A Look Back, A Look Ahead

Dear M.

Happy New Year, first of all. I hope it is fruitful for you.

Does increasing stability of the platform mean that you'll finally stop trying to get your old IBM servers to limply run Second Life with 100's of patches that are, in fact, causing the problem and invest in some HP servers and some backup fail-over servers?

As for improving the first-hour experience: I do not think it is being done in the right way. The SL homepage proves almost without a doubt that Big Spaceship are not savvy enough with Second Life to effectively create a New User Experience that will be benefitial in the long run. I remind you that previous OI's have been built by external companies and all proved to be a resounding disaster.
I wonder if you would be willing to look into the possibility of allowing people who know much more about Second Life and what the New Users really need to be in the the NUE project: The Residents. It is the residents and the residents alone who will be the most effective tool for crafting an effective First-Hour Experience since many of us work with first-hour users on a day to day basis and know exactly what needs to be corrected. I believe that inclusion of the residents would not only be effective PR for second life and linden labs (your world, your imagination), but also cost-effective.

First,

M, thank you for visiting the forums and engaging in a conversation with us - this is the first occasion in my brief time in SL that someone as prominent as you in the company has done this. people have complained about how little "the Lindens" spend time in the fora, and you doing this is great.

Another thing I took away from your blog message - you mentioned the content creators and consumers as your "core users" - there have been concerns recently that Linden Labs' focus was moving more and more towards the RL business presence and commercializing the product to the detriment of the current users. Your statement pushes in the opposite direction, which I hope many find reassuring.

The year in review for me and the company I work for - we've gone from being a start-up to an established in-world business, which has been quite a ride, but very enjoyable. We've been able to employ staff (and continue what I see as a trend in SL - it used to be that if you weren't a content provider then you were a consumer - now there are all sorts of other opportunities). We couldn't have done that without a stable platform as a base.

I really enjoyed helping organise a charity event (for Relay for Life) that we staged - nice to know that something we do for fun is going to help a worthy cause.

And we were able to branch out and actually build a "tourist attraction" (our own Great Wall of China) which has been getting some great reviews.

So from a business sense - very nice to be able to get something like that off the ground and turn it into something more than just a business.

The platform has definitely become more stable, and more appealing to the eye (thanks to Windlight), and there certainly seem to be less times when I can't log on, compared to a year ago.

The main negative seems to be the whole Homestead/OpenSpace issue. I'm not going to rehash it, because others have done that amply, but you said that you have learned from the experience and listened to the residents. I would be very curious to see a blog post, (perhaps in the near future?) that actually shares with us what you feel the lessons learned are. Maybe use that as a way to get more feedback from the residents to see if what you feel you have learned resonates with those that were upset.

You have a huge challenge in SL, because you are never going to keep everyone happy all the time, (you'd be lucky to make everyone happy ANY time), and having forums like this must be a painful reminder of that. On balance, I think the Lindens are doing a fine job, with the usual room for improvement, of course.

I wish everybody at Linden Labs a happy 2009.

Kalderi
[...who never says "no" to a teddy bear gift!]

It would be an idea to offer standalone regular sims with 7500 prims '1/2 price', this could be an interesting product moving forward and would reach a larger customer base (I would be interested myself).

Actual prices for a full regular sim are 295 us$ before tax, this is loads of money and quite risky if ya cannot rent some land out fast enough.

7500 prims sims could give a solution here!

this should be offered as a standalone product (no ownership of a regular 15000 prims island needed)

best regards,
Wildcat Furse

Hello M, would it be possible for you to share with us any news regarding new user tools we may expect in 2009 (if any).

As a clothes maker I would be interested in new flixible prims, a new clothing layer (to keep the tattoo wearers happy) and a revamped avatar mesh (the distortion in the current one is horrible).

New tools for creators would give the economy a much needed boost by releasing a whole new dimension to clothing and building content.

Please Reply

p.s.

any bears left?

Thanks for all your feedback everyone - these are some great suggestions and I'm looking forward to exploring over the next few days...

