Vivienne Schell
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Posts posted by Vivienne Schell
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Vivienne Schell wrote:Do you have more information about that, Vivienne? Last time I saw an official statement about this, Ebbe Linden was talking about some content being transferable some not. That was a year or so ago though and lots must have changed since then.
There is no other valid information than the original one, therefore the original one is still valid. I´m pretty sure that Altberg would have mentioned any policy change on such an essential topic. He did not. He only "specified" (in another of these wishiwashi interviews with overfriendly reporters) that "some" meshes made for SL "might" be usable for the "new platform". That´s a "nothing" to me. But the SL inventories as they are will not be usable, for sure.
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Mr, Altberg (a.k.a.Ebbe Linden), Linden Lab CEO, made perfectly clear that SL inventories will not be available on the "New Platform" (They have not named it yet). So, this "New Platform" cannot be a "sequel", but a parallel, independant development.
From what Linden Lab officials announced so far the "New Platform" might be related to the SL experience to a certain degree, but no one knows anything specifical - except that there will be avatars and 3D objects and that you can use your SL account name. BUT: It definately will not be a "Second Life Two" or something. Second Life will still remain, even when the "New Platform" will go online.
Alpha testing will be (so they think) late this year, but you must be Maya savy for this. If you want to know more, ask Mr. Altberg or the Investors. They obviously are the only ones who are authorised to talk.
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There will be no sequal, only a "new platform". So you cannot sign up for "SL 2" beta cause there will be none.
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You all miss the point. The point is that neither Linden Lab employees nor their CEO decided to drop Second Life as a priority for something different. It was the decision of the board, and the board follows completely different priorities as you, me or Linden Lab as an executive unit.
It´s only about venture capital, profits and the financial future of the project named "Linden Lab". No investor is interested in more than eight faces on a mesh, in maya or blender, prims, avatars or whatsoever, not even interested in Second Life.
Fact is that Second Life does not grow anymore. It has a hard core, die hard user crowd which spends enough money on it to keep it kinda profitable - in spite of the obvious shortcomings.But it is not mainstream compatible, has no potential for going mainstream due to many, many conceptional and basical reasons. Investors insist on growth and do not accept decline or even stagnation.
Almost everything you discuss here is based on the SL experience as is. While the investors already dismissed the SL experience as it is. Your interest is in fundamental conflict with investor interests and aims. You want a somewhat "better" Second life, they want no Second Life at all. They want something completely different, mainstream compatible, clean, controlled, regulated and highly profitable which they even can sell to Microsoft or Apple or whomsoever and which will not be in the news for pixel nudity, addiction or failed lifes.
Second Life as a conception is way too rebellious, way too "not kosher", way too niche, there´s too much anarchy, sex and crime and user power in it for the american prime time.
Most of you just show wishful thinking by calling the new platform "SL 2", while every official at LL and on the board avoids even mentioning the term "Second Life" if it comes to the "new platform". For a very good reason.
Basically, it´s not the eight faces mesh or the prim or the windlight or the system avatar which stopped the growth of Second Life. The child porn scandal and the homestead pricing disaster had a much more massive impact. It´s not the rendering engine - 80 percent of all SL users run stone aged, underpowered computers, anyway. It´s not the default camera position or whatever. It´s not as if it would be impossible to make SL run on a cloud and within a browser. It´s just the fact that Virtual Reality in the Second Life shape (which is a giant, very complex and anarchist user sandbox model combined with the idea of "virtual land", object trade, user interaction and a lot of brilliance inavoidably paired with a lot of trash and breathtaking kink) does not work for mainstream success.
So, if you expect any kind of "better" Second Life, you are on the wrong track. Altberg was not selcted by LL, but by the investor board. Sure, he´s a Virtual Reality alien, he has no clue on the technology nor on the subcultural aspects which make Second Life and Linden Lab (still) profitable. He does not have to have a clue, because he was hired for one reason: More profits. More profits or die, sweet bird. Add that the main investors have stakes in some very related ventures, like software and hardware companies. These cannot participate in and profit by SL development, but they can by a different platform development.
And everyone who really believes in a kind of "Second Life 2" is either completely blind or just driven by wishful thinking. Whatever the company will come up with, do not expect much more similar components than the avatar.
The debate "Why did SL not grow anymore" and "How can LL improve SL" is over. It´s too late. Investors decided to go for something completely different while Altberg tries to sell it as "better, bigger and whateveryoucanimagine" - just to keep the blind and the wishful paying their fees. And this "something different" certainly will not keep Second Life alive. The only ones who can are the Second Life users. If they refuse to exchange what they have for a virtual Disneyland.
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Nice!
But if you want the "normal" scale (which you, i suppose , base on your subjective RL experience), go and get a RL. Debating RL norms and scale in an environment which is not based on anything but purely subjective perception is absolutely clueless.
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ChinRey wrote:Does anybody happen to knwo where I can find Ebbe Linden's email address?
Ummm...if you despair, go and mail Mr. Altbergs boss at:
Then start to calculate like 1 + 1 = 2 and then you probably know what kind of interest fuels the glorious "new platform". This interest is certainly not related to Second Life or Second Life users.
