So many issues...

I joined SL a bit over two months ago, so I know I have little room to complain compared to some of the folks who have been here for a while. However, I am not new ot online gaming. Never have I sen, in over a decade of online gaming have I seen a game with so many problems that has been around for years. These problems range from not being able to send IMs to a group I created, avatars looking grotesque for some people while others seen them as they should be, random resets of my land and having the deed being reset without my knowldege, prims bouncing around that I just built...that are not scripted to do anything, constant crashes (and that's not just related to new patches), and then there is the infamous "white suit with black lettering". The list goes on and on, but I am sure you get the point.

While this thread is meant to be a bit of a venting of my frustrations with these techinical issues, it is also meant to be a prod at the programmers to step it up. While SL is unique, it shares many features with other online games. You're not going to log on to a game like Warcraft, Everquest 2, or City of Heroes and find people's avatars totally skewed, the world acting out of order, or having to suffer through 3-7 crashes every single day. Secnod Life has been around for years, and most of these bugs should be worked out already. They're not, and I hope management has taken note of these flaws and is aggressively addressing them with the programmers. This game is fun, but it has an equal amount of frustration on a daily basis. While the game population continues to grow, it is more out of loyalty to the relationships with others in the game or curiosity from word of mouth - not because it is a superior product. Put another way - If there was another game under a different name produced y another company that was exactly like Second Life, without all the techinical issues, few people would stick around in SL.

Take this thead for whatever you care to. I'll continue to fork over my $9.95 per month simlpy because of the business I created and the real world people who depend on my business to employment as well as the friendships I have acquired. But, please, do not take advantage of my loyalty to those people. Please drop the hammer on the programming staff..or hier a new one that has the experience it requires to produce a game that is relatively bug free. The montly fees to play this game are comparable to other online games. The quality should be more or less equal to those other games, in my opinion...especially since you don' thave the overhead of some of those bigger companies.

Thanks for your consideration.

Well, there seems to be two groups when it comes to this issue. Group A complains that this or that isnt working. Group B seems to be more understanding. I more or less put myself into group B.

While I understand your frustration, and, to a degree somewhat agree with you, I feel that the main reason that there are "so many issues" is because Linden Lab is continuously updating and ADDING FUNCTIONALITY to the software. If they were to have just designed and written the initial program, and debugged it, it would have been done (and more or less) fully debugged long ago. However, we would not have newer features such as flexible prims, sculpted prims, as well as a host of new features that add to the SL experience. Considering that Linden Lab is constantly adding new features (windlight and voice are currently under development), and they DO release debug updates as well, I for one dont really mind putting up with the "issues" since they are (generally) addressed fairly fast. The alternative is a static (but well debugged) client that limits you to what the client is. I for one will take the bad to get the additional functionality.

You mentioned that you think that LL should "step up" and fix the problems.. well, they do, and in the case of windlight, they aquired an ENTIRE COMPANY, and brought on their staff as well to implement windlight. How much more stepping up do you want?

Also, you cannot compare SL to other online communities like WarCraft, Everquest, etc... it's like comparing apples and oranges. Those communities don't have the functionality that SL provides. Personally, I'd rather have a client under continuous improvement rather than having to wait years between new versions.

I have to disagree with some of what you wrote. Many of the bugs I mentioned have been around forever. No company in their right mind would move forward with adding more buggy mess to an already buggy mess without correcting (or at least making an effort to correct) the existing issues. You are just adding more problems onto more problems and nothing ever gets fixed. Adding functionality to the software is meaningless if everything you do in the game cause errors, crashes, and frustration for the vast majority of the users. Linden Labs is ust shooting themelves in the foot by adding flexible prims when existing prims still have issues. Now we have even more prims to deal with that are having issues...and this enhances game play how?

The game is where it is now, for better or for worse. I am certainly going nowhere because I happen to enjoy it...when the game is working correctly. However, instead of trying to add more, they should fix everything that is broken and then move forward. There is no sense in trying to add more crap to crap. I know I am not the only one having the issues I stated as I tore through every page of the technical forum and saw others posting the exact same issues that I pointed out. Now, think think of the millions of people who have an account who are not saying a word but are equally frustrated with the existing bugs.

If the game is flawless and works perfectly for one dude - super...gratz one dude. Chances are, every single person who has played this game has experienced at least one of the problems I mentioned, some several times over during their multi-year tenure. You're not going to make a bad game great by introducing more bugs. You can, however, make a bad game great by fixing the existing problems and then moving to the next level when the patform is stable.

