Town Hall with Cory Linden re: 1.1 - Part 1

Transcript of Town Hall today with Linden Lab's VP of Product Development - Cory Linden

Part 1

OK, lets, settle in - I'd like to intoduce Cory Linden, Vice President of Product Development
Cory Linden: Hey folks!
Please IM me with your questions
and I will pass them along to Cory

ok first Q - Lance LeFay: Has dwell completely replaced the voting, or do votes still count?
Cory Linden: Votes still count, but half of the L$ amount comes from dwell

OK next Q - Ming Chen: What has changed with particles from 1.0 to 1.1
Cory Linden: the new particle system . . .
Cory Linden: is a lot more powerful . . .
Cory Linden: uses less bandwidth . . .
Cory Linden: and draws a lot faster
Cory Linden: over time we'll depricate the old particles
Cory Linden: and add more features to the new one

Alexis Fairchild: I see that the additions of the telehubs for free teleportation, but if I want to teleport home, I now have to fly all the way across two sims... will there be an option to choose between direct (paid) teleporting and telehub use in the
Cory Linden: you can still set your home location at home
Cory Linden: so that you can go home directly
Alexis Fairchild: I just miss direct door to door teleports anywhere
Cory Linden: plus there are many ways to move around more quickly now
Cory Linden: I know, but it is important for SL to have places that are a little more out of the way

Alexis Fairchild: Oh... and can I have one of those motorcycles I saw Cory on earlier?
Cory Linden: We'll be seeding vehicles, I'm sure
Cory Linden: (for a price)
Cory Linden:
Ezhar Fairlight: they're available in oak grove now

Haney Linden: Sapphire Bombay: What is the current SL population? What are your future projections?
Cory Linden: We have hundreds of unique users in world every night. . .
Cory Linden: plus a concurrency of ~150 each night

Cyanide Leviathan: i have noticed a bug, that if you are killed, you are not teleported home, is this because of telehubs?
Lance LeFay: im teleported home when I die o_o
Cory Linden: it's probably because of a bug please report it so that we can fix it
Cory Linden: I'll have to beat the programmers more
Christopher Omega: LOL
Lance LeFay: Get a cat of nine tails ^_^

Christopher Omega: Can you give us any examples of what scripting features we may see in the near future?
Cory Linden: well, a lot of new features went into the 1.1 release . . .
Cory Linden: the most important are
Cory Linden: vehicles
Cory Linden: particles
Cory Linden: and the new sit functions
Cory Linden: that allow you to make seats w/ orientation and place the camera where you want
Cory Linden: not the old ones, but new camera functions to set eye and at for each seat
Cory Linden: so that you can make a motorcycle w/ the camera properly over your shoulder

Alexis Fairchild: What is the current timeline on interactive gestures?

Cory Linden: if by interactive you mean mutliavatar . . .
Alexis Fairchild: Yes, like handshakes, hugs, etc
Cory Linden: sometime after 1.1 but seriously . . .
Cory Linden: it's on the list to talk about for the next pile of work

Kenzington Fairlight: i noticed that when we edit object positions now, they don't want to stay aligned. they shift around when you select them and such.
Cory Linden: bug bug bug
Cory Linden: on my list, actually

Benjamin Lippmann: Are there any plans for adding features for scripts to store information through Sim restarts?
Cory Linden: well, the scripts generally do save state even through sim restarts
Benjamin Lippmann: I mean to store large amounts of data more permanently

Ezhar Fairlight: she said mac *hint*
Cory Linden: yup, runnign on a G4 laptop right now
Christopher Omega:

Lyra Muse: If this hasn't already been asked.. Is there any plan to make the directory resizable?
Cory Linden: find you mean? if it is desired we can prolly do that
Lyra Muse: Yeah, it's seriously desired.

Lyra Muse: Is there any way for people other than group officers to delete objects off of group owned land?
Cory Linden: no


Lance LeFay: are we going to see object to object IM and llWriteNotecadLine anytime soon?
Cory Linden: Lance, comms into and out of the system are a major topic of current discussion

Christopher Omega: Can you give us some info on the progress of any major bugfixes?
Christopher Omega: (or any you are working on atm)
Cory Linden: Chris, we're patching tomorrow with some crash bug fixes
Cory Linden: after that, UI fixes


Fey Brightwillow: Question, will there be patterns for skirts?
Cory Linden: Fey, you can texture skirts with a pattern, or is that not what you meant?
Fey Brightwillow: yes I mean what you can use with the sliders
Cory Linden: not yet, but that is a good idea

