Vivienne Schell

Of course you can. As a premium member you´ll get a Linden Home initially, which is 512 sqm. If you abandon this, you can buy some 512 sqm mainland parcel (NOT on a private island!) wherever you want, which will not cost you more land fees (only the purchase price). The purchase price is negotiable, you´ll buy the parcel from a fellow resident, not directly from Linden Lab. Pricing varies a lot, so better take a close look. In case you buy a 1024 sqm parcel somewhere the 512 sqm premium bonus will be substracted, so that you will have to pay land fees for the additional 512 sqm only, NOT for the entire 1024 sqm! The premium 512 sqm bonus will always remain, regardless for which parcel size you go. Like: You buy: 2048 sqm Premium Bunus: 512 sqm You pay fees for: 1536 sqm 512 sqm parcels can be found best by the map (when you enable "show land for sale"). Or try the land auctions, wher Linden Lab auctions abandoned parcels directly. And remember that only MAINLAND parcels will do. And remember that you must abandon your Linden Home BEFORE you buy a parcel on mainland.

At least 4-5 days, worst case is up to two weeks.Worst case only if the cash out is noteworthy enough to be crosschecked. 5 days is average for not too high transactions.

Instead of petitioning for lower land fees alone I´d petition for rising the upload fees significantly in balance. This would make some money, would not hurt anyone overly but the 250 prim equivalence avatar makers (and such) and make many people truly onsider what they are doing. Some sculpt map poly lag attack sensor would be fine there, too.

I doubt that the land fees are the major reason for the ongoing decline. There are many, many more reasons which sum up I´m not strictly against lower land fees, but I fear that Altberg uses SL as cash cow for covering the development cost for his "supposed-to-be-next-generation-better-faster-bigger-butnotbackwardscompatible" misconception. I do not think that Altberg brought in enough venture capital there. So the Lab cannot and will not cut land fees significantly. The "sales tax" - basically - is a lousy idea in any way, because this tax will not work for in-world sales at all. If LL raises the fees on the marketplace in favor of lower parcel fees, our creative merchants will just use the MP for advertisement while directing potential customers to their in-world store by product description and done. I suspect that for the "supposed-to-be-next-generation-better-faster-bigger-butnotbackwardscompatible" misonception Altberg plans to impose a "sales tax" for each and any in-world sold item as well, which probably would solve this problem, but cause many others.

"I think you are seriously underestating one's ability to customize, and optimize, his or her own experience, and viewer." No, I don´´t. But fact is that one is forced to fiddle around a lot with these settings in order to get at least some kind of acceptable performance (on an average PC). And fact is that some issues, like the notorious "running out of texture memory" crash cannot be fixed by the user at all. All this and more might not matter much for the dedicated and kinda addicted Second Life user, but it´s not very convincing to anyone else out there. Why do journalists still post unfavorable screenshots which look like 2006? Because their laptops can´t render Sl in all it´s high end glory.

"I'd say LL is handling SL pretty well." They certainly handle it sufficiently. But obviously not well enough to escape the niche or even keep the customers they have. Which isn´t exclusively a Linden generated failure, but they contribute decisively. Talking about "performance hits", to stay on topic: Allowing something absurdly excessive like "sculpts" and almost unrestricted resource abuse by avatar attachments is the reason for the flood of nice looking but performance killing items on the grid. Such things never were and never will be online game compatible in a technical sense, unless someone invents the affordable supercomputer and free LAN broadband for everyone. That´s not what i call a good handling. "Starting anew (the next generation) is the way to go." What leads you to the conclusion that they are able to handle this "next generation" thing in a better, more successful way as they handle SL? Imagine someone builds a car which breaks down any 100 km and then this company comes up and promises that the next one will be better, faster, next generation and whatever. Would you believe in such a company? "An $800 (US) computer can run SL well" Oh yes, on a fairly well built sim with not more than 10 other high poly mesh, sculpt, script and monstertexture cladded avatars in the 96m viewer range, without shadows and probably windlight disabled and LOD set to zero it will riun fine, as long as your avatar does not move. 2006 revisited. That´s true progress for the masses. Unfortunately not everyone on the planet likes to watch her little high poly mesh avatar in the non-existing mirror while dropping tons of highest poly attachments onto it. Tho, I must admit, these dolls look cute on the blog screenshots. They only look kinda lonely there. " I think an automated process to determine efficiency would be hard to build." Not at all. They implemented the "land Impact" meter in the mesh upload functionality, which is quite helpful. Unfortunately land impact does not matter for attachments. And why they do not finally stop further uploads of sculpt maps, i have no idea. And of course they have a problem with abusive content now, but only because they allowed it. And that´s not a graphics engine problem, it´s a 100 percent user handling problem. "An NVidia 650 card (approximately $100 US) would work well." No. But i must admit, it depends on what you do in SL. It can be enough, but if you don´t wanna bath in your very own lil metaverse, forget it.

