Is all this normal for an online game/world

Hold on. When comes to MMO my resume lot longer then yours. Fact you even include Diablo and Diablo II, gave me a nice chuckle.

If youve played so many then how can you not see the difference in the technology. Non of those games has to handle the fact the enviroment can be changed instantly. No preloading into your memory or vidcard is possible. That alone leads to lack of stability. Now lets add in ability for user made scripts... many which are coded like wet noodles.

While of late theres undeniably been some bad desicions by LL; it does not change the fact we talking a entire different horse then a standard MMO. Ya just cant compare the two and expect to hold SL to the same standards.

But since some like to claim no major MMO was ever released with such bugs and downtime.. guess ya dont consider AO one the majors? How soon thier first six months was forgoten. Then there was Shadowbane, not far behind Horizons, and even in more recent MMO history the release mess of Ryzom.

Wew i have to say the amount of alts is alarming! When we first came here, having an alt was almost a shameful thing, like you were either hiding something or where up to something. I cant tell you how many ppl have come by to show off their new alt or have IMed me about have one (or several), no wonder the system is overloaded just keeping up with whos who now. Some even brag that they have more than one computer, the alt is money dancing and they are playing their main..sheesh

If Mr. L thinks inflating the subscriptions numbers is a good thing..hmmm im not sold..i think its as bad a cheat as money chairs, but then thats just my oppinion.

Seriously we do have alot of down time, and it affects everyones enjoyment of the game, and i guess every wednesday is still on *sigh* but thats (Second) Life...

SL's update downtime is smack inside my prime time all the time (late evening). You don't hear me complaining. If something gets fixed along the way (e.g. we get the parcel based anti-push option), I am more than happy for the downtime.

Besides I log in to this other game called RL while I'm waiting ... go out, see a movie, surf other stuff, do some programming, blog, go for munchies, nap ... lots of stuff I can do. RL has no downtime (and you'll wish it did).

During last Wednesday's downtime I was watching a movie. When I got home, I handled some email, downloaded the new client, then logged in.

When updates come you know when the downtime will happen. Schedule something else on that time and you won't even notice SL went down.

MMOG's ALL suffer the same way ( I'm grouping SL as a game as for the purposes of this thread it is one ) when it comes to downtimes.

WoW - it's downtimes are probably as frequent and as long as SL.. usually the patches don't come back with so many bugs HOWEVER in defence of SL it's technologically a lot higher and easier to break.

SWG - when I was playing it had 1hourish downtimes nearly every day and ultimatly made the issues you see in SL insignificant. They utterly DESTROYED SWG with changes and some changes where seriously buggy.

EQ2 - has a downtime nearly every day of about 1 hour, patches tend to be a few hours. Patches do often come in with a bug or two some which have been serious.

Jumpgate - (old small MMORPG I used to play) had a downtime of about 30 mins daily, patches where general ok although some where buggy.

Fact of the matter is when you put patch+live data unforseen things can happen. Not to mention patch+much wider range of hardware combinations. Secondlife is perhaps rushing things though a bit too quickly but it's not THAT bad. Especially as compared to games it attracts people who aren't gamers... that has the effect of attracting people who have non-gaming rigs when it is TECHNOLOGICALLY most definatly a game. That means people try to run it on equipment that it's just not designed for.

On the flip side people will play WoW ( technologically a VERY low game ) on high end equipment because it's a game.. so they thing they need it ( in fact WoW will work very well on some very low end kit because it's graphics are poor ).

;0 How do you level up in Second Life?

Play one of the RPG's available ...

Seriously in terms of this discussion comparing to games IS relevent as both SL and traditional MMORPG's are evolving environments using server farms etc.

Well my son plays Everquest and he is always griping the thing is down or upgrading.
So no we are not alone. But this is in contrast to an online WW2 flightsim I played a while back. Updates were perfect. Just they only came out after extensive testing, sometimes up to two years. I would rather have new content and upgrades frequent as opposed to once in a blue moon.

First, you have your avatar study scripting, building, and texturing. Once you have sufficient skill levels in each, you can join one of the technomancy guilds, but most people go it alone.

When you meet up with a linden, and have done the above, you can challenge him for the title Linden, BUT ONLY ON HIS OWN LAND. Use of push weapons is a bad idea, since this causes them to use thier BanHammer Infinity attack, ending the battle, and most likly your avatar as well.

Once you have a Linden title, you have to then beat Torley, Robin, and Philip in a 3 on 1 deathmatch. No one's done it yet, but if you do, it opens up the secret level that contains the Havok 3 supergame!

Anything else you want to know?

Why is grass always greener on the other side of the fence? If it's the same grass, it's because we see more of the side of the grass (which reflects more color) than we do the top of the grass (which lets us see the ground).

There are complaints everywhere. People will always gripe. Given that why not we just put things into perspective and let LL update when they need to. SL does not have to take up our lives 24/7.

How did you find this out if nobody beat it yet?

LOL I think Ultima Online is the game with the worst preformance.