Huns Valen: is dwell counted multiple times for multiple parcels?
Cory Linden: Huns, no dwell (for purposes of money) totals values between your parcels
Huns Valen: in other words if I hang out on one and then the other is that different from just hanging out on one
Cory Linden: no
Cory Linden: not if they are both owned by the same person or group

Ezhar Fairlight: What is the approximate timeline for 1.2 and will it have Havok 2?
Cory Linden: I don't know the answer to that yet . . . we are pretty far along with initial H2 work, but . . .
Cory Linden: H2 is still missing some features even with the 2.2 release that came out today . . . I'll know more in a few weeks

Sapphire Bombay: Do you feel giving away vehicles such as the one at the Stillman Telehub will dilute the vehicle building economy?
Cory Linden: no, you guys will build much better vehicles then the ones I make

Kenzington Fairlight: are there any plans for being able to turn calling card notification on and off by card, instead of turning them all on/off?
Cory Linden: no, but that is also a good idea

Harald Nomad: Any chance we get an option to stop people throwing calling cards, textures, notecards, teleport offers, talk to's, etc.?
Cory Linden: We wanted to make the new user experience easier . . . but when pop ups become a problem we will address it

Is it possible to have tracking put back in the minimap, and part 2, can we have the ability to track multiple things in the big map, like we used to in the minimap
Cory Linden: it is certainly possible (both) prolly tracking in the minimap first

Benjamin Lippmann: Are there any plans to allow script to access web sites (or other non-LL servers)?
Cory Linden: we've been talking a lot about how to allow coms in and out of the system . . . nothing in stone yet

Baki Baskerville: I live in Clementine,will the Server full problem change or do i have to pack up and go elsewhere?
Cory Linden: I don't know the details of Clementina but there will always be absolute limits on sims

Alexis Fairchild: I noticed that SL still hangs a bit when logging out before it closes completely... anything being done to fix that? This has been a problem for a while
Cory Linden: we keep finding and fixing bugs in the log out code . . . we do a lot of cleanup during that phase . . . we will keep working on making it faster

Alexis Fairchild: Will there be an increase in the size of uploadable sound file to, say, 20-30 seconds?
Cory Linden: Alexis, not any time soon . . . there are issues that come up when you can upload large samples

Harald Nomad: Does all the dwell money go to event hosts?
Cory Linden: dwell goes to the land owners

Harald Nomad: Are there plans for an llSetMaterial() so we can really turn the lights (lighttax) off?
Cory Linden: lol . .. yes, that is an oversight that we will fix . . . I'm laughing becuase we were talking about that a little while ago

Sapphire Bombay: The new 1.1 mute sound option is great. But, the need for it is based around the question " are you enforcing the 18+ EULA" ?
Cory Linden: we are absolutely enforing 18 and over in SL as we discover people under 18
Cory Linden: from chat logs, for example

BlackAdder York: Any major help coming soon for ATI Radeon users?
Cory Linden: Can I give you ATI's developer support's phone number? Seriously. . . .
Cory Linden: they are fixing things as fast as they can . . .
Cory Linden: their drivers have quirks
Cory Linden: that we tend to expose
Kenzington Fairlight: quirks?

Ezhar Fairlight: Now that vehicles will be used even more, any ideas on solving the problem where a vehicle poofs when it enters a sim with 100% object limit?
Cory Linden: Exhar . . . that's a bug . . . should bounce you instead
Ezhar Fairlight: oh, neat

Beryl Greenacre: how often will we get dwell money, weekly, daily, etc.?Beryl Greenacre: and how will we be notified when we get it?

Cory Linden: daily
Cory Linden: in your account history
Bosozoku Kato: the "system paid you"?
Beryl Greenacre: and daily?
Cory Linden: yup
Cory Linden: we had a bug in it this AM, should be fixed tomorrow AM

Wen Nomad: Are there any plans to allow for object creation/editing outside of the game, in a separate program designed just for creating objects
Cory Linden: no

Cyanide Leviathan: where in account history does it tell your dwell?
Cyanide Leviathan: i cant find it
Cory Linden: under detail, I believe

Cyanide Leviathan: has there been anything done to decrease the chances of a sim roolback, and what exactly happens when it does rollback?
Cory Linden: yes, we're trying to minimize sim crashes and increase the chances that we save all the data when it does
Ezhar Fairlight: amazing good job on that so far, btw
Cory Linden: usually when a sim dies, we manage to journal out the state of everything in it

