In NWN Survey on Improving Second Life, Plurality Call for Making Mesh-Capable Viewers Mandatory for All Users

Last month I asked readers to vote on a simple feature or feature tweak that would greatly improve the Second Life experience overall, and here's the striking results: By a pretty wide margin, the plurality (almost 31%) called for making all SL viewers (including third party viewers) mesh capable. (Idea first proposed in this thread by Shockwave Yareach.) Personally, I'm pretty surprised: When mesh was first introduced, there were a lot of valid SL user concerns that mesh would hurt the economy, increase the technical spec requirements, and so on. Now, however, a significant percent want to obligate all SLers to have a mesh-capable viewer.

I sympathize with the desire to end a balkanized user experience where only some can see mesh, but I do think such a feature could be quite disruptive. "I have been trying to use mesh viewers for quite a while now," as reader Moni Duettmann wrote during the survey, "but none has worked properly yet. So should Linden really follow this 'suggestion', it would mean banning me from SL entirely." One possible solution:

Offer cloud-based streaming of Second Life as a subscription service, so people with lower end PCs and tablets can still access SL -- and still see mesh. (Which was my suggestion raised in another NWN survey, results on that soon.)

That said, I do think it's likely Linden Lab will need to make mesh display mandatory at some point, but probably not this year. By 2013, I'm guessing most SLers will have already matriculated over to a mesh-capable viewer anyway. In the meantime: readers at Linden Lab, how about you go with the other top user suggestions: Suspend/delist the Marketplace listings of any merchant that hasn't logged in for over a month, and add a dropdown filter in inventory to easily filter items by object/texture/script etc.

Comments

[shockwave yareach]

That the mesh capable browsers don't work for so many people is more a problem with initial setup than anything else. I had an issue when I moved to V3 where every single setting was set at Max. Quite naturally my i7 with the GTX460 then horked on SL -- powerful it is, but not that powerful. But once configured correctly, it gives me great performance, both on my main rig and on my puny little laptop as well (with everything dialed down, of course.) The average newcomer or oldbie isn't going to understand that the graphics settings are hosed when V3 starts up and then handgrenades on them though.

I suggested everyone needs to run a mesh capable viewer. I never suggested that everyone had to run a broken one that crashes at startup. Viewer 1 had its share of dogs as well, if everyone cares to admit it. I don't want to see anyone in SL excluded from it -- that's not what I want at all. But people complaining that they cannot walk because they are hitting a mesh wall that they cannot see, then saying SL is busted because of that? That's a world breaker, just as someone deciding that they would make a viewer that didn't bother rendering Spheres would be a world breaker.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Yeah I would wager the vast majority of people who think they can't run mesh are actually having a settings issue as shockwave notes, and could run mesh just fine.

They're just scared of change and blaming any problem on the obvious gorilla in the room rather than the tiny squirrel over by the sofa with an Ak-47. ;)

If I try Beta, I get 5-7fps. If I try V3, I get upwards of 50fps. I could easily have tried Beta and then run around screaming how mesh = fail. The difference is in there somewhere. In V3, I've also taken the time to adjust every setting while keeping my performance meter open, and looking around me to see how the visual changes - all to find that happy medium between 'this renders like art' and 'this plays like an MMO.'

Some rather interestingly not obvious and sometimes even counter-intuitive settings can cause a big performance hit or gain.

But it is usually the case that one can jump in at mostly low settings, and then dial it up till it hurts. However that comes with caveats like anti-alias. For some its a big performance boost, while for others it can kill your experience (something that has got to be a bug...). Likewise bandwidth, you dial it up till its great, but step over the line and it can be, for some, like having someone use a fist to shove a brick down your throat... while others can dial it to 11 and only see improvements all the way up.
(possibly due to how different ISPs throttle traffic? idunno)

[okiedokiecow]

The non-mesh viewers SHOULD be cutoff. Give it a small window of time..make it known with log in warnings..after the time has passed, flip the switch. Those who didn't make the change will just have to live with their choice for not doing so.

This will get everyone on the same page, viewer wise. For those that moan and cry about mesh viewers not running correctly, or needing a super computer? Bollocks. I can use a mesh viewer fine on a fairly midrange/low end laptop just fine. So can you. If you are on a 10 year old machine, that's your problem.

