The elusive Spirit of Second Life

…… [Sansar] will be in the spirit of Second Life, an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king.   -Ebbe Altberg-

I submitted a question for the recent LabChat. It was accepted and at the event Ebbe responded.
The question:

Ebbe, would you please discuss in-world building in Sansar.
How will it be similar or different from building in-world in Second Life?
Will we be, for example, building with voxels? prims? or something completely new?
Will there be a built in way to create or edit Mesh in-world?
Thank You in advance for enlightening us.
The response:
Currently, we’re focusing mostly on layout and great support for importing of objects from the outside, so that you could use whatever tool of choice to do your mesh work, and then just import it into Sansar and then lay it out with great tools to lay out and scale and position things within the world.
We’re also working on terrain tools, where there will also probably be some kind of mix of voxel and height map tech to try to stitch things together.
At some point, yes; like why should I have to completely go back to an external tool just so I can poke at an object to reshape it or tweak it to some degree, and then you get into editing. And at some point, when you have some of those basic capabilities to just shape objects, then you could also start with the option of people just dropping in basic shapes directly from in-world. You can just drop a cube on the ground and start poking at it to reshape it.
So, I think there will be a progression. Pretty much right now we’re specifically focused on by June, getting it so that you have really powerful layout capabilities, and maybe the ability to import. Maybe we’ll just start with .FBX or something like that, so that you can import objects from the outside world and lay them out in Sansar.
And then over time we’ll see if we’ll support additional file formats, and then over time we’ll also get into more and more, as we start to see what users need, how much editing we need to support in-world.
I mean, we do not want to be the superset of tools that everybody wants; there are so many tools out there from Maya to Blender to 3D Max. And then you have architecture, where there’s like huge suites of tools, that we’ll never try to be better than any one of them, and certainly not to some of those. So we want to make sure that you can use all of those tools, and bring content in, and then do the final positioning and layout of things as smoothly and easily inside.
And then after that, like I said, we’ll see where we start to allow for more direct manipulation of shaping things inside .
JY: But you are planning to eventually have some sort of in-world building tool? Because I personally think that’s essential, especially for people who are not very experienced with outside software.
I’m pretty sure we’ll get there too, in some way; but I just don’t know that we’ll get there this year. For starters, you might have to be 100% dependent on some external tools to create your objects.
My Take:
Second Life began as a sandbox world; it still is in many respects, although increasingly the work of building has moved to external programs. It now seems that Sansar will not be a sandbox at all, at least to start. I think this is a mistake but, my confidence in the long term viability of Second Life has increased as a result.
There are possible work-arounds. One might be Voxel Farm (a Second Life plug-in?) which exports in the .fbx format Ebbe mentioned. While I have no personal experience with it, what I see on YouTube looks very much like prim building (on steroids?). Since it is not free, I will wait on word from the Lab about compatibility and limitations.

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On the topic of In-world Grid Status Notifications:
As Ebbe points out, it just won’t work, there is a reasonable expectation that a problem would effect the notification system. What would work would be a separate program (a Growl app?) that would alarm when the grid status page is changed, whether we were in world or not. This would probably be best done by the Lab in order to ensure the interoperability of the app and the web page.

Second Life’s Future As The Next Generation Comes Of Age

On July 17th Ebbe said:

We already know about quite a few things that Second Life could do better, and there’s already conversations we’re obviously having about how a next generation product could be a leap forward. But it’s quite a ways in the future.

And note we don’t refer to it as “SL” explicitly call it something more nebulous, like “next generation virtual world” because it’s still to be determined how different or similar it is. As if we use something like “SL 2.0″ or as someone suggested, “SL 3.0″, then you already right already make a lot of assumptions of what it should be or should not be, and we don’t necessarily want to constrain ourselves to Second Life as a model for what a next generation virtual world should be.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a tremendous amount of good things in Second Life, so when we discuss the next generation, we describe it as being in the spirit of Second Life, which is a bit vague and definitely people interpret it in a lot of different ways, but it could be many, many, many years before what really works for people in Second Life is something they could replicate and achieve in this next generation product.

