Psyke Phaeton

Lets spend $1.74 together and maybe it won't be so bad??

It would never work. We control the client, forced advertising will fail.

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Tyche Shepherd

With the current open client model yes - But a step back to a closed client (possibly with a 3rd party licensed client model ) and possible ad-free premium clients and it could work .

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Psyke Phaeton

The client hacking culture is too ingrained and forced advertising would just give more incentive. Horse has bolted.

Beebo Brink

Until LL has considerably improved the grid performance, and provided some value besides a stipend for Premium membership, I think the free accounts should continue. Right now, other than as a requirement for land ownership, it serves little purpose and I have the sinking feeling many people would consider SL simply isn't worth $10/mo.

After reading through months of extensive, heated debate on this issue, I've migrated over to the "allow free accounts" side of the issue. They provide the economic stimulus that funds large portions of the grid tier, all of which is money that ends up in LL's pocket.

The one change I would make, however, is to limit Inventory size for free accounts. If you want to store 25,000 objects in your Inventory, pay up. If you can keep under 5,000 items, then stay free. That limit alone could improve grid performance, at least for individuals who don't seem to get how that load degrades their experience.

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Joshua Nightshade

Aodhan McDunnough

I really really like this proposal. It can be done and it's fair enough even to free accounts.

But before we can ask LL to do something like this some issues have to be addressed.

• Trash should count towards inventory otherwise Trash will be used as an infinite storage space. If you get spammed with objects you have to clear out trash in order to accept more items.
• Problem: objects packed in objects will still count as one object. So if one is industrious one can conceivably have infinite storage by nested object storing (object in object in object ...) thus getting around the limits. Inventory loading however is the same whether nested or not, so we have no change in impact with object nesting.

At any rate maybe just simply limiting the visible inventory count will be a step in the right direction, if only to reduce load.

caroline ra

YES YES.....just like the BBC

Beebo Brink

I have no problem with nested storage. It keeps Inventory at a manageable level on more than just a visual level, at least from what I've read. So if you want to keep 50k worth of stuff stored in 10 objects, go for it.

I think I also read that keeping objects in nested folders also reduces your traveling load. But don't quote me on that one.

Aodhan McDunnough

I don't think it reduces the traveling load but it certainly reduces the time it takes to open the inventory and get a complete list.

Cocoanut Koala

Oh, don't get me wrong!

I have no hopes. None at all. As far as I can tell, the Tao is going nowhere.

Nothing is going to happen that Philip doesn't like. He is going to have his little utopian workplace even though it results in a hellhole for his customers.

And I think you have very optimistic assumptions about how the employees pick what they do, based on how things work in your workplace.

As for the oft-stated reasoning that not everyone can work on everything, you miss the point.

They need to hire more of the "database and network programmers," and lay off more of the "graphics client programmers."

coco

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Cocoanut Koala

I don't like paying for them, either. But here's the thing: LL doesn't care if we have to pay for them, while paying for us, or even care about us paying for anything.

I think their long-term plan doesn't involve us paying for anything. It involves getting corporations to buy islands, and everyone else to come in and look at the ads; i.e., learn about and interact with the brand.

We - and our $10, or however much - are completely extraneous and expendable. We are not in the long-term plan.

I think they are just holding onto us, and giving us just enough attention to keep our money coming in while they "still need it."

coco

Cocoanut Koala

Well, that SORT of gets around it; sometimes. Stuff packed in boxes is very likely over time to become unavailable to access.

coco

Aodhan McDunnough

[1] Not optimistic. Given what we know of the ratios of graphics to network programmers the ratio of the kinds of fixes we see IMO reflects that they are operating similarly to how my office operates.

SL used to need more or less a balanced number between the two groups of programmers. Of course that ratio is no longer optimal for SL at this stage.

I do agree somewhat with what you say in [2] that they need more database/network programmers ... and that's precisely what they announced right?

Ten

ESC uses a HUD on the OnRez client for CSI that is virtually undetachable. You have to know the fun little command to get it to go away... if I remember right, it's something akin to /99999 detach

...which isn't widely publicized.

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Cocoanut Koala

Yes, I believe they asked for more people to "save the grid."

coco

Aodhan McDunnough

Now I have two linked guesses here. One would be that they need the manpower (the numbers) for grid maintenance. We're talking an army of sysads.

Second is maybe they're hoping a hotshot or two will be among them that comes up with the magical solution that would vastly improve management of traffic.

I'm very much interested in how this thing will turn out. No one else is in the very unenviable position LL is in having to manage that huge volume of real-time streaming data and assets over such a large network. Not even Google has to face that challenge. For this I am not looking at SL as a service or a world, but rather as a data routing conundrum.

I am watching because if someone manages to find that magical solution, a new way of handling the assets over a contiguous grid, that someone may have found a solution that could greatly benefit the web in the future.

Kalia Meiklejohn

That avatar is too cute, please change it, it's distracting me.

Kalia

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SLShop-A-Holic

Brenda Archer

I 100% agree. LL needs to think of themselves as a HOSTING COMPANY. By hosting I mean something like a website hosting company, but in 3D.

