Ten Points in Favor of Abandoning Second Life

Merwan,

The problem is that it is becoming systemic - Schwanson is one of many (he was not the only player charged 42 times), or dealing with ongoing problems with island sims, deleted inventory, etc.. I have found the customer support severely lacking myself at times. When Club Elite moved out of Federal, every scripted item on my land disappeared - items created and acquired over a year and a half in SL. They weren't returned to me - they just disappeared. Calls to technical support proved fruitless - they did nothing to assist me in getting any of these items back. I was just summarily blown off by support. I hear similar things from other players all the time.

In addition, the massive instability of the past several months in SL, the shell game being played with servers, and other problems does not bode well for SL's continued health or growth. So while we are not personally doomed if LL fails, all of us that are working to build something in SL definitely don't want to see that transpire, and many are frustrated and upset with what has been happening. I don't know if they are simply growing pains, or the net result of vc money fucking up yet another promising venture by changing the focus, but something is definitely not right and is alarming to many players.

The Liaison Lindens you interact with inworld are not "technical" Lindens. The grid monkeys, developers, and coders at LL are usually in the background, working hard on the infrastructure. They don't always have the time to interact with people inworld, but they do from time to time. The fact is, that many of the inworld, social and day-to-day management Lindens play the game as users, and not as programmers.

I forgot to mention another one of my peeves. If it's true that teens have already invaded SL, I am just waiting to meet one face to face to be OUT of this game. This is my ESCAPE from teenagers (I have 2). I do not care, want, desire, wish, TOLERATE anyone under 18 in this game (and that's pushing the age bracket bit).

^^^^

Ravi raving mad!

i cant believe i pay 195 bux a month tier fee for this undependable crap. if youre going to make a virtual world, shouldnt you be able and prepared with the proper equipment and staff to support it correctly....if not shouldnt you wait until you do before you let people pay that much to play? and shouldnt myself and other players reguardless of whatever tier they are on have more of an idea instead of hopes on when the game will run correctly..
just my thoughts

as much as i hate to say it as well, im considering leaving sl and spending my time and money and brains on something thats more dependable.

Very interesting, Schwan, and enlightening to a non-landowning journeyman musician such as myself. But, I do run an Internet consulting company, my servers are up all the time, and my customers would beat the living daylights out of me if their stuff went down for a tiny fraction of the time that SL has been down lately! (Hell, I'd beat the living daylights out of me if my Shoutcast server went down during one of my performances!) It does mystify me, for example, that a disk failure is even noticeable, given that a machine as critical as a user server would presumably have a hot-swappable RAID array and it should simply be a question of swapping out the drive and grabbing a Mt Dew on the way back from the server room, after checking that the array is happily rebuilding itself while life goes on.

But, Schwan, please be patient, you're a huge asset to the SL community. It's people like you that make SL, so much more so than anything the Lindens do. I've always expected the LL platform to have some growing pains. It's a small company, and the software clearly has to be more scalable than it is to handle the growth of residents and objects and the grid. I hope that LL will take a step back, review their priorities and perhaps hire some people that are highly skilled in scalable and failure-resilient application architecture for a version 2 system that's rock solid. I think we'd all be happy to accept a feature freeze if it results in a high-performance system with 100% uptime. This outage this week has certainly got to have an impact, especially since it's coming when a lot of folks have free time that they'd like to spend in world.

And please do write a summary letter to Philip with your concerns, he should listen to you, you're presumably a model customer for his business.

Well the reason why these bugs are 'unknown' is because they are routinely being ignored when reported.

LOL!! Cause they know how unreliable it is!!!

Way to say it, Shwanson. Nailed on the head.

I've been inactive in SL for a few months now for those very reasons. Delays, broken promises, dangled carrots, technical difficulties, extremely inefficient 3D rendering...

...I come back now and then to see if any progress has been made.

Nope.

