie. Starting with the attempt to explain the newbie what "land" actually is and what you need it for and how you can get land or not and if then maybe rented but this means that it´s not your land while the land you rent from Linden Lab is not yours but....
Good Luck. Remember that land is the major Linden Lab profit source.
And then move on to explain the rest. If you manage to explain it to the newbie within 24 hours and the newbie can remember with what you started you are great.
Additionally, look at what scientists have to say on "attention span":
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-limits/
I don´t know exactly how many buttons, pop up menus and splash menus the viewer includes, but all in all it must be a few hundred. All this makes Second Life a task. which most mainstream users refuse to take, for valid reaons.
Don´t get me wrong, i personally don´t mind the complexity, i love it. But I am not mainstream, as most long time SL users are not mainstream.
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Amchai wrote:So, assuming Sansar will not replace Second Life anytime soon - how will the problem of marketing to disparate users who cannot be reached en-masse be overcome ? Anyone can create and sell their wares, but how is it possible to develop the mass market which commercial users would require for their indivdual experiences ? Second Life has failed in this respect will Sansar follow ?
My guess is: If you want a mass market for an app, you need to target the mass maket for computer systems. And what sells best there are mobile devices, followed by midrange desktop PC´s and game consoles. Any software which is developed for high end desktops in first place can be fairly successful in it´s niche, but not become a true mass success.
Goggled VR is not ready for mass adoption yet. It might be so in five to ten years (depending on the pace of hardware pogress in regards to performance), but for now it´s high end only. So, let´s assume that a goggle VR app establishes itself in the high end niche fairly successfully. In five years, once the average consumer drops in cause their laptops can render VR, there will be the same trouble with people who will claim "the engine is obsolete, outdated." and all this. LL has this trouble now with people claiming the same for Second Life. The competition will not stay in bed, for sure.
It might be too risky to bet on goggle VR alone. But you need the goggle VR feature desperately cause you already started with marketing it as essential part of the experience. What is left then? Something which will run on mobile (with strictly reduced graphics and bandwidth) as well as (in full resolution) on hi end computers. While mobile and midrange will be the primary market - NOT goggle VR. Basically, it will be the same as Second Life in this regards, but the difference between "low" and "ultra" might be even much more drastic, due to bandwidth and GPU power differences. This might cause serious trouble in regards to "shared experience" and marketing, PR, media coverage and and and, because the media reports on what the media sees and if that´s seen on a mobile device, marketing a VR goggle experience (which cannot work on mobile) is pretty dangerous.
That could be a problem to deal with on the technical side. Another problem is usability. Second Life always had trouble on the mass market because of an extremely steep learning curve, due to it´s complexity. I doubt that a somewhat more efficient and better sorted user interface can solve the Second Life usabiliity problems, just because the "world" and "sandbox" model it is too complex to get simplified by the UI. But simplification could work with a different, basical, simplified VR model. It does not have to be as simple as Minecraft, but I´d expext a much more stripped down to essentials general user interface and functionality as we have in Second Life now. Which will work on mobile, too.
"What can I do here?" is another question to deal with. I guess that´s what Linden Lab tries to adress with "experiences". Even the Minecraft sandbox has some simple default gameplay for entertainment, and expanding this idea to something more complex, but not too complex for the entertainment of Joe Doe might be an excellent idea. While the VR goggle minority could be pleased by hi end shooter "experiences" in full HD as well - just on a different "experience" level. Which might be extremely cool. But then the universal Second Life "world" idea with a universal "shared experience" must be scrapped.
My guess is that Sansar will move into the described direction, and that such a model might have a realistic chance on the market if LL does it right. But it canot be anywhere close to Second Life.
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Theresa Tennyson wrote
My 2011-vintage laptop can play a Sims 4 neighborhood smoothly but it struggles to hit 10 frames per second in a skybox in Second Life with settings barely above minimum.In Sansar, the land baron, as in someone who is in business only because they own land, will be extinct. Full stop.However, someone who's providing a value-added experience like Calas Galadhon or 1920's Berlin could find themselves doing quite well.Wowsie. Out of how many polygons is your skybox made? How complex is your avi? Must be that, because with "barely above minimum" settings there should not be anything else wwithin draw distance getting rendered.
