Flea Yatsenko
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Posts posted by Flea Yatsenko
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Nux and having a mesh body included is going to really help with retention. The most expensive part of getting a good looking AV going is the after market head and body. It's also the first part of making an avatar, which means a new user is asked to easily pay over $40 for a head and body for something they don't know if they'll like or want to stay around for. Every other free to play game lets people get involved for nothing and slowly introduces the paid options. SL is the opposite, basically "spend L$5,000 on this body and L$5,000 on this head and we can start to pick out clothes and stuff."
The initial cost of looking decent in SL absolutely kills retention. I'm sure many of you have tried to get friends into SL, only for them to wonder why they have to spend so much money just to NOT look like a total noob. SL's monetization is backwards, it should start out with some cheap and free stuff to get people involved, then work them up to really cool, rare, expensive stuff. Instead you can easily spend over L$10,000 or more just on a body and head. Only to start buying L$250 clothing accessories. Much easier to get someone buying accessories for L$250 if that's their first in world purchase, as opposed to convincing someone to spend the money on a mesh body and head. And if they want a better mesh body and head, which they will at some point, it won't be so intimidating and scary to drop so much money on it.
There are lots of other things they can do to improve retention. But the initial cost is absolutely terrifying for new users. Even if they find fun stuff to do or cool people, they're going to be the odd ball newb looking user and their experience is going to suffer for it. It's also why so many people want to make money in SL, because everything seems so expensive and they think it's better to try and make money. I know the library exists but it's all sort of outdated and looks out of place compared to new stuff on the marketplace.
SL has more than enough concurrent users, they have more than Final Fantasy XIV according to steam charts. But I think they are too spread out.
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I would really hope they are using something like elasticsearch, algolia, etc and not a standard MYSQL server for search.
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Think it won't be too much longer, my dashboard is working again. Kudos to them for fixing this so quickly on a weekend. Actually I'm back in world, nice.
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They are aware, database outage. It might take a while, depends what database is having problems. I would assume it's a login database server if the website and viewer logins are down.
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1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:
What I've noticed the last 2 days are really really old items showing first under relevance. Even when I switch to newest first, the new items I KNOW should be there, are not.
SL has been doing this for a long time. I would (and still do) go through phases where I would sell outdated sculpty stuff like crazy and no one would touch the mesh or material+mesh stuff. It was pretty baffling to me until I went into my store and started sorting things, only to find it would bury some of my complex and fan favorite builds in favor of things like sculpty rocks and outdated stuff that I just keep around as legacy content because people still want it on rare occasion. If I go to my store and search by relevant it's all really old stuff. I have no idea why it goes through phases like this. But it's doing it now, and I'm assuming sort by relevancy applies with or without a query like it does with other search I deal develop with. All my sales are organic and rely on search and word of mouth. So my store is pretty sensitive to changes in marketplace sorting and other changes.
4 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:Nah, Amazon's front page when logged in is STUPID. It keeps trying to sell to me another of every DURABLE GOODS item I have ever purchased via Amazon. I don't need another hydraulic jack, trailer hitch, potable water hose, replacement battery for a notebook computer, set of wheel-chocks made from recycled plastic, set of garden gate hinges, water pump, water tank, back-flow preventer, mailbox, mailbox post, set of 5 keyed-alike padlocks, folding aluminum ladder, self-install pet fence kit, wall-mount floodlight, reflective driveway markers, garden greenhouse kit, 100' electric extension cord, self-install electric vehicle charger, etc. That stuff belongs in account order history, and hey, it's there too. Show "hot items", "seasonal items", "special price offers", etc would be welcome, and some of that happens, but what it mostly does it infect every search attempt with Amazon brands and Sponsored products before it lists what I am trying to get it to list, some damn thing I have never purchased via Amazon.
For me Amazon shows things I was searching for but didn't buy, more things I was searching for and didn't buy, then items related to what I've purchased in the past. At the very least it has a remote clue of what I'm interested in. Marketplace not so much. If marketplace was smart enough to know which mesh body you've been purchasing stuff for, and then show you similar clothing and styles I think it'd be a huge improvement to randomly showing you featured ads. Nothing ever really breaks or degrades in SL like it does in RL but there's lots of complimentary products to things people buy. I.E. you buy stuff to decorate your house then it starts showing you more home decorations instead of stuff completely irrelevant to me.
