Further Conversation... with M Linden

I was referencing "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. I wasn't, repeat wasn't, inferring that you were repressing me. You seem like your head is screwed on the right way. Maybe I'm just going through the early phases of SL withdrawal.

I haven't watched that for too long :/

I knew you weren't talking about me, but I didn't knew what you were talking about, you know what I mean?

perhaps a third-party client (Nicholaz might be a possibility) would work for you

Seriously. Who else is with me? Who has lost a friend? Who has been lost, thanks to this new, mandatory SL Viewer? Speak up, all you lost souls!

look up Cool SL Viewer on google, there is a security patch for the 1.19 viewer there, so you can still use that viewer and log on if the patch is applied, ( simple to do).

Yes I rent out land so I get a large amount of that back from my tenants, that however does not alter the fact that I pay LL 18k a year, and if I was paying that amount to any other company, I would expect, and recieve a good level of service.

You're missing the point, Taff! Why should we be forced to jump through hoops? Second Life should be EASY to enjoy. I'm blocked from enjoying my life in SL. How many others besides me aren't able to wake up in SL anymore?

How many of us aren't spending money in SL because SL isn't allowing certain people from joining in? I want to hear from you!! Spread the word! Equality now!

By the way, sports fans, I'm planning on using my premium account memborship to comment and comment and comment some more. All the time I'd normally spend in SL? Yeeeeaaaaaahhh. That's all gonna be channeled to asking questions, answering questions, questioning answers, spray painting underwear, causing random memes.

All that sort of thing. Second Life has betrayed a portion of itself, and I'm here to see that it goes not unpunished.

I'm the kick in the nuts of the grandaddy of breakfask eaters that is ... Second Life. That almost made sense. I'm, by the way, here to both and both not ... erm ... umm ... make sense.

Death!! And/Or severe uncomfortablenes to the people who are in the position to have chosen the current situation that is ... Second Life!!! Bum ... Bumm ... Bummmm!!!!!

Maybe I should take this issue to the fringe elements of journalism. Kevin? Bean? Are you there?? Harvey Kaitel? gasp, cough. Raaaaaaaaaaalph????

I'm not sure how much longer...

that I can take it!!!! Cough! How can ... cough!! Second Life! cough! Be ... cough! Such ... a ... Douche-nozzle!!??!??!!!?

Maybe you could spend your time working in RL to get a better laptop instead of spamming internet forums..

I'm not sure a single humourous yet on-topic post could be considered spam...

Everyone still out there still running Windows 95 on 486's comes to mind, is nothing too old? And there's probaly at least one or 2 people still with 286's and 386's................
It's just amazing how many times the Cool Viewer & Nikolaz's have been mentioned and reccommended here but people are still doing the "I'm leaving SL because I have no choice speech"

Nobody is suggesting that they "split off to create high end viewers", but that they add the security patches to the older viewers that already work, as SL cool viewer has done.

They are already making high end viewers that are not needed, or wanted by a large percentage of SL users. Most users want a viewer that works, and that they can "play" SL on, the number that want high end viewers, (of which I am one) would be happy to look for third party enhanced viewers.

I am afraid you are completely missing the point that LL are catering to people like me, computer geeks who love new toys, and not to the main part of their customer base, the ordinary person who went out and bought a ready made computer system. If I find my Video card is no longer good enough, I just fit a new one,
People who depend on SL for a life free from RL restrictions of poor health etc, can often not do this, and find themselves pushed out.

Ok, SL is being enhanced all the time and is getting better and better for people like me who are able to exceed the required computer spec, and that is great if SL is to be a geeks playground. However, if SL is to be a platform that is expanding by bringing in the ordinary computer user that plays computer games, then LL needs to make the software compatible with currently USED computers, Not just those available to computer geeks.