The Sims 4 was released in 2013, so that your 2011 vintage laptop might be able to run it. But are you serious with declaring a 2013 desktop, singleplayer (online multi player Sims-versions discontinued because of commercial failure) app which isn´t and never was anywhere close to the overall complexity of the online app Second Life as a role model for Project Sansar? Oh my.
Better compare it to something like Skyrim or such, if you insist on advanced graphics. You cannot even log into that with a 2011 laptop, i guess.
Allright, if you have optimised, restricted and boiled down to the essentials content made by professional game model designers for online gaming exclusively, then you might be able to achieve a much better client performance overall. But then this environment is not anything related to Second Life anymore.
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Eh? How come that my avi can outpace everything availabe in SL easily just by using an adequate scriptie? Speed isn´t limited by something related to the havok engine. There are no fixed "physical" speeds for avis in SL.
Oh, can you please paste the routine you mentioned? Maybe you can prove me wrong.
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Theresa Tennyson wrote:
And Linden Lab doesn't feel the need to charge anything for the inventories of all the hundreds of thousands of free accounts out there.
Yeah, because they charge the not free accounts big time. For their log cabins which the free accounts enjoy. If there will be free accounts in Sansar (which is not clearly stated yet), then this method will be one of the few similarities.
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Theresa Tennyson wrote:
Why should you need to "rezz" and "mount" a vehicle? That's the way Second Life simulates vehicles but that's by no means the only way to do so. Why not just wear it? You'll have a far more accurate and simple way to simulate the physics of a moving vehicle if it's considered part of the avatar instead of an in-world object. One of the problems with Second Life vehicle region crossings is the avatar and vehicle are simulated separately and sometimes you literally "collide" with the vehicle you're supposedly sitting in.
So many of these Sansar threads reminds me of the movie Chicken Run: "Babs, there is no farmer!" People think things have to be done certain ways because Second Life does them that way, but Second Life does things the way it does because it was decided that it was the best way to do it in 2003 for a "world" that in many ways is quite different from how Second Life eventually developed, even if only looking at its first few years of existence.
You must be new to Second Life. There were tons of vehicles to "wear", and still are. The problem on region crossings isn´t related to THAT at all, but simply to the problem of handshaking between simulators and this includes not only physical movement, but mostly script handshakes, Try a rezzable vehicle with a superlow script count and ride it with no scripts attached over a region border and you´ll be surprised. Do the same with an overscripted attachment and you´ll probably find yourself in orbit. The problem in Second Life is that vehicles used usually are run by a sh**load of scripts, and another sh**load of scripts are running attached to the avatars. Additionally the server entered has to calculate stuff like "object and avatar complexity". But physical movement is physical movement, regardless if you bump ino something with your avi or sitting on something while bumping into it. Makes no difference.
Regarding to the "Chicken Run" statement: That´s true. But it does not help to add some technical half knowledge and some mystical suggestions to it.
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Theresa Tennyson wrote:Vivienne Schell wrote:Theresa Tennyson wrote:Sansar won't have fixed "servers" - they'll use on-demand virtual machines on the Amazon cloud system. The idea of the "server" is what makes Second Life unscalable. A stand-alone virtual home - even one that occupies kilometers of "space" - that's visitable by a limited number of people at a time will have very little fixed overhead.Oh, did Ebbe tell you that? Anyways. Assets are assets, regardless where they get stored. And assets need storage, regardless if on a cloud or elsewhere. And storage costs money. I doubt that something like a "private exhibition app" which includes extremely complex 3d models, high res textures and a complex database enabling virtual trade and and and can compete with the simple, but cheap and effective do-it-yourself 2D competition (if competing on that terrain is what LL wants to achieve).The other question is: Who needs a continet for planting a log cabin?And even if Sansar will cannibalise Second Life to a certain degree, by attracting the people who pay for a G-rated homestead for some reasons now: These "immigrants" alone will never ever justify the investments into the Sansar project.No, Amazon told me that:Assets do indeed need storage - for example, there are hundreds of thousands of Second Life accounts that have inventories which need to be stored and tracked.And Linden Labdoesn't feel the need to charge anythingfor the inventories of all the hundreds of thousands of free accounts out there.The Second Life servers have basically three jobs:1) They constantly track and simulate the physical world of Second Life because with the way Second Life is built, the physical world can change at any time.In Sansar the physical world only changes unpredictably when deliberately "baked" by the experience owner so there's no need for the constant tracking.2) They govern the interactions of avatars in this world.If there's only a small number of avatars interacting with a fixed world there's so little work involved in this it can easily be done on the client or peer-to-peer.3) They handle communication between the many small connected patches of physical space in Second Life.If the patches are large and less connected, the server's out of a job.And really, why have a log cabin when you can have a continent for the same price? (G-rated? Pfaugh. Since the experiences will be independently branded instead of being part of a monolithic thing called Sansar, Linden Lab really won't care what you do on your land unless it's something real-world illegal.)