But regarding normalization I thought search used something like Elasticsearch and not database, but that wouldn't surprise me I guess if it did just query the database for search.
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Every additional step that a potential customer has to take to get to a product is a lost sale. The default response for a user trying to find something is to search just by typing in a raw query, lace reborn, and if the results are not relevant, they just assume it doesn't exist, not that the search engine isn't working properly. Considering LL takes a hefty commission from each sale and they want to change their revenue from land tier to sales, you'd think they'd want to increase sales for everyone. The only users who know to start using quotes and booleans are the power users (congrats to you if you use them, you're probably in the top 10% of search engine users), most people just give up and assume it doesn't exist.
They direly need a data expert who can somehow waddle through the free for all of marketplace listings and can correlate products with other products, as well as provide a highly effective search. It needs to be ran like an ecommerce site like Amazon, Google Shopping, Wayfair, Overstock, you get my drift.
Also, get rid of useless classified ads and create an expensive, manual review system where products can be grouped on the home page. I.E. you pay and things get grouped into "male mesh body accessories" that's a big category on the front page.
Something like this but converted to SL would be amazing. Just imagine going to marketplace and seeing products you actually want to use and buy, and they're on sale.
There's so much they can do but they keep thinking search is the end all, be all. This is not a search engine, it's a commerce site. Look at when you go to Amazon logged in, it shoves things you've bought and similar items in your face. You can find stuff to buy on Amazon that you want without even having to use search.
Meanwhile, front page of marketplace is so irrelevant to me, suggesting me female body parts and all sorts of weird stuff. It's not that difficult to create a personalized homepage for marketplace, just grab the keywords for a user's previous purchased items and search for items they haven't bought yet and sort by whatever you've been using. I'm sure someone might complain about privacy but what Google, Amazon, etc are doing dwarfs anything like I'm proposing.
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I ran lighthouse, a website performance tool in Chrome, on marketplace a while ago and the results were quite terrible. I posted about it here. I ran it again and it's not amazing but it's not too bad either. I think they are making some big improvements, just not mentioning them because "we reduced content shift by 200ms and time to first render by 300ms" isn't exciting to talk about.
That said if you try to visit marketplace when not logged in you get redirected with 302 redirects like 3 times before the page displays so it takes a while to display, but it skips it if you're logged in. They are trying, pretty sure they're aware.
I haven't used the official viewer in a while, but marketplace search results doesn't have a tab when you use search in Firestorm in the search toolbar, and it should. You should be able to search everything from the viewer search results, including marketplace listings. I think SLMP runs pretty well right now, there's room for improvement but I think it's hosted on AWS, I don't think the actual hardware/cloud has anything to do with it.
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I kind of wish you could just mute emails for specific products. It's annoying to get an email for things like some of my L$49 products.
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I've been having problems with the official viewer as well. In a VM or under WINE it will run once, then after you start it again it fails any start up checks (either invalid graphics or invalid bit depth on the new materials viewer). It's excessively obnoxious because it works fine in WINE until you restart, then it just fails the start up test. And --noprobe and --ignorepixeldepth do not work either. I just want to upload some mesh and get to work and I have to download all sorts of different viewers only to find random things are broken (latest Firestorm doesn't keep linked object names from Blender anymore, which I need). Same thing happening in my Windows 10 virtual machine.
Forgive my little rant but this is completely ridiculous I have to go through so many hoops just to do basic tasks in SL.
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I don't think you need to delete, you need to create a subfolder in the listing folder that has the version of the product. It's kind of confusing at first and doesn't make sense. It should be something like
Winter Outfit Copper DEMO (addme)
1.0.0
(CONTENTS)
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On 1/13/2023 at 9:19 AM, PekeNL said:
Has anybody ever considered that, even while the UI can be clunky for the newer generation, it's the fact that SL is primarily commerce driven, and all the alternatives are pretty much single-buy or even free?
