Ebbe talks a little more on the forums

Ebbe Altberg sure doesn’t shy away from the Second Life forums and I thought it might be interesting for you to read his comments without having to read the entire discussion.

Thank you Carl Metropolitan for telling me about these posts and lining them up in your blog.

In this thread Ebbe said the following things;

I pretty much only said these things:
We are embarking on a huge project to build a better virtual world from the ground up.
We are not going to constrain how good it can be by forcing some levels of backwards compatability (Sine then I’ve added some detail that identity and social connections and Lindens$ will come across and quite a bit of content as well, but with content we need more time to figure out exactly what will be backwards compatible, people will have plenty of time to see how this plays out and get a chance to try the new while still also hanging out in SL)
We will continue to invest in SL and keep improving and have no plans for any shutdown.
The rest is all speculation that has since then popped up.

You asked:
1 – What type of assets are more likelly to be transferable to SL2 and what probably not? (meshes, animations, sculpts, scripts, textures, builds made of normal prims, system clothing ?)
We don’t have all the answers to this one yet, but several areas will have radical improvements and thus not possible to be fully backwards compatible.
Mesh is ok (but with better lighting and other tech you may want to make tweaks)
Animations will change (major mprovements as we don’t currently do it the way it should be done)
Sculpts (TBD, but not as is, but maybe converted to Mesh?)
Scripts (major improvement, so will change)
Textures ok
Prims (TBD, but probably not as is)
Avatars will be radically improved as well so a lot TBD
Again, we will have years to sort this all out together…
2 – Is SL2 to be considerd “another grid” in which case the TOS of most full permission creators would prohibit the transfer to that grid? If that is the case, could LL speak a word of power and decide that for full permission items that CAN be transfered, the new SL should be considered as the “same grid” ?
ToS will not be an issue.
3 – Will at least the L$ currency remain the same and will available balances be usable in both worlds?
Yes
4 – Will the 2 worlds be connected in any way and will an avatar be able to move from one to another with the same name and profile and groups and friends? And .. some of its inventory..
Identity and friends will be preserved. Inventory depends on above decisions under #1 but we clearly want as much of existing work to be possible to leverage as long as it will not impact how good the new platform can be.

There is so much wrong here, speculation, suggesting things I said that I never said, or somehow suggesting that I, or the great people here are responsible for what happened five or ten years ago….but here we go, I’ll respond to some of this stuff, but I’ll skip all the stuff about problems in the past…that was the past…and by the way, all that “crazy” stuff has given us the best virtual world there has even been and still is. So somehow people here managed to do something right over the years…
Then you say:
Now, How could SL 1.0 be future-proofed?
Get the Lindens back inworld – I remember the Linden Village area, inworld meetings, Lindens just hanging around just talking to passers by.  I haven’t seen a Linden since M was CEO and their inworld presence got cut back.  It was reassuring to have staff inworld…proof they used the product they created.
Ebbe says: I removed the restriction that was in place for Lindens to be inworld. I’m not going to force people in there, but nothing is stopping them now. I go in as much as I can to hang out and chat with people.
Ditch the TPV’s – Figure out the best features of the various TPV’s and implement them in YOUR client and OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE.  There is no reason residents shound need a TPV to get MORE features, higher FPS AND less crashes than the official client.   Third party software should not hold back releases so they can implement features.   If you really feel you need TPV’s, release new code even if it breaks their browsers and let them catch up.  I use firestorm, but losing it would be a small price to pay for faster releases (not that we have to worry about that, SL1.0 being in maintenance mode and all).
Ebbe says: I don’t think doing that would be a meaningful difference in the success of SL.
Incremental Graphics and Infrastructure Upgrades – To use MMO’s for an example as they are the closest thing to SL, you could redo the graphics and optimize to fix the dated looks..  You could optimize the back end for current standards on a regular basis.   Instead you decided to build a product to compete with your flagship product.   This did NOT fill me with any degree of confidence or any great desire to remain a premium or use the Lindex.
Ebbe says: We have. SL is a lot better today than it was a couple of years ago. But there is a limit to how much better we can make it…and how much effort it takes to move forward incrementally.
If you did all the above, ESPECIALLY the Incremental upgrade of graphics and infrastructure, with gradual depreciation of things that just cannot be carried forward, I see no need for a 2.0 SL.   We could get there by evolution rather than revolution.
Ebbe says: That is your opinion. But I know that the more distant future will have to go way beyond what incrementally can be done to SL. And it’s either us or someone else…
> We are going to do our best to make it  smooth, but if we have to make a crappy product with crazy complexity and poor user experience to preserve some very specific content compatability we don’t want to cause those problems.
Make it smooth, I really doubt you can, based on past rollouts of new features.   If you need to depreciate various pieces of older content, do it and explain why.   Don’t depreciate the entire world, which is what you are doing.   Rewrite what you have to current standards.    I’d rather lose a fraction of my inventory rather than 9+ years of collecting, outfits, and memories…and possibly my AV name.
Ebbe says: Again, your speculating a lot. You won’t lose your name. A lot of content will work fine. Some won’t. And that would be true regardless if we improved SL incrementally or started from scratch to get modern tech and capabiliteis done right.
> A lot of what you have will be possible to move across and more specifics will come through over time.
You should not have announced this until you have specifics.    First it was no compatibility, maybe, now its a lot of compatibility.   Make up your minds.     It appears you announced early, shooting for some kind of PR boost, but all the vagueness and ‘we can’t answer that now’ has just destabilized things for many.
Ebbe says: I never said “no compatability”. Where did you get that from? I said that we will not sacrifice how good a next generation virtual world can be due to backwards compatability (something you say is ok to do).
Quite frankly, and this is strictly me speaking for me, I will be staying with SL 1.0 until you pull the plug, then I will find another home that does not involve giving money to LL.  I have NO desire to have to rebuild my VR life and possessions in a ‘like SL, only better’ SL 2.0, not with LL’s track record.”
Ebbe says: Let’s see what you think when you see it. And sticking
with SL is fine, it will be around for a very long time ;P