Fine. So even if your suggestios may be right (which they are not): What happens if Project Sansar will become the thriving success Linden Lab obviously wants (and needs) to achieve?
Your 1), 2) 3) will be rendered pretty useless, cause with gazillions of users you will not match your basic suggestions on operation. And Second Life switches sims off and on on demand, anyway. So please tell me something new.
So, you would pay for a continent to plant a log cabin? Really? And yes, G-rated. One of the very few solid announcements Linden Lab officials gave to the public so far clearly states that the platform will be 13+.. Which is G-rated. Or do you really think that Linden Lab will dare to get stigmatised as virtual porn provider by the media again? Or even get connected to it again, with their new shiny platform? Dream on.
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wherorangi wrote:Vivienne Schell wrote:Question is where LL will go to: EIther another high tech 3D sightseeing show for the dedicated few, another business focused 3D environment or another more Second Life like "world"-like, social but G-rated environment, or another platform for game developers of any kind. Hard to tell. But none of these models have the potential to replace Second Life.i think is not either/or. Is a all these things thing with other things in the mix as wellin this sense SL is all of these things as well. The question for Sansar is can/will all of these things be easier to do on the platform
SL is none of the above, in fact. SL is an 18+ virtual "world" model with social and sandbox character. And that´s why Second Life works in very first place and that´s why no one but Linden Lab ever got something like Second Life or similar to Second Life working - even after 12 years.
Concluding from what was published so far Sansar is not planned to be a "world" at all, but just a "platform" for whatever. And before you come up with "but everyone can create a world on that platform" : It takes much more than software and hardware to create a working world. Much, much more. And I find it overly optimistic to expect that "someone" will be able to create a working, commercially successful, Second Life like "world" within the next ten years, even if Linden Lab delivers all the tools for such a project.
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Theresa Tennyson wrote:
Sansar won't have fixed "servers" - they'll use on-demand virtual machines on the Amazon cloud system. The idea of the "server" is what makes Second Life unscalable. A stand-alone virtual home - even one that occupies kilometers of "space" - that's visitable by a limited number of people at a time will have very little fixed overhead.
Oh, did Ebbe tell you that? Anyways. Assets are assets, regardless where they get stored. And assets need storage, regardless if on a cloud or elsewhere. And storage costs money. I doubt that something like a "private exhibition app" which includes extremely complex 3d models, high res textures and a complex database enabling virtual trade and and and can compete with the simple, but cheap and effective do-it-yourself 2D competition (if competing on that terrain is what LL wants to achieve).
The other question is: Who needs a continet for planting a log cabin?
And even if Sansar will cannibalise Second Life to a certain degree, by attracting the people who pay for a G-rated homestead for some reasons now: These "immigrants" alone will never ever justify the investments into the Sansar project.
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Qie Niangao wrote:
Yeah, I may underestimate an important customer base. When I page through Inara Pey's blog, I'm forever amazed at the number of full-sim (or Homestead) installations that are privately funded exhibition spaces -- sort of 3D homepages on a much grander scale than the typical SL "home". So there are clearly more folks than I'd otherwise expect, wanting to "blog" with virtual world environments.
