Vivienne Schell

You miss the fact that there is NO content in this new world by default. You miss the fact that it will need more than the few really capable creators who are active in SL right now to fill up the hole in the sand. It took several years to fill Second Life with somwhat acceptable and attractive content - while most of content basics were laid down while Second Life enjoyed an overwhelming international media hype which swept in not only content, but consumers who were willing to buy this content. For the most creators in SL, which mostly were and still are pure hobbyists it took years to learn the tools, to learn the script language and whatever else. Even just participating in content creation and trading of virtual goods in this new world will cost time, energy and money, and i doubt that enthusiasm alone will be enough as a motivation there. It´s easy to wish a world full of shiny new items, but, in fact, there are NONE and there will be by far not enough within the next years to come after the launch. There will be very few items which almost will do what the consumer will want to do, but by far not the bvariety and by far not the wide palette SL has to offer now. It´s IMPOSSIBLE, and that´s why any other attempt by any other company in building something like a "better" Second Life, based on user created content from the scratch miserably failed. And this one will fail as well, my two cents.

"I think the premature announcement of Sanitised Life means that this is now extremely unlikely" Not sure, but they must start with effectie damage repair anytime soon, otherwise the damage done will kill their running business and Sanitised World as well. Damn, and i just bought a new tablet and smartphone. It´s a tragedy.

"you feel your creations become outdated in about two years already." No, not at all. My guess is that this siperduperfantastic brave "new" Linden World wll turn out to be just another mobile/tablet app which might be of some interest for people wanting clean family entertainment, but cannot replace Second Life as an environment. Not in any way. It would surprise me. I am not overly frightened there, i only complain on the fact that announcing this to be a "REPLACEMENT" (not even directly, but indirectly by a terribly dumb formulated statement someone made) lit some totally unnecessary fire which actually has the potential to harm the cow which Linden Lab milks and desperately needs for now - and in the future. "So what's the big difference about the idea that there will be a new platform for Second Life coming in two years that will make your current products outdated? Isn't that happening already, judging from your own workflow?" The only difference I COULD be worried about is the FACT that the full perm animations I licensed and the scripts I licensed will become obsolete and not usable in Brave New Linden World. Which means that I either have to pay again (which would cost me about 10,000 US dollars at least) for something which does not even EXIST or bite into the sour apple and start with producing my own animations and script my own animation engines, which would require YEARS of work. And yes, even my meshes will not be fully compatible. But actually, I am not really worried because i am pretty sure that Brave New Linden World will turn out to be just another Linden "visionary" and conceptional disaster (as so many before) and Second Life will last for a loooong time, either driven by Linden Lab or by someone else. And honestly, i have a Real Life (YES!) and my interests are not really limited to what some lil Software Garage in San Francisco has in their plans after 11 years of more or less successful crisis management.

"scaling (avatar height vs. home height, etc) has always been off in SL" RL scaling is pretty much off in any kind of 3D world. And even in 2D photography scaling by meters and centimeters is irrelevant. And I guess as long as there is a third person camera view scaling will be off. Could be set into relation to RL scaling by "mouselook" exclusively, probably. Probably, not likely. In the end it´s always a matter of perspective. You simply can´t have the real Eiffel Tower in a 3D environment, only an abstract model and your brain always will recognise it as abstraction. In regards to the second life screenshot above: The two people sitting there seem to feel comfortable in this piece of puffy pixels. If they would not, what was their motivation to rez it? Or (OMG!) spend money on it?

"Nobody wants the same totally random sizing of things in the better world as in the present one." SIZE MATTERS! :matte-motes-big-grin:

"Problem is that many of us have had to grin and bear it for years while we watched the technology of online gaming overtake SL technology." In which way? WoW, which is one of the most popular online games on the planet, does not look better as SL, Where did online gaming overtake Second Life exactly, and where is the online game which allows people to upload gazillions of virtual goods while running an amazon-like we-marketplace, in-world search, extensive building tools and even allows nipples? Is there any?