So far I've compiled the following favorite pics:

1. Costa Rica sims are beautiful, educational, full of things to do -- and they have anteaters! Anteaters??

2. exploring art in Second Life, be it the installations at New Media Consortium Arts Lab, Eshi Otawara's One Hour Sim and her stunning collaboration with Dizzy Banjo: "Everything is a Tribute to Mozart". Also, AM Radio's builds, La Reve, Kowloon, Rivet Town...

3. WUNDERBAR

4. The Inspire Space Park
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shinda/34/216/1560

5. The Tunnel of Light
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tunnel%20of%20Light/80/163/25

6. Miriel Enfield's beautiful new sim. Her Golden Cage game/hunt is well done, clever, and fantastically difficult.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Miriel/140/64/34

7. Nautilus City with SL scuba diving and horseback

8. Buddhist Shrine of Varosha - A tranquil, beautiful environment created by SL sculptor, Levey Palou. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Crazy%20Devil/137/37/24

9. Numbakulla - A mysterious quest game taking place amongst fascinating and imaginative builds. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Numbakulla/215/18/22

10. The Crescent Moon Museum - SL's oldest museum. Exhibits change regularly and feature some of SL's finest artists in various mediums. http://slurl.com/secondlife/FairChang%20Village/191/138/22

11. The Almalexia - An incredibly well crafted pirate ship (Galleon) that is quite impressive to look at (and explore!). Many an SLer has been seen there dressed in garb and re-enacting jousts and plank-walks. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lux%20Prometheus/235/213/40

12. Most if not all of the Rezzable sims.

13. Pixel Hill http://slurl.com/secondlife/Strayling/234/46/54[/URL - unfortunately, there are rezzing problems there

14. cyberpunk dystopia that is the Sector 7 sim

15. Yay, Cristiano Midnight's Snapzilla!

16. The whole mainland!

17. Events like SL Day of Remembrance, SL5B, Kids5B, Burning Life and Madcow Cosmos' "Blurtophone" and Winterfaire, various and sundry art shows at Cannery Rezzable (RIP), Second Arts (Yay, Bay City Visions show!), and the photography shows in Grignano

18. Camp HardKnock, United Sailing Sims, Privateer Space (sadly gone), Bay City, Kings Rezzable's tunnel of light, Avaria, The Refuge, Happy Mood, The Cornfield and LindenWorld Lobby, Ruce2 (recreation of Rutgers University)

19. 7 Days Magical Bakery. Finally, a corporate sim done jes about right!

20. Aggro. An island that did mega-sculpties right, and also introduced a beautiful dragon avvie to the grid.

21. the underwater mole build near the Degrande sim is wonderful. I look foward to seeing more like it.

22. Livingtree. I say this not because I have a big hand in the shaping of this sim so much as it has been a wonder to see our virtual place change and grow in these 12 months.

23. the Milk 'N Kookies Holiday Fundraiser - the SL Kid Avatar Community collected money to help giving kids from poor RL families a nice christmas (285 pounds of food, toys and toiletries plus a $350 check for the New Jersey Community Food Bank)

24. Sweethearts jazz
[url=]http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sweethearts/197/148/24[/url]

25. I logged in last Saturday only to see one of my favorite Sims, Cu Mara on the screen.

26. Seal Racing in Elf Circle - I have had more fun than anywhere else in SL riding around the course that a guy named Farley Crabgrass created in a place called South Haven. They have people there to help you get going and they are really nice. The racing isn't even laggy - unless SL is going nuts naturally. There are number of videos of the seal racing on youtube but i like this one
[url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uErgX0AEmGQ[/url]

The answer to lag is quite simple. Don't choke the bandwidth pipe!

Linden Labs' implementation of VOICE is a joke. While they like to make a huge deal out of it not being on the same servers as Second Life, what they fail to mention is that the Voice Packets run in the same bandwidth pipe, which brings us what? LAG!

