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Ten Points in Favor of Abandoning Second Life

Blake Rockwell
Fun Businesses
Join date: 31 Oct 2004
Posts: 1,606
01-04-2005 09:42
The 8 mil funding could be an earlier agreement between the investing parties as to support this new Teen Grid. That would a contractual agreement between Linden Labs and the Investors, however; I do not claim know where the funding is actually going either. Maybe one of the investors children liked SL and wanted to be able to play and his or her father looked into it and made a proposition to LL, it could be any kind of reasons of why and where the funding is going.
Maggie Miller
~Welsh Girl~
Join date: 17 May 2003
Posts: 290
01-04-2005 09:56
*bump again*


Just want to make sure LL keeps up with this thread.
Blake Rockwell
Fun Businesses
Join date: 31 Oct 2004
Posts: 1,606
01-04-2005 10:07
Also, we all know about the Teen Grid, maybe somewhere in this expansion process they are having alot to deal with and it is effecting the main server side. It may be temporary growing pain issues they are having to deal with. If this is part of growing pains, why would they want to reveal that when alot are thinking there shouldn't even be a Teen Grid and if they revealed something of that nature they would open up a big can of worms and flames.
blaze Spinnaker
1/2 Serious
Join date: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 5,898
01-04-2005 12:01
Bugs? You people are worried about bugs?

Software by its very fundamental nature is full of bugs.

Name ONE complex product in mainstream use and I will bet 10K L$ right now I can come back and post 100 bugs to this forum in less than two hours.

Simple stuff written by 1-3 people with few features certainly doesn't count.
_____________________
Taken from The last paragraph on pg. 16 of Cory Ondrejka's paper "Changing Realities: User Creation, Communication, and Innovation in Digital Worlds :

"User-created content takes the idea of leveraging player opinions a step further by allowing them to effectively prototype new ideas and features. Developers can then measure which new concepts most improve the products and incorporate them into the game in future patches."
a lost user
Join date: ?
Posts: ?
01-04-2005 12:22
From: Herohacker Raine
It seems to me this thread is now getting out of hand. I have not read all of this tho so I don't kno for sure..I skiped to the end around page 2 to see where you all went with this...
...
...
...
...
...
Pe@ce

Why should I read YOUR long ass post when you are not even willing to read what everyone has said. I have done as you advise and skipped to the end of your post. Above I am showing what I read of what you wrote...

What did I get from your post...
You didn't bother to read what everyone said and have SOMETHING to say about it... but of course I did not make it that far...
Pe@ce to you too bro! :p
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Fleabite Beach
Registered User
Join date: 16 May 2003
Posts: 29
I think this particular concern has been given a free ride...
01-04-2005 12:37
From: Schwanson Schlegel

9. The promise of Intellectual Property rights for content creators has been trampled on. The lack of adequate controls to prevent reuse and with no ability to guarantee the safety and continued existence of player creations negates it. The glowing PR release that brought many of us into this world a year ago seems little more than that, a marketing scheme.



Schwanson, I know you're not going anywhere, but I'll join the hug-fest and say I LOVE YOU MAN, STAY HERE WITH US anyway. I'm sorry you've had these many issues. Let me take at least one off your back!

I've made a living off intellectual property for a good 20 years and have had to fight for my rights before. Being granted a right and keeping it are two different things. Unenthical hacks will always be out there trying to profit from others' hard work. There's little hope of preventing all counterfeiting of intellectual properties in RL and although LL can, and I believe should, tighten up the system to further prevent it in SL, I wonder if it's possible to stop it entirely.

Regardless...Giving players the copyright and ownership of their own creations is no small thang!
To our benefit we are free to be our creative best without having to worry about losing our concepts to the company, as I typically do when contracting to game developers...even unused ideas/art remain untouchable, my rights woefully signed away. Were that the case here I would certainly not pay to create cool content. At least not the really cool kind ;) To the benefit of LL, perhaps a small bit of marketing pull, impressing cats like myself, but to a much larger degree the ability to remain hands-off. No copyright lawyers needed on staff!

