Please stop releasing updates... they usually make SL worse

Please stop releasing updates so frequently. Although the last update was probably the worst in recent memory... I think it is fair to say that most updates add a small amount of trivial functionality but also then break one or more major things. The update of two or so weeks ago prevents me from being able to play SL on my newest (best computer). It has a dual core processor and 4 graphics cards. When I first got my new computer SL ran great on it. I was finally able to get over 100 fps in high prim areas. But now it crashes on that computer every few minutes rendering the game useless on that machine. Thus I'm now running the game only on my older computers again. Talk about one baby step forward, and one giant leap back.

Even on my older computers, the latest update has me seeing more lag, disconnects, and texture loading problems than ever before.

Now that SL has been around a while it should lose the "beta testing a new update every week" mentality. Updates every quarter would be fine. Thus they could be more thoroughly tested and we could have less server down time, which equals loss of sales for pro developers such as myself.

I would have liked to use a double thumbs down icon, but only a single thumbs down was available.

Myself and many other merchants in SL agree with you. It's difficult to create items with tons of different glitches being thrown at us every week or so.

I agree with this.

If the problem is only SOME people work on fixing the old bugs, while other people work on coming up with new features, then I suggest they lay off the people coming up with new features and hire more to fix what we have.

If the problem is that everyone works on what they happen to feel like working on (which we already know is a problem), then I suggest someone at the helm start telling them to work on fixing things instead of coming up with neat new little ideas, or selecting unimportant things off some master list.

It's really quite basic. If SL doesn't work (and it doesn't), people will stop playing.

coco

It used to be that I would never reply to a thread like this, because I felt enough people were already out there expressing what I felt. But after this latest update just screwing everything over...

I had just started getting into a mindset of playing around with the build tool, so I could make something to sell that wuld generate cash. But now the build tools are all wonky, and I hear scripts are buggered to the point that doing anything even remotely decent is going to be impossible for a newbie like me. Why do I even bother?

I agree 110%.

To LindenLabs: Frankly, I could care less if there's a new button on the Friends list or if you changed the names of the Search categories. What I DO care about is the fact that I can't move without getting heavy packet loss, or the fact that I can no longer BUILD and earn income, because the build tools crash my client 95% of the time!

You people in San Franciso are getting so carried away with beating TSO and There.Com to the virtual finish line, when really all you're doing is running so fast that you're tripping over your own feet.

STOP the updates and START the upgrades!

After looking at the responses above and talking to many of my friends and also other developers in game it is fairly obvious that nearly no one wants weekly updates anymore. I don't understand why Linden Labs is so stubborn about this point. Lindens, please start listening to your customers (at least this one time). We don't want bug filled updates every week! It was a nice experiment that you tried... please look at the data and accept the fact (as almost all of your customers have) that the weekly update methodology is failing... absolutely fundamentally failing.

I'm a professional programmer but I have little knowledge of how the SL engine works. One thing that is obvious though is that the engine is much too complex to be trying to release updates every single week. While trying to implement (often trivial) updates you are simultaneously causing a plethora of unexpected negative consequences.

I feel statistics show that each update has a very high likelihood of introducing bugs and problems (sometimes very major problems). Please ask yourselves if the functionality of any given update is worth these very substantial risks and also the inevitable down time that results.

Consider the list of bug fixes on any given update. Ponder how many of those fixes are repairing things that were broken via the former update and you will realize that a foolish cycle is being sustained.

Sorry for the caps for a moment but... (clears throat) PLAYERS AND DEVELOPERS WANT A STABLE BUG FREE PLATFORM. WE DON'T WANT WEEKLY UPDATES THAT CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS THAN THEY ARE WORTH. I feel I had to shout that.

I think quarterly updates would work just fine. The features updated could be carefully considered and thoroughly tested on the trial grid for a month or more. Because many of the performance-related issues appear to scale asymmetrically, a larger test grid would also be preferable.

I'd like to conclude by saying I'm not trying to be overly pessimistic. No one is expecting perfection and we all realize that some updates may cause some unexpected problems. That is life. However, it is very important that developers such as myself can rely on a stable platform for at least a few months at a time. The current methodology is very annoying. I still enjoy Second Life and I think these problems could be quickly addressed with a paradigm shift in management style: More focus on performance, stability and bug fixing brought about through carefully planned major updates and less focus on the frequent addition of bells and whistles. Please stop replacing quality with quantity so that Second Life will continue to thrive. I have enjoyed making very complex objects for others to enjoy. I have also enjoyed a healthy profit for my efforts. I would like this symbiotic relationship to continue. I want SL to be successful. I feel it is of vital importance that Linden Labs weans itself from the eternal beta testing mentality.

