Phantom Avatar Follow up.

Phantom being used for a shield is a secondary issue. It does indeed help with most newby guns but it does nothing for the real guns anyway. However there are many uses for phantom. Why is this something that needs squashed when it should be embraced?

What I can think of are many things that phantom AVs add that there is no other way to do at all. My ghost mini isn't much of a ghost if he rams into everything while he is flying now is he?

When I make a travel mode that makes me cross a sim in 5 seconds or so I REALLY REALLY do not want to be slamming into ridiculously placed unrezzed buildings at that speed bouncing in god knows what direction.

If I am testing physics objects contained inside of something I don't always WANT to be part of the simulation. I often want to be there to witness results to better my objects without my body making it nearly impossible to see how they should be moving around if I wasn't in the way.

Phantom does not prevent land ejection, it does not overcome land access rights, it does not override pushes or impulses, and it does not give people absolutely ANY new tools to grief or harass. It has no practical negatives. The only downside is the immuity to damage that could be very simply fixed by adding damage to llvolumedetect based collisions (which should be there anyway in my opinion).

I have also had people use hollow cage balls on me that unsit you back into them when you move. You then have to find something totally outside of that to get out unless you want to teleport. Phantom takes care of that without any fuss. Even though phantom does help a tad with griefing it is a secondary issue as I said.

To sum it up phantom doesn't allow access to anywhere that setpos movers, alt camera sitting, and sit offsets don't so building entry is a totally moot point. It also is totally not necessary to have it for damage since you can easily add damage to the volumedetect collisions to compliment the physical collision event. Better yet make phantom AVs an official sim flag so it can be disabled in damage zones and islands while left on elsewhere. I can't think of a single thing that a phantom AV prevents that isn't already prevented by something else.

The point of this post is there is no REAL reason not to have this feature and there are many reasons to have it. One of which is that without it travel at any reasonable speed is quite obtuse. I keep seeing people have to do hard workarounds for things that they WANT in this world that should be implimented for convenience as it is. Short range teleporters are a good example as is phantom AV. The sacred question of online worlds is are you making your world more fun to live in with this change or less fun? I would say less fun and I think people who understand this post would agree.

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note: I would have prefered to simply respond to the thread I already posted but that is not permitted so thus this one is born.

An interesting discussion, which I've forwarded to the people who are trying to squash the 'bug'. I'm also going to copy it to the discussion forum for additional feedback.

Robin, if you ever get back to this thread, please consider this:
Allowing, or even forcing agents to be phantom would probably save the simulator a lot of computing cycles, which would let you fit more people in events.

Here's an idea. While the Phantom does come in handy. It would also help if we could prevent things from happening to us that could be considered greifing. Like a push effect that sends a person flying across the freaking grid. Or somethign that prevents Cagers from carrying a person away. Ask for permissions OR give us simpler ways to detect and AR people that use such devices.

*rallies to the cries of "Being phantom ain't a crime !"*

I agree. I am sometimes, rarely, phantom.

It doesn't change my ability to get in to locked houses if I really want to. Not that I do such things of course.

I don't routinely play shooting games, so it makes no difference there.

It makes a huge difference, on occasion, when flying low and having rezzing problems. That's why I use it, and that surely isn't a crime?

We all, including Robin if memory serves, agree that land management, barring, ARing etc. tools are not yet satisfactory, but I'm not sure that being phantom adds to someone's ability to grief another, in fact on the occasions I have been griefed I'm positive NONE of the parties have been phantom, nor has it altered how they've griefed me.

So, I agree, being able to phantom doesn't make people more able to grief, it's exploiting the system. Phantom shielding might stop newbie guns but I bet all the regular shooters have guns that cope... And it has some value for many uses.

As for Eggy's comment do phantom objects ignore physics or disable it? Having av's raise the collision flag and then ignore is undoubtedly easier on the system, having them not raise it at all is even better though...

For those of you reading this it is copied over from the hotline as a followup to:

/invalid_link.html

I reread this post and I realize I sound a bit rude. That was not my intention. I appreciate this being looked into Robin.

That is a misconception (perhaps attributable to the "collisionless crowd" scene in Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash?). The impact that avatars have on the physics engine is minimal compared to the cost of sorting which objects to stream to active SL clients and the sending of those streams.

