Playstation Home: What is LL going to do about it?

I don't know if any of you guys have seen it but it seems that Sony's new Playstation Home for the PS3 is trying to take on SL to a certain degree.

I appreciate that there are significant differences between the two, not least of all that at present you can't create your own objects in Home, and also that the sheer price of the PS3 will limit numbers when it goes live (it's in a closed beta at the moment only) but it seems to otherwise be very similar. Not only that but it's beautiful.

Please don't confuse me as a PS3 fanboy, I'm certainly not. I've never owned any model Playstation and have no intention of doing so either, but I've seen the screen shots and videos and I've read the reviews. So far it seems like a lazy version of SL since you log in and you do an activity, rather than create something.

All that said and done, it should serve as a warning to LL. Other similar models to SL have been and gone and some of them have tried the idea that Home uses where you don't build things, you just take part, but these are never going to be accepted like Home will. You know it will; if you have a PS3 you're going to try it at least, and I'm pretty sure that Sony will have more users than SL in a very short amount of time. Likewise I think that people who've come into SL and been unable to find a purpose will go over to Home instead.

What I'm getting at is that I feel that a MAJOR redesign of the entire grid is required and soon. We need better modelling tools and we need support for more modern GFX cards, and preferably the option to chose Direct3D support rather than have OpenGL forced on those of us running Windows (most of us?). I've asked for this repeatedly and still there is no word from LL that any of it is being taken on board.

I'm not asking for full details of what we'll see in the future but please LL, give us some indication that you're working on something other than bug fixes. The new sculpted prims look really clever but I don't want to have to get hold of and learn another 3D package to be able to export a texture that I can then pay to import into SL and apply to a prim to create something more detailed than a hollowed and cut torus.

Please, tell us that there's something big in the pipeline. I love SL and I would hate to see it lose out to any other system but if we don't see progress then it will, and it will loose big time. Bring us into the present, prepare us for the future, just please give me something that looks better than a 10yr old 3DFX game

Home isn't even in the same league as Second Life. It's pretty to look at, but that's about it. I doubt LL will lose very many residents to it, only because it isn't the same market segment.

As for other things... OpenGL is required for non-Windows users, which make up a significant enough amount of the population to not even consider DirectX as a possibility.

A complete grid redevelopment has been in the works for month and is being brought on (mostly unnacounced) in pieces. As for what's going on behind the scenes, read some of Cory's past blog entries.

I read all LL blog entries and what they talk about isn't even remotely close to what we need. The current grid requires huge numbers of servers and many of them sit idle while other servers are crumbling under the stress of far too many scripts and maximum avatars in each sim that the server handles (I gather that's usually a pair of sims per server right?). There is no distribution of power amongst the various servers as far as we can tell, and it shows. The architecture seems ill-equipped to cope with the load.

As for Home; discount it at your peril. The number of people who sign up for Second Life and then never log on again because they can't figure out what they're supposed to do is a very large one. The number who just want to meet up is also huge. The number who build because adequate infrastructure isn't already in place is huge. These are the things that Home will address and therefore you'll find less people needing to build anything. The chances that you'll never be able to build in there also seems slim. Sony are sure to want in on the SL type genre. The fact that SL is pretty damn ugly doesn't help either. I'm not saying (as some have) that someone should go around deleting or rebuilding eyesores but the average user (and I mean in general, not SL) is shallow enough to go for what looks nicest, and Home looks far nicer than SL.

Also, on the DirectX front, bear in mind that for years many games have been made available in various forms that have allowed DirectX, OpenGL, GLide and PowerVR boards to optimise the final rendering. It's unusual for a system to require one or the other, although I concede that DirectX is more commonly required on Windows PCs now. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the majority of users don't use a Windows PC, because they do. Yes there are plenty of Mac and Linux users out there, and that's great, but OpenGL is not designed for this purpose. And trust me, I know all about OpenGL as someone who has worked with OpenGL simulations since it wasn't even called OpenGL (IRIS GL was the previous name) on Silicon Graphics systems. OpenGL doesn't support half of the latest rendering techniques that could easily allow SL to look a million times better. It's development cycle tends to be behind DirectX because new features in new graphics cards are normally defined by DirectX. Things like Shader Models only became available on your latest GeForce or Radeon because DirectX allowed support. Gamers want their games to look the best and that's who Direct3D was designed for. If we all had Quadro cards then I'm sure it would be a very different story but again, most of us don't

I don't expect Home will allow users to create their own content, businesses seem to be allowed to though (presumably to ensure some level of quality and enforce much MUCH stricter rules on the content of the 'game').

