1.7 is a complete tragic mess

BUMP !!!


1.7 is a complete tragic mess

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1.7 is a completely non functional update and should not have been released without being more properly tested

1.7 and its variants so far simply have meant for me AND MANY MANY OTHERS that the basics of the game, in seeing the world. moving, flying, creating, performing any functions AT ALL have become UNPLAYABLE !! (See my thread Too Too Slow - Technical forum)

1.7 once again calls into complete question the entire Update Policy of LL and the entire shaky technical basis on which it is founded.The history of semi disastrous version updates followed by weeks of uncertainty, anger, disappointment and lack of Linden feedback of any real value is now entirely what you will have to get used to to stay in this virtual world.

Once again we fall into the same LL trap of pushing a version update forwards to install new gimmicky systems and things yet again to prioritise commercial interests and features mostly geared up to anything BUT the BASIC of the game world. What precisely was the point of all those weeks of hyped 'Preview' of 1.7?

Launching new ventures , promoting SL heavily on the web as ' 1,7 wonderful amazing new graphics.. gamers rejoice! etc' is a total laughable farce.

What I want to see is a complete re examination of priorities by LL, the NUMBER 1 being MAKING THE BASIC TECHNICAL GAME WORK all the time even if that means NO updates until they are PROPERLY tested, and improving the way LL communicates with the people investing 00s of dollars a month to play.

There is no value to me as a player who pays $390 a month for two sims in seeing Linden Labs investing time and money to close GOM and launch their own LINDEX currency exchange when I cant even FIND my store amongst a grey world of unrezzed textures,(even if I could walk) let alone create or build, or make any L$ sales. I cannot even see the store let alone work in it. ALL resources should be put to cure this update first.

1,7 was deployed many many days ago, and as others here have pointed out yes it gets worse for who knows how long. I have been COMPLETELY UNABLE TO PLAY for nearly 10 days now, but like everyone else long term I am still paying. 1.7 to me is the WORST and most poorly implemented VU in a long time, and currently I see that in effect the only way you can even get in game and see the world is to lower ALL your settings way way below what you had running perfectly well 11-12 days ago. Even that doesn't work well and I don't accept that I should have to do that. ALL the other gimmicks, marketing ploys, promotions and Linden projects are a complete WASTE OF TIME if the game world doesnt actually WORK. I suggest THAT is the only and ONLY prority of LL until it is fixed.

I strongly suggest that some serious thought is given to compensation credit for this last 10 days considering our revenue payments to the company have not been diminished almost totally but our service has.

THIS IS NOT POSITIVE PROGRESS is it? WHEN WILL IT BE FIXED?
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See my new website ' Snake's Ladder ' - the Ups and Downs of Virtual Life

http://snakesladder.blogspot.com/

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Last edited by Snakekiss Noir : Today at 11:57 AM.


and still we pay, does any of this stuff ever make it to the gammer Mags ?

Even Tor can't sugar coat this pile. we are given bait in the name of the FORMS to vent and rage about LL operations. One of them looks over at the screen and says Crap time to feed the fish again, Out pops some lame Ass dance-A-round statement, now I see its even got an automated feeder working. I swear on my dead grandmothers grave that she turned tricks for President Roosevelt
If any game comes around that even has ½ the creative building in it..... we are soooooo outa here

ths is extremely unlikely. no offence bit LL does have their reasons for updating to 1.7.. now it might be the folks computers that loads unproperly. as a disabled guy. i give LL my thanks for bustin their butts so we can atleast enjoy sl in some way

Yes, Waves, it has been very messy version update. One of the longest 'recovery and fixes' you and I have seen as long term members and residents of SL for many an update intended to 'enhance and improve your Second Life experience"...... most intentions are good, some are just not realized right away....

While, I know you and I can appreciate Korhall's optimism and defense of LL, he just does not have the experience to understand your frustration.

Hang in there. It is getting better - albeit slowly this time.

No, it's quite clear from the comments, that Korhall haven't been around for long.
I don't think any pre-2005 or pre-2004 for that sake would agree with those.
We all love SL, but lose a large chunk of our illusions at each upgrade.

cerrection ive created 2 avs. so ive been in sl for long, and i know to some ppl (most ppl to be exact) are frustrated in sl. but the lindens are tryin there best to fix these "bugs". give them time and you will see

I love that reply !
HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

The only thing I've seen in about two years, is that SL get's slower and slower at each update, with more and more useless features added instead of fixing the real problems.