Take a car, put four people in it... drive it at safe residential street speeds.

Now... without asking anyone to get out of the car, or stopping for more than a few hours every other week, turn that car into a bus, and drive it at freeway speeds.

Now... turn that hacked-together bus into a fully functional high-speed passenger train... keeping in mind that you can only stop for a few hours of work on it at a time or your passengers throw a fit. Oh, and some how you have to get the bus off the roads and onto train tracks without any major disruption to your passengers.

Now make it fly.

And despite the problems and people hanging on to the roof... every day more are climbing on. Gotta make room for them somehow, and keep things going forward.

Some of the 'bugs' are things that used to work but now there are just too many people.

Some of the 'bugs' are caused by things being changed to handle more people.

Fortunately, in SecondLife a crash doesn't result in too many funerals and insurance claims.

I agree 100%, Gavin. But I'm sure, since you read all the threads in this technical section, that there are quit a few who will excuse LL for the "issues".....the reason that is often stated is that SL is "cutting edge". I might agree that the concept of SL is cutting edge..........but the platform certainly is not. In order to be cutting edge the product has to work to a reasonable degree. By reasonable I mean work most of the time for most of the people........SL does not do that.

Though I doubt LL will change their course of development, they should. They can accomplish the exact same goal for whatever it is they have in mind for their product by moving a little slower in the "new features" department and a little faster in the "bug fixing" department. It's classic "biting off more than you chew"........too anxious to push out the "cutting edge" stuff before your platform is ready for it.

That mindset will eventually be LL's downfall in the virtual worlds that are on the horizon. Dozens, if not hundreds of companies are working on web based 3d virtual platforms right at this moment. I'm sure SL has been visited numerous times by those future competitors. These forums have been visited...........everything having anything to do with SL (and LL) have been looked at by people with plans of their own for sites with everything SL has to offer (and probably more). I seriously doubt those competitors will do as LL has.

I would be surprised if in 2 years SL has even 10% of the active population they have now. Some other online virtual world will take the vast majority away..........with more to offer and a better product. A software package with the supporting network that will work at a much more acceptable level of reliability. And a customer support system that is actually customer support.

Those new companies will do it by putting out a higher quality product, fix it when it's broke, and update it when the problems with the product being replaced is stable and relitively bug free. Fewer updates, but better updates..........updates that won't break the existing product. It can be done........but it can only be done if whoever is doing it knows how to do it. And Linden Labs has proven to me many times that they just don't know how to do it.

Hahaha.........you just pointed out exactly what I was saying. Only an idiot would "cobble together" a bus from a small passenger sedan built for residential driving and take on the freeway at freeway speeds. And the moron that woulddo that would truly be acting irresponsible taking that cobbled up bus and attempting to make it a full blown passenger train.

Tha sad part is........Linden Labs is doing exactly that.

In my opinion the "Tao of Linden Labs" is the one to blame. http://lindenlab.com/employment/tao

Quote : "Make Weekly Progress

We believe that every person should make specific, visible individual contributions that moves the company forward every week. Projects must be broken down into measurable tasks so that making weekly progress is possible. [...]"

In a long term perspective this attitude and work culture will not only break down projects into measurable tasks...it can also break Lindens neck ! I say : consolidate the already achieved targets...slow down guys, take a deep breath.

Peggy-

Accuse, complain and prophesize doom all you like...

I may even agree with some of what you say, but I'll tell you right now:

No online world we're likey to see in our lifetime will be as popular AND allow us the vast freedoms we have here.

Yes there is chaos... the world operates more like a gargantuan swap-meet than anything else. Anyone can rent a plot, open the back of their truck and start selling their crafts.

You want stability, performance, security.... say goodbye to the amateur content creators. You don't get both in the same world.

Rather than bitching about how bad LL is doing, take a moment to recognize that their goals empower us... despite how irrational, foolish or impractical they may be.

Of course... if those freedoms are unimportant to you, you may be in the wrong online world.

SL sux get use to it, its always been this way and always will be this way
Time magazine even says its the top worst! LOL
and be carefull venting here i have friends that have been permanently banned from SL for posting here how they feel.
-LW

*I* wouldn't say that. There are several that are up and coming which look very promising, and I still have another good 30-40 years to see another one which will be even better than this one.



