SLCC 2006 Sponsor No Longer Attending

Clubside announced to the libsl mailing list earlier this week that he was leaving, so I think it's a done deal.
I really will miss you, and all the nice things you've done for me and others. You gave me a full font set and wouldn't accept my money for it.
I said I'd pay you back in kind some how, but now it looks like I'll be unable to...
Signed with emo tears,
Jesse Malthus

A. Torley DID leave before she came back. For quite a while.

B. Why do people do these posts? I will tell you why. It has to do with "forums" and "communication." Quite a number of people are involved with each other person, see. And when that person decides to change his plans, he might well think to post such, and why, so as to let others know what is going on. When you are doing a lot, contributing a lot, and involving others, it's only polite NOT to drop off the face of the planet without a word.

C. Dramatic? It didn't strike me as particularly dramatic.

D. As for people deciding to go, or to stay, or to go and then return some time later, that seems to me normal life. For them to let their friends know seems normal to me, too. When they come back, if they do, I'm always happy about it. (And I hope Clubside does!)

Course, soon we won't have to be burdened with all this "noise" of people letting others know what they are going to be doing or not doing, at least here.

(Can anybody tell how very much I totally resent having residents being called "noise"???)

coco

For once I have to agree with you ^_^
((Although I don't share your disdain for being called noise, but that's for a diffrent thread...))

What she said, both comments.

I've purchased Clubside's sandbox. It will stay a sandbox for the forseeable future. I can't afford to be quite as generous as Clubside, but I will endeavor to keep it much the same place it is today.

Clubside, my compliments on a very profound, well-written post. A lot of what you said rings so true with me. I've only been here a year and I've been hearing about Havok 2 the whole time -- and as you said, Havok 2 is yesterday's physics engine now.


Yes and no. The technology is nothing to write home about -- the avatars use UV mapping close to Poser 2 (Poser's up to ver. 6), no bumpmaps, and a scripting engine even children could bring to its knees - and they have.

But I'll disagree that virtual worlds can never make money. SL is not going to be able to compete with other online games (your example of Xbox was a good one), but that doesn't mean there isn't a market for 3D chat rooms and user-interactive worlds. In that respect, I think Philip's notion of going with free registration was aimed in the right direction, even if he didn't quite take it far enough. The money to be made is in using SL as a marketing platform for real world products and services, making the Second Life system transparent, easily accessible and hard to exploit. It's nowhere near any of that -- to get there would require a completely different core platform. I don't see the Lindens doing that, but I do see someone else doing it and thus delivering a coup de grace to our fun little primitive experiment.

Your mention of Phillip's Tao of Linden was especially timely and accurate. I've been looking for some sign that LL understands how to run a company, how to manage an online world and how to communicate effectively with their customers. I have yet to see even a glimmer of hope in any of those areas. And your departure in combination with the closing of the forums is further proof to me that this is not going to end well.

That's great Gigs!

Hi Clubside sorry to see you go.

I have a question, what was your involvement with sl before the creation of this account 5 months ago?
I'm asking because i'm wondering if you got caught up in the media hype, and now you see SL in a more realistic be it somewhat pessimistic light.

I don't think SL and LL both has changed all that much in that time, yes some bold moves where and are being made with the community, but to be honest it feels much to soon to know what the results will be of that.
Did you expect the technology to change and improve radically in those 5 months, that seems honestly a bit delusional. I stopped development of a product almost a year ago because html on a prim was going to come soon. Well we know where that is now. That alone should have warned you and toned your plans and investments down a bit.

Now i'm not saying SL hasn't improved because i think it did, but it is more of a slow evolution instead of every update being a Revolution. And being like that it is sometimes hard to see it, because you slowly adept and grow with it.

If you honestly look at the last 3 months in which you started to invest, where would you have expected SL to be now? Could it be that your expectations where to great?

I agree with Frans. I think things are a little more slow and frustrating, maybe, from what Clubside was expecting.

But I also think that "Tao of Linden" was the sort of thing that would cause any of us with any sense to get out now, lol. I'm not, but then, I'm not trying to do anything very monumental.

My hope is that Clubside will reevaluate, consider the realities that are causing him to exit, and frame the entire SL picture in another way that allows him to still participate in ways that will be sufficiently productive to him. If that makes sense. I'm not being very articulate tonight. Because never mind LL, WE need players like this!

If that were my company's mission statement, all my employees would be happy. But we'd also go out of business.

