1.7 is a complete tragic mess

The main problem here is that while we all can sit here and whine and complain about nothing working properly, the SL population continues to rise each day. It is for that reason and ONLY that reason we will never see things fixed. Every single new user that hops on the grid is like a pat on the back to all of the Lindens.

If you ran a business and were happy with your product, who are you going to listen to: The whining complaining customers with their returns, or the smiling faces in the checkout line?

This doesn't excuse LL at all. Why should they be happy with the thousands upon thousands of basic users who pay *nothing* at all? Why can't they listen to all of us; we who line the Lindens' pockets with gold, we who actually make SL possible with the incredible amount of money we devote to it?

We as customers don't give a crap about how hard it is to develop SL. We pay what is asked, so it's certainly not wrong to expect a decent product. I'm not alone when I say I'd pay ANY amount of money to have a version of SL that was everything that's been promised, bug-free and 100% functional.

Many people take the stance that we customers have no right to complain, because the Lindens work very hard to do what they do. I'm not saying they don't; the Lindens put exceptional effort into their jobs. You know what, though? It's not good enough. Users have absolutely *every* right to complain, because not only do a good amount of us pay more money than we would for any game, LL sends the message that they're totally comfortable with their work and what we pay them. The Lindens are the ones without right to complain, because they could raise prices if they wanted, or could shut down these complaint threads. In fact, by making basic accounts totally free, they're essentially saying, "Hey, since everything over here is going so smoothly, we'd just like to welcome any newcomers with open arms!"

The way I see it is we are all drug addicts and SL is our crack. We may get some bad crack sometimes but we won't go to another dealer because we hope the SL crack gets better...

I haven't been spending a lot of time in SL or the forums lately. I needed to mostly stay away for a while. But that has nothing to do with 1.7. I wonder about ...

It seems 1.7 was a long time in coming since 1.6 was released. Longer than mostly any release unless my memory is faulty. I don't see much difference though except the map is nicer.

Lots of people are saying how horrible 1.7 is. I haven't observed many problems in the few hours I have played. Except textures take forever to load which is more than a little bit of a problem.

Not sure where I was going here.

Yes the trolls are eager to jump on any thread but so are the "insiders" with their little quips and insider jokes. You just can't win.

For all fo you having problems with 1.7.. Have you tried uninstalling and re-installing from scratch? And I mean even clearing the cache and deleting the second life folder after you uninstall..

So far, everyone I've told that too has had their problems with 1.7 go away.

So, give it a try. Then, if it works - tell your friends, tell your family, tell your dog.

Having been a fairly active tester on every version of SL from 0.8 through 1.7 I can assure you that the problem isn't a lack of testing; it's a lack of fixing. I know for a fact that all the major bugs in 1.7 (and all earlier releases) were identified and reported during testing...because I reported every one of them myself, as did many other testers.

IMHO, the 1.2 release was the first to be rushed onto the main grid with major problems unresolved. Each succesive version since then has been progressively more 'unfinished' than the last when first released (with the exception of 1.4, which didn't have much in the way of new features). And since the code gets increasingly more complex, the problems get increasingly larger and more serious.

I've no clue why they stopped taking sufficient time to fix the fixable known issues prior to release. It mystifies me that they use their entire customer base as captive, unwilling Beta testers; though, I admit that I've never directly asked them why.

What I was specifically referring to aside from the testing aspect is people complaining about low frame rate (even pre 1.7) when thier build has 200 discreet textures and most of them are over 512x512. I see it a lot in sl. People do not look nor think about what they are asking the system to do and are shocked when it isnt running like every other game. Yes I will agree that SL runs at a lower frame rate than any other game, hoever every other game has properly designed resources. This one however, does not in most cases. This is one area in which the consumer HAS to do some research into how to develop content for games. Most games do not have textures over 512x512 except in very specific circumstances, yet if I walk around sl and turn on the texture console I see heaps of 1024x1024 images, even on things that will never fill the entire fov. Most games compile textures into texture sheets, so that the number of individual textures is reduced, this is not practiced much at all in sl. These are the problems I refer to as being the fault of the consumer. Almost everyone in sl is guilty of this, myself included and I'm more at fault than 99% of sl because I KNOW BETTER. All I am saying is that people should look at what they are doing and ways they can optimize before complaining that SL has something wrong with it. Although, this case in particular we do know that many of these problems were a result of the update, not all of them are. Thats all


Ok, not really. Stan you are correct, people are indeed allowed to voice thier opinions and thoughts as to how a service is performing. I do not disagree with that at all. I am not laying blame, I am merely stating that the problems are not all stemming from the Lindens.


And in response to BlackAdder, I have also noticed the same trend, they do have a habit of breaking things by rushing, and I am not certain why they bother to rush, aside from pressure from the community for specific features. I think quality is more important than speed, and I would like to see the lindens make sure things like this do not happen, just as anyone else in the world would I would hope.