And, as I understand the model, it will be way less expensive to do that in Sansar (as long as there aren't all that many visitors?).
.....
True. As true as the fact that there are millions of "private homepages" on the 2D web, which aren´t good for anything but some kind of representation of the owner´s ego and go pretty unnoticed by the general public. Still, I doubt that LL can offer something resource hungry as a 3D VR server for about 5 dollars a month. Question is if someone will pay more than that for such a private project (Remember that Open Sim - another "private exhibition platform" - has more sims as SL has now, but only cause it does not exceed the 5 dollars fee a month, usually).
Question is where LL will go to: EIther another high tech 3D sightseeing show for the dedicated few, another business focused 3D environment or another more Second Life like, "world"-like, social but G-rated environment, or another platform for game developers of any kind. Hard to tell. But none of these models has the potential to replace Second Life.
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THEGOATOFMENDES wrote:....It's just the way technology works. Things change, old tech becomes obsolete, ditch it and move on...
Well, it´s not a matter of technology. It´s a matter of human behavior. If it were a matter of technology, we´d all be dead or never born, cause HEY, we have the neutron bomb!
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Alwin Alcott wrote:Vivienne Schell wrote:and about the 99 percent majority of stone aged, anti-progress, reactionary, stupid and not yet born ignorant creeps who refuse to buy the 980 GTX/me blinks....you say what?
I say that Linden Lab, in order to make their overwhelmingly stunning next generation VR experiance a success, will be forced to overcome the audience´s reactionary, stupid, anti-progress ignorance - manifested by 99 percent mainstream and minor cumputer system sales - by providing free goggles and free 980 GTX hi-end systems for the 99 percent PC users world wide!!. Compaq for Sansar! Compaq for Sansar!!
/me waves her fist and the Sansar flag
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Amchai wrote:Thanks for the responses ... for one, my rig is definitely VR ready for Sansar
Mine too. But what about these 700 dollars for that funny goggle and about the 99 percent majority of stone aged, anti-progress, reactionary, stupid and not yet born ignorant creeps who refuse to buy the 980 GTX hi-end rig which is considered to be minimum requirement for the overwhelmingly stunning next generation VR experience?
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Diamond843 wrote:
Avatar 2.0 is a mixture of Anime and Disney CInderella. Which means: The face is meant to look underaged. Is using this avatar ageplay? In a general sense, it certainly is. Because by using this clearly underaged looking avatar face you give the totally obvious statement that you play a minor even if the rest of the body looks kind of grown up.
This said: There is nothing wrong about playing a minor by using Avatar 2.0 as long as the minor stays in minor (PG / General) environment. Which implies that you - as Avatar 2.0 user- should (favorably) restrict your appearance to "general" rated sims, that you should never show off any bits which a minor should not show off in public and prevent any kind of sexual related chat or IM, even your AO matters there.
As soon as you violate one or more of these rules, you obviously violate the ToS and the Linden guidelines on the topic, which can be read here (it is worth a read).
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Clarification_of_policy_disallowing_ageplay
Even if it is not likely that Linden Lab will take action as long as you move safely within the legal framework, it also is very likely that many, many people dislike your appearance without telling you, so that you may have some difficulties with socialising and contacts - even if you hate pedophelia. On the other hand, Anime and Disney certainly isn´t something immoral or illegal, so if you are fine with puritan underaged cartoonish lifestyle, go ahead and try to find people who share your enthusiasm on the grid.
I personally feel a certain shot of discomfort once i face such a Cinderallanime anywhere else but in a Disney Castle or a japanese space station, and in adult environments of any kind I consider their presence being an outright provocation. And I am pretty sure that I am not the only one.
Btw., I find it pretty entertaining that you obviously cannot see the difference between a 21 ys old face and a 12-15 ys old face by yourself and start a discussion over it.
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Rikel Parkin wrote:I'm not sure what LL did wrong in the beginning, I wasn't here for that, but, when they opened their big fat mouth and talked about this new SL, that is when most people just up and left. That's the main reason for all the abandoned mainland.