[Misha Cvercko]

This couldn't be more disruptive if you consider how much we need non-mesh based viewers such as Metabolt & PocketMetaverse to augment our access of SL from mobile devices. If this comes to pass, it might very well be a case of the tyranny of the majority. Please don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Mesh adoption WILL happen, it is simply easier for creators and in many ways a more efficient use of resources- it just won't happen tomorrow. Till then, win detractors over by doing better and persuading them to switchover. Right now, being on a non-mesh viewer is already a conscious choice (for whatever reasons they choose or have to)- lets not alienate these users further. For every idiot that gives someone a hard time about using mesh there are many others who are actually apologetic they can't see it. I just wish people would be more empathic of how others may use SL and consider more possible use cases before agreeing to something as drastic as barring entry to SL for all non-mesh viewers. You might think barring non-mesh viewers and your SL app on your phone or your IM-only SL app are completely different things, but in reality there's a high chance they'll trigger the same detection mechanisms- at the very least I hope someone notices the similarities before we advocate this.

[Ciaran Laval]

Mesh will deal with non Mesh based viewers all on its own given time, when people start seeing more and more blobby buildings and avatars they'll learn it's because their viewer of choice isn't rendering it, let the users make the call on whether they want to move to a new Mesh viewer or not, if they're happy with buildings and avatars appearing oddly to them, then fair play to them.

As for suspending people from the marketplace who haven't logged in for a month, when we get one account instead of each avatar being considered an account, that might have some legs.

[jo yardley]

I have a 4 year old macbook, it runs mesh viewers, but not easily.
My computer is suffering and so am I as I am not enjoying the new viewers, the whole way they are set up, it is not to my liking.
I like mesh, I'm glad its coming.
I don't like v2-3 viewers.
I hate the idea of people not being able or allowed to enjoy SL just because of their viewers or crappy computers.
What do we care if they don't see mesh correctly?
If you care about mesh, you will adapt and move to the new viewers, if you don't, you won't.
I don't care either way what other people do with their viewers.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

My nvidia "low power" GT240 displays mesh fine and has no more lag than any "high power" card. Sorry but not buying the issues. If I can run shadows etc then so can anyone with a better card.

[Riisu]

My computer can handle perfectly meshes with shadows and everything at an enjoyable speed. The view is nice... but the viewer is an horror. I just HATE V2-V3.

It is definitively not a matter of adapting to something new. I tested every single version since V2.0 and I can find everything I want in this mess LL calls a viewer. But I run back to my beloved Imprudence with its lower FPS every time. V3-V3 UI is just painful.

Chat is broken in some new "interesting" way in FUI. The constant flashing and popping of the IMs is unbearable. The web profiles are dog slow, even with my 2 MB/s Internet connection. (Real speed, not PR/marketing crap.) Everything looks like to require 2 more mouse clicks, the floaters are bigger but there is much less visible inside. (I definitively hate those new accordions.)

I can do meshes by my own with Blender but I don't care. I did not go beyond a few simple tests since there is no V2-V3 mesh-aware viewer or TPV that is remotely close from V1.23 usability.

The sudden death of the sidebar is a step in the right direction but the path is still very long...

[Ezra]

What Ann and others said.

You really shouldn't spread fear about mesh viewers. At the very least separate the issues surrounding mesh from the issues surrounding the new rendering that came with the new Basic Shader related features.

A lot of those issues have been ironed out and I think you'd be hard pressed to replicate some of those old posts of yours; like textures blacking out or even the 400 series GeForce crash bug which I personally suffered greatly from.

Certainly some issues may remain, but those had to do with rendering. Uncheck Basic Shader and a lot of those went away, and mesh rendered fine doing no harm.

What you're suggesting with cloud rendering is Linden Lab devote millions of dollars in new infrastructure and operational costs, and still not actually fix the issue of everyone not being able to see mesh, because not everyone would be forced to use a cloud rendering client eh?

Using Otoy for example as a cloud-rendering solution, it handles 10-100 users per GPU, do the math of how many GPUs that'd take to service even half of everyone to Second Life. It'd take just as many new servers to host connected cloud-rendering clients as it takes now to host land.

If Linden Lab has that kind of money to throw around for new server infrastructure and employees they'd better serve us by buying more powerful and efficient servers, reduce tier prices and higher a few Lindens wanting their old jobs back.

