"Other things they could be Focusing their attention on"

I have seen this re-occuring post statment many times lately.

If I were Linden Labs I would be offended by statments made in this manner.

It sounds like the person posting is asuming some kind of overriding knoweldge about what is and is not the most important aspects of Second Life. (This is true for them personaly but not nessisarily for the community as a whole)

Many of us want things, but to asume that one is more important to the Lindens than another (based on personal intrest) is just wrong.

There is ONE thing we can all say should be worked on at any given time: Game Stability / Access

word

I say bundle "compatibility" into those two up there.
SL is the single most incompatible piece of software I have ever seen in my whole life, period.

Eggy,

Didn't you just get finished saying in another post that you are running SL on Windows 98, against the system requirements (the Win 98 thing is not arbitrary, there are graphic subsystem differences between Win 98 and 2k/XP)?

I have never had a compatibility problem from day 1 with SL,
in all the beta builds I used. SL for me has been incredible stable, given how complex the software is. This has been across 3 separate computers, with three separate video cards (Geforce 4, Geforce FX 5200 and Geforce FX 5600) and three separate sound cards.

The other major cause for incompatibility is not SL, it is ATI and their notoriously buggy drivers. Look at any update for an ATI driver and see the release notes for all the game specific fixes they have to make because their drivers do things just a little differently than others or are just outright flawed. SL should not be blamed for this - in fact, they constantly rewrite the software to compensate for ATI flaws. ATI makes incredible cards, but they back them with buggy drivers, which has always been their downfall.

Cristiano

No, no, no, you guys forgeting how this works?

I throw out a general insult and you all agree....

or get mad and flame me, not each other >_< lol.

[/B]

Gwydeon,

I agree with you completely. I always find it irritating to read posts that include that very phrase. As it stands right now, SL is the most feature rich gaming environment I have ever seen. They could stop new development right now and I would not complain. Everything else they add in the future is just a bonus.

Cristiano

Well *I* wouldnt want them to STOP per say, I mean how am I going to get my Holodeck if they don't get to that point?

But yea saying one thing is more important thatn another based on "YOUR" wants and needs is arogant and sad.

It actually was ATi's fault for its own incompatability. Catalyst 3.1 drivers proved that SL was fine with ATi, until they upgraded to 3.2 and never fixed them since...

[/thread hijack] >_<



He he, honestly I hope people agree, I just expect flames
V V V V V

I can flame you if you like, Gwyd

<flame>
This thread is stupid! There are other threads we should be Focusing our attention on!
</flame>

A normal game experience for a user means slapping the CD in the drive, installing it and then it "just works".
A normal game experience for an SL player is, make sure you have an nvidia or ati card with the correct driver version, sacrifice a chicken to appease the gods, oh and dont forget to download those AGP drivers you never needed or knew about for the past 2.5 years of gaming, because they didnt even come with your computer, and if you're lucky enough to have an ali magik chipset you will still need to hack around the registry a little to force AGP acceleration to be reported and used by SL.
After that, good luck getting all the features to work
Even with fully compatible hardware and software there's still a little problem with the new water feature, among others.
I know very well why this is, and I dont blame the Lindens, really, but I have seen a few people complain that they couldnt get into SL at all during their trial, and many veteran residents suddenly being locked out of SL with this new version, so that is why I think increased compatibility should be bundled into the top priorities listed at the beginning.

Sorry man, I never deal with all these weird issues people have with games. 90% of the time the issue is user created they just don't know it.

People do STUPID things to their PC's (and never know it) be it hardware or software. These issuse (and lack of looking up information before trudging boldly onward) cause people all kinds of greif and to see this divide between games that "just work" and those that cause problems.

The fact is that games that are working are usualy due to the fact that they don't utilize whatever feature the user has broken on their system which is causing a problem with others.

Quick time: If 90% of the population has no problem, guess where the likely place for the issue lies...

Gwy, you @#%@#$-- I mean, you're right man. I think I'm guilty of having said this at SOME point in the past, far be it from me to assume. ^.~

But you have to admit, some things are pretty common sense for priority-- even though it doesn't mean they necessarily are because of potentially hidden agenda items!

True enough Lyra, and while I was worried you might take offence at this post for reasons we both understand I thought it needed to be said.

I have seen a rash of such statments from numerous people on these boards and all I can think is "Who the @#$% do you think you are?"

Thank you for being the level headed and kind person I've known Lyra even in the face of an indirect attack. Love ya <3

Right back atcha Gwy. ^.~

Argh...cant...resist....throwing...my...tuppence...in....

I have worked on more windows based games and ports than I care to remember (in fact, more than I CAN remember). One thing above all other phases of game development gives me unbeleivable stress:

Windows compatability!

With each beta test update, we would fix one issue, and find two more have crawled out of Bill Gate's arse. It is incredibly hard to make ONE product work on HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of PC's, when each and every PC has a difference hardware & software spec. But each and every user demands (quite rightly) 100% compatability. It does get there, but it takes time.

Also, most games don't see the light of day until they are 98% stable, and then the CD is released. The longest dev I've worked on was 3 years. SL is totaly different as it's an evolving piece of work. Would you rather still be waiting for it instead of playing it?

Give the Lindens a chance - they are doing a far better job than many game dev's out there, and they are on a far, far smaller budget.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant... I just found my car has been slightly vandalised this morning (big scratch all along it's left side)... not wearing my happy face right now (and yes, probably should not post in such a mood!).

The thing they should focus on is giving us back Focus On.

The saddest part is that 90% of the people who think they have a compatability issue actualy have a different problem.

PEBCAK

When I see compatibility issues rasied with SL it makes me laugh thinking that I actually ran SL on a 300mhz P2 with 768mb ram lol AND IT WORKED!!!! Of course I had a GForce 4 Ti4200 128mb lol.

Not to mention Shebang once in a while logs on with a 56k modem lol and is able to do some stuff.

So compatibility issues? We shoulda had the worst of em all lol

I really don't mind people posting ideas and thoughts about features that they think would improve the product. They often generate interesting discussions (or, least, interesting flames) that lead to the community realizing that concensus exists where none was suspected. The reason that SL has been in the hands of users for so long is that we want your feedback and ideas.

That being said, just becuase an idea is posted doesn't mean that it is going to be the first (or even 71st) thing that we're going to work on. So, if your excellent ideas isn't on the announced list for a release or hasn't been responded to, please feel free to give it a bump or a repost, but don't get too mad at me when it isn't immediately added !

I've gotta agree with this one.

Ah, yes, I've heard that far too many times, too.