Now 68.6K: Second Life's Maximum Concurrency Jumps 1200+ In A Week, But Why?

This is an unprecedented day.  On August 24, peak concurrency reached a world record 67,335.  About a half ago, however, that record was far surpassed, because the maximum reached 68,593 online-- 1258 more.  Before the Summer plateau phase, concurrency was growing an average of 500 users a week.  Then this major spike. 

The mystery is how it grew so fast.  First, though, I should ingest some crow.

A few months ago I speculated that the introduction of the graphics-intensive WindLight contributed to Summer's growth plateau; with such rapid growth, that seems way less plausible.  Whatever frustrations it was causing Residents with older computers no longer seems to be significant, at least in terms of aggregate numbers. 

In any case, why the sudden growth?  Today is a holiday in the US, though to my knowledge, none of the other major user regions have the day off.  I'm not aware of any major improvements to the server architecture that would improve in-world experience.  (In fact, as I write this, there's news that 350 regions temporarily went down, contributing to a concurrency drop of almost 9,000.)

Comments

[Kate Amdahl]

Here are a few thoughts, although I have no idea how we'd test them short of some very scientifically-run surveys.

First, and I'd expect this would be an annual thing if it were true, a lot of colleges have just opened, and this might be a day both when a lot of college students are beginning or resuming Second Lives far from the prying eyes of their families, as well as perhaps some empty nesters doing the same thing far from the prying eyes of their children.

The other thing is that ridiculous story about the woman who tried to kidnap a former Second Life boyfriend. It's getting a lot of play, and while of course it's bad publicity, we all know that in a sense there *is* no such thing as bad publicity.

Just idle speculation to feed the rumor mill. If everyone could just spread and distort, that would be wonderful.

^^^\ Kate /^^^

[Paisley Beebe]

My theory is that whilst a lot of Americans have been on hols, (I know that just from my own personal interaction on here) the numbers must have been steadily building, from other regions, I predicted a huge spike when the Americans all came back on...the rest of the world has been finding S.L and logging in while you guys have been away, I'd love to find out where...Its the first day of spring here...but I know its not the Aussies!!!! and I don't know why our lot are not so keen on SL, but the story goes that its cause we have such lousy internet, its one of the slowest connections in the world and we don't have any local SL servers...seriously lagged and all that outdoor lifestyle...NOT suprised!!! why are you?

[Chimera Cosmos]

I second the guess about college students coming in as classes resume across the US. But I only have one data point. Last night while I was learning to build a kludged together waterfall on my property in Adeo, a lost soul asked what I was doing. Turns out she is in a course taught by another Avendale area resident who is a prof. Her first comment to me was "I don't know why I'm here." After learning that she was a student and showing her a little about teleporting, getting clothes, etc. her comment changed to "I don't know why I'm here AND in the regular classroom." I expect it will become clear, with any luck. Getting the attention and engagement of 21 year olds is challenging tho. But I'm wandering off of the point about concurrency in SL...sorry! Back to work...

[Ann Otoole]

I don't have to guess. I went to a welcome area and there are lots of college students coming in since SL is a part of many classes now.

Welcome Class of 2012!

[Morris Vig]

I just learned that Canada celebrates Labor Day today as well. That's good for 1200 users!

;-)

[Hamlet Au]

Could be! To me the biggest surprise is it went over 67K and kept chugging along. I was starting to think 67K was a breaking point that SL couldn't scale past.

[Kate Amdahl]

...and now logins are disabled due to "higher-than-usual load"...which makes me think that Linden Lab is fundamentally unprepared for growth, which is an ugly thing to contemplate!

[eggy lippmann]

I don't know about you, Hamlet, but in soviet Portugal, August is The Holy Vacation Month where pretty much everything stops. Including gaming. There's BEACHES out there, and SOMEONE has to sit there and get a tan! It's hard work, you know? :D
Yesterday was the Holy Get Back To Lisbon day where a million people all try to return from the Algarve at once and clog the entire country's highways with their wreckless driving causing a record number of crashes etc.

[eggy lippmann]

Addenda: This would mean the plateau was a lie. Much like the cake. We were actually growing by taking new users at the exact same rate people were out enjoying their summer. Must be that niggling thing we call the southern hemisphere where it's actually winter? I donno. Poke your favorite Linden for better statistics.

[Hamlet Au]

Eggy baby, there was definitely a plateau these last few months-- as I mentioned before, SL has had growing concurrency in previous Summers, just slower than other periods. Plus there's that evident plateau in monthly active users, at least up until July (I haven't seen more recent stats.)

[Annyka Bekkers]

And here i though 50k was the breaking point that SL couldn't scale past.

"Login Failed.
Due to higher-than-usual load, logins to Second Life have been disabled until further notice. Please monitor the Grid Status page for updates."

This is progress?

[Hamlet Au]

Not entirely, but then, the interesting thing there is, why are so many more people willing to grit their teeth through that login/fail process?

[Ann Otoole]

"why are so many more people willing to grit their teeth through that login/fail process?"

You talk as though you never actually enter Secondlife. We all know why it is cool. Don't you? :D

[T_S_Kimball]

As I mentioned in group chat during the monthly Holly Kai golf tourney (where I crashed three times and promptly went back in, despite ending the round with a +9):

"It's my Cavern experience." (referencing the tenacity of Uru players to get someplace, regardless of how far they may take the server into crashing or latency hell)

I think when people are enjoying themselves (and aren't worried about anything competition-related), they can ignore 'lag.'

However, on the flip side of that, if some people can't congregate with friends consistently, they will start to look elsewhere.

I suppose we'll just have to see, hmm?

--TSK

PS - I still am not convinced that we've broke the new cap. That will only happen if LL does not need to restrict logins each time this happens.

[Nahasa Singh]

Are bots included in that 68.6K number ? Just wondering about the bot percentage growth vs regular avatar population growth.

Another thing I always wondered was whether the Lindens in charge of IT have any kind of Service Management process background. They certainly seem to have trouble with every major ITIL process, including Service Level, Incidents, Problems, Availability, Releases, and now Capacity management.

That said, my grid experience has improved in the past couple of months.

[BJ Tabor]

Graphics cards that can handle windlight are in wider use

[SteveNelson]

I'd combine the explanations of college+better graphics cards. My guess is that there are a fair number of newer computers going online this time of year because of students going off to school. This would include new computers for students, as well as new computers for parents who give the hand-me-downs to the students.

[Dedric Mauriac]

Looks like you caught on to my 2000 bots that I launched, where about 800 kept crashing. j/k.

[Connie Sec]

Hey Paisley, Being an Aussie myself..I must correct you on the local SL servers bit. Bigpond has dedicated SL servers i hear. And as they are my ISP, I noticed a BIG improvement in my experience of SL when that came on stream.
Ohh, and BTW, Prok is still blaming Windlight for what ails SL and probably muttering that its the cause of the U.S recession too. If you look at Prok's latest post, he's linked to 2 of Hamlets posts regarding WL and it's perceived contribution to SL woes.
Regarding the "jump" in numbers?..your guess is as good as mine, but an observation..nothing..including growth, happens at a steady rate..u have time of spikes and u have times of flat. That's life :)