Time for some pessimism

Im contemplating either selling off my island ...or.... going full-out in SL business. However I haven't been impressed with the growth of things in the last 4-5 months. Granted, I haven't ventured out much, but its the numbers im monitoring, and things have seemed to stay pretty stagnant. I hear of more people leaving due to lack of interest than I see people coming in.

I see people interested in scripting having a great interest at first then leaving after running into the many pitfalls of LSL. I see designers come in, but leave because there's better money doing private work in regular 3D environments, thus leaving the grid looking not-too-pretty. I see unbelievable amounts of drama that cause people to go find happiness elsewhere.

What I haven't seen lately is boundary-pushing designs and builds, I havent seen any decent technical evolution of the grid (mono and windlight have been cooking in beta for months, but at this point i dont think its enough), Our avatar's are archaic. Most design is centered around overcoming bugs and dealing with workarounds (something im sick of enough on my day job).

I'm looking for some brutally honest and *real-life* opinions on the grid. The questions that have been burning thru my head are:

Is it dead in the water?

Will the new exec management turn it around?

Are we going to see any technical advancements besides windlight & mono in a reasonable amount of time?

Is LSL endgame for scripting in SL?

Does a younger generation have more interest? (im in my 30s as well as most of my contacts)

Will metaplace (or another VR that is learning from previous mistakes) eventually kick SL's butt?

Will they ever change the price model from size of land to amount of visitors?

It's no longer about immersion, but its about money. Ironically, im the type that likes to have nice open spaces and long views-- something that you have to pay for dearly in SL. That last question is a very important one to me...i think the lack of space really hinders many from building what they want. But if its a dead sim, the server isnt in use except to allocate resources if its in a distributed network setup. Future VR's seem to be looking at a pricing model based on number of visitors and not amount of space used. If this is a result of hardware lock-in, then my pessimism stays.

Im going to give things another shot and get out on the grid, maybe rebuild my group list with some fresh ones, contact people im truly interested in as far as their work, etc. But, I am writing this after 2 very talented friends have left because they find nothing interesting anymore in SL. Im hoping this isnt a continuing trend. Thanks much.


PS: FYI i acquired my island from a former sim owner who (drum roll...) lost interest. I got it for a song, but now the tier fees are biting.

Windlight is well out of beta, and is part of the regular client.



No, it's pining.

Serious answer: No, I don't think so, but it isn't well. The outages of March and April, and continued troubles now, are making SL less attractive. That the experience on OI have also been poor as of late, coupled with troubled initial locations, cause new members to have to flail about quite a bit before really getting into the world. This is not good for retention. This is someting dat requires a lot of hard tinking on, IMO.



Hard to say. We've not seen much of "M". Philip has indicated he wants to keep his fingers inthe pie as well, which could challenge things. We do have that "special announcement" coming up at the birthday, so everythign could change very rapidly. We'll have to see.



If you do, you'll heal the cry of "focus on fixes, not new stuff" -- the very issues that kept Windlight from moving faster. I think they need to continue to balance new features against fixes -- especially with all the issues as of late witht he database cluster and asset servers.

That said, yes, there are a great many needs out there. Windlight, itself a great advancement, had the unfortunate side effect of revealing the flaws in the avatar mesh, the Linden trees, and even the ground textures. I think you'll see some continued work on some of these, as well as the "materials project" and other innovations. They may, however, continue to move slow on these until you start seeing more days go by without severe outages.



No, I doubt it.



I don't know. I kinda doubt it. Most of the grid seems to be at least a little gray, even if we dun look it.



Probably some other will, ya. Or LL will move to take the lead in some manner (the IBM partnership could be very fruitful in this regard, I tink). The thing that will really blow the doors off will be if someone comes up with a truly open protocol. Think of the World Wide Web in the mid 1990s versus AOL/Compuserve/Prodigy/etc. in the same time frame.



I sorta doubt it, given the way they have things set up now, plus given the move away from traffic-based stuff.

Mari

I will turn this on its head - you have a full sim and 15,000 prims. Why aren't YOU making a breathtaking build? Are you taking the time to learn/improve your craft? Or pay someone like Ceera for it?

