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Sansar and Secondlife


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Magic 8-ball says it is decidedly so.

There are some clues here and there, such as our current CEO making comments in interviews. One comment earlier on was that he hoped Sansar would be more appealing and that people would "want" to move to Sansar. In the Interview " aptly titled "Project Sansar: The Forthcoming Successor to Second Life Will Focus On VR", it doesn't smack of anything about running two parallel but different worlds.

Assuming Sansar does work out, which will take some time to be ready for prime time, in the interim the schtick will be "we have no plans to close Second Life". Until of course Sansar begins to earn more than SL. If the population begins to drop in SL, then it will be closed.

Although it won't happen in the near future, there may be signs of that happening. For instance, LL started working more aggressively on maturity ratings.

We asked "are you going to close the teen grid?".

LL replied "We have no plans to close the teen grid at this time.".

Six months later, the teen grid was closed.

Like that.

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Surely the whole idea of a VR sim is flawed - Why would you want to put on head gear and dance about your living room breaking stuff.  Its bad enough with the Nintendo game consoles where you have a chance of at least seeing the cat!

However, if there was a Matrix style technology that allowed you to 'jack into the net', then that would be a game changer.

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Ah, we're still the low rent crowd then. Mark Kingdon kind of had that view when he was CEO, we don't want 'you' we want corporate and facebook folks. That didn't work out so well, because there's a finite interest in virtual worlds and they already had us.

Someone said game developers are the intended market. Or maybe they think millions will come if they build a Google Lively kind of thing others will draw in millions for them. Or that they can do a better Cloud Party.

We know they want to ressurect custom entry points, which we already tried with SL long ago and that didn't draw in developers pulling in millions on their own. People looking to build custom projects aren't that interested in developing under someone elses umbrella when their users are already monetized and bled half dry.

@mgjackson Who knows with the VR thing? Game developers are "meh" about it in general ... saw it, got the t-shirt, we'll see if there's a demand.

LL could be banking on another hype wave. The thinking certainly seems to be that if the hardware is a hit, it'll put virtual worlds on the map in a big way. LL

Could be anything, overly optimistic views about dorky headgear and nausea inducing VR, or it could be a hype tool to pull in some investors, get a sizable loan ... my Magick 8-Ball is non committal.

Phil (Don't worry, it'll scale) Rosedale's company is banking on it, who has LL as an investor and then the antics of the space.cadets venture joined in. It's like VR/virtual worlds corporate polyamory at the moment.

Ah well, an SL re-write and strengthening the core product would have been the start of the path forward for LL, if they were generous enough to enable opportunity rather than try to own everything and monetize your pocket lint

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Eventually SL as it is now will become obsolete and so I think Sansar should be developed with eventual replacement of SL in mind.  I want to see SL thrive for many more years.  Whatever Sansar is like to start with, it should future-proofed so as to be be capable of accommodating the features that SL residents value, like creation, customisation, some form of land ownership and an economy.   

The idea of merging Sansar and SL when the time is right should still should not be ruled out completely.

 

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The way I see it is... if Project Sansar tanks, it will take both Linden Lab and Second Life down with it.  Alternatively, if it succeeds, it will eventually, entirely replace Second Life.  Either way, Second Life will eventually become dust.

My optimistic side hopes that LL will do the right thing with Sansar and everything will be alright (though, probably not great).  My pessimistic side tells me that all hope is lost and we're all doomed.

In reality, I'm in between... hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

I grow weary of people speculating about things to come, because they've no idea what LL has accomplished with the new virtual world.  And so much of that speculation tends to be rather negative.

Don't get me wrong... I understand people's skepticism... I'm skeptical too.  But, I want Project Sansar to succeed... simply because so very much rides upon it being successful.  Therefore, I chose to remain optimistic... because the alternative of doing so means that I must lose all hope entirely.

That is something which I simply refuse to do.

...Dres

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Bret Colter wrote:

What gets me on all of this the people that play SL have had a buiness in SL and have build is SL for years was not asked to be in on the first wav

All of them?  That would be as destructive as a tidal wave.  

Most "creators" in SL put out, um, less than optimal content even in SL.  Add in everyone who has ever had a business in SL and . . . well, isn't that most residents?  I hate to imagine what would happen if you released all of them into a platform that's still in early testing.  Not only that, but it would be wise to have at least some content available for all of those people coming in.  Otherwise, you'd just have a great deal of whining that there's nothing to do and that therefore the platform itself is a failure.  I don't believe that the majority of SL's current residents are the pioneer types of SL's beta.