Even more practical for this particular issue of everyone not being able to see mesh, Linden Lab should just fix the issues with rendering preventing some folks from legitimately not wanting to use a viewer later than 2.7 or so. And I think for the most part those have been remedied. So they really should have a policy that forces viewers to connect with a certain baseline featureset or not connect at all.

Take Imprudence for example, while the developers might want to support mesh they won't for licensing reasons. They've also made it known that Second Life isn't even their primary target platform; its OpenSim. So what kind of sense does it make for Linden Lab to allow Imprudence to connect which discourages developers from wanting to support mesh and all new viewer-dependent features when there's a bunch of purple Imprudence name tags wandering around?

Viewer 1 is like the IE6 of Second Life right now and it discourages creators from using every new feature Linden Lab puts out because inevitably 1/3rd of every sim is full of people on Phoenix. (Maybe not exactly this bad anymore.)

The need for such a policy isn't limited to just mesh. Everytime Linden Lab releases a new feature that's dependent upon something in the viewer, it means that feature isn't actually live until all popular TPVs support it. I sympathize with ones like Firestorm that really do try and keep pace, but as aforementioned there's some with -zero- intentions of keeping pace and have their own priorities. This hurts Second Life.

[Lani Global]

.

Look around. There are lots of people not using a mesh viewer yet, for their own reasons.

I realize that the concept of Freedom is somewhat foreign to most SL users these days... perhaps Liberty and Free Will are simply quaint notions relegated to History-101 etextbooks.

Speaking strictly for the capitalistic self-protection of the 1%... before SL can mandate a mesh viewer:

1. There would need to be an "installed base" of more than 67% of users using mesh viewers. So far, that has not happened, but perhaps it will reach that tipping point in 2012. But, still, it may be several years before it hits the "magic market saturation level" of 87%. There are many examples of LL shooting itself in the foot (such as the SL TOS changes in April 2010) and other things, but it is unlikely they want to forfeit 50% of their income immediately by stopping half their users from loggins, or even putting a stumbling block in their way.

2. All the major TPV viewers need to be capable of mesh without problems... without the ridiculously dumbed down GUI and other problems associated with V2/V3 viewers.

3. Even so, a dispensation will be needed for those who can't run high level graphics, such as old computers and mobile devices /or/ have slow internet connections.

There are some creators who design wonderful products and sims for the lowest common denominator user... and are not concerned with bleeding edge bells & whistles. Some will never upload a mesh, and are quite contented without it. For those, why force it?

Oh sorry, I forgot, there are those who want to force others to see the new mesh jacket they are wearing, that they paid $L1000 for.

"Look! The Emporer has no clothes!"

Lani Global

[elizabeth (16)]

had all the same crying when scuplties came out. they was blobbies as well. still are when they not render properly

no one got killed then bc o.m.g. u cant see my awesome stuff i made

one thing can always rely on in sl, is always heaps ppl who want to kill other ppl. seems any reason will do for lots of them. new mesh is todays new black executioner hood. be something else tomorrow

[jjccc coronet (@JJcccART)]

Mesh dont work yet

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

High-level graphics required? Radegast has supported displaying mesh since last September, and it's supposed to be a lightweight client.

Will Linden Lab hold residents wearing mesh clothing blameless if they're AR-ed for nudity by people who can't see mesh? If not, that could put a serious roadblack in the way of acceptance of mesh.

[sirhc desantis]

31%? Well, first reaction : is that all? Couldn't the meshed crusaders rally up a better mob vote than that? Dearie Dearie me. And lawks, possibly.
Thing is, once upon a time there was a policy of new feature (or fix hihi) == off to the download page to grab the newest version. Twice a week sometimes as I recall. We lived with it, so sure its an option. Thing is, the world has moved on a bit, lots of ways to experience SL now. I even fire up the odd text viewer if theres too much going on in the background of my big box to bother with a full client.
And again I can happily run all the viewers if I want to. I still haven't seen anything to make me bother shifting over.
Still puzzled by the drop down filter thingy - is it really missing? I use it a lot.
Cheers

[Orca Flotta]

I guess what is forgotten by all the V2/3 and pro-mesh crusaders here is the simple fact that some of us have actually quite a busy SL. A majority of SLers are in SL to do their stuff, not to bother about insignificant crap like mesh, viewers and all that. They simply don't have the time and patience anymore.

