Goodbye folks, trial almost up..

Well, a day or two left on my trial, don't think I'm going to subscribe. It's interesting but I think the frustrations I'm experiencing with the environment are outweighing the fun I've had:

Client crashes are nasty and consistant. I've had no less than 3-5 per night that I've played, many of which cause a full reboot. Never have had this problem in other games (HALO, BF1942, Star Wars, HalfLife, Quake, Unreal, Diablo, NWN etc etc etc)

Massive bandwidth and textures just make it too chunky feeling to enjoy. I'm running a P4 2.8 GHz machine here with 1 gig RAM with ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 meg video card and it's slugish at times as it rips in all the textures constantly. The client rendering engine needs some MASSIVE optimizations to be really usable. (CULL CULL CULL!)

Social interaction is fine, scripting looks interesting and fun as well but when I make a vehicle and can't really drive it around much without it getting stuck moving between sims it's very frustrating and makes me want to leave.

Cost, $15/month?? This is an original idea in a game, having all the player made content but Linden, you didn't have to design any of that content and you still want $15/month? Ouch. Thats what RPG's like Star Wars Galaxies and Dark Age of Camelot charge, I just can't justify that rate for the content I see/quality of client.

I wish Linden the best of luck in improving their client/server, I think they have a really neat idea in place and with some more optimizations and tweaking (and price reduction) they may just have a winner here. Good luck to you and have fun on the sims folks! *wave*

Lindens didn't design any of the content? Are you crazy? What about the interface? Countless -inventions- were made to make this program possible.

Just another impatient person not understanding that a program ahead of its time has high computer requirements and requires, essentially, patience and understanding.

Missing out... sorry you're leaving.



Why, if people leave, do they have to pull a "and let me tell you why this game is bad" bullcrap? It's as if there's some sort of vengeance involved or something. Some people don't even leave after they bust out on the game. It's so frustrating for me to read people's "i hate this and that and this and that and this" and it's like... Listen, I sympathize completely--but the people who take the "this and thats" and follow it with "and I hate the game goodbye" it's like... bravo for you, you got your final say.

Set me off. Sorry.

I've done that "and let me tell you why" a couple of times, but both times, I finished with "I'll be checking back later to see if enough has changed for me to want to come back". The idea is that if the developers know why I'm leaving, there's a chance things will be changed. If I just silently leave, there's no chance anything will change.

That said, I'm finishing up my own trial period, and I fully intend to subscribe.

Please re-read my message after you've counted to 10 as you've obviously not read it. I was simply saying 'bye' and providing some constructive criticism as to which areas I found the most frustrating and which caused me to decide not to invest my money in this product. A smart company welcomes such feedback as it helps them improve their products. If you have a problem with this then I am sorry.

Thats ok. Computing speed doubles every nine months. In two years time youll get 10 fps.

This "game" is not for everyone, it takes a certain kind of person to really get into it. If what you care about is pretty everything and high FPS, and if that outweighs the advantages of being able to build just about anything you want (not to mention being able to script it) plus everything else unique about SL, there are plenty of other online VR type deals. You should get value for your money, and if what you see in SL is not valuable to you, you should go somewhere else!

Short version: Don't sweep SecondLife's problems under the rug. At the same time, don't dismiss the game because of its faults. It has a lot of potential. Time will tell how good it becomes.

---- mini rant ----

Dismiss this guy if you want, but his points are valid. The game has crashed on me too. There is still some work that needs to be done to stabilize the client and server.

The bandwidth issue is also true, but I don't see any way around this. Secondlife is a very different breed of game. In the games he mentioned the maps are all static, whereas in Secondlife everything is dynamic. There's just no way to get dynamic content without downloading it. I doubt this game will ever work on dial-up.

The frame rates in this game are also lower than on other games. The framerates will probably never be as high as in FPS games (again, due to the dynamic nature) but I'm sure there are improvements than can be made.

I think the comments about vehicles getting stuck are completly valid. Work needs to be done in this area. Its no fun to have the vehicle you're working on drive through the floor and be lost forever.