Ultimately, I hope to make the next generation product so good that people would prefer to use it over Second Life, but we’re not necessarily going to constrain what the next product could be or force it to be something that is necessarily too similar to Second Life. And how similar or different it will be, I think will reveal itself over time.
Ebbe Linden/Altberg at the Education in SL Q&A, July 17,2014 (Inara Pey’s transcription)

Now that some time has passed and people have had time to think things through, it is worth taking a look at what future we can anticipate for Second Life.
The “next generation virtual world” Linden Lab is working on is “quite a ways in the future” and “it could be many, many, many years before what really works for people in Second Life is something they could replicate and achieve in this next generation product”. In short, don’t panic, most likely it will be a very long time indeed before you will even want to move your entire second life to the new platform!
The Lindens have had a long time to reflect on the failures of other virtual worlds and have no intention of falling into the same traps. Since the early days of SL the world of social networking has not only changed technologically, peoples attitudes about their on-line presence has changed too. Creating a new virtual world is a daunting task, even once the platform is finished, migration from Second Life will be arduous. Creators will be reluctant to move until there are enough residents to make it worthwhile. Residents will be reluctant to move until they see content they want available.
It is possible, perhaps likely, that the first iteration of the new grid will have very non-SL rules. LL must attract the Facebook / MySpace people, and they are very uncomfortable with anonymity. A grid like this would also be more attractive to businesses and educators. Chances are, even if you are able to have a fantasy life there, your profile will always link back to your RL identity.
There is no reason why the “in the spirit of Second Life” grid could not be completely separate, the same platform with the necessary tweaks and settings to make it like Second Life. The two grids could even share a marketplace and use the same currency.
In the meanwhile SL will continue to develop under Oz’s guiding hand. When he can appropriate code or ideas from the Next Generation team, he will. The smaller but more dedicated to SL team gathered around him seems very open to resident suggestions (although they can’t do everything).
Myself, I will probably dip my toes into the new world at the first opportunity. It seems unlikely I will be ready to move there for many years yet to come.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” Abraham Lincoln

An Early Birthday Present

Today is the actual (well, generally accepted) anniversary of Second Life’s opening. You really should spend some time at the party, just open the map and search for SL11B, TP into any of the regions. Lag seems lower this year than in the past. I can not pick one exhibit over another, best you just wander around, get lost and cam everywhere!

But that is not what I came here to write about.

Last Friday Ebbe dropped into the Open Development user group meeting and rolled an open can of worms onto the floor. Linden Lab is, and has been for well over a year, working on a new and improved virtual world! Now before you panic, this is not the end of SL, the grid we all know and love will go on for the foreseeable future. Development and improvements will continue, although with a smaller team at the Lab.

I see this as akin to a new Operating System on your computer. There are limits to what the Lab can do on a twelve year old platform. Back in 2003 when SL opened it’s doors to the world you were probably running Windows XP or earlier (or Mac OS 9.2 / OS X 10.2). Things have changed and every time we upgrade some of the things we loved about the old system were lost.

Ebbe made it clear that while there will be an effort made to allow the transfer of content, he will not allow that to get in the way of making the best virtual world they can. While I agree with that in principal, I believe as much transfer as possible is key to enticing us away from the SL inventories we have invested heavily in. That transfer must be at the user level, not the content creator level and I think he understands that. In order to accomplish that there will need to be some kind of interaction between asset servers for the 2 platforms (which goes a long way toward understanding the latest TOS changes, although they are still overly generalized).

It is likely to be over a year before we get an opportunity to take a look at this new endeavor but I look forward to a steady stream of teasers and discussion. That discussion is essential since LL still does not really “get” SL like the residents do.

As for me, I look forward to the new world ([SL2] ?) and the drama of the discussion between now and rollout. I will wait and see before I move all of my second life to a new grid.

“Danger ahead, kupo! Do you still want to go on, kupo?”

Update: To follow the progress of this I suggest Jo Yardley’s blog http://joyardley.wordpress.com/tag/sl2/

