Ebbe’s Speech Shaking Things

Linden Lab’s CEO Ebbe Altberg spoke at VWBPE 2016, Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education. There are some interesting points made in the speech. Some are changes and others are just making it more clear what the Lab is planning with Project Sansar®.

For about 12 minutes Ebbe was talking about Second Life™ and Project Sansar. Then the question and Answer part starts. The moderators were doing an excellent job of focusing questions. That got lots of ground covered.

I’ve done my summary style index. Paraphrasing. And I’ve added links into the video for those things I think have impact.

The most impactful thing I took away from this Q&A is how often Ebbe implies and says Project Sansar and the final resulting product will not be a replacement for Second Life. He provides way more information on why not. If you’re an educator, you may well be keeping your projects in SL with… I’ll say… links to very focused experiences in Sansar.

Ebbe makes it VERY clear that much of what we do in SL won’t be possible in Sansar for 2016 and probably 2017. He makes it VERY clear Sansar and SL will remain very different products. Also, that real time building in Sansar is far too costly to render speed to be a part of the Sansar Experience. That doesn’t mean there won’t be in-world building tools.

Go back to the WordPress analogy. Ebbe is talking about there being a creative mode and a PUBLISHED mode. You are reading this in the published mode. I wrote it in Word. I added pictures in the WordPress editor and did a few formatting things. Then I scheduled or published the article.

Sansar is going to be similar. There will be a publishing step. I gather that it will be like a compile that optimizes the build for performance. The building phase will be like the WordPress editing tool. We may be in a 3D VR VW… but, will others be in there with us? I would guess not. But, I suspect that would be a goal of the Lab.

And Lindens dollars will NOT be used in Sansar. WOW! But, don’t freak! There will be an exchange allowing Linden$ to be transferred to Sansar$ and back. I suggest you listen to Ebbe on this point. He doesn’t see this as a big thing because we can transfer funds between the two products. (see 36:00)

I thkn this has probably always been the idea. It is just how he words it for this audience that is different. But, I’ll bet his wording causes a ruckus.

We can start signing up for the beta in June, probably. If you are a looky-loo, expect not to make it in. It will be late 2016 or even 2017 before the masses can go in.

Links to additional pages in this article below…

10 thoughts on “Ebbe’s Speech Shaking Things

  1. I am not sure I believe in the notion that we can’t have up to speed rendering with real time building. Real time world changes have already been a thing for a long time even as middleware.

    I can believe we can’t have it right now, and that we can’t have it if they don’t want it.

    The Love and the engine behind it, Verse, come to mind as a concept of five or more years ago.

    http://www.quelsolaar.com/verse/index.html

    If you want something, you just have to really want it.

  2. Thanks, Nalates, for all of the reporting that you do. You stay on top of things and I’m sure inform a lot of people. This was a great write-up for people who missed the in-world event. Just wanted you to know your effort and enthusiasm are appreciated.

  3. Sansar is sounding more and more like the now defunct Cloud Party (an in-browser Second Life- type virtual world) and seemingly will suffer from the same choices as the also-now-defunct Blue Mars virtual worlds. For Cloud Party … import all content, design then publish, different currency, separated ‘islands’ of content … but, at least you could keep your appearance between islands in Cloud Party. Whereas Blue Mars sucked with its choice of completely separated islands of content with a large download before you could enter. And also couldn’t retain appearance between islands/experiences.

    Sadly i see more and more that LL simply don’t understand what makes Second Life one of the most successful games ever.

    • It certainly can sound that way… and it may be that way.

      But, until I see what they have made and it is more complete in 2017 it is too soon to say the Lindens don’t know what they are doing. It’s like saying Ford doesn’t know what people like because of what they have told us about a new concept car we haven’t seen…

  4. you said that you have to register for now, but how? there is no internet connection to do it faudrais be little if you want to give the person register.

  5. Bollocks!
    Ofc Sansar will be the next SecondLife.
    They just staling so they won’t lose income until Sansar starts. Just check the new “get the Grandfathered price” thing. It’s just staling.
    Sansar indeed might not be as easy to use as SL, but otherwise, it can’t be anything else than a “world” where people customize their avatars and communicate.

    • Your opinion… but, I think you are over thinking it and failing to understand Sansar is more platform than world.

      For all of 2016 and probably most of 2017 and possibly well into 2018, we will be able to do more in Second Life than in Sansar. There are also a number of factors that make Sansar a very different environment than SL. Those differences make it impossible for any one to predict what people are going to do.

      There is also the VR headset controversy. It seems cheap headsets that tend to produce simulator sickness are out selling high-end headsets. Not surprising. But, what will that large number of …less than optimal… experiences do to word of mouth promotion of VR? …and overall VR adoption? We don’t know. BUt, some are guessing slow adoption of VR headsets will make SL viable for a longer period.

      The Lab is going to run/sell whatever products are making them money. It’s simple.

  6. In all bluntness, the process sounds like a complicated mess – the sort of thing people without professional technical/programming knowledge would do.

    Might also explain with SL itself isn’t as polished as it could be, despite loving it myself and having absolutely no intention of even looking at Sansar.

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