So there is give and take here in terms of value...we may have to be careful and police ourselves and stick up for fellow creators more for the time being. But in the end, it's win/win for us and the Lindens. And often times to the individual you simply can't put a price on an idea made "real".


...until it goes *poof* from your inventory maybe???
Lynn Lippmann
Toe Jammer
Join date: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 793
01-04-2005 12:57
From: blaze Spinnaker
Bugs? You people are worried about bugs?

Software by its very fundamental nature is full of bugs.

Name ONE complex product in mainstream use and I will bet 10K L$ right now I can come back and post 100 bugs to this forum in less than two hours.

Simple stuff written by 1-3 people with few features certainly doesn't count.


Dear Mr. IT:

Yes, software is full of bugs, we've been aware of that fact since Mac's, PC's and Microsoft have tried to live in some sort of commune on the various machines.

But my dear Mr. IT, when I purchase a game (as you previously mentioned) -- I expect there to be flaws for my $50 purchase. It's a one-time purchase. What we are comparing here are the huge amounts of money people are spending monthly for their right to create, their right to own virtual land, and their right to log into the system daily.

It's a lot more than a one-time fee of $50.

If you read the posts of others here on the forums who advise to "cool out, pay the $9.95 one-time fee and just enjoy the landscape..." you would begin to realize that anyone who tries to be creative is going to have to deal with workarounds and annoyances with bugs in order to have their creation born. Once born, those said creators will have to contantly monitor their creation to make sure that future updates don't "break" what has previously worked flawlessly while paying out the wazoo trying to bring content into SL.

Yes there are bugs in other software. But not bugs that deal with scalability, creative content, permissions and copyrights, land ownership, and virtual money.

Besides, most large-scale software companies will offer a full refund if the letter is worded correctly. Here, if the permission bug releases one of your creations, you have to go the route of DCMA -- there is no liability on LL. Here, if the asshat server or login server or inventory database or grid is down for 48-hours -- there is no refund offered to those individuals.

Yes, it's a complicate piece of software; yes end-users understand that there are going to be bugs -- bugs that hopefully will be fixed one day. But until then, I will simply enjoy watching you a) try to teleport, b) ending up as Ruth at your teleport destination if you are lucky enough to teleport and c) laugh as I tell you that the skirt you're wearing does not match your purse.

Long live the Ruth bug!
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They give us new smilies :cool: but what about the TOES? Toe the line Linden's! Toes for the Toeless!
Lecktor Hannibal
YOUR MOM
Join date: 1 Jul 2004
Posts: 6,734
01-04-2005 12:58
Lolita has better legs
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YOUR MOM says, 'Come visit us at SC MKII http://secondcitizen.net '

From: Khamon Fate
Oh, Lecktor, you're terrible.

Bikers have more fun than people !
CrowCatcher Valen
Senior Member
Join date: 2 May 2003
Posts: 290
*bump*
01-04-2005 18:40
In all fairness, I was IMed today by a linden who often handles support, stating they read this thread and wanted to know how they can help.
This is good, but seriously. Why must we reach public outcry in order to mobilize the forces? Why must we threaten to withdraw our funds and proclaim our business publicly to get things adressed?
It's very frustrating.
Would you pay 200 a month for it?
Why should I?
I am one of the larger beleivers in SL, it's dream, what it could become. When those of us who have stood by for so long start saying "Awww...%@&! it!", please stop putting shading behind the text and answer our questions and return our emails and calls before I have to let the entire community know what color my britches are.

Crow
_____________________
"Everything except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has some natural inferior."...
"Without sin, the universe is a Solemn Game: and there is no good game without rules."

C.S. Lewis
Einsman Schlegel
Disenchanted Fool
Join date: 11 Jun 2003
Posts: 1,461
01-04-2005 18:44
Couldn't had said it better Crow:). Issues need to be addressed before they become an issue.
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Herohacker Raine
Registered User
Join date: 1 Jan 2005
Posts: 10
01-05-2005 07:18
I do agree with crow too.If the the program has had certain errors for a year or more,it is being neglected.
Maggie Miller
~Welsh Girl~
Join date: 17 May 2003
Posts: 290
01-05-2005 07:41
my daily *bump* of this thread.

