Havoc 4, Mono, Stability

Currently one gets a parcel for free, during this part of the Hiihi beta test. I don't believe the economic scheme is determined yet, much less implemented.

Supposedly the next update to Hipihi will have an English language interface available. Also, if I am interpreting the Google translation of some information presented at a user's meeting correctly, there will be a version for Linux, though no time was given for that. It's possble I'm interpreting the machine translation incorrectly.

This blog is good news for sure... but does LL have to be so upfront? They have opened up the floodgates for complaints and every tom dick and harry to say.. "oh you should do it this way" or "If I designed a MMORPG it would work properly". Give me a break people!!!

In the 8 months I have been part of SL I have seen so much bitching and whining from people. Show me a complex system or application that works bug free 100% all the time. If you have a real bug, then don't complain, report it through the proper channels. Also if when you crash you don't send the crash log then you have no right to bitch at all!

How much of a problem is it when you are forced to log out and back in to SL when something gets stuck, compared to a Microsoft vulnerably that allows hackers to send every keystroke to some identity thief?

They should be fixing these things anyway, don't tell me about it show me!! Results speak volumes (more than promises).

LL seems stuck between this idea that they are a serious professional service provider and the older notions of being a group of cool kids with a neat innovative toy to show off. They have to tighten down the bolts, drop this friend down the street attitude and dig in to the work ahead of them.

As far as sculpted prims go, its a great feature, and other posters are right it does devalue the existing building tools.

I think indirectly sculpted prims may be the downfall of SL, in my experience learning and using them I have come to realize , 'hey I might as well be building models for my own 3d game engine where I can have as much land as I want for free'. (torque/C4/OGRE/metaverse etc.)

Sculpties have pushed the content creation away from the casual hobby digital artist into the realm of professional 3d game devs.


-whyroc

Would they have 'Made in China' stamped on them?.

My apologies for the brain fart there. As to the rest of your points, having been around SL for over four years, I've had very little trouble with SL, all in all. There've been brief periods where I was plagued by crashes. There've been days now and then when I wanted to do something but couldn't due to grid problems. I've had one folder of skins I spent hours uploading and assembling vanish from my inventory. Annoying, sure, but not so annoying as to be intolerable. What would be intolerable to me is stagnation. I'd be bored out of my mind by now if SL didn't keep expanding its capabilities and creative potential.

I think that people who scream at LL every time they add a new feature because the grid isn't rock solid yet are incredibly short sighted. But then SL to me is simply a hobby, not a full time job, or a replacement for my first life. If it were either of those I'd probably find downtime and glitches harder to tolerate. I also think that complaining is a hobby for some people, and no matter how stable the grid becomes, they'll just find something else to complain about. Righteous indignation is like a drug, and there's a lot of addicts around here.

Totally Agreed with Peggy..........
Why people have to put the word "whiners" or "whining" in their remarks don`t make sence. because it like tell others they remarks are more important and important. People that have either beta test or been around for long period of time KNOWS. How LLABs had just added features without first fixing what is broken ( in many cases) or worse breaks codes to fix others. Nice piece of writting peggy

Usagi

In the very very early days of UNIX, there was a lot of moaning about the way it was designed. I will always remember the last sentence of one of the original articles about UNIX...which I paraphrase...

To our critics who think we have made many poor decisions, we suggest you build your own operating system.

LL knows what their mission is. They will continue to do their best to accomplish it.

The problem with that mantra is that it misses the fact that bug fixes and grid stability aren't handled by the same team of developers as new features are. Working on one doesn't take time away from the other and vice versa. That's been stated over and over and over again, yet I don't think some people will be happy unless LL announces the cleaning staff will now be assigned to working on bug fixes instead of cleaning the bathrooms. Windlight and voice were both features created by outside developers. Sculpties were created by a single person. You also commit the logical fallacy of stating what "most SL residents" want. None of us have ever met or spoken to 99.99 percent of the SL population, and those of us who post on the forums represent only an incredibly tiny fraction of the user base. You'd need some mighty powerful psychic abilities to be able to speak for even one percent of the population, let alone "most SL residents." What we can assume with reasonable certainty is that many people feel as you do, and many people feel as I do, and LL would be foolish to do anything other than split their efforts between placating both groups.

