*sighs* Why do we even have a preview grid?

The preview grids are here for the purpose of testing out patches before release. I am frustrated that none of the bug reports i sent in got worked on. Lindens you really outta take things more seriusly and work out the problems before you release these horrors on us. Listen to your customers and what THEY want in the client. After all THEY built the content of the world, and THEY have to work with this stuff.

Version 1.11 has a lot of Interface problems and Inworld issues. You should have left it in testing a little longer. It's best to do that from now on. Lets hope that 1.12 gets up to code before you drop it on the main grid and get lots of your customers frustrated. As you can see the topics below this one express deep consern about the snapshot features and other things. I have expressed how i dislike having the snapshot preview the whole screen and sue expressed how she didn't like the flash effect. But they still got implimented against our will.

I also noticed This Bug is still here.
/111/bc/121282/1.html#post1162613

Also i wan't to talk about the Parcel ban limit. 300 was ok, but you totally neglected the estate ban. it still shows 63. This tottaly makes the new ban features useless to me since i would like to block the entire estate from griefers but allow it to the public. If i use parcel bans, i have to join each renters land group to ban someone... I know us forum junkies tend to complain a lot, with the griefers, and the features, and whatnot.

It's becuase this system doesnt help. Hopefully in 1.13 you give us privacy tools like Show as Offline in friends list. I know havok will be later on. I know it's not easy to do, and i don't expect that. 1 feature we Despiratly need is the ability to be invulnerable to Push and Impulse! To other residents reading this please feel free to express your conserns.

Yeh, the whole snapshot thing is particularly frustrating. The new snapshot tool seems to be designed to let people snap pics of their avatars in the middle of animations at *just* the right angle... that's the ONLY thing the new user interface does better than the old one. For virtually all other situations the old one's far superior.

Then there's all the broken promises.

Where's "no outside push"? Where's llTeleportAgent()?

This is the root cause of your frustration Yiffy. It's a Preview Grid, not a 'Test' or 'Beta' grid. As such it allows users, well, old decrepit users, not people my age, to see what's coming, possibly so they can find somewhere to hide ahead of time.
Oh, and it allows Linden Lab to look as though they are pre-testing releases.

Remember that in future and you'll be a happier, er, whatever you are.

I agree Yiffy. Many things I bug reported did not get worked on either, and everyone that I reported was experienced by others. So I was not the only one. They are working on them now though. But still this should have been done on the preview grid. They ASK us to bug report everything and help them. It is very frustrating when they ask you do this, then don't listen. I am sure many bugs got fixed, but many did not. And it would seem that things such as blurry text would get attention before release as this causes eyestrain and will keep people from being in-world. Yes could be a oversight, but there seems to have been a lot of them in 1.11. The new snapshot is just one example. Not to mention the trouble they had when 1.11 was first released and eventually lead to a grid wide rollback. I know of many people that lost content due to the fact that they dropped items and were not online at the time of the shut down so they could grab them beforehand.

Inigo, yes I agree it may be called a "preview grid" however keep in mind that LL ASKS us to come test and bug report. They even have "pile ons" to test the servers in ways they can't normally. It may be called "preview grid" but is is really a "test grid". Basically it is a method used to test bugs that has been used for a long time by many companies, but LL allows us access and to come test with them which is great. I applaude them for this as it gives them much more information on how the version will behave then any other means. It is not perfect of course and there will always be bugs and problems. This is how software development works. I understand that. But they need to listen to their users/testers more in the future. And hopefully they will.

Well it's finally here. In the About Land, Options tab there is a check box for the long-awaited "Push Restriction".

Gaffe #1: It appears to be default OFF. All the parcels I checked around WA/Morris Mess do not have it set. I did find it set in Goguen and Cordova.

If it is OFF by defalt, it will do very little to help the general situation. Truth is the only places that need Push on are the fighting sims, and where you have a game like trampolene that uses it. Small compared to the VAST area where llPushObject does nothing but aid the griefers.

Implemented this way, some Linden is going to have to patrol miles of Linden roads and waterways turing the thing off parcel by parcel.

Gaffe #2 IT DOES NOT WORK!

Testing in Goguen sanbox with a static push script, also using a push-gun, vehicles are shoved around just as in the non-restricted areas, just as in all older version.

Looks like we got a check box. But thats all we got.

Kitto Flora
Dejected Elf.

It has to be off by default, because otherwise it'd be like, oh, killing self-rep or killing joints without warning... there's a lot of scripts that use it legitimately. NOT weapons. NOT griefer tools. Even if *you* don't use them, other people do.
Good, maybe they'll finish laying the rest ofthe roads in the southern continent while they're in there.
What about avatars? Is this a case of "oops, we forgot to include physical objects in the check" or "this isn't implemented yet, we just rolled out the user interface"? Either way bug-report it.

