1.1 Preivew (9/18/03) Notes

I have the GeForce4 Ti 4600 with BIOS: 4.25.00.27.10 - Display driver version 6.14.10.4403

again... get rid of the "some one bumped into me abuse pop-up box" ... if I want to report abuse I can do so without it.

Reason: it happens innocently ALL THE TIME at events, or when there is alot of lag.

My opinion on the abuse pop-up is that it should be default on, but have a checkbox on it saying "Do not pop-up possible abuse". When the person checks that, pop-up a box saying "You can always turn this option back on by going to the menu, help, then abuse reporter, and then uncheck the box."

That way, there is no question that a person would accidentally stop getting this lovely pop-up, and then later complain "where did my pop-up go".

It's the most user friendly way as far as I'm concerned.

A pop-up abuse report, even if it only happens once, leaves a bad first impression.

Picture yourself back when you first entered SL. One of the first things that happened to me was to accidentally bump into someone else. If I had gotten an abuse report form popping up at that point, I might have concluded that I had come to the WRONG place! What awful things must be going on here, that we need such an in-your-face justice system!

I don't see the need for this. I've only needed to file an abuse report ONCE in 4 months. I don't even consider it unless I observe what appears to be willful griefing. I think this would have the effect of creating a police state, in the place of good common sense and manners. The vast majority of people here observe them, even if they do have the occasional collision.

I agree. It's too Draconian. Let the client keep track of bumpings and tossings and whatnot, and make this data available should you choose to file an abuse report.

I'm one of the people who had a "crash crash crash" experience during yesterday's 1.1 trial. I have a GeForce4 MX 420, with driver version 4.1.0.9.

Shineyness was pretty. My only gripe about that, though, is that you can't make transparent objects shiney at all. Even at just 1-2% transparent, the effect completely disappears.

One other thing I really didn't like though, was that the pulldown menus containing our CCs and Landmarks on the Minimap were gone. I use those all the time, and I really don't want to have to open up a large, screen-blocking box every single time I want to track someone or someplace. Perhaps another toggle is in order?

I didn't notice any major changes on any of the avs I personally used. I think the most major change I saw was that the eyebrows were alot pointier on a few of them. But, when I looked at Dave Zeeman's av, the head was really misshapen and flat, and one of his eyes looked bigger than the other. I REALLY like the addition of the "skirt" in the appearance window, and I love the fact that you CAN use alpha'd textures on it to make your own openings for things like trenchcoats. I sure do hope they release a template for it. Though I did notice a slight unrealistic movement when all of the sliders were set to maximum... The big poofy back of the skirt followed the leg movements a bit too closely I think. Not that I would, >ahem< ever wear such a thing anyways.

Aside from that, the only time I crashed was when we all went to Boni to stress test the sim. Afterwards, however, I found Boni to be the most lagerrific sim I've ever seen. My framerate was fine, hovering at about 15-20 on a Radeon 9k with 3.7 drivers, but the actual movement on Boni really did look like a slideshow. I also had problems crossing sim borders on my physical vehicle. I'd fall off of it usually at a border, then when I go to fly back up to it, if I crossed the border again on the way up my av would stop flying and fall back to the ground. Very weird glitch there.

I also had troubles with "Select Individual". When I selected using that, my object would start slowly floating away until I deselected or selected the whole thing. I also had problems with the hatch opening/closing. They'd slide about half the distance they should then stop, only to appear where they should when I select the object again.

Vehicles were very smooth in 1.1, but still a little shakey when more than 1 person was sitting on it. Not as shakey as before, but it's definitely noticeable.

The ground looks tons better, but I still noticed it shifting around when zooming in/out. Again, not as much as in 1.0.* but it's still very noticeable.

All in all, though, I very much enjoyed this updated preview, moreso than the last one. The particles r0xX0r3d my b0xX0rz, and I can't wait to be able to play with all the new stuff 24/7. I already miss my shiney car and my skirt.

I have Nividia GeForceFX 5600 256MB, and where does this untecnical person go to find out what driver? My tech bought it for me and installed.

I dont like the new map either. Its a good attempt, but the mini-map needs to be functional. When I turn off the map, I want the tracked AV to be unhighlighted like it is currently. The maps are just too clunky in 1.1, the one map works great now. One funtional map, not two seperate semi-functional ones.

Disable the instant abuse pop-up. Its completely annoying and unnecessary.

I saw AV flashing around me, as though they were planted in the ground, blinking on and off.

I am too mischevious for you guys to have that abuse report pop up appear so easily. You might want to disable it just for me
That way I won't be struggling with the temptation to report everyone who brushes into me. I'm not really that bad, but the best way to prevent random Nicole silliness is to remove the tempation. I am pretty confident that my tales of harrassment would not be nearly as entertaining as Dan's police blotter!

On topic: I hate pop ups...all kinds of pop ups...the person who first conceived of such a notion needs to be shot in the crotch with a blunderbuss full of rock-salt and frozen hydrochloric acid...

Off Topic: Nicole, how'd Herndon make out after Isabel? Annandale was still shot up with power outage when I left for work last night.

To find your drivers, go to START->Settings->Control Panel->Display. The last tap is Settings and there is an Advanced button. Click advanced and then click on the tab that corresponds to your graphics card. The drivers will be listed there.

For the folks who listed NVidia drivers, your numbers look out of date, so please update drivers prior to the next test.

Regarding everyone's favorite topic . . . Pop Ups!

Let me attempt to clarify how they are supposed to work (and from comments it appears that they may still have problems so we're testing away).