As far as third party viewers for normal users, how do you expect a new user who has never been on SL to know that they need to find a third party viewer. A new user will look at the minimum specs list , check that against their system ( maybe) and download the official viewer. try to log on, find it doesnt work, and go back to WoW. Another lost customer/ revenue stream.

another person that could become an important element of the community regardless of aditional economical gains

I've met several people that improve SL just for being themselves and sharing their presence with the community, many of them not directly engaged in any significant economical activity, this differentiation is a like the issue where some paying customers wanted to kick all free accounts thinking that the absence of all the poor yet wonderfull people would make things better

but the rest of the argument, that LL should put effort on contributing to make SL not be elitist, that I 'm completly supportive

(not sure if the things I said came out wrong or not, too sleepy right now, just replying a last few things and gonna go catch some Z's)

Firstly, like many of you here, I am in mourning at the state of the official SL blog.
It used to be my home page and I checked it hourly for announcements and news.
This morning I'm sure I saw tumbleweed blow across the page!
Even allowing for Torley's holiday absence, it's very quiet but it does not give me the impression that 'no news is good news' moreover as at least one of you pointed out, it feels like we 'loud-mouth, opinionated' types have been shunted into a backwater where we can wallow in our own frustrations out of sight and therefore out of mind.
Secondly, on the subject of the new mandatory viewer; I have personally enjoyed all the RC releases running on an old machine with a sub-par graphics card. They haven't all been perfect but I can still get into SL and go about my business.
So I was surprised with the latest RC that increased my crash rate by approx. 50% and left many object and AV textures gray - even after an hour in the sim!
I reluctantly downloaded the new Main Viewer but results were the same. Lots of gray and slow rezzing all over the grid.
The biggest frustration was failed teleports with both the Main Viewer and Release Candidate.
In the past, this usually coincided with a blog or status post about grid issues and normal service would resume shortly and I could live with that because things break from time to time.
Now however, I cannot TP anywhere unless I remove all attachments and clothing.
I naturally thought it was a corrupt attachment or texture so I proceeded to remove one item at a time and try to TP again.I have repeated this process with completely different outfits - in essence a completely different AV and still the same result - no TP.
In the past, even with a huge ARC and every attachment spot used, I could TP no problem.
In order for me to move around the grid now, I resort to choosing 'Test Female' from the Advanced menu to turn me into the much maligned but my new saviour, Ruth!
Ruth has an ARC of just 1.
This is a better option for me than arriving at a new destination with an ARC of 1 by being butt-naked.
So, if you see me and I look like Ruth, I either just arrived or I arrived an hour ago and I'm still waiting for my outfit to rez back. Either way, you'll be gray to me if I see you at all!
I'm close to being able to afford a new machine but I have no guarantees that will solve the problem.
Another quirk I have noticed with the new viewers is my HUDs do not persist between sessions. This is a new issue I have never seen before.
Sure, I've lost HUDs to the great asset server in the sky before. These aren't lost. They're back in inventory and I just need to reattach them but it's a pain in the animation!!
At this time when other virtual worlds are preparing to join the fray, I would have thought it prudent for LL to increase their 'perceived' presence to the community. To add value and reward loyalty.
Lately, it feels like we've been left Home Alone to deal with life.
I really want to be able to say something positive about my current SL experience because I do love 'the game'.
My positive moments lately come from the people and creations within SL, not the platform itself.
Live music in SL is fantastic, Burning Life was intriguing and there are some incredible builds by some very talented people.
Putting all of this out of reach of the average computer user will have a cost. If it's anything like my usual ARC - don't plan on going anywhere soon!

Sorry, I was either playing in my sleep or they took the option away with an update, either way, it's not there.

Here's the settings I'm using (though I make adjustments according to the situation).

edit menu under preferences:

general tab
camera follow distance 4
camera transition time 0
camera smoothing 0

network tab
maximum bandwidth 250

graphics tab
run second life in a window (on)
pick the "custom" button:
bump mapping and shiny on
draw distance 184
max. particle count 256
post process quality low
objects low/mid
flexiprims low/mid
trees low/mid
avatars low/mid
terrain low/mid
sky (low, no option)
nearby local lights (on)
terrain detail (usually set at high unless walking/driving/flying)

hardware options tab
anisotropic filtering (off)
antialiasing disable
gamma 0 (changing it doesn't seem to make a difference)
(VBO not an option)
texture memory 64MB
fog distance ratio 3

audio and video tab
automatically play media (off)
mute audio when minimized (off)

A really busy area may need the options set lower.
My computer is a PC that doesn't meet the minimum requirements on RAM or video card. Even with the above settings, I commonly have a frame rate of 1-5 per second. I went into SL knowing I'd have an inferior experience, and I do, but almost never crash. I can do almost everything a better computer would allow, but I can't see reflections in water or glow.

