discussion: is Introvert actually Chicken Little in disguise?

I recently posted to Second Life Answers requesting information on what I perceive to be widespread customer dissatisfaction with Second Life's largest issues and Linden Lab's relative silence on the subject. As "Second Life Answers" does not afford discussion, I wanted to see if others share my perception or if I am in need of a falling sky and chicken avatar.

My intention is not to debate those who disagree with my appraisal, but to genuinely see if I am wildly incorrect in speaking "for the customers". As such, I won't be reponding to this thread to advocate my point to avoid turning it into a flame war but will be reading and considering all replies. If I am incorrect in my observations, please say so and if the community thinks I am grossly incorrect, I will indeed get the appropriate avatar. Thanks for reading.

I think a lot of the frustration we all feel comes not so much from LL but from the fact that building something like SecondLife is a very tricky, very complex task fraught with a lot of natural risk and adventure.

It's pretty easy to get fearful when walking about in the deep forest, late at night, which we all are.

However, we have to, cause if we wait until daytime Microsoft will eat our lunch!

I would say that I believe you have been playing Chicken Little lately, but I think I can point to many posts of mine (although not as recent ones), where I have been running around squawking and flapping my own wings so I think we all do that from time to time. As Iron Perth indicates (paraphrasing) its an environment that kind of generates that sort of feeling sometimes.

As to the post you are linking to, I think it's by far one of your more reasoned and non-paranoid ones. On the other hand while I disagree with almost all your points, and even though I don't think there is much substance to those particular fears/complaints, perhaps you *do* speak for other SL users in that these are things that I hear a great deal of complaining about on the forums.

While I don't think 'chicken little' is an apt description of you, Introvert - I do feel you've had a lot of negative feelings toward LL for some time (and likely with good reason).

I agree with Dianne - your hotline post was well reasoned, and not the least bit paranoid.

And, I agree with the core of your point: there are technical issues that are preventing SL from living up to its potential, and its scaring some customers away.

The thing is, SL is about as addictive as crack cocaine. Many of these technical issues prevent new residents from getting addicted: they get frustrated, and leave. But once the hook is set, it takes a monumental amount of technical glitches to actually pull someone away from SL - due to its addictive quality. I certainly feel like I fit in that category.

Possibly, LL is aware of the addictive nature of their product, and has grown complacent as a result. If that's true - when a 'better drug' comes along, LL could be caught off guard very quickly.

I don't think you are saying the sky is falling in general, as you put it.

Honest questions deserve honest replies. Here are mine:



"performance is terrible"

This is #1 in my book - I believe you 100%. Until I added RAM to my system and brought it well over 1Gb, I felt like I was walking around in a small, 128m 'reality bubble'.

However, the problem is not so much the Company, but *our* irresponsible usage of textures and prims.

What can be done?

1) The Company can make it expensive to upload large textures.

2) Limit avatar attachments. Think of avatars as real estate - at 117 prims per 512m, how many hectares does an avatar need!? It's bling over trees - literally.



"building more buggy"

Yeah, but it's not that bad. They do fix things soon as they can; I accept it as the the price of progress.



"customer support"

Hard for me to say. I pass on this one.



"broad concerns about the $L exchange rate"

I think there will always be broad concern. The Company *cannot* truly control the exchange rate, as long as the 'Give $L' or 'Pay $L' functions exist in the same universe as Paypal.

Sure they can influence it clumsily by various methods, but true control? Never. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

I can really only speak for myself and my experiences as a customer, and relay what I've heard others speaking about inworld.

1. Performance: for me, about the same as its ever been. Occasional odd to pinpoint lag in certain areas. About the same for others I've spoken to as well.
   
2. Building bugs: well, they finally fixed the vanishing/non-updating linked prims, which went on far too long. The tab problem from two updates ago was a bitch, but to LL's credit it was fixed within days, not weeks or months. Overall, I'm pleased. I haven't heard any complaints inworld with the exception of the tab bug.
   
3. Customer support: I don't think I've had to contact customer support since last September, and when I did so via phone my problem was solved immediately. The only other person recently I've spoken to about customer service has the concierge service and he says he is pleased.
   
4. $L exchange rate: do I want to make more $US when I sell my $L? Sure. I don't want to pay $2.75 for a gallon of unleaded either, but the economic forces involved are frankly beyond me, so I eat Ramen noodles and hope for the best. If the $L=$US continues to fall, I'll charge more for my services eventually, but I'm not terribly concerned as of yet. Haven't heard a lot on this topic either way inworld.
   

So, that's my experience as a customer of LL's and a resident of SL. I certainly don't have my finger on the pulse of of the grid by any means, but that's my report for my little corner of the world. Overall, B+.

I didn't comment on my own experiences either - so following Cory's lead & here goes:

Performance: Its been mostly okay for me on the client side. I never crash - and usually end up with about 10 FPS, which is what I'm used to. However, I have an above-average amount of system memory (1.5 GB). Someone that has your average run-of-the-mill generic Dell system wont get the kind of performance I get, and that's a problem. The biggest complaint I have is a client FPS drop down to 1 FPS when I first search my inventory.

