Second Life Perfect, No Help Needed
by prokofy on 11/04/07 at 3:25 am
By Prokofy Neva, Kremlindenologist
Linden Lab, makers of the 3-d streaming virtual world Second Life, announced that it was finished — and perfect–today, during office hours.
Robin Linden, VP of Community and Support, confirmed at her office hours Tuesday that “Live Help” will be shut down. The 24/7 service will no longer be needed because SL has been perfected. LL’s leading grown-up also said she’d be dropping the second half of her title, as it is now unnecessary.
“That was the last patch,” Done Linden told the Herald, noting that there wouldn’t be one Wednesday. “We’re done. It’s over. The fat lady has sung.”
Responding to mobs of angry residents who were unable to teleport, keep their hair on their heads, build, buy Lindens, rez out objects or find anything in “search,” Tao Linden said, “We understand ‘help’ is a part of a conversation that we want to go on having with our residents always. Linden Lab is dedicated to keeping the creativity of people at the forefront of our work. ‘Help’ will be evolving as we all grow, and you can take my hand as we walk there together.”
Torley Linden was unavailable for comment, but sources close to the Watermelinden said she was busy taping responses into the phone system that sounded like, “If you’re an idiot, press one, if you’re a moron, press two.”
“Help is…everywhere…and…nowhere,” Philip Linden commented, between tokes. “Reach deep within, and find help in the Soul of the New Machine.”
Sera Cela
Apr 11th, 2007
I love blistering satire!
Mabey if they actually like didn’t let people sit on “application pending” for 10+ months they would have plenty of voluenteers for livehelp.
Viajero Pugilist
Apr 11th, 2007
April 1st was like 10 days ago?
Hexx Triskaidekaphobia
Apr 11th, 2007
The good Folk at the Linden Fortress are, as always, absolutely right. No more whining for Mom and Dad, it’s time we took Control over our own Lives! Grow up! Need help? Simply start at F1 and work thy way up!
Joshua Perenti
Apr 11th, 2007
Hi guys,
Im a live helper and this was as much of a shock to us as it was to you. In fact the blog came out before we were veen told we were surplus to requirements. our usual hour long meeting overran by an hour and a half, as all of us were tyring to reason with the Lindens that what they are doing is removing the last channel of communication. But this fell of deaf ears, customer service has made the decision and that is that.
To give you an idea of what you have to do if you have a crisis now:
1) – send an email and wait for a respondant to get back to you in world.
2) – Go to help isaldn, find a helper who will IM a liason, who will get back to you.
Improvements, my arse!!!
One seriously pissed of helper!!!!!!
I have a great picture of how we felt about this btw. prok contact me inworld and ill send it over.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Apr 11th, 2007
To be honest, I thought this was just another of Robin’s insane ‘smokescreen posts’, designed to distract attention from the CONTINUING billing/Lindex/transaction crisis (and believe me, you ain’t heard the last of that epic either).
However, hearing from a Live Helper that the Live Help crewhave been told to clear their desks and not let the door hit their asses on the way out does rather indicate that in fact the lunatics have now gained full control of the Lab – SORRY! Asylum!
I must say, withdrawing all meaningful (and it wasn’t THAT meaningful – not in terms of getting action on a problem) support from a ramshackle product that is giving every appearance of being on the verge of failing catastrophicaly would be, in any normal company’s instance, be absolute insanity. ESPECIALLY whan Live Help wasn’t costing LL a cent!
And the concept of a company that can’t even change its payment provider without bringing down ALL the associated systems, setting up some sort of web-based ‘support’ system is laughable – as we already know from the wiki/knowlegebase mess!
In the case of Lunatic Lab this is, sadly, just the sort of painfully inept management decision one has come to expect over the years.
Surprised? I am a little – but not that much.
It was, would have been, to anyone with a grain of sense, blindingly obvious that this would be the inevitable outcome of the decision to make access to SL free of charge and unrestricted…
Virtually every problem we have seen since June ’06 (uncontrollable griefing, lag, lag and yet more lag caused by lack of bandwidth and over crowding, a system crumbling under the weight of users, etc, et-bloody-cetra) have been caused by the idiot assumption that LL could somehow deal with a ten-fold – and that’s all it’s been in reality – increase in users… At a point when they could BARELY manage what they had.
