Way back when

Problem is these days they have "SPOKES lindens which means badly oganized explainations of what is really gong on.

I remember being able to set my draw distance to 256m and still being able to fly, setting it to 512m and still be able to walk and take the fantastic view off the cliff in Achemon, then came v1.7...

I was ruthed, and my inventory was gone

I miss the cozier grid.
I miss the trivia events hosted at stage four.
I miss when things were trans so if you were tired of it. You could give it away.
I miss my stipend. You would see a cool dress and have to wait till pay day to get it.
Or give the money away.
I miss that you could actually see a Linden and there was a good chance it was Philip.
I miss exploring and not hitting red bars or security orbs.
I miss the Lindens announcing events.
I miss that people were more giving. Now everyone wants to get paid.

Last but not least:

I miss my friends who have moved on after Second Life started sliding down this slope it
is on.


Rox

Then things blowup Yet i remeber that way!

Ah, 1.7 ....... The time of the Grey.

And yes, the 1.6 update had to be one of the smoothest updates of all I can remember. Of course it was my first ROFL.

The thing I miss is flying/driving. Going over sim-borders almost seemlessly. The telehubs made flying/walking/driving a nessicity, but travel really was much smoother. Even when rezzing prims for draw distance in crowded build areas.

Now my Dominus sits in my SL driveway and collects pixel dust.

~Jessy

What would be nice is LL setting aside a small grid, like the preview grid, for each of the major version, so you could go to them and compare the history first hand. Maybe 9 sims would be enough. They would be called "Grid v1.5", "Grid v1.6", etc...
That would be living history and all the new users that have known only the latest versions could get a good idea of what it used to be like.
What do you say LL?

When I joined SL, the grid was about 80 sims. It is now over 18000 sims. Thats 22400% increase in land mass, the number of LL employees has not increased 22400%; they maybe 20 at that time, and I'm pretty sure they have no more then 100 at this point. The old support system even then was feeling the strains, it was tough to get a linden to come they were so busy. The old system didn't scale, it wasn't maintainable. They knew they had to change how things were done, they weren't turning a profit at that time, they were burning venture capital. During '04 there were very few people who believed that SL would be around for another 6 months; the proof of this in how few people purchased lifetime memberships. LL offering lifetime memberships is proof in itself of the financial straights LL was in at the time (they only made sense if you expected LL to last more then 4 years).

Personally, i'ld love to go back. When I joined, the roads were actually still driveable. Every night I would pick a new road and keep driving till I ran out of road. I saw alot of interesting things doing that.

Rather than a sub grid, perhaps a whole new grid: [1] SL as it is now, and [2] SL Classic (1.9 or maybe something earlier).

I embrace growth and augmentation. I understand the love and attraction of a newer, fresher time. Things were just getting started, and it was a brave new world.

But from the perspective of a creator and visionary, I think the expansive growth is a welcome thing. In fact, I can't wait for virtual worlds like SL to be ten TIMES the size they are now. I think LL is handling the growth rather well.

I remember the "log-a-thons", seeing if they could get 3500 people to log on and stress the grid.

And if memory serves me, we never did reach that number

I remember buying my first land in a spanking new snow sim, and being the only person there for almost a month.

I remember hanging at the Ahern welcome area, dancing, laughing, chatting, and always being amazed at the next avatar Pysra would spring on us.

Ahh, the good ole days

Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be.

I started only in early 2006, so I'm kinda a newbie in dis thread. I saw a couple really horrible clients, including one dat was rolled back it was so bad. I saw lighting and flexi, and I've heard many times inthe past where the world was gonna end for one reason or another.

The world *has* changed in jes my time. I've seen it go from less than 1 million accounts to what, almost 8 million yet? I've seen the number of regions skyrocket. The whole place has jes gotten huger. A lotta problems have happened since then too, an ya, you also dun see Lindens so often. I 'spect cuz the number of lands an avvies overall is so much more than any growth in LL staff.

There are still a ton of growing pains yet too. Sculpties, voice, windlight. rez issues, search failures, web integration and open source. The grid of Summer 2008 is gonna be tons different from what it is now.