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Bobbie Faulds wrote:The biggest reason there are the height and size issues is the camera position.
Not really. The biggest problem is that almost no one in SL uses mouselook, which is the only truly RL like and most "natural" way to look at the world (Real and Virtual). As long as (whatever) camera position is a subjective matter, there simply cannot be any kind of "normal" size.
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Bree Giffen wrote:What do you think will be needed in the new SL that would keep avatar sizes in the normal range and what would be needed so that homes, furniture, etc also be kept in check?
Well, your SL inventory, i guess. But, you know, the Yahoo exilant in charge (Mr. Altberg.a.k.a. "Ebbe Linden") made perfectly clear that SL inventories will not be available on the "new platform" (which obviously has nothing much in common with Second Life).
And because your SL inventory and the inventories of about a half million active SL users will not be available on the "new platform", something like (SL related) "normal size" will be obsolete - due a lack of relativity.
But you have a chance to be a normal size setting pioneer! Why? Because a half million active SL users will not trash their inventories for jumping naked, depraved, noobish, without skills, communities and whatever else SL makes Sl onto the "new platform"!! As a result you might be all alone, setting your very own standards of "normal size". And wait for a few years until SL finally bites the dust - THEN everyone will be forced to eat your opinioon on what "normal size" is!
YES!
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Openness and honesty from Linden Lab? I think that they quit that lately in 2007. Since then it´s only bla bla bla and "It will be superfantasticorgasmic, people!!". Not even a decent "Sorry, **bleep** happens" if the superfantasticorgasmic new shiny ends in the user garbage can.
Same for the so called "new platform" or whatever it is or is not meant to be or meant to be or will be or not will be...ugh. Hot air, gazillions of hot air. Nothing specifical, except that this CEO Yahoo exilant and his followship on the board seem to expect from us that we throw away our inventories for following him into his shiny brave new world (run by the same people with the same ideas and the same deficits as the old one was run by).
Rubbish.
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" LL has spent way too much trying to win the Lottery .. and not nearly enough time plugging the leaks and holes in their existing house"
Remember, it´s Silicon Valley we´re talking about. Winning the lottery is a big deal there. Especially for former Yahoo executives.
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There are not only too many tools, but too many possible user directions. I cannot offfer a detailed solution for Second Life, because reducing SL to a "core" or a "core" target audience performing a "core" activity would certainly destroy what Second Life makes Second Life. The result would be something completely different.
And don´t get me wrong, I do not favor a "reshaping" of Second Life for mainstream acceptance at all. My point is that within the contemporary market environment and technological limits Second Life as is (as a conception) does very well. There might be some ways to improve what there is marginally, but I do not think that these improvements will make Second Life a mainstream compatible application.
The core question is. Do you want a niche existance or do you want mainstream success? I am fine with the niche, but obviously decisive folks are not...
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Penny gets one thing right. Whichis that the complex conception of Second LIfe (it´s not only a game, but a sandbox, soicailising environment, and whatever else one can imagine) requires a certain level of complexity regarding user interface design
Fact is, you did not learn to tie your shoes within one hour, nor did you learn to drive a car within one hour.
The essential problem Second Life has is that such a supercomplex conception as Second Life is build on does not fit into the mainstream online habits anymore. I doubt that the recent mainstream audience would ever accept a learning curve which requires more than one or two hours of their precious time anymore. Second Life was born into a time where even the internet browsers were all but easy to handle for the user. In a time, where the internet user was willing to learn a thing. But the times have changed. We´ve seen a lot of simplifications meanwhile, wherever mainstream is targeted, not only in computing.
I doubt that Penny´s demand for "better tools" will help there. Even "Better Tools" require learning the tools. "Less tools" is the mainstream answer. Second Life has too many tools for too many and too different possible user activities basically, that´s the problem. Not only the quality of the tools.
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"If anyone doubts this, just go download the current version of Daz Studio. These days in 3D art you can fit almost anything to anything. Last year when fitted mesh was coming out I noted the 'button issue' of "fitted" and deformer solutions - that fine details which pop out of an outfit and are not part of the rigging will lose shape when deformed. Daz has, somehow, solved this for most cases."
Interesting. Is DAZ a multiple user online environment? Did I miss something? Oh no, wait. It´s a single user desktop app. Oh my.
"Linden lab fundamentally does not understand the visual."
They do in the real time multiple user online game sandbox sense and within the the technological limits of real time multiple user onlne sandbox game sense, which includes massive bandwidth, database and local PC rendering stress. You obviously don´t. You seem to think that Autodesk or whatever 3D creativity applications - and the superhighpoly output one can achieve with such suites - can be simply applied to something completely different as Second Life is. You´re dead wrong. Linden Lab did a pretty good job with beating the hell out of OpenGL and optimizing the dataflow for SL purpose, in fact.
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"Cloud Party was bought out and shut down before it got out of the early alpha stages of development. It was certainly nowhere near ready for prime time before the plug was pulled, so we'll never know if it ever would have been viable."
Wrong. We know that the conception was not viable because it was shut down. People with a viable commercial interest do such things to hopeless attempts.
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"Once you start doing that you might as well just rebuild it from scratch."