Fact is (at least for the older and more clever residents) LL viewers never really gave them all the functionality they need, and from V2 onwards LL even made a huge step backwards. Everything takes longer/needs more mouseclicks these days. In the same time the visible screen surface shrank and the few remaining functions were splattered all over the place.

If it weren't for the good and thoughtful TPVs, SL wouldn't be around anymore.

So, a company failing as bad as LL does when it comes to implementing new developments, getting rid of universities but promoting kindergartens ... you sure you want them to make their crap mandatory???

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I've switched to v2/3 for functionality, but the old v1.23 UI is better than anything since.

Now, if they went all the way and did a real contemporary virtual world interface, clean and configurable by the end user, I'd be very interested in that.

But as it stands, I still feel like a archaeolgy grad student, staring at the V2 icons and trying to decipher their import. The right word is sometimes worth a thousand pictures.

[Rin Tae]

It is for me a bit strange to read about all those who still use non mesh capable viewers. Actually form what I see in my surroundings in SL is that a overwhelming majority of people are using mesh viewers (I am looking at this since mesh came out and non mesh viewers become so rare that one could start to doubt their existence) and everyone I speak about this with is eager about any news about the mesh deformer because then mesh clothing will be defintevly the big hit.

I also remember .. but I might be wrong here .. that the most used TPV is the mesh capable Firestorm and that it has found more users then Phoenix has now. And since Phoenix is mesh capable too even more people use mesh capable viewers. I think the only TPV that is non mesh capable is Imprudence and I don't remember when I have seen this viewer being used for the last time while for aa time it was around 1/3 of the people around me in any given time and sim.

People are adopting to it fast and the content is coming. The only thing that holds this back is the lack of the mesh deformer, but Quarl is on it to fix this luckily.

So I doubt there is any requirement to force all viewers to be mesh capable. As far as I can tell, the residents have already decided this and the only thing that can be said to those who refuse (and I say 'refuse' as in willingly deciding to stick with the old since some have the problem of their computers being unable to run the more heavy viewers .. but for those there are viewers like singularity that too is mesh capable and said to be running better in laggy places then other viewers) to change their old viewers is 'your loss'.

This might be harsh but there is really nothing else to say and I hope no one let themselves being hold back when looking at everything that can be done with such a feature.

No mesh crusade needed ^_^

[Adeon Writer]

Hm, I've been walking around SL with major parts of my avatar being mesh, and I've found that no matter where I go or who sees me, I always look correct to myself.

So I'm not seeing any problems. ;)

[Ezra]

Unfortunately not everyone is of the attitude that if an avatar looks fine to them then that's fine enough.

The survival of Second Life is wholly dependent upon the millions of USD in user to user transactions occur each month. A whole lot of stores sell furniture, clothes, avatars, etc. All things that could benefit from mesh, but mesh is devalued if there's a double digit percentage of people that can't even see it.

We're dealing in virtual goods here. The worth of a virtual product is already questionable, and by and large the only worth of virtual goods we can all agree on is the ability to show what we buy off.

The sentiment "I can see it and that's fine enough" isn't good enough, and evident by the fact most don't want to walk around clothed only to themselves but naked to all others.

Retained performance and usability vs. new features is a valid argument, but there's extremes.

On the performance end, valuing that over all else means a TPV called "NakedViewer" would be fine. It renders no one's attachment except one's own. Certainly a performance boost but how would it impact the grid if some double digit percentage of folks used it?

And on the feature end of things, a real "mesh crusade" would be if performance and usability be damned everyone was forced on newer viewers even if Second Life wouldn't run for them anymore.

Of course, no one should be pitching either extreme. I'm a Radegast user myself 80% of the time I'm in Second Life and I voted that Linden Lab should have policies that make features like mesh mandatory in TPVs that connect.

Obviously text clients should be exempt from any such policy, at the same time viewers like Imprudence -shouldn't- be exempt when mesh integration for it isn't in sight and Second Life isn't even the primary platform of support.

As pointed out, mesh is being adopted anyway thanks to TPVs like Firestorm and Linden Lab removing links to their older viewers. But I see the substance of that poll question having to do with more than just mesh.