Christopher Omega: Are there any plans for implementing LSL functions to manipulate object properties other then position, rotation, texture, size, and alpha?
Cory Linden: what would you like, Chris?
Harald Nomad: All object properties
Christopher Omega: llSetCut() llSetDimple(),llSetMaterial(), etc... stuff we cant do already
Ezhar Fairlight: cut, dimple, adv. cut, hollow. etc.
Christopher Omega: yep
Bosozoku Kato: it was previously posted on forums that all build tool functions would be (eventually) scriptable, Chris.
Cory Linden: well . . . right now no, because then we'd get animating, physcial, cut, hollw torii
Christopher Omega: (oopsie, missed that post)
Christopher Omega: LOL

Bosozoku Kato: Will a "test/preview" server be more available over time as features are in the works and where we can go to experiment?
Cory Linden: I would like to have a preview grid that is always up with nightly builds and accessible by users . . . not sure when we'll do it though

Joan Nomad: Are there any plans to allow us to import our own bumpmaps? Or can this be done now?
Cory Linden: you can't yet, but most of the import path is in place
Cory Linden: we actually almsot got it done
Cory Linden: but not quite

Einsman Schlegel: Will there be any chance that an entire structure could be linked instead of bits and peices?
Cory Linden: we'll have different linking options post Havok 2

Thaddeus Fallingbridge: Any plans to have LSL function to code heads-up displays (like crosshairs, status bars,etc)
Cory Linden: um, heads up stuff is planned out but not yet on the schedule . . . so we know how we'll do

Bino Arbuckle: Any forecast about nested linking and it's associated fun stuff (child rots, delinking parts not all)?
Cory Linden: heirarchy will be nice but is a ways out . . . definitely post Havok 2 and then some

Harald Nomad: Isn't it true that event hosts who host events on their own land are an unfair competition to others, and therefore 'claim' the majority of dwell bonus?
Cory Linden: Not sure what you mean . . . yes, you can use an event to draw people to your home, but that isn't the only way to get visitors and there are a lot of events
Harald Nomad: But it is a way to get a lot of visitors for a long time.
Cory Linden: Harald, if it is a good event, yes
Harald Nomad: So no dwell bonus left if you don't have events?
Cory Linden: Har, events don't "deplete" dwell, so I'm not sure what you are asking

Mila Apollo: Why we don't have now landmarks for events.
Cory Linden: you want a landmark that appears when the event starts?
Cory Linden: you can just clisk on the map to go to it
Cory Linden: world map, that is

Mila Apollo: Why avatars hands are so low when we are sitting
Cory Linden: because we based the avatar model on the African Great Ape
Cory Linden: actually . . .
Kenzington Fairlight: hehe
Alexis Fairchild: LOL
David Cartier: hahaha
Cory Linden: because we are playing around with improving sitting and allowing multiple sit poses
Cory Linden: but aren't quite done yet

Mila Apollo: Is it possible to take all online and offlines from Chat History
Cory Linden: you can block that alert in preferences

Kenzington Fairlight: i noticed that when you use the "talk to" option, you are able to move the camera limitlessly far away from you. is this a bug?
Cory Linden: yes . . . please report it
Cory Linden: if you haven't already

Gwydeon Nomad: Personal question: While pulling out of a group I decided to deed the land to my group so property above it didnt go public. I didnt realize that this meant I was not able to ever recoup the purchase price,
Beryl Greenacre: sounds useful
Einsman Schlegel: *cough*
Is there anything I can do to correct this? Gwydeon Nomad: It was also accidently deeded to the wrong group heh
Cory Linden: you can appeal to Haney (Editor’s note:actually send message to [email]support@lindenlab.com[/email])

Wen Nomad: are there plans to allow the game to run offline, where you can only be in your property? Wen Nomad: like offline version where you stay on your property, or just a editor Wen Nomad: like worldcraft
Cory Linden: no


OK, thanks cory
and thanks to you all for coming out
Cory Linden: Thanks everyone for coming out
Gwydeon Nomad: /lclap
Christopher Omega: clep
Bosozoku Kato: thanks Lindens and Lindenettes
Bino Arbuckle: Go Macs!
Cory Linden: now go out there and make vehicles
Cory Linden: and get your G5s warmed up
Last edited by Haney Linden on 10-23-2003 at 07:40 PM