However, while I may be quick to criticise SL, it is coping with a lot of users. It can't be said to be coping especially well at the moment, but I'm still hopefully LL will be making headway in that area and I pray they do so soon. But for home to stream large amounts of dynamic and, most importantly, interactive, content to the same level as SL will be the real test of it, and any future competitors.
Also bear in mind that Home can look much better because of the aforementioned restrictions on who can create content, meaning there are no amateurish items. While SL may be inundated with them it's these things that lead to greater builds and the incredible content that's available out there. It also gets to look good because the PS3 is POWERFUL, it's a graphical powerhouse and everybody's system requirements are the same, there are no driver issues, or LOD requirements as everyone has the exact same graphics card with the exact same amount of processing power.

So there are a lot of areas that SL currently copes with to some degree that Home doesn't even have to worry about.

Yep, I'm with you on most of that, especially the whole "everyone being on the same h/w spec level" bit, too true.

Please don't misunderstand me, I don't expect SL to look as good as Home, but bear in mind that SL has detail levels that the user can select, which affect LoD as an obvious example. Draw distance being another. In this respect I would like to see options for better rendering as an option. Personally I own a three month old Alienware PC which runs SL at maximum without breaking a sweat, and I appreciate that many people have the exact opposite of my machine, but why do I have to look at the same crummy graphics that someone with a 5yr old PC sees when my PC is capable of so much more? I want to see the options for better volume effects, better lighting support, more (some?) shader effects etc. I'm not insinuating that everyone has to see it, but give us an incentive to get better hardware or rather, give those of us with this hardware something nicer to look at. More texture mapping options for example, such as transparency maps etc, all with an option for people to turn them off if they don't want to see them.

I believe Home will not stream the structure either, I believe you download the 'world' and you get to see content on the fly, as oposed to SL's everything-streamed.

All I'm trying to say is that SL is actually under threat from Home. No, not by the serious SL user, especially those such as myself who make money from SL, but by the casual gamer or online-socialiser who just wants to meet and chill with friends in a convenient fashion. In front of the TV on a games console is certainly more convenient than sat in front of a PC for me. I have a wonderful TV downstairs and although I love my monitor I'd rather be sat in front of the TV!

what version of OpenGL are you talking about? you do realize there are multiple versions and its kept rather up to date... Current latest OpenGL can do anything graphically that Direct3D 9 can do. Playstation 3 has some rather nice graphics on its games, and its all OpenGL for graphics.

No, I had no idea there were different versions, I thought it was the same as the versions available on the early Silicon Graphics systems (?) You did read my earlier post right?

Who said anything about DirectX9 anyway? You are aware that DirectX10 is part and parcel of Vista right? And I know that OpenGL is capable of more than I've given it credit for so far, but I have a GeForce card, not a Quadro, and as such it's designed for better performance from DirectX based graphics than OpenGL. My newest SGI workstation is an Octane2, quite old now, and I can run better simulations on that than I can via SL.

It's not hard to implement new rendering techniques, that's why we use an API rather than write a whole system ourselves, so why can't LL introduce new features, it's fairly quick and easy. Do the same as we have now where SL can scan your system and enable/disable certain features depending on what it thinks is ideal (but allow the user to override of course). A huge deal was made when flexi-prims arrived but they're relatively simple to add, although still more complexed than some nicer lighting effects, like shadows. I don't know about you but I think the lighting situation could be vastly improved. I'm not talking about full blown raytracing but shadow maps would be nice or a basic shadow, maybe with an option for us to decide on the resolution. Glowing textures would be nice. I believe the only way we can do that at present is to make a prim a light source and then enable the light-glows in the debug menus. What if I only want one face to glow though?

It's easy to do. We appreciate the back end improvements but we tend to download and update plenty of times but we don't ever seem to get better tools to build with or better features to view the world with.

Am I the only person not satisfied by the quality that we get? And what happened to giving us better ground textures on the mainland, I want to see grass like LL started doing. It's the same as the damn road and rail ways. They look great where they're installed but I've been waiting for what seems like years for the area through Wainscot to be paved. Stop creating new sims just to cram more users in please LL when the existing ones don't look ready yet!