:-)


(Just doin' my part....)
Darko Cellardoor
Cannabinoid Addict
Join date: 10 Nov 2003
Posts: 1,307
01-05-2005 07:43
my dialy bump of meth. just doing my part! :D
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Maggie Miller
~Welsh Girl~
Join date: 17 May 2003
Posts: 290
01-05-2005 10:44
It's comforting that there are predictable things in this world.

lol darko. :-)
Rose Karuna
Lizard Doctor
Join date: 5 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,772
01-05-2005 11:15
From: CrowCatcher Valen
In all fairness, I was IMed today by a linden who often handles support, stating they read this thread and wanted to know how they can help.
This is good, but seriously. Why must we reach public outcry in order to mobilize the forces? Why must we threaten to withdraw our funds and proclaim our business publicly to get things adressed?
It's very frustrating.
Would you pay 200 a month for it?
Why should I?
I am one of the larger beleivers in SL, it's dream, what it could become. When those of us who have stood by for so long start saying "Awww...%@&! it!", please stop putting shading behind the text and answer our questions and return our emails and calls before I have to let the entire community know what color my britches are.

Crow


This really says it all - fix the bugs, support the current base and stablaize things before adding something new.
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I Do Whatever My Rice Krispies Tell Me To :D
CrowCatcher Valen
Senior Member
Join date: 2 May 2003
Posts: 290
...
01-05-2005 13:44
From: Maggie Miller
my daily *bump* of this thread.

:-)


(Just doin' my part....)



From: Darko Cellardoor
my dialy bump of meth. just doing my part! :D


My Daily Bump on Darko, Just rubbing his part.

If I was gay, I'd be so In.

Crow
_____________________
"Everything except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has some natural inferior."...
"Without sin, the universe is a Solemn Game: and there is no good game without rules."

C.S. Lewis
Darko Cellardoor
Cannabinoid Addict
Join date: 10 Nov 2003
Posts: 1,307
01-05-2005 14:21
From: CrowCatcher Valen
My Daily Bump on Darko, Just rubbing his part.

If I was gay, I'd be so In.

Crow


Haha. Fag! :D

One love my brother!
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Juro Kothari
Like a dog on a bone
Join date: 4 Sep 2003
Posts: 4,418
01-05-2005 14:59
From: CrowCatcher Valen
If I was gay. . .


:eek:

B-b-b-but, I thought...... did that night mean NOTHING to you?? :(







:D ;) :p
Mac Beach
Linux/OS X User
Join date: 22 Mar 2002
Posts: 458
01-05-2005 18:25
I've been following the forums posts here with some little surprise. Not surprise that people should be mad about billing errors or 24 hour downtimes, but surprised that in a few of the postings people touched on some more fundamental concerns that I've had from the beginning, and I've been a user, follower, and supporter of Second Life almost from its beginning.

Of the original 10 issues posted I'll just say that most of them are to be expected of any leading edge technology. Let's get to those more fundamental things...

"2. Our inventories are transient data, its seriously questionable that your data can even be recovered from backups. "

Not having a backup strategy that works (in a usable way) is a problem. It's not all that uncommon for small shops to have a "disaster backup" that could be used to re-build the entire data center, but not have any means to recover selective parts from that backup. The latter, almost requires that you write your own backup process almost from scratch rather than rely on an off the shelf solution. For some organizations this is "good enough". For an outfit that sells services to individuals, such as a web hosting company, you really need to find a way to make each user's backup individually, and easily, in fact, perhaps automatically, accessible. Knowledge of this backup process needs to be built into the systems architecture. If user A wants to reset his house to the way it looked last week, more needs to happen than load some files from a tape. Activeworlds never solved this problem either. Every database corruption that involved using the backups was always followed by hours or days of downtime during which the programmers manually repaired the damage without taking the entire "grid" (they didn't use that term) back a whole week. Finally, this relates to item 9. More there.

"7. I still, a year and a half after the issue was first addressed, cannot use my top of the line ATI graphics card, one of the most popular graphic card companies in the world."