The "lack of competition" to SL is a myth, really

Becuase SL attracts all kinds of people for different reasons.

There is just no place thats directly like SL.

But people who come to SL have only a finite amount of time. So any activity that takes up enough time they dont come back to SL is viable competition.

so things like:

WOW (and other MMORPG stuff)
Shooter games
You Tube
Pr0n sites
IM programs.
IRC.


Television

Real life.


ETC.

I think this is something of the problem.

Some people have a lot less trouble than others.

Doesnt mean there arent large number of people for whatever reason arent experiencing problems.

Is there some broad compatabilty issues?

I personally am very stable on SL as far as staying logged in.

But I do load textures slowly often, and my FPS is pretty low (5 ish) in many places, while in others its 15 or so whith no obvious reason why the difference. Heck sometimes its the same places at different times.

All I mean is if its common for people to have stability/performance problems. Than that is an issue that needs investigated.

-----------------

And then theres the asset server. I know several people who have lost 10's of thousnads in inventory disappearances. I personally would have lost 4k if the creator hadnt sent me a new copy.

This one is obviously some sort of problem, since its costing people money.

You've been in Photoshop for the past four years. So I'm quite sure it's easy to overlook the problems.

Very true chip. It's best you take some time to not use photoshop (i know how hard it is, being a artist myself), and explore second life, do the things we all do and see how buggy SL really is. If you honestly haven't seen even 1 bug then your really not using SL that much. Heck we even have bugs and glitches at login... How did you not see that? lol

I didn't say I haven't seen any bugs, and obviously I'm not counting the time I spend in Photoshop as time I spend in Second Life, FFS. What I'm saying is that proportionally speaking, dealing with bugs and problems has only been a small, and hence fairly inconsequential, part of my experience here. I'm not trying to invalidate anyone else's experience and I'd appreciate it if you don't try to invalidate mine. Sometimes you just need to look at things in terms of time spans longer than a week, or a month.

Language, Mr Midnight!. This is a respectable forum!!

Chip, I just want to say before I get into my problems with SL that I have several clothing items and skins that you have created that I would hate to lose to one of the serveral inventory lose experiences I've endured in SL since joining. They are that valuable to me.

Now for my "bitch" (like a broken record ). You are very correct when you say no one can speak for even 1% of the active population in SL. However we can speak for the majority of our aquaintances in the world......as least as to what they tell us. So that all encompassing statement that no one can speak for a real, identifiable majority is a no brainer......but it's just as unprovable as your implied assertions that SL is relatively stable for a given percentage of people in the game. As I hear and talk to my friends it is unstable enough to cause people to express dissatisfaction with LL. Most joke about it......but joking is only a cover for anger in many cases. And I'm only stating my observations........there is no science to it. It's an opinion based on my experiences.

SL is a hobby to me (just like it is to you). It's not a replacement for real life.....it's not even a method of earning anything from my attempts at creating things for myself and anyone who wants a copy........I "play" for the sheer fun of it expecting full well to pay my premium bill every 3 months. I don't expect credits for downtime or times when SL is mostly useless for me (which, to be honest is not really all that often). But, I'm a patient person (as you appear to me also).......many are not. I've learned since I've been a user for SL that when SL acts up there are things you can do to correct the "problems"......clearing cache. deleting the cache folder from your HD, uninstalling/reinstalling the SL client, adjusting the sliders in preferences, ect, ect..... For the most part that is merely an inconvenience. But (and here my point) we should not have to do that with most every "update" to the grid or viewer. It's a sign of something not being done correctly by the programing group. It's a sign that there is no oversight among the different departments..........no one focal point to the whole effort for the product's advancement. It's like it's a free for all at LL..........you do your stuff, I'll do mine attitude.