The gripe about price... well, this game does use a lot more bandwidth than DAOC and SWG. That's probably why you have to pay more. However, if you sign up for a long time you get a big break on the price. $225 to play forever is quite a deal, but I admit the prospect does have some risk involved.

All this being said, this 'game' has a heck of a lot of potential. Imagine a stable SecondLife with an updated graphics engine, improved caching, and greatly evolved user created content.

And anyway, you should all know by now that it takes 1-2 years for MMORPGs to mature. Take SWG and DAOC. Both have gotten a lot better with time. I'll bet there will be an option at some point to reactivate your account for a week to see all the changes that have been made.

Why are guys slamming him? This is exactly what is needed to improve SL. If people aren't sticking around, you want to know why. And oh by the way - he's right. If these things don't get fixed YOU won't be able to play SL in a year. Because there won't be enough people to support it. Don't just tell him to go away. Welcome his feedback and encourage him to check back.

Hard to tell from the original post, but it doesn't seem he is a builder, or at least it wasn't mentioned explicitly. Sure, SecondLife does have its bugs, no doubt, but from a glass-is-half-full perspective I see this as the growing pains of an entirely new framework for virtual worlds. I use the term VR precisely here (and loathe it usually in other contexts) because I feel that Linden Labs has delivered where so many have failed.

It isn't perfect, but I see the potential and the drive to make it evolve. His mention of money-versus-content was interesting, which also indicates to me that (my own unfounded speculation) he is more interested in experiencing content, not making it. This is entirely up to him, I understand it, although I'm a bit biased towards building

I also suspect that the GL performance with ATI hardware (I'm not trying to flame, I've run SL on a GeForce and ATI boxes I have in my network at home) is sub-par to what is expected by say, the Nvidia series of cards.

So, bottom line, he wants to leave -- certainly his choice, but I do think it saddens me every time someone does -- I feel that the perceived problems do not outweigh the experiences to be found in SecondLife.

I, on the other hand, am also near my trial account expiration but plan to stay.

Good luck to you Bob, I hope you reconsider your decision someday and stay with us.

Of course, I meant 'builder' in the term of making large permanent structures on owned land, not constructing vehicles.

Sorry I wasn't more specific earlier.

Indeed. If a company does not hear such complaints, how can they ever improve?? That 's one of my favorite nits to pick. If no one tells me why I'm doing something wrong (or that I'm doing something wrong), how can I fix it if I don't know what it is?

We are sorry to see you leave. We do hope that you enjoyed your trial period.

As Maxx said, SL has problems with ATI cards, specifiaclly Raedon 9700 after the catalyst 3.1... i believe, update. Linden Labs has been trying to fix this problem since it first popped up, but seeing as they aren't the designer of the card, and don't want to go through a complete system rehaul for it, it's been slow coming. If one of the main reasons you are leaving is because of the crashes, then send a letter to ATI, telling them to fix their catalyst update so it can be run on SL. It seems like lots of people are having that same problem, and I seriously doubt LL is going to be able to fix this problem, on their own, anytime soon.

/120/f3/6833/1.html

Every single mail counts!

Bob and I have a lot in common I see. Same last name, we were both part of the last Slashdot rush. and we are both running ATI hardware. I also agree with all of the problems SL has right now.

I'm staying though. Signed up for 3 months. I just see so much potential here and I want to give SL the chance to reach that potential.

As Bob has laid out there is work that needs to be done.

Especially the ATI hardware problem. I have a 8500 (soon upgrading to a 9800) and I crash at least once an hour. Not to mention all the graphical artifacts.

I understand that ATI's OpenGL implemetation differs from NVidia's. Seems to be a debate over if ATI's GL is right and Nvidia's is broken or visa vera but that is besides the point. ATI is top dog right now and millions of people use their cards. People just expect software to work with ATI cards. No if, ands , or buts...

I'm just guessing but I suspect that at least 40% of us use some sort of ATI hardware. Seems to make business sense for Linden to just make it work, no matter if it's ATI's fault or not. Writing hacks to compensate for different hardware platforms should be nothing new to PC game developers.

Hopefully my new 9800 fixes the problem. If not, they have 3 months to get it fixed..

