A response to the change in sim obsolescence strategy.

Cereal/Malachai... do you seriously think we are 'obfuscating' things? Good grief give me a break - we are about the most open company in the world, and if anything sometimes suffer the pains of being early and honest and wrong.

Regarding upgrading the sims... yes we agree ideally everyone should have the same sims.

But because people build great new content really fast, as soon as we deploy a new class of machines (let's imagine 4Ghz or something), people are going to build cool content to the absolute performance limits of those machines. As soon as that happens, there will be a general call for ALL machines to be fairly upgraded to those specs.

So if we always upgrade all machines to the latest available hardware (which I would love to be able to do), let's look at the math:

Assuming that once a year there will be a BIG improvement in what the fastest machines can do, and further assuming that those machines always cost about $1000, this means that the monthly cost to cover this upgrade schedule would $1000/12 months, or $83.

We figure that we can cover part but not all of that cost - inotherwards it won't be a good business for us to promise to upgrade every grid machine every year (or sooner if better technology comes out, etc). So our strategy is we will upgrade machines as often as we can, but not at the frequency that better machines come out (per moores law). This means there will always be different machines on the grid, and so we need a fair way to allocate them. We are totally open to all thoughts on what the fairest policy is.

As another idea, we could also allow landowners to optionally pay something extra to get an upgrade or even to pay extra for some super-fast class of machine that isn't widely economical yet. This is something I'd love to hear feedback on... we would be happy to do that as cheaply as possible for folks.

you made Phillip come in! even I am not THAT bad

Philip, I was asking this at the time I purchased my island,
but is there any way a sim owner could pay to replace the hardware completely? (at the owner's expense), say I want to open super-mega-scripted-fun-world [hypothetical], and need a quad opteron 250 box to handle it, could I pay from my pocket to deliver a box of said specifications to LL for datacenter insertion & install (and secondly, would this expect to have a correspondingly lower sim setup fee)?

-Adam

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Francis Chung's proposal, as it does take a 180-degree look at the whole problem with some interesting implications:

If you assume that we replace machines on a fixed interval, and that we replace the slowest machines first, I think what francis is saying is what will happen.

(I think) we can't ever degrade performance of an existing machine, so this means that as we buy new machines, we use some of them for new land and some to replace the oldest machines.

Let me also include the last paragraph of an email I just sent about this topic as well... perhaps illustrative of some of the challenges we face...

"It's funny... often we do stuff that is algorithmically/computationally optimal but psychologically suboptimal. If you think about it, really the best solution would be to dynamically assign the fastest machines to the sims with the most build complexity and dwell history. But everyone would hate that, cause sometimes they would get slower machines. In real world systems where people actually have to pay money, it seems it isn't like Spock said... the needs of the many do NOT outweight the needs of the few, at least if you want to stay in business"

Actually, I think that if this was done, dynamic allocation in response to existing need, while ensuring that non-demanding sims perform at an "acceptable" level, most people would probably be ignorant and accepting.... sort of "willful suspension of disbelief" like going to the movies.

The ONLY reason I look to see the server stats is if I am seeing a difference in my avatar's responsiveness, texture load times, etc. Then, if the sim-cpu-server combo sucks, I either go elsewhere or pray that that sim will crash soon.

Normally, I, and I think most people, could simply care less if the sim they are on is "the lateest and greatest" UNLESS there is a noticeable effect on the experience AT THAT TIME.

Then again, I am probably talking out my ass here and someone else is going to say - no, no.. I want the best even when I am the only avatar in the sim and no scripts are being run.

If I understand Philip's post correctly, what I gather is that those of us on legacy servers (older sims) in this proposed plan will receive replacement of our statically assigned hardware that is obsolete with the new shiney boxes, and it won't revert to putting us back into the oldest rigs on the grid.

I suppose this is as fair as it can get. I own 22,500m2 in Argent, an older sim (still has +/-40m terraforming so i figure its old - as it is older then me). Thing is, I didnt buy it when it was initially released. I purchased my land at auction when it was returned to Linden possesion after the previous owner left or released it. So I didn't buy this legacy equipment a year ago, I bought it a few months ago, at auction nonetheless. So what I initially read in Robin's post was that I was going to get legacy equipment even though I paid at auction for it during times that I could have purchased in a sim with much better hardware. Had i known this I certainly would have opted for land in a newer sim.