-J

that is an incredible string of bad fortune, schwan. you've mentioned itto me before but i never listed it off for myself to realize how bad it really was.

i've experienced the multiple billing problem twice, and the last time it was pretty scary for me too to get a call from visa to find out LL had maxed me out. to their credit, both times the problems were solved within the day by very helpful staff.

my perspective on SL is that it is a one of a kind persistent online environment in its naisency. as a player i don't see myself merely as a consumer but as a participant in it's unofficial extended beta. SL is not a static platform. one of it's unique qualities is that we can expect radical improvements and changes over the course of the year that reinvigorate game play.

as such, i don't expect it to operate smoothly regularly but expect problems with the system on occasion. the billing problems are ones that i find unexpectable and i think LL also feels this way from the speed of their apologetic and corrective response.

it's a tough position as a player. on the one hand we are consumers, accustomed to guarantees of reliability from other services. on the other hand we are part of the development of a product which may officially be in service but is quite clearly still in development. it becomes a matter of which aspect of our relationship one gives primacy.

i wish that LL would compensate players financially for their inconvenience, particularly extended downtimes that we are experiencing now or prolonged absence of a players land (it IS supposed to be persistent). this could be the crediting of tier fees for the percentage of time playability was compromised. for example, 3% to all of us for today, or 9% for schwan on his 36 hours of his missing sim. just throwing that out there,

I've been asking for this for a long time, a version with ONLY bug fixs! I know how it feels though... fix 1 make 5 more! It would be nice to have some fixes, but right now nothing really bugs me in the bugs! (HA!)

no attack intended. i don't care if anything leads to inworld financial ruin. having to deal with play money is tedious and *pg edit*. it makes software that could otherwise be useful nothing more than a silly game.

that ll still use websites to communicate with residents, that residents feel the need to provide web interfaces to support their second life, are indications that the experiment is failing. people, including ll, are not finding the software useful for anything practical, so they're reverting to traditional web support.

granted slexchange won't cause a great inworld depression; but eventually people will be browsing through so many sl-related web sites, they won't be logging into the world anymore. call me a bug eating lunatic if you like. just don't call me shirley.

Ravi -

I could understand wanting an escape from certain age brackets because of their behavior - but isn't that what Muting and Banning residents are for?

I don't see where anyone has the right to dictate to LL how or WHO they sell their product to.

If you want the product around, it needs financial support. Investors will only throw money at it for so long - it NEEDS to support itself at some point. That means selling accounts, and as many as possible to everyone who abides by the Terms of Service and general Codes of Conduct.

Plus, I was always mature for my age. I also know of some 40 year-olds who are shockingly IMmature for their age - basing your criterion solely upon what year they were born seems rather indiscriminate.

Although I grant you that there are stereotypical behaviors that apply to many people in certain age-brackets - I think that since SecondLife is all about collaboration and interaction, it should be the WAY in which people interact that determines whether or not they have a right to be on the system. Sadly, this means some lamers/griefers will get on the system - but hopefully they will be expunged in a reasonably efficient manner. There are no perfect systems for judging people without knowing them, or giving them a chance to prove themselves. I could point out that its been tried with age, race, creed, and other methods in the past - but I don't want to get all preachy (errr, more than I am now *chuckle*).

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Totally with you there Astrin. I have 8 very high-traffic clients that pay my mortgage and most of my bills. If any one of them called me up and said, "Hey, random files are missing from my servers... can you restore them please?" And my response was, "No sorry I can't. They are gone forever! Hey, mind if I charge you $42 times and put you on hold now?"

No... I'd be broke.

The truth comes out:

Today, 12:20 AM #1
Ian Linden
Linden Lab Employee


Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 155 SL downtime Friday morning

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As everyone is no doubt aware by now, our "fix" this morning was not only unsuccessful but seems to have made things even worse. It's possible to login to SL but it's not easy.