" respectable blogs"..."Second Life is archaic in terms of modern VR/Gaming/Sandbox or Entertainment" Ah yes, so the respectable blogs are as "archaic" as SL is? "a great leap forward" to where exactly? "Anyone who is building in mesh..." We are building in mesh since two years and it has shown NO positive results in overall growth of SL. SL stalls, mesh or not. So where is the logic? Mesh solves all the problems, yes? Did it? "Did you all complain to Sony when they ditched VHS for DVDs" Sony ditched betacam, and not exactly for DVD. Daring comparison for an obviously so tech savy person up-to-date person as you are. "technological development level.." What exactly do you mean by this? :matte-motes-yawn:

"So, what makes them suddenly think the world is ready for Matrix 2.0 now?!" The Board: "Second Life is profitable, but not profitable enough" The Techies: "It´s not high tech enough." The Board: "So, what´s the plan for conquering the virtual univerese?" The Techies: "High Tech like... (come up with a series of tech language terms which sound as promising as the program running R2D2, crowd looks stunned.) The Business Folks. "We must go mobile, cause this is the future market" The Philosophers: (Nietzsche quotes in chinese, rest of the crowd looks stunned) The Board. "Then lets go hight tech on mobile devices while keeping some pages of Nietzsche, perfect solution!" (Everyone grumbles a bit) The Sales Persons: "And we´ll sell it as being the next generation VR. People always love "NEW"" (Everyone nods) The Board: "Well, then go ahead and create the next generation new high end tablet app with a shot of Nietzsche, good luck with it!"

"A rather sad Kira." I´d not be overly concerned over Linden Lab wasting millions of dollars on the development of a DOA tablet app. As long as this brandnew, superfantastic, truly revolutionary and outstanding and absolutely exiting vision does not kill the cow who pays the bills. Unfortunately their recent CEO lacks any kind of sense for public relations and inflamed some truly harmful fire by some lousy crafted announcement. And even this isn´t a reason to be sad. On the contrary. :smileylol:

"i've seen entire sims from reputable builders disappear, precisely because LL introduced new things´" The difference HERE is that almost any single asset format will change. The history of mesh or whatsoever has only proven that partial format changes alone didn´t have ANY positive impact on the overall growth of SL. Now they gamble and hope to get away with a radical cut. I think they basically miss the fact that the vast majority of dedicated Second Life customers (not the loud minority on SLUniverse and elsewhere) is not really interested in any substantial changes of technology, but in their inventory and what they can do with it, how they can do something with it and - most important - what for? And since friday for how long? Old dilemma: Techies vs. Philosophers/Business People. At LL the techies obviously dominate all other groups.

"We have no plans to disallow anything that's going on in SL and is legal." Wishiwashi. Alcohol is legal in Sweden, but so expensive that no one can afford it. There are many ways to set up restrictions, not only legal ones, while claiming to be the ward of the holy grail of freedom. :matte-motes-nerdy:

"Just remember we bitched and now they are saying “we hear you and we are going to fix it”" You listened to the interview all over again? I doubt it, cause you obviously missed the essential statement: "It will run on many more platforms". Which are the "many more" platforms? Right, mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. Take a look at what actually runs and sells for tablets and smartphones. You will not find anything even close to the complexity and rich content even SL has to offer, not to mention high end games. And you won´t find anything like that there for at least the upcoming ten years. Given this fact, all the already unrealistic whining for highest end supeduperhighendgraphics and complex 3D editing and presentations which even a professional 3D application can´t manage to render without a supercomputer will not succeed in LL plans. And all this in real time online? You´ll be disappointed, in fact. It will not become the wet high end dream of the SLuniverse crowd, it will most certainly go mainstream tablet app. Dot. Then there are consoles. This is a different story. I am not sure how far it might be possible to connect asset serveers of the size SL needs and all their functionality to the playstation or the Xbox. Not sure about the legal environment, licensing and whatsoever. I leave this up to the more tech savy crowd. Allright, it´s just my suggestion, and who knows what´s on the master minds at the Lab. But I seriously doubt that a maisntream tablet app can match what SL is right now at all. It certainly will not be "better" in the sense of the ones calling for the highest end revolution. In the end it´s not Linden Lab listening to you, it´s just Linden Lab listening to what they think is necessary for expanding their business. "The only way to make Second Life better is to start from scratch and create it in a modern fashion and structure." Tths might be true, but i do not see any valuable reason to switch almost any SL asset format to something different Basically this will leave LL alone with a mobile app lacking any substantial content, unless someone sees value in creating and selling content under a ToS which depraves the one who does so af any rights. And without an initial consumer crowd? I can see the "plan", if there is any, but i fear that Mr. Altman has a BIG gamble going on, and nothing but a big gamble. We´ll see. But I am far from being excited over this.