I'll just add, that this must be a frustrating problem. With video cards representing in some cases half or more of the cost of a system, many people aren't in a position to switch brands easily. On the other hand I haven't had much respect for ATI for a long time. I question whether the company will even be in business a few years from now. It might have been better for Secondlife to take an nVidea-only approach publicly until all the problems with ATI were ironed out.

"9. The promise of Intellectual Property rights for content creators has been trampled on. The lack of adequate controls to prevent reuse and with no ability to guarantee the safety and continued existence of player creations negates it. The glowing PR release that brought many of us into this world a year ago seems little more than that, a marketing scheme."

I don't know about "trampled on". But I don't think I ever really understood the early marketing that was done around this issue. 3D (and other) content creators online have always had to deal with other people stealing their stuff. Let's face it, some of it isn't really all that valuable to begin with. The whole idea that something that takes you 15 minutes to create is now worth thousands of dollars is part of our whacked out culture. In the real world, things get more valuable as they become HARDER to do. The reason it only costs $200 to have my sink fixtures replaces (all of them, including parts) is that I had the option of doing it myself. For me, it was good use of my time to pay a plumber to do it while I did something else. Had the cost been $2000 I would have probably just visited the hardware store.

Likewise, if I take a photo, diddle with it to make it a seamless texture, apply it and several others to a cleverly thought out prim, I MAY have something that someone will value more than the time it would take them to create such a thing themselves. If I get good at this, through talent, or hard work, I can increase the difference between the cost to me (in time) to make the thing and the cost (in time) to a beginner to make the same thing.

The rub comes when we get into this process on a regular basis, thinking we might make a little pocket money in the process, support our hobby, or even, in our fantasies, make a living at it. Once we go down that path, finding that our works have been misappropriated by others becomes very frustrating. How much are we willing to pay a lawyer to settle such a thing? Should we engage a private investigator as well to see just how extensively our products have been sold by others? The folly of this is obvious when you see that even well known recording artists don't go after piraters of their music on their own. It takes an entire industry, in the form of the RIAA to track these things down and prosecute them, and in the end, how effective is it?

Linden labs/SecondLife though, has offered to help us with this in some way. I'm still not sure how. Not allowing us to take physical possession of our own creations might be offered as a security aid, to keep such things from being stolen. On the other hand, to really be effective, the object would have to be visible on any users computer, without any user being able to "capture" the essence of the object. Simply making something difficult to steal, but impossible to get hold of legitimately doesn't make a lot of sense, but as far as I can tell, that is pretty much where the technology stands.

Again, this might have been a promise best unmade by Linden Labs. Let users have their own backup files, allow offline manipulation of them (as a feature). Let users solve their own ownership issues (which it would seem they have to do anyway) and at some point in the future, revisit this when (perhaps) better encryption or other display technologies are available.

"10. On top of all these issues Linden Lab has announced that they are now dividing their efforts and creating what amounts to a second program, catering to children without seeming care to the fact that the residents are fairly unanimous in the opinion that this world is still half baked."

Actually, from the beginning, I have thought that the idea of offering a system for "adults only" was half-baked. Of course there are such offerings on the Internet. We call them "Porn Sites". Do porn sites offer online banking, tick-tak-toe, put-put golf, educational services, as an added convenience for their users? Not that I've ever heard. Generally when people go online for sexual gratification they are not interested in much else, and when they are done with that, they go back to accessing the web at large (hopefully). I've always thought that Secondlife should be FOR EVERYBODY, just like the Internet is. If there is a need to support those "special" activities we normally associate with being an adult then it is THAT activity that should be on a separate, isolated grid.

Maybe my vision for Secondlife (or something like it) goes way beyond that of Linden Labs. It's awfully easy to see LL right now, not so much as a visionary 3D-VR company as it is a visionary marketing company. It's well known that porn is the most profitable business on the Internet. What might not be well known is that trend is starting to change. There is only so much of that that the market can absorb, and Secondlife, with so much of the space dedicated to scanty clothing, and the like, may be finally bumping up against that trend. I can see a children's SL being a very popular thing. With it though, LL will have bitten off the censorship responsibility that they have tried so hard to avoid (unsuccessfully) with the original grid.

