Kiss your Second Life inventory bye?

Canary’s list of anxieties Second Life™ residents has as items 3 and 4 a fear of losing their SL inventory and that they won’t be smart enough to use Sansar… See: Are Second Life™ residents anxious about Project Sansar?

{ My Closet } SHOETOPIA PREVIEW

{ My Closet } SHOETOPIA PREVIEW

I covered the loss of inventory in Second Life: Sansar Separation Anxiety. I think this fear is mostly imaginary. But, the issue is hard to define as there are types of loss to consider. It also requires a presupposition or two to think you’ll lose your inventory. 

As long as SL is up and running you’ll be able to visit your inventory. For me the question is, will I want to?

Too Complex

I find this fear ambiguous. Is there a fear the Sansar viewer will be too complicated for some to use? Well… isn’t the SL Viewer too complicated for some to use?

We know that Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab CEO, is saying that they hope to make the Sansar viewer more user friendly. So, while we can’t really know what that means, I think we can assume the viewer will be at least no more complicated than the current SL Viewer.

Building

Or are these people fearing Sansar will be too complicated when it comes to building Sansar content? This fear seems a bit more justified, but it too is fear I think is based in a lack of information.

In SL the only way to work with mesh is in some tool like Blender or 3DMax. However, Cloud Party had a mesh creation and editing tool built in. From what Ebbe is saying they plan to build something like Cloud Party’s mesh building tools, only better. No, he doesn’t use the name Cloud Party. But, he has said they are building mesh editing tools into the Sansar Viewer.

Most of the promotional information Ebbe is putting out is that they plan to make building in the Sansar virtual space so easy most people beyond the present SL community will be able to do it. So, I imagine it will be Cloud Party like as that is the easiest to use mesh editor I’ve seen inside a ‘game’.

Starting out Sansar will be limited in the building aspect. We know content for now is being built using Maya. If that is the only information you hear about building in Sansar, it makes sense that some would worry.

There is also the challenge of scripting with C#, the language used to build the SL viewer and server software. Personally I don’t see C# as any more complicated than LSL (Linden Scripting Language) as used in SL. It is different and I suppose it sounds scary if you have only ever learned LSL. But, at some point we all had to learn LSL.

The more computer languages I learn the easier the next language is. So, those only knowing LSL will likely find C# no more difficult to learn then LSL was and possibly easier as it will be their second language.

Higher level languages have some really nice benefits. So, while I am pretty much a novice to C#, I am looking forward to using it in Sansar.

So I see the complexity issue as an imaginary fear and think most of it comes from simply Not Knowing.

3 thoughts on “Kiss your Second Life inventory bye?

  1. Of course you will \loose your inventory\, which is to say your SL inventory will not exist in Sansar!

    It is possible, but unlikely, LL will allow you to transfer compatible content.

    Mesh content creators of course have copies of their creations on their own hard drives and will be the first to offer content for sale in Sansar. Some of them will probably offer discounts on items you have already bought in SL.

    As for your inventory in SL, that will be safe for a long time, Second Life will be around for many years to come. Hopefully, if Sansar lives up to it’s potential, by the time LL shuts SL down there will be few people left to care.

    note to Chicken Little: Yes, but very, very slowly and by the time it actually does you will almost certainly have moved to Sansar.

    • To actually LOOSE inventory one has to leave SL. The word denotes a level of loss that isn’t going to be the case until/if SL closes.

      Your point is understood and in context true. But, I take the wording as less than accurate.

      • Or SL has to leave YOU (close down).
        p.s. Even if you cancel your account, LL can, at their discretion, reopen it. If they do your inventory will still be intact.

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