Do sandboxes fail their intended purpose?
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Devlin Gallant
Thought Police
Join date: 18 Jun 2003
Posts: 5,948
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07-06-2006 07:01
From: Lewis Nerd It would be nice if people would simply follow a few simple rules, like tidy up your crap before you leave the sandbox.
Unfortunately very few people think about others, and sandboxes seem particularly susceptible to it .
Last night I was somewhere quiet, testing a transport system that runs along a sim, and used a 250m strip about 20m wide on one edge of the region. The rest of the sim was almost completely empty, with just a couple of others in corners working on projects, or flying around bothering nobody.
After 10 minutes, a group of people turned up and started dropping crap, not just all over the sandbox, but right on top of where I was trying to work, completely obstructing my workspace, bumping me around, and setting off huge particle effects that caused lag. Now that's not just an accident, that's deliberate asshatness. There was plenty of other room in the sandbox for them to play, but no, they have to go and drop their junk (mostly plywood boxes), and not even attempt to do anything with them.
We shouldn't have to buy huge chunks of land just to get a bit of peace and quiet to build... maybe thats part of the LL masterplan, and the reason sandboxes aren't kept in order.
Lewis Folks don't do this in RL, why expect them to do it in a virtual world?
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Jeffrey Gomez
Cubed™
Join date: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,522
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07-06-2006 07:11
From: Lewis Nerd Actually this could all be solved by an "off line building" function. Surely it couldn't be difficult for your own PC to serve as a 'sim, with the only online connection needed to download your inventory. Then when you're finished, you just take the stuff to your inventory, upload it, then log on and place in-world. Thing is, it's already been done to some capacity. And I did try to email the Lindens about this while working on the function myself. The original responses a year ago were quite positive. Though the last email I received on the subject basically said "don't bother." Nice way to run things. Yep.  Though I do appreciate the feedback I've received. It's the only reason the thing got released. 
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Lewis Nerd
Nerd by name and nature!
Join date: 9 Oct 2005
Posts: 3,431
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07-06-2006 07:16
From: Jeffrey Gomez And I did try to email the Lindens about this while working on the function myself. The original responses a year ago were quite positive. Though the last email I received on the subject basically said "don't bother." Nice way to run things. Yep. It is my unfortunate first hand experience that Linden Lab treat many people in this poor way, when all we're trying to do is help. If this is "progressive management techniques", they can shove it where the sun doesn't shine, preferably sideways. Customer service and help remains one of LL's weakest points. Lewis |
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Jeffrey Gomez
Cubed™
Join date: 11 Jun 2004
Posts: 3,522
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07-06-2006 07:30
From: Lewis Nerd It is my unfortunate first hand experience that Linden Lab treat many people in this poor way, when all we're trying to do is help. Honestly, it was not like that when I joined. Two years back, Lindens were quite easy to contact, fairly helpful on a regular basis, and some of the nicest people I've had the honor of meeting over the internet. My take is that Second Life is drowning in its own success. It isn't that many of them don't want to help; they're just extremely overworked, and being sent mixed messages on a more regular basis. Add to this the now-primary focus of "we are in this for the money" and "this is our version of the metaverse," and you can see the result. Such is the way these things go.
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Maklin Deckard
Disillusioned
Join date: 9 Apr 2005
Posts: 459
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07-06-2006 07:31
From: Darkfoxx Bunyip What I see in some private owned sandboxes, that they start renting out plots of land on the edges of the sandboxes... this of course isn't a smart thing to do, as the sandbox becomes smaller and more laggy... Good example of how not to do it, is the Furnation sandboxes. Hardly possible to build anything bigger then a chair before things start lagging up. FN as a whole, due to the typical furry behavior, is getting to be a writeoff. Plus, in addition to the 'I'm too cheap to have one real sandbox, so I will have two surrounded by laggy housing builds' problem, you have the additional problem of socializers. The dumbshits that decide to hold a dance, stand around with lagtastic particle effects running, stand around spamming retarded sounds...etc when there are empty clubs, the FN beach, the Luxor, etc...and no one in management with the balls to run them off. Private sandboxes, unless you have a pro-active management that is WILLING to just possibly offend someone that part of the in-crowd by enforcing rules and one willing to bite the bullet on a completely unrented sim, just do not work.  With the public sandboxes also writeoffs due to combats and laggy big rezzes, I end up doing most of my building on my home sim (4096 plot in a totally residential sim with NO plot smaller than 204  where I encounter very little lag, but cannot build too terribly big. |
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Clubside Granville
Registered Bonehead
Join date: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 478
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07-06-2006 07:51
The Lindens have always been quick to help in my sandbox, either when I notified them or one of the users did. While I was asleep last night supposedly there was a huge physics-based griefer attack and a stack of IMs waiting for me but all was well. They had turned off scripting to track down the attack and only seconds after contacting Live Help it was back on.
While my sandbox isn't the best for huge builds, it is 1/2 of a sim and plenty of different terrains/areas to build. And the people there seem to do a good job of keeping things fun. Check it out in Jizo if you like.
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Lewis Nerd
Nerd by name and nature!
