Changes

Second Life’s New User Avatars

by

Designing Worlds has a show up in which they interview people running Japanese new user help regions. I watched the show on SLArtists, the Treat.tv site seemed to be down this morning, at least I could not access it. The video is here: Designing Worlds DW 245 – Japan’s New Residents. The Designing Worlds page that should have the video is here: Designing Worlds visits the Japanese regions to learn how they support new users – now on the web!

Taciturnly - April 2014
Taciturnly – April 2014

About 3:30 minutes in, they talk about the problem the new user avatars are causing. They feel this is a MAJOR obstacle to improving player retention.

The new mesh avatars for new users was thought by some to be a definite problem for new users. The thinking was they would create more problems than they solve and harm player retention more than help. The people doing support in beginner areas are confirming the problems are manifesting. The question they are hearing often is, the promos say we can customize our avatars, so why can’t I change my avatar?  

Read more

Firestorm Q&A on #SecondLife’s Future

by

Wednesday morning at 7AM PDT at the Firestorm Auditorium a Q&A meeting was held. Oz Linden and Peter Gray were answering questions. For most of the meeting Jessica was asking questions I think she took from previously submitted ones and that she or she thought the community was interested in.

And I’ll be proofing this after it is posted… so…

[youtube uO2Ean6Vzxk]

Toward the end they opened it up to audience questions.

The meeting was recorded so you can see it at several places; SLArtists, YouTube, and other places… sound is better on the SLArtists video, but it is hard to jump around in that player.

As always I am paraphrasing and not quoting.

Read more

Second Life User Groups

by

Nyx Linden is going to fold his UG meeting into the Server/Scripting UG. So, the Content & Mesh UG closes with today being its last meeting.

Nyx Linden told us today, “This will be the last regular meeting for this user group. I’m moving on to other projects and haven’t been able to keep up with the details of content creation tasks as well as I used to be able to.”

World of Particles - 2014
World of Particles – 2014

Whirly Fizzle and others asked the obvious question, “Are you being reassigned to the new world stuff Nyx?” I found the answer a bit ambiguous when Nyx answered, “I’ll still be in world from time to time, and will be helping Oz whenever any avatar issues come up or with any other pieces where I can assist of course.” So, I find that a bit fuzzy. But, I’ll take that as a yes.

Oz Linden told us, “Topics that otherwise would have come here can be brought to either the simulator UG or one of my open development meetings.” And continued by saying, “I don’t know what the new platform team will be doing to engage with users, or when.” I take this to mean no one knows for sure what they will be doing or when they will be doing it. Things are changing for the Lindens and while Ebbe can make off-hand comments I suspect the Lindens (staff) are still limited in what they can talk about. 

Read more

Second Life 2.0 Coming

by

Ebbe Linden spoke at the TPV Meeting 6/20. We learned that Second Life 2.0 is in development and will likely go into Closed NDA Beta late this year. EARTH SHAKING! I’ll relate the comments below in the order as Ebbe did. He did not seem to be at the meeting to announce the news. But, it has gotten out.

The World - by: Nicolas Raymond - Flickr
The World – by: Nicolas Raymond – Flickr

Ebbe, the Linden Lab CEO was at the Friday TPV Meeting. He says he is enjoying popping into the various meetings. I think in general the users meeting him are happy with him.

Ed Merryman asked about Ebbe’s plans for player retention. See: TPV Meeting. I’ll touch on the things I think are interesting. But, listen to the video/audio for a sense of Ebbe.

Ebbe clarified what he means by making Second Life easier. He definitely does not mean making it dumber. He wants to keep the power and find ways to make things easier for new users to understand and learn. 

Read more

Pages: 1 2