Yup, Quie. As they now are assuming that everyone will use an Ocolus Rift within the next two years and whatevr. That´s the method of Silicon Valley prophecy. LL execs, as so many other software garage and company execs are "children" of this business, and the most seem to have forgotten that (and why) the "new market" crashed the world economy a decade ago. Now the "spirit" is back, talking of the "next generation" kind of processing while not even being able to handle the recent one. :matte-motes-shocked:

"Much of the peformance penalty is the unavoidable consequence of opening SL to creation by others. I think the benefits are worth the costs." Not sure if SL is worth the cost of a high end PC for the average american housewife. And it´s not the newbie building a prim house who causes the trouble, actually. It´s the creator selling highly detailed, supercomplex, overkill scripted and system abusive avatar attachments in very first place. Knowing or not knowing that these kill the performance for everyone. That´s what happens when not regulated commerce rules over common sense, you know.

"My point is, that Professional is not as objective as you would think, especially for 3D assets." Exactly my point, Medhue. Professionalism cannot polish up a lousy design. It only can enhance a good design. I don´t care much about professionalism or claimed professionalism in SL. Either something works in a given environment or it does not, while "working design" does not only include working visuals but functionality, usability and whatever else the environment requires, too. The metaverse isn´t only about 3D, 3D is only one piece of the puzzle. When I first ran inro Drongles home on the atoll a loooong time ago his design impressed me. And it´s still a great and working design, and it´s just prims - and he´s not selling it. While, on the other hand, I have seen a whole bunch of disfunctional, terrible, distorting, supehighpoly, excessively textured, not navigatable stuff (in all formats) all over SL bugging down the system which was and is sold with a somewhat professional claim. The metaverse isn´t only about commerce, commerce is only one piece of the puzzle.

"Of course, the fact that this opportunity exists does not, unfortunately, ensure that it will be taken up." Well, it does not really need to be (and cannot be) a fully equipped 3D suite (like a Maya plug-in, omg), just something basic with an innovative UI which enables people to create and manipulate basical stuff like f.e. buildings in a variety of styles (The Sims enhanced), chairs, trees and whatsoever people will want to have and use, avatar included. I think of some kind of easy working Lego-like system for object/interactivity there. Basic interactive functionality should be applied easily by selection menus. Same for a sufficient set of basic animations and whatsoever. In fact, I think that LL should think about providing a LOT more initial, free content of high quality and a lot more implemented interactivity tools as now. This might initially outrage people who sell such basic stuff in SL right now, but LL would be better off by controlling the "state entry" completely. This would still leave enough space for semi-pros and pros who want to either import and sell even more advanced, "special" stuff - or create it in-world, on a less detailed and professional level. The thought of the "experience creator" surely is a nice one, but creating an experience is a difficult task for someone who only knows a 3D suite, same for the one who only knows about motion capture or, same for the one who only can script, same for the one who only knows how to run a social event. That´s why I think that "advanced as possible" in-world tools and a wide range of initially provided "toys" will be inevitable. It would take too long and cost the customer too much to rebuild the SL typical collaborative effect otherwise.

Medhue, doo you really wanna provoke me? OK! You are way too much part of the problem to be able to offer any reasonable tthought on the topic. Do your homework and stop playing the 3D pro. No one using Blender on your level (which you display in your store) is a pro. And please don´t yell at me again, or I´ll go very nasty. :matte-motes-evil:

