Besides being horrified that Second Life will eventually become uninteresting in the fashion sense, or become so glitch-filled that we can’t stay online for more than five seconds without being kicked — what’s your fear regarding the progression of Second Life? Maybe it’s paid-for inventory space? (Could you imagine having to pay for space beyond 10,000 items?)
Or maybe it’s the inevitable downfall of Linden Lab catering to corporations and forgetting the residents. (As an aside, have you had any GOOD Linden Lab customer service lately?)
Disneyfication. A Second Life made so safe, so inoffensive, that no-one of interest will want to go there.
LL is like AOL used to be as internet use began to spread. A great way to help newcomers venture into the idea of virtual worlds, but ultimately a massive handbrake on the development of the concept.
Eventually we’ll all be running our own sims on a massively distributed grid of commercially-available sim hosting packages, just like we are running our own websites now. And doubtless Google will come up with a simple way to get started, a virtual world version of Blogspot.
Until then, we have Second Life, with all its highs and lows. My fear is that LL will turn it into a theme park of the bland.
My concern is that SL is so saturated with ‘designers’ buying ready made clothing templates and sculpties that eventually the people making art for art’s sake are just going to stop bothering.
Fears (in no certain order):
Raising private island tier
Charging for invos over 15K and setting those prices for additional items in incremental amounts; i.e. you have 27K, so the charge for over 15K and charges for each 5K over the 15K.
Sanitizing of the entire grid. Since it is a foregone conclusion that the Teen grid will merge with Main grid—let’s make a porn ghetto somewhere on the Main grid, make everyone move there with an Adult rating and then age verify to cover our asses. This is the most assbackward, last minute, lack of foresight idea I have ever heard of.
Age verification and payment verification. Goddamn it LL, this should have been done LONG ago, along with the end of free accounts. Free for 90 days, pay or leave after that.
The prevailing attitude of entitlement. Not directly LL fault, but still causing the end of that “community” feeling that existed when I began.
*rant off and steps down off the portable soapbox*
My worst fear is that LL will become a drama free zone
Microsuck buys out SL.
Microsuck thoroughly sanitizes SL, no sex allowed anywhere, no genitalia parts or on skins. Including removing the adult zone region being planned now.
Microsuck lowers and fixes the prices to 5L or less per sqm on all mainland.
Microsuck buys out all private sims, to keep 100% control over content.
Microsuck hires the top designers, scripters, builders of SL to produce ALL content, to be sold to the new masses.
Microsuck places a SL icon on the Windows OS desktop.
if micro”suck” bought SL it would be dismantled within 9 months and none of the lindens would still have a job. Microsuck would bring in someone like me to do the firings. But I don’t think microsuck will buy SL. Because they don’t need to. The code is free and microsuck already has a more powerful hosting infrastructure with huge pipes connecting the various server colos across the country. Been that way for over a decade. Given microsuck already toyed with 3d shopping in 1996 I doubt they care. The same thing that turned The Plaza (now shopping.msn.com) into a “link mall” applies today. Why do companies need a 3D web when the 2D web already works, everyone already has their own ecommerce systems running, and barely anyone can use the 3D web anyway?
If gates wanted a 3D world he would tell someone to build it. They would. In 6 months or less. And better too. Way better. All those 3D game programmers would ace it in no time using code from the massive microsuck library. In DirectX. And then Gates would crap a money turd on Kapor squeezing him out of existence. Again. Like what happened when Gates crapped the ms office excel turd on Kapor’s Lotus 1-2-3.
Kapor can’t win this fight. Over before it starts.
Anyway my fear is LL has hired big spaceship to nerf SL into 2.5D flash like metaplace. Everything they are doing points to converting to 2.5D with no user created content.
1)They start requiring credit cards for everyone.
2)They update the viewer with so much useless crap that my computer/graphics card can no longer run the damned game.
@Sunshine- Your fears are mine. Except the inventory- I’ll pay if the damn thing stops losing all my objects. (kinda like I pay for premium but have trouble logging in and functioning on Sunday- dang a sucker is born every minute)
@MoarDramaLawls: I seriously had a chuckle with this line: “And then Gates would crap a money turd on Kapor squeezing him out of existence. Again. Like what happened when Gates crapped the ms office excel turd on Kapor’s Lotus 1-2-3.”
And I am afraid of SL going the way of flash based 2.5D.
Tenshi, what is that hair? I needs it, I needs it now!
Well saddle my ass and ride me to Texas, Lo Jacobs, there’s a name I haven’t seen in a while. I still miss PXP, sigh. I still have my moogle too!
Anyway I’m with SomeRandomChick about if they do something to the viewer so it won’t run on the low end Vista machine we have.
But as per your aside, I have had a very recent good customer experience with Linden Lab. When Calla went down, I must have missed any warnings on the matter so I lost my stuffage that was rezzed there. After a couple of days I figured Calla was gone for good so contacted Linden Labs. I have a Basic account so no high end concierge stuffage for me, so I filled out the form we Proles are allowed to use. About a day later they e-mailed me to tell me Calla was temporarily back up so I could retrieve my stuffage.
*waves hi to Chrono*
I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT HAIR IS, TENSHI!
Oh, god. My hair. It’s a Zero Style piece from my “Wayne’s World” post last week. The hair absorbed the lack of texture from the nearby prims – but only a few pieces!! I rezzed the OTHER copy and it was the same. I was sad.
Also, I love Crono for the 1984 reference. *huggles Crono*