[Beebo Brink]

I belong to a few SL-related groups in LinkedIn, and one in particular emphasizes corporate involvement in SL. So I wasn't particular surprised to see the following discussion topic posted.

Just had an outstanding seminar with Madhavi Linden, Glenn Linden, and the newest Linden, Amanda--she's specifically marketing SL to the RL business community.

This isn't exactly breaking news, of course. If anything, I'm rather amused that anyone outside of LL is still banging that drum. Until I hear of some new paradigm for grid involvement, my skepticism runs strong. SL still provides the most awkward, time-intensive platform for the least ROI of any technology I've used in a business setting.

[Ned Easterwood]

I know at one time Cisco was finding SL a good place for interacting with customers. Anyone know if they are still in-world?

[Tyche Shepherd]

Cisco still have 4 regions on the Grid, though IIRC the new LL business offering is based on the idea of Private Grids, not visible from the Main Grid

[Jahar Aabye]

Where I have seen RL businesses interacting in SL is through private in-world businesses rather than through SL. Black Ops has contacts with a number of RL businesses, Springfield Armory sends Grey their dealer pack every year, and tried to get us to include promotional material in our Springfield XD pistols. Blackhawk, a company that makes combat gear, has contacted us about making some of their apparel in-world as well.

In the long run, I think that many businesses may try this approach, rather than going through LL. LL is a service provider, not a content provider, and one problem that many of the RL companies that have tried to move into SL have had is a lack of content or a lack of ability to create content, not to mention a lack of understanding of the system and the market.

[Sveid Heidenstam]

To my mind it seems the Lindens themselves lack an understanding of the system and the market. To such an extent that I firmly believe they are severely limiting the appeal of their platform in ways they could very easily fix.

[Beebo Brink]

They're sitting on a crack den of a social networking/fantasy island platform and yet they keep tagging after corporate drones.

[Elanthius Flagstaff]

I wrote about this at some length before. LL are absolutely batshit crazy trying to get businesses involved in SL. It's the worst possible place to try to hold a teleconference. How is one single aspect of SL better than a simple video conference? There are pretty much no collaborative working tools in SL. People have to jump through ridiculous hoops just to share builds and the tech requirements to run SL are absolutely through the roof. It's a total waste.

What LL needs to do is invest a little tiny bit more time in making SL run slicker, faster, more stable, better graphics. Not a lot of work we're nearly there. Then you can use SL as a gaming platform. I'm not a big gamer but it feels like we're tantalisingly close to being able to recreate Myst or Neverwinter Nights or Doom or maybe even Crysis in SL. Obviously the graphics would be shittier than state of the art games no matter what happens but the massive opportunity for the players to create custom content for these games, or entirely new games from scratch... it's incredible.

As you said, SL is already full of the kinds of idiots that like to fly around shooting stuff if only they weren't hobbled by such crappy scripting and graphics you could really see that sort of thing explode in SL.

[Sveid Heidenstam]

Originally Posted by Beebo Brink

They're sitting on a crack den of a social networking/fantasy island platform and yet they keep tagging after corporate drones.

Exactly right.

I've little doubt that should the Lindens ever wise up and pursue those markets aggressively, improving creation tools and the user experience in that direction, they would find as yet unimagined success.

I share in the skepticism that SL as a corporate platform will be anything more than a soon forgotten fad, an unfortunate misstep for ill-informed businesses which quickly proves inadequate compared to more mundane forms of teleconferencing.

[BJ Tunwarm]

Originally Posted by Beebo Brink

They're sitting on a crack den of a social networking/fantasy island platform and yet they keep tagging after corporate drones.

Probably a case of the investors don't understand addicted gamers but do see dollar signs when the word "corporate" comes up. When the market gets back together expect to see things twist off after the next buzz word no matter how stupid it gets.

[Bard Jameson]

We can't even get regular online meeting software to work right - SL would be an absolute nightmare.

Though I would like to show up to a spec review as a nine-foot tall, hooved, horned demon. Or maybe a hawt furry gurl? Something new each meeting.