The first time someone bumps into you it should launch the dialog. After that, collisions with another player should not pop up the dialog again.

In the same way, the first time someone uses a script to push you around, it will pop the dialog. Ditto for getting smacked with an object.

So, you should see this dialog a maximum of 5 times (unless you uninstall which wipes your settings files). It also should not pop up if you bump into someone else or if any of this happens on damage enabled land.

The idea is ensure that new users understand what has happened to them when (for instance) someone's script does a "to the moon, Alice" to them. However, since I hate popups as much as you do, you shouldn't see it again and again. If you do, that is a bug. Please keep an eye out for that at this week's pile on.

Cory

Couldn't you just make it display to the chat window a status message. 'You've been hit by .... ' or something? This would be a lot less intrusive than a popup window, informative, and the user would still be able to view/file abuses from the menu.

A checkmark in the preferences would be nice for those occasions when a reinstall is required - 'Disable pop up griefing alerts'.

Another concern is the feeling this will give new players. Are they going to feel that a casual touch, or accidental bump at an event, is an abuse report worthy event? If the pop-up shows at the slightest touch, even if only once, then I think they will get that impression.

It seems it should be possible to differentiate from a casual bump and a real bump. Either by duration or force or a combination. It doesn't seem right that new users will get a pop up at the slightest interaction between avatars.

I think it should keep a collision count and only pop up when a person has collided with you a certain number of times in the same minute or something.
I cant really see someone getting annoyed at me bumping into them unless I do it incessantly.
I also favour the chat text suggestion over the pop up system. The whole internet pop up debacle is so widely known that I have no idea how someone would even begin to consider using pop ups as a feature.
Being intrusive is never a good thing.
As for being hit with something or throw high into the air, why not have a distance threshold or something. Its highly annoying to end up at 4000 meters altitude and I cant see a single practical application of that, or even why it should be possible.
If I want to fly up to that altitude I will attach an object, not get someone else to do it.

Agreed; I would like it to whisper instead of pop up.

::nod:: I like the whisper idea better then the popup as well.

This pop-up grifer reporter system is targetting the wrong type of behavior. In some parts of SL a bump is a hug! This is going to inhibit friendly mingling and do nothing to address truly annoying repeated behavior.

A system like this should only trigger after a reasonable threshold.

It should IM the "victim" (and possibly the "abuser" as well to inform them that their behavior has been flagged by the system)

It should not be phrased in such a way that seems to suggest an abuse report is warranted. Just give them the name so if they decide to take action, they have the information.

I think the current setup is begging for a glut of frivolous reports which will can only serve to dilute the effectiveness of reporting abuse.

Anyone have a picture of themselves wearing the skirt? Someone must!! Show please teehee

Thanks for the info Cory, the driver is 6.14.10.4523

Bel et al,
Again, I think that bugs in the reporter for the last test may be confusing the issue. I completely understand that bumps in some areas are not griefing by any stretch of the imagination. However, remember that the reported will only pop open once for a bump, not every time someone bumps you.

The idea of making it an alert message rather than a pop up is an interesting one, but here's my question back to you folks: would you rather have a text alert message (in the same area as the chat text) every time that someone causes a potential abuse or a pop up that pops up once and then is never seen again? My concern is that for a new user who hasn't found the chat history the alert message may be easily missed, thus defeating the purpose of the whole system.

c

Strong suggestion: Better documentation.

Chuck a table into the front of the manual with an organized list of all the kbd shortcuts you have. This would help new users find the chat history a lot more easily and make the learning curve shorter.

UI suggestion for 1.2 or whenever you guys overhaul the UI: Rename the IM button to something like "Talk" and stuff the chat history into that dialog box as a new tab, preferably on top of all the other tabs.

Maybe separate bump notifications and other similar user notifications out into a separate tab in the "Talk" dialog box as a compromise between the text msgs and the popups.

Exact details can be hammered out later, but it makes more sense for all the talk stuff to be grouped together. I know I've wondered why there's an IM button and not a chat history button. (If there is, blame it on four hours of sleep and insufficient coffee.)

(nb: in RL I'm a technical writer. I would love to see better documentation for SL. I understand that this is probably a lower priority for the dev team as opposed to all the other cool stuff going into 1.1, but honestly, better documentation really adds a lot of value to the new user experience. This doesn't apply to people who don't RTFM, though. )

Cory,

I am responding to your post on how it's suppose to work.

Popping/Reporting/IMing on the FIRST bump I think is targetting the wrong behavior. Unless your purpose is to repress friendly bumping. I still think it should be a threshold to make a distinction between good touching and bad touching.

You say this is for newbies, people who are still trying to assemble their impressions of the world. Then the pop-up should be educational, not a call to action.

Have the pop-up explain to them what happened, not suggest a course of action or label possibly innocent behavior as abuse. Educate them, don't alarm them. "You have been bumped by Blah Blah. You can identify avatars by blah blah. In an virtual world casual bumping is common and often friendly. However, if you find it annoying, ask them to stop. If they ignore your request to stop, you can find the Abuse Reporter in the menu..."

Bumping into an avatar is not against the TOS, refusing to stop is the problem. At least suggest the possibility of asking a person to stop before going straight to an abuse report.

Nergal, I agree 100% on the better documentation! Yes!

I just wish there was a hotkey to the IM window. I use hotkeys now for practically everything, but having to still move the mouse down to the IM button (potentially over extending and bringing up my hidden windows toolbar) is annoying.

And I like Bel's suggestion about what to do about the abuse reporting. It really does give the wrong impression to beginners, so explaining what has happened and what your options are is a very good way of using the abuse monitor.