Progress? What Progress?

its a necessary evil
the game needs to advance and if it was easy they wouldnt do any testing and just release perfect updated clients. I guess I have got used to it, been playing MMROPGS since 1997, and unfortunately these types of downtimes and outages are part of the territory. You have two choices, accept it or move on, getting angry / upset isnt suddenly gonna make things perfect.

*claps for Savonah*

That's so awesome.

I also think they need to change it to maybe a bi-monthly or monthly update instead of every week. Take time to test and search for bugs. A week isn't that long to catch more than a few easy to find bugs.

"Chronic Skronski: I'm surprised that SL even runs on the change-moaner's machines"

I have an HP Media Center PC with Windows XP MC Edition, 4200+ AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor (rated at around 4.2 ghz), 1 gig of ram, 250 gig harddrive, XFX geForce 7800 GT. SL runs fine on my machine and I am opposed to such a huge amount of change without bug-testing.

Ah, another 'improvement' Wednesday. The latest ways of irritating customers have been researched and uploaded (which is why we're here rather than in SL).

Are you sure it is not we who are behind the glass trying to get the attention of the scientists running their tests on the outside?

Sometimes heavy rain prevents me from going out and doing stuff. However, I calmly take into consideration that there are some things that can be unexpected and out of people's control, and I find another way to amuse myself instead of screaming at the sky until my throat bleeds.

Roll back to 0.9b!!! Ohh wait Second Life can only handle 300 people online at once and all the cool features are missing!

The sun's out, and there's nothing else to do. Why not take a walk?

That's a scary thought, Neural! 0.0

I'm certainly not screaming at the sky.

The sad thing is that a lot of these problems COULD be avoided if things were properly tested instead of "ooh its wednesday, better do an update of some kind".

Lewis

You honestly think that no bug testing was done? The only way that this could be bug tested to the degree that everyone is demanding is to have 8000 people in the grid. So - to everyone who complains, have you all been spending the last week in the preview grid submitting bug reports?

I can understand people being upset if a bug affected them to the point that they lost a substantial amount of money/time. But this constant boo-hooing from the same group of people every time there is the slightest thing wrong or against their liking is getting OLD. It makes me loathe Wednesdays and leaves me really disliking a lot of the forum regulars. Maybe LL would have more time to work on the important things if everyone stopped griping about every tiny little thing!

And S.B., I don't want to hear from you what the General forum is for, nor do I want to be shown another forum that is even worse. I have an opinion too, and I am allowed to express it. Sorry for my OWN complaining, but I am sick of this - bombarded with complaints in every fucking thread from day one in the forums.

Once again, your totally uneducated guess on a topic is so wildly off the mark as to be funny, if you didn't express it as factual.

Not raining right now, is it?

No, you're saying, "Why do we have seasons?! They cause all kinds of inconvenience for people. Let's just have spring all the time!"

When Second Life is down, I play First Life.

Quite extraordinary.
What on EARTH makes you think I'm a furry, Koto? Nothing in my posting, hun, that's for sure. Fact is I'm not; don't mind 'em; but I'm not. Please turn your reality sensors on.
This weird misapprehension of yours does cast doubt on the rest of what you say.

'Bringing religion in to it' Awww.. don't you recognise irony when you see it?

The point about God resting on the seventh day instead of sorting out death; illness and incurable disease; the suffering of children; war as a way of resolving disputes; the apalling inability of Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist; my complete inability to grow some decent lettuces in my back garden year after year (dam' slugs-- come on God, why slugs for petes sake?);... oh, and LInden's inability to provide an upgrade consisting of minor improvemenst to an already impressive simulation without making a complete hames of it..

Sweetie, get a sense of humour, okay?

Byee!
Anima Graff

Why couldn't we all just be happy with a multiplayer version of Atari Adventure? Isn't that what we all want, deep down inside?

please have my baby.

I think so, too. It's like there's little time to play, what with all the time we spend trying to get updates to work. And there's always the threat that with each new update, a person will find they can't play at all.

Speaking as someone who has worked with the public for far too long, I can say that my heart goes out to the scientists, and just picturing that crowd of impatient, obnoxious, overentitled adult children thumping on the glass makes my stomach turn a flip.

That imagery makes me sympathize with LL a little more ...