Yes, I love SL being commerce driven, it has some flaws but it means nearly limitless content a single content creator for a locked down virtual world could never dream of matching. LL basically outsourced their content creation to their users by giving them financial reward and it's created the most dynamic virtual world in existence, probably that will ever exist.
Of course that huge amount of content makes it more difficult to use because it's very difficult to find stuff. If everything is made by the developer, they control search and how you find things. LL has to basically try and wade through millions of things on the marketplace. UIDs for products are already in the 24 million range and every new listing gets a UID that starts from a low number (usually 0) and increments with each new addition.
The content here is amazing, you can find whatever you want. There's so much potential with SL but it's being held back by around 20 years of legacy code, but any major changes can break existing content which is SL's most amazing feature (don't get me wrong, there's lots of other ones too).
SL reaching more people means the cost of SL is going to drop. I feel a lot of merchants could sell at lower prices if they had more volume, but because their stuff is somewhat niche it's not worth their time to make niche products for a lower cost. Basically, the easier SL is for new users the more will show up and stay and the cheaper and better everything gets.
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How SL runs on your computer has nothing to do with the cost. Simulators are expensive because they can't be suspended. If you have an empty sim with a pet walking around, and no one enters the sim for a week, LL still has to pay for that server or virtual private server or whatever they are running. Existing content makes the assumption that things will always be running. LL could offer cheaper sims and land if they came up with different simulator software that could be slept and hibernated, frozen in time, when no one is there, so they could put more land on the same amount of hardware as most of it would be suspended anyways. But last I heard sims were given dedicated hardware, and they are always running no matter what's happening on it. In fact if you just buy a sim, leave it completely empty, and have no one ever enter it, it still takes up hardware and still runs the simulator, even if it's not really simulating anything. This made a ton of sense when SL was created and it's how everything was done. But with virtual machines and virtual private servers the cost of hosting websites dropped massively. LL has to run their simulators on dedicated hardware (even if it's in "the cloud" it still has dedicated resources).
A dedicated web server is usually around $125 for an alright spec server (when not discounted). People who make web sites for hobbies and stuff can't afford that. But you can get a VPS for $4 a month because it's shared, can be suspended, etc. LL is still running a dedicated hardware model for their servers when most places have moved to VPS.
Look at Minecraft, you can run a server on a VPS for $4 a month because it's not dedicated hardware, it's a VPS for a world that can go to sleep when no one is in it. People would be paying $100+ a month for a minecraft server if it required dedicated hosting. But because of VPS they aren't.
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On 1/7/2023 at 11:41 AM, Rolig Loon said:
The simplified viewer was introduced about 2009 and it was dead unpopular, so it didn't last very long. I suspect part of the problem was that you couldn't do much beyond basic movements and dressing yourself. Even early on, people know that there's a lot more to SL than that, so they might as well use the real viewer.
On 1/7/2023 at 10:32 AM, Cinnamon Mistwood said:I seem to remember the Lab making an easy, simplified viewer years ago. Am I remembering that wrong?
I don't know why that viewer didn't make it. Maybe it didn't have enough options and very few new accounts used it, but it would be nice to have an simplified option for the first few weeks for new accounts.
On 1/7/2023 at 2:56 PM, Solar Legion said:A "simplified" viewer? Really?
People coming in from elsewhere need to drop their expectations and be ready to actually learn how do use the simpler parts of the interface while being exposed to the more "advanced" bits.
The Sims? No - no reason to take any inspiration from it - two rather different things.
VR Chat? That interface is kept simple because the systems in use are also simple/limited in scope. Any building/content creation done there is done fully through the use of external tools and an SDK set. Any real editing of your Avatar must be done the same way if you're looking to do more than utilize the options you're given on any particular public model - you're better off in fact, actually hiring a creator for such work for that platform. No, not a model to be taking hints of any sort from either.
A good number of the build, edit and even "advanced" or "debug" functions in the main Viewer as well as TPVs are useful for/to more than just the Creator types as well (hello Beacon system and a good chunk of the edit dialog as a start).
