Comments on: SL Population Crash Continues

By: SL in Steam: Rod Humble’s Hail Mary Pass? | The Alphaville Herald

SL in Steam: Rod Humble’s Hail Mary Pass? | The Alphaville Herald — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 03:12:31 +0000

[...] charts (see charts below). Falling concurrency continues a trend the Herald pointed out in April 2011. With ongoing pricing pressure from other virtual worlds, and high profile group defections such as [...]

By: Yep

Yep — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 03:56:34 +0000

“The hidden threat may be the association of Second Life with an online gambling company.”

No but it is a big hassle with the banks. Again being billed by LL triggered a red flag at my bank freezing my account until I contacted the fraud dept to fix it.

This time my debit card was frozen and I did not know until I was at the checkstand paying for my purchase.
Thank goodness i wasn’t out of gas stranded in the sticks .

By: SL concurrency dropping | Living in the Modem World

SL concurrency dropping | Living in the Modem World — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:21:51 +0000

[...] policies couldn’t be clearer. At the start of 2009, concurrency was on a high, as the Alphaville Herald shows. However, the start of that year saw what many took to be the final bait-and-switch tacttic [...]

By: A1A

A1A — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Another thing broken. I abandoned 8900+ meters of mainland last June right after my monthly $40 billing date. I moved to private sims. I reviewed credit card statements today and found that I got billed $40 in July and $40 again in August for mainland I do not have. I called the billing number listed on the SL web site, he told me that the billing number is not actually billing its just customer service and I had to submit a ticket. So I did. Looking at my SL account it shows I own no mainland but I cannot change my tier settings to $0 because it won’t let me change it from $40. I asked the poor English speaking customer service guy about this and he said this has been defective for a long time. So the moral of the story is, if you have abandoned mainland and have not checked your credit card statements to see if Linden Lab is still billing you for it, you may have a surprise coming. My question remains: How can a company the size of Linden Labs have a broken client accounting system and not make it a fix ASAP job for the tech people? After nearly four years and over five-grand spent in SL I quit. As soon as this issue is resolved I’m closing my account. These people cannot be trusted.

By: archie

archie — Wed, 04 May 2011 22:17:09 +0000

Still fairly shitty avatar graphics, now if LL gave us some realism – the sex part (which sells SL) would take off again.

By: Alice

Alice — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:45:03 +0000

Well no wonder if “add friend” shows up before all other options, and SL is not like facebook where you must add people to contact them. SL is about socialising before making friends. To SL veterans a friend offer out of the blue is just bad manners and annoying. But how should a new person know , and how should they know the friend button loads 10 times faster than any others? And which engineer should I complain to that they gave preference on “Friend” instead “Message” button?
Also, the introduction of 2 new user interfaces within a year which were both not widely accepted by the veterans or even new users, speak volumes. Just fails to try and re-invent the wheel, instead focusing on listening to what users really want. Yeah of course everyone wants it “easier” all the time, but nobody said SL must be easy. It must be possible to use it though and learn. When I first found information on SL, it was about socializing and making money with creative talent. Now imagine a newcomer who must use the new viewer, without building, grouping and money options. What the heck? SL has been a magnet for creatives and entertainment enthusiasts once. Now all those options are taken away from the standard viewer, and the advanced viewers are too much hidden to be found before people would give up disappointed. What happens? Well exactly above statistic. No surprise.

By: Robert K

Robert K — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:07:58 +0000

This is my first posting here, and I’m surprised to find so much discontent. When I first started SL, 2 years ago, I was lucky to find a mature group that was fun to be with, and had a good sim development plan…Old Hollywood. They’ve joined with vintage Los Angeles RPCC to make 2 sims of enjoyable clubs and creative stores.

I’m sure there are many such “mature” groups who welcome and nurture newbies, respect diversity, and who’s main purpose is having fun.

There should be a classification for such sims: not just “Adult”, but “Mature” and “Newbie Friendly”. And maturity doesn’t neccessarily mean old age.

I make a point of saying “Hi!” to any avatar I come across…you never know what interesting people you’ll meet.

By: GG3

GG3 — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 18:26:57 +0000

Second-Life’s decline can be thanked due to its own community. As a newbie a new user is faced with not only with a daunting menu-system but also the viciousness of users who have been on second-life for years.

Second Life advertised as a place where one could express themselves, build, go shopping, and occasionally make money on the side.

This couldn’t be father from the truth. The amount of scams along with the over-all general poor customer service provided by Linden Labs is a complete turn-off. Land-Barons who hustle the grid by over-charging and hitting up other users who are not as fortunate enough to own 20 or more sims at a time. Even the bigger hustler linden-labs providing tiers that are wallet-drainers that force others to bail-out. It’s a sad sight to see a virtual world cost over $100 or more real-life that could be easily provided in another service at a fair price!

Prim limit is useless and choppy. A 6,800 sqm land can be capped at 2,000 prims yet a 4,800 sqm can have 3,000 prims. The only solution is to buy more land, and the more land available the more the tier costs increase, regardless of the amount of prims featured upon the parcel and varies.

When an average user comes upon a client, they except to have fun and enjoy themselves, however THIS client’s fan-base made sure to make Second-Life as unfriendly to others as possible. Newbies are thrown without guide that would have been provided in another social-chat other-wise. Second-Life users are far TOO serious to began with and act as though Second-Life is their actual mortgage or car when it only exist in the virtual world! The cocky-land barons who suspect anyone under a week-old is a “griefer” (as PATHETIC a in-depth word to be used for a fake world!) and the over-all whinnyness of the average Second-Life user who cannot handle or deal with their own problems! The hubs remain lifeless or troll-infested simply because there is far too much restriction and seriousness.

It’s a wonder how many useless Abuse-Reports clog Linden Lab’s box simply because an avatar refused to know the ways of the internet such as “tping” or “muting” and the over-all “control freak” vanity that exist upon the grid that has turned this client into a mundane slave-master of senile “sophistication”,”money” and “power”. It is sad how the Red-Zone scam happened all too easily that ended up breaking several real-life laws!

The way Second-Life casually advertises itself as a “substitute” for real-life is another reason. Second-Life can never, EVER replace real-life and for those who have tried it usually ended up in much drama! Second-Life is suppose to be a place to socialize, but never to replace real-life responsibilities just as any client or game! This constant mix of reality and virtual-reality is the main reason why so much nonsense exist to began with!

Second Life is not user-friendly, and certainly is NOT newbie-friendly by any-means. It is a place for scams, drama, and sadly favors more businesses than anything else. Newbies are left with no rows and eventually users who have been on Second-Life for some time become tired of all the butt-kissing methods that have gone around!

By: Dave Bell

Dave Bell — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:58:07 +0000

The hidden threat may be the association of Second Life with an online gambling company. I don’t have current info, but the payments service used for non-US customers was going to be handled by Dragonfish, which is part of the same business entity as the 888.com online Poker operation.

Not a target of the Feds this time, but I’d be surprised if questions were not asked.

By: Alyx Stoklitsky

Alyx Stoklitsky — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:09:00 +0000

>Grid crashes in the first half of 2007

Seeing it put a smile on my face.