This week we discuss problems with user retention, what determines success and more!
This week’s topics include:
- Draxtor’s Idiot Status
- Virtual Feet Fetish?
- Virtual Greeters vs Mentors
- Jimmy Kimmel – I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy (Video)
- Lag in Second Life
- Minecraft vs. Second Life
- Was Second Life ever cool?
- What role does luck play in success?
- Patterns confirmation email from Linden Lab
- Flufee on a Meshion – Episode 15: Flufee for Resident!
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!
To the aspect of creativity, yes, Second Life should be promoted as a place of creativity, creativity in all fields even in the field of game development. It should be promoted as a place where everything is possible, where anything can happen. It is this potential that brings new residents to SL. Now, keeping new residents in SL… The old(er) residents do their share by creating absolutely amazing sims, and we only need to read a few SL travelblogs to see that; Linden Lab should do the rest, and we all know what the rest is — keeping it affordable. Creativity, that’s the key word. And I won’t ramble about the greeters/mentors again… that is one of my pet peeves in SL… Agree with everything you said. Great show!
I think you guys are totally missing the point about Minecraft. No one is saying that it is BETTER then Second Life, just different, and appealing in different ways. Obviously it doesnt have the stigma of Second Life, and you guys hit the nail on the head, mostly these kids are young kids who are influences. Second Life will turn you off before you even know what it is because of its stigma and the horrible name. If Minecraft was named Losercraft do you think people would be in it?
Minecraft you get infinite land, you can run your own server with infinite land. You an own and export your own creations, and it all cost a 1 time fee of like 15 bucks.
SL you have limited space, it costs out the rear end, and you can’t tell anyone your in SL or else you will get made fun of.
Minecraft is great as an introductory to open world sand box metaversal type “world” and shows there is a market for this type of content. SL’s failure to capitalize on this large market is due to the name, the stigma, and the lack of marketing, as well as the fact that all of these kids who play minecraft can’t even afford Second Life.
Let me just comment on the LAG issue again. I’m sure I’ll be back to comment on the rest later, but I want to say this before I forget.
I’m not for limits on individuals. What limits different venues put in place, that is only smart and totally within their right. For an individual or for creators, they should be able to make or wear whatever they want, as we don’t know what or how they are using SL.
What I think it the major issue with content and what LL can do, is all about education and information. This is where the problem is. If you give the residents the information, they will make better decisions. When the creators see that people are choosing efficiency more, they will adjust the way they make things. LL does not give any1 a benchmark to shoot for when creating. The wiki should be filled with advice on what is and is not efficient.
The 2nd, and most important this LL should do, is give the residents the information on the Marketplace. Force creators to put to all the relevant information on the MP, especially Display Costs. LL doesn’t even have a spot to put this information. They could even put serve cost and physics cost. Most of this would be only for mesh, but even scultpies have a Display Cost now. Plus, when a merchant sees his laggy products next to the same product that show a small Display Cost, and see that it is selling like crazy, you can bet they will find ways to lower their own Display Cost.
Qarl-
Please don’t bring up bikes again.
Ugh.
Minecraft has something that SL doesn’t have. You go in, and you have stuff to immediately do. The core of Minecraft is a game first, then you can mod it, or play multiplayer or whatever.
Now, SL has all kind of games to play and things to do, but people can’t find them. I’ve brought this up before and feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but I still feel it is the key issue. LL broke search years ago, and it’s current search is easily the worst we have ever seen. The Destination Guide can not replace a good search engine. Before, all places were ranked by some very important metrics, like how large the parcel was, how many times the keyword showed on prims, and how many Picks people had of that place. Back then, if you made shoes, and you had the largest parcel, the most prims with shoes on them, and the most customers with Picks, you were ranked #1. I was ranked 10th for the word animation, and now you won’t find me in search. No1 knows what metrics are relevant anymore and I’d venture to say that neither does LL.
Why don’t people know what to do, cause the search give them crap, and LL thinks the Destination Guide makes up for this. How you get in the Destination Guide has nothing to do with any kind of metric, but whether LL thinks you should be there. I’m in there, but buried under mounds of other stores, and animation is under fashion, which is BS. In an animated world, ANIMATION should have it’s own category, but somehow, the Lindens can comprehend this.