Cripes ....
People are giving me issue over this, but in 2009, smart phones were brand new and quite honestly not really popular yet. Now there are lots of people, especially younger, who grew up with nothing but a phone or tablet and something like a computer is completely alien to them. There are plenty of articles about people who can't even handle or understand files and folders because all they use is search. People who can't even use a keyboard well because they grew up on touch screen keyboards. A lot of these people are in their 20s already.
It's safe to assume almost all of us grew up with actual computers. We're used to all this stuff. A lot of people today aren't. The times have changed, and unfortunately they've gotten simpler and, ignore my lack of political correctness, dumber. It's really easy to look at the viewer right now if you're used to actual computers and think it's fine. But the majority of people aren't fine with it anymore. And if you want SL to be anything other than some niche thing only hardcore computer users like it's going to have to change to get with the times.
The times have changed, in 2009 the primary computer device was an actual computer. Now it's a phone or tablet. Computer people can easily handle files and folders and huge menus and busy interfaces. Phone and tablet people can't, everything is based around search and being simple and easy to use. Computers are the opposite.
There's also a billion things on the internet vying for people's attention, 10 years ago it wasn't so bad. But with all this competition, it's very easy for someone to look at a complex interface and just go "NOPE!" and move onto something else. It used to be if you wanted a virtual world, you basically just had SL. Now there's minecraft, roblox, VR chat, all sorts of things. And all of them are easier to start with. VR Chat has (had?) virtually no IP enforcement. You could go on there and dress up as your favorite IP for free and no one (legally) would care. People had patience for SL when it was the only one in town. Now there's competition and being difficult to use means people will just give up and try something else, instead of trying to take the time to learn.
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LL really needs to turn the current client into the advanced editor and make a lightweight client that has an interface that only contains the most commonly used features by the average user, and work on making them as easy to use as possible. No build tools, a very simple avatar editor (editing shape, editing outfits, etc), great chat/friend system, easy way to explore and find people and places, and an easy way to shop. The current viewer is way too complex for any sort of newbie, and it's designed by people who are so familiar with SL that they don't realize how complex it's gotten.
Really, they need to take inspiration from games like The Sims and VR Chat and how those interfaces work, and apply it to a lightweight interface on the current viewer. The tech updates they have planned for 2023 are fantastic, and some of them would make a simpler interface way better than it would be based off of what the official viewer is now (like outfit previews), but besides missing support for mobile platforms, this is probably the second biggest thing holding SL back from seeing major growth. Content creators are usually 1 in 100 users, the default client shouldn't cater to 1% of users.
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Those are just what LL recommends, the minimum is only 2 cores. You don't need 8 cores. But SL is currently limited by the CPU, not the graphics chip. But that might change a bit when PBR releases.
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On 12/21/2022 at 2:10 PM, Paul Hexem said:
I'm not sure "penalties" is a good idea, but the concept of some sort of in world to MP connection is something worth considering.
It wouldn't be anything too severe, it would be something like lowering your search results ranking if you have an in world demo in your listing and it points to a parcel that's not currently verified. LL takes a hands off approach to SLMP, which they should, but if you're going to do that sometimes you have to use a carrot and sometimes you have to use a stick. Just rewarding merchants who do good things that make customer's lives easier and make it more enjoyable to use the SLMP should be a no brainer.
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You should be able to verify your in world store on the marketplace and get a bonus for providing an in world store with demos. If you lose your parcel and the link to the in world demo no longer brings you to your parcel you verified, it penalizes you in ranking.
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I don't want to get too off topic from the Linden Viewer VS Firestorm, but the material viewer works great for me in Gentoo Linux running WINE. The mainline viewer in WINE works once or twice then stops running because it thinks my graphics card is missing an OpenGL extension when it's not. Just an educated guess but I think the material viewer is using more up to date OpenGL that WINE better supports. I just have some problems with key binds, like can't use control + alt to move the camera up and down. The rest of it runs really great. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not but the material project viewer seems to work way, way better in WINE in Linux than the official viewer. Once it's a bit more stable or the material viewer stuff makes it to the official viewer, I think it'll be just fine in WINE.