Alot of people who arent having issues with the game are most likely currently up to date with latest hardware for their computers. I, for one hand, am not running top notch hardware, but, on the other hand, is happy with my computer's performance other than running SL alone. SL is the only slow running, lagging computer program i have lol. And i play my share of hardware resource eaters.
The pattern i see where SL is going is adding eye candy at the cost of performance. Now to the up-to-date computer user, this isnt a hassle at all. Hell, even if you have a huge pipe line, performance might not even be stressed either, but what about the little guys who cant keep up?
In the past I've persuaded some friends to upgrade their computers so they can experience SL for themselves. Now im weighing the pros n cons and telling those who want to try it that its up to them. For one program, that i see, souly on entertainment, i dont see it worth it. Unless you'er there for the pocket change of commerce or realestate, then it probably be worth it, but im not there for that, just to have fun.
Like I've said, i have other entertaining games i can fall back on and gladly stay with, but the art of creating in a game such as SL is, to me, alot of fun and love to share it with everyone. Also for the love of a special lady who i do everything for so she can enjoy herself, only at the cost of my enjoyment to create things at the same mannor. She is the soul reason i stick around here in SL as of late. But i'm only speaking for myself. I dont speak for anyone, although i know she agrees with me with out a doubt.
So in a nutshell, i think its time to study performance rather than staying ahead of the times. Maybe im viewing the game all wrong, but did have fun untill the performance of the program became an issue. This issue has been with me, long before this upgrade was put into effect, and this, once again, brings up more reasons for us to pull out our investment into this program and go back to where we were before we found SL.

Regards

This is totally true and well i cant even walk without being eaten by the earth, sometimes my av stops like i was crashing on transparent windows... I even lagg ON A EMPTY SANDBOX!
The texutres take years to load and this thing crashes every hour ...
The update Fuc**ed us all... cause we are paying for lands and for premium account and we lagg on them.... But well... LINDENS MAKE A GOOD JOB AND THEY ARE TRYING TO IMPROVE THE GAME.. This problem will fix soon.
But i agree with the idea about giving us the time we are not using coz of the laggs and that kind of stuff...

Who me?

It's a bit of a bemusement why I'm commonly linked with this.

As positive as I am, I'm also very hard on some things... anyone who knows my less-than-amicable relationship with foot shadows know I'm gonna be diverse when it comes to the good AND the bad. And I've been reporting my lag problems too.

Really, for me, at this point, it's kinda like I raised a kitten, and this kitten became a sentient supergenius of science, and decided to inject herself with a drug that was supposed to make her stronger and more loving but instead made her all rabid and unstable and ill. What do I do? Kill the kitten? No, that's animal cruelty.

I stay supportive and do what I can to help my pet kitten get better.

The game has become completely unplayable. Texture loading is glacial, the freeze-ups are constant. I can't teleport twice in a session without the game freezing. And, before you blame my computer, just how is is possible that my Avi's face texture is now a pic of the game window? Odd to see a menu on your forehead. And the texture cycling mess. I have prims I've had to delete because they would cycle through textures instead of just sitting there quietly. These are simple, single prims without any scripts. I hate having to rebuild parts of my house every time I log on.

No other online game I've played has had such constant problems. Maybe we need a class action lawsuit to get all our tier fees and payments refunded?

you guys whine about lag and stuff like that... but i cant even load the game since 1.7.

*THAT* is annoying, and lindens dont even care about it, i posted and emailed them about it several time but they dont give a crap

i can live with lag and sucky updates but it totaly *PISS ME* off when they cant even fix a MAJOR bug that could have been fixed within minutes if they even PAID attention about that stupid foreign character bug in the first place.

bravo!

honestly sl loads and runs quite well for me cuz i kno computers: i custom built my computer for gaming needs.. so realy. u guys r whinin over some thing that sl doesnt quite agree to ur systems. im not going to post nomore. ty

LOL. The OP and the guy who suggested the class action lawsuit made me laugh out loud. Funny stuff. You guys should be writers for SNL or something.

Just a question. How do people who know computers so well have no idea where the shift key is? In my world, it tends to get used at the start of sentences to indicate a capital letter

Freya, that's because a 10 year old can put together a computer. People who brag about putting together computers are really talking about plug-and-play cards, nothing like what it used to be. There is very little brain involved anymore.