On the Server side, it sucks. We've had Time Dilation issues since 1.7 came out - and while they've improved from the utter unplayablility it was when the issue started, we still get spikes below 0.50 TD for no explainable reason. I don't have a high degree of confidence that LL is still actively working the issue.

Building Bugs: I'm not a hardcore builder, but I do tend to build whatever I need myself rather than buying it from others. No major bugs that annoy me to speak of here (although there are some minor ones).

Customer Support: For the most part, its okay. Aside from the server issues I've experienced, usually the Liasons and/or Phone support I talk to are quite helpful. Communication is an area that's always needed improvement - but lately, I genuinely think that's gotten significantly better.

$L exchange rate: I've always been somewhat oblivious to the exchange rate myself. In a year and a half, I think I've actually purchased cash (on GOM) once - and I've never tried to sell Lindens. With the DI being phased out, however - this is going to change. So I probably will start caring a bit more about where the exchange rate sits. Still, with the tiny amount I'll be converting, it will probably only make a difference of a few dollars whether the exchange rate is at 250 or 350.

Overall, my rating would be a C+, i guess.

I feel like you're kind of beating the same drum lately and I don't hear much that's new from you. I have to mirror Cory's perspective almost exactly. Not an absolutely perfect SL experience, but not terrible either.

I don't think it's productive to take Linden Lab to task for implementing minor features while major features remain in the pipeline, either. What for? The stuff gets done when it's done -- I don't think there's any lack of eagerness to see this stuff in our hands. But obviously some tasks are easier than others. I'd prefer at least incremental changes and improvements on an ongoing basis over a few quantum leaps every few quarters with stagnation in between.

They fumble stuff, sure. They charge headlong into new features or changes to existing features without much feedback from us. But they're also decently quick to resolve those issues in many cases.

Linden Lab is not above criticism, to be certain, and there's a lot they could do better. I think their leadership needs additional, strong figures who get the vision but also understand how to get stuff done. This is all fine to comment upon.

But when you spend months commenting about nothing but these things, that gets a little tired.

In any case, avoid taking the mantle of "speaking for the customers." Everyone who goes down that road ends up annoying the hell out so many others. If you're going to bitch, then bitch, but do it for your own satisfaction. You're obviously a smart guy who cares a lot about this experience. Give us something else beyond "OMG THEY ARE LETTING US DOWN I KNEW IT!"

I joined during 1.6, and performance for me at this point is pretty much where it was at
when I joined. Got a HP Pavilion laptop (512 MB RAM) with Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 card. Game is as playable as it ever was, and I'm happier with SL than I've ever been.

Thank you all for your candor. It appears I needed it.

From my reading, it appears that I need not get a new avatar, but you have touched upon my greatest personal fear: being boring, to which I plead guilty and will likely stop my tirade for that reason alone.

As far as my sentencing goes, I should like to make a statement of mitigating factors in my defense. As Travis noted, there is a quality to SL that keeps people coming back despite its faults. I'm still here and as someone has noted the opposite of "love" isn't "hate" but "apathy". I was stunned by the potential of SL in late 2003 and have been distressed that so much potential is being marred by things which - to my eye - seem correctable.

Please note also that although I do spill many words trying to induce LL to do better, they are not having the desired effect. Furthermore, I think my critiques may be balanced - byte for byte - by my attempts to help other players accomplish their desires, only those aren't so visible as they are far less passionate.

Thanks again, and if you read this as anything other than humble contrition, I must have written it poorly.

I admire the hell out of your taking such complete responsibility for your words and the perceptions they generate. I think it's very obvious you're in love with SL's potential -- your words have the taste of disappointment more than anything else. I have my points of frustration with SL, too. But it's important to keep perspective. I'd rather mostly enjoy SL, except for the rough spots, than mostly hate it, except for good spots, if that makes any sense.

I'm glad you're re-evaluating your position, but I hope you'll still contribute to the discussion of SL.

I think some of the big features - HTML on a prim - Havoc 2 - et. al. as we have said in world are the 'godots'... I don't even expect to see them in this incarnation of SL anymore, we occasionally hear about the mythical 'SecondLife 2.0 render engine' and other '2.0' snippets - could it be that they are destined to appear in 2.0 version of Second Life, and the 1.0 dev team is trying to 'shore up the boat and bail' until it comes out?

I don't know - I'd like to think so.

Half implimented features, and no brainers tend to rub me the wrong way a lil more than other things; the half implimented XML-RPC - Custom animations, but we still need AO scripts to change our defaults (this brought up pre voting - made a prop post voting - discussed on the forums - commented by LL - then apparantly swept under the carpet).

There are things to get annoyed about - and I think you made your points well and without drama.