How is Lewis' statement wildly off the mark? It's obvious--as someone who's job involves both software development and proofreading--that there is a serious flaw with whatever testing LL is doing on these updates. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's that the devs never learned effective testing techniques... But there is no valid excuse for such large, frequent problems. Sure, on occasion a bug will slip by no matter how much testing you do. This, however, is just ridiculous. If I started putting out code like this at work I'd be reprimanded almost immediately, and if the problem persisted let go soon after.

That would rock.

Oh I'm sure they possibly bugtested with themselves. But they should have a group of maybe 30 individuals they let on a small seperate server area to test stuff on.

It's not a problem with there being updates, or that once in a while something small happens. It's the fact that (as I've read so far) it happens EVERY time and has every possibility of people losing items/time/L$-RealMoney. When something goes wrong every time, and every time happens to be once a week, it irritates people.

Imagine if once a week all your electricity went out, burning fuses and possibly frying an electronic device here and there. Instead of putting everything on surge protectors and rewiring the house to best suit whatever problems happened last time, they went to your camcorder and implimented a cool pan & tilt function while flipping enough circuit breakers to get your electricity back up for the week.

I, myself, am very new and don't have much to lose or gain. It doesn't effect me. But I can understand how some people who have been here along time could feel.

I applaud Linden labs for providing such a big open and cool space to play in, and am grateful enough not to b**** them out about little things. But I lost 9 hours of Money Chair camping (I'm new, and poor) and was just a little miffed.

It's a virtual game, it's not real life, but it CAN effect real life emotions and thoughts, so it's not completely unrelated.

This is getting interesting. Ever since I arrived here I've noted what appears to be an increasing polarisation of residents. I suppose at one time opinions weren't quite so divided, but recent events seem to be driving many residents into different camps.

On one hand there are those who demand 'fix the bugs, stop adding goodies until you do, and then do the stuff you promised ages ago, not your latest whims'.

On the other people who appear willing to put up with any amount of bugs, outages and other problems in the name of progress. This group seems prepared to turn quite savagely on individuals who criticise SL, generally accusing them of 'whining' and worse.

I can see points to both sides. But things are becoming a bit excessive I think.

Yes, if things don't ever change progress won't occur, and changes do bring unavoidable dislocation from time to time - however, change for the sake of change is pretty much pointless. There needs to be a purpose and a plan behind the change.

Yes, ignoring unresolved bugs in favor of superficial 'improvements' is stupid, especially when they don't work well, or introduce additional bugs, and symptomatic of at the very least a lack of control or direction in development. But there will be avenues that have to be explored, even if they turn out to be cul-de-sacs, to determine what is and isn't possible.

Both groups are right - and wrong.

I'm especially worried by the developing mob mentality of the 'anything LL does is great' group, who seem to be attacking the so called 'whiners' with ever increasing savagery, indeed it can't be long before someone gets themselves banned. It's not necessary, it does neither you, nor LL any good at all. You people should really take a deep breath, step back and take stock of yourselves.

Those unhappy with the downtime/bug/apparent lack of meaningful progress should consider this - it's simply not worth getting so worked up about. Hell, it's only a game!
The best thing to do is simply avoid SL when it's stressed (weekends now we have all these new people), or immediately after an update, And simply don't expect any meaningful improvement.
Not being unpleasant, but if it gets too much, take a break for a bit, or bale out altogether. It's just not worth the hassle.

Me - I'd love to see SL working a LOT better AND development forging ahead. A couple of months observation has led me to believe that simply isn't going to happen. Which is a shame, but there it is.
The way things are I can expect with some confidence to get about 3-4 days a week access to SL without so much hassle it makes the experience unpleasant. So I accept that and stay away when I know the likelihood of problems is high, or exit for the day as soon as problems emerge.
The rest of the time I work within the constraints of what is possible. Sure, I moan a bit, now and again, but I don't make a big thing of it. And I don't jump aggressively on people who are disappointed with SL either.

Some of you might want to try this. Make the best of things, don't waste your energy attempting to change what can't be changed, and don't let your uncritical acceptance of everything SL lead you to attack people who are a bit more critical than you.

Erm - maybe I should become a preacher or something

You forgot group 3. Those of us who sit back, watch the forums, and fan the flames for fun. XD

this is the flaw in your supposition.