"So, right now LL has come up with a new project that actually looks really interesting" I don´t see anything interesting there so far, except the wild speculations made by the audience of that spectacle.I agree with you on the other topics. If this will be a just another game platform exclusively made for a few Blender hobbyists and Maya/3ds pros for selling their stuff to people who are not creating anything it never ever will succeed in a larger scale, imho. Even Rosedale is on the wrong track there. Unity is already there for this kind of limited moneygoround. Nothing which runs on Unity does even come close to the commercial potential, creative versatility and the social culture of a true VR for a lot of reasons. And the Lab would be just...a lil bit late there, I guess. Maybe they target the IMVU type crowd, but the IMVU crowd will not really want to drop their place for another one cause they spent too much money, time and emotions on their virtual appearance there to drop it, only for spending again on the same, marginally better working/looking stuff. Nor will the IMVU content creators want to learm another script language, another toolset, another format and whatsoever. If it will turn out to be a platform with capable in-world creativity tools (besides a well done software design, a few visual gimmicks and an outstanding UI as you mentioned it), probably a 3D version of these "Build your own homepage" thingies on the web, I´d give it a chance. But I am very sceptical there.

"I wonder if LL have produced a product that allows people to create their own grids, using a version of LL's software." They actually did: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/23800.wss I do not know exactly what happened to that project. But there was another attempt to adress the enterprise sector later on, namely Second Life Enterprise Solution: http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/11/04/linden-lab-launches-second-life-enterprise-beta-second-life-wor/ http://www.youin3d.com/en/second-life-enterprise.html It actually was launched but withdrawn in 2011 or so. I cannot tell you if customers running SLE still are supported or can connect to the grid, but i don´t see a reason for discontinued support by LL there.

No, I won´t quit it yet. It still is by far the best VR on the planet, despite the shifted customer interest and the Lab following their very own off track, constantly disasterously failing ideas since years. But even this is some kind of quality entertainment, isn´t it? What i read so far on this supposed to be "next generation" pre-conception does not make me believe in a success there. And I consider it being one of the dumbest corporate PR decisions I ever witnessed in my life to announce this in such a premature state - in the way Altberg did it. It only confirms my impression that the ones who have the say at LL right now do not appreciate what they have there. Someone who does not really appreciate all the glory and all the disaster of Second Life cannot do "better". Someone with an attitude like "it´s all old crap, let´s trash it" cannot do "better" elsewhere. There is a basical lack of understanding the philosophical, psychological and social mechanisms of Second Life, and there´s balant ignorance towards the people who contributed to it´s evolvement and ongoing success (now reduced to survival) over the past ten years. They miss the fact that not shiny technology but people make Second Life. Everyone is "content". And it are the emotional ties to people´s own, personal expression of creativity which primarily made and make Second Life a success, not "experience creators", not "Mesh" or "Prims" or "Particles", not even commerce. Someone who kicks people´s teeth by telling them "You´re all old crap, your inventory is all old crap, whatever you have done so far is old crap, let´s trash you" should run some experimental software garage, not Linden Lab. I do not know why Rod Humble left, but maybe he knew better and was not willing to sell shiny new jackets without substantial content and philosophy which are supposed to attract gazillions of perople only cause they are labeled to be so wonderfully better, faster and bigger as the old ones... Second Life certainly would need a serious technical haul over and a basical philosophical redirecting. The Lab could certainly do that, and I am sure that there are enough talented people there who would love to contribute to a further evolvement instead of working on a DOA project. Unfortunately the corporate decision is a different one. Nevertheless, as long as Seond Life will be online, I´ll be here and try to get the best out of it as I ever did. It´s still an amazing place full of amazing people doing amazing things.

"I have the Sparrow, It's a gorgeous ship" YES! But his three mast schooner is even better! All his ships are fantastic. :smileyhappy:

"They seem to be aware of the problem now though and awareness is always the first step to solving a problem." Are they? :matte-motes-agape: Anyway, not all is boring. I really love the Bay City idea and theme, but it´s messed up by the speculative parcel pricing. I like the Wilderness, but I miss the challenge there. Where are these bloodthirsty piranhas? Or the Aztec ghosts who mercilessly tp the careless noob home? I mean, as long as these kinda nicely built "experiences" are teethless and more a challenge for the GPU but for the senses...:smileyembarrassed: Any kind of 2006 mainland mess was by far more bloody shocking interesting than that. But maybe you are right and they ARE aware of it and that´s why Altberg invented the "experience creator" replacing the "content creator". "Experience" includes more than just content. Classical 3D "content" alone never can attract enough people to justify a million dollar investment for displaying it. Content is absolutely useless until it´s used by people. Social actvities of any kind (or even gameplay) must be provided and must be attractive enough. The ideal would be an experience where people create their own content and their own gameplay and whatsoever in-wold, mainly by tjhemselves and the share this with a community. Baiscally, that´s the idea and method which made SL big. And Minecraft. It only got kinda lost over the years for various reasons. I still like it and I think that it would be a huge misconception to leave the building of the next generation thingy up to a handful of skilled enough "content" creators.