Really would it, would you be happy in a company that is going out of business. Or does happiness maybe motivate to work harder for the company? Sure the Tao was posted on a unfortunate time, but does not make it necessarly something so bad it would ruin a company.

It is for me as well very different from what i'm used to, but the only way we can honestly judge is being there and experience it. The second best thing is looking at what the employees are doing, if it really was disastrous wouldn't there be a lot people quiting and getting a job somewhere else? And wouldn't we be hearing some complaing through the grapevine? I haven't seen any of that.

I personally want to thank you Clubside, for all of your hard work, and money spent trying to make SL a better place...Starax and now you,



WE ARE BANGING AT THE DOOR......DO YOU HEAR US?????

I hear you knocking....but you can't come in..

/sing

D'ya seriously believe Clubside's leaving will make it past a couple of coffee break discussions? Seriously?

Coffee break discussions are where a lot of big ideas come from.

He's a SLCC sponsor. It might not be OMGWTFBBQ news, but it should get their attention.

Thank you for all you did Clubside. May your next endeavor be fun and fruitful for you.

Don't make me wave my walker at you, Lecktor. I might fall down and break my hip.

We'll see. Don't expect much. Well, don't expect anything.

Howdy all, thank you for the great replies. I've spent most of the weekend back at my "fun place" so I am just now getting a chance to catch up and hopefully answer a few of the interesting and valid points brought up.

To preface this, I need to be clear that my decision was not based on the issue of the Forums being closed. While I believe this to be a bad move, it ultimately doesn't affect what I was trying to do, which was provide alternative tools geared towards user retention in the hopes that Linden Lab might someday want to integrate them into the core system, as some are client and others server-based.

My decision was based on a lack of professionalism trend, two instances of action and one pervasive form of inaction. It's difficult to devote one's own time and careful planning when others don't seem to share the same concern.

The first action was "The Tao of Linden" blog post (http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/07/25/the-tao-of-linden/) stating Linden Lab's method of work environment was "better" than other medthods at a time when issues, some of them crippling, were being introduced week after week.

The second action was announcing the closure of the Forums, the one-stop userbase-to-userbase and userbase-to-company location for dialog, mere weeks before the Second Life Community Convention, where Linden Lab is the lead sponsor. To celebrate the community with one hand and slap it with the other is not the front any professional organization whould take.

The pervasive form of inaction is the lack of a development and deployment pla, which I was aware of from the start, and had hoped to address in person at the conference. Where other companies refuse to comment on rumors, Linden Lab refuses to discuss a product that is essentially still incomplete by design in a manner that lets its paying customers see the light at the end of the tunnel.

At this point the world described in "What is Second Life" (http://secondlife.com/whatis/) appears to be a mirage. Since many of us are asked to pay real money to provide the world that is to sell others on the concept, we should think the company we are investing in is operating in a professional manner. At this point I believe they are not.



Thanks Io, and others who have contacted me about their work. Yes, SLHandbook will be continued, and all planned features added. For those of you who haven't seen the site or read my posts in the "Resident Run Websites" Forum, I employeed residents to help get the project off the ground. There were a number of reasons for this: any new venture that will ask others to commit time and resources is better off showing data that indicates why one should choose to contribute that time; the lack of "newbie" jobs and the elimination of the basic account stipend that coincided with the change to open registration left many users in my sandbox wondering what to do, with no taste of creation or shopping without committing real money that open registration implied was not needed; and to build a real working resource for display at the SLCC to serve as a demonstration point for some of my requested database changes. Ultimately all of my projects were being developed in hopes that Linden Lab would want to fold them into Second Life, and demonstration rather than talk has proven most effective for me in the past. I do these things when they are fun and there is a worthy cause, because ultimately I am already a "I'm so happy cuz I'm so stoopid" person, and if I want a feature than selfishly in the end I'm happy to develop it on my own and turn it over so I can move on to a new project while gaining the benefit.



I understand that Isablan, but I'm a fool that will try in the storm of contradictory evidence. I wrote an article a year ago while researching MMOs about how there are no true "Role Playing Games" in the computer or console world. Since Square-Enix's "Final Fantasy" series has bastardized that word for a generation, I wanted to remind those who might remember and tell those who don't that a "Role" is one you create and thrust out into an unknown world, not playing a "role" that is scripted for you and shown a single storyline. At the end I had planned to detail my own "Ultimate MMO" which coincidently contained most of the features found in Second Life before I was even aware of its existence. However I am a lazy bastard with the attention span of a newt and never got around to it. As pennance and part of my future projects I plan to detail the MMO publically with resources for others to contribute. The goal would be a fully realized world on paper that some aspiring company would be free to come in and snap up. Because as with my projects for Second Life, ultimately I want the "features" and am happy to give away the design so I can move on to other things.



