CSi Floodage on Wednesday - discussion

So Wednesday night PDT this week is shaping up to be one of those do-or-die times for Second Life. CSi : NY is having a entire episode devoted to Second Life-based antics, and we'll be awash in total newcomers drawn here by only the interesting aspects of being a virtual CSI.

It will be interesting to see whether the grid can take the load, and it will be also interesting to see if we are up to it.

I would like to urge for certain forms of sanity as this important day comes over.

1) Please, oh, please... don't give directions to Samurai Island if someone asks where the CSi sims are... unless they're clearly interested in being samurais.

2) Please, oh, please... be on your best behavior. We have to stand for something or we will fall for anything and everything.

3) Please, oh, please... be careful. if you get tired, go to bed. if you need to worry about something more important, care for it instead. Nothing is worth a physical or mental collapse, and there's always another day you could come out to help others understand the world.

I'd also like to keep an eye on this event for the next few days as it impacts on the grid (according to predictions). Let's keep this thread alive?

I've already updated my SL Will & Testament in case I don't survive the flood. If I don't make it, please tell my partner I love her.

It seems we already had this episode in Canada..a friend of mine saw it..any one spot any Canadians newbies wandering around looking lost?

They have their own orientation sims (104 blocks of 4 sims each ) so I'm not sure how it involves SL mentors at all since none of them will be passing through the regular OIs or HIs?

This is my understanding too. If they come in thru CSI's portal, they will be going to a game with preconfigured avatars, using the Sheep's simplified client. I'm sure they'd be able to escape to the rest of the grid somehow, but I doubt many will bother. And helping them would be difficult unless you also have the sheep's browser!

However, the episode talks about 2nd life in the dialog, so SOME people may join SL themselves, not through CSI's game, and come in through OI. But I bet those people trickle in over the next week or so, not all at once, and I bet they come in smaller numbers. Just my guess tho ... you are right, it won't hurt for the mentors to be prepared.

Methinks a flood is wishful thinking...

But even a trickle would help the SL economy right now.

Was it 75,000 to 100,000 concurrent they're expecting?

It wasn't clear from the meeting if that was concurrent or just total additional traffic generated from the show.

We'll have to see....

Anything above 50,000 makes me nervous. Then again, about a year ago anything above 10,000 made me nervous.

WHooo!
"Scottie, get me all the bots online you got!"
"Spock, what's the land for sale status, do we have enough?"
"Mister Sulu, ready the ruthalisers and set the freebie antipush sheilds to maximum"

From the notecards:and from the chat:So... nobody has any real idea of what to expect, nor how the grid will hold up if huge numbers of people start logging on. Hope for the best

Wow ... so they expect the rest of us to log off or something?

How are they going to handle even and extra 5K on during a peak time?

Busy nights already drag the whole thing down.

Did I miss a notice for a meeting?

Or was it one of those "we're having an unschedueled meeting in 5 seconds, why aren't you here yet?" meetings?

how many are really going try sl after seeing this? what less then 25,000? If kids see it they for sure will do it. But thats the wrong target users right?

How are they going to get 50,000 additional online when CBS's 4 sims can support maybe 200 apiece maximum before becoming maxed out?

"South Park" has more viewers than "CSI NY" and I don't recall hearing that WoW experience a massive influx after last year's "Make Love Not Warcraft" episode.

Personally I can't wait to see this Ep. CSI NY never fails to amaze me. What they can do with a 3yr old Blackberry is amazing. I want a job there, you don't even need to wear a white bunny suit to crime scenes. If only RL forensics were the same *wistful sigh*

More less the target users are over 18 i assume. But if its southpark well what is their possible age group? 12 to 35? In that case you have maybe 80% of the possible new users being under 18 and even still under 16. That is not good.

Keep in mind, that's 4 sims times 104 (I think) copies of each, for a total of 416. 416x50 is just shy of 21,000. So you're while you're of course right that 50,000 would be quite a stretch, 210,00 is still a hell of a lot more than 200.

