#SL Viewer Updates Week 30

We have new updates to Linden Lab’s viewers. I haven’t had much time to play with them. I’ve only been on a couple of hours in the last few days because of RL work. But, I do have them installed and running.

Slow Rez in 3.4.1

Second Life 3.4.0 (262596) Jul 26 2012 – Second Life Development

I’ve seen some odd behavior in this viewer. I had problems installing it. Files like static_data.db2 failed to update giving an error: can’t write to file. I think there were 3 of them, all dot DB2 files. But, the viewer seems to work.

I have noticed that some mesh avatars and mesh objects disappear as LoD levels change. Oskar Linden wears an avatar (or outfit) that blinks in and out as you move away from it.

I am getting more FPS from this version which is nice. With L&S, Ambient Occlusion, and Sun/Moon enabled I’m staying in the 20’s tending to be around 28 FPS in my house.

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Player Retention

One of the more interesting things going on this week is a thread on SLUniverse. Ayesha Lytton made the opening post June 25 asking some questions; would you want to work at Linden Lab, what job would you want, title, what would you want to accomplish?

The thread had grown to 3 pages by 10 PM the same day. The next day Rod Humble, as Rodvik, posted asking a more specific question:

“Assuming SL improved performance enormously, from region crossings to lag to render times. (big assumption I know but roll with me here) What would you do to insure new users ‘stuck’?”

As of 9AM 7/27 the thread had grown to 17 pages. There are a number of comments as to what can be done. All the expected suggestions are there. Also, a number of novel, at least to me, ideas appeared. Here is a summary of what has been suggested. These are not all direct quotes. Many I have twisted to have them make sense when shortened.

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Phoenix Viewer Closeout?

There is an article by Hamlet, Future Phoenix Viewer Development in Peril?, that points to a post by one of the Phoenix-Firestorm developers, Tonya Souther. See: Viewer 1 is officially on borrowed time.  The title says it pretty clearly. The writing is on the wall, Phoenix is a dying viewer with an expected near term death. While Hamlet focused on Phoenix, there are problems ahead for any V1 viewer. Well… actually any number of viewers brands.

Shining

Near the end of June an announcement was made about the projects Linden Lab™ will be working on for the next few months. See: Project Shining to Improve Avatar and Object Streaming Speeds and my article Second Life Changes Coming.

HTTP

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. If you’re curious about the more technical but simple definition read The Webopedia definition of HTTP. For an even more technical explanation see: What’s HTTP? Explain HTTP Request and HTTP Response.

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Myst-Uru to Change?

I last wrote about Myst-Uru in May. You may or may not know that fans have been hoping to see the Myst story made into a major motion picture. Today I saw that we have news on the Myst Movie. A day or two before, I was reading a thread in the Myst Online Forum. It is about how fans might promote Myst-Uru and get more people playing. That should sound familiar to Second Life users. As these two things come together in my mind I can see some possible changes coming for the Myst franchise and online game.

Uru Live by Larryf58

The thread  “A Myst Movie Update” brings fans up to date on what is happening with the possible Myst Movie. Events and information leading up to current events can be found on MystMovie.com.

If you do not know, there are a series of books that tell the story of Myst. It is that story that provides the background for the Myst Games. It is a fascinating enough story fans wanted more. One of those books is called the Book of Ti’ana. For some time it was considered as the sole basis for the movie. But, Hollywood types looking at it objectively did not believe the book provided the starting point needed for telling the Myst story to an audience with no clue about what Myst is, the Cavern, or the D’ni.

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