The SLocalypse? or the Year of Second Life Maturing?

Hmm, but now there's no shadows from the windows.

First off, I do not use any discount for tier. Second, I said when Linden Lab introduced changes they listened to Residents (Not that all changes were resident driven). Third, the "Useless" part of Second Life? What sort of bruhahah is that? Second Life is a platform, to think one section of the sum as 'useless' is ignorant and vain. You got me with the Homesteads, although knowing the type of stuff people can shove into one, it make some sense. The real issue I see is that they are 4 to a box, and so are OpenSpaces, just dose not feel fair with normal sim pricing.

Sure, the Adult Continent move was pretty crazy, but they gave people free land, how much of a larger comp could they have given? Personally not having to deal with the Gay Sex Church that was next door is a blessing, no longer will patrons of an art gallery be subjected to nearby man-on-man moaning while looking around.

Totally agree with you on the lack of viewer updates. Not really sure why they needed to stop all current development for an interface overhaul, especially when they contracted the work. I just hope the new viewer is actually easy to use, I know the feeling of using something different is odd at times, but then again it could turn out to be a real improvement, which it better be because they should not wast 9+ months of dev time for nothing.

Free land you say? forced exile, and forced direct competition, with the added onus of extra hours of labor tearing down and setting up anew, intermediate losses of customer interaction due to said location moves, on the basis of Exchanging parcels, with no guarantee of being granted such an Exchange... or effectively close up shop without so much as a fire sale...

but at least the "Gay Sex Church" can enjoy the benefit of not driving any extra traffic to their pretentious art snob neighbors (even if some of them might have originally been your patrons)

Didn't people have to swap their existing land for land on Zindra? Often for parcels of lesser quality than what they were leaving if I remember correctly. Doesn't sound "free' to me.

That was the original plan but they changed it to a free grant.

K. Thanks.

Gee, nothing will satisfy you, will it? I moved the sun so you could more clearly see the fireplace shadows. Naturally sunlight is brighter than firelight As far as dynamic shadows, watch the video, preferably the hi def version on the bottom right of the page:

http://www.vimeo.com/8836515


In the kitchen you can see her shadow track the local light. And before you complain about something else, no, not everything is perfect in the scene, its a work in progress.

IMHO:

I know people are all proud of shadows but seriously they look like shit because they are unrealistic (too black) and they add so much lag the vid card makers wasted their time and money on that crappy code.

For all that code to get impossibly ink black shadows they could have been working on something useful like actual reflectivity.

Nice music.

I was going to comment on this statement (which *was* phrased as a concrete statement, not with a preceding caveat ie. "in my opinion" but you beat me to it.

There are various people in SL with various opinions and interests. Just because one segment of SL is not someone's cup of tea does not therefore make it universally useless; nor does an area of SL that another person considers "useless," make it so either.

There are a number of things I *personally* believe are "useless" in SL, but since they are on the grid and others enjoy participating, then i just do my thing. It's a "live and let live" situation in my opinion.

How about ....

Actually LISTENING to their users, not just saying they are? Listening to a tiny minority when the vast majority is screaming 'WE DO NOT WANT WHAT THEY ASKED FOR' is not listening either. Counless examples of that.

Completing projects rather than starting them, losing interest, and causing more problems than before they even worked on it. Like putting a traffic bot policy in with no plans to actually enforce it.

Working on stability rather than new shinys. Driven a vehicle across several sims lately?

Thinking things through rather than make a decision and hope it works out (even when residents are saying how it could work). The mass forced migration to Zindra with no plans on how to do it is a prime example.

Seeing users as customers, not as ATMs. Want our money? Give us value for it. One word for an example: XStreetSL

In short, I would be hard pressed to think of anything I have been thankfull for from LL in the past year or so. I have spent the year arguing with Lindens over one silly policy or another, wasting a lot of my time to get them to deal with tickets that are no-brainers (for which the answer is just a run-around), and having Lindens tell me something works for them when it is quite clearly broken (like teleports in a region mysteriously borked for everyone in it except the support Linden that tested it). The *only* reason I stay is because my friends do, the moment all of them leave ...

None of those other areas enjoy a 50% tier discount though .

An empty "virtual campus" noone cares about doesn't generate LL any income (it might even end up costing them) whereas any other empty fill-in-the-blank does.

/hijack on

Thank you, Argent and DanielRaven!

My heritage is Celtic, mostly Irish, and Celtic music calls to my soul. I always liked folk music as well in the genre of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

I would not have clicked the link if Argent hadn't said it was nice music...when I heard it, I immediately fell in love with the song and raced to itunes to try to find it. To my delight, the band is Emerald Rose. I'd never heard of this group until I met my Partner who introduced me to their music via the song he dedicated to me, "The Queen of All Argylle," which was our "spotlight" dance at our reception. No wonder this song "spoke" to me, so thank you, Daniel for using "The Hills of America" as the background to your film and to Argent for commenting on the song. Back to itunes...