Join date: 9 Oct 2005
Posts: 3,431
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07-06-2006 08:10
From: Jeffrey Gomez My take is that Second Life is drowning in its own success. It isn't that many of them don't want to help; they're just extremely overworked, and being sent mixed messages on a more regular basis. Add to this the now-primary focus of "we are in this for the money" and "this is our version of the metaverse," and you can see the result. Quite possibly. There's a discussion about whether SL technology is scaleable but has anyone ever investigated whether the company is scaling too? After all, 5 (imaginary figure) Lindens working on front line customer service with a resident base of 50,000 will not work when there are 300,000. The sad thing is that there are many residents who would love to offer their help in a voluntary capacity but LL don't seem in the slightest bit interested in being helped. And those that are accepted in the existed volunteer roles get dumped upon at the slightest reason with no explanation or justification. I can't help but wonder whether I'm wasting my time supporting a company in all the ways I am/was when they don't appear to value any of us that don't own dozens of sims. Lewis |
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Harris Hare
Second Life Resident
Join date: 5 Nov 2004
Posts: 301
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07-06-2006 08:11
Sandboxes serve a dual purpose. They are both public sandboxes and public playgrounds. I don't think there's any real way to eliminate the latter and I'm not convinced we should.
As for the litter issue:
Can someone explain to me why sandboxs work differently than mainland sims in regaurd to object deletion/return? Is there a compelling reason why sandboxes simply delete everything every 12 hours?
If other land parcels can be set to return forign objects after they've been rezzed for a certain amount of time, why not simply set the sandboxes to the same behavior, say every two hours? That way the sandboxes are continously cleaning up after themselves.
It would also elminiate the issue of objects you've rezzed being deleted just ten minutes after you arrive at 2:50am and 2:50pm.
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Troy Vogel
Marginal Prof. of ZOMG!
Join date: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 478
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07-06-2006 08:14
Did anyone read my report on the status of sandboxes or was it too positive to actually get your attention? /108/20/118148/1.htmlPer the original opening post for this thread. Well that's the sandbox island and yes it is an inferno and mess everytime I go there. So I don't go there anymore. The other 3 Linden Sandboxes: Cordova, Goguen and one more, are fine. Well better at least. And yes, the sandboxes still accomplish their goals. I meet a lot of new users there building, learning, exploring and making friends. Please don't start a petition or something that says Sandboxes are ruining the SL economy.... ;-P Troy |
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Troy Vogel
Marginal Prof. of ZOMG!
Join date: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 478
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07-06-2006 08:19
From: Harris Hare
As for the litter issue:
Can someone explain to me why sandboxs work differently than mainland sims in regaurd to object deletion/return? Is there a compelling reason why sandboxes simply delete everything every 12 hours?
If other land parcels can be set to return forign objects after they've been rezzed for a certain amount of time, why not simply set the sandboxes to the same behavior, say every two hours? That way the sandboxes are continously cleaning up after themselves.
I think I see what you're saying and I think I agree. Maybe instead of 2 clean ups, 4 clean ups a day? I don't however agree with clean ups every 30 mins or something -- that would take away from the usefulness of the sandbox. However, we're all smart people here, why cant we write a script for the sandbox to trigger a clean up for the items belonging to a specific person 30 minutes after they've left the sandbox and/or logged off? That alone would help tremendously with the litter. Eventually however, there's no real winning on this issue -- it is the nature of the beast. If you want a clean environment to build on, make yourself a platform in the air -- is the best advice that's out there. Troy |
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Lewis Nerd
Nerd by name and nature!
Join date: 9 Oct 2005
Posts: 3,431
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07-06-2006 08:22
From: Troy Vogel However, we're all smart people here, why cant we write a script for the sandbox to trigger a clean up for the items belonging to a specific person 30 minutes after they've left the sandbox and/or logged off? That alone would help tremendously with the litter. Could a sensor not scan for the owners of all items in the sandbox, say every 15 minutes, and if the owner of the objects are not detected in the sandbox, after 4 concurrent scans, the items are auto returned? That would give people a chance to scoot away to buy something or log out or crash but be back within the hour to continue their project. After all, if you haven't been in the Sandbox for an hour, do you really have the right to complain that what you left behind was auto-returned to you freeing up space for someone else to use the land? Lewis |
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Zing Ping
Registered User
Join date: 3 Jul 2006
Posts: 8
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07-06-2006 09:55
Auto-return should be set at one hour, with a sim-wide messages going out at 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute and 10 seconds.
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Matt Newchurch
Registered User
Join date: 6 Jan 2006
Posts: 215
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07-06-2006 10:04
From: Lewis Nerd That would give people a chance to scoot away to buy something or log out or crash but be back within the hour to continue their project. After all, if you haven't been in the Sandbox for an hour, do you really have the right to complain that what you left behind was auto-returned to you freeing up space for someone else to use the land?
Lewis There needs to be a texture shopping exemption. Send "I'm going to buy textures" to some random channel the scanning script is listening on, and it'll write back "Damn, I feel for you...alright, I won't touch your stuff for 2, 3 hours...good luck." Is there anything more painful then texture shopping in the middle of a build? My kingdom for a speedy texture shop, or a better video card. --Matt Newchurch, Who is writing this between waiting for textures to load in vendors |
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Cow Hand
Registered User
Join date: 20 Feb 2006
Posts: 292
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07-06-2006 10:05
From: Eata Kitty Sounds ok but in practise... http://imagesocket.com/view/combat_box673.jpghttp://imagesocket.com/view/island_box712.jpgNot exactly a building enviroment. Do we need tighter rules, the lindens to go around with a vacuum cleaner every thirty minutes or the resident sandbox patrol? Or are sandboxes absolutely fine? Personally I find them to be usable within a few hours of the wipe, so long as you sit on a prim to avoid getting run over/shot. After six or so hours the cruft has built up to levels where using a floating platform is a better idea. No. Just relax. Stop making everything a crisis. |
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Eata Kitty
Registered User
Join date: 21 Jan 2005
Posts: 387
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07-06-2006 11:18
From: Cow Hand No. Just relax. Stop making everything a crisis. ? There is no crisis, just room for improvement. |