I think those two issues are orthogonal. I do heartily believe you CAN get stability, performance, and security, and have amateur content creators. It is all in how you approach development. The Quake and UT modding communities were awesome in their time, and those games were very stable platforms and also performed well. No, they weren't exactly like SL, but the point that you CAN have both is exemplified by them. I fully expect that there will be a world better than SL in both ways, and in the near future.

Because making 0 revenue for years on end chasing an ever moving landmark of success makes good solid business sense. 5 years ago what they have now would probably seem like the holy grail. Now people say its a piece of crap. Well you can't win, but if they were closed doors working.. they WOULD have lost.

A few things people tend to ignore when posting hate about their favorite video game and or addiction is that it is a program written by people in the hopes of making money. Without this factor the effort would not even exist, no capital, no jobs, no hardware, no buildings, no web forums. So debating them is really a m00t point.

Another thing that people tend to ignore when posting hate on forums about their favorite video game and or addiction is how truly irrelevant 1, 10, or 100 detractors on the internet really are when compared with the notion of halting continual updates or (dare I say it) requiring extensive down time for the 10's of thousands of online users and risking them losing interest and not coming back.

As for other online worlds in the work, one of them may be the next greatest thing (few carry that torch for long), but you can bet that they will all experience serious growing pains when faced with a growth explosion and the attention-defecit (read: new more faster! patch!) of an online customer base.

I think its just the nature of the beast.

The only thing I've seen (and granted I'm not actively looking at the moment) is Kaneva... which is already drawing a thick and heavy line between "commercial" and "non-commercial" use.

It also seems more like a collection of islands than a 'world'. To compare: Imagine SL with no mainland... You can bring your avatar shape and clothing maybe... but you can't bring your inventory or attachments with you when you teleport to another cluster of sims. So much for the furries in Kaneva. (I may be wrong, I haven't dug into what they offer, but that's my impression so far)

The reason I feel that SL is unique and likely to stay that way is it is one world... and everyone has the power to create self-replicating stuff, used wisely or not. Few companies are going to be brave enough to offer both unified space AND that kind of power to every one of their customers.... and free as well.

I don't agree. There are any number of companies out in the world willing to offer what Linden Labs is offering with SL. And not only are they willing but they are in the works right now. Take a look at Hipihi.

http://www.hipihi.com/index_english.html


It's not so much being "brave" as it is being smart. LL has made some huge mistakes (as any new endeavor will) but there seems to a very stubborn streak in the company that refuses to see those mistakes and take steps to correct them. It's a headlong plunge into an almost never ending cavern. The next big virtual invironment (be it Kaneva, HiPiHi, or Joe's World) will avoid many of the mistakes LL has made.......and if they are smart they will evaluate the mistakes they will make and take a hard look at the why's and correct them (even if it means junking the platform for a newer and better one). It's also a mistake to think that SL is the best and it will never fall from that mountain top.......they are the only ones on it at this time. That will not last.........they better ramp it up. And fast.

Sims Online used to be the top of the virtual heap........look where they are now. There's always someone out there ready, willing and able to take your place. (isn't Phillip Rosedale from Sims Online?) A company, no matter how big they are, will never stay viable in business with a problematic product. Someone will always come along with something better, cheaper and more useful.

I agree with a lot of the things you say, Peggy. Any company worth its salt will benchmark companies that are already out there and get a good idea of what NOT to do. I question how much LL benchmarked online games and got a feel for what matters most to a customer base. While "uber new toys" and "fantasticular fancy stuff" is nice, I am willing to be that a stable platform, a mostly bug-free world, and excellent customer support are the top three things every gamer expects.

Content is going to vary from game to game, but if a game cannot run smoothely day after day (or in SL's case from hour to hour), then it is only a matter of time that paying customers (and probably some non-paying customers) will look in a new direction for something worth spending their dollars on. A classic example of this would be Anarchy Online. They were the first futuristic MMO to have any measure of success. However, the plague of bugs, exploits, and other problems quickly lost them a lot of interest. As a result, they lost a lot of people...even if there are still a few tens of thousands that play the game.

Now, take a game like Warcraft versus Everquest. Everquest was the first HUGE MMO. They have seen their share of success, despite their flaws. Warcraft looked at every aspect of Everquest, they polled and listened to EQ players to see what they wanted, and they designed a game from there. Warcraft has over 6 million subscribers. Everquest, even in its hey-day, never even came close to that. Sure, people still play EQ, but a good deal of them left of WoW.