Nice to see the trolls pop in to what has otherwise been a good discussion )


Trolling: A post with an intentionally contrary opinion written with the intent of inciting or getting argumentative opinions

Yes It was about ,


And its a good thing, sometimes as I hold my monitor up and open the window I say to myself. Self lets just see what Torley has to say about it !

Just when I trully beleave there are no more Jedi and Darth Linden is at the door !
something you say compels me to unload the gun, put the pin back in, take my hand off the button and go try it again and see if it got any better

sugar coating just seemed to fit as i was typing with only one hand after nawing the other off !!

Oh yeah, that would really help things get rolling in the right direction, I can see linden labs being incredibly happy to fix and work on these bugs inbetween court visits and talking with their lawyer.

Come on folks, not to be rude or anything but seriously, software development isnt the easiest thing in the world, especially game development. Sadly 99% of the community has NO CLUE what game development is like, you talk about other games being stable etc, what you dont mention is the millions of dollars and 5 years of development time before it reached the public at all, not to mention the complete lack of updates that follows after that release, at least updates that contain new features and not just bug fixes, furthermore all of the content in those games is created by the company to a specific set of specs, not this random mish mash of stuff that the peole in this world can and do create, much of it created without any thought to how it affects the world at large and believe me our low frame rate has as much to do with the lindens as it does with the people creating it. (btw, no offense intended here)

Yes 1.7 is far from perfect, so what, next version will no doubt be better. I have lost a lot of biz due to 1.7, but that is a risk I take in putting my biz in an online game that is completely different from just about every other MMO currently on the market and is so incredibly different from normal game development. I think people are looking too hard at the negative and not being half as positive and supportive as they should be. Do you have any idea what these people are doing right now as all of us are complaining on this wonderful sunday afternoon, I have a pretty good idea, working their asses off trying to fix stuff. They live in a damn near constant crunch time after these updates.

As for testing, yes I agree they should look at more complete methods for testing, perhaps an automated test lab (but that takes serious dev time to create) but its not easy to test how its going to effect the entire grid when that grid is 1700 computers, its not like they can just duplicate the thing and have everyone log into to test it and make sure its all working properly. How many of our 78K residents actually logged in to the preview grid everyday and tested everything they like to do and bug reported everything that didnt work? I doubt even 1% did. I didnt, so part of 1.7 sucking could very well be my fault, mine and everyone else who didnt. Like it or not the lindens need us to help them test, they cannot feasibly employ as many testers as is actually needed.

For pity sake folks cut them some slack. Going around suing people rarely does anything good, so you lost 20 perhaps 200 bucks over this, perhaps even more.....how much have you made prior to this? Keep things in perspective people, please.

hehe whats an enter key?

gah paragraphs, or hit the damn enter key sometimes!

Yes SL dont work anything near how mmorpg work, why? its not a game!, nor do you have everything you need to "play" sl on your pc, rendering is actually realtime, and physics (tho it sucks), anyone remember when a online game had physics?.

Not to mention you can make anything in here, good luck doing that on other things, you can make your own game in here!...but then again we all struggle with laggyness, SL growing pains

It would take alot for me to leave SL , just so much you can do in here, avatars , buildings, oddness, scripts, games, or just being randomly odd , create things you never dreamed about, ect you just dont have anything close to it anywhere, in customization lvl as SL has, period.

good points by all.

as a former software QA professional who has personally planned and managed the QA efforts for several hardward/software implementations and upgrades, i understand the vast undertaking that is involved in delivering and supporting secondlife. kudos to linden labs for their efforts.

and now, a word from the wise: "nobody plans to fail, but all too often people fail to plan".

one of the keys to sucessful software development is planning, which, more often than not, is considered too costly, and/or a necessary evil. this, "okay, if we have to" attitude is at the genesis of failure, which is the fate of most software development initiatives. secondlife, despite it's growing pains, has beaten the odds...but that could be at the root of the problems we face now.

development teams regularly find themselves heads-down in bug fixing and feature development and forget to stop and look back at how they arrived at where they are: with a seemingly endless queue of the aforementioned. this has little to do with the competence of the team that's in place, it's just the way things happen in the world of software development. typically, the only way to break this "cycle of despair" is to introduce new personnel in key positions (team lead level and above), who bring with them fresh attitudes and points of view.

i just read over what i've written so far and it looks like one of the many software QA presentations that i've been forced to sit thru and/or present during my career (at least i could sleep when i wasn't' presenting), so it must be time to stop typing. i apologize that i've let my passion for software QA ooze to the surface of what was a pleasant thread.

what i was getting at was this (before the baptist QA manager came out in me): someone at linden labs needs to take a serious assessment of the product that they are delivering, and make serious decisions as to how this application, game, metaverse or whatever you want to call it, should move forward from 1.7, if at all. if it moves forward, it should do so with a serious emphasis on quality.

anyone interested in learning more about how software QA professionals think might want to take a look at www.stickyminds.com - and don't be afraid to forward that link to any of the linden staff...

