Project Sansar: The Forthcoming Successor To Second Life Will Focus On VR

[kcarbotte]

Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab's CEO, and Peter Gray, the company's Senior Director of Global Communications, lent us their thoughts about Project Sansar and their vision of its future.

Project Sansar: The Forthcoming Successor To Second Life Will Focus On VR : Read more

 

[Dave K]

Second Life always struck me as a basic pyramid scheme with some obsolete tech driving it (even when it was new the graphics were terrible), but there's no arguing that they've had longevity... people are getting something out of it so I say go for it, it would be interesting to see what they could do with an environment that was actually state of the art.

 

[Jumpman_Lane]

Seems kind of like more of the same, those pesky Linden's (tourists at best in their) own lil virt world, never had a finger on the pulse of the users of their little platform. The average resident in Second Life is a far cry from the great content creators of the early days of SL. They aren't event the Bling Tards from Second Life's Golden Age (Early 2006-early 2008). The average SL user today is not ITCHING to create anything and even if they were the price of LAND is not the obstacle. Today's resident is a re re just trading about socializing with his turdy pals or ITCHING to hop on a poseball for a steady bout of cybersexing. Perhaps cybering in virtual reality will be attractive to such saps, I unno I'm jus' a lil' Lane. Linden Lab's new 'project' seems like a way to horn in on the profits they see on their servers in the form of account transaction histories. More power to them, caws micro-transactions and not land sales(i.e. renting servers) was always their path to profitability.

 

[OtakuKei]

@Jumpman_Lane I am not entirely sure where you are looking on Second Life but there is a whole host of content creators making new and interesting things with each passing day. A lot of these creators are heavily experienced with Mesh (3d Model Design), Texturing and Coding. To say that "The average resident in Second Life is a far cry from the great content creators of the early days of SL" seems silly to me. When SL first started we had very very low texture resolutions, clothing made from sculpts and prims, prim hair, prim buildings, scripts that had no way of influencing a linked object unless it was inside that linked object...etc. Comparing now to then....then looked awful. These days we have 3d mesh avatars with high quality texturing, efficiently scripted products that cause little to no lag, high quality texture designers, buildings - clothes - products designed in high quality software such as Maya, Cinema etc. Granted a lot of sims in SL look like they have been dragged kicking and screaming out of the 90s but if you look around you will see a plethora of talented and dedicated developers creating some unique and awesome products!.
As for the average SL user not wanting to create anything, i have to say that is simply untrue. I meet new people each and every day who are developing their own products or trying to set up some new combat zone or RP. The same people creating and developing their own combat systems or RP simulations.
Also, land pricing IS an issue I'm afraid to say. $295 a month for a full region + $1000 setup fee if you buy directly from the lindens is insane. The average person or even developer does not have that type of money just sitting around going spare. Even renting a full region from a land agent can be costly as you pay (cost of the sim per month from LL)+(percentage added by the agent). Full regions are a requirement to do anything worthwhile (rp sim, combat sim etc). So most settle for a smaller sized parcel at a much lower rate as thats all they can afford. If you check out the Chung estate or Weezles or any of the big land barons you will find that while fair few whole regions are rented, the rest of the rentals are smaller parcels and there is A LOT of them in use. For the SL user that just wants a small house or shop....the small parcels are fine. However, for a serious developer wanting to do something meaningful....the price of a full region is way too high so...yes, land price is an obstacle.
Also, i seldom meet anyone if i am honest who is just interested in cyber sex. SL has a thriving sex industry yes but you rarely see it. Most users i meet on my travels are on SL to either develop, RP/Game or socialise. In fact i can honestly say i have never EVER been asked to cyber by anyone. So, unless your the type who seeks out these places (hey I'm cool with it if thats what your into) then your comment is lacking in credibility.

 

[OtakuKei]

@Dave K Second Life has always been about user created content. It is not a case of the graphics "being terrible". The graphics seen in world are created by the user. As of the last few years a lot has improved in world. With the improvement in hardware, software, mesh etc much better creations are being born in world. Some developers have polished their work to game development standard and look, in world, just as good as any object in any other game. To sum up...its not Second Lifes graphics that are terrible....its your experience with viewing some of the sub par creations that exist in world. If you looked a little further you will find some amazing creations that look just as good as any design found in any game or real world product.

 

[Dave K]

@OtakuKei - I'm more than willing to eat crow if things have changed, but I'm not finding any vids online that show high end SL graphics... can you point me to some? Doing a youtube search for "Second Life Ultra Graphics" and the like yielded nothing that looked better than state of the art 7-10 years ago... but I might be looking in the wrong places.