As I and several others have reported, the Lab is thinking about removing the Restore to Last Position (RTLP) feature at the server level. No one really knows how many people use the feature. The Lindens only heard about use of the feature when people showed up at support wanting things back which they lost by using the feature. So, the Lab has a bad taste for RTLP. No surprise there. And they don’t build IN Second Life the way users do. So, they see no use for the feature.
Jungle Ruins by Carthalis Rossini, on Flickr
But, there are possibilities for keeping the feature and eliminating the problems. Firestorm has disabled the feature for No-Copy items in there viewer. If you screw up, at least you have a copy left. Other viewers have done similar things. This is a rather simple fix.
But, there are other issues with RTLP. In its initial form it became a griefer tool. That made it just another PITA for the Lab. That this is coming up as we near release of Experience Tools may suggest some back end tie in between the two.
Jessica believes there are a lot of people using the feature and that in some form the feature should remain. I don’t know how many are using it and I suspect no one does know. But, Jessica’s thinking has her going activist and trying to round up those that do use the feature and find out how many, how often, and how they use the feature in an attempt to save it or get something like it. Yay! Jessica. So, some of us are helping her.
The Lab is not opposed to providing some replacement for RTLP. But, Oz certainly sounds like this ‘remove-it’ is pretty much a forgone conclusion. So, our effort now is to get information to the Lab on how important or not this feature is. To do that visit the Firestorm blog and add your comments to: ‘Restore To Last Position’ Needs You.
This is one of those opportunities where you can affect the future of Second Life. Provide your well reasoned and explained user case in the blog’s comments. The Firestorm Team is gathering the information and writing a report to give to the Lindens.
Please get the word around to your builder friends.
I have found the Restore to Last Position feature in Firestorm to be immensely helpful. When shuffling sim builds about, I can save the terrain in a raw file, pick things up, move to another sim, import the terrain .raw file back in, and then go through the objects picked up and use the Restore to Last Position feature to put things back in the same place on the new sim. Without the feature, this would have been a painful process and I likely would not ever have gotten things back to the way they were exactly.
The Restore to Last Position feature is also very useful for cases where you forget to set the objects to the land group, only to have them auto returned to you after whatever period of time the land owner has set for auto return.
I imagine if I were a land baron (I am not), I would find the feature very useful for setting up parcels to get them ready to rent.
I would very much hate to see the Restore to Last Position feature removed.
Good set of user cases. Did you add them to the Firestorm blog?
I at least learned something on Firestorm blog (never say never)… And understood why I had the feeling the ‘Restore to World’ feature was already disabled in SL: you must have rez rights at position 0,0 in the sim to be able to use that feature… Weird… and pretty much never the case in mainland regions, unless the parcel at 0,0 belongs to you or its owner is especially careless and lets anyone rez on their parcel…
My bet is that LL will disable it entirely, and, should they listen to the complaints that will ensue, it will then be a long wait till they implement a safe and fully functional equivalent.
I won’t bet against you. Yours is the probable scenario. But, Jessica may get them to handle this differently.
The frustrating part of this (and I agree with you, btw) is I am damned sick to death of every last feature, gift, and perk in SL being tuned for mainland(specifically) , when it’s estate owners that are paying 295USD a month for land.
I use RTLP all the time (yes, I posted on the firestorm blog.) It’s really valuable to me for a variety of cases. I might set foot on mainland 3x a year(and that’s pushing it), and I’m paying the Lab 3600USD a year for land. Im sort of “playing the world’s smallest violin” for people whining about losing no-copy inventory (when this is ALWAYS a danger in SL no matter what you do) when the answer seems to be to disable the feature for no-copy items as firestorm has, and perhaps (AT WORST) limit it to people who have concierge access. Im just so *tired* of useful things being limited or nonexistent because, mainland.