*deep breath*

Mmmm, yes and no. I build 'em but I'm also a certified techncian. Yea, they are easy to build once you figure out what goes where. It's the process of installing & dealing with an OS that'll catch the 10 yr olds. Same goes for networking- anyone can plug in their modem & router, but can everyone go through all the details of fixing it when it goes down?

BTW- I remember the days of IRQ's & Jumpers and all that fun ISA stuff. I miss that stuff sometimes.

There are numerous examples of products and services that are supplied, both in the IT sector and elsewhere, where the customer base has little understanding of the complexities and difficulties involved in developing them. However, that does not mean that the customer base is in any way unjustified in voicing dissatisfaction if that is how they feel. People who go into complex product development and cannot handle criticism when they supply sub-standard product are clearly in the wrong business. Yes, it can be demoralising to certain employees, but the answer to that problem is good motivational management by the people leading the company, not the stifling of the customers' complaints.

Yes, I agree that SL is a very unique product that clearly has required huge amounts of extremely innovative design and development. But many customers will think "So what? I didn't force them to do it! They offered a product, I paid for it, it doesn't work. Is that MY fault?" Rising above the criticism and developing onwards to solve the problem is the way to react to it, and with good management it can be done. Saying (or giving the perception that you're saying) "Please feel sorry for me because this is difficult work and I'm going out of my way to help".....isn't, unfortunately.

someone post this in the linden lab lounge!!!

software comes with bugs...in the biz we jokingly call them "feature functionality"...but it is in no way the fault of the user/consumer if the development team doesn't deliver a quality product. yes, sometimes users can be unreasonably demanding, but a good developer should aspire to exceed expectations rather than dismiss them because the person setting them has "no clue" what it takes to meet them. i've worked with dozens of developers who had that attitude, and while many of them were excellent coders, getting them to deliver quality code (code that met specs) was extremely difficult and tiresome.

difficult and tiresome...does that also reflect your experiences in sl lately???

Here is excerpt from the Linden Research, Inc., "About Linden Lab".

"Linden Lab is a privately held company established to develop an extraordinary new form of shared 3D entertainment...."

LL is a research and development company in this business sector, not a gaming production company that has to deliver a "gold master" before rolling out the product. We, the members and residents, not only help fund the research and development of LL's immersive virtual world known as Second Life, we are also the beta testers in many respects. We, the lab rats, cannot view each version update as a final product that runs perfectly. SL is a work in progress.

The LL "mission statement" goes on...."Through its first product, "Second Life," Linden Lab offers a truly collaborative, immersive and open-ended entertainment experience, where together people create and inhabit a virtual world of their own design."

Note the reference to Second Life as the 'first product'. That statement infers that, once the Second Life development is complete and at last a gold master product, LL will either, maintain Second Life in a separate gaming division of Linden Research, Inc, or sell it to a gaming company to retail - leaving LL free to move on to their next R&D project.

I find the experience fun, at times very frustrating, but always totally facinating. I have learned alot about computing and gaming technology from being ingame and from interaction with my many friends at Linden Lab.

Just my personal view and opinion - my $0.02 worth. (How many $L's is that?)

I also find the experience fun and fascinating, but that doesn't change the fact that many others will simply view SL as a commercial product/service that they have purchased (which, strictly speaking is exactly what it is) and when it doesn't work properly they will become disgruntled.

In those cases, any inference that customers ought not to be disgruntled because LL is not a normal gaming company, but an innovative R&D company producing a unique experience is unlikely to cut very much ice. Telling customers of a functional product what they ought to want or how they ought to feel when it doesn't work properly rarely works to the benefit of the supplier.

My guess is that LL have plans to increase and (more importantly) retain customer numbers significantly in order to generate clear profits over the next few years so that SL is attractive proposition, either to LL to maintain, or to a potential buyer. The current situation is not serving to achieve this, although for all we know this time next week everything might be running perfectly.....