People are fickle, and they will go to where the bigger better deal is. Only time will tell how SL stands up to next-generation simulators. My bet is that if another game comes along that is stable and relatively bug-free, you are going to see a mass exodus...just like what happened between WoW and EQ. And, sure, every new game has its bugs. However, online gaming is ripe with Darwinism, and only the strongest will survive.

The intent of my initial post was not to spit hate. It was merely to vent my frustrations in a game I *know* can be better than it is if they just focus on correcting the problems they have now instead of introducing new ones for the sake of pleasing people with "exciting new flexi-prims" or what have you. These new prims do nothing for us if we can't be in game long enough without crashing to use them.

Think about it.

Expecting the kind of 'freedoms' (like creative intellectual property, adult/gay content, etc) we have in SecondLife from an online world based in China? You know... China? That country that wants their google access censored?

Come on.

I agree... SL has MANY problems resulting from design compromises made in LL's effort to stick to their stated objectives. They can't just throw everything out and start with SL2.0, their customers have invested too much into THIS world that they need to make it evolve in place, not ditch and replace it.

Nothing will ever be 'perfect', everything has costs, the question is which features do you want and what problems are you willing to put up with to have them?

I'll look into Joe's World later, but I suspect their offering will likewise be missing one or more of the significant liberties to which we're accustomed here.

Honestly, I read the first post, and skimmed through the rest…I stopped early to throw my two cents in:


I think the reason Second Life has so many issues, is not because their staff is ill-equipped to handle the engine code. On the contrary, I think they are mad-geniuses over at LL, however, they are working on a new construct. Things such as: streaming insane amounts of information, asset counts (some individuals have tens of thousands of objects in their inventory), user created code working like made in this separate multi-verse, new hardware patches and driver matches…the list goes on and on.

Second Life is extremely ambitious…the users are creating all the content themselves. The engine has to handle all this modeling mumbo jumbo and unscrupulous scripting.

It really hard to keep up with the ambitions…they are doing fine. I just hate the crashing…that’s all I want fixed. This current patch is certainly better then the previous…

I'll agree with your assessment adding only that technical issues can be expected and excused to a certain point based upon your reasons, but it's inescapable that the gang in sanFran are really challenged in the business side of the house, they seem to act, then think.

Are you telling me this is part of a bug? I've been trying to read the wording on those suits forever! I thought it was part of some fab new fashion craze, and I wanted in! Damn those dastardly Lindens!

/me carefully slips into the background...fitting her bag securely over her head...

/me clicks on Kascha's spanker

Actually, for the first couple of weeks that I played I saw a lot of people with that "suit" on. I would ask them if they were in some kind of group that handed them out as a uniform. It only made sense to me since I'd see 10th or so person in it. Only after I did some closer looking could I make out that words pertaining to the image not being available.

Instead of being so cutting edge all the time (if that's what you believe they are) I agree they should just concentrate on making the product atleast semi stable.

There are no monsters to kill in SL like in World of warcraft, which I personally think is a good thing. Instead there's personal creativity. However, most people in SL could not care less in building with the exception of designing their avatars. So, is even that core feature working? Nope.

As the thread starter pointed out, there are bug(s) that screw up your avatars shape randomly, so you look like shit on other peoples screens while you look ok on yours and you have no idea when this happens. I am not even talking about the "ruthed or whitesuit bug" which are network related. This issue is a bug in the viewer that cause your shape to lose muscles and height and is probably an easy fix. It's been around forever. If Lindens had any PR skills they should work on bugs like this one that the mainstream community cares about instead of adding new features.

Have you noticed that the SL hype media articles have decreased. Instead there are articles from for example Times that says SL sucks so much that they recommend people to avoid it.

Anyway, SL is not the only real cash economy MMO out there. There's also Entropia which has free basic accounts, no lag whatsoever, much better graphics and an IRL cash economy. I have only tried Entropia briefly but personally I would prefer a bug free SL though since it lacks SL's creativity and freedom and is more like a sci-fi Everquest with a game currency tied to the dollar, which makes it a casino in disguise.

Hopefully SL will shape up technically, or Entropia will losen up and offer creative freedom... or there'll be a third alternative from another company (Google? Have you heard the rumours? ) that makes a product that offer the best of those two real money online worlds.

It is the daring policies and risk-filled objectives that LL is attempting to make viable, (using fairly common-place technology) that makes SecondLife so unusual.

Perhaps "radical" is a better term than "cutting edge".

I'll buy that.