You will be able to use your L$ in both SL and the next platform as you wish.
And SL will be around for a very long time.

You will certainly be able keep your identity, social network and L$ and you can hop back and forth and decide for yourself where it makes sense to spend your time and energy.

Again, I have not said there’s any end coming. We have made no plans for any SL shutdown. None.
We are simply working to make an even better product from the ground up. You will have plenty of time to evaluate it and decide.
Your identity and L$ will be the same for both so it will be easy to hop back and forth.

We have no plans to disallow anything that’s going on in SL and is legal. We’re proud of the freedom we offer.

Photo Linkedin

Ebbe Altberg talks to Voices of VR

‘Voices of VR‘ has published an interview with Ebbe Altberg recorded at The Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference last month.

Too early to discuss Second Life 2.

You can listen to the interview by clicking HERE.

Some highlights;

• LL is going to enable users to use Second Life on a great amount of different devices.
• SL reached its PR peak in 2006-2008, it was probably overhyped and not possible to deliver on the promise of VR at that point but today we’re hoping for further acceleration.
• This is a good time and place for us to be in this business.
• Ebbe spend quite a bit in SL and has a lot of fun with his Ebbe avatar or his alt.
• Ebbe is all for openness and is not trying to create a walled garden, not trying to trap people’s content. Everything they create belongs to the user and if they want to take it out and then import that somewhere else that is perfectly fine.
• We have a lot to do before we can become truly mass market and we still have a lot of problems to solve and one can spend too much time trying to get compatibility amongst lots of different things (virtual worlds) that don’t work as opposed to each of us just trying to make it work.
  Once we can get it to work then it becomes more interesting to talk about making things more compatible or make it easier to move in-between, but that is a premature since there are not that many of us today.
• Inworld SL GDP is hundreds of millions of dollars, all user created stuff.
  To run an economy of that scale and keep it stable takes quite bit of effort.
• A lot of people make a living from Second Life.
• Stable economy is very important part of virtual world and we’re very proud of that.
• LL is in the fortunate seat of being one of the leaders but it is way way early but everything is starting to come together and it is going to come to a point to do almost everything anytime.

Ebbe talks to SL users about SL2

We’ve gotten used to the new LL CEO actually being able and willing to communicate with us.

And this time it is not just a few inner circle people who get responses to their messages, Ebbe has done something very very scary… he has jumped into the SL forums, both the SLUniverse (as reported here) and the official SL forum.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good thing and I feel LL CEO’s should always be communicating a lot with the SL users, or at least get an employee to do that.
But as someone who’s been active on these forums, I know that it can be quite an unsettling experience.

I’m sharing a few interesting things he’s said in public recently about SL2 on these forums, twitter, etc.

If you can’t read the text, click the image.

This seems to suggest Ebbe wants us to be able to export our SL identities to SL2

Ebbe explains why he ‘leaked’ the news in the way he did.

 

Ebbe explains one of the motivations behind starting SL2 now; competition

Ebbe explaining that we will not have to leave everything behind.

