Aeon Voom

Hey Maestro. I'd like to point you towards BUG-3990 My Helicopters and some Fixed wing aircraft got affected. I also get reports from the Sailors that things are getting wonky on their end. Generally i tend to say that the problem looks like the buoyancy setting and/or the mouselook steering gets badly affected.

I am a contributor to the jira myself and like Innula pointed out, the JIRA is a great source for known bugs and workarounds to them. I simply cannot understand this move and i find it quite discouraging

I am not particulary worried about how LL will deploy this set of functions or how to revoke it the permission given. But more on what exactly this will include. Teleportagent is one thing. Thats great and awesome in itself. But lets talk turkey. Lets say we want Players not to access their minimap (so in combat games they need to LOOK and not stare on their minimap to shoot an opponent) or Want them to display a certain windlight setting (like darkest night) without them able to change that back. Lets assume some game developer want to hinder them use their camera, so they cannot cheat-look through walls. Small examples that make a difference! All these functions are basically allready in RLVa. The problem with RLVa is that it needs to get installed into the standard viewer and that its "tainted" as it got developed and mostly used by the BDSM community.

I recently got aware that pishing got really bad in SL these days. Several friends accounts allready got hacked through pishing attempts and all i can do is raise awareness through my groups about the matter. The problem is obvious. There is too much unedjucated "panic"-creation inworld and and far too less real awareness raising on the problem (and how to avoid it) I'd be interested to hear how you raise awareness in your vicinity and your ways to avoid getting pished yourself. Lets make this threat gain more attention inworld too, as this is appearently a really bad problem nowadays.

For the ARC. i actually wish it would be more stable and reliable and foremost detectable by scripts. The idea of its implemention is really cool. but yeah thats pretty much about it

Sorry Sean the aviation community is a little icky there. The problem is that in SL aviation there are alot of brands allready. And everyone likes to have a piece of the cake. Our temporary solution would be to make fixed Flight engines with a very slim api so that these brands can grab the script and make their own racer wich would fullfill the racing benchmarks. Thats the whole reason why Darsh wants the Aviation community to stick their heads together and form a commitee to oversee those benchmarks. I offered my help to script these engines for free. I got no business interest in racers but i can script a fairly well low lag flight engine.

I think it is also on how roleplaying games work these days. The tradition of SL roleplaying games does not trace back to tabletop RPGs but to Computer RPGs where turnbased combat is gone for the most part. A few japanese RPGs still do turnbased combat, but thats more and more a thing of the past.

I really doubt your proposed model would work. Most users want to play for free. I also think the malls never really worked THAT well. The point is: SL is not an arcade machine in which you flip (virtual) coins to play it. Also the time of the arcade machines is long gone for the most part. If you offer something for money it should be something lasting. Something they can take anywhere they like and show off. One example is 7 seas. You pay for bait and get more fancy fish you can show around. in MCE it is: you buy a kickass mecha and you can wear it outside the combat zone as well to show it off. And in my case it is: You buy a jet or tank and you can carry it anywhere. As a matter of fact: Most of my planes do not even get used in combat games. They are also very popular with collectors and with grid-pilots.

Yes Loki. I am with you there. At some level you NEED to get active on the forums and such. But i talk about the normal user. Some still got a very distorted view on how LAG works and what LAG is actually is about. There is a load on SL urban myths around and no one to fight them effectivly

Yes i know what you mean! We got several developers for the VICE combat system at Olds. Some old nuts and some new ones. And then there is the issue that VICE unlike other systems has a free api that everyone can get and develope for. That often creates some nightmares and the constant threat by the community to "monopolize" matters. A problem you surely do not have

Well my traffic is not as high as yours obviously then. Haha. But yes that sounds like a plan. And maybe i grind my brain on how to do something similar in my sims.

Haha. Good one Sean. Yes you are right. It IS a developers nightmare. Especially right now with the introduction of mesh. But i also feel that LL is not "really" in touch with the community. There are these forums here? The blogs and all this. But how many residents acutally find their way here? How many actually read the blogs? Not many. And this is sad! This is a twofold issue: LL does not use the right tools to deliver essential informations to the residents. And the residents do not accept the new media tools LL introduces. This is the gap i am talking about. This might seem schizophrenic but the users LOVE SL. but they have a very distorted releationship with LL.