A Meeting with the Big Cheese

I attended this week’s Server/Sim/Scripting user group meeting today. Oz, Simon and Kelly Linden were there for the entire meeting. Ebbe Linden arrived about half way through and stayed for nearly half an hour after the meeting closed, fielding general questions, suggestions and comments.
Probably the most significant announcement was that the server code for Group Ban will be grid wide after the RC sims roll tomorrow. There is a Linden viewer with the appropriate code available at the Alternative Viewer Downloads page. You will need this viewer to use the group ban features but your actions will be in force no matter what viewer anyone else is using, even if you change viewers after taking the action.
There was a discussion about problems when terraforming land with pathfinding enabled.
[12:18] Shug Maitland (shug.maitland): so if we do a significant amount of terraforming we should restart the region before continuing with whatever we are building?
[12:19] Mona (mona.eberhardt): Not exactly, Shug.
[12:20] Mona (mona.eberhardt): If you do a significant amount of terraforming, it’s advisable that you do NOT rebake the navmesh before you’re done. And when you’ve rebaked, do a region restart. Because, if you rebake repeatedly, you’ll eat up the memory that can be allocated and you won’t be able to rez a thing.
I am not sure I fully understand all of that since I do not use pathfinding, but you should look into it if it pertains to your work.
From Ebbe:
[13:06] Ebbe Linden: Experience tools are getting closer…Simon may know better how close….we just did a big test of them earlier today…but I’m not sure when they’ll be ready for prime time…soon I hope…
[13:07] Simon Linden: It’s getting closer but I’m not familiar with the plans on making them available for others
[13:07] Bagheera: yes please, what are experience tools?
[13:08] Simon Linden: They’re a set of functions and permissions that lets someone build a more immersive experience. So things can happen that won’t nag you with permissions — you opt-into the experience, for example, and a few regions later it can still animate you without re-asking all the time.
—
[13:11] Shug Maitland (shug.maitland): re. new avatars; can we expect more sliders to work in time
[13:11] Ebbe Linden: Shug? Sliders work now….
[13:11] Shug Maitland (shug.maitland): not all of them
[13:12] Ebbe Linden: face?
[13:12] jira.phoenixviewer.com (whirly.fizzle): Well not all of them. You can’t for example mod your face with the sliders like you can with a classic avatar
[13:12] Shug Maitland (shug.maitland): yeah
[13:13] Ebbe Linden: Yep, face is not doing anything with the new avatars…bummer…we’re looking at that to see if we can get eyes and mouths cranking again…
[13:13] Nal (nalates.urriah): That would make lots of people happy
[13:13] Shug Maitland (shug.maitland): that’s good news, the face mods are probably the most important for individualizing your av.
[13:14] Shug Maitland (shug.maitland): and I should point out, face customization is one thing SL was way ahead of everyone else on in the beginning.
[13:16] Ebbe Linden: I agree face is critical and having a stone face like my current avatar is not cool…a couple of steps forward and a step backwards…
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It was very encouraging to see Ebbe interacting with those there. Is it possible that the us vs. them divide is getting smaller and the ivory tower is, if not crumbling, getting more accessible?

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ps. I took some editorial liberties with the clips from transcript, consolidating thoughts and correcting spelling for example.

“Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future.” Dale Turner

An interview with Flat Ebbe

Strawberry Singh suggested that we should share our thoughts about second life with you. Thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule. I hope you are comfortable talking at our office here in Brocade.

Since you are still new to Second Life, I would like to take this opportunity to explain my perspective of why most people who are in SL for more than a look around stay.

Whether we see SL as therapy, fantasy, business or entertainment; we are almost universally fulfilling in a virtual sense what we can’t or won’t in RL. The graphic artist who sits under-appreciated in cubical all week gets to express themselves and perhaps make some money. The frustrated business person who will never make it beyond lower management can prove themselves as a land baron or marketing executive. The socially challenged often find that they blossom in SL. Those who long, from a stuffy apartment, for a home of their own can build castles, or live on a tropical island. Yes, for some it is about the sex they would rather be having in RL. I could go on and on – – .

There has been much made of the new user experience and how SL is hard to learn. More to the point, people need more information about what Second Life is! Much more needs to be done with advertising and publicity to overcome the tawdry reputation we have gotten due to Linden Lab’s lazy PR. You need to be asking who stays in SL, not for a day or two but for months; these are the people who keep the SL economy going, and who are most likely to move beyond the most basic accounts. It is a hard nut to crack, I know. A positive attitude and PR promoting the best aspects of SL will go a long way.

Thank you for coming Ebbe, you are a very good listener.

“Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future.”Dale Turner

Welcome Ebbe Linden , an open letter to the CEO

We are glad to have you aboard! It is encouraging to see that you have a little experience in our world. If you would allow me to presume to make some suggestions:

1- Take a long walk on the Mainland, a good place to start is in Emmelia. To your west is Route 2, the long way around the outside edge of Heterocera (lots of interesting seaside builds, but a long walk). To the north is Route 3, a shorter walk around the outer edge of the mountains. I suggest the Mainland because you will get a truer impression of SL from a resident perspective. Some of what you see will look crude, much will be assembled from purchased parts, but in all cases this is an expression of someone’s second life. Also worth noting, on the Mainland we are mostly tier-paying premium accounts, we typically do not pay rent to a middleman. Consider as you walk why we are here; one way of looking at it is wish fulfillment, the person in a cramped apartment owns a castle, the person who works in a cubicle farm fulfilling someone else’s wishes creates content with their own vision, the frustrated but talented businessperson operates a store, etc. At the end of your walk, no matter which route you choose you will find the SL Railroad, which is an adventure of another color 🙂

2- Consider please that the very name Ebbe Linden extends to you a huge privilege. Newbies today do not get the opportunity to have a last name. As a result we see the kind of strained names seen in gaming environments instead of the more community friendly first/last name those of us “of a certain age” consider normal. As anticipated when this policy first rolled out, there is still an us-and-them division that sometimes shows itself. SLers are very tolerant, we learn to be quickly, but who wants to be “tolerated” because of the accident of when they were born.

3- Communication — you are probably tired of hearing this by now, but it needs attention and only you can force the issue. In my previous post I suggested email be better used. This would best be accomplished if it was an attractive headline and a picture type thing that lead to a monthly LL magazine. If professionally done this would be just the thing to project a positive image both to those active now and to those who are inactive. Google would also direct the curious to current and well presented information.

3a- Social media — all well and good for discussion, chat and rumor but please keep the post at the official blog ahead of the gossip. Get that message out to the whole team too (although it has not been an issue lately).

4- Technology; the last round of improvements was quite ambitious, it will probably take 1 ½ to 2 years to fully complete so pace things a bit. There is no rush to start something new just for the sake of it. We, the customers, have always said we would rather have things working well than the confusion of too many new features at once.

We are on your side Ebbe, don’t forget to tap into our skills and experience, there are some things we are just better at than LL.

Illegitimi non carborundum

EbbeCEO.Resident

Linden Lab has announced a new CEO! Ebbe Altberg doesn’t start work until Monday, Feb. 10 so take it easy on him!

I have read a lot of comments in other forums and blogs to the effect that he really has to improve communication. While there is room for improvement, I really do not need to hear from the CEO more than a couple of times a year, broad statements about direction and philosophy are appropriate from the person whose job is the overall management of the business that is Linden Lab. We have gotten a steady stream of rather detailed information from the lead developers via the user group meetings, mostly passed to us by various bloggers. That this method of communication limits feedback is, I believe, intentional, the Lindens do not want to spend time fishing through comments from kibitzers and wackadoodles to find the constructive comments. They do, however read the most significant blogs.

I will suggest one form of communication LL is greatly under utilizing. A monthly email newsletter would get significant information to every resident, active and inactive. From Ebbe, a travelogue of places he has visited in SL, that alone would give us an ongoing assurance that he is trying to understand SL. From the various developers, a getting-to-know-us and what we are doing article revolving through the various departments would not only help keep people informed, but humanize what often seems like a distant ivory tower. From Torley, a did-you-know about some little appreciated point from one of his tutorials. A newsletter would have the advantage from LL’s point of view of being one way, so no inconvenient back-chatter.

Ebbe should NOT get the name Ebbe Linden! He is a newbie and as such is Ebbe(insert postscript) Resident! He can put whatever he wants in his display name. Of course he could change that policy. Hint – hint – hint.

The recent problems with the TOS can easily be fixed simply by incorporating the semi-official reassurances into the TOS so that they are “official”. This would be a big relief to the content creators, especially those who pay real world money for textures (many of those textures are not allowed for use in SL due to the most recent TOS)

Ebbe, you may wonder why I am so concerned with confidence building measures. When most people talk about communication what they want is reassurance that their world will be around into the foreseeable future. This confidence is important to you because the residents/customers/users ARE Second Life, Linden Lab merely provides the platform. You will quickly discover this in your explorations of our world.

Finally, Ebbe, I wish you good luck in your new job. Keep your eyes, ears and mind open. Don’t let the wackadoodles and doom-sayers discourage you.

Illegitimi non carborundum