Ebbe mentioning the VR Facebook is building.

We will be able to take our identity with us.

“A lot of what you have will be possible to move across”

You can read the full thread by clicking here.

Second Life 2 scheduled for 2016 launch

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SL2

In an interview with ‘The Next Web‘ Ebbe Altberg (CEO of Linden Lab) says that a beta of ‘Second Life 2’ (no official new name yet) is expected to be launched in 2015 while the final version should be ready in 2016.

To achieve this Linden Lab is hiring 40-50 new people.

Ebbe feels that with the current state of technology, market interested and available hardware and software available, this is the time to try something big.

Second Life 2 should offer the users more and better tools for creators, games, designs, good, and of course all the things SL has now will be part of the new world.

Linden Lab hopes that the users who tried SL in the past and have not stayed, to return and try it again.

It is time for the SL community to grow, time for SL to go mainstream.

You can read the complete interview here.

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SLGo’s SL birthday promotion

The folks at SLGo are offering the people of SL a special promotion as part of Second Life’s 11th birthday celebrations!

This special promotional code will give you 75% off the first month of your SL Go subscription.
Combine that with the 7-Day free trial and they will get 5 weeks of SL Go for only $2.50!

This is of course extra interesting for those of us with old computers who would love to go explore SL11B without the lag such massive events are notorious for.
And not just without lag but also with ultra graphics!

Click the picture below or go to this page.

To claim the discount use the promotion code when signing up.
For US residents the code is SL11US and for UK residents the code is SL11UK.
This discount is also valid for people living outside the UK and US, jus pay with dollars or pounds.

The codes are only valid between June 22 and 29, 2014.

Oh and they’re actively fixing the ‘fitted mesh’ issue now!
Hopefully we should see a fix very soon.

Click to sign up for the promotion

1920s Berlin at SL11B

The 1920s Berlin Project

Like the previous years The 1920s Berlin Project will have its own place at Second Life’s 11th anniversary celebrations, aka SL11B.

The theme of SL’s 11th birthday party is “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”.
A look at the future!

In our exhibit we do that in two ways.

First of all we’re looking forwards to the future of Virtual Reality and Second Life.
The 1920s Berlin project was build to a realistic scale, we took a prim, noticed its measurements of 50x50x50 centimeters and used that as our foundation to build with.
That means that our buildings are generally smaller than in many other places in Second Life but also that the perspective and scale is always based on reality.
This way you can get a real idea of what things looked like in reality, for instance we have a Zeppelin that is 244 meters…

View original post 356 more words

Business as usual?

Now that we all know that Linden Lab is working on a brand new next generation virtual world that eventually will replace Second Life, some people feel that it is time to pack their bags, put on a lifebelt and jump overboard.
After all, why should we continue to build for and invest time and money into a world that we know will eventually cease to exist?

It is way too early for that.
Put your suitcase down, take off your coat.

Ebbe Altberg (CEO of Linden Lab) and the official announcement both make it clear that Second Life is going to live on for quite some time and will not be neglected.

Of course, now that quite a large part of Linden Lab is going to concentrate on building this new world, they will spend less time doing work for Second Life.

Nevertheless, the Beta testing for this new venture is still at least a year away according to Ebbe and till that time comes, it will be (almost) business as usual in Second Life.
And I say business because until this new world is up and running and making Linden Lab a pile of money, Second Life will remain to be a very important source of income to them.
I think that as long as there are people using Second Life, paying their tier and as long as LL doesn’t suddenly have to invest a lot to keep it running, they will not turn the lights off for a long time.

Ebbe promised that not only will there be a team still running Second Life, but that they will also keep improving it.
Of course, things will change.
A huge team of LL employees will not be spending time and money on changing SL dramatically, but it won’t be abandoned either… yet.

Second Life and the New World (we really need a name), will coexist for a while.
We will be able to choose and if we desire it, stay in Second Life.

Eventually, one day, yes Linden Lab will probably take a good look at Second Life and realise that most of it has been abandoned, people have moved to the new world and that it really cost effective anymore.
Then they will switch it off.
But this could be years away.

I guess we are, sort of, in the same boat as Linden Lab.
If you have a shop or club in Second Life, would you close it even if it is still being used and making you money?

And although I might reconsider starting huge new building projects or another sim until they can confirm that we can at least transport our mesh builds to the new world, most people in SL are here for experiences, and these will continue.
As I told a friend yesterday, if you want to keep drinking my virtual schnapps you better keep paying for it.

Till the big move comes, business as usual…?