This is a topic that just went right through my head so i thought i share it. When do you think a game qualifies as roleplay and when do you think it simply qualifies as a normal combat game? Where is the border for you? When does it become a roleplay? For me its simple: A story alone does not make a roleplaying game. While a roleplaying game can have combat in it. The essential part is interaction with other players or the GM to play your role. This usually happens in an ordered fashion or more free form. Important tho is that all parties involved are part of the roleplay or it cannot happen. In a combat game, even tho it has a storyline to back it up, it is not essential to interact or display something. Teams might have names to let them fit into the story but it is not essential to roleplay a part in it. It is however esential to do good teamwork. I see alot of "roleplaying games" on SL these days and me myself as an old tabletop/pen&paper nut often find it hard to draw a line there. For me most of these MMORPGs should simply remove the RPG from the name cause i do not feel it beeing justified and often misleading.

Thats actually less a problem. Here i got a magic keyword there: Community. Have it! With a working and thriving community around your gamefield you have people who love to help new players to get on their way. This is the best and most effective way i know. And still not failsave. You can put up as much notecard givers, signs and whatnot. It doesnt help it. Thats at least my experience.

CHEATER! :matte-motes-big-grin-wink:

One of my best buddies in Sl is Darsh Lucero. He is like me an aviation nut and remotely a gamer. He recently came up with an idea on how to get Air racing events in SL going again. All more or less in the spirit of the famous Red Bull races. Here is what he wrote. Since he did not posted it here for some reason, i do it and he can chop me to pieces afterwards. From Darsh Lucero: What I want to start here is a long (or incredibly short, depending on the turns it takes) discussion about Air Racing in SL. I know it has been tried in the past, and it is pursued today, by various groups/makers/sim owners etc etc, with alternating results. It is not my intention to diminish/offend/mock anything of the above, I just want to try a differently organized approach. That is, the creation of an Air Racing Committee, that will, in turn, produce standards and regulations, and organize a full championship with one or more classes for the 2012 season (not a typo). Here are my thoughts and proposals: 1. AIR RACING COMMITTEE A central body that manages the championship as whole. Could be made of all aircraft manufacturers and all circuit owners, plus a representative of pilots. With an external president (none of the previously mentioned; relatives/partners and alts included). Why a committee? To include every possible view and yet manage to produce unbiased (as humanly possible) resolutions and proposals. The more representatives are in, the more authoritative the committe will be. The first tasks for such a committee would be defining classes, rules, and standards. YEP, standards. 2. WHY A STANDARD Defining an universal, locked standard (mostly for performance and engine scripting) would instandly open up the championship to everyone. Until now, air racing in SL has been attempted in various forms, by various makers, none of which compatible with the other (as far as i know) in terms of class, handling, speed. This, in my view, has been a limiting factor for development of a meaningful championship. With a standard, comparable performance airplanes, everyone would get their fair share of fun. Talent, no more the machine, would be the driving edge. While I understand that this would let down many scripters, theres still room for builders: there are various air racers out there.... And, a single standard would immediately defeat all cheating accusations (given that appropriate controls against custom modifications are in place). 3. A GREAT EVENT Several race courses through SL. An official championship. Large events with media coverage (yes, let's involve SL television in this!). Sponsorization and advertising. What's not to like? 4. SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY I was thinking about proposing 3 classes, or championships. - ACRO: based off RL acrobatic championships, the emphasis would be less on speed and more on skills, having the contenders manouver through a pattern of different gates, each one corresponding to a specifical acrobatic figure. C'mon, you already know how it works... - FORMULA: prototypes, not particularly powerful, some kind of "entry level" in the racing championship. - UNLIMITED: the highest peak, where speed thrills. Mostly derived from WWII warbirds. Pylon racing at its best. This is just a proposal canvas, nothing set in stone; many classes or championships could be created, like seaplanes, rocket planes, jet planes, endurance, helicopter... you name it. 5. CONCLUSIONS ...and that's what I had to say. I stepped forward the first step; now it's up to you all guys and gals make it come true. Many are and will be skeptical; trying to do something shared for all the aviation community has been in the past a nearly impossible task (herding cats was the best case scenario). It's up to you to make it come true. If you're interested, talk about this with everyone you know; link this topic in your groups; discuss with your pals what you can do to make Air Racing in SL great. All opinions and ideas are welcome; drama and turkey shooting is not. Your mileage may vary.

You brought up some great topics so far Loki! Kudos for that. I'm simply not a big blogger nor forums guy, seeing myself more as a craftsmen. I just try my best to keep things rolling with a spark of ideas here and there :matte-motes-asleep-2:

I think the crashing issue is not even the problem. But i do see what you mean From what i hear and feel the TPV developers generally invest more time into their viewers with faster updates. But i doubt this is all true. LL makes the basecode all these TPVs use. So they sure do alot of work on it as well. The real problem is that there is currently a gap between LL and the users in that regard. And LL is simply not able to close this gap in making a viewer the majority of the residents accept.