With the current lottery of sim assignments I often get mid range sims that give me over 1000 sim FPS. Currently im on a bit older one that is getting about 33% of that. in this new system it essentially is saying that I will get a slower box all the time until replacement. I will tolerate this as a paying customer only if I am assured that my penalty now for owning in an old sim will be justified soon with replacement and static assignment of new high powered hardware in the not so distant future. I would be satisfied with keeping my land and paying tiers with that kind of positive future to expect. If I will always get the legacy equipment due to the sims age on the grid, then I really dont think I should continue to pay the same tier fees for a legacy sim while someone who purchases a sim at auction today will always be assured something better for the same cost monthly as I am paying.

Unfortunately this problem poses a problem that will never give everyone the same baseline performance but that is the nature of the beast, and at least LL is trying to come up with a plan that will be somewhat fair to all in the long term.

Actually i dont think your talking out your ass this time

I like the idea of reviewing resource usage by simulator and assigning the correct dynamic pool accordingly. Unfortunately getting those usage stats will be very difficult as it will depend on time of day, current events, etc. - to see max resource draw. If usage was determined with no Avatar load, then it could also be deducted that people with laggy scripts or tons of spinning cubes could essentially get better performance then a sim with great concern for server utilization due to knowing they will host events with 50+ av's (but perhaps only once per day). I just dont' see how such calculations could be made to determine this.

I still think that if it were truly dynamic and as resource draw increased, then more resources were allocated to that simulator, then performance would be fairly consistant across the board. This would requqire a significant overhaul of the current system I would anticipate as the grid scalibility in place now by design is not utilizing this kind of dynamic resource allocation but rather one server per sim. With server clustering, load balancing, virtual servers, and SAN's - I would think that this kind of truly dynamic system is feasible, but not within the constraints of the current application design.

Its confusing because a simple honest idea like making sure that EVERYONE who pays gets the SAME fair deal or is on track swiftly as possibel to do so doesnt seem to be adopted as the best thing.

I cant believe someone AT LL is serious to suggest, 'you will get at least now what was good when you first started paying maybe a year ago and that's fair? '.. while others joining new sims pay the same and get 50 times better performance but thats fair?

This simply is wrong and is the wrong way for any business to think.

You must have a good, fair, fast and honest system which aims to get everyone on the best they should have for their money not some cost saving corporrate ' scheme' thought up by the accountant.

And what is this ' do away with old sims to run voids etc' I do HOPE they mean the servers not the sims themselves.??

Surely if myself and others have started paying for small lands in OLD sims maybe one year ago and we have steadily grown and grown and tiered up yet and yet again and now pay $195 month upwards and own almost the entire Sim. we can't be fair to be told 'well u can have an old sim performance for your newest increased money... so the entire sim will be as good ( read 'bad') as it would have been if you owned it all back one year ago?' is this what's being said?)

If so this is just simply poor thought, poor care and poor policy. Replace ALL the old things FIRST ( sensible) and get everyone up to the modern level, THEN start advancing the next and next improvements. That is the ONLY fair way.

Can WE all pay with ' older less value money' ...? no we can't...

I said nothing about obfuscating but since you mentioned it, when it takes the concerted efforts of paying customers to determine that there are in fact gross disparities in level of service for equivalent payment and those disparities migrate on a quasi-random basis, then yes, that's obfuscated.

"Most open company in the world"? That's a pretty bold statement and a little hard to defend, your simple assertion notwithstanding. You publish no roadmap of features to expect; you've long held that suspension without explanation is good, right, and fair. There's a feature request forum that largely serves as a place for players to discuss what they'd like to see with virtually no feedback from the Lindens. You say that you intend to provide statistics about second life to promote the economy but that which is released is so abstracted as to be useless. You've made a ToS that essentially promises that LL has no obligation to do anything. As the thread we're posting in demonstrates, you've come up with yet another ill-considered approach to equitability. You've had chronic, severe problems with the overloaded asset server which still does not appear to be fixed - and even denied that that was a problem. There have been unrefuted posts regarding utter lack of customer support for people who have paid thousands of dollars in order to provide a more lucrative player base for you.

