This week we discuss the latest news and upcoming Second Life developments, if the community should own SL and more!
This week’s topics include:
- Yoz Linden Out
- Linden Lab CFO, Malcolm Dunne
- Follow Up on new LL Products
- Minecraft vs SL
- More on the new SL trailer
- Disgruntled Frogs
- Being original, copy-catting, or reinventing the wheel?
- LL’s new products aren’t the end of Second Life
- Update on materials in SL
- SL mesh clothing deformer update
- WELL Users Buy Influential Virtual Community from Corporate Owner — Could Second Life Users Do the Same?
- Another One Rides The Bus!
- FATEcreate Mesh Template Source Files
Guests:
Bernhard Drax (Draxtor Despres) is a musician, new media producer, and machinima journalist.
Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz, formerly Qarl Linden) is visual effects artist, software developer, and interactive designer extraordinaire.
Thank you to our sponsors, Botgirl’s Identity Circus and Pretty Feet!
Just want to point out that the article wasn’t intended to address user retention. It did, to start with, but I dropped that as it is an entire problem / subject of its own which caused my piece on SL / new products to balloon (and something I’m still wrestling with in another piece).
On the broader front, the reaction that “Yeah, well all this isn’t going to solve….”, is – with respect – again typifies what I comment on at the top of the article; people responding to the “good” things LL are doing with an instant “yeah, but…” – with the implication that a) LL are doing these things at the expense of “solving lag”, or that b) other issues aren’t being looked into.
Lag is a case in point. On the one hand, at least 90% of “lag” exists at the user’s end of the equation, or is at least out of LL’s control (e.g. lag can be as much the result of a person’s network connect and / or what ever they are running on their computer or even the version of their computer’s operating system). Ergo, there is no way LL can (as you mention in passing) can ever “solve” lag.
The flip side to this is that the chances are that many of the things they are doing will be perceived as “solving lag”, simply because things will potentially happen a lot faster. The HTTP texture service is already yielding significantly improved texture fetching & rezzing, for example. Similarly, the Interest Lists & Object Rezzing will appear to make in-world items “rezzing faster” – so the perception is liable to be that “lag” has been “reduced”.
So it’s fair to say that while the endeavours within SL are not individually any form of “secret sauce”, they are working towards delivering the kind of more predictable service we’ve been demanding in SL.
It’s really a shame that when LL do undertake efforts, the loudest response is that of dissent / disagreement or users casting the efforts in a negative light.
As per request by Qarl:
Pissed off Toads
Amphibians with Attitudes
Tadpole Tantrums
Lick my Warts
Buzz Kill
Watertight Arses
Webbed Middle Finger
Kiss me…. I am prince… Really!!!
Hoppin Mad
Will Work for Flies
Taste Like Chicken
Inara Pey – 90% of SL lag has to do with how inefficiently the average person makes content. Computer and internet would not be an issue if the content was made efficiently. 1 moderately complex build in SL, can be dozens of textures and a massive amount of verticies. When you bring in sculpty builds with dozens of sculpties to make 1 object, each also using a unique texture, now you are talking 100 x the data of any normal game. Just a simple furry avatar using sculpties is a massive amount of data.
On Minecraft, I own it, and I play it, but only on survival mode. It can’t really be compared to SL. For me, the appeal is just playing it. Beyond that, it’s boring, and I kind of hate building a structure, other than my complex train track system. I’m too old to go multiplayer in minecraft, and I can’t see multi being all that interesting for me. In SL, I can create, have fun, and make a living off it.
Machinima – The problem with video in SL, is the tools. If LL added a Timeline with the ability to drop avatars, objects, and a separate camera into it, then you could add animations to all those items in the Timeline. With this, machinima would be greatly improved.
As far as LL’s new ventures, I only wished they’d make an honest commitment at fixing content related bug, and put a robust team to fix them. There will always be bugs, but bugs related to content that people sell, is not exceptable. If they made an honest effort at fixing those issues, then I couldn’t give a crap what else LL works on.
@Medhue
Lag: Inefficient building is still the user’s end of the equation, and unless LL introduce stringent controls over what people can / cannot do, then there is still little they can do directly. What they can do, they have, and are doing. Textures and the new HTTP service being a case in point, together with the development of their “best practices” guide for SL building on the wiki. As for the rest of your comment on mesh, sculpts, etc., no arguments from me
.
Content bugs – I’d also add “getting issues around channels for people to sell their content fixed” as well. We’re 6+ months into the latest series of SLM issues, and still no sign of major progress / resolution.
LL could take a different approach when dealing with content creators who contribute greatly to lag by creating inefficiency objects.
One approach might be to reward those who create efficient objects by putting them higher in the search results on the MarketPlace and in the in world search.
Another way might be two limit the draw distance of avatars based on how many faces or triangles their attachments have. Perhaps having a limit where once you reach so many triangles everyone but you will see your avatar as an avatar imposter.
I have said it before but allowing the option to let people save their favorite sims to their hard drives would cut lag way way down. Sure it may take ten minutes to download the whole sim but after that basically no more lag ever when you go to that sim.
