A Message from On High

The messenger has made his way down from the towers of the gods.

The herald has read the proclamation and it is posted outside the city hall for all to see.

All is well in the world and the future is bright!

Specifically:

• The Linden’s first experiment with creating a new feature set, then actually making an application of it (Linden Realms) has worked out well. In the process of actually creating something using the new gaming code LL learned a lot and hopefully gained some respect for the residents struggles when they have to debug half baked ideas implemented before they are ready.
• As a result of their hands on experience with the new gaming tools they recognized that there is potential for abuse in some of the features so they will not just be made available willy-nilly to everyone. They will be introduced via a “creators” program which will verify those with access to them.
• Linden Labs introduced a new viewer with an improved user interface. I can’t help thinking that they are still following the lead of the Third Party Viewers like Firestorm, but they are doing it their way, incorporating their own take on the “ideal viewer”. The way they handle buttons is in some respects an improvement over the Firestorm viewer I am most familiar with.
• After a very long and painful development period Mesh is with us to stay. There is still more to do, a parametric deformer so clothing works properly being the most obvious thing still lacking. Over the next year or two we will see what resident creators can do with the new technology. Right now it seems limited, but so did sculpties when they first came out.
• Additional benefits of premium memberships began to appear in the past year. Not enough I think to make a real difference but more are promised in 2012, hopefully enough to inspire more people to buy land of their own. The mainland really needs it. (Dare I again suggest increasing the tier allowance for a premium account?)
• We are assured that tier will not increase in the coming year. Ironic in that there has been an unrealistic outcry that tier should be decreased.
• The first promised new feature of next year will probably be “pathfinding”. This will greatly improve the performance of Zombies 🙂 and other objects which are tasked to move around a region.
• Lastly, and far from least; Linden Labs will be launching some completely new products that have nothing at all to do with Second Life. – – – – – calm down! – – – – -. This is actually a good thing. Diversity will increase stability for Linden Lab, both as a business and with their workforce. Give them a chance, this does not necessary mean they are taking their eye off Second Life.
• Finally we are thanked for being customers. That is something LL has not always remembered. Customer is a big step up from guinea pig or victim.

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa and a Bright Sosltice.

A bedtime story – part 2

here were we dear reader?

Ah, yes, the time after private islands and direct teleport.

While things seemed quiet enough in the world, there were a few very enterprising Wizards deep in the far reaches of the quite wood who had invented a “magic box”. With this box the shopkeepers of the world could sell their wares directly to customers without the bother of them having to come to their shops. The wizards gave the magic boxes away freely, but levied a very modest tax for the service they provided. This seemed like wonderful new invention and everyone was very happy. More and more shopkeepers got magic boxes and the wizards were well on their way to becoming very rich.

Then the gods took notice and they were envious. They coveted the magic boxes for themselves so, being gods they met with the wizards and made them an offer they could not refuse. The gods defended their actions saying they could do a better and safer job of managing the magic boxes from their towers and castles; and they did in fact do a very proficient job of managing the magic boxes. So good in fact that many shop owners closed their shops and just sold their wares through the magic boxes, or they closed their branch stores since no one was traveling the mainland roads any more. People either shopped by teleporting directly to their main store or through the magic boxes. More and more of the mainland became vacant. The roads were untraveled. People did not meet even their neighbors, they stayed on their tropical islands and skyboxes, only to teleport to those places they and their friends knew of already.

Then the gods did something completely unexpected. They looked at the mainland and saw the vast swaths of vacant land and said to themselves “there are new people coming into the world all the time and they will need a place to live”. So they created 2 new continents with cookie cutter houses for the new people and anyone else too lazy or unmotivated to buy land on the mainland and set up their own home. More of the mainland became vacant.

I wish I could say my story has a happy ending, but the end has not yet been written. Will the gods find a way to encourage people to refill the mainland? Will people get out of their homes and spend time meeting their neighbors and reforming a community? Will shopkeepers find a way to encourage people to come to their shops and see their full range of wares instead of just ordering what they see from the magic boxes? We will just have to see.

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As you might have guessed I have some suggestions.

1- As a part of the current “increased premium benefits” program, increase the land allotment. This will make mainland ownership a natural progression from an initial Linden Village residence. This will not increase LL’s tier income from mainland, but occupied land is better than vacant and I suspect people will increase their tier commitment as they develop their own homesteads.

2- Create a team of mainland Assistants empowered to terriform Linden land and move/plant/remove Linden plantings, especially along the roadsides. The present system of “put in a ticket” and “you just have to live with what we have made” hardly qualifies as support and is surely not assistance. These same assistants could conduct classes on the basics of land management for the new and inexperienced.

3- Since many people shop marketplace from work or the coffeeshop, where they are unable to log in world, provide a prominent button on a product’s marketplace page that will put a Landmark directly into a resident’s inventory. There really is no need to cue it with an acceptance popup if you are logged into marketplace. Marketplace is the best product index yet, way better than search, but it needs to be linked in a much better way to an in world store.

4- We, the residents need to get out more, meet your neighbors, take a bicycle ride on the mainland, ride a train, look around and meet people.

5- Take the time to find your way from Marketplace to an in world store. If someone is making one product you find interesting, chances are they have others.

What ideas do you have to recover a sense of Second Life Community?