That's why LL has abandoned weekly updates.

The last update was 3 weeks after the previous one, and they've said it's going to be 1-2 updates a month at most from now on.

Once every two weeks is too often.

coco

I don't think that on average updates make SL worse at all. It's much better than it was a year ago IMO.

I think that some of the recent updates have appeared to have been rather poorly tested, the changelogs are at times just a tad incomplete, and I would question some of the development priorities (though some of that is down to personal preference) but in general, no.

Something I think would be of interest is a proper run-down of work that has been done in updates, even if it's rather more technical than non-Lindens might understand. If, to make up an example, there's been a whole root-and-branch rejigging of how preferences work, then we might expect some bugs with checkboxes but could then expect that, once those are sorted out, it would be much easier to add new features and there would be less likelihood of further breakages from other changes. Infrastructure work is important stuff, I know that myself.

I tend to agree with Ordinal. While this recent update was a doosey, most of the recent ones have introduced sorely-needed bugfixes or feature enhancements.

The problem is twofold, IMHO: A breakdown or inefficiency in the release testing process, and the fact that Linden currently can't do biweekly updates without bringing the whole grid down for hours.

I think if Linden were to improve upon those above two issues, folks would be a lot less resistant to updates than they are right now.

I've come to the tentative conclusion (from comments such as "the SL codebase has grown organically" that a lot of these bugs that fall through are more down to the fact that the SL code has got to such size that every little change can break something else, because no human being (or furry/alien/etc) can maintain a proper overall view of the system... I've seen that happen myself, and the only solution is to make changes to the infrastructure so that things make much more overall sense, to have consistent internal protocols, stuff like that. This can and will result in things breaking at first, but it's absolutely vital if SL is to develop and be more maintainable.

At least, I *hope* this is what is going on, which is why I'd like to see a little more detail on what has changed with each version, even if it looks like technobabble.

Yes, I agree, this update isn't as bad as a year ago. However, one year ago was about the time of release 1.7. It would be difficult for an update to be much worse than that release, ...though this latest one comes close.

IMO 1.6 was the best implemented release I've seen in SL since I've been here (maybe 1.6.2, not sure of exact version). Of course there are a few more sims and a few more residents to contend with today.

Someone needs to grab the wheel of this ship because it's gone way out of control.

Once every two weeks is fine.

Once a month would be better. If they wanted to Update once a month, and take down the grid every Wednesday for additional bug fixes WITHOUT adding something new that was going to rebug the system, that would be fine. But I still feel the current fequency of updates is to much. I honestly wouldn't mind in the least bit to go a whole month without new features in exchange for some weekly bug fixes and maintience.

I wholeheartedly agree. We don't need frequent, untested, unreliable updates. Notification of patches and fixes is a good thing - and they're always smaller than downloading a new version anyway. LL should learn from the rest of the software industry.

Just a reminder, this forum is "current version feedback" not future version feedback, or update frequency feedback.

--
Jopsy -- not a rezmod.

Fair enough...and as such I would like to see the current version reman in place for at least four weeks until some of the bugs are worked out. Please do not update, and by doing so remove, the current version until it is more stable and bug free.

So you wish to restrict LL to fixing Client bugs only once every four weeks?

No.

No, it'd be a month of JUST bug fixes. Let them take however long they want to fix the bugs, release PATCHES on wednesday (they should all be client side, no need to kill the grid), but new features can come out once a month (or evey two weeks).



No? No what? There were several things in the post which you replied to.

How about not updating the code but updating the programmers. It seems to me that some of them are way past their sell by date. Yhe cull should start at the top and work down.

Soooo with the OP here. Ditto on these problems. You have to upgrade your pc because your old one is underpar (though not, I note, for any OTHER game in existence...) and then they upgrade SL and BANG! suddenly your red-hot new machine ain't so hot anymore. But it does leave me pretty red in the face.

However, I really don't think they care. Seriously. I've about had it with these problems myself. Any Linden reading this, you do know your company's reputation has bottomed out with a lot of users? I like new features as much as the next player, but seriously, when the upgrades BREAK more than they FIX, what is the point?

Good to hear Kelly. It's also nice just to know that someone is watching and doing someting about taking care of our issues.

Ditto! Anytime I see new bugs or unexpected behavior, I always wonder what the objective was to tampering with that specific bit of code.

Thanks for helping to demystifying why seemingly random and non-new-feature related UI behaviors were changing!

Hopefully with a fully XML managed UI we can... (dare I hope) someday be able to re-map our keys?