Inventory
You could lose inventory in a box on land, but you could also lose it from your inventory. Personally, I've never had either happen. You would only want to store things you seldom if ever use in a box anyway. I have heard, however, that storing things in a box that's in your inventory is a bad idea. I can't figure that one out since half the objects in my inventory already have something in them, but of course none of them have 500 things in them.

Yep, when we can skip the "my 2yo wordprocessor won't run 3D graphics applications or games" arguement and the, "you have better stuff than me so must have too much money" arguement.
Most current quality games won't run on 2yo office spec machines. Buying a machine that meets the minimum requirements then 6-12months later enduring a lot of pain and suffering over 6 months as it becomes nearly incapable of running SL is something to consider.
It's not like you need a top spec gaming machine, but a low-mid spec gaming machine is still going to kick your average HewParkardSell wordprocessors butt for a quality and long term enjoyment. The graphics cards that run SL well now like 7000 & 8000 series have been on the market for 3-4 years now they are old tech and probably not going to be made in 12 months time.

Did people complain like this when they found VHS tapes were no longer being supported or rented at video stores neing replaced by DVD? They forced everyone to upgrade and buy DVD players! What about when we were told we couldn't by a LP anymore, did we complain to Sony and demand they continue to market everything on Vinyl and cassette?

Well, YEAH.

But they didn't listen...

I really dont know what you are talking about, "my 2yo wordprocessor won't run 3D graphics applications or games" We are actually talking about machines that would run SL last month, and now WONT run SL.

I have a laptop, Acer, 1.5 Ghz CPU 2 gig RAM, runs almost any game I want to try, except SL.
I build office machines, and they will all run SL according to the specs on the web page, and they WILL run SL with a third party viewer.

For some reason you are refusing to see my point that LL avowed intention is to open up the 3d web, and that by making the program too high spec for most machines they are cutting out a large portion of their customers.

Thats ok not a problem, I can run SL very well, I am a computer geek, and SL is a platform for computer geeks, and that is how it will stay, until LL change their policy.

And as far as Vinyl and CD, yes, there are still vinyl records being produced, BECAUSE CUSTOMERS WANT THEM. see my point??

I have a 3yo 2.4 Ghz 1gig 3250 Raedon GPU desktop in the cupboard gathering dust, it won't run SL, Supreme Commander, BF 2142, HalfLife 2, CoH, Halo2 or Crysis. It still runs Outlook Express & Excel, maybe it would run WoW........

Yes but what you build and what ParkardSell etc are pushing on the market for office machine are different coloured cats

Worst thing is our graphics like avatar mesh etc still suck even with our high tech program and our whole system of continually redownloading textures is pretty much going to keep choking SL anyway
Probably are still places making vinyl, but it I go search all the stores in the biggest shopping centre in Brisbane, the closest I would find is a blank cassette tape.

Wrong speech. It's the "my friends/customers/whatever haven't been seen in SL since the mandatory upgrade" speech. And if they can't get into SL you can't tell them about the Cool Viewer.

Most current quality VR environments, however, do. And that's what SL's competition (as far as it goes) is.
Wrong speech. It's the "my friends/customers/whatever haven't been seen in SL since the mandatory upgrade" speech. And if they can't get into SL you can't tell them about the Cool Viewer. Or even the "--channel" hack.
They don't have to. They could, for example, put a link to the alternate viewers Wiki page on the Download page. Something like:

"Hey, if your video card is old enough to be in preschool and you can't keep up with the latest viewer, try these..."

Well, maybe a little less flippant than that.

Nice Idea!!!!
Hoping that when the Forums are upgraded that LL will announce a grand reopening to let both new and older players that were not allowed before now because of payment info. Would be nice if they prominently display the info EVERYWHERE also. This should help the rather dismal lines of communication.

in the meantime Torley replied my email, (though he didn't mentioned if I could paste his reply here as I had asked, so I can't really get much of that in my post), from what I understood, everything is good with him, he is indeed still employed at LL and working on stuff there, he has been posting about his activities on his own blog, and regarding the concerns about his absence from the official SL blog, he pointed me to http://torley.com/communication-mmmm-followup

so like some people already mentioned in this thread some posts ago, there is indeed no need to worry about what happened to Torley