And now, you've stepped in to personally refute a player who has contributed much to the world; had been a mentor until your lackadasical enforcement of your own rules allowed me to be shot off world repeatedly in the presence of a Liaison while trying to teach people how to play your game. One who has applied to be a Live Helper (i.e. do work for LL for no compensation at all) and has not been responded to; one who tried numerous previews at LL request and dutifully reported "high-quality" repeatable bugs that were summarily ignored.

Give you a break? I've been giving you the benefit of a lot of valuable critique. Do I owe you a break? I didn't realize that I had such an obligation to Linden Lab. In some prior post I said that LL need not provide me a forum to post this critique, but as they have, I have chosen to use it. Why? Because as I've said from the start, you've got some brilliant technology and concepts combined with some sub-standard operational procedures. Alas, I cannot point to my early Linden Lab boosterism as those posts (and thousands of others) were accidentally deleted during a forum reorganization and there were no backups - that's amateurish these days. If you don't want to hear my critique, terminate my posting privileges; you certainly have the right to.

Edit: Thanks for your response below, Philip. I do understand that you are trying and I know that things can get frustrating and I truly wish for SL and LL to prosper. I await your mail.

Sorry Malachai and Cereal, you are right these issues get me a bit frustrated and I shouldn't single you out. It just hurts because we and small and work really hard at this stuff.

Malachai I'll send you private mail instead.

Well, Malachi didn't say "obfuscate", but I did. Whether you tried to or not, this is what you've accomplished by replacing millisecond timing information in the sim stats window with percentages.

If I were really paranoid, I might think this is an attempt to cover up the differences in sim performance - an older sim might spend 6ms on run tasks, whereas a newer sim might spend 3ms, but when expressed in percentages they'd be about the same.

But I'd like not to be paranoid, so I'll just think that this was a hasty and poor design decision. In effect "fixing something that ain't broke".

lord i hope not, eltee. As others noted, it depends on what LL considers "useful life" of their machines. It is possible that we (in lusk for example) could reach that point and get rewarded for our patience with a fast new machine.

My hope is that LL defines useful life not by accounting standards but by some performance standard/test. If a sim cannot support X number of AVs with Y number of script activity and Z amount of physical objects, then it falls below a "service level agreement" with paying customers and should be replaced, rather than forcing those users to move their home/community to a new location... or frustrating people to point of quitting.

Constantly replacing machines is not economically feasible for LL, but I guess the need for this will depend on how fast resource-consumption-per-user grows as they enhance the system.

I think Philip hit the nail on the head - this is largely about perceptions and psychology.

Noone likes it when the rules change on them, especially when they find themselves on the short end of the stick. Moreso, when the reason for the changes are arbitrary. It doesn't feel fair.

I think that's what's upset many players. They just found out that their "old" land is going to have lower performance than average. Is there a reason that older sims should get older hardware? Not as far as I can tell. It's an arbitrary distinction, so it doesn't feel fair.

Going forward, I see two solutions. (of course, there may be more ideas)

1) New sims that are released should get the oldest hardware. At least then, you can say "It's always been like this. You're never going to get less than what you signed up for."

2) The idea that Philip mentioned - An estimation of the sim's compute requirements and perceived benefit (usertime in a sim). I don't think dwell is a good estimation of the latter, because multiple people visiting a location for a short can outweigh a smaller number of people staying in the sim for extended periods of time. A lot of existing people stand to get the shaft with this one, but at least it's not an arbitrary decision.

It has often been noted that conventional economic theory does not accurately predict human behavior; this is because humans are not -- in economic terms -- perfectly rational decisionmakers. (One example: you might mow your own lawn to save $10, but refuse to mow someone else's lawn if they offer you $10.) The problem is not with human beings; the problem is that economic theory does not take human psychology into consideration.

There was a recent experiment in which researchers trained a monkey to perform a certain task in exchange for a slice of cucumber. Then they let the monkey see another monkey receive a grape -- a much better reward than a cucumber -- for accomplishing the same task. The first monkey then refused to work for the cucumber.

