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Amras Martynov

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    Your Disdain is My Entertainment

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  1. I've yet to see any solid sources on 40USD being the actual figure per name change*. From what I've seen in my various lurkings, it's all been rumour and prognostication so far. But if it's true, LL has gotta be taking the piff if they think 40USD is a "nominal fee." I mean maybe in 80 years from now, sure. As for Soon™, some of us have been around long enough to know LL operates on a similar timetable to that of Valve. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ *Yes I know it also requires Premium as we've seen more than a few official LL posts declaring it. IalsohavenoideawhyIamevenposting.
  2. Well this here Premium user is one who won't be renewing his subscription upon next billing cycle. Maybe whilst running that business, the folks heading the Fuzzy Economics class over at LL could consider the option of taking responsibility and begin effecting meaningful fixes to that "backend with a painful history" rather than biting their consumer base in our rear-ends over things we have no control over. But this is the kind of "it's our property, our software, and our service, but we have no control over how badly it performs so just pay us more and don't get mad" rhetoric that I've come to expect from LL, anymore. I feel that my patience (as well as that of many otherwise-silent others, I'd imagine) has been exemplary over the years, but at this point I for one just can't see the sense (business or otherwise) in this kind of policy bungling any longer. This is a first for me, since I always saw sense where others hadn't before, even during the Teen Grid merge which was... well... the catalyst for a great many "interesting" calamities in its own right. It kinda feels like... having a weird friend with no social graces to speak of, bad habits and such, but you find him oddly likeable for some reason or another. Plus, he happens to have one amazing talent you just can't get enough of, so you often find yourself excusing his behaviour to others. But over the years, he just doesn't improve. No, in fact, he gets worse. Eventually he stops practising hygiene, develops a tendency to scream profanities at random, and otherwise seems to go out of his way to embarrass you. Eventually it gets so bad that you finally just give up trying. You bear no ill will towards this once-oddly-likeable friend of yours, but you're done making excuses for him. (Obviously not a water-tight metaphor, but cut me a small break here.) After over twelve years, I think I've finally reached that point. The benefit:headache ratio of Premium has not only crossed the 1:1 threshold, the ratio has even surpassed a tolerable 1:1.25 and leapt into nearly a 1:2. First LL negates half the benefit of Linden Homes by removing "those ugly ban lines," even on landlocked parcels, and somehow thought a highly-restricted-to-the-point-of-nearly-useless 'security system' would be an acceptable compromise. Now they're raising the price of Premium - which only became worth the price (to me, anyway) when Linden Homes became a thing in the first place. Not only that, but LL is even taking from Basic accounts to give to Premium "because our backend is made of a painful history worthy of books covered in tears." That's not insanity nor villainy. It's a seemingly complete lack of anything resembling respect to their whole userbase, including their existing subscribers. A company's customers are not to blame for the company's inefficient software no matter what crazy antics certain Basic account holders get up to. But now I'm repeating myself. Of course I can only speak for myself when it comes to the real effective value of Premium. I've no use for large amounts of land, and I fail to see the point of the "extra sim slots" when the only real advantage to them is to get myself through the "door after the third bell," as it were. As for added group slots, I also don't see the benefit of something that'd be taken away the moment I stop paying, thereby relegating me to leaving those "extra" groups in order to make room for the ability to join another. The Premium gifts, while novel, don't really provide me anything I couldn't get for less money at a higher value - even when they're relevant to how I use SL. The Premium sandboxes are rather moot due to having friends who are well-off enough in their RLs to afford their own regions. As for the other Premium-exclusive areas... eh, they're just not for me. So here's a crazy idea: Maybe whilst you're adding a new upper tier to Premium, add one or more lower tiers for those of us who only want certain facets of Premium benefits without having to pay for the ones that aren't relevant to us. Or you could really show some gumption and make a "build-your-own" Premium plan whereby we can select what benefits we want in order to maximise the bang for our bucks! I mean if you really want to be at that whole "running a business" thing, maybe earn that business rather than "encourage" it. Harsh? Well, there's a reason for that... Also, I don't mean to come off like I'm singling out anyone in particular, certainly not any Linden employee (quote snip is just for context). I do feel for a lot of Lindens what with all they have to go through on the daily. But this has gone on long enough, and the OP of this thread rather elicited a strong need to vent. Full disclosure, here: I've not bothered reading the whole thread, just smacked the reply button after reading the OP. Not the best practice, I know, but I'm typing this whilst waiting on a ride home from work. So yeah, sure, I'm whining into the void. Nothing new there, plenty do it. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess my only real point here is that whilst I understand the hardships of maintaining a service using inefficient software (cheap to develop, expensive to run, especially on a multiplier as large as the Grid itself, etc.) I personally know for a fact (from experience) that there are far better ways to handle this. LL aren't stupid, they've got to know that unless whatever it is they've got planned insofar as additions to Premium happens to be exceptionally and uncharacteristically great, that this is going to bite them in the bum. Yet based on LL's track record to date, I cannot shake the feeling that whatever it is will ultimately be found very wanting indeed. For me, that's one of the most frustrating parts of being a SecondLife Resident in the first place: Knowing full-well that LL could do so much better, but for some reason or another, they never do, and so the daily concurrent user count continues to slowly dwindle as the years go by. This is just the latest and greatest episode of that running gag, I suppose. Another kicker for me is that I also strongly suspect if the devs were the ones fully in charge, this sort of bizarre disconnect between the cultural ecosystem of a userbase and the policies which affect it (for better or worse, usually worse) very likely wouldn't be happening. It's nearly never the developers deciding stuff like this. It's almost always the financial Elites of the business with little-to-no programming knowledge or experience to speak of, what with their financial whips lashing the backs of the devs for not magicking more money for the corporate throne. Yeah okay, totally hyperbolic way of putting it, but still... There have indeed been platforms wherein the devs really were the ones running the show (SL itself, once upon a time) and they were always the best to be a part of in just about every way conceivable. Ah well... Rant over. Friggin' finally.
  3. SVC-3895 relates to SVC-4196 yet only the former is claimed to have been resolved. What's that smell?
  4. Short answer; no. Elaborative: In SecondLife, all physics are handled serverside, which uses the Havok engine. As I understand it, nVidia's PhysX is a physics rendering app which some games (such as Warmonger: Downtown Destruction) utilise.
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