In fact based on some things he's said (about advertisers needing to be participants in a social world, and respectful of its culture), I would bet the new CEO does get it, to a degree. But my fear is that the view is one of SL as Web 2.0, a la MySpace or eHarmony, rather than as a new type of hosting. I hope my guess is off on this.

SL is too different from anything that's going in 2D to just apply tired old marketing assumptions to it, as has been proved over and over. I get frustrated at the way too many people can't get their brains around a new idea, but isn't the definition of insanity doing the same Fail again and again?

Brenda Archer

I should add. I would support the idea of having everyone have to pay 10 dollars a month, if three conditions are applied:

- you only have to pay once for each additional avatar belonging to the same billing identity, and alts made this way have limited inventory unless they also become monthly paid accounts

- for all countries which have active participants in SL, there should be payment methods available. I've heard of people who can't pay even if they want to, just because of where they live. If this means making it so one could send a money order, so be it. Easily billed customers could get a small relative discount to reflect this.

This seems to cover the requirement of not locking anyone out permanently, and it wouldn't force people to retire useful alts.

Which is worse, no trial accounts or the possibility of ongoing griefing and bot camping? I don't have an opinion on this one. It's not clear to me that letting people try SL for free is a good idea until the newbie experience vastly improves.

Aaron Edelweiss

heh, funny, someone should pitch it to them that way.

zenbones2000

I think any solutions to the problems with SL have to do with identifying who their customer base really is.

As I said long ago on the SL Blog, you can't target small business or corporations that are outside the SL environment because SL has been dragging itself around like a sick dog performance-wise for the nearly 2 years that I have been here ... when 15,000 was all it took to create "asset server issues." The standards just need to be a lot higher. No one who wants to keep their job would recommend a meeting or event in SL - because Lord knows if the system will let you in and can be relied upon to stay live (without all the "issues" that have been gone over and over here).

So who is the customer base? US. Whose problems need attending to (ASAP)? OURS.

I'm going to start a new thread ... "Why don't they just fix that?" Repairing 50 easy-to-fix things would have a lot more impact on the subjective experience here. On the CUSTOMER experience, to OUR experience.

That is the ball that the eyes have to be focused on. Someone, I don't care who, needs to be going down that JIRA list looking for things that have been there for ages and bloody well assign someone to fix them.

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SL is what happens to you while LL is making other plans

Cocoanut Koala

Well, that right there is the crux of all our problems. Assigning things to people is a no-no at LL.

coco

zenbones2000

A good CEO would fix that so fast it would make your head spin. SL is not like other development environments; it needs some discipline. You can't just have programmers picking up bits and pieces of a persistent asset server problem. A team needs to be in place, a lot of analysis carried out, a clear strategy with long-term goals mapped out, then some serious implementation (hopefully NOT on the main grid) on both the software and hardware fronts. That is huge undertaking, and the reason we still have the same problems (only worse) at 80,000 that we had at 8,000 is that no one has taken the time to map out a detailed strategy. Rather, we have dozens of bandages that have been applied to a non-scalable system in an attempt to keep it kinda on it's feet (nerfing all the shiny programmers' efforts in the process).

Unfortunately with Philip in charge of Product and Product Strategy, the new COO (what he really is) is completely hamstrung. From everything I have seen, I have no reason to believe the man (edit: Philip) has ever had a strategic thought.

No change is LIKELY but I continue to try to be optimistic. SL already is a pretty cool place ... but it could be SO much better with a little management in place over product development. SL is far too much a toy box at the moment. Hopefully M knows about this place and has time to read it ... there are a lot of good thoughts for him to noodle over here. Maybe for whatever reason he has the clout to make some real change. But that means taking product development and strategy out of Philip's hands. Maybe now that M is on board the Board can force the issue, and make Philip head poobah on technical consulting.

Sorry for long post

Nika Talaj

Coco, I love you, but do you have personal knowledge of how work is assigned at LL? You keep mentioning the Tao blurb in this way, and I think you've lost perspective on it. It is, after all, only a couple of paragraphs in the middle of the recruiting blurb on LL's Employment web page.

Do you go to the bug triage meetings inworld? If so, how do you reconcile the way Lindens there speak of prioritizing and assigning bugs in their internal Jira system, with your assertion that no one assigns work at LL? The way they speak about it is in line with every other software group I've ever been part of. I've never heard a Linden say: oh wait, so-and-so refuses to fix bugs.

Also, the company LL bought for Windlight has, to my personal knowledge, a fairly normal software development culture. So at least that group of engineers within LL gets work assigned to them.

People at LL have job descriptions, Coco. I'm sure the Tao results in people having more say in what project they work on, but once you are on a project that is in a mode where they are fixing bugs, you fix bugs.

I've managed a lot of software groups, Coco, and my take is that LL fixes a lot of bugs for a group their size. Of course, their bug creation rate is extremely high. So, overall, they fall behind rather faster than a well-run organization does.

But I wouldn't attribute that to the Tao. It is only a recruiting blurb, Coco, and no sane employee pays a lot of attention to those.

Cocoanut Koala

No, I haven't been to those meetings. If they have talked about assigning bugs - if a boss of some sort or a team leader of some sort actually assigns things to different employees - I will stand corrected.

However, everything else I've ever read from any of the Lindens - including the words of the new CEO - indicates that does not happen.

coco