LL seems to be setting deadlines and basically saying "Screw what the people in Preview say, we're releasing when we feel like instead of when it's ready", this kind of attitude is woefully in need of a change.
I'm all for hurrying up anti-griefer tools in light of the apparently growing epidemic, but rushing out new features to go with them isn't the way to go. I'd rather see bigger updates with loads of new features bundled together coming out fairly infrequently, with smaller updates now and then addressing bugs and improving performance.

But what do I know? I just pay to be here =S

SL has the potential to do great things. Infact, I used to believe it was the best "game" ever.

Now, they`re ruining what they had. For the first time ever I am absolutely appalled at a release, it has been nothing but multiple troubles. And since ive been a member I have never seen as many complaints as i`m seeing with this new release.

Open to finding a new game to play where the company actually cares about a downfall.

tbh, the only reason i log into preview grid now is cause im bored on the main grid or when main grid is down... i dont report bugs anymore on preview cause its usually a waste of time; we get them on the main grid neway.

talking about this is i suppose a debate which LL can take note of and try fix the probs; but they dont - i dont usually post on forums in rants, im just bored cause sl is down atm haha

i understand it just takes us time to get used to new features in the game (look @ when we got the new build tools... we all hated them, but now i dont think we could do without them) however this snapshot thing just looks stupid lol. it takes crap resolution snaps and lags my client big time when this 'white flash' comes up... i hope no1 is epileptic out there :/

It should also not be forgotten that SL is not only a game. If it was just a MMORPG, I'd only pay $10 or 15 a month and wait for the publisher to add new content. But SL is a market place, and I'm one of those players creating and selling the content. I pay a lot for my land and need to get some of that money back with the sales of my shop. But I'm not making any profit while the servers are down for emergency patches after bugged upgrades already made my life as a crafter much harder.
I'd rather be content with an older, stable version of the grid than having new features but lots of downtime.

The problem I see is the fact LL is calling it the Preview Grid. At least half the people who visit the preview grid ignore the bugs because its just a preview and only a fraction of what remains who come to test the new version are hardcore bug finders. Calling it a preview gives people the idea thats its nothing more then that, a preview. People assume because its a preview, all the bugs are known issues and they're being worked on but this release is stable enough to show off new features to the residents before deploying it on the main grid. LL should rename the Preview Grid to something like the Test Grid or Beta Grid wich would imply more that its there for bug testing and not just for showing off new features. Then maybe we'd get more people coming in to actually playtest (and hopefully more people who know how to correctly report a bug so programmers can understand them).

Actually that reminds me, maybe someone should hold a class on the preview grid about how to properly report a bug so the lindens can understand and repeat the bug.

Ron, I agree it is possible that the problem is calling it a "preview grid". But I have seen them asking for bug reports and to have "pile-on's" to test the grid. This to me says it is more of a test grid. But perhaps that is just me. The problem I see is that it would appear that LL does not listen to the bug reports they do get, or the user feedback. It was mentioned to me that just because LL listens 99% of the time and if you are in the 1% it may appear that they where being ignored. Well there is a problem with that idea. If only 1% of population of SL goes to the preview grid, then not listening to that 1% of the people that do go the preview means you are missing a whole LOT of bugs and problems. That 1% probably represents a LOT of your user base so you should definitely listen on the preview to everyone. LL ignoring that 1% resulted in this problematic "upgrade".

Doing the math generally lets say there is 200,000 "real" accounts (I know it shows a lot more but lets assume that many of those are alts). Lets say that 1% of that goes to the preview then we are down to 2000 (and from what I have seen it is probably less). Now 1% of that is 20 people. Granted not many. But of that 2000 how many will actually do testing more than logging in and taking a 15-20 minute look around and try a few features. I would say a 1/3rd or 666. Then of that probably a lot less even less actually take the time to do a proper bug report partly due to the fact it is a "preview grid". So now we are down to 222 people that are actively testing and properly bug reporting. Now SL is very complex and I am sure that 222 people won't find everything. But again that is why 1% becomes very very important because they represent a very LARGE part of the population. That 1% just became thousands of PAYING users that are going to have problems if you release without fixing the bug that they reported.

Especially if more than one person has the problem, then it multiplies and means that definitely you are going to have issues if you release. To ignore that is very very bad judgment indeed. And yet that is what happened. We can only hope that LL has wised up to this and realize that they have to listen on the preview grid even more than the main grid.