My sims generally try to attract the gamer. Not the roleplayer. The latter often faces obstacles in my sims. I mean roleplay is something you do together and generally not against. That means you simply cannot roleplay when the others just want to shoot your butt off. :matte-motes-big-grin-squint: Nontheless they come in in plentyful and expect a roleplay enviroment then stumble and fall and leave all cursing. I'm really not sure what to do there honestly.

TPVs (Third party viewers) are a plenty lot these days. How do they affect your gameing experience? How do they affect your gameing development? How much do you think is their actual impact on SL?

When i'm not in Olds i'm often relaxing in the Blake Sea. For everyone not knowing the Blake: Its a vast area of many sims created in cooperation with the United Sailing Sims (USS) and Linden Lab. The area consists of something around 100 sims. Mostly low lag water homesteads which are often used for SL Sailing races in various classes. Now i wanted to post their website but found out it is down right now. BUMMER. Nontheless try to explore the area it is well worth it! Honah Lee Field is a great place where you can start off with exploring.

You are right Loki. But there is where compromises come into weight as well. They allways do. We really try to keep the rules as low as possible in our sims but with SL beeing such an open platform alot can happen. And alot will happen. And alot will get abused. Thats what we need rules for. Creating rules which are simple and games that are simple BUT challenging is not THAT easy in SL. I see it as a constant work in progress. It basically comes down to: They (the players) find a loophole - we fix it as best as possible. The danger there is obviously that over time you clutter the rules more and more. Then you have two choices: Leave it be and let it be more complicating OR Take extreme measurements which might screw away the players. The answer is somewhere the middleroad and its not an easy one.

Like my working mate Karl Reisman, i'm a 3d professional. The release of mesh on the maingrid was something like the holy grail for us. No more dabbling with screwy UVVs of Sculpts and a whole more effective Texture distribution while beeing able to add more detail. HELL YES I Allready released a good ammount of Mesh vehicles and while the PE is generally higher then with Legacy prims,the feedback from the customers is generally good. Yes i can imagine to build sims almost fully in mesh. And yes i do think that sooner or later all my products will be transitioned to mesh The problem is howver and you mentioned it: The TPVs. This is right now a general issue. The pheonix dev team put phoenix on the deathbed in favor for firestorm. Which is the right decision in my eyes. But not in the eyes of the majority of their users. So we will see where this leads us.

Okay one thing i often get faced with is: What i do is totally impossible in SL. While there might be truth in this. I can tell you WHY it works. Scale - It's important to scale everything down. Range of the weapons, the ammount of fuel and the effectivness of the weapons. IN real life jets barely encounter in any dogfights anymore. The fight takes place several kilometers away from the actual crafts involved. In real life tanks snipe each other over distances of 5 kilometers or more. SO this is also a scale factor. But directly involves realism. Realism - Don't try it. Most people who use this term really have no idea about realism.One thing is damage. In Real life A missile or grenade kills people or targets instantly. Thats their aim and purpose. But i am very very sure people would start to hate the game if they would get killed after every single shot. So what i mean there is mostly about the damage factor. Another thing is the agility of the planes involved. The key there is to make a jet not constantly clash into simborders while avoiding to make it an UFO. Community - Another factor i mentioned earlier in another post,is the community. Let's face it: Second life offers better communication for all parties involved and is as such a better social carrier. This alone makes a huge difference to actual FPS games in my eyes. I know people who would never play battlefield or call of duty but really enjoy fighting in SL. Consistency - We strictly believe that everyone should have the chance to develope for Olds, While we also need to care about gaming balance. Plainly said: If a developer creates an item that would dip the balance the admins chim in and try to resolve the issue as best as possible, working closely with the developer. This assures a consistant fair and balanced gameplay. Maintainance - This is very important. The sims need to be allways in healthy condition. Thats why we restart them at least once a day and scan for laggy devices, avatars and such. Edjucation -.Last but not least: The community offers training on how to use the vehicles, how to fight in combat and how to avoid lag. There the circle comes to a full and starts to spin. This is all we do. The people enjoy it and we are happy when they are. Opinions?

Let's face it: Lag is our all enemy. Even in games. Let it be in racing, sailing or FPS combat. But what do YOU do to have less Lag?