[Rev Eponym]

Personally, I think SL still doesn't have a 'killer app'. LL would like us to believe that SL is the killer app, but that's like Netscape telling you that HTTP is the thing that will 'make the WWW work!' It really is the medium, not the message. In terms of business use, I still get the same vibe as the Web had around 1995, before Amazon or eBay. "What can you do with it--??" Nothing much, really. Everything you would normally expect is a jury-rig or workaround.

I've managed to get involved with my company's working group on virtual worlds tech, and the hitches involved in doing simple things inside SL -- like viewing PDF publications, FFS -- have not yet become apparent to them. I'm not speaking my mind, as long as it means I can run SL on my business computer.

However. This week we're having a little conference call where Mark Kingdon will be speaking to us about SL and 'enterprise' and all that.

Any bright ideas for things to say to Mr M? Besides, "Fix the %#$%^# Grid!", of course.

.

[Raindrop Drinkwater]

Originally Posted by Elanthius Flagstaff

What LL needs to do is invest a little tiny bit more time in making SL run slicker, faster, more stable, better graphics. Not a lot of work we're nearly there. Then you can use SL as a gaming platform. I'm not a big gamer but it feels like we're tantalisingly close to being able to recreate Myst or Neverwinter Nights or Doom or maybe even Crysis in SL. Obviously the graphics would be shittier than state of the art games no matter what happens but the massive opportunity for the players to create custom content for these games, or entirely new games from scratch... it's incredible.

I was telling Abyssin last week, that my ideal Second Life would be a blend of what it is now (user created content, land "ownership") and of MMORPG (with an embedded fighting system, maybe a continent or two with quests, monsters...). And meshes, much better meshes. Well, one can dream, anyway.

[Jahar Aabye]

As you said, SL is already full of the kinds of idiots that like to fly around shooting stuff if only they weren't hobbled by such crappy scripting and graphics you could really see that sort of thing explode in SL.

Hehehe, some of us can script weapons that you can run around and shoot all you like without lagging the sim. Unfortunately, however, your generalization about the state of weapons in SL is unfortunately all too real. Some people blame LSL and its limitations and inefficiencies, but I don't. I blame the scripters who don't put the time and effort into making their code as efficient as possible....especially the ones who sit there and turn around and blame LSL for their shortcomings.

But it is possible to have an FPS-quality experience in SL. You have to use well-scripted weapons, turn off your bling and AOs and all other unnecessary scripted crap, and you should be good to go.

But this underscores one of the main issues that SL has: Linden Lab can only do so much in terms of boosting efficiency and performance. They aren't the ones creating content. It is imperative that the content creators out there take the responsibility to make their products as efficient as possible, make sure that they perform as best as possible, and try to work within the system as best they can.

Instead of waiting for LL to improve their simulators to accomodate our code, we need to make sure that we're improving our code to fit within LL's simulators.

[Elanthius Flagstaff]

Originally Posted by Raindrop Drinkwater

I was telling Abyssin last week, that my ideal Second Life would be a blend of what it is now (user created content, land "ownership") and of MMORPG (with an embedded fighting system, maybe a continent or two with quests, monsters...). And meshes, much better meshes. Well, one can dream, anyway.

I built a questing system out of bots once. You'd meet bots standing around in a sim doing NPC stuff and they'd talk to you and ask you to bring them something, like a pair of shoes or a special shield. Then you'd find the item hidden in the sim somewhere, bring it to the bot and give it to them and they'd pay you some small amount of L$, or possibly give you the next item in a quest chain.

It was pretty basic but I spent so much time working around problems in SL. Like, how do you know that item X is really the item that solves the quest and not something the user hacked together. Also I didn't have the energy to write all the quests so it sort of fell apart after going nowhere.

But anyway, the point is I'm a pretty crappy programmer and I felt like I had the beginnings of a proper questing system but it probably needed back end support from SLs infrastructure (or a better programmer) to be really awesome.

[Jahar Aabye]

It's definitely possible. Nargus Asturias has a little "Raptor Quest" at Dinosaur Park that's like that. You pick up a headset inside the store, and then walk into the park, and a raptor jumps out from the bushes and asks for your help. It's a lot of fun, although it's rather brief.

