Drax Files Radio

This show covers some VR news, which inspired my DIY article. They touch on Fantasy Fair, which is on going now – May 1 to 11. Then the remainder of the audio is interviews with more Lindens.

Drax and Jo have been talking about the first time user experience. There is no doubt these experiences are a significant contributor to player retention rates… or lack of them. People are adding their ideas to the comments about how the experience may be improved on the Radio Show blog: Drax Files Radio Hour.

Jo suggests that a RL model be used. In many countries people arrive by train, boat, or air. At the arrival points are information kiosks so people can find out how to get wherever they want to go next. Her idea is something like that would work for Second Life. 

Last week Drax talked about European people arriving in Los Angeles or San Francisco. He expects they will have an easier time in SF because it is more like the European model of cities. You can walk to interesting places and find them by simply exploring.

In general the Americas do not work that way. We measure distance in hours, not something most of the rest of the world does. Even in SF you need a car to get to the really interesting places. We are so spread out and there are so many things going on no one has time to explore and find them. We would miss far too much taking that approach.

We tend to do ads and signs at airports, train stations, a little bit at bus stations. Few places will carry the cost of having people fill those roles. There are too few people using these services to provide a return on the cost. So, I suspect a large percentage of the people coming into SL will not have the European mind set/experience of looking for personal help from another person. But, it is also a basic human behavior to look around in any new experience. So, the ideas may work, but I have my doubts it is a completely effective solution.

You can see the idea put into practice in some measure in the Adult Hub land area. How well it is or is not done I suspect is all opinion without real metrics to evaluate.

While I have traveled to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia I can’t say I completely understand how all people travel and explore. I do think there are similarities. Boiling things down to those basics would probably make designing a first time experience more effective. Design would then be using what people already know and do rather than trying to teach them something new, which I think is the underlying principal an Jo’s idea.

So, get your ideas out. I believe some multi-facetted approach is needed. I think coming at a solution from the software engineer’s ideas (the Lindens’) limits perspective.

From what Drax is saying he will be doing more investigation and reporting on initial user experiences. New ideas are likely to come from that work.

08:00 – Discussion on the DIY Oculus like projects starts.

15:00 – Drax and Jo clarify what the ‘anonymity’ thing is at Facebook. Basically this change has nothing to do with FB users such as you and I. This is about game makers and players playing games on FB. FB has seen a decrease people using FB and FB games. (Reference – Jan 2014) So, this may well be an experiment to gain information about how virtual worlds will work best, with best being attract the most people.

17:00 – Silicon Virtually Reality conference and meet up is happening. Ebbe Altberg will be speaking.

Jo is reenacting ‘blutmai’ (Bloody May – 1929 – Berlin Germany) in her 1920’s Berlin.

20:30 – The taped interviews start. Explanation of what is coming.

21:20 – Baker Linden – Fixes backend bugs. Large group loading, group bans…

To get a sense of the complexity of Second Life this is an interview well worth listening to. It also provides insight as to why schedules are so difficult to estimate and keep.

Any time someone is bad mouthing Lindens, send them to the audio to get them back in touch with reality: Drax Radio Hour’s Linden Interviews.

37:00 – Second Interview at Bacon Linden’s house. Hoz Linden:

For those people that have problems with how the Lindens listen or not to the community, send them here: Drax Radio Hour’s Bacon Linden Interview.

For getting things done in SL the JIRA is the best path. Listen at 44:00. The JIRA gets far more attention than any other path to the Linden’s attention.

46:00 – Bacon and Saeros (sp?) Linden interview.

This about testing the user side of the SL payment system. It is interesting that the Lab does not do the payment processing. They delegate it to third party payment systems. Bacon tests that the third parties are doing what they are hired to do. He is also interested in the quality of the experience for SL users.

51:49 – New transaction history page problem discussed.

54:40 – Interviews end – Dave Abbot talks on Fantasy Fair. Awesome. Visit FF.

1:00:00 – End

Summary

I think this is a great show. For those bitching about Linden Lab and Second Life and the Linden employees and management in particular this should be an eye opener.

I loved the section on how the Lindens handle feedback and how attentive they are to the JIRA. One should learn a lot about how a business actually works.