Not really. Mainland started to become some kind of wasteland once LL introduced the Homestead Islands, Linden Homes and moved the adult circuit to Zindra..
The overall decline of total user numbers and sims certainly is not directly related to the Sansar announcement, but has various other reasons.
Maybe the not-too-well-crafted, pre-mature and not too enlightenig Sansar propaganda announcements caused some damage - and still do so - but a healthy customer relationship never was a strength of Linden Lab. So, business as usual, number one rule since 12 years of SL: "Don´t panic!"
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seanabrady wrote:II often hear Sansar referred to as SL 2.0, and when I do I get the sense that the person making that reference will be very disappointed. Its a brand new world, made for a brand new world. New tools, new design.
Sansar - according to whatever Altberg announced so far - will not not even be a "WORLD", but some kind of assembly of disconnected or loosely connected standalone "Experiences" (while an "Experience" can be a "world" - or not.).
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Prok, yeah, sure. Is Prok still around?
Stroker Serpentine, for the history books.
I guess that there are many well known persons in many different interest niches all over Second Life nowadays, but only a few caused or still cause some solid impact on Second Life as a whole (like Anshe, Stroker and the like did in the early years). Except the current Firestorm team members, who certainly are celebrities all over SL.
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Depends on what exactly you want.
Personal Shooter/Combat:
Chaos (free) - Look up "Chaos Combat System" on the maketplace). It´s simple and very effective.
And yes, VICE, which still works fine with adequately scripted vehicles and airplanes and whatsoever.
For more advanced stuff (server routines, additional capture roleplay tools, role setting and so on included):
Still, the Gorean Meter (GM), old but still OK and free, but it includes some stuff you may or may not want to use.
Then there is DCS, which is widespread, working, but very complex.
Additionally there are a few custom, very advanced meters and roleplay systems aound which were and are are developed by people who are not overly interested in sharing the scripts - mostly owners of dedicated roleplay sims. Just take a look aroud at such places (Check the destinaion guide)!
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SL peaked in 2009, with roughly 26,500 private regions and 5,000 Linden regions online (31,500 total). Then it suffered badly from the "Homestead debacle" for a year and recovered strongly in 2010 - with 25,500 private regions and 6,500 Linden regions online (32,000 total). Since then it is in a slow, but steady decline.
Linden Lab lost 7,500 private regions since then (down to 17,900 now) - while mainland regions (still roughly 7000 by now) mainly are held by Linden accounts (Maintainance) or seem to be mostly abandoned The overall income loss for Linden Lab (2011 -2015) certainly is worse as the region numbers indicate (roughly 28 percent loss of regions since 2010), because the 7,000 mainland regions have turned into wasteland mostly, and because the ratio full private region : Homestead region most probably is not too favorable.
Land always was the main income source for Linden Lab. And - except a decent improvement regarding marketplace business income - the premium account income (the secondary income source) declined as well since 2010. Add that costs (wages, taxes, technical maintainance and so on) most probably did not decline, but increase since 2010.
Concurrency is in steady decline since 2010, but this is only another indicator for a shrinking user base.
Basically Second Life, not only as a business for Linden Lab, is back to mid 2008 level, if not worse. Still profitable, but obviously without any growth potential in it's recent shape.
This said: 3D object imports were introduced in 2010 / 2011. So you actually can conclude that the steady decline since then is directly related to mesh imports. But if you do, eveyrthing significant which happened in the SL microcosmos since 2010/2011 is directly related to that as well: This would include the TPV like Firestorm, windlight, shadows, web based marketplace and whatever else development since 2010. You could conclude that the overall strategy Linden Lab followed over the past five years is all but successful and pretty off track, and you may be right there.
In fact, the technical progress made over the past five years did not really impress anyone, neither old nor new nor potential users, nor the media. It simply is not " felt" as being progress. Performance has not become decisively better (mainstream computers and LL servers still choke under the load), the UI has not become decisively easier to handle, in-world creativity tools have not been improved at all, customer service still is mediocre, while pricing still is hilariously high.
