Sneak peek at "Second Life 2.0" at massively.com

I had no particular problem with the SL interface. It's not ideal, but my dissatisfaction is not due to it being overly complex.

The interfaces for most of the 3D video games I've tried out are far less to my taste.

I Endorse This Product And/Or Service.

its was because the expression come first to my mind

I didn't find it that intimidating either, but it would seem that plenty of those who bail after the first hour do.




Heh, that was my point. Gamers figured things out on their own based on experience. You could *always* tell experienced gamers from non-gamers when working with newbies on OI or Help Island.

No, I mean "I don't think that the SL user interface is easier for "serious gamers" than for anyone else who is competent with computers".

;0 it needs redesigned 'mac-simple' for default/new users... and then have toggle to an older win3.1 style interface...

i do applaud the (too early) examples of window simplification; once i looked at what was underneath each, it makes decent sense. i'm not sure i like though separating 'function blocks' under different menus, like how snapshot functions got broken up, but maybe again they've already changed it.

But you are a "computer person". You work with them on a daily basisa, probably spend a lot of your free time using on e as well. There are some who, again like me, will come to SL without a lot of computer knowledge in general.. before SL, I basically used my computer as an email/news reader/wordprocessor, with some shopping thrown in.

Come to think of it, that pretty much is still the case.

Yes, but I'm not a gamer.

Someone who is not a "computer person" is going to find a complex environment requires more time spent learning. Second Life is a complex environment. Making it more like a "game" and less like an "application" isn't going to make it any less complex, it's just going to keep people from learning how to deal with the complexity... without actually removing any necessity for them to do so.

If you want to make SL easier, then they need to change the simulation, not the user interface. For example... make animation overrides part of the system, not a hack you have to buy and then learn the limitations of, that sort of thing.

I agree with you there. Part of the drawback that I see is not in the interface itself, but that you have to "get under the hood" and tinker a lot to find and figure out some things that I think should be part of the basic setup when signing up. AO's definitely fall into that category. Some of the debug options as well. A good portion of users probably have never looked for the Client Menu, let alone have any idea what a lot of it does.

It was just a thought - leveling doesn't appeal to me at all, but I can see people creating their own little fake goals with chickens or game scores.

Also if they want people to build, a few basic scripts in the library would be very helpful, but ones that are constantly updated so they are the cleanest, minimal lag inducing scripts at the time, I think most of the base Linden freebie scripts are like from 2005, when Mono came in would have been a perfect time to do this.

I think we need a User Acceptance Test regime - very experienced SL-ers with different backgrounds who should have the final say on major changes to the UI.

no.