Vivienne Schell

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.

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!

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

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?

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.

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!"

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.).

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.

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)!

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". ;-)

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.

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.

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, Rosedale did eventually 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.

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.

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?

40 fps still is too slow for a 970 GTX. I suspect that there is some hardware bottleneck, like the CPU, lack of memory, your network card or whatsoever.

"Sansar" means "World" in hindu (Indian language) and "Marten" in turkish language, and who knows what else. However, if it´s truly related to the so called next generation platform they pretend to develop, why the hell can´t they pick up some truly next generation name instead? Ah well , anything is better as "SL 2.0".

True. And it somehow sounds piratish, like "Sansibar". This certainly proves what we ever suspected: The origin of the LL source code is stolen from some caribbian natives, and Phil Linden is the alt of Johnny Depp!

Well, maybe they dropped the final "A" (from Sansara) because they must lose some weight for keeping the sinking ship floating?

Ther are none and never were and never will be because there is no "SL2" in the plans. Except in the minds of some people who are not employed, related or whatsoever to Linden Lab.

Coby Foden wrote: Ichi Rexen wrote: Just wondering if anyone has any updates. We had the announcment and i was present at the later firestorm meeting with the lindens but since then i have heard nothing. Mostly whispers and un confirmed rumours. Would be nice if they kept us updated to some extent as some of us (ME...) are excited for this new world! Maybe the original plan is still in effect? Alpha and beta phases in 2015, and then the release of the 'final' version somewhere in 2016. If so then there are nothing more to tell at this stage. Or should Linden Lab announce every month: Month 1: Yes, we're still on schedule. We implemented this and that. Month 2: Yes, we're still on schedule. Adding new features going on. Month 3: Yes, we're still on schedule. More new features were added. Month 4: Yes, we're still on schedule. Again more features were added. ... ... and so on until it's finally released? Yes. Either you go public or not. Someone decided to go public. Phil got at least THIS right, while Altberg did not. His wishiwashi maybe maybe not whatsoever pseudo announcements are only annoying. Coby Foden wrote If something goes terribly wrong and they decide to abandon the Next Generation Platform project they surely will make an announcement about it.: If you go pseudo public the way Linden Lab does, then "something going terribly wrong" is even more deadly for a business company as if f.e. Phil´s HiFi would become delayed or even failed, because Phil never made some wishiwashi promises as Linden Lab did - It´s all transparent.

Remember that Phil still is on the Linden Lab board. Mitch Kapor was one of the founding fathers of Linden Lab as well, so no surprise and nothing new at all. But....if HiFi is what Linden Lab is up to, then there will still be a looooooong way to go.

Nova Convair wrote: The CPU and GPU load will always be low since SL is not able to make use of modern hardware but not that low as in your case. That´s not true. Second Life is fueled by OpenGL, and that´s what almost every professional 3D-modelling suite on planet earth uses for rendering. It´s the industry standard. Most Windoze based games might use Direct-X, of course, but this isn´t better as OpenGL. So, who told you that "SL is not able to make use of modern hardware"? Some self declared "3D specialists"?

I run a GTX 970 and get up to 60 fps even in supercrowded regions, with maximum prefs (ultra). The bottleneck must be something else, it certainly is not the GPU or the SL viewer/server per se. I´d first try to do a CLEAN viewer install, as described at the Firestorm website. Maybe some old prefs slow down your performance. Probably you should reinstall your drivers, which often are the reason for performance drops. Another good idea is going for a 64-bit system and viewer, because the 32-bit OS cannot handle the available memory as well as a 64-bit one can. 32-bit systems/viewers and big inventories are not really compatible. No problems anymore here with 64-bit OS/64-bit Firestorm and 8 GIG RAM.

SL is exactly what you, me and any other person wants it to be, within the technical limitations. But if you lack imagination, communication abilities, curiousty, the ability to learn skills, a certain degree of creativity and if are not able to develop some kind of sense for black humor paired with explorer mentality, and if you do not appreciate some kind of "digital art brute" it´s not for you. There are enough alternatives, which are targeted onto the pure consumer crowd, where everything is nice, tidy, clean and will not disturb your prrecious bodily waves. Even within Second Life, ironically. There´s simply more in the picture than meets the eye. Regarding this article: It´s only a reflection of the average newbie experience, unfortunately. But on the other hand "business" journalists writing on subcultures or artwork aren´t a serious source of information.