/hijack off

Technically true .... but they still had to pay tier on both parcels if they kept the old one. We all know tier is the largest cost of a parcel anyway.

I agree with you if a "virtual campus" (and I'm assuming you mean RL universities creating a presence in SL, much as some RL businesses have or had in the past) is doing absolutely nothing *and* SL is not charging them for land.** I have not personally checked out this type of institution in SL but have read that some universities (Harvard was specifically mentioned as having a re-creation of one of its buildings in SL and classes being held there) are in SL. I would have to research more than just that bit I read to see exactly how they are being utilized, if at all, but my first guess would be as an adjunct to their curricula and/or for classes dealing with virtual worlds to experience the environment. (Maybe this is where all our "I am conducting research" threads come from. )

I am in a group that is contacted from time to time for surveys and for awhile about a year ago a lot of the surveys asked questions that were obviously by businesses to get an idea if having a SL presence would positively affect RL purchases by people being able to virtually see and wear projected fashion releases, drive a new car to gain insight on what new features attracted people, etc. I recall very early in my SL going to a sim by a RL well-known couture designer (of course I can't remember which one now...lol...but I heard about it on these forums) and it was tumbleweed city. The buildings looked like those one might see in New York City or Rodeo Drive, but they could not be entered, so I didn't know what that was about. I would wager some businesses initially thought this might be a new marketing tool as well as gaining awareness for their brand (and even more sure they were probably wooed by Linden Lab), but after trying it, saw it wasn't viable for them and left.

I would think it is the same for RL universities. They have most likely (almost certainly) been approached by LL; some have come in-world and are testing the waters to see if it provides any enhancement at all to their institution and if not, they will likely leave as well.

**Added the caveat that if the schools are paying for the land/tier and wanted to keep it forever, empty or not, that's no different than other parcels of "xyz type" that you mentioned and again agree with you. On my own sim, 1/4 of it is owned by someone/group that only has a high-rise, office-type building on it with the name of some place I've never heard of (I should Google it). It has been there for the 2 years I've lived there. There is absolutely nothing in the building and no one is ever there; but if whoever owns it is paying tier then LL is getting their money.

Having said all that, I read your comment as addressing *all* education in SL, my personal point of reference being classes that teach useful SL skills which can be all manner of things such as building, texturing, learning photographic software, what to look for in buying land, DJ schools, modeling schools etc.

If you specifically meant the type of RL universities mentioned above *and* they are never used *and* LL is paying the tab, you're right in that being a financially losing proposition for LL, unless it's worth it for them to take that loss, at least temporarily, with the hopes of the exposure attracting other RL schools and putting the tier loss under their "marketing costs" category.

Another point of consideration is, if classes *are* held in these schools, with the article I read about Harvard being my only reference, iirc, the article said something like (paraphrased): ~Harvard has a presence on SL and is holding a few classes in-world.~

If they're just holding a few or even one class, there is a good chance that it would look like it was empty to anyone not there during the several hours of class time.

You also mentioned educational institutions receiving tier discounts, etc. Again, as far as I know, that is only for the universities from RL. Any SL school with which I have been associated, either operates financially from the founder's money, sponsorships by SL businesses, donations or a combination thereof. Some have had to close due to lack on continued operating costs.

The above being my long-winded way of saying, I think we're pretty much in agreement; I just saw "education" and thought you meant *all* types of education/classes in SL.

Reflections?

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_N3W3ksl-Xiw/SxxKnAq5QAI/AAAAAAAAARY/53aTA5Mq05s/Reflection.JPG


http://lh6.ggpht.com/_N3W3ksl-Xiw/S1jkJKppoHI/AAAAAAAAAtI/TKUcTh3ZOHM/s1152/Mirror2.JPG


@Argent & Czari - thank you, local band I know. been to their concerts and bought their CDs (from them, directly) and yes, I like their music obviously

What I expect the most is some kind of OpenID to let the 3rd party sites authenticate residents without using ATMs or other complicated and not so secure ways.

Yes. But not pixelated. And reflectivity needs to be a property of a texture layer. In SL that would roughly equate to seeing your face in someone's shiny latex pants and your face distorted around the shape.

I suspect we will have that in 4 to 6 years. Has to be a video card function.

Oh Lord I hope not. What could be more boring than a bunch of swaydo-pseudo university profs with bollocks for brains swanking around sl?
And for f**k's sake I am actually partnered to one in sl.

Does he wear those button up cardigan sweaters, with the patches on the sleeves?

Not any more. I saw a repeat of Who's Afriad of Virginia Woolf and it worried me.

LOL! Smart girl.

If you're going to quote me, at least have the courtesy to quote my entire comment and not stop mid-sentence.

I was having a friendly debate with Kitty and my entire quote was:



As I said in a previous post on this thread, likes, dislikes, interests, activities, etc. in SL are going to vary greatly. I just stay away from those activities I dislike, participate in the ones I do and...live and let live, eh?