Oh, I just read that Malcolme Dunne worked at Eidos. This is the game company that created HITMAN, which is 1 of the few truly epic games series that still goes on today. Plus, it’s 1 of my favorite games series of all time.
You guys really need to take some time and set up a Minecraft server and a Open Sim server. Guarantee you will be sitting there 5 hours from now trying to figure out how to get on your server and open it up and do anything on it, and in five minutes you will have an infinite world to do anything you want. Look at the numbers. Minecraft puts SL to shame.
Then compare the costs of SL and Minecraft, no brainer.
On Minecraft:
I was reading some posts from past podcast about why Minecraft has so many users compared to SL. In one of them it mentioned that while SL limits space and number of objects and is way more expensive Minecraft is very low cost but gives a huge amount of land and objects to play with.
My solution to this would be to allow every account to basically have their own private sandbox. One that is not limited to 256 by 256 by 4000 meters and basically unlimited prims.
The catch is though for free accounts only the owner and maybe one other avatar can be at the owners sandbox. The sandbox is only temporary and so when the owner logs off it goes bye bye. No LM can reach the sandbox the owner had to send TP invites to others.
No neighbors. You can not see any other sandboxes or sims from your sandbox. No sim crossings. No sky. No water. No clouds. This is to keep the servers load to a minimum.
Owner of the sandbox can appear truly offline while in the sandbox or allow others to see they are online. You can log on straight into your sandbox if you wish for more privacy.
If someone wants to have more avatars at their sandbox they can pay a small fee each month. Say $5 USD for every extra avatar. Premium accounts get to have three avatars extra while free accounts just one extra or maybe none.
Free temporary uploads to these sandboxes. Every time the owner logs on and teleports to their sandbox it is empty. This means no scripts will be running in the sandbox after the owner has logged off to again keep server load down to a minimum.
Just had a thought! I was thinking how could LL offer private sandboxes without adding extra burden to their servers?
Then it hit me. You can act as your own server with open sim. Then why can’t LL add your own private sandbox and use your own computer as the server. As long as the sandbox is connected to SL to retrieve your inventory and to communicate with other avatars logged into SL.
No setup needed. The sandbox automatically is loaded onto your computer when you log in with the standard LL default viewer.
You could always have it in your preferences that you don’t want to use the private sandbox.
First of all, thank you so much for reading my email on air. I definitely agree with Carl. If LL gave us a procedurally generated SL world that is able to run from our own hosted servers, I would definitely find that appealing. However, doing this will destroy SL’s walled garden. I am aware of OpenSim but all of these 3D virtual world platforms are still too limiting compared to the near limitless procedurally generated worlds of Minecraft. Yes, the Minecraft world is generated but only the natural landscapes. Everything else must be built by the player. Sure, some folks may not like the static nature of built objects in Minecraft (as Giana pointed out). But the fact that building can be limitless over vast distances of virtual land is an advantage of Minecraft that 3D virtual worlds will not be able to compete with until technology and bandwidth becomes much cheaper.
The thing about Minecraft world building is that it has the option to integrate with several game modes. The survival mode of Minecraft puts players in an environment where they must gather their resources and fight monsters doing it. Players build within an environment that can be dangerous to them. Enable some PvP action and you have a very MMO-like game where the players are creating their own environments and gaming within them. There is also a creative mode which takes the game element out of Minecraft. In that mode, all game elements are removed and players may simply build from an inventory filled with unlimited resources.
I definitely believe that SL can appeal to Minecraft/Gmod players. Almost every player I talk to in Minecraft isn’t into it because they can kill zombies or creepers. They love the game because they can explore and build things in it WITH OTHER PEOPLE. The building process as well as the interaction with the world is not better than SL, it is simply different. Anyway, I am a lover of virtual worlds first and foremost. But, my notion of a virtual world is not wrapped up in 3D graphics. Minecraft opened my eyes to this. I hated it when I first saw it but when I realized the potential (of limitless building on limitless space), I quickly got over the blocky graphics. Unlike SL, Minecraft is not limited by land or prim counts. I take them both for what they have to offer in their own right.
Finally, I recently rented a homestead sim in SL and began work on a new home for my wife’s vampire clan. All I know is that I love building inside of virtual environments. I really do hope Patterns succeeds and I hope LL and SL benefit from it. I hope that once SL is on Steam, there will be thousands of other people like me who “get” both Minecraft and Second Life. I hope the kids playing and building in Minecraft now (my server is filled with tweens) will be playing and building in Second Life as they get older. Playing with blocks might lead to playing with polygons. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Furious Quan
Addendum:
I really don’t think you guys need to worry too much about the quality of the Patterns video. Also, you guys are being predjudice towards Steam users. Like Facebook, Steam users are as varied as snowflakes! There is a HUGE indie game movement in the PC games industry. There are many games which aren’t graphically appealing but sell very well. Graphics are not king anymore. Games are based on ….. wait for it … their game play value. I think the appeal of virtual worlds and all the things you can do in them will appeal vastly to most Steam users. Thousands of Steam users are Minecraft and Gmod players. If they like to build and exist in those games, why not the virtual world platform that is Second Life?
Just saw this and had to think of Qarl: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1384519763/pissed-off-penguins