Monday, October 12, 2009

How Would You Change Second Life?

Saturday night's discussion group was a roaring success, I want to thank everyone who attended, we had the biggest turn out yet! The topic was, "If you could change one thing about SL, what would it be?" Of course, the first thing everyone said was LAG LAG LAG! And while we agreed that it was probably impossible to eliminate SLag completely, there is always room for improvement (and Jello.)

In my early days of SL, log on totals of 20K would lag everything down, so when you consider the resident numbers you see now, there already has been a considerable improvement.

Other Second Life wish lists included:

  • A Police Force  This suggestion created some debate over the need to keep SL a free society versus the need for greater enforcement of the rules that already exist. And if there are rules, is it truely a "free" society anyway? I'd love to be able to IM someone when my land gets invaded by griefers. It wouldn't have to be that expensive. Linden Labs could hire residents, in-world, paid in L$ to make rounds of events, just to see how things are going. Lord knows there are crap loads of people wanting jobs in SL.
  • Shared inventories between primary and alt accounts Granted, it would make it alot easier than logging off one account and on to another to pass stuff back and forth. Not that I have an alt. *cough*
  • Bringing back the cornfield During the discussion, I mentioned that I used to hear rumors about residents who broke the rules being "sent to the cornfield" (a reference to the classic Twilight Zone episode?) and had always wondered if it was real. According to a long time SL resident, there really was a cornfield where naughty avs were exiled for periods of time. The practice was discontinued due to people deliberately commiting violations, just to see the cornfield. Is it still in existence? I think they should bring it back. Just cuz.
  • Improved map and search options Recent improvements have helped, I hope it's an ongoing project for Linden Labs.
  • Beautiful gowns which, when worn, don't turn into pant suits with giant flaps There are some designers out there who've mastered the flexi flow. I've got a few gowns among my favorites that continue to look all flowy and full when you move, although the skirts still disapear when you sit down. One designer that I know of (I believe it's Nyte and Day, but I might be wrong) now has a scripted prim skirt that doesn't disapear into your booty when sitting. Designers are continuously coming up with new ways to manipulate flexi prims and sculpties. I'm constantly amazed by the talent available in Second Life.
  • Time limits on free accounts or a limit on the number of free accounts you can have at one time I kept a free account for a long time and when times were hard, I downgraded back to a basic account after keeping a premium account for a while. I'd hate to see that option disapear, however, I do think they should put a limit on how many free accounts you can have. I think it would cut down on grief attacks, when griefers are banned, they just come back on another account. It's pretty annoying.
  • Limiting the creation of new land by Linden Labs to boost the Second Life economy I can see how this would help residents with real estate holdings, but I'm not sure it's realistic. The bottom line is, Linden Labs is in the business of making money. Putting more in the pockets of the residents isn't their primary objective.
  • Regional Windlight settings I think this is an excellent idea. I wish I could change my default settings to one of the Windlight options as well, instead of having to go in and select one of the presets every time I log on. Unless of course, there's already a way to do this and I haven't figured it out yet. If that's the case, we'll just quietly forget I suggested it. Kay? Oh and.. tell me how it's done.. please?
I'm sure there were more, we had around 30 participants over the course of an hour. About halfway into the discussion, we were invaded by griefers, forcing me to test my lockdown, eject and ban skills, which are more than a little rusty. Mayhem ensued for a couple of minutes, but we recovered nicely.

Again, I want to thank everyone who came by and I look forward to see ya'll again this Saturday night.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

number 1: Linden Lab needs to fix what is broken. There have been promises and guarantees made. Those aspects need to be FIXED before development on new supplemental features.

number 2: Linden Lab needs to be a company with integrity. No more saying one thing and doing something else. No more bait and switch.

number 3: Second Life, the inworld, needs the 'rules of the world' to actually be what they should be. Main examples include: no loss of inventory, no disappearance of money, and especially no ability to copy and change permissions on objects. To me, these are laws of the inworld.

number 4: read the first 3 again and again and again

Yordie Sands said...

I like all of your ideas for improving SL.

One gripe I have is, I want some covenents for mainland plots. For example, why is anyone allowed to take oceanfront and build out into the ocean creating _psuedo-land_. I've seen entire ocean plots overrun by these builds which destroy the _actual_ oceanfront of other residents.

Also, mainland roads have been wiped out or disrupted in certain locations. Covenents should protect the oceanfronts and the roads.

And yes, call the police!!

 
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