In conventional economic terms, this is not rational: a cucumber was sufficient payment before, so a cucumber should be sufficient payment now. But monkeys (and people) are social animals, and they are acutely aware of their status within the group and how every transaction affects that. You don't have to get paid less for your status to fall; all that has to happen is that everyone else gets paid more. (We saw something like this before in SL, when dwell was introduced.)

Creating a world is hard; no one denies that. But anyone trying to create a world should be wary of a purely algorithmic approach to distributing assets.

I dunno. Is it "fair" also that Michi Lumin was recently removed from the secondlife.com front-page slide show, at a time when this debate just happened to be going on?

How much "psychology" is there on the other end, behind the closed doors of Linden Lab?

Like I've said before - I don't want to be paranoid.

how i first read teh announcement (i could be wrong) it sounds like; old sim = old hardware, new sim = new hardware. leaving aside private sims. however it also sound like the old servers are going to be replaced, moved, reallocated, whatever and new hardware moved into its place. so that would make it seem that for example Lusk will be one of the first to get put onto a newer server as they are purchased. again i could be completely wrong but i think its the people on the middle aged sims that have the most to complain about because in the near future they will be on the oldest active servers.

perhaps if how i read it isnt the case it should be. that way as sims hit the bottom of the performance margin they will get put up to the top.

my 2¢

But I think there doing the fairest thing they can. Basically there going back to how it was before the sim lottery. As to how to upgraid. I think they should trickel down over time, newest sims get newest hardware, and each lower sim gets bumped up a speed slot. Then everyone(not at once) would keep getting faster sims. (mind you im in a semi-old sim, Im not gunna get sim 450+, lol)

Also, lets donate the slow sims to the teen grid, lmao.

LOL @ Cereal... I believe they put that new slide show up before this thread started

LL obviously has to do things that make economic sense. My question is how difficult (i.e. expensive) would it be to design a benchmarking test that allows you to simulate usage and determine when computing hardware is no longer sufficient to run an "acceptable user experience"?

Defining "acceptable user experience" would be quite a debate, but something reasonable could be reached. Personally, I would love to be able to have 15 people on the luskwood platform with o u t t h e w o r l d s l o w i n g s o....

but i love SL and its dream, warts and all... and hopefully one of these days SL/LL will be at a point that I'll put on my RL-cap and call Gurley up to pitch him and Philip on taking them public... (Shanda's certainly doing okay)...

I believe the debate has been going on a lot longer than this thread.

But all the same, I'd like a straight answer on when Michi was removed and why.

nah that'd permanently put some sims at the bottom of the pile... the pile should jus cycle.. sims on the oldest hardware would get reset to the newest as things aged, thats the most fair cause everyone would in the end, on average, spend the same amount on a new, middle, and old sim

:d

Lots of great discussion, so does this mean my island will go back onto the latest server again, the one I paid $1000 for just 3 weeks ago? When are they going to start doing this? Or do we have to wait for the entire grid to crash before sims get 'randomly' re-assigned. If so, can we deliberately crash the grid to shuffle things around a little? Just a thought.

As regards server performance and private islands, I have no concirns about staying on the same server for the next year or two. Yes I know that better servers will come along, but I see that I paid for 'this' server and expect to keep it. Just as in RL you can't take your PC back after 6 months and complain that there are better ones.

But I DO have a problem, having paid my $1000, with being dumped onto an older server. This is NOT the hardware I paid for.

when i see a bunch of peoples yelling like this agains LL, i wonder, hey LL why dont you just supress the server benchmarking tools from the client interface so peoples stop looking at em yelling that they are ripped off.

Replacing a pool of servers isnt so easy and is pretty costly, thats the point

I am for a replacmeent of the old hardware and still the same server lottery, this ensure that peoples cycle on all the hardware and thatther isnt any advantaged peoples

on_crash()
{
llServerAllocate("sim" + (string)((integer)llFrand(500.0)) + ".agni.lindenlab.com";
}

That's fine for the main grid, and I totally agree if it were random and changed regularly then no one has cause for complaint. Yes, I have main grid land.

But I paid $1000 specificaly for MY server. Linden Lab has stated that is what they use the $1000 fee for.. I want MY server running my island. Is that really so much to ask?