The good news is that there is lots of room for improvement in the culling and streaming algorithms in the SL simulator enigne. In fact, Doug Linden made some improvements in 1.7 that should provide a noticable reduction in lag caused by large crowds.

The main reason that I know of for preventing phantom avatars is to enforce walls. Yes, you can pass through walls by sitting on an object and then editing that object to a position through the wall, however that exploit will eventually be fixable too (post Havok-2).

As for the usefulness of phantom avatars:

I agree that phantom avatars would be handy as a building mode tool. It may eventually be possible to have phantom avatars be a feature that could be enabled on a per-parcel basis, or maybe only enabled for the parcel owner or group member. It may be possible to allow no collisions with your own objects. All of this would have to be post Havok-2 features.

High speed travel.... Yes the SL experience does not handle high speed travel very well, and the primary failure is in the streaming of the terrain and objects. If the important stuff was actually streamed properly then it might be possible to avoid it. We're working on it. I'm not positive that a lot of high-speed phantom avatars crop-dusting the ground is what we want to support in SL, however perhaps we could allow high speed avatars to become collisionless when flying higher than some threshold height above the ground. Of course, then it would be possible for anyone to punch into the middle of a skybox, which may be okay.

Hollow cages are grief and I think need to be addressed at such. Better tools for cracking down on grief and for preventing grief are needed, but I'm not sure that phantom avatar powers are the correct solution for cage guns.

I know havoc 2 should fix the ability to pass through walls while flying at high speed so that particular entry issue is already moot. However, correct me if I am missing something but even if you cripple non phantomed setpos objects to make it not able to move through prims (thus once again breaking a lot of great objects) you would also have to break sit offsets and the ability to sit on things when there is an obstacle in your path (alt camera sitting on something inside). Sit teleporters are one of the best things in the game for those wanting to direct others to a specific spot. The ability to sit on something with an object in your path is vital to avoid many issues where you would otherwise be trapped.

It just seems like instead of coming up with a better solution for entry problems we are looking to cripple everything else until it isn't an issue any more. Forgive a bad metaphore but it is as if you want to cripple the dog because he chases cars instead of building him a fence.

SL already has pretty capable barring abilities in the form of land access rights. If you want to allow land owners the ability to enforce building laws allow them to make prims whose volume enforces these rules as if it were a small moveable parcel. People could fill rooms they want private with these barring cubes that enforce non entry for anyone not on an access list. You can already somewhat do this by making a transparent 10x10 (or whatever size) prim who's llvolumedetect checks against a list and ejects anyone not on the list when the door is locked (a product I intend to market soon). However it would be much better to have people who try to enter the room just be unable to the same way we are unable to setpos, sit target, phantom, or any other method into a parcel we are not allowed in.

Andrew,

The only argument I've seen which even remotely appears to support preventing phantom AVs is the issue of privacy/making walls work.

Unless it's impossible to code, I still don't see why this can't be overcome by adding an attribute to prims which forces collisions with phantom AVs. Maybe this is a limitation of Havoc, but I'm just saying, allow phantom AVs as official and default prims to not collide with phantom AVs, but allow content creators to override that where specific builds require it. As others have pointed out, there are already land security settings to prevent access by AVs. If the goal is just to keep someone from phantoming through your build, so what if they do??? What's the harm in it? And if it really is important, it should be something that the code provides for without being forced on everybody.

I like to go phantom when working on my own builds. It is a great convenience.

Call SL a game or don't; it really doesn't matter. People come here for many reasons, but one thing in common is that they're all having FUN. What makes the world fun is different for different people, but our ability to create interesting content is already subject to extreme limitations, whether by the physics engine or by policy. Adding new restrictions does NOT enhance the user experience.

I am paying some $50 a month now, between basic fees and tier. That's more than my cable modem, more than my gym membership, more than I spend on movies each month, and I pay that money both for my own enjoyment, and to create content that your other customers can enjoy. This kind of heavy-handed decision-making makes me seriously have to reconsider what I'm doing here.

The issue here is not just fixing one bug. Bugs cause client crashes. Bugs make prims disappear or move around for no reason. Bugs have the effect of diminishing the user experience. Removing the ability to make AVs phantom diminishes the user experience for many merely to enhance it for the few who want to enforce walls on a world that should be without boundaries.