You haven't ventured out much, so how can you know what is out there? People leave for a number of reasons - stability, boredom, drama, finances, etc. Heck, it's summertime, people actually spend more time outdoors now that it's finally warm (in the northern hemisphere). People who tend to leave because of drama usually come back, though!

Most people who had any level of investment do.

SL is far from dead or dying. And that's harder to see if you don't leave your own land much.

Mari gave it to you straight Court. It is really up to you if you stay or not. The one truth LL ever uttered was "Your world, your imagination". If you cannot imagine your future here then you do not have one.

After three years I still participate in the annual Bday party, I put out a new build every three months or so and hold events often. I even hire scripters when what I want is not out there. Nothing I do is ground-breaking or, dare I say, innovative. It's all just stuff my group wants.

I say you find your niche and exist in it. Split your island into 4 sections and rent three parts off until you can figure out how to make each section pay off for you.

If you do decide it's time to go, contact me please regarding your sim. Perhaps we can work something out to our mutual satisfaction.

Excellent suggestion on renting out parts of your island to help reduce or eliminate the "bite" of monthly tier.

Or, think of something more radical? Have you ever thought of joining your island up to an existing "mini-mainland" and becoming part of an estate group and community? This might help keep things "fresh" for you--lots of people and ideas bouncing around.

Stop by The Unknown Country estate if you'd like to see how this works. Hope to see you there.

Klang

I still enjoy SL and I've been here since September 2006. Yes, there are irritations, mostly caused by other residents. I think people who come to SL expecting to make lots of money or be 'the next big thing' are almost certain to end up disappointed.

Court ya might want to hold off any real investment and wait to see what the new CEO does it all really depends on that part.

and if ya build in here ya can always take you builds to open sims realxtrend is doing some rocking stuff... using skins instead of 1990's prims lol

Brutally honest opinion:

Don't read what I write here. Look at my 2008 spending. But to save you some research:



March: Caledon Glengarry

April: Caledon Downs

May: Caledon Glamorgan (openspace)
May: Caledon Argylle (openspace)
May: Saint Kitt Islands (openspace, crown colony)

June: Caledon SouthEnd



More on the way.

Well, because i am a LOUSY businessman. haha. But thats why im on the fence. I build good and if i do go full-out, i think i have a niche. My builds have been praised by some linden's themselves in some cases. But, the 'popularity' approch i took was wrong and i average about 2 people a day. Therefore, I plan on making personal versions of these builds to sell, hoping it can at least generate 75% of the tier fee which would make me satisfied for the moment.

I dont like .. 'soliciting' myself (hence why im a lousy businessman) but heres a link to flickr from some of my builds, so if you want an idea of my capability: http://www.flickr.com/photos/courtgoodman/sets/72157604922976571/

My niche is to add as much realism as i can, but that requires a lot of wrist pain from the mouse (im already on a computer full-time) and to take it further, will require a substantial investment.

"Pessimism" was a poor word to chose. I should have chosen "Skepticism" as thats where i am at this point. Just looking at the state of the grid, and honestly, i run into more bright people in the form than the grid itself

Believe me, i want to make this happen, but its going to require a significant change in my lifestyle for a couple months so just double-checking. Thanks for the feebback

SL is definitely not dead in the water. It's thriving very well indeed.

Money (RL livelihoods) can be made in SL quite easily, but whether or not a specific individual can succed is down to the individual. SL is certainly able to provide it.

People leaving SL is irrelevant - talented or not. SL is a passtime/hobby for the vast majority of people, and people get bored of the same old thing. There's no reason for everyone to stay. I'm utterly bored with SL too, and I'd leave completely if it weren't for my business.

hey lias good to hear from you. yeah i got a formula down, but mentioned before im just making sure that theres a market there. Im trying to avoid renting out tho, Ive done that both in SL and RL and its not my forte.