The really good thing here is that the inventory loss bug finally has been fixed: It´s official strategy now! YAY! :matte-motes-sunglasses-1:

" I'm impressed with how willing Ebbe is to communicate with us here. I much prefer him answering questions in the forums than just making a blog post." I´d be impressed by posting some kind of informative plan covering the obvious and to be expected customer comcerns and questions. Not by causing a business harming stampede which is about to stall any kind Sl business and I am certainly not impressed by the repetitive mentioning of words like "better", "greater" and "fantastic". I´ve heard these from the Lab since 2005.

"What we users want has been expressed since 11 years, no need to tell this over and over again." That´s too easy. SL lost more than half off it´s population since the homestead fiasco happened (which was kidding in comparison to announcing a "better" shiny world where existing content will probably become totally obsolete). Linden Lab did not manage to recover from this self-made blow. But their aim definately is not (and never was, read your Mitch Kapor) running a niche product for a niche audience (face it, that´s what SL is right now). They want mainstream, more revenue, more profits, more users. They only can achieve this not only by introducing a simplified, much more effective technology which will work on smartphones and tablets primarily, but by leaving the niche stigma per se. And here we are: What´s "better" there? Is "better" meant as a term for describing a niche audience performimg their niche activities in a technologically better way? I doubt this. Lately since SL lost momentum and half of it´s audience years ago almost everything the remaining users "wanted" were wishes proclaimed by a self centered niche audience and everything but maintream. Its only my suggestion, but for continuing in the SL niche no one would need a complete replacement of what we have right now at all. AndI I doubt that anything truly competitive will ever be developed by someone else for this niche, which not only demands high tech but high attention and sensitive handling. It´s just too stressful and work intensive for a profitmaking company to deal with all the self-proclamed godesses and gods of the virtual universe and their moods and self centered opinions, only to keep things going in a somewhat profitable way. So here comes a clear cut. It will and must be a clear cut for Linden Lab (IMHO), but i doubt that it will please the niche audience overly, including you and me, including the ones who favor this cut out of their self centered niche view. Second Life 2 most probably will not be like Second Life 1. It will be much more mainstream, which will include licensed content creation, a lot of painful restrictions and a much less bloated (and capable) client software for tablet compatibility. It will focus on what supposedly sells the best, like the virtual dress up (but never down) game, will avoid any kind of what we know as "adult" or "fetish" content and roleplay, will have a lot less salt and pepper but more family compatible looks and content. It will be connected to social media by default and lose a lot of it´s sexyness. It most probably will be compete with browser chat games like IMVU - and NOT with SL 1. It will not even carry the name "Second Life" (my ten cents). I guess the plan was and is to let the Second Life "lifestyle" niche exist for while and hope for dramaless extinction born out of extended boredom while transporting mainstream compatible SL creators and their mainstream compatible, not ripped from somewhere/templated products (maybe 5-10 percent of the content offered on the MP) over to the new platform for familily entertainment. Family entertainment isn´t bad, i like the Simpsons! Not a bad plan, and most probably the only one of value for Linden Lab as a company, but i am pretty sure that it will be painful for all these who neither like the Simpsons nor Disney.

"I did not say I was shutting anything down. Where did you get that? I said we're going to invest in our future success in a major way. If you have long term interest in our (and your) success that should be good news to you. If you think I should have told you much later that we're making that investment, when I would have more details, then ok, consider that a mistake I made. Many people want to know that we are doing that and are very happy to hear it. You did not want to know that now, but rather hear a more detailed plan say six months from now?" Nothing against a better SL. But it´s perfectly clear that SL2 is intended to replace SL1. So yes. you frankly told people that SL as it is now will be shut down, cladded by a wishiwashi "once it´s not proftable anymore" statement and an undefined time span. As a content creator i am not willing to invest more time and money into a zombie platform unless i know exactly about a migration plan and which parts of my creations will be portable to SL2 and which will be lost (in a technical sense). Communities (which i consider being content creators, too) want to know about the new community rules (like how do you deal with so-called "adult" content in SL2 - nipples or no nipples?). As a consumer i am not willing to spend any money or time on something of which i do not know exactly if it will be of any value in SL2 or not. For now all i know is that there will be "winners" and "losers". That´s inavoidable, but you simply cannot keep SL1 going (until 2.0 is up) without any clear specification of "win" and "lose" and by leaving people in total uncertainity and confusion. The lasting impression is that Linden Lab itself is uncertain and confused about what SL2 will be and look like, and that´s not a promising perspective. "Better" is not a valuable description, Linden Lab had 11 years to make SL "better" (and made it better in many areas). Not valuable enough for any further investments of time and money. Please clarify. And please do it as soon as possible or the cow you milk will wander to fields where Linden Lab has no benefits at all. And then we´ll neither have SL1 nor SL2.