-DB

Usually when im in preview, theres nobody around. Once in a while someone flys up to me and says hi, but im usually too busy to respond. The only time it really gathers a large crowd is when main grid is down. The only time any of my bug reports got feedback was 2 times and they told me it was known issues...

I'm just wondering if the preview grid actually works at all, I downloaded it and it was unable to run, no problem anyhow.. it does work, people have told me it does, but here is the question

if its so like the main grid, why is it everytime the new version is realeased theres some almighty cock up? that ruins everything and means sl is down for even longer than initally speculated?

now how bout in future they take an exact copy of the main grid as is, then code it from that state? then surely any little bugs that would show up in sl would show up there?

nobody would care if the preview grid was down for a few hours whilst it was being error tested, it would also mean that instalation of the code would be pretty damn quick come shut down....

I don't know, I'm not technical, but obviously the preview can't be exactly the same as the main grid otherwise the bugs that creep into the main grid would show on the preview would'nt they? I don't know, I'm just confused.. someone please explain in laymens terms (no comp speil a nice analogy would help )

Yes it does work, but there have been times when the update system is not working properly on the prevew grid inducing problems like that. It is often not fixed very quickly as it is only the preview grid after all (not many people go there). But they have hundreads of servers, I don't think they can afford to duplicate the entire main grid. Otherwise I think they would.

-DB

What would be nice is to see LL actually read these forums and realize how badly they're botching their business. They have a Microsoft-like outlook in that they figure they'll keep shoving it down our throats and we'll continue on like robots. After having worked for years as a project manager on a software development team, if we had released absolute garbage like LL is releasing we'd have all been fired.

LL, sit up and take notice. Do your jobs for once...or at the very least just quit updating the servers at all. It's better to have no updates than to have continuously broken ones plaguing us.

AMEN AMEN AMEN!!!

Indeed, one must wonder if the developers even play the bloody game. There are so many large problems and bugs that NEED to be addressed that are simply overlooked. They add relatively useless features to the UI that often don't work anyway, while overlooking the fact that vehicles crash the user's client half the time when crossing borders, and border lag causes people to fall though the floor of structures. They don't fix these problems, they just keep rolling out updates that only serve to add more bugs and make more lag, without really addressing anything.

LL needs to straighten up and fly right, and pay attention to the old saying that the customer is always right, or before long, they won't have any.

I totaly don't understand some of the So called upgrades or how in the world they are useful for ANY purpose. Other then some AOL reject saying " Hey look what I can do"

I have been here a few years and If I collected the useless server info being added onto the Program I would need a dump truck to haul it out and bury it with the Nuclear waste Materal

Chatt control has acually been causing me Migrains... there is no need for chat control other then when I place my curser in the IM window or Inventory search window... now I have to place curser back into the chat window even when I click on camera control or open my inventory... come on... at least get the "chat while walking" to work right.
Talk about a crippled program.
it was bad enough LL thought I need a tag over my head to let ME know when i am in appearance.

If it all is to impress Investers... perhaps we need to direct investers to this forum.
Obviously they have the LLs ear and not us.

I agree with you Shjak, like the new Pie menu. I have had more problems with that, and while it is getting better I don't understand why they changed a working part of the program when so much needs addressing. And it still has a bug that when you have a object selected when you click the center, while it does deselect the object it also touches it. Which is quite anoying when I have to select objects to get them to rez in the first place.

As for the invester comment, that could be true. It certainly makes you wonder why they keep adding new features that no one even wanted while the bugs remain for month after month.

Oh and I agree about the chat problem, been driving me crazy as well. Go to type and end up jumping, moving forward, back or sideways. Especially when you are trying to line something up and now have to do it all over again.

-DB

The chat issue upset me so much the first day, I did not even want to play, but I did find a work around that may be acceptable to you. I just hit esc. and it brings my cursor back to the chat bar. This works 90% of the time, and it has brought enjoyment back to SL for me.

I tried that but it didn't seem to work as I had hoped, only close the chat bar. I will try it again though. Thanks for the suggestion.

-DB

Linden Labs is not what it use to be...they are trying to make a sinking ship float...they are always tinkering with stuff, things they know nothing about..A new game would be WOW..they care...Phillip has made his nickle and seems to be trying to see how many people's pc's his game can screw up...He cannot keep up and he knows it....Set the game back to 1.4 and leave it alone...stop messing with things...AND FGS...respond to what the people want and what they tell you is happening...Every week some damn new update..Why don't you leave it alone, your not letting anyone get use to the troubles they have now before you release yet more crap.

And what are these updates?! They are completley useless! Some of them do serve a purpose, but now, we have as much downtime as we do playtime, and some of these updates just mess up other things.
Come on linden Labs. Second Life is starting to kind of suck......