Varian Altney

I have been in almost 7 years and have trained several new avatars. They always ask 3 questions when they get in. 1. What is the goal of the game? You've been here 7 years and you think SL is a game? It's an environment. Games are played here - but there's no way to 'win' or 'lose' at SL. 2. How do I make money? The only newbies I've met who've asked that are under the misapprehension that they can make easy money in SL, and get rich in RL (wherever that is) with very little effort. There aren't many who are that foolish. 3. How do I find other places and friends? I hope you answer that with, "Start by joining/visiting some of the excellent inworld help channels, like New Citizens Inc" (shameless plug for NCI!)

Not that you'll get to read all these comments, unless you get really bored, but... Welcome! (A Linden who tries to learn SL like a noob. Hmm. Think it could catch on?) For your next trick, why not try a nonhuman avatar? But, umm, not just a retextured human with a tail (covers up her pic quickly) - try a real nonhuman, like a dragon, or a giant spider, or a steam-powered dog... ...then come & see what else we do in SL... (I meant, come visit one of the inworld help groups. Why, what did you think I meant...)

Randi hit the nail on the head-'His' paranoia is palpable due to the fact he (abusive and unverifiable statement redacted) If you'd bothered to read the post I was replying to, you might have noticed that Randi was arguing the exact opposite - that she has nothing to hide, and thinks those of us that prefer not to link our RL & SL must be criminals or immoral. Without debating her concept of morality, I was trying to point out that there can be other reasons. SL is just a forum to meet and greet and don't confuse it with the real world. But also don't use it as your personal dating pool to use women for your personal gain and then scream on here I MUST HIDE or THE TWO CANNOT MEET! Oddly, Randi didn't argue that, nor did I. I'm wondering what post you think you read... And, SL may only be 'just a forum to meet and greet' to you. (You'll find that much easier on Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare, or even on older services such as Usenet or IRC.) But to many of us, it's a virtual world in which we can create and learn and play. Your last line (omitted) is only abuse, of course. But I can't help wondering who it's aimed at. Perhaps you have a problem with your eyesight.

Jan 14, 2011 10:08 AM Randi.Wildmist says: ... The way I see it, the only ones who feel the need to hide in SL are either RL cheaters, criminals, crazy people or sex offenders. ... Well, I'm glad that you're either independently wealthy, or have a job where your current employer, potential employers and/or clients won't regularly perform background checks on you and then apply snap moral judgments that can affect your livelihood. Just having a virtual life, however 'innocent', is bad enough, to some people.

Very pleased to see the improvements! Not at all sure what the point of the FB, Twitter, etc., linkage is - many (most?) Residents of above teen years wouldn't want their virtual world activities linked anywhere our colleagues and (potential or current) employers could possibly find them. (Just admitting you have a virtual life can negatively affect your chances at interview.) Well, so long as it's opt-in, not opt-out... and the teens will like it. (Until they have to look for work!) However, the 42 groups, the crossings/teleports, looking ahead to new group chat (so badly needed!) - excellent! Keep up the good work!

Increasing groups inworld is just increasing issues inworld. Groups should be for object and land management. Notices, subscriptions, chat and announcements need to leverage the dashboard on the web site to deliver such content, giving residents the option to enable or disable any or all of the above at their discretion. Nope. Groups are for organising people. Most groups are created & used exclusively for notices and/or chat. And I'm sorry, but nobody uses the dashboard every day. Why should we be made to jump back to a 2D web interface just to pick up messages? The dashboard's very convenient for some things, but leveraging it to handle social/organisational content... Bad Idea. The war against lag is a step in the right direction. Everyone is in agreement on that, but why get a handle on the issue only to nullify it with additional groups? Region Owners have asked for an addition to the dashboard that will allow them to manage banlists and change estate settings from the web site for years now. No real mention is made of the Lab doing anything about that here other than a possibility of APIs in the future. With projects and plans taking 180 degree turns with great consistency (improved default walk, speech gesture, pushes toward education and inworld music resources - all of which were heralded and announced on the blog with great fanfare) where are the assurances that these current plans aren't simply another cry of "Wolf!"? If you'd read the post, Dirk, you might possibly have noticed that the (long-overdue) increase to 40 is conditional on it not adding to lag. And I suspect it won't - half my groups generate no chat and few notices in any given month, while three of my groups are responsible for 90% of my group chat. Chances are, like most residents, I'll just be transferring low-traffic groups from an alt back to my main - and thereby reducing the number of group notices SL has to forward to email. And I've no idea why you think sim owners (like me) want to manage banlists, estate settings, etc., through the dashboard. It's one of those things that'd be nice to have as a backup, but most of us (and our EMs) would rather be onsite, or manage affairs through scripted tools. I think the point you're missing is that most of us are in SL because we want to be in SL - leaving SL to do SL-related stuff just doesn't appeal. What we'd like are better inworld tools so we don't have to go back to the boring, flat dashboard to do stuff like pay sim tier or change passwords...

If you go Premium and your credit card payment is somehow messed up--you didn't update the expiration date--email went astray--bank closed your account ( which happened to MANY good credit risks in the last few years) you can lose your SL avatar account--inventory POOF. Premium is a risk I will not take . Can we have a bit less of the 'I won't go premium 'cos LL might wipe my inventory if I don't pay', please? Even Concierge residents (like me) only get their account suspended - not wiped - if they have a debt outstanding to LL, and only then after several emailed warnings. And only the account that owes money, not every alt. Once the debt's settled, you can log in, and your inventory's still there (but your sims probably aren't). So if you're really worried about this non-issue, then make an alt, sign it up for premium, use it to get premium land, access live chat & file non-basic support tickets for your main account (yes, you can do that, iirc there's even a field on the support ticket for it).

You have many older Sl members that would be willing to be *helpers* in a basic help group in SL. You could avoid 80% of filed issues if they had someplace to ask their questions and get good advice/responses. remember the mentors? Maybe that should be step one in fixing customer support for basic accounts, and customer retention. There are any number of 'basic help groups' in SL. Go look. I'm a Helper and Instructor at New Citizens, Inc., an entirely volunteer-staffed & -run organisation with a number of campuses and 'infonodes', regular classes and events, sandboxes, and help in live chat. I suspect it was the success of groups like NCI that led M to believe SL could do without as much LL customer support - it certainly led to the closing of the mentor program. I can't speak about other resident support groups or the Resident Help Network, but NCI help for such issues as lost inventory, cannot tp, cannot get tv/radio to work, avatar failed to rez (I've created a jira for that one, but, since no-one seems willing to post their logs to it, it'll probably die), etc., is probably superior to, and definitely faster than, LL support - because NCI is composed of people who live in SL & enjoy helping, sharing solutions that work (at least some of the time!). Oh, and 'sim lag is at its WORST in 6 years'? I've no idea what grid you've been on for the past 6 years, but it wasn't Agni. Lag's not exactly gone away, but, in general, it's just not as bad as it was last year, which was better than the year before. Sim crossings are nowhere near as hazardous as they used to be, rubber-banding now only seems to happen when a low-spec graphics card goes into a crowded sim, and the going-for-a-long-walk effect is no longer inevitably followed by a crash and probable ghosting. So please, less of the hyperbole, it's not helping. (Or relevant - lag is a dev problem, not a support issue. Different people.) Getting back to the original subject, though... let's see what these 'new tools' for Basic residents are, and which issues they'll still be able to file tickets on, before we go around condemning LL for being about to make things worse.