Nextio

Hate to burst people's bubbles, but SL is nothing like the current crop of metaverses. It's ancient and outdated. SL will never be a true open grid metaverse. It has always been a virtual world closed off from everything else. It's actually quite limited and centralized. Upcoming metaverses such as Zuckerberg's Horizon, or Decentraland, will have interoperability with other metaverses. In other words, cross-metaverse bridges, where you will be able to teleport your avatar, clothing, objects, inventory, and so on, between multiple metaverses, using these bridges. All of this is already underway with organizations, such as OMI, to make a standardization for Web 3.0 and metaverses. Sort of like how the W3C formed to make the internet standardized. Imagine being able to travel back and forth from your favorite sim in SL to some other metaverse that's holding a conference or concert, all while taking the same SL avatar. I would prefer using my semi-realistic SL avatar in VR Chat, instead of an anime avatar (no offense to VR Chat). In my opinion, SL has the best skins, shapes, hair, clothing, and so on, but they can't be shared across metaverses which is a shame. It's basically going to be like OpenSim, hypergrid, and Kitely's marketplace, except it's not confined within the OpenSim software. Think of it like being able to travel back and forth between portals in SL <-> IMVU <-> VR Chat <-> Sansar. (please don't compare the quality between these, I'm just giving an example) Not only that, but third party marketplaces such as Unity, CGTrader, TurboSquid, Fivver, already exist, and SL creators won't be limited to the SL marketplace anymore because all these other metaverses will attract more people and more sales. It's already happening to some degree where SL creators sell virtual items in other worlds, such as IMVU. I know a lot of SL residents get defensive about their first love of virtual worlds, but SL is not the future. SL will eventually end up like Myspace, Blockbuster, and Gamestop. Linden Labs needs to adapt or be left behind. I know they tried with Sansar but it had many other issues besides early adoption of VR tech.

It's kind of sad that his High Fidelity project failed. It was way ahead of it's time with blockchain and VR. I was hoping it would succeed but it just wasn't good enough for users and creators. Everything, from the UI to the building tools, was difficult to use. The only VR world with some success from that era was VR Chat (mostly because of the memes). All the others pretty much failed, such as Sansar, NeosVR, AltspaceVR, etc. It's too bad Linden Labs sold Sansar though because it could've been retooled and reconfigured for the modern metaverse with it's own blockchain and cryptocurrency. Perhaps an SL2? 🤷‍♂️

This is probably the best solution currently. They would essentially work like Lucky Chairs.

It's out of their control. Certain US states and certain countries do not allow online gambling. Linden Lab could be sued and fined for breaking the law.

Do Powder Packs and other loot boxes fall under these rules? From what I remember, powder packs contain random skins.

I just got back into SL again and just noticed these changes. It was my only source of income in SL and now they halved it. It used to be $150 per week if you did both weekly quests but now it's $75 linden a week. I thought $150 was a good compromise, but $75 is paltry and you can't really buy anything anymore. I can't find any explanation either. This company is definitely not being transparent which is is disappointing.

I think most people will move to OpenSim if SL ever shuts down. Some creators will move too, which will ultimately determine if SL continues in OpenSim, or not. All i can say is, prepare for instability in the upcoming weeks and months.

Yikes. No custom last name? Was it really that difficult to find a couple developers to come up with something, besides this half-baked idea? 😐

Linden Realms was decent for what it was but then people started abusing it with bots and multiple accounts.

It's way too steep when you compare it to MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, which is only $10 every 3 days.

I have no desire to be part of one, but i view it as adults playing "house", similar to how children play it. One kid would be daddy, another mommy, and others as kids. It's just not my thing, same for vampire bloodlines.

Convenience, language barriers, social anxiety, discrete infidelity, etc.

Anyone else remember those female shapes with the widest hips and gap possible? This was before mesh bodies. They also had pouty and sad mouths. So glad it faded out. It looked ridiculous.

I'm aware of that, but i should've been more clear. I meant seeing the Resident tag inworld such as in scripts, chat, from lucky chairs and MM boards, etc.

No thanks. I like the ability to change display names for RP reasons. I also like using them for fun and flavorful text such as titles or other symbols. If you take them away, people will start using titlers which would add more to the script count.