Maybe in the long run there will be three grids: the new grid for children, where parents can with relative safety park their kids while they go off and do other things, (2) the Adult grid where anything goes, and (3) the grid in-between where people of all ages can come and interact, conduct business, chat, educate, and essentially, behave by doing things we do during our normal lives (as we would, let's say in a mall rather than in a strip-club).

The irony is that it's that third grid, the normal-life grid that does not seem to be in the LL plans.

Well, thats what I have to say about the original ten points. Some other, even more interesting items came up during the thread that follows though. I'd like to comment on them without using names, or numbers. Here goes...

Viable Infrastructure. (I'll go with that as a working title as I can't think of anything better). During the Beta there was a series of teleconferences during which Philip talked about the direction of the product and asked for feedback. I say "there were a series", but I was only invited to the first one. Maybe there is a reason for this. I pressed real hard, maybe too hard, on my concern about the resources that SL consumed. Not so much the CPU resources, as there was a statement that SL was being targeted at the typical PC "5 years hence". I had no trouble imagining that a PC 5 years down the road would handle the 3D content, and the even harder realtime display of it with much greater ease than my old (barely capable) Dell. The five years hasn't passed by the way, so I can imagine multi-gig memory machines, super fast hard drives with tons of space, and processors with multiple cores (in other words four PCs on one chip for example). These divices may even get here soon enough that by the time the 5 years have passed they will be affordable.

What hasn't happened, and isn't happening, is better bandwidth. We don't all have fiber optic links to the Internet, and we don't live in a country with a backbone capable of supporting us all having such connections. The Internet, by my reckoning, is getting slower, not faster. When I sit here and wait for a page to "rez" on the web It's not my bloody PC thats the problem, nor is it my DSL connection. It's the fact that bandwidth on the net is becoming more unpredictable, and in many cases it's the bandwidth, at the source, that is bogged down. In SL terms, it's the servers on the grid that are maxed out, and in spite of regular denials, I'm quite sure that there are issues there at the data center, not of total bandwidth, but on instantaneous throuput: Your at a meeting, several hundred users, someone rezes a heavy new object, how fast can you get it out to everyone and still maintain all the chat about it and the audio, and the clapping, and the body language, and the scripts firing off?... We know of course, that SL cannot yet support a meeting of several hundred individuals. Will it ever be able to?

I've had several new users comment to me "they don't seem to be using cache here". That was my impression too. Still is. I'm alone in a Sim. I face a wall. There is no script running nearby, no sounds, no animated textures, I'm not moving, and there is nobody here to chat with, and my router light is "blinking off the hook". Now these may all be very tiny packets, but there is absolutely no way that I've been able to quiesce that router activity in SL, and obviously other users have noticed the same thing. What are the latency requirements of all those packets? Are they just pings to make sure I'm still here? Are we updating the grid as to my location 10 times a second even though I'm not moving and there is nobody around to care if I was? Who knows? I don't, and I'm not likely to do a packet trace to figure it out. Someone has, presumably, been paid to do that basic back of the envelope calculation regarding the total number of users that the infrastructure can support. And that number has supposedly been used to figure out what the cost of the basic service has to be in order to be profitable. Will there be dozens of grids around the world to distribute the load? Will there be a higher two way minimum bandwidth requirements per user? Who knows? I hope it's on the back of an envelope, somewhere.

If those questions haven't been asked, and answered, LL won't be alone of course. My last "gig" with the government involved a rapidly growing database. I asked embarrassing questions about that too. How fast is is growing? What is the backup plan? Can you do an incremental and partial restore? Is there an archive? Has the raid array been live-tested? Blank stares. That of course from the PC part of the enterprise. Those questions have long ago been asked, and answered for the mainframe side. It's a cultural thing. One that will work itself out eventually, I hope. Even that government group was recently hit by a virus that took much of it down, they trotted out the mainframe group to say (truthfully) that they didn't know anything about a virus and everything was fine. Let's hope they don't have to resort to such subtrifuge indefinitely.