Let's examine some of the facts that might confront a new user:
You can fly, but you can only fly so high. You can teleport, but you can't teleport just anywhere. You're going to end up at a 'hub' that might be miles from where you're heading. You can build, but nothing too big or too small. You can make guns, but you can't use them against other people, even though nobody can really 'die'. You can block people from your land but only up to a certain height. You can build in 'space' but you can't turn off gravity.

LOOK, but don't TOUCH. TOUCH, but don't TASTE. TASTE, but don't SWALLOW!

Don't shoot me. I'm just the messenger. I guarantee there are hundreds or thousands of your users out there with the same feelings. I understand the reasons behind some of these limitations, whether technical or due to policy. Still, if I'd known about all of these as a newbie, I would not have stuck around for very long and certainly wouldn't be paying my current land use fees. I just feel that as the world grows, you can either continue to add limitations until it's no fun for anyone, or you can give us the tools to allow for all the different activities someone might want .

Keep going down this road, and sooner or later, you'll be preventing AVs from flying so they can't jump over the walls of a maze. Oh, wait! That's already an option in the land properties... Exactly like we're asking on this phantom thing.

Disabling the ability to sit through walls would break functionality for many vehicles, and it would help griefers. They could build a sphere around you that would be impossible to exit.

However, perhaps having some sort of impossible-to-enter areas might be better... Like a cross between the land banning and prim walls.

Just a thought... Could we have a mode something like "hyperspace", where the client doesn't stream terrain or objects? Make it available at 768m+, and then people can warp along without the client attempting to load everything, and reduced lag.

Or, we could just have direct-to-sim teleports, and this wouldn't be an issue.

Any further official word on this? I am very interested to know what LL is thinking.

When llVolumeDetect on attachments was fixed i was very disapointed at the time i was working on a FPS where respawning in a city envirorment was required, we were going to use it for that. Make the avatar phantom then just use llMoveToTarget, quick dirty efficiant.

Suggestion on how to regulate it:
Have it parcle regulated.
It would look something like the parcle regulation box.

A checkbox enabling the list box below for regulating the becoming phantom.
A box granting individuals and groups permission to become phantom.

There would be a short timer, say 15 seconds, a person could remain phantom in a property they didn't haver permission to be phantom in before they automaticly became solid again.

The timer would allow for high speed transport devices at low altitude without adversly hurting restrictions. The script functions would all for security systems to help regulate griefers.

llParcelAddAgentPhantom
llParcelRemoveAgentPhantom
llGetParcelAgentPhantomList
llSetParcelAgentPhantomList
llGetAgentInfo() & AGENT_PHANTOM

(also i must say it's really fun to drive a hover motorcycle across the land and through building when both are phantom, you hit a high spot of land and fly up 10 meters from hover up)

How about we remove its current "bug" status, and make an LSL command of it?

Something like llPhantom( integer status ) would do the trick nicely... and would make it much easier to implement. Plus, this might decrease the number of people trying to sell phantom devices.

(sarcasm) Awesome! Good thing that horrible exploit was fixed. (/sarcasm)

It would seem that LL is taking the father knows best approach on this. The content creators, scripters, paying customers, and users of said objects must be missing some piece of wisdom they are holding back from us. It is already removed in 1.7 preview and they seem to ignore any requests I make for a valid reason on why it is so bad. Beyond vague claims of 'it makes certain things not work' or pointless breaking and entering issues that 4 other things already make a moot point I have yet to hear any compelling reason for not having this. They expect us to create the world that attracts paying customer but then break our creations by removing welcome features rather than fixing the real issues that need attention.


(sarcasm)
It makes sense to me. I mean why buy new shoes when you can just hobble yourself instead? Why spend time on fruitful changes like adding the ability to create server prims with static keys or removing the universal ability for jerks to push you so hard you have to relog just because they feel like it when they could instead remove your ability to easily get around by not slamming into slow rezzing objects?!
(/sarcasm)

Such things makes me seriously reconsider the worth of my time spent in SL.