I don't think bored housewives will feel comfortable sat in the lounge "socializing" with guys in Home on the TV while their kids and husbands sit and watch.

Most PS3 users just want to play a game. I have a PS3 and I wouldn't dream of chatting with somebody on it. Although I'm quite sure some kids will enjoy Home from the privacy of their bedroom. I just can't see there being enough to do in Home to keep people coming back.

I've tried virtual worlds where people just stand about and chat, and it aint much fun. It feels kind of awkward and there isn't enough to actually chat about. Try visiting the welcome area in Second Life to get a feel for what Home will be like.

Second Life looks and feels crap because of the streaming 3D, and also because the majority of residents aren't graphic artists.

But I do agree with you on shadows and lighting.

Infact, that's often what seperates the professional graphic artists from the novices. The graphic artists know how to bake shadows and lights into their builds. So it would be great if Second Life could create the lighting and shadows for us.

speaking of people who log on, get confused and fustrated and leave, I was helping a friend start an account and one of the very first things we had to do on the orientation island was glitched. It asked us to drag a torch onto the avatar but it didn't work no matter how we tried. We ended up wearing the torch, if I remember correctly, and we passed the test and went on, but without help my friend would have quit right there, just an FYI.

Yes DX10 has some nice features, but its going to be a very long time before game companies require DX10, as it would require Vista, and no other version of Windows would work. Some companies selling titles they know are going to sell in large numbers are making some games be able to use DX10 features, but be fully able to work on DX9 so WinXP and older are not left out. By the time that game companies will be assured of a good user base capable of DX10, OpenGL will be capable of the same features, as its continually progressing as well. With the PS3 and the Wii both heavily using OpenGL, its unlikely its going to sit dead. I haven't looked into test versions of OpenGL but I'd assume people are already working on it.

DX wasn't made to revolutionize anything, or to be better than anything... it was made so that people could do things a bit easier and quicker (at the time anyways) and get locked into a MS only platform... which helps MS keep their monopoly. If it wasn't for OpenGL's continued improvement, Direct3D wouldn't be going anywhere... MS doesn't change much without competition driving it.

So... all I'm getting out of this is that you bought a new badass machine and are frustrated that Second Life doesn't have higher graphics abilities?

Not everything is about being realistically rendered with a jillion polygons. If you want that, go to PS3 or go to another game. That level of detail just isn't feasible now, although with sculpted prims we're making some headway.

It is a world still in its infancy, still (even 5 years later) pushing the technological boundaries that most people have to deal with. Yes, you are ahead of the curve. Now you have to wait for the rest of us to catch up.

Its not about the pixels

A lot of users, like me aren't gamers per say. I'm not going to run out and buy a playstation just to run 1 game on it. If i were to move on to something beyond SL, it would be PC based only. And it wouldn't be anything offered by Sony.

I'll see you on IRC.

When PS3 Home goes live they are only anticipating 50,000 registered users total. So it is not a real threat to SL for quite sometime.
In fact it validates SL (like IBM validated the PC in the 80's) even more and people who haven't heard about SL yet when they hear what SL have to offer they will go with SL.

There was a good thread on this in RA a couple months ago.

My conclusion was this: it's a product placement advertising world with only indoor spaces. It uses instances of spaces with no actual 3d world connecting them.

Exactly as Strife said!

Lets see:

PS Home: Content developed by Sony. Paid for by users.

Second Life: Content made by Residents, normal joe schmoe at home. Paid for by users.

Sounds like a Corporation shoving commercials down your throat. I'd rather be able to build WHAT I want, HOW I want, and sell to WHOM I want.

DirectX is a bastard child of Windows 95 and Microsoft wanting to give game programmers access to video process without actually giving them access.

If only I had mod points for +1 insightful.. oh wait..

^.^

Wow! I see you havent been keeping up on it since then.

The main reason for DX10 is total access to your video card's capabilities.

Since I'm too lazy to find out I was wondering if you have to buy a keyboard for the ps3 to chat in Home?

If SL were to vanish, I would certainly move to MUSHes rather than something like Home.

wouldn't a little competition be good for SL anyways?

I wouldn't know. Wikipedia has no information on that.