 

Ebbe answers your questions on SLUniverse forum

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SL 2.0

Ebbe has logged onto the SLUniverse forum and is answering some of the questions Second Life users are asking him there directly.

You can read the actual forum post by clicking HERE and of course add your own questions.

I’ll be sharing some of his answers here and will be adding more as they come, so check back later as well.

Making it easy for people to bring their identity and social connections along would obviously make a lot of sense to do.

Don’t wait on anything. It will take a long time and then you can choose where to spend your time and energy.

Beta next year sometime.

SL will be here for a long time until we see how people decide between these worlds. Nobody here has even thought of talking about some shut down plan. Too far out to know. But we obviously plan to make something so good ultimately that you will prefer to go there.

I wasn’t really planning to talk about it at the TPV meeting but I’ve been talking to press this week where I do mention next gen platform, so I figured they might as well hear it from me…

I’m for freedom. I don’t want to moderate or control it (beyond making sure things are legal). And we’ll probably have ratings (G, M, A) or something like that so one can be “safe” if one does not want some kind of content…again, we’re creating something in the spirit of SL, but just want to make it much better…

We’re early in our discussions about business models but I’m thinking lower land tax and higher sales tax and ultimately aim to make things up with volume…(charge less to many rather than a lot to a few). This is possible with better tech and making something more people want to be part of.

Ebbe says yes to Linden Dollars and land ownership and sub letting.

Please wait several months…it’s too early to really discuss details. I’m just trying to calm things down a bit. For now we’re more or less just saying that we will work really hard to make a great virtual world that’s even better than the best one (SL) that exist today.

Cross-platform/device chat…yes.

We never stole your content to then sell and profit from it for ourselves. And we won’t.

Linden Lab officially responds to the new virtual world story

Peter Linden, Director of Global Communications of Linden Lab, just replied to my email regarding the new virtual world story that is breaking.

He wrote;

Linden Lab is working on a next generation virtual world that will be in the spirit of Second Life, an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king. This is a significant focus for Linden Lab, and we are actively hiring to help with this ambitious effort. We believe that there is a massive opportunity ahead to carry on the spirit of Second Life while leveraging the significant technological advancements that have occurred since its creation, as well as our unparalleled experience as the provider of the most successful user-created virtual world ever.

The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don’t want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start. That doesn’t mean you necessarily won’t be able to bring parts of your Second Life over, just that our priority in building the next generation platform is to create an incredible experience and enable stunningly high-quality creativity, rather than ensuring that everything could work seamlessly with everything created over Second Life’s 11 year history.

Does this mean we’re giving up on Second Life? Absolutely not. It is thanks to the Second Life community that our virtual world today is without question the best there is, and after 11 years we certainly have no intention of abandoning our users nor the virtual world they continually fill with their astounding creativity. Second Life has many years ahead of it, and in addition to improvements and new developments specifically for Second Life, we think that much of the work we do for the next generation project will also be beneficial for Second Life.

It’s still very early days for this new project, and as we forge ahead in creating the next generation virtual world, we’ll share as much as we can.

If we had one message to share with Second Life users about this new project at this point, it would be: don’t panic, get excited! Again, Second Life isn’t going away, nor are we ceasing our work to improve it. But, we’re also working on something that we think will truly fulfill the promise of virtual worlds that few people understand as well as Second Life users.

Ebbe responds to new virtual world story

 

Ebbe has responded to the story about Linden Lab working on a new virtual world;

This takes care of one rumour, not starting out open source makes sense and it seems to suggest it may become open source at a later date.

My next question was about something that may keep me up at night in the near future;

So nothing sure there yet then.
Lets hope that they realise that most of us really really don’t want to start completely from scratch.

In another tweet Ebbe made clear that SL will be around for a long time to come so this virtual world is probably not something we can expect to take over soon and/or Linden Lab is planning to allow both virtual worlds to coexist for a while.

My final question for tonight;

So in short, this new Virtual World at the moment is not much more than in pre-alpha stage, perhaps even just something on paper.
It will be a long time before it becomes something we can actually try out.
Second Life isn’t going anywhere any time soon but will coexist with the new virtual world (probably as long as it keeps making a profit).
The idea is to keep using Linden Dollars and Marketplace.
It is too early to say if we will be able to export anything from SL to this new virtual world.

In her blog Inara Pey gives us a few more details and also shares the actual audio from the meeting where Ebbe made the announcement.
Make sure to check it out here; http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/ebbe-confirms-were-working-on-a-next-generation-platform-with-audio/