Mesh was lucky to receive immediate support from TPVs where features like Shared Media in the past weren't, and who's to say Linden Lab won't introduce a new feature this year dependent on viewer upgrades but some TPV team decides they're gonna hold off for a year? That feature is then dead.

User choice is important, but to protect the platform some amount of force has to come from Linden Lab. Nothing about that is unusual. Be it MMO clients, Xbox or PSN dashboard updates, website overhauls like New Twitter or Netflix's update, there's nothing unusual about a service provider to enforce a uniform experience across all its clients.

Linden Lab should provide better features, performance and usability all at the same time and I think they have with 3.#. They definitely didn't with the initial 2.#. But in all cases except releasing a viewer ridiculously unusable, Linden Lab shouldn't be afraid to enforce progress for the sake of the whole grid.

[EileenK]

You've heard this all before but I have a RADEON 9200 Series DDR x86/SSE2 graphics card and can NOT run any viewer that is mesh capable. My seven year old computer will not run any newer SL-capable graphics card. I have sufficient RAM for SL and sufficient disk space.

I've dumbed down the graphics settings tried one or two other tricks. The mesh crash is consistent across a variety of viewers. The good news is that I don't see that many invisible avatars yet. That's how I see mesh if you are curious. When I have used a mesh capable viewer on another machine, what I saw did not look so different from the nonmesh capable world. That was last fall and things might have changed as in developers coming out with newer and better ways to use mesh. I have yet to hit an invisible mesh wall. Megaprim jungle walls that are not phantom are a bigger menace.

I don't know what I'd do if I was forced to use a mesh capable viewer or quit SL. I hope I'd have the good sense to end my SL career. I hope I'd consider it a case of dumping bad software. I hope I could see past my emotional investment in a virtual world. And I also know that quitting SL (being FORCED to quit, not leaving it alone for a day or restraining the time and money I spend there.) would be a real emotional blow. I hope nobody forces me off SL.

The fact is computer capabilities have not really improved enough for me to want to upgrade my hardware. A series of dfrags, a hard drive clean up, and additional RAM and the Radeon video card have all helped keep my computer performing extremely well. And there is a recession out there if you don't have a job. I can talk sense until I'm blue in the face, but I'm not sure my emotions wouldn't rule at the end of the day. I hope Linden Labs does put people like me in a position where they will follow their emotions rather than the cautionary voice of reason.

[Ajax Manatiso]

Its all hypothetical. LL cannot block viewers -- people are still logging in with Emerald and with various Copybot viewers. (If you still have a copy of Emerald--try it -- logs in with no problem) Eventually when all the viewers incorporate mesh and non-mesh viewers are harder to find, it will change. Everyone doesn't have to like the way you look and running mesh doesn't guarantee they'll like your look any better.

[Pussycat Catnap]

While in a general sense I don't think we should force people over to mesh viewers, and even if we did I would carve out an exception for the text-based mobile clients...

The appearance of sims like 1920s Berlin putting up signs banning the use of mesh attachments, banning mesh avatars, and banning rezzing mesh items - ie, banning mesh... makes me think that unless such rules are disallowed, we should consider forcing the issue by cutting off non-mesh viewers so that such irrationality becomes more obvious.

[shockwave yareach]

Iyoba: You can buy AGP cards from Newegg and continue to use that old hardware for a little while longer. 65$. If you have a PCIe then even more options are open for you. That 9200 was a dinosaur when I retired my last Athlon rig many years ago -- don't blame us that you cannot drive on the freeways in your model T. That card came out before Second Life was even open for business.

But I don't know what you mean that computer abilities have not improved in the last seven years. Holy #include has cpu throughput and GPU ability improved! Today, compressing an hour of high def video which used to take a 4 year old Dualcore 3Ghz cpu 6 hours to do now takes an i7 with a GTX460 card merely 40 minutes! And you can buy a very respectable rig for much less than a K$, whereas you probably paid double that for your 2001 rig.

[Nanu]

what Melissa Yeuxdoux said.
I started to wear the stupid alpha layers for my (fitting) mesh clothing because people on non-mesh viewers complained that i am "naked" ...
and i really don't want to be ar-ed.
this stupid fact is the only thing that keeps me still from wearing mesh in public.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"I hate the idea of people not being able or allowed to enjoy SL just because of their viewers or crappy computers."