Viable Staffing. The other part of the equation is the staff. The founders of TSO soon found that they continually underestimated staff requirements. Not for programmers, but user support. It's tempting for a business to think that they can define a product that has little or no support costs. Built-in help systems, automated accounting, and on and on you would think it ALMOST possible to eliminate the human element. But the science of Artificial Intelligence hasn't come that far after all. Disputes between users, censorship issues, and those nagging questions that no amount of help text seem to be able to cover. Of course none of us want to the cost of using the system to skyrocket in response. The trick is to grow the user base steadily, rely on volunteers for many things, maybe even, eventually, franchise some of the activities out to others. On the other hand, this is where I think Activeworlds started to run into problems. They got in too big a hurry to build a cash inflow for themselves that they produced a system that nickled-and-dimed to death anyone who wanted to participate at other than the basic level. To be a content provider you might have to deal with two or three other vendors, unless you wanted to take on all the responsibilities yourself. Fortunately, SL hasn't grown to that point yet. But with the dedicated Sims, we might be getting close. Time will tell.

Finally, by way of a disclaimer for the above, I should say that I admire and respect SL and LL, flaws and all. I gave Activeworlds the same respect up to a point, and had high hopes for Adobe's Atmosphere, up to the point where they discontinued it in mid December. What the 3D-VR "space" needs is more players not fewer. LL seems to be the sort of company you'd like to see succeed at this. Are they really such a company, or is it just a good act? Again, time will tell. So far, it's hard for me to detect anything but sincerity from them. That's different from saying that I think they will be THE 3D-VR company in the long run or even that there will BE such a company as opposed to a standard (such as HTML) around which many companies compete.

I don't pay to use SL. I find it amazing that anyone would spend $400 a month on it, although, when I had a high paying job I spent lots of money on things I didn't need. I have the advantage of seeing SL from both perspectives. During the Beta I decided that I would be willing to pay a one-time price for SL use if it was reasonable but not a monthly charge. Maybe they read my mind, or my chat sessions, but that's what they provided and I am most gratefull. I think SL could be one of the "next big things", as the industry has advance beyond the point of having THE next big thing, and it is a privelege to be a witness to whatever happens. I don't ever have to worry about "putting my money where my mouth is" and signing off one last time in a huff. I've been there before though and I understand the difficulty in making such a decision. I hope, that anyone contemplating such a thing at least do only a tier down rather than a tune-out as I expect that there may still be good things to come.

Or not.

PS: This is a copy of my blog post. I'd just as soon have responses there as here, but will respond to both. Blog is linked in my sig.

(edited to fix a few typos)
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CrowCatcher Valen
Senior Member
Join date: 2 May 2003
Posts: 290
Nice post mac=)
01-05-2005 19:22
Well said, not all of us chose to not spend like you did though, many of us are making that decision much later. You raise a very fair side to these issues I think, what matters now is how they deal with them.

Crow
_____________________
"Everything except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has some natural inferior."...
"Without sin, the universe is a Solemn Game: and there is no good game without rules."

C.S. Lewis
Torley Linden
Enlightenment!
Join date: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 16,530
01-05-2005 19:29
Hey Mac -- I read your post in your blog because it was easier to read there because of the typographic layout. You have been in SL since... well, okay, I'll have to think of a new word for that -- but you make your views well-expressed.

I'm confuzzled on the ATI thing myself.

For example,
I hear clothing flapping in the wind doesn't work with any ATI cards? Is this true?
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Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
Schwannnn....
01-10-2005 23:55
"Go Big or Go Home"

I was there when ESPN broadcast that for the first time. 1995. Providence, Rhode Island First ever Extreme Games.

Oh, my. How that takes me back.

Smile.
Persephone Phoenix
loving laptopvideo2go.com
Join date: 5 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,012
O no! My one job offer dude is quitting! *sobs*
01-17-2005 13:05
Ok maybe not quitting. Don't quit Schwanson. You were the only person who replied to my thread with any positive news. :-)

From: Schwanson Schlegel
There comes a time when, in the course of participating in an activity, you must weigh the pros and cons of your continued support. The last month has left me with both a bad taste in my mouth and a long list of cons.

