Is SL going to go away as a friend keeps trying to slam down my throat?

[Velthura Darkfold]

I've got this friend who quit Secondlife in favor of InWorldz and he keeps telling me that SL is gonna go away and become SL2 or just altogether close. Is this true? Where is anything written this is what may happen or IS gonna happen? I've seen nothing.

[Syo Emerald]

Its not more or less likely than it has been all the time before. No, Second Life isn't closing down tomorrow, like your friend likes to make it sound. Second Life is a product. And as every product it will run as long as its profitable for the company who runs it.

The only true thing is, that LL is developing a new virtual world product, currently called Sansar. It won't be a SL2 and there isn't that much info about it out yet and definitly no date when this product will be released. And so far LL has no plans in closing SL, even when Sansar is out.

Of course, Second Life will probably not be around for your whole life, but there is no more reason to fear its end than there has been in the over 12 years it has been running so far. If you enjoy SL, keep on doing so without worries considering blurry "what ifs".

[Nalates Urriah]

Syo's answer is reasonable if not precisely accurate.

Lots of information on Project Sansar is available. Ebbe Altberg/Linden, the Lab's CEO, has said quit a bit about it. Not a lot of detail, but plenty of generalities. I have 17 articles on my blog: Project Sansar. Several are about interviews Ebbe has given where he talks about what Sansar will be.

We know that closed Alpha testing is in progress. Closed Beta is likely this year or early next year. From there on they will be ramping up with more andmore testers. By the later part of 2016 we may see open beta. If things go really well we may see Sansar open in 2016. I am guessing 2017 is more realistic.

SL won't close. It will stay open as long as people are interested and it stays financially profitable. No one can predict how long that will be. Oz Linden actively chased the job of SL top manager. Oz expects SL to be around a long time.

One of things common on the OpenSim grids is a predominance of people that are down on SL. OpenSim has some advantages over SL. But, SL has the major advantage of more people.

Any OpenSim (OS) grid you pick is way behind SL in concurrent users. OS grids generally have peak concurrent users counts of 200 to 300. I haven't checked lately, but that was true 6 months ago. SL currently is peaking at 50,000+ everyday about 2 PM SLT.

All grids have weak content protection. But, OS has major challenges in this area. So, depending on what you want to do, OpenSim can be a good choice. But, for other uses SL is probably a better choice.

So, while there are people fair and balanced about the grids, SL or OpenSim, we have plenty of fans that will say whatever to promote their favorite grid and put down other grids. So, listen to all and then verify... which is what you seem to be doing.

Another thought... if Sansar proves to be an SL killer, and I doubt that, it will most certainly pull users from OpenSim grids. Will they survive that? I can't know... but they seem to be on thin ice now.

It is going to take 90FPS (90FPS per eye?) minimum for a grid to support VR Headsets. I think that is going to be a challenge for OpenSim grids with any kind of significant concurrent user count. Frame Rate is a primary reason Sansar is being built. SL can't support VR at the level the Lab wants to support it. It is just too slow.