At this point LL has released just enough information that people could start preparing for the time when they are admitted to Sansar.  As one example, we have information about the coding language and there are plenty of free online resources to learn it.  There's more information about Sansar around if people would take the time to read and/or watch what's available.  Do I think any of the persistent complainers have bothered to start preparing?  Not really.  

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And what i  have to say on this is in the past it has never took over 24 hours to get a name change for your region ot other things like that in the past year its like LL dont care about SL people no more all ther tech are working on the NEW SL and they will get to SL when they can this tell me when the NEW SL takes off the old one will die jsu tlike LS TEEn frid did

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seanabrady wrote:

in my opinion, Sansar and SL are totally different. So different that I think SL will be around for some time. Sansar is meant for building virtual experiences... I don't feel like it will ever be a world like SL.

SL will die the same way small shops die when Walmart moves in.

Say you own a little fabric shop. You sell fabric and sewing supplies. Walmart moves in and they sell fabric and sewing supplies.

But you sell things Walmart doesn't! You have better quality items and better selection. You're a full-service sewing needs supplier and Walmart isn't!

Doesn't matter. Your business was low margin before Walmart came. Can you survive when people stop coming to you for the basics?

Even if Sansar won't have everything SL does, there will be some overlap. Some people will leave. New people will try out Sansar first. Can SL survive even emptier than it is?

 

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How can you think that when members cant get LL to do things that needs to be done they have for fot all about SL look at the past with the teen grid same as there the for got all about it when sl was about to come on line,

all there tech are working on the new SL no one here to support SL members/ I know this cause i have tryed for a week trying to get my sim name chang and all i gut is we will get to it soon we are back loged

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Right now, Second Life offers the best virtual world for what I enjoy. It's the biggest and the best, with the most regions, buyable content, free content, people, groups, immersive experiences, and etc.  If SL were not around (and it won't be when Sansar takes off as a decent revenue source for Linden Lab), then there are alternative grids.

1. Sansar - Probably more expensive and not as big as Second Life is now. The graphics will be shiny, but it will not feel as much like a complete world as SL does. Initially land will be cheap, to lure us to set up homes, shops, roleplay regions, and "experiences" there. Many SL users will establish a foothold in Sansar, although our distrust of Linden Lab, as well as our friends and communities in SL will keep us playing in SL as long as we possibly can.

2. InWorldz - Looks and feels like SL did before the marketing hype bubble. This is the easiest alternative for people who resist change, but the economic model there has to change for this grid to be a fully viable alternative to SL and Sansar. While this grid is currently too small and underdeveloped to be a threat to Second Life, if enough SL users with knowledge of scripting and advanced building (ie Mesh) were developing this grid, it could become a decent virtual world.

3. Open Grid worlds - All smaller and less developed than SL. Nice for builders, colleges and companies that want to create virtual 3D experiences. Probably much cheaper than Sansar. If people can use head-mounted displays on these grids, LL could have some serious competition for the niche market they hope will make Sansar profitable. When people realize that head mounted displays aren't necessary for virtual world immersion, these will also still be a viable alternative to the more expensive, more tightly controlled, less copyright-friendly Linden Lab grids.

4. Other virtual world that haven't been fully developed yet, including Philip Rosedale's project.

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There have been a lot of attempts to replicate the magic that has become Second Life. However I cannot think of a one that started with the "everything in the pot" approach that so typifies your experiences within SL .. but I can think of quite a few that cratered in short order. (Even those with giant pockets behind them.)

SL grew into a giant, totally chaotic and amorphic blob almost from the beginning. So much growth, so fast, that no one could keep hold of it. And so it expanded to fill all available space.

Each of the ventures intended to capture the SL market share (once SL dies its inevitable death of course) started off with a giant rock wall constricting the inhabitants. Might as well duct tape a plastc bag over its head too .. cuz nothing can BREATHE in there.

Stop designing and building "pretty" stuff guys! Life is ugly, unstructured, prone to exploding from cracks and crevices you didn't see before .. and always proving to be more hearty than can be curtailed. That's kind of the definition of "success" too .. when you think about it. Most often it's something we stumble head-first into, not exactly what we plan for and execute toward.

"Oops! I screwed up right!"

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Good points about how growth wasn't constrained in SL, so it became everything it could be.