The last thing I want to bring to every1′s attention, is the major screw up that LL has been causing with merchants. The Listing Enhancements have been messed up for a couple of months now. Last week, all merchants with Listing Enhancement were charged for every listing all at the same time. Some merchants has hundreds of dollars pulled from their accounts within hours. LL tried to make up for this a couple of days ago, by refunding us and giving us those enhancement for free during the messed up time. When they did this, which I didn’t get all my refunds, all of a sudden we were all charged again for enhancements for the past month. AND….. for many of the enhancements, the system is stuck and we can’t even unsubscribe to the enhancement. It’s a fricken mess. I’m personally out about 50 dollars, and many merchants are out many times more than this.
Kim, you didn’t have AV club because you’re like ten years old. AV club was around back when operating a 16mm projector required specialized geek skills. And teachers showed 16mm films to the class. About the dinosaurs and the dangers of marijuana.
Now I feel like a fossil.
The only reason I logged back on after my first time was because one real person took me under his wing and showed me around. His name is Jasper Gruppman. I can not thank him enough. It can not be a mere coincidence that all three of you had a similar experience that got you to come back after your first time.
If there were problems with the Mentor program figure out what they were and fix it. Any problem with that program was a management problem not a technical problem. LL needs to hire professional management people who’s full time job is to manage mentor or greeters or cruise directors what ever you call them. Volunteer mentors are going to be more difficult to manage than if LL pays people to be mentors. Believe me people are willing to work for L$100 per hour. You can’t automate such a thing you need real people and real people to manage it. Believe me LL that there are real people willing to work as managers for $10 USD an hour. Hire 30 or 40 of them to each manage 100 mentors who are getting paid $0.37 USD per hour.
I have come to the conclusion that the only effective way for LL to deal with lag is to start a new grid with new rules. I have said it before I love to see three new grids with new names. One prim only grid. Two sculptie only grid. Three mesh only grid.
I know there are two kinds of lag and the lag that kills my experience and causes my computer to grind to a halt is not from the graphics. It is from the avatars themselves and the things they wear and the scripts running in them.
Believe me I don’t have a crappy computer. 3.2 GHz processor 2.0 GB ram Radeon 4850 512 MB graphics card and 20m cable modem. By far it is not the best by today’s standards but not half bad either.
For a virtual world experience which is supposed to be a shared experience when just a few heavily scripted mega attachment wearing avatars come into a sim and slow everything to a grind ruining the experience is insane.
As for why Minecraft is way more popular with the 20 somethings verses the late 30s and older crowed. Think of it like music. There is a natural trend for any type of music to become more complex and sophisticated as the years go by. Look at the early Beatles music compared to the later stuff they were creating.
I remember being a kid and listening to Abby Road and thinking to myself there would be no way I could ever hope to write music like that. I tried but when my efforts fell short I gave up. If John, Paul, George and Ringo been born just 10 or 15 years later would they have given up as well? They got started when Rock and Roll was at an earlier simpler time in its development. Creating music that was as good as their idols didn’t seem to be out of reach for them and it wasn’t.
So what do a lot of young people do? They gravitate to something simpler. The response to complicated sophisticated Rock and Roll was Punk. Rap is a response to RB singing style. Rap and Hop Hop has also developed over the years to be more and more stylized and complicated and I am sure there will be a response to that that is simpler and less complex so the next generation can express themselves.
I am not saying LL should end SL. Just like Rock and Roll or RB has not ended. But having new grids with new rules calling them something other than Second Life is a good thing. Perhaps that is exactly what these new products are for LL.
Qarl / Drax
Hate to rain on Disgruntled Frogs … but other than the weapons, everything you’ve described is in … Linden Realms! There be monsters, there be poisonous rivers … there be crystals to gain for moolah
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Of course, as seach in totally buggered, no-one can ever find it, but it is there
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Still, it’s the thought that counts. I think.
On a more serious note, I’d second Medhue’s last paragraph via the Marketplace. That is something that could form a podcast in its own right, and needs wider coverage than I’ve managed.
um…
i’m wanting a game with a nice design. linden realms doesn’t do that.