Also, since private islands can be set to allow up to 100 avatars each, a 4-sim cluster could conceivably allow 400 in. That would put the total capacity around 42,000. I have no idea what limits have or have not been set on those sims, but I'd imagine it's probably more than the default.

As I've said before, my involvement with the CSI project was minimal, so please don't read into anything I'm saying too much. I only built a very small handful of assets for it. What I do know from conversations with the producers and the lead artists on the project is that lag was of primary concern to the build team. Low-res textures were utilized as much as possible, and poly counts (not just prim counts) were watched carefully throughout the process. The result is what is probably the least laggy large city build in all of SL. Whether or not that means the regions will be able to accommodate large numbers of avatars as easily as everyone would like them to remains to be seen. They either will or they won't. We'll find out soon enough.



True, but there are several important differences:

1. South Park did not actively invite anyone into WOW. CIS will be actively inviting its viewers into SL.

2. WOW did not offer any sort of special experience for South Park fans. We ARE offering a special experience for CSI fans.

3. This is probably somewhat less important than the first two, but SL is free; WOW is not. As much as I love South Park, I would not pay $15 a month for a WOW membership, just to be a part of "The Virtual South Park Experience" if such a thing were to exist. The fact that "CSI: The Virtual Experience" is absolutely free will, I'm sure, go a long way towards helping people make the decision to join.

4. Again, probably less important, but South Park's angle on WOW was to make fun of it and its users, just as they do (so deliciously well) for every topic they ever broach. CSI's take on Second Life will be far more serious, which I'm sure will create a lot more curiosity about it.

5. Probably most importantly, the appeal of WOW is only to gamers, and only to a specific subset of gamers at that. Only those who enjoy the specific combination of MMO with fantasy setting (and/or fantasy RP), and with the forage/combat/grind style of gameplay would have any interest in joining WOW. Second Life's appeal is much more open ended. While gamers, of course, are certainly no small demographic, their (or I should say "our" because I happen to be one) number is relatively few when you compare it to the entire Internet-using world, all of whom could have in interest in SL for any number of reasons. The difference between WOW and SL in that respect could not be greater.

Has anything happened yet?

Is there any way to watch that episode? I'm located outside of the US.

They dont have last nights show up yet - they have only up till last week.

But I assume it will be in the list shortly.

http://alpha.cbs.com/primetime/csi_ny/

Actually, it's already up there, but I can't play it for some reason, I'm wondering because I'm in Australia?

*SPOILER ALERT*


Several things I found funny about the show...

*They felt they had to cram every last bit of 'lingo', 'slang', and 'jargon' in there to appease the pop culture, and wow the veterans with their endless savvy.

*When you pick up objects, you can throw them at people...and they die.

*You can pick up other people's items.

*There is a cool 'joy-pad' that allows you to fight similar to classic games such as DOA, Tekken, Virtual Fighter, and Soul Caliber.

*Voice modulation is so easy...and it works perfectly.

*The 3d camera works on a Director-style algorithm that cinematically follows your AV around the world without instruction...how convenient.

*The amazing speed at which the savvy police-assistant tweaks appearance, changes gender and skins, buys clothing...man, he's quick...Data has nothing on him.

Anyway...other than that...I found the show very entertaining.

I noticed they shot in Svarga several times. Also, they used a stock version of my HAV AV, as well as a red version of my Demitaur (both of which are found at 'Sense' and made by Hydrogen Excelsior)...cool stuff.

Just looked again. Yes its up and works for me.

I don't know if you location is the problem. Do any of the others work for you?

I can't watch the episodes either. A voice says "this content is currently unavailable".

Me too. Is it because I'm in Canada? Is this for U.S. viewers only?

Be prepared for serious griefing following influx of newbies who may never have heard about us but who now will see us as ripe for the picking IF they are part off this onslaught. I am not a mentor (but was once a "Helper" - so be prepared for stupid questions.