Cheers

Durn man.. where's that cat and where's my shotgun?

Korhall, I think you're making one of the most common mistakes of computer "analysts"... your system is running fine, so everyone else must be nuts. (nothing personal mind you. I know you're just stating our opinions, and from your standpoint, things are running fine.)

I'm glad your system is running fine. That doesn't mean it will be tomorrow. I have a very clean computer system, brand new, runs like greased lightning, an internet connection that runs 3 times faster than a T-1, a GIG of ram, an Nvidia 6600 256meg PCI-express graphics card... and 1.7 sucks swamp water. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Time dialation is messed up. Live music that used to only lag by 15 seconds is now lagging by 2-3 minutes. Textures are loading the worst they've ever loaded. And like someone back there mentioned, instead of testing and fixing these things before the release, they foisted a highly-flawed program on a clientele that's paying through the nose for their services... and included "eye candy" upgrades rather than fixing basics.

This is not responsible company management. This is not good computer programming. It's sloppy, plain and simple. Sorry, just calling it as I see it.

I have my frustrations with SL atm, and I've made my statement with a tshirt I wear inworld often...

What bothered me about this thread is that Kor identified himself as disabled and still he was attacked for his inability to use the shift key and other typo issues. Folks, read the whole post and try to be kind to each other...

My desktop does OK, but I get time dialation and some texture issues...but my laptop, which played the game just fine before 1.7, well, textures come and go...it's ugly.

I have a love/hate relationship with my second life...but now that I think about it, Kor? can you post your pc's specs?

A brief review of some people who can see beyond smokescreens and marketing foolishness:













OK, anyone paying attention here? These are the voices of common sense. These are the voices of proper business management. These users are right on the button. How do I know? Because I've worked in this field for (mumblety mumble) years as a computer/business consultant and I know how such things are supposed to work. I think I've also proven on these forums more than once a bit of a knack for hitting a nail or two right on the head.

Here's a thread that puts things in a nutshell:
/142/28/71753/1.html

Yeah, I know, it's my thread. It's also pretty durn valid.

To address a common bogus statement:

I keep hearing claims of how "unique" Second Life is, and how "cutting edge" Second Life is and what a wonderful thing Linden Lab is doing and how difficult it is to do.

HOGWASH. Folks, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be crude... but vast user-controlled 3-D VR worlds have existed for ages. I'm not talking games like Unreal or Quake (although the pretty flawless performance of those systems certainly separates the businessmen from the kiddies). I'm talking systems that just like Second Life, are user-created, user-defined 3-D virtual reality environments. The only difference between them and SL is how the system interface is put together and the level of the graphics (I know I know, that may seem like a big difference. It's not; it's the same logic, regardless of how "pretty" Second Life looks).

Havok has been around for a long time (shoot, Havok 3 is out on the market. SL if anything, is a bit behind the times). Second Life is not the only Havok-based system. There is nothing "leading edge" or or "cutting edge" about Second Life at all; it's based on a long-existing graphics engine, encompassing a basic idea that existed on Active Worlds long before SL ever came along. Although people tend to hate the game (for many good reasons)... THERE is pretty much the same concept. So please, enough of the claims of how "amazing" or "difficult" Second Life is. These programming methods have been around for YEARS.

So down to brass tacks: as pointed out in the quotes above, Linden Lab needs to stop making excuses, STOP working on blue-sky projects and gimmicks, stop working on "movie screens" and "HUD" devices and other foolishness and get down to business. They need to stabilize the platform, re-write and modularize code, and give the landowners the tools necessary to run their VERY EXPENSIVE land.

That's it, bottom line people. Stop being Linden Lab sycophants and realize that people are spending to the tune of a minimum $2.5 million US a year (and likely a whole lot more than that) to use this system. That kind of money demands a little more professionalism than we have seen come out of Linden Lab so far. They need to wise up, stop playing games, and get down to making this system what it's marketed to be... a stable user-controlled VR platform.

Now I know that a few people are going to get irate and all upset at this. Poor Linden Lab. Where's the customer loyalty? I'll tell you where our customer loyalty is: it's our landgroup paying Linden Lab $2.700 for land and $585 a month to provide us with service. That's where our loyalty is... and we're loyal every month, right on the button. What would Linden Lab do if suddenly we "ooops... don't have enough money this month... sorry, be patient... we'll get to it... having some problems..." Yeah right.

Today we tried to post events on the event listing. Had the event set for 6pm. For some reason, it got stuck in the 10pm time slot. Every time we enter an event and have to EDIT it... it resets the event LOCATION to the first spot on the list... even though it had been entered already. Whenever I enter the maximum limit of events and then need to update one of the events... the website won't let me because "I have already posted the maximum allowed number of events for a 24 hour period". It refuses to let me edit an event I've already posted! And the forum system keeps sending me emails of forum postings when I've told it to stop doing so. These problems have been reported to Linden Lab time and again, yet continue unfixed.