"i dont know what the difference between these and mesh is" Less lag and less other issues with the old ones, mainly. And I still don´t get what´s so superphenomicalfantastic about these mesh avi doll looks at all. Besides the terrible functionality hassle they cause.

"experience creator" What is that? Judged by LL´s own "experience creations", namely Linden Homes and such it demands a lot of masochism, extended love for boredom or the mentality of a 12ys old to become a next generation Linden darling then. :matte-motes-sunglasses-3:

"If "no land as we know it" means something deeper, I sure wish somebody would explain it." That´s an nteresting question, and I think that Altberg hints at something in the transcript (while disqualifying it by the well known "we still think about everything", of course). Quote: "We still have to think about whether we want to have multiple name spaces. Like do you have to ‑‑ if you come to different experiences, do you have to register all over again or can you have the same tea across now? For now we're saying you can have the same identity across all and communicate across all and have a social network across all. .... But I think it will be a lot easier in the future with where we make it easy for people to have their users, sort of have direct access into a particular experience or set of experiences. Where they can more control the messaging and how ‑‑ what the experience for those users are." Not sure, but this sounds like an adoption of the oooooold IBM hypergrid model, which certainly is anything but "next generation" (he, he). But on a hypergrid there is no "land" maintained by Linden Lab, but different hosts running different "experiences", which may or may not include "land". Just a thought.

"Has anyone had any thoughts on what he might mean by it?" I think Altberg does not know what he´s talking about there. It´s just another blow of hot air. As everything else he announced so far. Basically, each and every SL customer is a content creator and content of SL. So, what the hell can be more creator-centered as SL is?

Lex Neva has an extensive documentation on the rez-faux rezzer. Even if this product is not packaged with rez-faux, the FAQ is very helpful because almost every rezzer in SL works the same way. Link is here, please read, i could not explainn it better: http://www.lexneva.name/sales/faq.html

I doubt that there can be anything faster than SL as we know it with all the glory of unrestricted, resource killing, entiely user created content. Average game engines need low poly and resource efficient online game modelling, not these superexcessive high poly, overkill scripted avatar attachments and whatever else. It´s a wonder that LL manages to keep it running on somewhat upper middle class PC´s at all. I didn´t really read anything specific in the transcript, just more wishiwashi as before. It gives me the overall impression that Mr. Altberg probably wants to turn something inside out in good faith, but without knowing what the inside and outside actually is. Striking quote on market research and knowledge on user preferences: "...surveys to better understand what users are doing, looking at the data people are actually doing, market analysis ‑‑ I mean there's a ton of things that we can and will do and are doing, so ‑‑ to help make sure we make the right decisions and provide something that makes sense to people. But I wouldn't say we have sort of a machine going for that kind of activity, but it's something we'll work on." Wow, what a statement. So, basically, he admits that they didn´t care much over the past 11 years. Impressive. Maybe Mr. Altberg should do his standard corporate homework before starting something based on something which he obviously does not know of what it really is, how it works and what customers expect and do with it.

Nothing new, only the well known "better, faster, greater" wishiwashi. Seems as if these people neither have a real clue on what exactly their techie employees are about to develop nor on thei potential "better, faster, greater" customers. Reminds me of the "Viewer 2" project, only in a larger scale. :matte-motes-sunglasses-3:

You can rezz anything overlapping visually, as long as the root piece of an object or linnkset is located on your own parcel. This will make objects count against your own Land Impact, not the Land Impact of your neighbors. Nevertheless, as mentioned before, it´s wise to ask your neighbors for permission, otherwise overlapping objects and linksets might get returned.

"I doubt seriously that the neighbor could return the skybox." SInce last year or so everyone can return "overlapping" structures. The returner only must own the parcel which gets overlapped. Won´t work on Linden roads or for renters of rented parcels, of course. Not sure about parcels on private estates, even if "admin rights" are granted. But most likely this will work even there (if admin rights are granted), as on any mainland parcel.