Anyway, screw ‘em. I’m fed up with this stupidity. Let’s just hope SL lasts long enough…
urizenus
Apr 11th, 2007
I can’t help but wonder what will become of Babie Wolfie (http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/11/did_live_help_l.html) now that she is out of work and still in diapers.
marilyn murphy
Apr 11th, 2007
i asked LL for help once, in 2004. after 4 days, i got a email saying we are investigating this, it has been resolved. ?? i sent another email back saying, uh.. what has been resolved? did you understand my request? i received no reply to this second email.
since that time i felt i had to deal with issues on my own, and have ever since. seeking help from my friends in world, when i needed it.
however on one occasion last year, i sought tech help from Live Help. i got an immediate response and my problem was solved in minutes. i have not bothered live help since that time, but it was nice to know it was there.
i am very pleased to learn that we don’t have problems and all is well in Second Life.
shockwave yareach
Apr 11th, 2007
I’m am shocked, nay, SHOCKED to hear about this! I’m completely and utterly flabbergasted at the revelation. LL has a help desk? Wow. And it had RL people in it? Double wow.
marilyn murphy
Apr 11th, 2007
shockwave:
read the article. sl HAD a help desk. it HAD real people in it. its not needed any more because sl is perfect now.
Yo Brewster
Apr 11th, 2007
I was never really impressed with Live Help BUT it was better then nothing! Solution? Instead of using Live Help I guess we’ll have to start calling LL
ringy dingy
Apr 11th, 2007
“Help is…everywhere…and…nowhere,” Philip Linden commented, between tokes.
hahaha!
shockwave yareach
Apr 11th, 2007
*chuckles at Marilyn as the joke whizs right past her.*
Cocoanut Koala
Apr 11th, 2007
“ESPECIALLY whan Live Help wasn’t costing LL a cent!”
That’s the part that gets me. I can only conclude that Live Help people sometimes told Lindens that their action was needed (a sim down, for instance), and the Lindens don’t want to be bothered.
Because they want to get around to fixing it if and when THEY want to get around to fixing it. Certainly not cause we are telling them to!
After all, no one at LL ever tells them what work to do or when to do it (the Tao of Linden), so why the heck should they feel like they have to do what we want, like get a sim back up and running?
On the other hand, when my sim needed help, there were Lindens who fixed it right away, and with very good cheer. It was so helpful and so reassuring that a Linden cared, and was there, and so pleasant!
If those Lindens want to help, why not let them? Cause if they didn’t want to, they sure were giving a good impression of being helpful and caring.
They were in fact the only Lindens I ever felt were actually working there at the lab (as opposed to playing at Linden Lab). I very much appreciated their help.
There were also live helpers who were quite helpful when I had stupid questions. In fact, there was a huge backlog of people ASKING to become live help! Yet they get ignored for months! Why??? Because nobody “felt like” going through the applications?
And what’s this about sticking the live helpers in some physical SIM somewhere, and you have to go TO them and try to get IN to have your question answered? Who ever heard of such a ridiculous, inefficient method? EVERY place I have ever been in lets you IM the helpers.
And that’s just the helpers. What about the Lindens? I have never been in a game or on some large platform or online service – or anything anywhere in the real world – NEVER – where you couldn’t get ahold of a person in a crisis dealing with their product. I’m wracking my brain, but I can’t think of anything like that.
In this day and age, practically everything is a 24-hour service, too. Well, I can’t call up most places to find out expiration dates on spices and canned items (though some have this automated!) any time of day, but that is the only exception I can think of, and that’s because finding out the expiration date on a spice isn’t exactly an emergency.
And online games – it would be suicide for them to get rid of live help. I remember getting stuck in the geography of one, and a high-ranking sort of resident came and got me out of it instantly with some sort of super-powers.
I just don’t think you can run a business – ANY business – this way.
I tell ya what I really think. What I think is that LL has a tiger by the tail here, and they absolutely, truly, cannot cope. They don’t want to shut it down, but they also can’t handle it at ALL. For whatever reasons.
Even the money – paying them – is screwed up. That’s pretty dire.
I think it could be fixed. But I think they are incapable of fixing it, because Philip stubbornly sticks to this idea of not telling the employees what to do.
He is also really disadvantaged by thinking that keeping his employees happy is what is important, and his customers are just an impediment to that, truly an afterthought to him.
His employees won’t be very happy if they lose their jobs due to losing their customers, though, will they.
ramblingcoco
Sampo
Apr 11th, 2007
God I love all the objective reporters like Inigo posting in this thread. Such balance.
What a piece of shit blog.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Apr 11th, 2007
Compliments will get you nowhere sweetie.
Samp
Apr 11th, 2007
Whatever, wormshit. Instead of debating me in the comments, why not try behaving like a reporter and posting balanced pieces free of your opinions.
It’s what actual reporters do. Not pretend ones. But I guess you just like playing dress-up, huh?
Inigo Chamerberlin
Apr 11th, 2007
Samp… When I write a piece that is posted in the Herald, should you bother to summon your reading abilities and open your eyes, you’ll notice they are ALWAYS Headed ‘Op/Ed’. That, in case you hadn’t realised, stands for ‘Opinion’ and/or ‘Editorial’ – NOT news. NOT (obviously I’d have thought) free of my opinion. What I write is based on my opinion and experience.
I’m not a Reporter, have no pretensions to be one, and have never claimed to be one. I merely make comments that receive editorial approval, or not as the case may be, in which case they aren’t published.
However, like any other person, when I post a comment, in ‘comments’, it’s just that. A comment by me. So, get over it and stop whinging in public please – it’s a demeaning spectacle for us all to have to endure.
Imus Nappyho
Apr 11th, 2007
I don’t think this is as much a “suicide” move as a prelude to “Goodbye (and thanks for all the fish, as it were)”…
SL has been open source for some time now. I think LL wants to close up shop and let someone else start a new version. If people want it so badly, they’ll make it happen. Eventually.
I just wonder when it will fold and how abruptly. Will they give a big Exit Speech and keep SL going long enough for people to get their affairs in order, or will we just log on to a 401 “website not found” error message one day?
I’m thinking the latter – it’s simple, no fuss, no muss, “you’ve read the TOS, now get lost, yer buggin’ me” style of service we’ve come to expect. In fact, I’d better go back and re-read the TOS to make sure they didn’t slip in some provision where I have to pay THEM when the game’s over.
And now that it will take several days, weeks, or whatever, before any action can be taken against extreme griefings or downed sims, I’d expect their little “Help Island” to be the first and most popular target. Maybe that’s their exit strategy – let the griefers take down the grid one final time and call it quits.
I’m just grasping at straws, but it sure looks to me like they’re getting ready to close up shop on us.
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 11th, 2007
Wow, okay. What a bunch of fucking idiots. I don’t need live help, I can live in SL just fine… that’s why my textures won’t load and my notecards aren’t able to be viewed…
moneymaker
Apr 11th, 2007
Im raking in the cash at SL and thats the only reason i joined…..never had a problem at required ‘help’
ride the gravy train as long as it rolls, when it dies who care, it was fun for a bit
lolz
Cristiano Midnight
Apr 11th, 2007
For most of what is wrong with SL, it’s not like Live Help could actually do anything (no fault of theirs). They can’t do a damn thing for your non-loading textures, for your griefing problems, for your prim hair being shoved up your ass after you teleport. They were simply a way for LL to get first tier tech support for free on the backs of their customers. Good riddance to the program – LL has exploited its customers long enough.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2007
It’s the prim hair shoved up my ass that I find the most defiling and humiliating. I wish Linden Lab would stop doing that to me. I opted to be cool and buy the latest neato prim hair and for my trouble, I’m defiled constantly on every teleport.
It’s as if they are saying — yeah, we gave you p2p, and yeah, we’ll let you teleport around unlike other games. But we also give you your hair up your ass, because you’ve been a hair up our ass all this time.
Ok. Enough, already. Point taken.
Linnian Sugar
Apr 11th, 2007
I have a picture that sums it up nicely
http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/apathy.jpg
marilyn murphy
Apr 11th, 2007
shockwave:
tsk, you bad boy. sigh, yus it did. it zinged right by my ear, but everyone knows by now im a blonde and all that that implies.
Nimrod
Apr 11th, 2007
Didn’t at one time LL say they would start charging basic accounts for support? Maybe that’s what they’re starting?
Kerian Bunin
Apr 11th, 2007
The vast majority of questions were out of scope in live help (how do i use my penis i think its broke) but I really enjoyed helping people troubleshoot some code or diagnose some problem or another, and I will really miss it. I think that maybe they should have more clearly defined the scope of live help and maybe buried it in another menu so that people didn’t use it as their personal panic button.
Cocoanut Koala
Apr 12th, 2007
I would like to know who I’m supposed to tell now when the sim needs resetting.
coco
Kerian Bunin
Apr 12th, 2007
>I would like to know who I’m supposed to tell now when the sim needs resetting.
Telepathy.
Friend every linden you meet and I’m every one of them online with your problem until its solved.
Script a panic button to llIsntantMessage every linden there is a message of your choosing
(Just joking. I am going to miss live help though)
Prokofy Neva
Apr 12th, 2007
You know, if all these helpers and greeters and volunteers and mentors and whatnot who sucked up newbies to buy in their stores really did care about newbies and helping, they wouldn’t care at all that the Lindens did this.
They’d ignore those robots and walk around them.
They’d merely reconvene in a sandbox, at welcome areas or infohubs or their own properties, with their own comms, and with their own help cards.
They don’t need Jeska or Blue or whatever — they can just do it. That is…if they really are about helping, and not about being fanboyz.
So let’s see what they’re made of.
Kerian Bunin
Apr 12th, 2007
Normally I’d agree with you but the Live Help group had some tools and options not available to standard groups that were really useful (for both assembly line style support and one on one in ‘person’ support). Though I really hope to see the former live helpers rally into some sort of proactive useful entity.
ps I never really saw much pimping of products in Live Help.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 12th, 2007
Everyone knows the Mentors pimped their wares in the WAs.
Kerian Bunin
Apr 12th, 2007
mmm I don’t doubt it. I really only helped with Live Help. On the occasion that a newbie asked “where do I get x” or “whats a good y” I tried (and from what every I saw other people tried) to do was to explain the various search terms and what queries would point them to what they were looking for so they could make their own decisions.
Mark
Apr 12th, 2007
__They don’t need Jeska or Blue or whatever — they can just do it. That is…if they really are about helping, and not about being fanboyz.__
Like you wouldn’t be screaming like a stuck piggy if THEY DID.
Nacon
Apr 12th, 2007
They may have figured it’s easier to give up helping idiots and non-PC users (Grandparents, Parents, Babies, Thugs, etc etc.) out of SL till they start using their head or even understood their PC concept.
(Hell… my grandparents and parent still doesn’t know how to use their cell phones other than just dial and call.)
So thumbs up for LL making a choice to drop one of their times to spend on something else.
(to fix bugs and any other improvement plans)
What Philip Linden was trying to say is that he hops some people are kind enough to help other themselves. Thus everywhere and nowhere they may be.
Everyone is an idiot at lease once, but make sure no one says you’re still an idiot.
(prok is still an idiot, btw)
humanoid
Apr 12th, 2007
Noobs often ask for help at my home infohub. If it’s a question like ‘how do I earn money?’ we shun them or tell them to go read the standard signs. But we usually help them out with technical questions and recommendations on cool places to visit.
I and a few other people have considered earning money by telling noobs we’re dungeon masters, and that they need to pay us $L20 to advance to the next level. None of us have the heart to go through with it. Yet.
FYI my favorite money earning dialog goes like this:
Noob: How do I get money?