It's 2D , it looks crap...it's been here for 8 years...
And to me it looks DEAD.

Not to mention to roll-backs they used to do when the server was too crowded.




WoW isn't all that either... my server EU-aggramar crashed 5 times in 2 days.
Downtime is 8 hours...but i'm glad that the downtime is during the night.

SL downtime is just during the day.

*sputters and wipes her monitor* Thank you, Foolish, for brightening an early morning for me!

I do think SL is down a lot, but that was to be expected when we went to 1.10 and then 1.11. Do I think it's down a lot compared to other MMO's? No. Even CoH/CoV had looooonnnng downtimes during the week or when server farms started dying under the strain.

Yeah, the patches are bug nightmares. But think of it this way.. most of us who log in to the preview have limited imaginations when it comes to trying to break the client/server for benign purposes. Imagine what it is like when a patch goes live to all those who want to break it for their own ends? *listens to the scream of hamsters*

I've been in CoH this weekend, but I check in on SL more days than not, and spend several hours at least two or three days a week, and I haven't had serious performance issues in months. Yeah, there was a problem this weekend, and some people will have issues in any version on any given day, but that doesn't mean it's getting worse. There have been radically more problematic updates in the past. Granted, I don't expect SL to produce a realistic gun battle; I don't expect a hammer to remove a bolt, either, though you can force the situation and complain about the results if you want.

SL pioneers new realms of 'performance' for an MMOThingy on a continuing basis, from business development to tourism to civic improvement to creative collaboration. In a sense, SL is the opposite of other online games; they take the idea of a video game and apply the technology of the internet, whereas SL takes the idea of the internet and applies the technology of gaming.

I have to chuckle here. You actually are claiming that SL is worse than the Battle.net servers? Pullleeeze. Let's talk about the rampant hacking that killed both of those before you go much further, 'k?


Dead.


Going dead.


And every single one you list has quality-controlled, centrally designed content done by professional programmers. NO other online world has the volume of unpredictable, buggy scripting as SL. NO other online world has the vast inconsistency of texture definition and size as SL.

Frankly, there are times when I'm amazed SL is up and running at all. But if you came here expecting a "game", maybe that's where you set yourself up for disappointment.

How much longer do I have to go till Max level in SL Cin?

Somehow I must have turned my experience bar off back in like March of 05 , and Just been kinda playing it by ear.

I thought when I got done with the drama quests I would be cool. But now after reading some of these posts , I dunno.

I thought I was über at level forty-seventeen, then I met Aimee and saw that she was level forty-million-teen. There's just no way to catch up now

Aimee is fourty-million-teen?

-wait-

your fouty-seventeen?

Grrr..

Im SOOOO gonna ebay now.

In LL marketing-speak, it's a "reuseable drafting platform".

SL vs. etch-a-sketch

o You own the IP rights to the content you create with your etch-a-sketch reuseable drafting platform. Same in SL. Tie.

o The etch-a-sketch does not support exporting of the work created using the reuseable drafting platform to an alternative format. Same in SL. Tie.

o I don't need to submit any valid user information to use an etch-a-sketch. Same in SL. Tie.

o I can use my etch-a-sketch every Wednesday. Not so with SL. Etch-a-sketch wins.

o I don't need to buy 10 times as many etch-a-sketchs as I want in order to make a complicated design on one of them. Not so in SL. Etch-a-sketch wins.

o Hasbro doesn't claim any IP rights over content I create with my etch-a-sketch. Not so with SL. Etch-a-sketch wins.

o The only builds I can destroy with my etch-a-sketch are my own. Not so in SL. Etch-a-sketch wins.

Clearly the etch-a-sketch is at least as good a development platform as SL. I will now make it my mission in life to heap scorn upon any who dare demean the etch-a-sketch reuseable design platform by calling it a mere "child's toy". You're on notice, Frank Bligh!

I had pretty much exactly the same feeling about this bit. Anyone who played SL on a regular basis would have known that *the* most frequently used feature in SL is the chat window, and would have realized that messing with the behavior for getting into that window was going to create serious problems for most users.

The fact that they didn't is something that really does concern me. It makes me feel that SL is getting out of touch with it's actual users. Unfortunately, it's a trend that I don't really seem to see as likely to improve, particularly with this huge push for new users.

[coughs] BS..BS....this is far from normal for 3D chat proggies. It's only normal for SL and has been ramping up for better than a year.

Y'know, sometimes I think we need a sticky entitled "Read this before complaining about SL" and have all these tired discussion points summarised therein.

Then I feel sad that it even occurs to me, then annoyed at the thought of wasting space and creating a bad impression on new forum-goers. Must all this be explained time and again?

Etch-a-sketch

has no p2p interactivity
no instant messaging
no color or shading
no animation
no sound
no scripting

thats total and utter rubbish. you have zero credibility with claims like yours.

BS your self.

If this was just 3d chat "proggies" it wouldn't have all the content it has. It has far more as in places to see and go and items and custom things, then any MMORPG. SL isn't a "3d chat proggie"

So in that it does very well for all the different stuff its got to support.