I don't think there's anything wrong with content being pretty, though I agree it doesn't have to be high tech. When I want something and can't afford the time or money to buy a shiny mesh version someone else made, I still like to make my own stuff. It's also great for newer players to learn how to make basic items, like a simple house. Once they realize they can manipulate a box into all kind of items, they may find they love building, and building can be very relaxing.

The positive for having nice textures, mesh and animations is that these things make the world look more appealing to new users. It's also easier for trolls to mock SL users on YouTube videos when their avatars look cartoonish, rather than realistically attractive.

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Persephone Emerald wrote:

... I don't think there's anything wrong with content being pretty, though I agree it doesn't have to be high tech. ...

My favorite rant is trotted out every time I hear that the scripting/programming language is going to be changed to C# instead of the much more simple LSL. I've been around long enough that I have watched the gestation and maturation of today's programming language. They haven't gotten more simple, they've gotten more massive!

And do we really need a MASSIVE programming language like C# ... to turn on a lamp when touched? Or make an object seem to move from belt to hand by using transparent texturing? Nope.

This desire to make things more modern, more high-tech .. makes sense when applied only to the upper range of capability. But it makes no sense when you also cut off everything below the top of the heap.

Sure, Dirt is messy, muddy and gets in everything. But it's also the only thing that will grow absolutely anything dropped into it.

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I know very little about LSL and absolutely nothing about C#... but, from a layman's point of view, I've no idea why anyone would think that using a proprietary language such as LSL would actually be more inclusive of the world of script writers at large, than would using a much better known language such as C#.  Is it really that much more difficult turning a light on and off in C# than it currently is in LSL for someone that knows nothing about either?

...Dres

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Dresden wrote:

I know very little about LSL and absolutely nothing about C#... but, from a layman's point of view, I've no idea why anyone would think that using a proprietary language such as LSL would actually be more inclusive of the world of script writers at large, than would using a much better known language such as C#.  Is it really that much more difficult turning a light on and off in C# than it currently is in LSL for someone that knows nothing about either?

...Dres

Aye, it is. LSL is a distillation of C#'s progenitor .. C. C itself was an offspring of earlier languages (and yes B was one of them). The constructs and language elements are simplified and minimized, yet still retain the full power of an actual programming language. LSL also supports "Event Driven" programming, a standard run-time library and a number of data types.

Of course a lot is missing; basic arrays for example. Yet real ingenuity has been applied by the 1000's of people that have learned LSL to accomplish some amazing things. LSL is small, limited and underpowered .. but is easily learned to a functional level, has all the tools necessary to accomplish about 99% of the "normal" things one needs to do and has a library of functions that manipulate Second Life well enough.

On the other hand, C# is a 3rd Gen language that is an extrapolation of structured programming techniques and the first really formalized language designed specifically for Modular Class based programming. C# exists solely for the purpose of working with giant code systems that are designed and written by many teams of many people.

In order to write a C# program, you must first distill your concept into Classes. Classes are code blocks that have specific inputs, outputs, setup and tear-down sequences. A "turn on the lamp" program would start by defining the functional class "Lamp" then need to define the inputs (touch events for example) and outputs (change the lighting for example).

The short form look at the two goes like this: With LSL you start with "I wanna do..." and then throw in some code you know will catch the touch and turn on the light. Done! With C# you have to visualize the entirety of the lamp's actions and functionality then work out what attributes it will have. You have to envision the whole thing from start to end just to get started. With LSL .. hash it out on the run.

LSL is horribly hobbled in stupid ways. No argument there. But rather than dump the whole easy programming aspect by switching to a much more formal and stratified language, they should extend LSL's data types, improve world management tools .. and just push LSL closer to a "real" programming language.

Once again the desire to switch to C# is indicative of the planners not realizing that the entry ramp needs to be low and shallow. That having a low shallow on-ramp does not prevent reaching great heights. And that people with no skills and no fashion sense and no idea how business works .. LOVE coming to SL to play with, learn about and enjoy exploring the stuff they don't know yet.

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  • 4 weeks later...

C# would be vastly better than lsl in so many ways.

You make it sound like using c# as the scripting lang would be rocket science. But truth is it would be just as simple or complex as you want it to be.

 

So script would just be like in lsl .. touch action > light on > done . No complicated classes needed or pre thinking. It would all be same just different syntax, But at the same the same time access to a lot more power.

 

Also there is big difference between script and a program. The ramp to learn to write a c# script would be same as it would be learn lsl. Would not be that many differences. 

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