We weren't sufficiently prepared for the equipment failure we experienced on Wednesday evening. (Never have had the equipment to repair anything)

Our efforts to work around the problem while we got our next-gen setup in place have proven ill-advised. (Ian who is your advisor - seems like someone needs to find another job)

Hopefully we'll be able to have the original equipment repaired AND have the new stuff ready by morning, in which case we'll take SL down again to re-configure. (DOWN AGAIN - OMFG - I guess you all are ready to hand out refunds for sims also) Phil obviously thinks that TOS agreement will stand in water...With the truth being admitted here, by not having the proper equipment and being ill-advised, seems they broke their own TOS rules. How the hell did he get 8 million in grants and for what??? For his own pocket so it seems.
Then to put a world up for teens, OMG LL folks have lost it, Hey you can't even keep one server up much less two, and then the webpage says it and the forum will be up 24/7, webpage was but not the forum as it broke also...then it came back up!!

I do applaud most of you folks at LL, the ones that at least try to make an attempt to repair it all even without the proper stuff. We pay freaking right at 1000 dollars for a damn sim that is suppose to have its own server, do we get it, hell no!! And today I was thinking awfully hard about the 64 acres, well today shot that wad...and now it will be down tomorrow also, ofgs, yanno you can take the damn thing down when it breaks and repair it as you should, not make people wait, that pay your damned salaries....and your damn right we have a right to bitch!! As I will forever, I will stop once Phillip gets his head out of his ass and gets these people the proper stuff to work with!!

Sorry for the rant folks, but damn enuff is enuff

I apologize to everyone for this (Well Ian, thanks for the apology and I for one do to, to you as you have been trying and doing all you can do!!)

Jordon -

I realize I'm in dangerous territory even to bring this up; but what the heck is your last reply there supposed to accomplish?

You simultaneously insult and belittle LL; and then apologize to them and say you think they're doing the best they can at the end....

To All The Folks: If you really are truly irrevocably offended - cancel your SL account and move on!

At this point the staff has been working this problem for 24+ hours. Yelling and beating them over the head will not solve the issues any faster.

I think in some ways its a back-handed compliment to LL that you all are wound up SSSSOOOO tightly in your SL activities that you care enough to try to log on continuously for days during a crisis; and make all kinds of noise about it in the forums.

The really fed up people are the ones you don't see on these forums, because they've left the game completely. Its a shame that they have - but at least they're not cluttering the place up with posts complaining about a known problem!

*sigh* Deep breaths people....

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

I apologized to only one!! and that was Ian!! Please read it well next time!! And thanks for the points you made, I will delete the post, doesnt do anygood to be pissed off!!

S

J

They are very lucky that did not happen to whole player base. I support what you have said, all of it. I hope your heard, CLEARLY. This is not funny in the least, and should never ever happen. I am shaken.

Well, you know...

I agree with all of this Schwan. You are one of the great ones, in my opinion, but I've only been here a short while. However, I am also willing to invest significant resources in this project/world/game/etc...

But I have hesitated, because I see problems. I love Philip's vision, and I fully endorse SL...

BUT

there is one big question. 8 Million US dollars were invested in LL. Has this money all been earmarked in such a way that it cannot be used for hardware upgrades?

Just tell us. What are the riders on the 8 million? PLEASE!

You mean like its is already?

I won't even bother with the rest of your post as it gives me seizures just reading it.

Alicia,

By and large SL has had a fairly rock soild uptime record. This is the longest extended outage we have endured since beta, when they were to be expected. There definitely some fundaemntal problems that need addressed, and Schwanson's post really depressed me. However, the problems of today, however poorly planned in advance, have been a very rare occurence indeed. I hope they are able to prevent something like this again in the future. Linden Lab has worked extremely hard to try to improve their stability missteps. I suppose that is why it is so surprising to see the support problems customers are enduring - there is so much that they have done very well, there just happen to be a few things they are doing really poorly right now. Uptime is not one of the major problems, however, in spite of the past day.

I want to chime in and say I find it interesting from a sociological standpoint that a poster was bereating SL for still having game-like mechanics . . . I didn't start out as seeing this as a great experament, but I'm starting to around to that view.

This sounds like a growning pains situation to me - the sudden rush of publicity second life has received lately is bringing in new people, who add new load. It's an odd artifact of internet commerce that overly sudden success can damage something.

