Making Avatars Stick - your top 3 (just three) things

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Whatever happened to Pony Linden, anyway?

The SL mafia tried to intimidate Philip.

Based on this:

Babbage Linden: ok, the big discussion that drove all this was about making SL easier to use
Babbage Linden: at the moment loads of people are turning up, becoming bewildere
Babbage Linden: d
Babbage Linden: and never coming back


Getting people to stay after the first few hours is the first order of business.

1) Make sure people understand what they are signing up for. Some people are just not going to read...ever. There must be a way to explain SL in basic terms so that we elimate the "what do I do here" confusion.

2) Texture loading. OI and HI are pretty easy on most video cards, I had a newbie come through both the other day on DIAL UP and he was fine until his first rez in-world. However, once they teleport into lag central (aka the WA) they can't move and we start to lose the battle.

3) Orientation Islands, Help Island and the WA have to be staffed round the clock with helper individuals. Every new resident needs to be greeted with a hello and needs to know that there are people available to answer their questions and even personally walk them through their first day in SL if need be. Help should be the easiest thing in SL to find...

It would be interesting to see how many of these new accounts actually make it in world.

Maybe we could have a program where people are paid 1000 L$ everytime they guide someone through SL.

That is a really nice idea. Like a Linden sponsored tour guide for SL. Would need to setup some guidelines or a way to track progress or the system could get taken advantage of.

I thought this was one of the jobs for the greeters though, or am I mistaken?

Dude. And I though *I* was bitchy. I cant understand half of what they're saying

Yah, maybe they should get paid L$ though.

I think the idea would be that they'd only get paid if the user stayed in SL for a period of time.

Maybe greeters could get reports as well how long people are staying, so they can tweak their 'sales pitch'.

1.) whiteboard feature, how could would that be to draw something out isntead of trying to explain it? it would be great for collaberative projects

2.) the internet on a cube, that would be so fun, surf the web with a group of people

3.) voice chat

A whiteboard would be wonderful.

A playable music stream url in our profiles would allow us to listen to music together with total ease.

Add an email field to your profile and a "see email" access list to let those that you want send you email using the system default email client.

Yes!!!!

People who are used to the incredible power and flexibility of the internet are likely to feel quite limited by Second Life's inability to do almost everything the internet can.

That command, I think, would let us listen to music together while riding in an SL airplane, crossing land boundaries. Wouldn't that be fun?

My thoughts:
2. Ragdoll avatars or more scripted control over animations. In order to realistically implement avatar<->avatar gestures, there needs to be some way for a script to be aware of how the avatar is playing its animation. Reimplementing the ability to attach an avatar to another would be nice too

3. (Pipe Dream Alert) Four-dimensional spaces so I can have a house who's exterior fits on a 512x512 plot, but has an interior the size of a sim. It would really provide an incentive to buy land The interior would not need to be simulated when no avatars are inside.

Im still thinking about #1

Speedtree:
Newbie: Ooh, nice trees.
Newbie: Im bord.
Newbie is Offline.

VoIP: Destroys the "be who you want to be" vision. (Just use Teamspeak)
==Chris

Some folks might have a "To thine own self be true" vision , and want their voice to come from their avatars location.

Of course not having just one grid with one set of characteristics, such as all voice or no voice, might be another feature than will make the system popular. The internet would probably not be as popular if all web sites were text only.

Also a way to have a web cam transmit your face onto your av head might be enjoyed by some.

There is no way LL will develop EVERY single gesture we have in mind.

The animation problems described (ie.. the arms through lungs) is a problem every single 3d system goes through. The only ones that don't are the ones that have the characters mathematically designed so it won't happen.

I think this is the system with THE most diverse set of gestures possible. Sure you have to buy most of them, but hey... they're there.

I came from THERE (the OTHER metaverse) and when I left, everyone was also complaining about not being able to hug. And those who have been there know it's a MUCH MUCH more controlled system.

That's something I've been saying for awhile now. I'm looking around for some actual competition that's developing a product (not OSMP or Croquet) thats on par or better. I haven't seen it yet. LL needs to start acting like it has a competitor. Because it's possible that someone will pop up at the next games conference that will make all the frustrated content developers start scratching their heads.