In general, PvP is a bit easier to do than NPC interactions, simply because os the difficulties in programming bots. Simple zombies that rez and chase you and you shoot at them and kill them are simple enough, though.

[Lordfly Digeridoo]

Originally Posted by Raindrop Drinkwater

I was telling Abyssin last week, that my ideal Second Life would be a blend of what it is now (user created content, land "ownership") and of MMORPG (with an embedded fighting system, maybe a continent or two with quests, monsters...). And meshes, much better meshes. Well, one can dream, anyway.

AND A PROPER LIGHTING SYSTEM

[Isablan Neva]

Originally Posted by Beebo Brink

They're sitting on a crack den of a social networking/fantasy island platform and yet they keep tagging after corporate drones.

I suppose that's where the money is. It is apparent that only a certain number of people are willing to pay for SL. If the case were otherwise, lots of us would be making a lot more money. Even the top level of content creators have seen some declines. There is a ceiling to how many regular users are willing to pay. Gwyneth Llewellyn pointed out that the number of premium users in SL topps out at 100,000 and doesn't budge too much no matter how many new users are joining. I gather that LL hasn't yet figured out a way to make premium memberships worthwhile for users and profitable for LL at the same time.

This is a problem. WoW can bank on their monthly subscription fees - LL can't and seems to be unable to grow the number of paying users.

[Ciaran Laval]

Originally Posted by Elanthius Flagstaff

Then you can use SL as a gaming platform. I'm not a big gamer but it feels like we're tantalisingly close to being able to recreate Myst or Neverwinter Nights or Doom or maybe even Crysis in SL. Obviously the graphics would be shittier than state of the art games no matter what happens but the massive opportunity for the players to create custom content for these games, or entirely new games from scratch... it's incredible.

I wrote about this before and was reliably informed they're some way off being able to be in this position, but they're working on it. I feel this is the direction they should be heading.

Let Rivers Run Red deal with the corporates with their immersive workspaces.

[Beebo Brink]

Originally Posted by Isablan Neva

This is a problem. WoW can bank on their monthly subscription fees - LL can't and seems to be unable to grow the number of paying users.

Of course SL has monthly subscriptions. It's not premium membership, though, it's land tier.

LL has so much scope for making land more affordable and appealing (which they are belated trying to catch up on).

One of the most useful accommodations would be providing more granular land ownership tiers. Currently, the jump from 4k to 8k to 16k discourages people from growing incrementally. Dedicated, savvy users can get around those disincentives using group memberships and premium alts, but that's advanced SL.

[Sveid Heidenstam]

Originally Posted by Rev Eponym

Any bright ideas for things to say to Mr M? Besides, "Fix the %#$%^# Grid!", of course.

.

It occurs to me that many of the ways in which the Lindens hinder SL's usefulness for its primary user base will also work against corporate users.

The crippled physics software should be a larger concern than it seems to be. SL uses Havoc 4 now, but other than fewer sim crashes and better sim border crossings, can you really tell? Why are we unable to make use of the physics engine beyond that, setting weight for objects and avatars and giving it an inworld effect?

Scripted animation overriders are an obscene waste of resources, and yet the Lindens seem to have no interest in providing a built in animation system to replace them. Using the default animations makes SL look horribly unprofessional.

Why is streaming video linked to the parcel and not the prim? And why are there not more media options, such as PDF readers and more advanced document sharing?

Sim hosted NPC bots are a must whether someone is scripting a first person shooter, an RPG, or a training tutorial for medical students or firefighters.

Jahar is quite right that the Lindens can only do so much for performance when faced with poor scripting by content creators, but it is also true that the Lindens do not support content creators nearly as much as they should. I must disagree that it is possible to have an FPS experience that matches that of a professionally made game. One would be hard pressed to create an experience comparable to Doom, Quake and beyond are right out.

I would not disagree with Isablan's statement that only certain people are currently willing to pay for SL, yet I would suggest that this is because SL lacks any sort of "killer app" as Rev Eponym says. I would go further to suggest SL lacks any sort of killer app due to it being pretty much impossible to create one with the current tools.

I should say that I am confident that SL is capable of far more than many give it credit, yet it is what is not possible, and why, which astounds me.