Course, the grid of today can handle nearly 50,000 people without crashing and burning (mostly), and "back in the day" I could barely handle a couple thousand on at one time.

There are some tings dat do still happen. You actually can find Lindens about, albeit it usually only in Linden Village, only at certain limited times. They can an do still attend special events (Hermia Linden was at my mommy an daddy's wedding earlier dis year), an Mia Linden sended her regrets for not bein able to cuz of her schedule), but it's prob'ly not the usual at all. Oh, an the world is still full of magic an wonder.

So things are different than they were. Yet we're still here. An someday peoples will talk about "the good old days" of 2007. They will, too.

Mari

Yeah, I remember all that stuff, too.

The only major thing I think took SL down the wrong path was getting rid of verifying by CC info or by cell phone.

I got in when they were doing the 5000 log-a-thons.. and those of us who logged in got a Benshee Rezzer. Aww... I love that particle spewing, lag producing little ball!

I remember seeing Blue Linden at the Welcome Area a lot and listening to a lot of people chatter while I tried sorting out the basics that weren't covered by the Orientation Island, because of all the changes that had been made. I also remember hating my first shape, because she was thin necked-big breasted and wayyyyy too tall.

I remember my first griefer in the sandbox and thinking, "That's nice.. all the MMO-jerks are here too." I also remember getting on Live Help and reporting the person.. then seeing them and their spam objects vanish in the blink of an eye. Oh, the good old days!

Bigger is not always better. The idea of virtual urban sprawl is a turn off

Rox

agreed, besides alwats have to try to make things look better then what they are. Unless they are.......

Obviously have no memories of the 'good old days' because they were before my time, but that is soo true!

"Ah, 1.7 ....... The time of the Grey."

1.7 and afterward. The gray is still going strong.

LOL no one I talk to now believes me that Textures actually used to rez crisp and fast for clothes, etc.

And that if they were clear on your Av , they were clear for everyone.

I miss the "light-weight" client downloads.

What was it back in early 2004? <16mb?

Now >300mb?

Guess the thing i miss most is having a calling card from a Linden be the First calling card i got, not just on this avie, but on my two older alts as well.

I miss flying my Shrike (a wonderful little jet built and scripted by Rickard - no longer with us - that's probably missing from the database), putting a beacon on a far away sim and just flying there, low enough to see the scenery. I miss not noticing when i crossed a sim, just kept my eye on the ground looking around, enjoying the builds and checking distance to the beacon from time to time.

I miss the dog fights in Schwan's soon-to-be-sold sims. I miss the excitement after learning how to make tga's (Thank You Monte Blanc) and making my first ones: a pot leaf for my jet (tan and navy w/ pot leaf on wings "Smuggler's Blues" and a coy little sheep for Schwan.

I miss playing Tank with him, even logging an unknown alt to kick his ass (don't think i ever told you that, but you can guess that any newbie girl who beat you was probably me, and i can think of a couple **HUGS** Schwans!!).

And like so many others, i miss all those who have wandered on, out of SL. I still think about them and sometimes i just sit and go through old snapshots, or the ones that will rez. And sometimes i cry.

Thats the problem between then and now... LL aren't handling the growth to well, hence why there are more and more issues... the more complicated they make it, the more frail it becomes.

LL have admitted that there are certain parts of the grid that cannot be scaled up as readily as the majority, the asset server for one... not all the time they are using MySQL, but to change that single element, would require some radical re-writing of the core coding.

Similar platforms such as There.com has had many of the 'eye candy' elements we are now seeing in SL, for some years, and their biggest lag issue was the content database. The main differences between to two programes is predictability of inventory content. In There.com all goods were pre-defined, whereas SL you can create content 'on the fly' and the Database has to encompass this in virtual realtime.

The real issue that SL faces today with its current systems, is how to scale up and maintain security over IP rights and currency.

Seems like there's many 'old-timers' who have fond memories...So whose gonna be first to write "SL - The early years (A history of Second Life 2003-2006)". It would be a fun read

It would be tempting but the FIC would hurt me

Rox