Seond Life lives a niche life now, and as it seems, it´s run in maintainance mode more or less - lately since 2011, when Linden Lab decided to fire a bunch of employees and obvioulsy gave up on development for a serious, radical and probably disrupting change for the better.
But you also should take a look at what happened oustide of the SL microcosmos. The planet suffers from a dramatic economical crisis and turmoil. Many people simply are not willing or able to hold big chunks of virtual land, not to mention Homesteads or full regions anymore. In times like these even the 10 dollars a month SL premium fee or the expenses on avatar polishing and other toys become a matter of austerity politics for many folks.
The world of online entertainment did not stagnate over the past five years. Second Life is only one niche among many, many other niches and offers on the market. Competition has become more fierce, more diversified and more challenging. OpenSim/Hypergrid, being the only 1:1, truly comparable competitor, hosts 71,000 (!) regions by now - which makes it almost thrice as huge as Second Life is by region numbers. And nothing comparable beats Minecraft if it comes to user numbers.
It´s too easy to blame everything on mesh imports. They certainly did not help Secnd Life as much as many think, and the way the Lab implemented them certainly is questionable. But there is more than one reason for the overall decline of Second Life.
Regarding Project Sansar: Let´s wait and see what the Lab is exactly up to there. They take a big risk on SL customer expenses, for sure. But you know, if they fail (which is likely, imho), there always will be that TPV named "Real Life Viewer".
;-)
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Interesting thoughts here. Still, I agree to disagree with those who claim that Second Life "failed". It certainly did not. There still are about 18,000 sims out there which are paid for by someone, plus the Linden continents (which, admittedly, look pretty wasted these days). 25,000 sims. Second Life only failed to fulfill the mainstream dream. It never really went mainstream, and lately since 2009 it never even came close again.
You can debate on why it failed to become a mainstream product, of course. And Linden Lab intentions. Maybe that´s the key for understanding "Project Sansar". Why should a company make a big fuss over something like "Project Sansar"? Certainly not for replacing the successful niche product by another niche product in the same niche.
Linden Lab wants more than the niche, and they ever wanted more than the niche. I remember times when they still were talking <in open> of "millions of new users" and whatever when they introduced sculpties and, later on, 3D object imports. Obviously neither sculpties nor 3D object imports attracted these "millions of new users". These features neither boosted Second Life nor did they ruin Second Life, but they certainly failed to turn Second Life into the wished mainstream product.
I guess this did not stay unnoticed at Linden Lab. And the question: "What made Second Life fail in the mainstream sense" is the answer to all open questions on "Project Sansar" - if there is any brain cell left at the Lab. And if they aren´t completely shut off the real world by wearing Oculus Rift 24/7.
To me its a mixed bag of reasons. ´The most obvious reasons are:
- Pricing (it´s WAY too expensive to rent a server - probably it´s CRAZY expensive to host these servers and backbones, too)
- Ease of use and learning curve (It´s WAY too complicated to learn for mainstream - not only because of a borked UI)
- Nipples (Mainstream hates nipples)
- Scalabilty (When SL scratched the 100 k user barrier in 2008 it almost died)
- The limits of the average home PC (Yes folks, look at what sells on the mainstream PC/tablet market).
There could be other (debatable) reasons like a mediocre to lousy customer service, some kneejerk strategical Lab desicions,regarding "attracting business", a not working advertisement and PR strategy, leaving the extremely promising path of uniformed in-world builing by in-world toolsets, missing the point of mainstream entry by producing negative headlines just when it was about to happen, and so on and so on. But i guess these reasons play a minor role and are directly connected or results of the listed main reasons, somehow.
And maybe, maybe, maybe .. this planet isn´t really ready or not willing to adopt ANY kind of Second Life like Virtual Reality in the mainstream sense. Forget the hype on VR and see what´s really mainstream after 12 years of Second Life and numerous parallel and similar attempts: Minecraft, Facebook and Google. While numerous Flash games cover the mainstream online-game market. And nothing beats WoW if it comes to 3D online gaming, while WoW runs an even older and more limited engine as SL runs.
