As I see it, the problem is the media. It is to the media’s financial gain to believe SL has a bad reputation and they push that to sell their product. Which of us is right will determine how effective actions are to shape the future SL user’s opinion of what Second Life is or isn’t.
25:00 The interview with Widely Linden on Oculus Rift and the SL Viewer starts. Widely says they have made the ENTIRE Second Life experience available to the future Oculus Rift user. That means shopping, exploring, chatting, building… everything.
Widely says touch typists will fly through the controls. Hunt-and-peck typists are going to find the user interface on-screen familiar and useable. Widely suggests that something like the Ironman interface Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr., sees when in the suit is what they have implemented for the SL Viewer.
Widely describes the Linden position is not that of wanting to be first. But, to really do it right, to provide the best experience. So, they needed from when they started in August 2013 until now to get what they feel will give Oculus users a full experience of Second Life.
One of the problems the Lindens ran into is the game-display-tricks used to help people know where their cursor is no longer work. This meant the cursor control that drives that little arrow we so take for granted had to be re-written and thought. We don’t yet know what they did to fix the problem, but we do know it will be new.
From what Widely is saying in the interview, and I suggest you listen to what he is says first hand, the cursor will behavior in ways very familiar to us. We will understand the paradigm being used. That fits with the Lab’s goals of doing all they can to hold the learning curve to as small a mountain as possible.
31:00 Those familiar with SL will have almost no learning curve when switching to the Oculus. Drax brings up LEAP Motion control. I didn’t hear anything new from Widely.
34:00 Drax asks a question from Loki Elliot as to whether Oculus is going to change our experience of our avatar. Loki is pointing out that many people use 3rd person view so they can see their avatar. Is Oculus going to change that? Widely says no.
Oculus support the 3rd person view and Widely says it has some advantages. And while it gets bit fuzzy about which viewer does what there is apparently 1 new mouse-look mode added for Oculus. But, the mouse-look view we are familiar with is also alteredand improved.
From the sound of Widely’s voice it seems he is bursting to say more. He says their intention was to give the Oculus user as much use of the Rift and its possibilities as possible.
36:00 Widely describes how some of the new and old mouse-look views work. Widely prefers the new first person view.
39:15 Drax asks about nausea factor. Widely says the new Oculus is better at reducing nausea problems. With better tracking in the new Oculus devices many of the eye-body-motion cues being received are more realistic, which reduces the nausea problem. Early Oculus devices provide less tracking and thus confused the brain with conflicting motion vs visual information. I guess the take away is nausea is less of a problem in the latest development kits and should be even a lesser problem in the commercial release of Oculus.
40:50 Talk turns to the beta project. Drax tries to get an ETA, but Widely provides a realistic answer. They are hoping to get good feedback and possibly new ideas from creative types. Depending on what they get, they may add or change features of the UI. So, the answer on ETA is unknowable.
42:00 Drax asks a question submitted by an audience member, is the Mac experience different? Widely says fundamentally they are the same.
42:50 Drax asks if Widely is sharing his experience of SL with normal people? The answer is mostly joking around. I can’t tell if Widely deliberately avoids answering or not. There is an answer, but in context I can’t decide if it was just joking ir an actual answer. I will say if it was deliberate avoidance, it was smooth.
46:40 Jo asks if the Lab will create a showcase area for Oculus users? Widely answers that the Lindens have visited places in SL to find the places that look great with Oculus and made a destination guide for Oculus users. So, basically there will be no Oculus specific area built by the Lab.
47:20 Jo asks if the Lab is preparing lots of promotional material targeted toward Oculus users? Widely’s answer is it is basically too early to go there. Once the Oculus is released and a price point set then the Lab can target their advertising.
50:00 Drax and Jo discussion of the Widely interview starts here They are both excited about what Widely Linden has said. It is exciting. Listen to the audio. Get excited.
A point they make is about the Lab taking the time to do this right, at least making the attempt. No matter how well the competition does making their VR games, Second Life has a world full of places to explore. SL has more content than any place else or than anyone else can possibly have for some time to come. Plus how many of the competitors have literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people building content?
As new hardware comes out and people want to use it, the place to go is going to be Second Life. If the experience is as awesome as many of us suspect, VR and SL will grow, may be explosively.
Drax and Jo appreciate the games made for Rift, but Second Life is going to be the ultimate toy for those with an Oculus.
54:20 Drax and Jo are onto other things at this point. GDC – Game Developers Conference, Relay for Life, etc.
56:50 Millay Freschi on handling griefers. This is worth a listen. If you listen to nothing else, check this part of the audio.
Thanks Nalates, I think my Jira has been filed as a replica so I’m not sure I can make someone else’s jira public;
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3893
I agree that a lot, perhaps most people have no opinion on SL one way or another even though most people I know have at least heard of it.
But those that have heard of it, have a negative opinion about it.
So SL needs to have its reputation fixed and also needs more promotion.
And yes, the Media has played a large part in the current situation but LL haven’t been helping.
“From the sound of Widely’s voice it seems he is bursting to say more. ” made me laugh, I had the same feeling, he was so excited!
But, you created BUG-3423. I’m not sure if we can vote on triaged/closed items. We used to be able to. And you may be able edit it to point to whatever item is open. Include a refer to note and list related JIRA items. Or email Alexa and ask her the best way to get it out where people can see the feature request.
You could be right about fixing the reputation. But, I don’t know how to massively target those that know about SL vs those that don’t.
I think fixing the reputation is like fighting a gorilla war. The media is much larger and has a much larger audience. You can tackle trying to reach the general audience of billions or target the hundreds of media people that have written about and may write more about SL. Seems changing their minds with an perpetual stream of easy to report stories would have a leveraged affect.
Having those stories out or ready to send to reporters at news stations when the Oculus releases would give the reporters something positive to say. If you can find the oculus release date or get them to alert you the week before, would allow people to flood the media with positive used of Oculus and SL.
I’ll have a look at my old jira.
I think that the media clearly needs some help, for instance, even positive stories about SL keep using 2007 screenshots because journalists are lazy and they just take the first google images they find or take a quick look at the commons.
They also do a little google perhaps and maybe check youtube or flickr.
So best thing we as users can do is at least flood the internet with current and impressive screenshots (I’ve uploaded a few to wikipedia with no copyrights so journos can use them) and without becoming too blindly positive, we as bloggers have to make sure that at least our stories are up to date and make clear that SL has more to offer, good or bad.
If a journalist googles SL and finds good screenshots in stead of 2007 ones, if they find stories about sims where people don’t just do hanky panky and if they find Drax his videos in steads of someone having a virtual baby, then odds are they change their tone a bit.
It is an ongoing battle and LL needs to put some more effort in.
Stop advertising SL as barbie and pervy paradise.
Companies that want news and media coverage make press kits, an article with pictures written as if the reporter had written it. Those are sent to the reporters.
Some lazy or jaded reporters still go with the sleaze or angles unflattering to the company. Then people target the reporter’s editor.
The above are aspects of active campaigns. A passive campaign, putting stuff out for the media to find, is probably not going to work. They simply don’t find it unless you work at getting search position. The result is articles like this continue to appear: http://flavorwire.com/445543/the-provocative-and-disturbing-world-of-second-life-photography/
I doubt we are going to change Alison Nastasi’s mind. But, Flavorwire.com will publish articles that fit their demographic. It seems SL does. So, that outlet could be targeted for monthly releases. The challenge is finding someone that wants to handle it, has the understanding of media needed to make it work, and has the time.