There are a lot of issues here... and I think of lot of them come from the very expensive tiers. I guess I'm more easy going about technical trouble, because I've got ten bucks on the line (that's not even one bet) . . . I'd be a lot more upset about a day-long outages if I was paying hundreds of dollars in land fees...

I only hope that this all gets smoothed out, because I see an immese amount of hope for SL... I hate, and do not play, normal mmorpgs, but here I am buying new computer equipment for SL...so don't be to quick to give up...

Schwan, that's so sucky to hear about your bad experiences. I feel ya. Thanks for explaining it out so well too. I haven't been through all the ordeals you have over your extended stay in SL, but yeah, your communication helps.

Bringing respectful constructive criticism to the table like this is always welcome, in my book. I very much agree with Shadow about a need for UNITY. Trolling and derailing really breaks down what needs to be a (more-or-less) solid beam of progress. I say this not just idealistically, but also, pragmatically. Noise-to-signal ratio makes it hard to focus on what's important. So, continued discussion of these issues and rapport with LL will bolster the strength of all sides.

To me, it's a miracle that SL works at ALL. The technology is mindblowing to me but I enjoy it like a simple pleasure, as I would a sunrise or a bean bag chair.

Hope we get more discussion going. Can't ignore the white elephant in the room.

Schwanson, great post - Its unfortunate you've had all those problems. Its seems apparent to me that the problems within SL are more than just whiney complaints.

I've been in SL since June. The game is very addicting, and I guess that fact alone is what keeps me coming back for more, despite the frustrations. But I'm sure in time, those frustrations must reach a critical mass - maybe I'm not just as far along as you are yet.

Personally, my largest frustrations with SL center around uptime and lag, but I have many ancillary frustrations such as the rating system, grief, and event guidelines.

I relocated my place of buisness at the beginning of this month for lag reasons alone, had to pay a premium to do so, and temporarily double my land tier to complete the move smoothly. Its frustrating to me that even after that, I still experience significant lag when the servers are shuffled. Not to mention my buisness is not intended to be profitable, so everything I do is a net loss in dollars. (But intended to be a net gain in enjoyment)

Overall, I love the concept of SL, and want nothing more than to see it get better. I'm willing to be patient, but not indefinately.

Travis

Schwanson, great post - Its unfortunate you've had all those problems. Its seems apparent to me that the problems within SL are more than just whiney complaints.

I've been in SL since June. The game is very addicting, and I guess that fact alone is what keeps me coming back for more, despite the frustrations. But I'm sure in time, those frustrations must reach a critical mass - maybe I'm not just as far along as you are yet.

Personally, my largest frustrations with SL center around uptime and lag, but I have many ancillary frustrations such as the rating system, grief, and event guidelines.

I relocated my place of buisness at the beginning of this month for lag reasons alone, had to pay a premium to do so, and temporarily double my land tier to complete the move smoothly. Its frustrating to me that even after that, I still experience significant lag when the servers are shuffled. Not to mention my buisness is not intended to be profitable, so everything I do is a net loss in dollars. (But intended to be a net gain in enjoyment)

Overall, I love the concept of SL, and want nothing more than to see it get better. I'm willing to be patient, but not indefinately.

Travis

Schwan,

Very sorry to hear about all the problems you have suffered, and the difficulties you have experienced in getting them resolved. When a major customer has to react by bringing his problems to a public forum, then the Lindens should certainly take a long, hard look at how they are doing things.

I can tolerate all the bugs, downtimes, etc., because I haven't been too badly affected by them. What I do find intolerable is that the Lindens, having received an $8m investment, are not spending it on upgrading their equipment and their customer service, which is where their greatest problems lie, but on creating a Teen Grid, which will inevitably call on further resources and thus make our problems here even worse than they are at the moment.

It seems to me that the priorities are completely wrong, and worries me about the way this world will go in the future.

I will be very sorry if you do decide to go, Schwanson - you have always been an asset to the place - but I will certainly understand if that does become your final decision.

Selador