I don't think you're going chicken little on us - you aren't screaming and ranting OMFGZORZ SL WILL SPLODE CUZ MY PENIS WON'T CLICK NO MORE!! U SUXXOR!

as some often do - you aren't putting forth a small personal annoyance as something life threatening that will make SL blow up, kick philip in the nuts, and make the baby jesus cry.

Ahhh you mean like this /108/06/86460/5.html#post881816

I agree wholeheartedly with Enabran. However I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, either.

If your own personal experiences have led you to hold the viewpoints that you espouse in your Hotline post, then its very easy to see that you would be frustrated as hell. Ten million people can tell you Company X is fabulous and the service is without peer, but if your own experience is dismal, it really doesn't matter what those ten million people have to say about it.

If you're taking your cue from the tone of the complaints in various forum threads - well, one has to keep in mind that a happy customer rarely says "thanks" publically. Its the ones that are unhappy that will speak up in order to make themselves heard in the hope of getting their problems fixed. This can lead one to assume when reading the forums that SL is a miserable experience for most of its residents, when there's probably a much larger percentage that are at least satisfied with no major complaints.

Finally, one thing to remember, which I was happy I got to tell LL personally - the force and passion with which people throw themselves into SL (which includes the bitching) is a good barometer of the potential that SL has, and the enthusiasm that people have for the platform and the world they're creating. If one doesn't care about something, they probably won't care enough to complain when something goes wrong, especially with the emotion that many residents display here.

Rendering time for me is much longer than it used to be, maybe 5 times as long. Once the objects render, a large part of them appear with gray textures that last for minutes.

I can't fly around and enjoy the view anymore, the view arrives after I do and looks like it is made from cardboard and white tape.

Design changes took much of the pleasure of building away for me so I can't really comment about currents bugs in the building system from experience because I don't like to build anything that involves using the ruler.

I think your posts seem like an floatation ring of reason in an ocean of blather. They are rather downbeat but when one reports bad things accurately that doesn't mean there is something wrong with the reporter or the reports, it just means the news is bad.

I agree with most here.

I would add that my personal experience is that it can be helpful to let go of my soapbox issues every so often and immerse myself in whatever amuses me. Balance.

This is why people like me are forced to use such terms as "negative income" and "reverse trended". Terms such as "drastically" are forbidden! Tell the truth, but don't make it sound like a bummer.

I don't even notice the gray textures much anymore, and things certainly come up faster than they did right after 1.7. And as for FPS, this past week I noticed an UNPRECEDENTED FPS , fluctuating in the 50's and over at Home Depoz, where I was shopping for textures, and couldn't believe how fast they were rendering - like real life, practically like flipping pages!

Since then, though, there have been times when it was like 5 and 7 FPS with no discernable reason for it. Usually my FPS is pretty good for someone with an old system, unless I get around a whole bunch of avatars.

Generally, I've assumed the viewpoint that with all new changes, I will gradually be left further and further behind, until such time as I get a new computer, so I don't worry about it. But that FPS thing really startled me - I never seen it that high!

As for building, yes, there are several things that make it a lot worse:

Object culling - if I am too far away from something, I just don't see it. Last night, for instance, I made a prim three times - and each time I made it, the minute I clicked out of edit, it disappeared! Finally I logged on and back off, and that's when I realized I was in my next lot over. So I ran over to right next to the work area, and then I saw the three I thought had disappeared. This is a problem when I need to take a picture, too, no matter what my draw distance is set at.

(A huge hippo, though, disappeared last night, too - and entirely - and when I wasn't even working on it!)

Other bugs that never get fixed include (1) editing a linked prim, (2) prims occasionally going phantom, (3) textures inserting themselves randomly in prim contents (though those last two COULD be some obscure combination of key presses I don't realize I'm doing), and (4) having to click out of the edit box before changing each texture.

I hate (4). In other words, it seems I used to be able to stay in edit, with the texture box up, and click from one prim surface to another to change the texture. Now I have to get out of that texture box, click on the surface, bring UP the textures again, find the same texture, and apply it, for each surface. Bummer.

But for the most part, I figure most of the performance issues are always on my end, due to my 3-yrold computer (and 256 memory). Maybe I'm wrong about some of that FPS stuff, though, since it is so all over the map.

And when and if I do get a better computer set-up, maybe I will be able to play past 64 draw distance, and see shiny!

coco

I really would strongly suggest that you consider upgrading your RAM, Coco. I started out in SL nearly a year ago with 512 MB of RAM. About 3 months ago, I upgraded to 1.5 GB -- the two additional 512's that I added cost me about $87 including shipping -- and, as you have probably read from previous posts on the subject, the difference was amazing. I can't even imagine what SL must be like with only 256 MB.

Even if you only added another 256 MB to bring you up to 512, I think you'd see a dramatic difference. A 256 MB stick is going for about $16 to $20 at www.newegg.com.

P2

Yes, from all the feedback I've gotten on the forum when I discuss my system, Phoenix, I have concluded that is the one thing I can do that will make the biggest difference and give me the biggest bang for the buck.

coco