I'm not entirely sure about this, but didn't nVidia have some sort of collaboration with LL at some point?

If so, is it not likely that SL got a lot of help from nVidia to ensure a stable environment with nVidia products?

Just curious =)

I tend to have a bit of trouble with my ATI card, but running the Omega drivers based off of catalyst 3.7 seems to have fixed me for now.

I don't know if that works for everyone... Probably a matter of trial and error with video/MB/AGP drivers until LL and ATI can fix things.

I suppose I could just go out and get myself an Nvidia card like I've been meaning to.

one thing to remember if you have a problem with the $15 monthly fee is you don't have to pay $50 for the game in the first place. the game is free, playing is $15 a month.

still it's not for everyone so if your playstyle doesn't fit with SL then have fun finding a game that's right for you.

I'm liking that many different perspectives are going into this post and my rant produced a kind of discussion (debate?) about "ethical ways of leaving" and "ethical ways to voice concerns." People know I'm flexible in my opinions, and I'll be checking this thread regularly because I'm interested in hearing what people have to say.

I'll be honest, I keep flopping back and forth between:

Frustration at the crashes and wanting to give up
and
Signing up for lifetime

I like the idea of the game/environment. Right now I'm going to test out the Call of Duty patch and see if that corrects any of the OpenGL issues. If things seem more stable I'll probably sign up for a month and see how it goes. I bought some land in the last day or so so it'd be sad to see it go undeveloped.

PS: Yes, I'm a "builder", or rather, I >WANT< to be a builder, just don't have the money to really do much at the moment.

PS: Daemioth: I really didn't mean this to be a "I GIVE UP! I'm LEAVING!" thread. Maybe it came off that way but I'm really teetering on the tip of a pyramid right here between leaving and signing up. If stability can be fixed then I think I can manage with the lag/choppiness issues by tweaking a few settings (view distance, bandwidth settings etc (I have broadband so bandwidth isn't much of a problem really altho East->West coast latency can become a factor)

Hm, that makes me wonder. Are there any plans for an East Coast server? Or is the plan to keep the one single "world"?

In the very long term, I believe Linden Labs wants servers all over the world.

Ew... I hope they keep it as one big world... I'd rather fly across 5 sims of water than HAVE to teleport to another "sim cluster"

i have a very similar computer setup..
Gigabyte GA-8INXP, P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, running with all the latest drivers/patches for everything..
at first, i've experienced the same type of crashes described by bob..
disabling in game AGP Graphics accelleration sorted that out for me ( of course it slowed the game down a bit.. though i have a relatively high FPS maintained rendering the game pretty smooth and playable )
so i can't complain anymore, as i know ATI is who's there to blame..
now assuming ATI resolves the issues in their catalyst drivers, and SL stops crashing, would you enjoy your SL experience? if you'd still have doubts by then, then obviously, SL Is not for you..


-- [ i'm travelling till mid-December 2003.. so i wont' be on SL, but you could find me here from time to time! ] --

I'd say we've worked in a pretty balanced way with NVidia and ATI. Still having probs with ATI, as discussed. Thanks Dave Zeeman for the thread on sending emails - that sort of thing does help for getting attention. We spend a lot of time pushing on driver bug priorities over there.

Good feedback on SL - we definitely need to hear from everyone to best set priorities. I think we have demonstrated an ability to work very fast on fixing problems and hope to keep it up.

Lots of good work in the pipeline from user feedback - wait and see.

As to the server question...

Our intent is to keep SL as one big world. The technology allows that - we developed with that intent.

We will deploy servers in different geographic locations to minimize lag. Folks on east coast will have best perfomance when in the parts of the world that are hosted on the east coast (we'll probably indicate in some way on maps to make knowing that easier). But everyone will be able to travel everywhere.

Imagine how cool it will be when different local areas in SL are driven by the local international cultures that comprise the majority of the folks living in those sims. You will really be able to take a 'virtual vacation'.

One of the greatest things about this game is that the developers are so accessible. In Dark Age of Camelot the developers announced they would not respond to customers on the forums anymore.