That cannot continue without major problems developing down the road. I'm afraid we are almost too far down that road to really get the platform ready for any competition. That's what a lot of us are saying. Are we bitching and whining? It may sound like it to you........but I beg to differ. We actually want LL to succeed........but dont' see it happening without some major changes in priorities. SL is not a beta program....yet LL treats it like it is. I can see why people are bitching........I can sympathize even though I seem to have fewer problems than most. But, when I do have problems I wonder why LL did this AGAIN. The "again" is major..........it's not an uncommon occurance for many residents. Plus not everyone knows how to "fix" the problems (which in most cases are merely work arounds......not fixes).

I'm rambling........sorry.

I've been around for a good year and a half now, so I'm no flash in the pan nor a SL "spring chicken", either. I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who "have very little trouble with SL". However, that doesn't invalidate those of us who HAVE had a LOT of trouble with SL (which is really the only reason in bringing up such a point; your anecdotes do not trump mine or anyone else's, really).



Then count yourself lucky. For some folks, it has gone from annoying to barely tolerable to "I'm outta here, buhbye!". When over 80% of your customer base votes with its feet, and those footprints lead AWAY from your product, that says something.



Different strokes for different folks, I guess. For one, I would heartily welcome a complete and total feature freeze while a monumental (and effective) effort were undertaken to fix the house and its foundation as-is. Yes, some folks may find that focus "stagnating" and leave over it, but I think the rewards far exceed the risks.

People who leave from bad experiences with a broken product rarely come back. People who leave from boredom from slow "progress" often do check back in later to see if anything is new. I've seen and identified the trend in other online game/world/community products; from what I have seen, SL is no different in that respect.



I think that people who demand new features despite the consequences of letting significant parts of the rest of the infrastructure rot are incredibly short-sighted. "Gimme my new features!". OK, you can't log in to USE them right now, and they are buggy and incomplete, but here ya go.

As someone else said, I don't expect perfection, but I expect at least an order of magnitude more quality resulting from bona fide work, and attention to detail (as well as LISTENING to the customer base and THINKING about what they are saying). Short of that, I get to experience the results, just as I have been for the last 18 months. When I first came to SL, I held back any / all negative criticisms for several months, because I wanted to see just how responsive LL was to the issues in their product. Only after getting a majority of the canvas painted from the past into the present did I find myself starting to post my take on issues publicly.



I think that is mainly an attempt to further discredit those who don't agree with you. I know very few people who complain simply to complain. Most everyone I talk with has very valid reasons for their complaints, and they would be (and often have been) suffering in silence for some time before actually speaking up. So, no, painting everyone with your gross generalization paintbrush fails miserably there, I think.

Then choose different words; the ones you are (mis?)using stand in stark contrast to this statement.

When I joined the Isle of Wyrms in March of 2006, I was a wet-behind-the-ears n00b. I noted that, except for grid attacks, SL was very stable. I could log in, spend time with my friends, learn to build/script/whatever, log out, and everything was peachy-keen. Sometime in May/early-June, they "fixed" something in the simulator code which caused repeated constant daily (hourly in some cases) crashes to our two sims at the time, Limbo and Lethe. We documented everything we knew, filed support tickets galore; LL even took a copy of the Lethe database and put it on an internal server to try and figure out why it was crashing. Days went by, then weeks, then several months. We inquired NUMEROUS times as to the status of the testing of Lethe, got little response, except a suggestion to separate the two sims, as they supposedly were causing each other to crash. We did that, even though it broke up our Island into two pieces, leaving a rather ugly scar on each where the originally were smoothly joined. The crashes did lessen by some percentage, but did not abate. Eventually, after about 6 months of no further response from LL, we figured we were better off with a pretty one-piece island, even though it crashed a lot, so we rejoined them.

Now, here we are, 15 months later with 9 sims and they all crash off an on every day. We just live with it. We hate it, and it is a black mark on our scales we can't wash off, but we persevere. There are many issues like this. Some are relatively recent; others are long-standing. After one gets enough black marks like this, one gets tired of feeling "dirty" all the time, which tends to prompt one to speak out about it in an arguably vain attempt to try and get some "cleaning" accomplished.