Now tell me, if a company can't get a lousy WEBSITE right... how in the world can they hope to program a complex 3-D virtual reality system? When our group members try to post an event, and they cannot post it to a piece of land that's set to recognize the group... how is that proper system management? There's no doubt there are talented people at Linden Lab. I just wonder if they ever stop to think, because I see a lot of things that are done on SL that I seriously question from a common-sense standpoint. I wonder if LL ever stops to double-check their work or to do "what might go wrong?" analysis before implementing a feature. And I sure wonder if they ever listen to a blamed thing their customers have to say, because the only time I've ever gotten results from LL is when I was frustrated enough to start chewing their heads off in these forums. (I've read other users commenting the same thing).

So Linden Lab-- a bit of advice: Start acting like a business. Work smarter and exercise more common sense. Plan better and try to foresee possible ill-effects. Start paying attention to customer needs and stop playing games on your customer's dime. And please, get rid of that knee-jerk blue-sky voting system and put a standard voting system in place. Allow users one vote for each proposition so that we can REALLY tell you what's on our minds.

(No Way... say what's really on your mind). LOL

good luck. i havent had a linded answer a question for me in sometime now, especially when it relates to how 1.7 runs.

time to sell my land and revert to a basic account. im not paying for this anymore.

I've been crashing every 5 minutes for the last two days. I can't play the game anymore and it is getting worse instead of better. I've emailed support and gotten no response. I'm way above minsystem req. Ironically, I can play on my notebook without crashing but of course get one frame every two seconds. I've tried every fix, update, reinstall that any oe has suggested to no avail. But was wondering, is the ATI radeon 9600 256megram ok? Has this card had problems? Thanks, Alianu

I agree with a lot of your sentiments, but I think its almost the reverse from what you mention above.

I find the biggest loudmouths about performance issues are those with the "super hot computers."

They got some brand new amazing machine that plays Halo or whatever and they think this should translate into a good SL experience. This even though if they took a few moments to look it up, they would realise the architecture is totally different and it doesn't *matter* if you have the lastest hot machine.

These are usually the same people that have ATI video cards and refuse to consider that (even though they have known issues with SL), that SL "should" still work for them because ATI works great with MS games? These are often the same people that have shiny, local lighting, and everything else turned on (cause they have the hot machine you know), and refuse to turn them off!

For instance there is a known issue with local lighting, it has been "broken" in 1.7. If you turn it off, your performance will increase greatly, but many refuse to do it, and yet still complain.

It's partialy the Lindens fault for not communicating about issues like that in any effective way, but I bet the original complainer here is just out of the loop on what to do or what kind of machine is required for SL.

Hints:
- avoid ATI cards
- avoid brand new super hot motherboards
- dont overclock
- dont run fifteen other programs at the same time (dont run any in fact, especially internet programs)
- bandwidth bandwidth bandwidth (how many computers in your house are online? hows your router, etc?)
- memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory memory

I would add "avoid macs" as well, since LL does not support the mac client half as well and it always seems to run about 20% slower than the windows client on a similarly configured machine from what I have seen, but...

Macs are so much better than windows in every other way, that it's hard to say the words.

I realize I am repeating what someone else already said, but it is worth repeating.
Yesteday, I had a strange bug and called LL; it was something Michael Linden had never heard happen. Long story short. Even though I had cleared the complete cache before loading the first version of 1.7, I did a simple uninstall of 1.72 and reinstalled it.

Not only was my weird problem fixed... for the first time, EVER, I am seeing textures in a way I never did. For example, I never knew my land looked like sand.... until yesterday.
LOL, I thought it was just tan....

Try the uninstall, reinstall.. it might work for many of you.

What is overclocking?

coco

It's a tekki term for manually increasing processor speed by some means other than intended.

Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Thank you, Weedy! In that case, it is doubtless something I'm not doing, since I wouldn't know how.

coco

www.extremeoverclocking.com/

you go girl!

http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_Pages/area-51_alx_sli/alx_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51-ALX-R3-D&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT

pant pant yummy

where's that picture of the freeon cooled computer when I need it.

Coco also overclocking can actually cause boards to in essence melt. By overclocking you increase speed and output along with heat and voltage. This means the parts unless well maintained and/or well protected will brake and usually are caused by "thermal" reasons. In otherwords the exact reason they stoped calling notebooks laptops...cause they are getting too hot! (yes someone did burn thier legs.)

Just rename SL, and call it 'America'.

They need to roll it back to a working version, until in internal testing they are able to make a version that works. This is absolutely ridiculous, it has made SecondLife almost unplayable for weeks, you really can't do anything with the insane sim-FPS problems.

I want a refund for this month, I doubt I'll get it, but I really think I deserve it. I haven't been able to do jacksh** in SecondLife for weeks, because they released a patch that DIDN'T work.