Too easy. No one can "rebuild" Second Life "from the scratch". One can build something different. Based on a completely different conception and a basically different technology under the surface. But Second Life as is is a unique mixture of Linden Lab input and user creativity which piled up over ten years. No one can ever manage to "rebuild" the same thing. And anyone who will try that will fail miserably for various reasons. Just like Opensim, In-Worldz or even Cloud Party (which came very close to an attempted "Rebuild") failed to atttract more than a niche audience. I don´t know where you people build your hope for a "Second Life Two, Three, Four, Five or Six" on. It´s a miracle to me.
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"Did you know those of us who took part in the mesh beta had to fight tooth and nail to get LL to include any sort of rigged mesh at all? LL did not want to do it."
Yes, I know. And because i know i see my thesis - that LL finally listened to the "Hail the Holy Mesh" crowd is just another proof for their lack of intention to adress the mainstream crowd - approved. And another fact many of you seem to ignore is that Linden Lab operates with very limited resources lately since the big lay off campaign in 2009/10 (Which was the final retreat into a niche). Linden Lab simply did not and does not have the resources nor the time to implement your wishes. So, what you got is what LL was able to give - not more, not less.
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Any kind of mesh avatar in SL is a showstopper for newbies, rigged or not rigged does not matter. It´s something for the advanced user only, who is willing to trade flexibility for kinda better looks (kinda, if 10 percent matter).
Mesh clothing attachments are close to the "newbie showstopper" status, although there are enough clothing attachments available which might fit the legacy shapes somehow. But even there, the requiremet of the inavoidable alpha layers, besides a number of other obstacles, is puzzling enough for a newbie to give up on it.
Niot to mention the render and memory stress all these shinies load onto an average PC.
This is obvious, but it proves that LL basically gave up on a mainstream Second Life a long time ago and decided to focus the attention on the dedicated crowd they have instead of gaining new customers. Avatar attachments were a major problem from the start, but as Penny mentioned, the problem has turned into a dead end street.
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There will be no "SL2", anyway. Maybe the newmainstreamthingwithoutanameyet has avatars and works in 3D. But this does not imply any similarities to SL beyond the fact that both use pixels.
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A "SL 2" certainly would be a disatster if there would be a "SL 2". There will be none. People on the forums mainly tallk about further improvements of Second Life or some changes based on the Second Life conception as is.. They do this because they simply ignore the commercial motivation of Linden Lab. Linden Lab cannot have any interest in spending a several million dollar investment and resources galore on a conception which never lived up to it´s initial promises. Whatever this "new, better, whatsopever", exclusively mainstream targeted baby will be, it will be everything but NOT a second, third or fourth Second Life.
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INo. They actually don´t have to fear this, since they changed the ToS in favor of such actions. But back to topic: Expect this bettergreaterfantasticsuppposedtobenew hi tech fantasy shiny they have in the plans to be very, very different from what you are used to in Second Life in almost every way - IP right handling included.
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Basically Linden Lab COULD take down whatever content they want to take down for no reason at all.
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Nevertheless Linden Lab performed a pre-emptive strike regarding "Avatar" for some valid reasons. Which proves that "Safe HArbor" is only sooooo "safe", otherwise...who cares?
And you cannot really compare something as BIG and established as Facebook to Linden Lab and their survival project for which they do not even have a name yet. Different pair of shoes.
Apart from that: There a numerous truly BIG lawyer associations making BIG money with prosecuting IP right violations. Try to post a Getty image on your personal website and you´ll certainly get an unpleasant mail within a few weeks.
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Many reasons, Qui. One of the most important is "Public Image". Imagine a 3D world based on - or substantiallly reliant on - ripped off from whatever game, turbosquid, DAZ or other SL typical rip sources. Do you think that the media attention will be a positive one? Mainstream needs media attention, in a straight out positive way. At least in the beginning. Linden Lab cannot risk another "Looted Life" anti-campaign. #
No one really cares about Second Life anymore, and that´s why Linden Lab and most rippers, thieves and license violators get away with this - meanwhile- breathtaking pile of balant IP right violations. Safe harbor or not - and safe harbor isn´t as safe as many here suggest. Not at all. Why do you think the Lab removed these "Avatar" thingies BEFORE Cameron thought of filing a DMCA and then sue LL into hell?
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There are different ways to draw some red lines for object importers. One of them is what they did lately, iimposing some cash out limits (600 US dollars a year, any more requires IRS tax form and ID card copy). This certainly helps in some way. - in Second Life.
But for the "new" thingy it might become inavoidable to license off-world content creation to real persons with a real ID exclusively - IF they are serious about "Mainstream". It´s what almost every serious and broadly known game platform does if it allows mods. Only this can prevent the rippers, IP thieves and "who cares?" crowd from taling over - as they did with the glorious Second Life "Mesh Revolution".
"Safe Harbor" is not an option.
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Secondlife #2 - 2015 Beta
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
If i were a reporter at the Guardian i´d give a damn on non-disclosure agreements. Unfortunately the Guardian isn´t interested in the fate of Linden Lab customers or Second Life anymore...:matte-motes-nerdy: