Staff Killer Plague Decimates Linden Lab Governance Team
by Pixeleen Mistral on 27/05/10 at 11:55 am
What is behind the sudden disappearance of former Linden governance team staff members? Colton Linden and Plexus Linden are no longer found in the Second Life search people tab, and a reliable source informed the Herald that Teagan Linden will succumb to the staff killer plague within 2 weeks now that she has given her notice to the Lab.
The departure of Teagan will mark the removal of half the former governance team – a group charged with swinging the ban hammer to keep unruly residents in line. Downsizing the G-team may be a cost saving measure brought on by sagging interest in Second Life – we note that the median player concurrency levels continue to swoon despite the Lab’s new Second Life viewer software — but it is also possible the staff plague is simply a case of office politics taken to its logical conclusion. Linden Lab is well known for factional infighting within the game god ranks.
the Justice League loses a true friend
The passing of Plexus and Teagan Linden are likely to be mourned by the Kalel Venkman and the Justice League Unlimited – a group of vigilantes known for filing frivolous DMCA takedown notices, gang abuse reports, and courting game god favors. Plexus in particular appears to have been a reliable ally for the spandex clad vigilante group. The Herald previously reported JLU claims that Plexus leaked player identity information to the Justice League and his on-going encouragement of what seems to be trademark infringement. Sadly, the death of Plexus makes it unlikely that Herald requests for an interview to verify the JLU claims will be answered.
Jeska reincarnated
In what may be related news, community manager Jeska Linden also perished, but was then miraculously reincarnated under her real life name and now plays Second Life as Jeska Dzwigalski.
Speculation that the slow progress on organizing the Second Life Community Convention for this summer is related to the departure of the community manager is likely to follow. While some will hail the continuing removal of staff from Philip Linden’s reign as proof that M Linden is fixing Second Life, the ongoing loss Linden Lab’s corpoate memory dos not bode well for improving player relations with the Lab.
What can be done? Now that Jeska is out of action, the most logical choice to help bring the community together at the SLCC this year may be none other than noted community organizer Prokofy Neva. Seriously.
Zeta Weather
May 27th, 2010
Second Life is old, it’s broken, and it’s not going to survive the coming wave of next-gen worlds. The working environment inside the Lab is notorious for turning normal human beings into soulless robots that read the TOS to their childen as bedtime stories.
The vision is gone. Kapor Enterprises is simply milking this cow until it falls over dead.
Tayste
May 27th, 2010
@Zeta:
That’s inevitably true for any online platform or business model. As of this moment in time, there is no satisfactory alternative solution. Even if SecondLife topples over tomorrow, where would people go that allows for such free-flowing collaborative efforts in real-time? Blue Mars does not currently have such an offering. OpenSim does, but it is essentially the same platform, and in the current state would not be ideal for a mass migration. The sad truth is, I believe, that the state of the ‘metaverse’ will change, and likely become more restrictive in terms of the creative offerings, due to the methods of content creation available in the platform(s) likely to become the next big thing. :C
Kiddoh
May 27th, 2010
I can only imagine what will happen to the lives of a lot of people when SL goes casplooey and they lose their less than minimum wage income. They’ll actually have to get real jobs! I wonder how they feel about that. :O
Zeta Weather
May 27th, 2010
I wouldn’t necessarily call it “restrictive” Tayste. They are simply implementing a certain level of quality control.
Any platform where you allow the masses to build the world in the name of “crowdsourcing” will ultimately result in an over-saturation of garbage and fail.
Need an example? Spend 5 minutes on the mainland.
WUTEVA
May 27th, 2010
muwahaahahahahah. Prok.
YAH RIGHT.
Nebula/PinkBunny
May 27th, 2010
Plexus leaving just seems great to me.
All Seeing Eye
May 27th, 2010
There is an alternative. And it isn’t blue mars or reaction grid.
Trinity Dejavu
May 27th, 2010
@All Seeing Eye Obviously your hinting at the exciting new world of Twinity!
All Seeing Eye
May 27th, 2010
@Trinity: No. I already uninstalled Twinity. I watched them ban someone for talking about SL. Fuck them. We have enough of that sort of “management style” in the metaverse already.
If you don’t know by now it is just a matter of time before you do know where.
Tayste
May 27th, 2010
@Zeta: The SL platform is a sandbox. In terms of online applications with a strong social element, it is still the best (and nearly only) massively connected sandbox platform.
In a sandbox application, the end result is rarely if ever justification for usage. Like a sandcastle, when you are done, when you are done the goods are either kicked over for further enjoyment, or inevitably washed away.
If you want a massively networked art gallery, sure.. Blue Mars et al is fine. If you want a massively networked creation platform, Second Life cannot yet be beat. That said, it’s a real pity that they get to say what is, and is not, art.
V
May 27th, 2010
I’m surprised there’s no speculation that this relates to the WU debacle.
As for SLCC, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a social gathering, hardly anything more.
Jake
May 27th, 2010
hmm if they are saying that ponzi scheme land barons, sex bed donald trumps, annoying hacker and vigilante cliques and other metagame phenomena are not “art” then maybe that will be fine with the majority who just play the game for entertainment.
Kiddoh
May 27th, 2010
BlueMars is pretty cool. It has some wonky controls ATM, but I at the same time I don’t think they would be too strict on what you’re allowed to bring into the system. It’s not like they’re pretentious art snobs or something.
Wayfinder
May 27th, 2010
@Zeta: I could not agree more.
@Tayste: Inworldz is making rapid progress at becoming a replacement for Second Life. I think I can honestly say if SL were to self-destruct tomorrow, Elf Clan could survive on Inworldz without really much of a hitch. We already have two sims there and are doing splendidly. Inworldz is only the first of such competitive worlds who are starting to take coding into their own hands and leaving OpenSim behind.
Regarding the thought that the Metaverse will become more restrictive, I think the exact opposite will happen. It is Linden Lab’s arbitrary decisions that have been at the same time unnecessarily restrictive (10m prim limits, 30m link limits, 25 groups, etc etc ad nauseum)… and not restrictive enough (failure to employ special texture permissions, failure to employ legal and proper copyright procedure way back when they started, failure to stop copybot the moment it appeared on the grid and hit abusers with a few Federal criminal activity charges). The new grids that are coming out are doing everything the can to stop thief bots, and are removing Linden Lab restrictions that have crippled builders for almost seven years now. If anything, I see user freedoms of creativity opening up with the new grids. We’re seeing the iron curtain come down.
I’m not impressed with Blue Mars. Been there. Ignored that. Cumbersome interface, user-unfriendly.
The downside in Second Life dying is all the work and investment customers have put in there. But their self-serving corporate mentality has taken the fun out of the grid and is causing sim owners and merchants constant problems. People ARE starting to leave Second Life for external grids. Second Life concurrency and base population hasn’t increased in well over two years. The board is showing severe signs of stagnancy.
When people realize they can acquire a sim for $75 a month instead of $295, that they’ll get 35,000 prims instead of 15,000, that they can use megaprims, have 50 or more groups, can link across an entire sim… I don’t give either Linden Lab or Second Life much hope. Sure, there will be sticker-ons who will just refuse to give up their SL community and LL might limp along for a while. Or it may die a sudden and grisly death from any one of numerous consequence-caused directions (from being sued to the gills to breaking Federal law).
Linden Lab hasn’t conducted business honestly, honorably or cleanly. That method of business operation tends to catch up with a company eventually. Myself: I say bring on external grids. They’re here, and more are coming. I seriously doubt that Linden Lab will have either the skillz or the wisdom to compete with peers on an open market. After almost 7 years they can’t even manage to send a simple notecard to all the members of a group. I’d LOL that… but it’s not even funny.
Glenn Beck
May 27th, 2010
Seems as though Carl Linden is also not in search. You know who else isn’t in search?
… Adolf Hitler.
Though I think his alt Adolf Hiten is.
Alyx Stoklitsky
May 27th, 2010
@Wayfinder
>Cumbersome interface, user-unfriendly.
So it’s just like second life then?
It's Unfixable
May 27th, 2010
Unfixable’s Law: every article in the Herald is either about Woodbury, or is filled by comments by them within the first five posts.
Here we are again, folks. BTW, the part about JLU seems pasted on here. What do they have to do with anything anymore?
@”Glenn Beck”, Carl was fired for pandering to the WU and reading the SL database to them.
Ψ
May 27th, 2010
@Zeta
The fact of the matter is SL is rapidly falling down the side of a
hill and taking people down with it. Everybody is quick to blame
everyone not responsable. Be it copybot, WU, PN, even Russia!
Whoever you choose to blame, remember how LL Has been virtually
evades every opprotunnity to better their platform. It seems
abundantly clear LL is on the verge of killing SL as we know it
to appeil to a more wealthy crowd. It’s possible LL wants to sell SL
here soon to some corperation, make the board rich and of leave
everyone in the dust. Well, sure they are getting mesh and havok 7
ready for realease but they won’t even bother fixing the engine or
more importantly getting rid of SL wind which is the real reason
everything operate like crap on even the expensive gaming PCs. It’s
nessasary to fix these, but they won’t.
@Alex
TRUTH
@It’s Unfixable
You forgot naked pixels.
–
Whether SL decides to grow a pair and fix all of the problems aforementioned and the countless others not, LL has a long way before it could ever be fun again. I would advise against holding too much stock in SL in the near future or at least start diversifying your income stream. Either way you can plan a pretty birthday party but you can’t predeict the weather.
Broken record
May 27th, 2010
@ It’s Unfixable
YAWN!
A furry
May 27th, 2010
One thing LL could do is to buy some ads on certain message boards. Fix the glitch with region crossings,and actually listen to us. Like get rid of Zindra and move all the adult content back to the mainland. Change the ratings back to PG and Mature,and decrease the tier for land.
Gundel Gaukelei
May 27th, 2010
The Alphaville Herald – terminal care for dying VRs – call 321-done.
Gundel Gaukelei
May 27th, 2010
PS: better rename to Omega Herald
A Furry
May 27th, 2010
I tried Inworldz,but everytime i tried to login i crashed.
At0m0 Beerbaum
May 27th, 2010
Linden Labs is downsizing so much because they’re at constant war with their customers and pushing their corporate board room ideas onto the customers and telling them what they want. It’s this arrogant attitude that is rampant in all modern corporate money machines.
It’s not “What can we do to get more customers and money?” anymore, it’s “These plebians owe us big time, they WILL give us their money, even if we have to call the lawyers, and they WILL do what we tell them to because we’re important people in suits.”
Look at the oil companies, the telecoms and music companies in the US. Look how they treat their own customers. They practically punish them for being customers. Then threaten them if they attempt to go elsewhere, if that fails, create laws to extract money from people who aren’t even customers (RIAA is still trying to push a yearly tax we would all have to pay to compensate them for our horrible deed of not wanting to buy the latest Justin Bieber album.)
Oh did I forget to mention the arrogance of the companies that got bailed out by the US govt? “Too big to fail” then they turn around after getting the bailout money, continue to screw people over and use said money for their yearly self pat on the back.
The hilarious thing is, in the case of Linden Labs, they’re too small for the govt to care, too small to lobby for power, and too small for most people to give a shit. So their arrogance, unlike the big monopolistic corporations, is only harmful for themselves.
This is probably the scenario that’s going to roll out in the next two years:
-The staff will continue to be downsized
- Regions will start being shut down, and anyone who lives in said regions will be forced to “live” on a linden home plot.
- Homesteads or water sims will be unable to be registered, you will be forced to buy a whole sim, as LL scrambles to get more money, pissing more people off.
- Private water sims and Homesteads will be shut down and the residents forced onto linden home land.
- Whole continents will be shutdown and people will be moved onto new linden home continents
- Private sim registration will be halted and made exclusive to corporate customers or organizations
- As more people leave, LL will try to push their linden homes thing for every day customers harder, and push pre-made islands for companies more
- more customer loss
- Out of the blue the company will file for chapter 11 bankruptcy or just close the doors as a virtual worlds company
then from there, it will either
a) die quietly into the night, forever leaving a black mark on virtual worlds due
b) Become a litigation machine much like companies like SCO, and will begin lawsuits on other virtual worlds companies over copyrights, trying to stifle every bit of competition, or getting paid for essentially doing nothing.
Oh well, just remember when people like Anshe Chung got attacked by floppy penises and laugh.
A Furry
May 28th, 2010
No! don’t die Second life,i’m a furry and i make money as a escort in it. Don’t die. );
Miss J
May 28th, 2010
I like turtles.
Pappy Enoch
May 28th, 2010
Well, I reckons I don’t have to worry none about gittin’ the boot from my squat. Them flyin’ monkeys am flyin’ off!
Me and Prok: last fake folks in a fake world. I plans to go chainsaw-grief her just before them Linden flyin’ monkeys pulls the plug
Well, OpenSim am rite good. I can look like hell and play for free there. Just like SL, hoo whee.
Wordfromthe Wise
May 28th, 2010
@Tayste and other ..
There is no World called OpenSim .. OpenSim(ulator) is the project name – They develop a Opensource Alternative. Even if it looks and feels like SL it is/can be different. They also have a bunch of own
non LSL Programming commands.
Basically you can have your own Regions Standalone (just for you) or a closed Grid/Gated Community (like the rezzables and ReactionGrid or Inworldz) or you connected for free to e.g. OSGRID.
OSGRID is the World of the Core Developers of the Opensimulator. Most people there (like me) are interested in the more technical
aspect of these things or love to be on the cutting edge. But we also slowly grow and attract “not so” techsavy people.
All other grids ‘just’ take the sourcecode of Opensimulator and build their own Worlds. And in not so distant future, you can safely travel by using “Hypergrid jumps” .. Currently this is a bit unsafe.
All the ‘Opensim is bad, opensim is unsecure’ is Bulls**t .. It is as safesecure as SL is safe or secure. Not more not less.
I have 12 Regions for my own building pleasure, and i gave 2 full Regions to nice poeple i meet there. This only cost me 45 €
Month.
And now, that i cant buy things in SL anymore because i can not bring it over (TPVP) i finally cashed out every last Linden and gave it to a Charity Foundation..
best regards
Wordfromthe Wise
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.osgrid.org/elgg/
General Drama
May 28th, 2010
Plexus wins the Linden Award for sticking around the longest after it was evident to everyone he should have been fired long ago. So what is old Plexy doing now? Does he have a page on Linked-In to find a new job? Did he take Frontier up on the offer to move in and pump gas at his service station?
Tayste
May 28th, 2010
@Wordfromthe Wise:
OpenSim is a platform based on the SecondLife platform. I was not referring to any pre-existing communities that use it, nor any content created there. I was speaking in terms of the platform itself.
Which, let’s face it, certainly does have stability issues at the moment. Perhaps no worse than SecondLife had in 2007.. but the issues remain, and it is quite apparently that the majority of current SecondLife users, in the event should SecondLife cease to operate, would most likely give up altogether on SecondLife and it’s derivative platforms.
That is my opinion, however I do feel that it is firmly grounded in reality.
Persephone Bolero
May 28th, 2010
This is what we call yellow journalism. Last quarter, Linden Labs posted record-high positives in almost all in-world economic categories. While a recession is undeniable in RL, there seems to be no parallel equivalent in SL. If SL is “dying,” why is the economy doing so well when it should be slumping?
Not only does this article fail to acknowledge this inconvenient fact, no one in the comments seems to have any interest in doing so either.
Wayfinder
May 28th, 2010
No Persephone, it’s not yellow journalism. It’s saying “The Emperor has no clothes”.
Do you really believe the Linden Lab self-backpatting PR claims are accurate and true? I’ve been tracking Linden Lab “statistics” for the last several years. I’ve seen their “last 60 day logins” numbers jump by 20% in just one day. Two days later, they drop by the same number and sonufagun, it’s about the same as it was before.
I’ve watched concurrency numbers for the last 2 years. By Linden Lab’s own tables, both their concurrency and total user numbers have stagnated during that entire period of time; zero growth. So I have to wonder where these supposed huge sales increases– in the middle of a major recession– came from? What… existing users just suddenly decided to go on a buying spree? When Linden Lab lost some 16% of the entire grid due to bait-and-switch price hiking?
Linden Lab has consistently refused to let a third-party, impartial agency track and verify their stats. As a professional analyst I can tell you: some of those self-published stats are very difficult to believe. But to put spoiled icing on the spoiled cake, I have seen Linden Lab visibly and obviously fudge their numbers time and time again. I’ve seen them produce charts and just praise the dickens out of themselves, when anyone with three working brain cells can examine the same charts and see what Linden Lab *isn’t* saying. (I’ve written entire blogs on such propaganda).
So no Persephone, it isn’t “yellow journalism”. It’s refusing to be gullible. It’s being smart enough and having enough integrity to read between the lines and call ‘em as we see ‘em. Anyone who believes a word that comes out of the Linden Lab narcissistic propaganda machine, imo can expect an eventual very rude awakening.
Personally, I think the people here have been hitting the nail right on the head.
Wayfinder
May 28th, 2010
BTW, just as general thought: someone mentioned back there Linden Lab possibly suing external grids for copyright infringement. Not really. I mean, I don’t put anything past that immensely stupid company, but…
1) They released their viewer code open source. Dumb move. They did it. Too late to shut the gate now.
2) If they did try to stop OpenSim and related projects… they would be taking on a dog far bigger than them with teeth of iron.
OpenSim and other grids don’t just consist of amateurs who don’t know what they’re doing. There are some very big names hanging in the shadows that are vested in OpenSim (names like Microsoft, Intel and a few others). In addition, some of those grids are owned by experienced business people who:
a) Know how to file an anti-competition injunction
b) Know how to file a class-action lawsuit
c) Know how anti-monopoly laws work
In short, while Linden Lab may be foolish enough to try to sue the competition, doing so could very easily turn on them and slice their own throat from one ear to the other.
So… what hey in effect have done is put themselves between a rock and a hard place. They let the cat out of the bag when they released their viewer open source. They don’t dare sue the OpenSim grids because of the tens of thousands of people who would readily jump on the class action anti-monopoly lawsuit, but those grids are definitely competing with Second Life as an equal peer. (Don’t let the instability and bugs of OpenSim fool you. As one astute individual back there put it, Second Life was just as unstable and buggy in 2007… and still is in many areas).
Every month that passes by, new code is being developed. New grids are coming online. OpenSim isn’t just one agency; it’s hundreds of agencies that are working toward one common goal: to de-throne the Linden Lab monopoly. While the progress is slow, it is nevertheless progress… which is more than I can say for Linden Lab’s “1 step forward 5 steps backward” management mentality.
I mean seriously: 67% price hikes rather than price reductions. Textures, group notices and group chat still don’t work after YEARS of being reported as broke. Viewer 2 (ugh, what a mess). Putting GOM out of business so they can start their own Lindex (competing against their own customers). I’m sorry for the residents who’ve invested heavily in that platform (I’m one of such, sadly), but the future of Linden Lab looks pretty durn grim. The concept of them trying to sue their way out of the consequences of their actions simply is not going to work. That very lawsuit could sharply turn on them and force them out of business (for every lawsuit, there is a greater and more damaging countersuit).
Class action suits are very dangerous things fro companies, mainly because the first question a judge asks is, “Why are thousands of people suing this company?” The answer to that one usually is not pretty. So Linden Lab would have to be totally insane, arrogant and business suicidal to initiate such an action.
Oh wait… Linden Lab IS totally insane, arrogant and business suicidal. Oops… ; )
GEORGE ZIMMER, FOUNDER AND CEO OF MEN'S WAREHOUSE
May 28th, 2010
Seeing as how one of our newer members harassed OSGrid for weeks with only the most basic of tools, I don’t buy the argument that it’s somehow more secure.
On the other hand, it was hilarious to see the entire mainland explode into Spengbab, like the whole island was made up of Replicator cubes.
Persephone Bolero
May 28th, 2010
@Wayfinder Here’s the question. Why are you so passionate about their alleged coming demise? I’ve used products before I didn’t like and seen advertising that was unconvincing. I simply didn’t use or ceased using the products.
I certainly didn’t go into seething tirades over it, crying that their advertising claims were “propaganda.” You sound more like those people who rage against sim owners whenever they make a decision you don’t like. And they too go off on anyone that defends such owners. Don’t wail in frustration over your lack of control over the situation. What’s with the drama? If you’re not happy, take control and just leave.
I’m quite happy with Linden Lab’s efforts. They have done some things I didn’t approve of (like their open space boondoggle) and it’s affected my decisions as to what level of business I do with them. If I became so dissatisfied with their service that it was no longer worth using, I would just use another or none at all.
If no other service exists that satisfies you and others who would like SL to be better, then at least be happy that Linden Labs has managed to do this “virtual world” thing far better than anyone else, enough so that even with your obvious dissatisfaction, you continue to use their service. That’s effective competition. Sometimes, especially with a new product like Second Life, you can’t have perfect customer satisfaction. But you can have more than your competitors. That’s called doing it FTW.
Darien Caldwell
May 28th, 2010
To me, the fact that OpenSim only supports 2/3 of the existing scripting functions makes it a no-go for me. Until they can 100% fully support all scripting functions, It’s not viable.
As for the LL departures, it’s probably just a factor of this article:
http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/05/25/its-quitting-time-why-workers-are-leaving-their-jobs-in-droves/
With the economic upturn, people are now ready to leave those jobs they were afraid to leave, and find new jobs. Good Luck, former LL staffers.
zeromus
May 28th, 2010
i dont know why the cuts to the gteam is really a problem do they really need 10 people to decide which greifer scum is deemed not suitable for the metaverse.
Tayste
May 28th, 2010
I think that griefer scum are suitable for the metaverse. Just tossin’ that out.
At0m0 Beerbaum
May 29th, 2010
@ wayfinder; GPL != release of copyright.
in fact, you can release GPL’d code, but you can still technically enforce your copyright on it. (ie, they can claim that you cannot use the windlight portion in your clients to profit without getting a cut of it.)
If I remember correctly anyway.
I don’t think it’s like that, but they can abuse copyright law and attempt to subvert the GPL.
They can also turn around and claim that their various server functions that were reverse engineered violate trade secrets.
Not saying they’d be successful, but they will rock the boat, and can get service providers (ie, colos) to shut down “offenders” via the DMCA with big scary words.
The fact that I was directed to the legal department over an unjust ban, and that I would have to get lawyers to undo my ban, shows that this may very well be the case as this is their mentality towards business and customer relations. They are having lawyers handle customer relations when things go sour. How many companies do this? You know, the ones that don’t sue customers and other businesses for petty reasons?
All Seeing Eye
May 29th, 2010
@Wayfinder – Add to the potential class action lawsuit problems the current filtering out of search most of the businesses in SL.
There is more to that I would love to reveal but we really need the former Lindens to tell all real soon.
I suspect Kingdon and Rosedale think they are exempt from RICO statutes. If third and fourth class action lawsuits are approved then most likely the feds will step in. At worst shutting the company down and seizing everything as evidence. (beware all those who have been engaged in illegal activities and illegal deviancy lmao)
LL is walking on eggshells and think their government contracts will protect them. No. The contracts will just make it worse on the politicians behind the deals. Politicians who will jettison LL at the first sign of a reporter asking hard questions. And if LL goes down then the government won’t have to pay them anymore will they? Not after taking all the code and data. What a deal!
LL: In the center of the shitstorm vortex. Not a place to have bet your nest egg.
Wayfinder
May 29th, 2010
@Percepohone: “Why are you so passionate about their alleged coming demise? I’ve used products before I didn’t like and seen advertising that was unconvincing. I simply didn’t use or ceased using the products. ”
A valid question Percephone, and one I’ve answered many times before.
The “love it or leave it” mentality is severely unrealistic and fails to take into consideration numerous aspects of Second Life. Linden Lab has created a “society”… but one lacking in government, and one totally lacking in representation of the people. In effect, Second Life is “taxation without representation” in that we are charged humongous fees, but have little or no say in how the board is governed.
For years RL people of limited scope have claimed “United States! Love it or leave it!” No… if we don’t love it we have a right, as citizens of this country, to protest, to publish, to freedom of speech against abuses, to impeach if necessary to impose the will of the people upon the government. We have no such abilities in Second Life.
I actually use Second Life relatively little myself. But I happen to be the founder of one of the larger themed groups on the grid, and I feel a personal obligation to our members. That obligation includes cautioning people in aspects of Second Life operation that could seriously impact their investments, activity, creations and time. Linden Lab is regularly impairing all of these.
Basically what you’re suggesting is that users don’t have the right to object to abusive company policies, that we should either just take it on the jaw, or pack up and leave. Were that the case for just myself, I would do so (and have done so in the past). But I have over 2,100 other people to consider in my decisions. Many of those people don’t care much for Linden Lab or Second Life… but they love Elf Clan. That obligation doesn’t allow me to just turn my back and let the company self destruct.
A viable option to the ineffective and emotionalistic “love it or leave it”, is “tell the truth until the company is forced to acknowledge the problems”. If they refuse to acknowledge and correct the problems, then at least people have been informed and can make their decisions accordingly. In addition, we are establishing a historical record that, should Linden Lab ever cross that line that forces people to take severe action (and they came durn close with the OpenSpace fiasco)… we have a historical archive of the company’s activities, blow by blow.
I appreciate that you personally like Linden Lab and Second Life. But from the evidence I’ve seen… you are in a minority. When Linden Lab themselves conducted a survey of what people thought about Viewer 2… 87% of the respondents expressed dissatisfaction.. a major portion of those indicating strong dislike. The problems caused over the last two years by Linden Lab management, incompetent coding, profiteering and flagrantly dishonest business practices have started a VERY visible exodus to other grids. In openly exposing such things, in speaking out against such things, I and others are actually trying to get Linden Lab to wake up before it is too late. Just because we say that Linden Lab is on a suicidal course doesn’t mean it HAS to end that way. They can examine what we say, see if our statements are viable.. and change their ways. But if we just remain silent– how does that in any way help the grid or the customers who invest in it so heavily.
I warned Linden Lab several times that if they continued on their present course, they would wind up with major Federal class action lawsuits on their doorsteps. Well sunufagun… they did… and in exactly the areas I told Linden Lab they would be sued in (copyright issues and breach of contract). There are far more devastating areas in which they could be legally impacted, as pointed out by All Seeing Eye. I am not alone in these opinions Persephone. More and more people are standing up and saying, “The Emperor has no clothes!” Linden Lab is being warned in the most significant manner possible: customer feedback, reaction and legal action.
To hide our head in the sand, to just take whatever Linden Lab has to dish out without a word, is described by an ever growing and popular term: “sheeple”. I think there is no better word to describe people who just accept abuse after abuse after abuse without having the courage to stand up and say “This is not right.” I choose to stand up and speak.
I hope that answers your question sufficiently. “Love it or leave it” really doesn’t solve any problems, does it?
Dave Bell
May 29th, 2010
I wouldn’t say SL is doomed, but I think it’s being held back by technical limits.
Things I’ve heard as Office Hours, and seen in the official blogs, and infer from my own observations:
1: The asset server system has become a huge bottleneck when the Grid is busy, and needs to be replaced.
2: Running a player-free sim on the same processor as it uses when busy is wasteful. Is there a way of vertualising servers? (I suspect the answer would be something like, “Yes, but logins, tps, and sim crossings, would become horribly slow”}
3: Second life looks, from the UK, to need a faster internet connection than Linden Lab think. This may be an artefact of how ISPs sell on peak speed but, in the fine print, only guarantee a few per cent of that peak bandwidth. Many features of Second Life, such as voice and streaming media, largely bypass Linden Lab networks, but they can hammer user bandwidth, and detract from the quality of user experience.
4: Some of the protocols used to communicated between server and viewer may be inefficient when traffic is heavy.
The talk of a server centre in Europe might speed things up for me, but which regions will run on that hardware? A customer not in Europe is going to see things get worse, if an existing region gets moved. Likewise for the Far East. I’ve certainly seen European cities modelled, but big chunks of them can be essentially more-decorative shopping malls. If they’re moved to European servers, how much custom does a store lose?
And is LL listening a little too much to the most vocal merchants and land barons, and doing the wrong things to soothe their fevered brows? If copybot viewers are such a danger, why are so many still usable (and noticably faster than current “official” viewers)?
Dave Bell
May 29th, 2010
BTW, I did pay for a year in advance, and I’m grumpy about the apparent slump in SL performance since then. But a trip to the cinema, once a month, would cost me more. And much of the best stuff in SL is in the private regions.
It’s land where Linden Lab make their money. And it’s those large areas of land controlled by people with a vision which gives Linden Lab an image that can sell the game.
Not suburban tract housing occupied by families with virtual kids. That advert image really opens a giant economy-size can of worms, doesn’t it.
Jayd3n
May 29th, 2010
Question is were these lindens Corrupted or not, or did they do illegal things to its residents of second life I know that Plexus Linden had a lot of personal relations and stuff with a guy named Shawn Hutchinson, and probabily did a few favors for them, but did he really do anything wrong.
Also I am awaiting Woodburys return and unban of all innocent woodbury residents, except those who have been proven to violate the Second Life Terms OF Service.
Persephone Bolero
May 29th, 2010
@Wayfinder I’m sorry, but you’re full of shit. You’re making a comparison to the “love it or leave it” mentality of those that protest the United States government actions and your dissatisfaction with a Linden Lab’s services. This would be a lot like pretending that Proctor and Gamble’s inability to produce an effective deodorant for you is some kind of gross injustice comparable to excessive taxes or slavery.
I’ve seen this same kind of puerile behavior throughout SL anytime sim owners make decisions that upset some people…people like you who want more than they’re willing to pay for. They act like they’ve suffered some kind of Holocaust rather than..you know, just TPing to another sim.
Second Life is NOT a country. It is a computerized service provided by a company who seeks to make money by building a new communication medium. If you’re not happy with that service, find one that pleases you. If no service is to your satisfaction, than accept you’re a customer that can’t be satisfied. It’s not an injustice. It’s that what you want isn’t worth the price you’re willing to pay. Deal with it and go away.
Senban Babii
May 29th, 2010
@Wayfinder
Everything you just said +1
After all, wasn’t it Phillip Linden who said – “I’m not building a game. I’m building a new country”?
Note “new country” not “new communication medium” Persephone
Also, regarding the exodus to other grids. After almost three years of SL I’ve now created an account with Inworldz and can see myself spending more time there compared to SL. I’d prefer to remain in SL of course but I’m fed up of being treated like a criminal just because I refuse to be a docile cash cow. I’d rather stay and engage with the issues but until LL starts consistently listening to the population of the world we created for them, there’s little point.
Jumpman Lane
May 29th, 2010
so went the gteam!
All Seeing Eye
May 29th, 2010
If LL contacted you then you know you will still be making content in SL in the near future. If you do not know of what I speak then your ass is history. LL figured out how to end all the copybot problems and whining dressmaker problems by getting rid of user businesses and only a select few designers making content for LL to sell.
It is over. Only dumbasses will keep paying tier to LL. Have a nice day in some other grid that is not run by the frisco man queen mafia.
Kultur-Klub-Jammer-Kid
May 29th, 2010
I see Wayfinder is still full of shit.
Arrogant asshole.
Darien Caldwell
May 29th, 2010
“After all, wasn’t it Phillip Linden who said – “I’m not building a game. I’m building a new country”?
Note “new country” not “new communication medium” ”
Well, I’m prining money, and not typing a sentence. Oh wait, me saying that didn’t make it so.
SL is not a country.