Im actualy taking 2 weeks off at the end of the month to focus on building. This thread is sort of a preparation.

builds are potable now (at least potentially)? that was always something that ticked me off. Im holding as long as i can...i was turned off for a while when i'd see LL money go to things like CSI:NY instead of development, but i think thats turned around since the performance seems to be in a much better state than it was


-- thats another light in the tunnel... I have a mac pro rolling on dual 24's at my home office, and only in the last couple weeks has the SL client ran well on it. So thats one stinker out of the way...just hope it stays out of the way. Up until then i had to do a lot of jumping from PC to mac

While there's always the proverbial ebb and flow, I continue to be impressed by the creativity that I see in SL. One of the most creative sim that I've seen recently is the the privateer space sim at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Privateer%20Space////, and it's a fully non-profit venture. If you're looking for reasons to leave SL, than you can always find negatives to help convince yourself, but if it's really just a matter of heavy tier without perceived benefit, than sell the island off and re-explore SL anew without the burden of tier. Also, try a differnt service like Entropia and see if it's any better; I used it for almost 2 hours before I realized it's nothing like SL and I had no interest in gathering vibrant sweat.

Perhaps eventually not, but anybody who is frustrated by LSL the *language* really hasn't done enough scripting to know what they should be frustrated about. The difficult, tedious, and tricky parts of scripting have nothing at all to do with the language in which it's coded, but rather the limitations and eccentricities of the functionality exposed to the language. Sure, it would be much prettier if we had #includes, case statements, enumerated types. But really we could have multiple inheritance, dynamic closures, and a meta-object protocol, yet as long as the sensors and effectors available to interact with the world remain as they are, it's just syntactic sugar for the same old poison. Some develop a tolerance--even a taste for the poison, some not.

(But anyway, lack of scripted content doesn't seem SL's most pressing problem. Not by a long shot.)I think this is universally true in absolutely all forms of design, once one knows enough to recognize the bugs one is working around.

Court, it is beautiful. And you should consider photography as a side business! The shots were very impressive and made excellent use of Windlight. Those are perfect postcards for SL.

I think you should take some time and really get out and see what others are doing. (I need to take my own advice too ) But SL is a pretty full place and lots of people come back. I know that inspiration is a tough thing and it only comes when it comes. But you should consider partnering with someone to help with the business end if business is not your forte.

i wont get into details that I ran into, but i ran into quite a few pitfalls. Reason i asked this was because SL is moving to a mono framework, it made me wonder if that means we'll also be able to start using python, etc.

Thanks Cristalle, I appreciate it. I have been contemplating the business side of things, and picked up the Entrepreneurs guide to SL (not a bad read) so im going to give it a shot. Ive seen a lot of nasty fall-outs of business partners within SL so im real careful about sharing businesses (ive been exploited in RL enough times in the past when i was a naiive artist)

well, yeah , sometimes i feel like that, i guess. They should fix that cat tho, theres too many unwanted kittens in the world. He'd probably not try and break out as much too.

How was that book? Did the author make a lot of money on the grid or something? The idea of it sounds pretty cool, at least.

Or maybe it's like IQ tests. Can people of average intelligence actually make one? How can we be sure?

I've really got to read that book someday; the cash register I made is on the cover...

One method under these circumstances would be to have a knowledgeable partner that has limited powers. In other words, you hold the handle, they hold the blade. You employ this person, who shares your vision, specifically for the purpose of marketing/business development and pay them accordingly.

Maybe talk to Jojogirl Bailey about marketing.

Would have to disagree, not this far past product rollout, though there will always be a percentage. I read once, ages ago, in the tech forum, that they have trouble all working on the same code version, which is why resolved bugs keep being reintroduced periodically.

Seemed to make sense....but if your people are devoting the majority of their time fixing bugs in an activated online application, there is definitely something wrong somewhere.

nice one, looking at the image of it now. haha.

Its a good book, stays unbiased, and covers business of past, present & future pretty well IMO. it covers popular markets, lots of interviews with the more successful types, tools to market and sell and keep track, lots of ref's to other sites and blogs. One of the better books on SL. much more informative than that users guide from a year ago.

thanks again Cristalle. I dropped a hint to some freinds that i may be looking for a manager, but itl be a real slow process. As a careful builder, id like to (in a utopian world at least) focus just on the building since i can easily spend hours on a texture map (on purpose--i like painting from scratch and realism is my niche attempt). i might complete the current builds i have on kerberos before doing that so theres some completion.

I'll look Jojogirl up when im on the grid again.