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23 hours ago, DulceDiva said:
@Flea Yatsenko That's true. I noticed when an economy/ a situation is tough in RL, people seem to spend more time in SL. I believe it's a psychological escape - which is good! Rather than having a depression, you're better off spending time in SL. Plenty of things to do here.
I think it's easier to pretend to be rich and successful in SL for a lot less money. You can come to SL when times are bad and for the cost of going out and drinking and doing normal people stuff you can have a big house with fancy cars or whatever you want in SL.
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I noticed sudden drops in sales correlate pretty well with Billing maintenance. This whole year has been slower than normal for me, though, I think we are definitely heading into recession and people are trying to enjoy RL as much as possible. I've been selling in SL for a long time, always seems like before things take a nasty turn in the RL economy things get slow here, then after everything goes to pot SL gets busy. Funny things happening in places I visit in RL too, like places normally really busy, even before COVID, are dead.
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If you have to use tricks to find what you want, it's not working. Imagine if Google required quotes and boolean operators to find stuff. No one would use it.
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17 hours ago, Fatih Incognito said:
Well I am getting around same FPS with it, but this SL Viewer utilizing the GPU much better.
bonus: reflecting snowflakes! https://i.gyazo.com/dfc556645869be91c9146b95c9db13c1.mp4
That's great news, it means SL is shifting further away from being CPU limited in performance. Most people who are CPU limited probably won't see much of a performance change at all as long as they have a somewhat decent graphics card. It'll just look a lot better.
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Is ALM with all these performance improvements really slower than the forward based renderer from a year ago? If they get rid of the forward renderer and they improve ALM so that it's faster, even on lower end hardware, what's the problem? Most importantly, can't they just disable spec and normal in the deferred renderer to help with performance on low end machines? I'm assuming ALM's performance on lower end hardware comes from the fact that it has to render custom normal and spec while the old forward renderer doesn't. Which means deferred and forward rendering performance isn't directly comparable until we can look at it on equal footing. I.E. deferred with no shadows, no custom normals and specs, etc. I'd think deferred could handle the unoptimized content in SL better than a forward renderer.
Just my humble opinion but I think deferred with the ability to disable more graphical features to bring it inline with forward rendering would be faster in SL's case. I know deferred and forward performance is a hot topic in game dev, but right now comparing ALM to forward isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison since ALM supports more graphical features.
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I don't think Intel is a viable option. They have been making GPUs for decades and their drivers are still not very good. Windows + Nvidia, or Linux + AMD is the preferred route. AMD's drivers have gotten a lot better in the last few years, though. People are optimistic about ARC, but I don't see it. Raja was the guy in charge of AMD graphics when they were having a lot of problems in the era most people here are talking about, and he's in charge of Intel ARC.
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A Positive Brainstorming / Suggestion Box Thread - Ideas for Improving Second Life Sociability, Usability and Retention
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
Pose stands are there to solve a problem. I.E. you are moving around when trying to adjust things on your AV, etc. and your AV keeps moving so it's impossible to grab what you want. If you want to make things easier, you get rid of the problems for needing a pose stand in the first place. You can't get rid of all of them, but I'm pretty sure everyone here at some point in their Second Lives ended up trying to move an attachment and fighting the AV from moving around. I know I did when I was new.
For example, a way to solve that problem would be to have an animation or pose play when you open up your build tools. If you're trying to get a screen shot, turn off all other animations and open up a list of poses or animations and let you choose them. Almost all other snapshot features in other games do this, like you pick poses and stuff when you're taking your snapshot.
I feel like a lot of problems with SL's interface comes from trying to solve a problem by adding a new feature, instead of trying to remove a problem. A good interface teaches people how to use the interface without even realizing it. Like, they'd have a snapshot mode that was borderline tutorial, had some poses so people could learn to use poses and what they do, give them the ability to rez some props and move them around, etc. If you have a game that has a snapshot or photo mode check it out and see how it works and compare it to setting a scene for a snapshot with SL.