Have to agree with this. Gestures really add a lot to your avatar, and it would be nice to have them built in, or at least easily obtainable (ones that work well, that is).



Of course, but a few of the commonly wanted ones would be nice...

We already have 4 dimensions in SL. The fourth dimension, if I recall my (admittedly antiquated) physics class correctly, is time. What you want is a Tardis.

P2

Oh damn, I thought you all were talking about Katamari Damacy... I wanted to roll up all the Avatars and create a comet... like woosh!


Yeah, thanks for crushing my dreams =(

Hmmm. LL is getting miserly with Lindens already.

Here's an idea.

Give newbies 10 free rep points they can give to the first ten people who do something nice for them. If they're not used in a week, they have to start paying for rep points like everyone else.

Um, that's EXACTLY the point.

I'm saying that we need the ability to have at least SOME scripting control over the animation system.

llAnimationTarget(string animation, vector offset, vector rotation); // Equivalent to llSitTarget for atached animations
llAnimationMask(string animation,integer joints); // Named animation will only apply to certain joints.
llAnimationEnvelope(string animation, vector envelope); // Control the rate at which bones pivot when switching animations.
llMoveJointToTarget(integer joint, key target, vector envelope); // Move named joint to the location (and back, if a full envelope is provided) of the *attached* target over the indicated time period.

An envelope would be attack, sustain, and decay times for the animation, negative values would mean "don't control this part of the envelope". Looping animations could be forced to run for a limited time this way, avoiding frequent llStartAnimation/llStopAnimation calls and reducing lag. So llAnimationEnvelope("sit",<0.2,-1,-1> would make the "sit" animation take 0.2s to apply.

This would allow stuff like:

llSay(0, "Let me check my watch.");
llAnimationMask("typing",~(JOINT_WAIST|JOINT_NECK)); // just move arms
llStartAnimation("typing");
llMoveJointToTarget(JOINT_RIGHT_WRIST,watch_face_key,<0.2,1,0.2>);
llSleep(1.4);
llStopAnimation("typing");
llAnimationMask("typing",NO_MASK);

Obviously many animations will look really funky when the above calls are applied, but they'd make all kinds of effects possible that are really impractical even if you HAVE Poser.

The above don't require any real-time client-server traffic. The following calls would:

llAnimationSensor(string animation, integer flags); // Trigger a callback when an animation ends (like wait for animation to end in gesture) or loops.
animation_complete(string animation); // event called when an animationends.

As you see, that's NOT what I'm talking about.

1. Being able to move around and able to see what you are moving around in would be nice.

2. Something for people to do, besides build, script, and deal in land.

Don't need three. Just need those two.

coco

Our three main activites are building, scripting, dealing in land, and socializing!
That's four.
Oh, sorry.
Our four main activities are building, scripting, dealing in land, socializing, and exploring!
Um, that's five. Five activities.
You want to do this?
Could I?
Yes, yes, go ahead!
Our five main activities are building, scripting, dealing in land, socializing, exploring, and shopping!
Ahem.
Oh, right. that's six. And I forgot flying planes and hanging around in sandboxes MST3k-ing people's builds!
I think that's eight, now. Are we ready?
And poseballs...
Shhh...
Sorry.
I think we better go now, before you mention...
Impea...*splutter*
We're done now, yep. Nothing to see here...

Productive things, Argent.

coco

It seems the single hook that holds people new and old is community. Not the Linden definition of community which translates into the entire population being herded through standardized builds and activities. Not even the common estate or mall owner's definition of community which translates intot he entire population being herded through standardized builds and activities. When I talk to people who are saying they "have nothing to do," I find that they mean they "have noone to talk to."

What makes a difference to people is people, people with similar ideas and goals and methods. If we can do anything to hook a new resident up with a person or group that they are comfortable hanging with, they'll likely stick around a while longer.

The question though is how do we hook them up?

WOOT! THere are several sims I would love to roll over!