Not to mention all the other "features" they have brought us, piling them on, one on top of the other, and not do anything to reduce the actual packets that come from Linden Lab. That leads to what? LAG!

Of course, if M or Philip had any real BALLS, they would FREEZE Second Life production and put their team to work either going back and re-working the original code to make it more efficient, including the multiple memory leaks, and less bandwidth happy OR they would just start on Second Life 2.0 while we all happily lived in Second Life 1.BAD.

Now, M or Philip, care to be a real Boss and do the right thing for the Second Life Community?

I'm sorry, you've mistake Linden Lab for a company that thinks sensibly. Anyway, I asked for that job first, but I'd be happy to split the duties with you, I'm sure we can find enough at Linden Lab to keep our "butt kicking boots" busy for a very long long time!

Hey everyone,

Again, thanks for ALL your comments...

M is going to be traveling today so he won't be online for most of the day - just wanted you to know and not be disappointed if he didn't respond right away.

Other to do's

- Put on helmet and pinch self for posting while the Grid was down. Ouch!
- Make a list of everyone that wants M's bear, my bear (er, 1 request) and Everett's bear
- Forward Darien Caldwell's comments to Glenn for his feedback
- Compile complaints and continued unhappiness about OpenSpaces (rest assured, we are very aware of your feelings about that)
- Point release team to comments about 1.21 viewer and problems with texture rendering
- Comments about Homesteads and script restrictions - when will we learn more?

Thanks again and Happy New Year....I'm about to go out for a little bit too and won't be online for abit. Keep your favorite pics coming.

I'll have your bear to please Catherine & Katt's if they are going, the more the merrier

I for one support this! The problem is that Linden Lab doesn't LISTEN, they only HEAR. There's a HUGE difference between the two and unfortunately at Linden Lab no one LISTENS!

Just like Cat saying, "We understand your pain" instead of "We know your pain and are going to do something about it". The two look similar, but are markedly different. When will Linden Lab finally empathize with the Second Life Community instead of just LOOKING at it and then turn away?

If you want my list of things wrong with Linden Lab (I love Second Life), then look here:

insidesecondlife.blogspot.com

I agree. Linden Lab conveniently forget that we premium users pay their wages, not the newbies.

Sounds to me like you are describing Linden Lab Cat. Glad you got your wish, too bad it's at the expense of your customers.

They sending you to fetch the donuts and coffee?

No, she's leaving because she can't answer the tough questions. Like all other Linden Lab employee's, she's going to turn a deaf ear to what's been said; it's the Linden Lab way, I think it's in their Employee Handbook under Customer Relations.

Run away Cat, show me I'm not wrong!

I've been playing late at night during the off period so I don't feel that level of instability.

I am thankful for the improvements to the mainland in general and look forward to more. I heart road-building moles

I also appreciate the attempt to be more transparent.

And I also appreciate the coming bears *wink wink*

Looking ahead, stability and usability are the key things to do first, but mesh imports really should be first in line for new features. Kudos to Qarl and those folks who have been working on the sculpts/meshes. A new avatar mesh would be nice too...

Let us debate the issue, not the person. Catherine is one person and one person alone. It is not her fault that SL has the problems that it does, its the investor's fault. Most Lindens that I know of are very frustrated that some of the problems in SL simply can't be fixed because the investors simply wont stump up the cash (because they don't use SL and don't see the problem as long as SL makes money). So please bear this in mind.

Happy Holidays.......... to all aboard this beautiful new world..at least to me it is kinda new...i just celebrated my 1st rezz day (oct..well it's in the profile)..lol....here and have accomplished numerous things,buying land,learing to set up a home of my own here in SL...so exciting for me!!
As a newbie in sl i became a dancer right away...leading up to bigger better things to do...dancer's manager,general manager for two different new dance clubs.
I am inviting anyone and or everyone to come by and see my home,which is now heavly decorated for the holidays..soon to be looking at some new grass comming back to #5 sunset creek...loads of new found friends from far and near..my farthest friend is a most charming,talented with all buildings in sl and his helper they know who they are..lol!
So send me a im let me know when you can come take a look before the snow ends...please and thanks especailly to all those Nice Linden Folks..i have met one very briefly...she knows me a little bit.....
I wanna thank everyone that has made this season so bright for all!