So, as you can see, some of us at least ARE looking at things with a timespan much longer than anything you mentioned, and it doesn't change anything.

There are no such people as "new feature developers". Developers are developers. They have specific knowledge areas, yes, but that knowledge can be applied to new features as well as fixing existing ones. Thus, having teams who would "like" to be focused on new features take a few-week-long "turn in the barrel" stint at fixing existing problems can be useful. I've been in big development organizations where a period of "come to jesus" bugsquashing had to be performed, putting all new development on hold to get everyone to come back and fix a huge mess which was costing the company millions in support. It was successful within a relatively short period, and new development resumed (after a bit of deadwood cleaning and policy re-engineering focused on prevention and proper development practices to prevent recurrences).

This doesn't even touch on the issue that a great deal of "new feature" development tends to stick with one group for a while until it is rolled out, and then it passes down to the "maintenance developers" so the "new feature" people can go on to the next new shiny. A lot of times, the quality of the code is so poor from those that originally wrote it, that it sends the maintenance folks into apoplectic fits trying to figure out how to fix the bugs and other issues in it. As such, it is a VERY good policy to keep the folks who originally developed some feature responsible in large part for its maintenance long-term.



Well, one person DESIGNED them, yes. I severely doubt that all code related to implementing them was done solely by him.

"Originally Posted by Chip Midnight
I'm not trying to invalidate anyone else's experience and I'd appreciate it if you don't try to invalidate mine. Sometimes you just need to look at things in terms of time spans longer than a week, or a month."


I said this before, many of us that have been involved on sl awhile are getting upset over the over all conditions. Mind you many of us that have been around for 3 years have seen almost everything happen possible. But over the past few months has been nothing more then a nightmare for many of us. Those of us that spends countless hours in heavey and over loaded Sims to figure out what the hell is happening and how we can improve conditions have paid our dues. What does LLABS give us back in return? Worse service, asset servers that are past their useablity. Not to forget...........under staffed Customer service, inworld service etc. And plenty of features that after a update or two beaks because the coders are not smart enough to figureout what is waht. They give us voice.............ok like it or hate it its still full of broken codes and a nightmare of a chatbox. Windlight which i loved but thse that bitched about for not being 100% correct hitting its light reflections and created shade ( but it would helped that if people knew the differerance between Cased Shadows and reflecting shade) But who cares they have Plasm screens! .......What you expect for a company that only cares about adding and getting more users based on the hottest features. Bleeding edge as you call it............But making the users experience doesnt have to hurt, because of the lack of understanding by tech people. Along with those filing bug reports that want 100% correct light hitting objects, if they themselves don`t know what differerance between Cased Shadows and reflecting shade.

Usagi

You said it not me... life is a workaround.

People... look at Chip's post count.. people are unbelievable!!!

-whyroc

What does post count have to do with anything? Are we keeping score or something?

r-e-s-p-e-c-t find out what it means to me!

-whyroc

Rockin' robin. tweet tweet tweet


- 2k

hehe, I think it just means I work at home and procrastinate way too much.

@Talarus - if I were experiencing all the problems you are, and was shelling out for multiple sims I'm sure I'd be a lot more upset about things than I am. I simply don't believe that a feature freeze would do anything to speed up LL getting a handle on stability, and I'll continue to think that it's a short sighted and faulty premise. If I get fed up and leave, it won't be because I was driven off by stability issues or bugs. It'll be because I feel I'm up against the wall of what's possible to create and got tired of waiting for expanded possibilities. I'm about 80% of the way towards fed up waiting for additional skin layers. The point being that neither of us can speak for anyone else and we can either choose to be patient or not, but venting really doesn't accomplish anything at all.

@Peggy - if you ever lose a skin just give me a yell and I'll be happy to replace anything that goes missing.

Speaking of which a few weeks ago when the asset server had issues.........this happened to me........

I know I've fixed or replaced stuff for you before, Usagi, so you know what to do Give me a shout in world and let me know what it was and approximately when it was purchased so I can check the records.