Me: Sign up for the Liberatrian welfare program.
Noob: What’s that?
Me: *shouts* GET A JOB!
Talthybius Brevity
Apr 12th, 2007
“Although this step may seem to be removing support, what we are actually doing is shifting our resources into a more efficient configuration to increase the level of help that is available to SL Residents.”
Doubleplus Good!
* WAR IS PEACE
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The Party is never wrong.
Barney Boomslang
Apr 12th, 2007
You know, this all fits nicely in the “throw away what doesn’t work” attitude of LL in the recent time. Take for example maps on slurls:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-78
Web-78 is the bug report and the “resolution”. Because it didn’t work on IE7, it was thrown away. No maps on slurls. It’s just gone. One day they will remove the grid and discover that without it, they have less crashes and less load on the databases …
Robert Huntered
Apr 12th, 2007
Yeah Barney, it seems that downgrades are the trend in software.
I was really upset when the “New and Improved” Unreal Tournament came out a few years ago and they did away with all sorts of great stuff, like reflections of your character in mirrors, breaking glass and destructable parts, and introduced very little in the way of new features.
One step forward, two steps back.
But then, when you look at SL for what it is – a 3-D chatroom where you can buy things – there’s not many features that are vital to maintaining that description.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 12th, 2007
1. Kerian, I marvel at how you tekkie-wikinistas always imagine that your own little subjective experience can be extrapolated to make general statements. Are you aware of how unsound and unscientific that principle is? I’ve also had long observation of the welcome areas on the ground, as distinct from Help “comms” in the air where you’ve been. And they mentors come and hurl folders at arriving newbies. They steer, hell, they even hijack. All over, you can find news accounts of this phenom; even Time magazine’s guy got subjected to it. So seriously, this just doesn’t fly. We all know that mentors and helpers steer, one way or another. It was an unspoken “perk” for the “hard selfish labour” of being a helper *cough*.
2. If live helpers really go and help on their own with no perks or Lindens, who’s to stop them? I don’t “scream like a stuck pig” about New Citizens, for example, don’t be ridiculous. And I’m all for building the profit motive into helping newbies. Let businesses who need newbies help them! What I hate about the socialism and state capitalism of the Lindens is that they discourage capitalism in the WA by banning billboards or ads, and thereby in fact make it possible through crime, i.e. mentors steering and giving out ads anyway. That’s ALWAYS what happens.
3. Barney, your statement reminds me of one of my hallmark moments with Lee Linden. It was a gem. I complained about some sim always crashing and being a problem, even without any visible scripts or heavy avatar load or anything. It had like the normal 4-6 people on it. I kept bitching, and he kept writing back stuff. Finally I logged on and found a priceless one-liner from him, to the effect, “I tested it without avatars on it and it worked fine.”
Are you saying that SLURLS don’t pull up maps anymore?
Melissa Yeuxdoux
Apr 12th, 2007
Comedy is best left to professionals.
shockwave yareach
Apr 12th, 2007
From my own experiences as a newbie (and I’m one of those Tek types who is automatically good at this sort of thing), it is very difficult to join the game and get started. The learning curve IS steep even for people accustomed to such (hey, I’ve got a Xilinx compiler installing in the next machine over.) My first time on I was so lost I just gave up. It wasn’t until some friends invited me back that I returned, got shown the ropes, and enjoyed myself enough to stay.
Perhaps a Mentoring setup is needed where a volunteer gets 6 new people as they arrive and shows them, step by step, the basics of the game over a couple of days. The first day, the volunteer guides them in person. The other days, he answers IMs. Then again, didn’t we have something like this with the Help Island and the New Citizen Center at one time?
EnCore Mayne
Apr 12th, 2007
another fine mess of reason you’ve gotten us into prok. i do adore your hardened perspective. now we’re actually going to have to do something about the terrible state of affairs by ourselves. which gives rise to the thought, if there is so much need for help, it can be capitalized by some resourceful person (without a life) who might offer the world a 24/7 channel to do exactly what Live Help _was_ doing. i would certainly avail myself of the aid they provide were the service reasonably priced or supported through donations.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 12th, 2007
Yes, Melissa, where *are* they??? I keep waiting for them to SHOW UP! They never do! So I do my poor best…
Trying to help newbies is idiotic, stupid, thankless work. For every one that you do help usefully and provide a service to, there are probably 100 who are a) too stupid and clueless to ever get even how to press FLY, as they are young children using the free accounts or distracted and unteachable oldsters; b) rude griefers who will fleece you; c) emotional f32s who are in the right place for the right demographic but will bail because they can’t find a partner, and don’t care about help, they just want a relationship; d) tekkies who spend their whole time sneering at the architure and imagining that they could make it better and never having a good time and screening out actual help that could help them do that; e) pathetic loser asstards in their mom’s basement who think they can get rich off SL.
So it makes for a hugely nasty experience, let me tell you. Hugely nasty. I mean, no human being should have to be subjected to this shit. The flotsam and jetsam of humankind that washes up to the SL shores in the form of those five categories would try the patience of a saint. No good comes out of bending yourself backward and draining yourself dry for these people. They are meant for WoW or There or Kaneva or some other virtual world. And that’s ok.
The energy spent chasing the chimera of getting these particular five categories of people to stick has been truly phenomenal — but stupid. I gave up chasing 15-year-old mall rats around my sims trying to explain prims to them. If they can’t figure it out from a notecard, too bad. I’ve gotten really callous about putting out the most brutal of instructions, like YOU MUST READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS NOTECARD AT A 12-YEAR-OLD’S READING LEVEL TO LIVE IN THIS APARTMENT. ETC.
Accordingly, what I think has to happen, is two things:
a) the Lindens have to realize they need to still attract customers, stop listening to the echos of the old little cult of utopianist geektards from their non-existent ex-forums, and allow the newbie experience to be franchised. Billboards need to be sold in welcome areas. Companies, both non- and for-profit need to be deployed in them with the profit or the reputation movement firmly displayed. Other people need to take care of newbies, and sell to them what they have to sell, whether furry BDSM pedo role-play, ticky tacky houses on the hillside, or rich emo lesbo moments in the lost gardens of lostness. Whatever. Let them SELL it and TAKE CARE of those customers.
b) companies that have something for newbies — lesbians of lostness, little ticky-tacky houses on the hillside, pedo furries disguised as Disney sets now, whatever, have to get in there and get those people by having their own API for registration, and become a pressure on the Lindens to start selling off pieces of their WA. Seriously. It’s going to waste otherwise.
Countries that try to insist on institutionalizing Christianity through things like socialized medicine never get it to work. You need the profit motive to take care of your fellow human being, who is a wretch and given a chance, will be a wretch back at you.
All those interesting, creative, fun, exciting people you think are out there to be had in SL won’t come here unless somebody takes care of them, and they will show their worst side and be their most ridiculously entitlement-happy and belligerent unless they can exhaust you completely. Make sure you are paid for that experience, there is no other rational way to do it.
Gorean Furry
Apr 12th, 2007
Prok, I read that whole comment. I want my dollar now.
Khamon
Apr 12th, 2007
Who are you and what have you done with our Prokofy?
Kerian Bunin
Apr 12th, 2007
Prokofy, I have seen the folder hurling behavior of Mentors and the goings on of the welcome areas, however keep in mind the mentors are different from live help. I disliked the assembly line generic welcome of newbies by mentors taking a dump in their inventory with crap freebies (a box of wings woo :/). Live help was a bit different but I did see a little of what you describe (a lot less than mentors though). One feature that I will miss is the ability to teleport to a person who made the live help call. When someone asks “where can i get a free plane (or whatever)” I thought it was neat to be able offer to help them to build one. Catching someone a fish verses teaching them how to fish so to speak. I really hope that the independent mobilization of helpers will steer clear of this mindless assembly line indoctrinization (my mental image of this is the Apple 1984 commercial; take this folder, do this tutorial, buy this brand of plane, drive this brand of car, buy this designers house, live this predefined second life).