A month ago, it was announced that the asset server was sinking under the sheer volume of data residents of this world were dumping on it. A plea went out to clean and reduce our saved objects, specify our trash folders. In the spirit of good citizenship, and the selfish dream to find items more easily in my groaning inventory, I began to organize. This was the start of a month long nightmare.

Granted poor timing was a factor, as in the middle of my spring cleaning the asset server took its first dive, taking a majority of the grid with it. When the simulator I was in came back to life, 18 hours later, I found that the crash had taken half my inventory with it. Everything in my object inventory after “M” was gone.

To anyone who knows me, importance of items starting with the second half of the alphabet should be readily apparent. You can imagine my horror at losing “Roulette”,“Sheep”, “Slots”, “Sex Ball”, and the hundreds of other items that make Schwanson “Schwanson”.

After speaking with no less than 6 Linden officials, via IM, email, and on the phone, working for hours with them to recover my items from old backups, most of the items recovered will not res. I just get an error stating that the object cannot be found.

Well OK, its just objects, and it was a one time glitch, and its not the end of the world. Things can be remade, re bought, replaced. I also brushed off many many hours of downtime on multiple parcels I own or have interest in. My island, which anyone will tell you is the lowest lag / highest sim FPS shopping area in Second Life, has been down for many hours at a time. Our group land in Clyde was down for 18 hours.

Then in a Murphy's law on steroids twist, Linden Lab charges my credit card 42 times the week before Christmas, putting both my family's holiday and my mortgage payment in jeopardy. I was starting to get a bit peeved at this point. To their credit Linden Lab did fix this fairly quickly. A week later though they had more trouble and were unable to charge my normal tier fee.

Today was the icing on the cake. Yesterday I bought a Texas Hold'em table from Mr. Fairplay for $L15,000. I looked forward to logging on today and setting it up and playing a game with friends.

Not only was Second Life down all day, but when I am finally able to log on the table is nowhere to be found, another “glitch” in my inventory. I contacted a Linden, who said they won't be able to even look for it till tomorrow. If the other issues with my inventory are any indication I think I can kiss 15k and my table goodbye.

So lets take a look at my Second Life cons list:

1. Even after a year and a half of opening Second Life is not stable enough to rely on being able to play every day.
2. Our inventories are transient data, its seriously questionable that your data can even be recovered from backups.
3. Even when support is friendly, helpful, and sympathetic to your plight, many hours of working on your issue still not recover data even when they can see it.
4. Second Life cannot even offer the stability level of $5.00 a month web hosting let alone the level of stability you would get from spending $400.00 a month like I do.
5. I have lost some level of trust in their ability to correctly bill me.
6. Promised upgrades to the existing system, such as increased communication with the outside world, improved physics engine, and improving client side lag have been pushed back again and again.
7. I still, a year and a half after the issue was first addressed, cannot use my top of the line ATI graphics card, one of the most popular graphic card companies in the world.
8. Linden favoritism, fickleness, and lack of a focused plan to deal with equipment disparity seem to have had an effect on attempts at commercial enterprise throughout Second Life, especially islands, and alienated a large portion of the population.
9. The promise of Intellectual Property rights for content creators has been trampled on. The lack of adequate controls to prevent reuse and with no ability to guarantee the safety and continued existence of player creations negates it. The glowing PR release that brought many of us into this world a year ago seems little more than that, a marketing scheme.
10. On top of all these issues Linden Lab has announced that they are now dividing their efforts and creating what amounts to a second program, catering to children without seeming care to the fact that the residents are fairly unanimous in the opinion that this world is still half baked.
Schwanson Schlegel
SL's Tokin' Villain
Join date: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 2,721
01-17-2005 13:08
I am not quitting.
I am here. I was considering a tier down when this was written.
I still see the same problems in SL but have decided to give them some time to resolve them.
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Schwanson Schlegel
SL's Tokin' Villain
Join date: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 2,721
01-17-2005 13:11
If you value any objects in your inventory - GIVE COPIES TO A FRIEND.

I lost ~75% of my objects in inventory. I estimate I paid well over $350,000L for everything that was lost. LL can not and will not compensate you for lost inventory.

BACK UP YOUR VALUED POSSESSIONS.
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