I can't believe Linden, this time!

Hey everybody, Second Life is "software".

(Just in case anybody forgot)

gene

Gotta agree with you there, too. The main thing that kept me off the preview grid is the lack of permanence. Had I been able to exchange projects and objects between the two grids, I would have spent plenty of time in Preview. As it was, I logged in just a few times.

Hmm, maybe there could be scripted a special portal box? Drop an object in and it gives it to your avatar on the alternate grid? It would have to work two-way, but I think it'd be useful.

By more than 24 hours you're not actually taking much more are you, if you're honest. Release candidate 2 was released about 6pm on 29th (by my time difference maths, I'm in GMT), and then it was released to the live grid at 5am onwards on the 31st. Now OK it's over 24 hours, but it's still barely a day and a half isn't it. If there were more people on aggregate in that preview then I find it really strange that so many people are encountering such a wide variety of problems that were no picked up on. It looks like there were more than just a few non serious ones, people are crashing left, right and center, people can't transfer inventory to other people, people's prims are changing size etc. etc. etc. - to me it seems that this RC2 was really not up to scratch.

I find it strange that you weren't finding any major bugs when the full release is obviously so buggy to such an extent. *shrug* But then that brings me onto the way previews are done. Not knowing the details it would appear if you didn't have any major bugs at all from RC2 on preview that something to do with the way you're running the preview is not a good test as to how the same code will operate on the main grid.



Well without knowing the internals of how you're setup, that's an easy question to fire out to somebody who's thinking there are problems, knowing that they (namely myself) couldn't possibly answer it as they don't have the internal knoweldge necessary to make such judgements. Something about the preview isn't a valid test for you to not have any bugs with RC2 yet the same code on the main grid have so many ones that affect so many people, wouldn't you agree?

One reason I wasn't in the preview grid doing useful work is that I that I got abused in the preview grid by the leader of the Free group and that was depressing, listening to him gloat that you can't file abuse reports from the preview grid and that you can't file an abuse report unless you are in the presence of the abuser. He was wrong on both counts, but still, having a chronic griefer who is held in such high esteem by some people be there was disheartening.

Another reason is that when I first arrived, confronted with the horrible name text bubbles, people were so fixated on Philip Linden's presence that I had to ask the same question eight times in row , finally I think having to use all caps to get Oz Spade to help me figure out that you have to move the opacity slider away from the zero to make the value be zero. It hurt my feelings that my simple technical question was totally ignored by so many people all of whom doubtless knew the answer by that point.

Those two things were real, but don't add up to much reason not to take advantage of the chance to express my opinions in a more timely and thus more effective way than I did.

Another reason is that going to the preview grid feels like work instead of playing. This doesn't make much sense but that is how it is presented , go to the preview grid not to have fun but to do useful work to benefit the collective. The truth of the matter is that people going to the preview grid just to have fun is useful in and of itself, they don't have to be engaged in systematic bug reporting and testing Their presence adds strain to the system which might help bugs to occur, the greater number of people just doing things randomly increases the chance of finding bugs that the tests weren't designed to find.
People can go buy and try on clothes and play with scripted objects they can't afford in the real grid, and would also add stress to the system and help produce more bugs.

The main reason is a matter of personal failure to do things that make sense. Staying in 1.5 and filing endless bug reports there like I did was a stupid and pointless way for me to behave. So it would be good to figure out how to motivate behaviorly challenged people like me to go to the preview instead of the grid. Paying a small amount might get some folks to go. I have too much money in SL to care unless the payment amount was prohibitively high, but some folks don't have much money and might work cheap. Maybe a tiny payment just for going and staying and a bigger payment for successfully completing an official test with a bonus for finding unique bugs. (There may have been such a thing, I don't know.)

The main psychological reason that makes sense for my not having gone more is that it was lonely. Most of the times I went there was almost no one there, and they were busy doing their own testing.

Another reason for not posting more in the forums is the stupid hateful responses you get when you express any negative opinions from people who clearly are not too good at reading with comprehension and may need to reduce their alcohol and stimulant abuse and get the occaisonal meal and good nights sleep. And to make it clear, the rude responses I mention aren't from the Linden employees, who are courteous, intelligent and professional in their comments. It's the customers who make trying to express your dissatisfaction miserable and unrewarding.

Nothing I said in this post should be interpreted as being critical in any way of how the preview testing was done.

And Enebran your post was just great!

It's interesting you mention that. Another reason I had to go back to 1.5 after playing a little in the preview is that none of my comrades, of any level of familiarity, were easily congregated in that space. I met a few new folks and talked to Daniel Linden for the first time, and that was neat.

Perhaps special events or incentives to get people to come over to a preview and play around? L$250 for each consistent reproduction of a unique bug, perhaps?

There was a screening of Godzilla 2000 on the last day of preview, and that was really fun. Plenty of familiar faces and I stuck around for a good half hour. More stuff like that will get people to come/