Alesus Afarensis

P.S you will find a LM in my profile under my picks..just let me know in advance if and when you want to visit my place in SL!

M and Catherine,

I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way but the biggest 'to do' assurance you can give me personally for 2009 is that you will IMPROVE COMMUNICATION.

You have a host of resources at your disposal to do this. You are explicity aware that Town Hall meetings will only ever hold a massively limited audience, so please utilise your Blog more wisely and please utilise and read these forums more systematically and methodically. You must begin to appreciate the voices of your residents more. I know for a fact that this is probaby the biggest single complaint from residents directed towards LL, that communication is poorer than a poor man begging in Poor Man's Alley in the wrong part of Poortown; if the thousands of residents you already have here do not feel confident that their voices are not heard, as passionate as we all are, eventually we will give up shouting and start communicating with our feet.

You know what I suggest? You draw up a rota, give every Linden 2 hours of dedicated Grid time each week - you don't answer IMs, you don't go off for board meetings, you don't work on anything; you just spend some time walking around the world. Get out there, see what there is, see how it works and understand it.

Visit Raglan Shire, and its neighbours.

And send me an Everett bear, an M bear and a Catherine bear please.

Regards!

Word. Great post. The SL5B issue was almost a deal-breaker f'r me. If it hadn't been for the outpouring of support from the Second Life community (including at least a couple LL folks) and the extra-amazing Kids5B, I honestly cannot say I'd still be 'round. I think few, to this day, know what a mess that was. In many ways, that's all for the best. In others, well, issues unresolved continue to be issues. Hence the "skin flap."

At the same time, ya. Kids5B showed that avvies like me can work together to make something wonderful. the Milk N Kookies fundraiser only helped cement that. We have an amazing community amongst us that continues to do great things in spite of the challenges, the restrictions, and the very uncertain position we keep getting put in.



A very good point. And hey, they're as human as the rest of us. Well, I'm not sure about Torley, who might be a ray of watermelon-hued sunshine.



Most of those are obvious. Camp HardKnock is going on this week (it is semi seasonal) and is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Funky%20Town/122/9/41 -- the sim is kept to group only most of the time to prevent griefing, etc. I suspect access would not be an issue for you, however.

I initially found the sailing sims by going to sailor's cove -- http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sailors%20Cove/128/128/2 -- I suspect there are other ways in but that was mine. Beautiful port.

Make sure you go to ground level in Avaria, rather than just staying in the stores of Avaria Tor.

The Refuge is in Welsh Cove. It was one of the featured locations on SL Holiday main pages.



http://slurl.com/secondlife/Livingtree/122/122/24 -- we're in winter there now, as we do change the sim for each of the four seasons. Bring skates.



I'd have asked for yours, but I have it. At least the ol' zebra bear with the red box on the head. One of my old faves. But ya, Ms. And Everett if you can convince him

I should have added to my last one: I'd love to have some positive closure to the stuff that happened with SL5B and the issues that continue to dog my community. I believe we're largely willing to work with whatever happens, but are awful tired of bein' SL's second-class citizens.

Mari

P.S.: In re-reading this, I hope I dun sound *too* negative. Jes thinking over the year did bring up some stuff that's bugged me f'r a while is all.

Happy 2009 to all! and thanks to M and Catherine for posting in this thread...and Katt for persevering in her role as the community's public face of SL. Been there, done that, and it is a very thankless task that eats at you. Torley's videos are great learning tools and his Fringe clip is awesome and bookmarked.

TexasKat76 and I changed our way of thinking in SL this year. We initially purchased land and paid tier to Anshe Chung (2007) acquiring a large number of parcels on three of her sims. This gave us a taste of land ownership and most importantly began to help us learn to build.