"...there are areas where we just have to move forward and do some things in new ways and thus can't guarantee 100% backwards compatability..." Please clarify: What areas? Is there a migration plan? And if there is one, why will Linden Lab run two competing platforms at the same time - which would be an economical absurdity? Under this more than uncertain circumstances, can you honestly encourage content creators in Second Life to continue with development for Second Life 1.0?

:matte-motes-shocked: ya, everything must come to an end, and SL has come to an end. not really unexpected, but yeah.

In worst case they can shut down the Lab pretty soon. Who wants to spend money and time on an inventory which will be obsolete within a few months? Or on maintaining it? Or on decorating a sim? Or whatever? A better Second Life is a good idea, but as long as people can´t transfer inventory, it´s a suicidal idea.

Dear Linden Lab follies, your announcement certainly is among the worst shaped i ever recognised in the (real life) business world. Why? Because it simply lacks any kind of sensitivity towards the people who feed you, who are your customers. How can you even DARE to tell your existiing customer base (content creators as consumers alike) that you plan to shut down the platform in favor of "developing"(!) a new one without even giving a HINT on the benefits? What the hell will be BETTER there? What are you talking about AT ALL? What is the "spirit of second life" exactly? What exactly will not be backwards compatible? How can you even DARE to threaten paying customers with losing their million dollar investments and gazillion object inventories just because you, the Lindens, decided to come up with a new toy for your own developer pleasure? Sure, something like upgrading a game in the game industry is a common process, but this here is NOT a game. SL is a pile of user created content in any way, and not something which simply can be replaced by ... yes, by WHAT the hell??? How can you expect, after this terribly stupid announcement, that someone will spend a SINGLE dollar more on a doomed platform, while no one knows what is so superfantasticorgasmic great about the follow-up??? Frankly spoken: It would have been better to tell people: "SECOND LIFE WILL BE SHUT DOWN ANYTIME SOON". Watch out for the Lindex over the coming weeks and prepare for shutting down your office. I doubt that you can run faster as your customers will run. OR clarify and commit yourself to Second Life, its further development and rre-establish the confidence, which you have lost dramatically. Do it soon.

"I rather face some lag than having to walk around in some generic world only a handful of people can contribute to." Well, if everyone turns down graphic performance to minimum level only to escape the annoying "bad memory allocation" bug, what´s the difference then? Linden Lab must fix this, fix it soon and fix it reliably, otherwise this will stop the show sooner or later.

"..you have the option of turning down a lot of detail.." Hard to explain to someone who spent some money on a PC or a Mac which can run every high end game on high prefs while simultanously processing win 8, 3Ds and a bunch of background apps without such kind of hassle. No, this is an exclusive Linden (coding) problem. And with the users... it´s like with the hen and the egg. While LL is the hen.

"If people would use 512x512 textures instead of 1024x1024 ones, they could add both a normal and specular map and still use less memory." This is true, but not a valid excuse. Linden Lab allows people to upload, use and abuse all kinds of resource killing things and iintroduced a lot of resource killing shinies all by themselves. The logical result is that it´s totally up to Linden Lab to keep things going.

Sorry, but that´s a not always working workaround, niot a solution. And this workaround will fail finally and forever once creators start using excessive bump maps as materials. This is a showstopper bug, and nothing less, and it should be fixed ASAP, and if it cannot be fixed: Fire the developers. End of message.

Yeah, we are busy. Busy enough to be seriously annoyed by being forced to click something in the world after hacking some inflamatory lines into the local chat floater before being allowed to move our pixels (3.5.0 beta). Whoever had this glorious idea of degrading the local chatline functionality should fix it ASAP. Straight ahead.