Concidering how everyone have allready raised the points I was about to raise on why Phantom is actually a Good Thing, i'll settle just for listing what uses I have for it today, and what I am just going to lose once 1.7 rolls in:

- Faster game moderation - Using Phantom, I was able to reach places in the game arena in question much faster to resolve issues and conflicts, rather then having to fly and walk around obstacles or ask people for a teleport invite and letting it do its thing.

- Free motion while building. - A good example would be Burning Man. Just check out the maze of caves we have to deal with over there - working with Phantom allows me to walk around freely and script objects without having to take detours or edit myself on a box.

Hell, even Active World is about to implement this as an official Building Mode feature.

- Direct flight to destination - As soon as I rez on a telehub, I can bee-line toward my destination regardless of objects or buildings. Especialy with the current "telehub malls" that are practicly designed to trap you in their area, the Phantom feature allows me to just get where I want to go. High speed or low speed, there's no shorter route then a straight line.

- Fix embarrasing post-teleports - Someone TP you into a wall, out of a house, or inside the decorative fireplace? Phantom and walk out. Problem solved.

- Walk in a dense crowd - I've been using Phantom -alot- whenever I had to cross a large crowd of people during a massive event without resorting to flight, most commonly in laggy sims. That basicly allowed me to cross the entire amount of people without bumping into anyone or having to play tango with lag as I try to avoid avatars.

- Scripted teleports - I was a developer on the game Strife mentioned, and indeed - we were planning to use llVolumeDetect phantoming as a feature in the gamepack for respawning players in various positions in the level. Good thing we didnt, because the thing got fixed less then a month later.

- ... And much much more.

All of these functions are useful, and legit. The only true problem here is potential griefing and rule breaking for certain activities that require the ability to block people from crossing into specific zones.

But both of these issues can be fixed -without- nerfing "phantom" completly:
If Phantom becomes an official feature, it should be possible to:

- Make phantom still volnurable to damage bullets
- Add a parcel option for disableing phantom in this location
- Add an llGetAgentInfo() AGENT_PHANTOM bitfield for allowing scripts to determine if the user is phantom and react accordingly (for example, in a game - fail the player for "cheating" or refusing input until the player unphantom.)
- And more.

I also somewhat like Keknehv Psaltery's idea of solving this issue by implementing a sort of a "Hyperspace". Its not such a bad idea for solving the flight dilema.

Please dont kill this useful feature just because its easier to disable it completly rather then making it an official feature with proper, established restrictions.

I used this "bug" often, and would be nice to see some official feature that's similar.

I like some of the ideas here, and don't really have any ideas to improve on any of it yet.

Doesn't that take us right back to purposely obstructive telehub malls?

Not when parcel preferences only effect lower altitudes the way they do. Just like you can fly over a no flight parcel or a parcel you are banned from. The problem isn't normal buildings at telehub malls it is 200 meter tall towers and billboards.

It's a shame negative ratings are being pulled from 1.7.. These Tele-Mall people should be shot on sight. In my opinion, what they are doing is "disruptive" and consequently, griefing people by "intentionally" "blocking" their path.

You don't fight the impediment (telehub mall blocking you) over a freedom (teleporting and flying to your destination) with removing/restricting/regulating whatever is impending on it (negrating / ARing) but by adding another freedom (phantom).

Just my 0.02L$

Don't really care about phantom at all, it wasn't a intended "feature". While your all add it, why dont you beg for a llIWinEverything() or llGiveMeMoney(). Things like this arn't part of the game because they do in fact make certain things too easy. I'd vote for them to take away the ability to fly, but hey thats me.

This is NOT a game in the conventional sense. If epople need to create games with these "development" tools, then they need every possible llIWinEverything() tool that is available. The Developers need God-Like abilities to design-create-manage their worlds.

If we were talking about User Interface modifications for World of Warcraft, I would agree with you wholeheartily Stone but this is more of a development environment where people make things for other people to "play" than a predefined game with a singular purpose in mind where the users have no say in what is being developed.

By limiting what can be done at the foundation level of development, you are severely crippling what can be done at the abstract/end-user level.

Stone, you're obviously very new at this. Phantom doesn't let you cheat, it lets you go places easier. And since you want to take away flying, I would assume that you live in a hole in a private sim. Most people actually move, and walking would be completely unacceptable.