You will see me then, and inbetween. You just won't see me very often. When I chose to start development of the combat engine portion of my work I made committments to Anshe Chung, who is nice enough to offer island rentals for those not willing or able to plunk down $1250USD to start a project; Fred Extraordinaire, the lead on the scripting portion; Kyran Nyak who designed the initial combat arena at Carnage Island and is now working with Fred to meet my imposed start-of-the-SLCC deadline which has never changed even with this announcement; and the three teams completing the builds at "DeathMatch Island" also in time for the conference. I would never abandon people who spent so much time, effort and resources into a project unless the old hypothetical I get at work ever occurred: "What happens when you get run over by a bus?" Luckily I try to avoid that potential situation. Maybe luckily for me, and unluck for the rest of humanity, but who's to quibble? I need to ensure all parties get their time to shine here: the creators and the users. Until the end of this year the combat arenas will be available free of charge for use by those who enjoy taking a little time out of their Second Life to kill and maim their fellow residents. This was an exercise in concept, a programming challenge, a place to show off Second Life's potential to demonstrate "maps" and "levels" from traditional gaming environments, and the builders of Second Life who can harness its abilities to deliver those locations.

I apologize if I was venturing into "hullabaloo" territory Leena, but I wanted to use the Forums for one of their intended purposes to hopefully illustrate their continued value. I am not an alt, I don't have any alts. My avatar has been in-world nearly 24 hours a day for the last three months. I had a lot to accomplish in a fairly short amount of time: manage a manual return sandbox that also gave away free money so new and interested builders might have a few extra L$ for that texture they wanted to try or vendor system they wanted to purchase to start their business, and interact with these people to get a sense of other's Second Life experiences in regard to my mission of user retention; manage a team of residents out surveying awesome builds and landsacpes throughout Second Life to serve as an initial database for the features I was simultaneously programming for SLHandbook; manage multiple teams building a complete combat simulation and environmeny within Second Life to best address how the core system could be modified to better support the development of traditional multiplayer gaming from within the wonderful concept of the Second Life whole; develop, research, and build the components needed for an expansive alternative Orientation experience; and document as many of the issues related to these projects as I could to form a cohesive argument and document that could be presented to Linden Lab in a way that hopefully would either coincide with their plans or be considered in their goals.

I tried to not be dramatic. I tried to bring up points that I hadn't seen repeated throughout the Forums or in-world. I tried to give voice to myself for a larger audience that might respond in kind, and remind Linden Lab that these issues aren't simply the troll bait or "drahma" people so blanketly apply to the Forums. So yes, I will be here in two months, and two months after that, but I will not be here in the spirit I arrived. I will not be here with the frequency. I will not be here with the real world dollars. I wanted to be sure I communicated to those who directly knew me and everyone else the reason why.



Thanks for your reply Cindy, I felt your Forums closure post was excellent and tried to avoid repeating anything you had so eloquently said. However, I didn't mean to imply virtual worlds couldn't be profitable, just the Second Life "platform" concept. I tried to argue that the public has been given multiple stabs at the 3D web or space paradigm and rejected it. The 3D canvas is replete with options, but just not compelling to use in that manner. The concept of seeking information by moving an avatar through 3D space, lining it up, clicking on things, just doesn't resonate with people the same way web browsing works. Even if Second Life were able to implement these virtual world to real world dynamics I believe current technology cannot provide the medium for this alternative to be effective. Maybe in the future that I hope to never see (brain implants, full-body input devices, etc.) this method of product exploration will work. For this reason some other "draw" is needed, and online gaming has proven to be compelling to millions on multiple platforms, consoles and PCs. As I wrote to Isablan above, I have a detailed "world" devised that had as one of its components the creativity features of Second Life. However they were a choice, and the system was designed around creating an "experience" to see how users would evolve it. I have the domain and website purchased and will try to document this system over the coming months and create a forum for other to comment, extend, and of course belittle my ideas. Hopefully you'll get a chance to check it out. Before the Forum closures here I will be sure post the link. I think there is money is a user-created virtual world with a backbone in gaming. I don't however see the money in the marketing platform that will require far more effort on the part of the consumer versus their current options of real-world shopping, catalogs and the web.