[Jahar Aabye]

The crippled physics software should be a larger concern than it seems to be. SL uses Havoc 4 now, but other than fewer sim crashes and better sim border crossings, can you really tell?

Actually yes. Anytime I have to deal with object-object penetration (oooh, that sounds diiiirty), the difference with H4 is noticeable. And don't discount the issue of fewer sim crashes, that's a major point. It's no longer possible to bring a sim to its knees with an object that rezzes a bunch of physical prims.

Why is streaming video linked to the parcel and not the prim?

It has to do with how the media gets to your computer. If it were linked to the prim, it would actually most likely involve a lot more lag.

Sim hosted NPC bots are a must whether someone is scripting a first person shooter, an RPG, or a training tutorial for medical students or firefighters.

Well, it depends, actually. There are a decent number of PvP FPS sims in SL that don't require bots. Also, "bot" in this situation can range from an actual "bot" avatar that signs in (but which then increases agent time and requires a computer somewhere to host it), or a scripted object in the shape of a person (which can also lead to lag depending on how it's scripted).

I must disagree that it is possible to have an FPS experience that matches that of a professionally made game. One would be hard pressed to create an experience comparable to Doom, Quake and beyond are right out.

Ummmm, what you mean is that you haven't seen one yet Check out the region Pure Combat. It's possible, you just have to do it right and have a good scripter.

[Lordfly Digeridoo]

SL is great as a platform, almost.

There's just too many "almosts" to make anything more elaborate than a heavily-DMed RPG.

[Khamon]

Originally Posted by Sveid

Why is streaming video linked to the parcel and not the prim?

Please elaborate on "how the media gets to your computer" and why linking the stream to a prim would cause more lag.

[Lordfly Digeridoo]

Originally Posted by Jahar Aabye

It has to do with how the media gets to your computer. If it were linked to the prim, it would actually most likely involve a lot more lag.

Absolutely not. Activeworlds, a 3d user-created world (using meshes even) in 1996, had special media objects that allowed you to link text files, midi files, and picture files by simply specifying a URL. They also let you type directly onto the object, allowing for signs easily.

LL just doesn't want to do it. It's a 12 year old technology, at least.

Ummmm, what you mean is that you haven't seen one yet Check out the region Pure Combat. It's possible, you just have to do it right and have a good scripter.

300ms latency does not a fun FPS make. Let me know when the combat is frenetic enough to compare to Quake 3 arena, and accurate enough.

[Jahar Aabye]

Please elaborate on "how the media gets to your computer" and why linking the stream to a prim would cause more lag.

Absolutely not. Activeworlds, a 3d user-created world (using meshes even) in 1996, had special media objects that allowed you to link text files, midi files, and picture files by simply specifying a URL. They also let you type directly onto the object, allowing for signs easily.

LL just doesn't want to do it. It's a 12 year old technology, at least.

My concern has to do with how much information the simulator is having to transfer to each avatar's computer. By doing it through parcel settings, you're simply making a direct connection with an outside server. I would be concerned that doing it on a prim-by-prim basis would require a lot more information to have to be passed through the simulator, and would require quite a bit of database work as well.

300ms latency does not a fun FPS make. Let me know when the combat is frenetic enough to compare to Quake 3 arena, and accurate enough.

300ms latency has more to do with your internet connection than anything else. So yes, if your ping-sim stat is 300ms, that will certainly make things difficult for you. That doesn't actually have anything to do with any of these issues, though. However, the point that you may be trying (and failing, miserably) to make is that one serious difficulty that SL has compared to most FPS games is that the vast majority of the processing and calculations are handled server-side, whereas most FPS games do most of the work client-side and transmit only a small amount of data back and forth.

Server-side calculations do make things more difficult. It means that everyone involved must have a good connection to the servers (300ms ping time is definitely going to cause problems). It also means that you don't want to be overloading the server, and everything that has to be programmed will affect that, so you have to keep everything as efficient as possible. It also does make it difficult to scale, since the simulator can only handle so many avatars before Agent Time becomes an issue. Still 10-20 avs is still possible with minimal lag, provided that you're being anal about scripts.