When 2008 started, we bought an Island with attached OS, now to become a Homestead. This was exciting because we could finally control the land, especially the terrain options. Our priorities changed and we found ourselves buying from a wide range of SL content creators. Whether it was building tools, texture displays, textures, horses, clothes, ships, or anything else...it became a make or buy decision. We learned there were several things we could learn to build and these became our passion. We also learned that the diversity and quality of the other items we wanted made it easy to buy those things we didn't want to build...and there is so much out there!

Then, October 26th happened and we took the plunge in buying Mainland in Nautilus. Our island intent was to make this our private space. Nautilus harkened back to some of my earlier career roots with community building. It also gives us a chance to do things in an historic themed environment...and we're just now scratching the surface of what we hope to build, manage, and have fun with. Thanks to Marianne McCann and the Bay City folks for helping some of us Mainland noobs gain a perspective on what a themed build can be like. And thanks to the Moles for making a terrific themed build. Yes, there are some warts but these are few and far between.

Which brings us to 2009 and looking forward. Nimue Jewell and Cynebald Ceawlin organized our first horseback ride along the Nautilus shoreline. It's ironic, in SL we can teleport everywhere, or fly around and look down. But just like flying in an RL airplane, we miss so much passing over so much. I've taken to riding one of the horses all over Nautilus because you can see so much more. There are pockets of new themed buildings. The creativity is beginning to become apparent. Most importantly, I have gained a real appreciation to the thought that went into the overall design. The walkways, structures, and garden spots break up the sims nicely. They help provide a little more space between most of the parcels. The ability to not-join or split parcels is preventing some of the issues found in other Mainland sims. Nautilus is not for everyone but there is so much to explore and appreciate it is a fun place to be.

All this to say, in 2009 I hope to get out and explore more of SL. The places noted in this thread are going on the list. I also hope to do much more exploring at ground, water, or underwater levels so I can truly appreciate the SL's creativity and diversity.

Cheers...Jean

PS: and if M and Catherine still have bears available, would love to have one.

I have to second the wonderful Show & Tell event on Sundays at North Lummerland. I'd love to see far more of these events show up on the grid, it's a fabulous way to see just what new and exciting content is out there being created.

Unfortunately just one S&T event is guaranteed to have very limited exposure, which is why I'd like to see this expanded across multiple locations with multiple hosts etc. (I'm still interested in hosting one too, that idea has unfortunately been somewhat derailed by circumstances)

Best of luck getting through 2009. LL and SL are going to need it. Raising the price on what is, in the end, an entertainment expense, during a recession/depression is not wise. Nor was blaming people for abusing sims when we but followed your a) employees directions and b) examples set in Mos Ainsley. To a person, my group is ticked off that we are losing the 3 voids we bought in the next week, and the substantial money we gave you for them. The next "great product" you offer, we aren't going to be buying or even paying any attention to it, thanks. We can't afford to trust LL anymore, especially in this economy.

That you pointed out all these rosy pictures while the canvas of SL was laying face down on the floor just adds a bit of emphasis to the state of things today. Yes, SL is more robust than last year. But it's not to the point where anyone can start celebrating yet. Not even close.

I don't need a bear - I need a company to sell me a product and either deliver said product, or give a refund.

Take the time may be to visit the Las Islas sims befoure they sink .....

Las Arenas rosadas , Las Lagunas , Las Islas , Las rocas and Las Olas Azules .....


http://www.flickr.com/groups/956738@N23/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/lasislas/

I wishedI could make into the showcase but now I am thiking if I can keep or I should just dismiss some or most ....

- oh no, just visiting with my family over the holidays. We do get out every now and then.

Chaffro, I can assure you that Resident communications is a top priority for myself and Linden Lab. Our new blog - which is slated to launch imminently - will be a huge improvement over the current blog. There will be lots more Lindens participating, and they'll be covering and digging into topics that we just haven't had the space to cover here. I promise you'll see much more of us soon.

That's just the beginning...

Thanks again for your feedback