I had no involvement before I joined. I follow the gaming press quite thoroughly and Second Life is not on their radar, or at least it wasn't until a series of articles on "escorts" cropped up in Computer Gaming World. At first exploring the marketing material for humor value I quickly understood the technology and goal and wanted to help. I wrote my first computer program in 1976, hosted by first online Bulletin Board System in 1984, and released by first public piece of commercial software in 1989 (after years of giving away applications that I usually developed out of spite). I have spent the last decade developing solutions to automation that would allow companies to remove redundant jobs, empower the remaining workers with the knowledge to make their own technology decisions, combine systems rife with data integrity issues, and then walk away. My current involvement is with an education company where my concerns ranged from overpriced textbooks to the needs of at-risk students while at the same time providing another tool for a teacher's arsenal. I am the sole developer of this system, its dba, its interface designer, and we service more simulatneous logins than Second Life on a daily basis while bringing educational opportunities to the disadvantaged as well as the privileged in 38 states.

I may be approaching all of this from the same bad angle I always do: my own understanding of technology and the speed at which it can be implemented. I understand the foundations of Second Life's architecture. We use a system that involves a CPU running a physics simulation, a host of servers hosting garphic and sound resources that in gaming environments are typically all client-side, and a host of network protocols that cover the communications end between client and server to client again. It's from this knowledge that parts of Second Life's technology is frustrating. I know what it takes to incorporate an off-the-shelf developer library like the Havok Physics engine into a product. I know how important a bedrock technology like that is to any system. That is my frustratiion: we see client-side changes (flexi-prims and local lighting) but what about some server-side updates? Linden Lab refuses to even provide a roadmap. Microsoft is quick to layout a year in advance the direction their development tools are moving. Why doesn't Linden Lab feel the need to say "Havok 4 in November, 2006" and bring the resources to bear to ensure that happens? All the topics I have read about prim limits to sim frame rates, link distances to general "lag", show a lot of people don't realize what a change would be in store if only this one component were brought up to modern times. Every single visible object in Second Life is under the domain of this engine, from static walls you bump into to the avatar itself. Collisions, pushes, vehicles and more are all dependent on this underlying technology. To see changes to the "pie" menu and snapshot system and not the foundation is frustrating when I know how long it takes to implement. If havok 2 had been released day and date with my joining Second Life I'd have nowhere to stand, but the turth is Havok 2 is already outdated, and was when I joined, and had been slated for integration long before my time.

I guess your basic question is how much could I possibly expect to be delivered in three months. And asked of me, I have to say a whole lot more than has been deployed in the updates of that time period. I can only react based on my own development history and experience. In three months Voice could have easily been implemented. Analog movement could have been implemented. A better cacheing system could have been implemented. Given ramp-up time I have no doubt the new physics engine could have been deployed. But these were not the reasons for my despair, my reason are we are at the mercy of this notion that it's "better" to let people do what they want rather than placing an ad for three experienced Havok developers and plunk them down and finish off the upgrade. Havok 4 is rolling into products now, why is Havok 2 even still being mentioned?

Well, this has been quite the nonsensical ramble I'm sure. Thanks again to the well wishers, the people who have contacted me in-world, to Gigs for keeping the sandbox alive for its patrons and everyone for taking the time to use this Forums system for its intent: user dialog. In the end that is what we are having taken away from us, a spot for common cause. I find it truly sad that there are actual users of this system asking for its ruination when there are so many more both expressing their impending loss and far more silently wondering why that "Community" link on the secondlife.com home page is even there.

The worst part is, not only it's already outdated but there's still no real plans to actually put it in, other than vague 'maybe, eventually'.

Can only guess the real reason for it is, the code is so messed under the hood no one dares to touch it... and as long as they can get away with supplying "changed command order on pie menu" as weekly 'contribution', they see no reason to try it, either --;;

in the meantime single developers that actually care about their work somehow find it possible to put together code which outpaces SL graphics, physics and animation by leaps and bounds :/

Ya know, they were just trying to distill acheivables...

Ahahaha.

"The problem is that the amount of work required to clean up the code and port the new physics engine is too big for the attention span of LL development process."

how did it go in the Tao of Linden? "our productivity, in comparison to other similar sized teams, is off the charts"..?

*snort*

OOOO - nice retort there! Way to support the community! And the defense for closing the forums was what again? The cool community support offered here? The gentle correction of those who might not be as in the know? The honesty and politeness??

ROTFLMAO!