Anyways, let´s assume that this planet is ready for the mainstream VR Linden Lab ever dreamt of. Whatever the Lab will come up with, it will not be a second Second Life. Because if they want to avoid problems with pricing, usability, nipples, scalability and mainstream computing limits they must strip things down to the bone and hope that the new shaders will make people believe that this is "progress". I have no clue what exactly the Lab is up to, but i do not expect a miracle or something as "significant" as (OMG!) "next generation".
I only hope for Linden Lab and Second Life that it will succeed, at least SOMEHOW, and not destroy the still pretty successful niche product which enables Linden Lab to just THINK of going mainstream.
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Medhue Simoni wrote:the key is the avatar.
Not necessarily, but in SL the avatar in "2nd person view" is part of the essential experience. The Rift and such devices provide the user with some kind of "advanced mouselook", which adresses a completely different perspective. Try one complete SL day in mouselook and you know.
The Rift certainly is great for shooter games and such, which are based on this perspective, but i doubt that the attempt to make virtual reality environments (as they are) visually even more "RL like" (mouselook is closest to the RL visual experience) can be a winner. The more comparable VR becomes to RL, the more will RL win the competition.
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Qie Niangao wrote:I suspect HiFi is not intended to be a real service, but to create technology interesting enough that they get bought out by one of the VR headset players -- assuming the VR market ever approximates the hype.
I guess so, too. It´s not so much about the in-world experience itself but about the technology and code used to go to there. Actually, I don´t think that these guys have any clue on content creation and especially user created content at all. Best was when I stumbled over some of their announcements, where they called a 5000 verticles test object (A very primitive spaceship) "High Poly".
Qie Niangao wrote:On the other hand, Rosedaledideventually make a reasonably successful service out of Second Life
He (and the talented, sometimes genius bunch of Lindens) certainly did so. Nevertheless, without the media hype and the users picking it up and transforming it into something no one ever expected and intended it to be the success would have been extremely limited. Tech alone is not enough for developing a mainstream or even niche controlling virtual reality environment. HiFi lacks any signs of intention to become that. Which proves your very first suggestion.
Qie Niangao wrote:Otherwise, I haven't seen anything there that's particularly innovative.
The question is: What´s "innovative" in the virtual reality context these days? As is, Minecraft is the most innovative virtual reality ever (so far), just by the number of users and by the financial return of investment - and profits. This proves that "high end", "next generation" or "ahead of the times" technical innovation is not decisive. Decisive is the user experience. A company releasing a hardly working piece of software for user testing purpose might be able to let the avatars fingers simulate typing, but most probably this company has no clue on why the hell amd what the hell for these fingers should simulate typing at all.
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Medhue Simoni wrote:Really, I don't see how you can say there is not a big financial interest, because of all the funding they have raised. That funding pays everyone on that team.
Ummm...this is a private investment on a pretty low scale, not a big time profit orientated one. Some people buy italian sports car for making "losses", some people buy some coders, you know.
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I doubt that there is a big financial interest behind Rosedale and HiFi. Looks and feels more like a hobby project run by some enthusiasts. Not much pressure and the boyz play with their toyz. Which can turn out good or bad - who cares?
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Will Sansar replace Second Life ?
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
Avatar complexity and basic 3D structures can most probably be optimised for a mobile compatible level by professional content design, without losing too much eye candy. Obviously LL works on exactly that by developing plug-ins for Maya and other widely adopted, standard pro 3D design applications. It´s targeted at professional content creators wo know what they are developing for: An online multiplayer environment and not a desktop app using unlmited resources. That´s a wise decision, but if the upcoming "experience market" really will change the SL-ignoring minds of the pro studios and freelancers to cooperate with Linden Lab no one can tell.
If it does change their minds it should not be a problem to provide the "experience" market with adequate products quickly, and if not, then it will take longer because the skilled dilettants will need some time to get things right. We´ll see.
What´s left to deal with are shaders and all the visual and functional bells and whistles, where a modular structure (from "low" experience to "ultra" goggle-experience and a wide range of pre-defined, easy to apply functionality scripts could do the job perfectly.
There are many opportunities to make Sansar a working and successful platform, once one stops with comparing it to Second Life and crying for a larger Second Life update instead of thinking big.