This is the nature of technology though. It moves forward. I can't even download the current version of Firefox on my old 2003 iBook. Let along any applications. They all went intel-based chipset years ago. That's why I bought a PC laptop in 2009. A cheap $350 Toshiba that runs mesh just fine on an integrated chip graphics setup and has no graphics card.

If you buy the eMachine or 'generic brand', you get what you paid for. Buy the Toshiba one aisle over at the same price at Best Buy... Read the reviews before you buy. Because next time out, it might very well be the eMachine that does it right for the same price, and not the Toshiba.

And that's why I bought my new iMac earlier this year after they did an upgrade to the internal hardware used for iMacs.

Computers evolve, and eventually a 'crappy computer' becomes a doorstop. At what point this happens varies, but it happens.

Sooner or later, folks just have to upgrade their hardware, or get left behind. Its cruel, but the same debate happened a century ago over horse drawn buggies, and has happened over and over in the decades since when techologies evolved.

When buying a computer, this is one reason to go low-mid range. High end machines really don't last much longer... but cost a lot more; there is still a line in my credit statement for the 9 year old iBook... But not for the 3 year old Toshiba nor the 6-month old iMac...

[Pussycat Catnap]

One way LLs could make a big push -for- mesh is to send out the moles again and select every mole prim out there, go to the features tab, and change prim to convex hull.

- It'll free up about 40-50% of the prims of every mole build in SL. AND will make the change self-obvious to those holding back - that if they see something or someone looking funny, its them not the other person or object.

Did this myself on one of my builds Monday night, and got about 50 prims back. Planning to run through my lots in Bay City and do the same now that I know the inns and outs - you start by selecting it all and unlinking it, then group of items that 'flow together well' and are unsculpted prims. Its almost Feng Shui in how it works; if you've got bad energy, your prim cost goes up, if you've got good energy it goes down. Two of the prims in my home, when linked and turned to convex, went from a 2 prim cost to a 143 prim cost... so those 2 stayed as prims (and may get redesigned later). Most of my links, once I found the ideal sets to link up, dropped by half.

There was an SL forum joke last month about LLs reducing tier in stealth through meshifying prims - but joke that it was, its actually true.

[Adeon Writer]

Just to not spread outdated infomation, mesh is no longer banned from the 1920's Berlin sim, and in fact, mesh content has started to appear in the builds.

[Pussycat Catnap]

That's good to hear for them. Has such a problem popped up anywhere else?

[Kimberly Rufer-Bach]

I can understand the drive of the mesh creators to force mesh on everyone so they can make a buck and keep the rent paid. It's ugly to watch, but I get it. The part that makes me want to puke is people shrugging and mentioning buggy whips to excuse the fact that they don't give a rip if people are forced out of SL so long as they can be certain that every avatar on the grid may be exposed to the glory of the mesh prefab or dress they managed to buy.

I am supposed to care that someone has to suffer the intense, tragic, searing agony of having to put on an alpha layer under their mesh fashion, but overlook the fact that maybe a class of at-risk youth or ESL students are going to lose their educational opportunity, or a disabled senior on a fixed income is going to lose their primary social outlet. Sorry, I care more about those folks than about your new dress, and for that matter more than I care about my own new dress.

SL sure has changed, and it isn't just the Lab that has changed. I remember when we thought we were creating a world better than the real one, and we even believed that the more compassionate, more inclusive, more meaningful culture we created could spill over into real life and improve that world too. But now look at this situation. Makes me sick.

To me, mesh isn't worth excluding people from the world. And the stat on the survey saying thirty-one percent of respondents feels everyone should be forced to use a mesh viewer ... That tells me more about who reads this blog and has a financial stake in mesh than it does about the actual feelings of the majority of SL users. I think most users probably don't care that much about what others can and can't render with their viewer.

[Pussycat Catnap]

@Kimberly: That hyperbole might hold water if it had any basis in anything. But pretty old machines can handle mesh just fine. There are plenty of mesh freebies, and ANYONE can even make a "mesh" inworld by selecting a prim, going to the features tab, and changing the pulldown there from prim to convex hull. doing so in fact lowers the 'build cost' of many types of linksets, and done smartly can help a person free up a lot of room to build more.

We can toss out a lot of hyperbole the other way about 'ARs of people who look different to the luddite than they really are' or 'sims that ban mesh'... and this can go in circles for ages with hyperbole and rants on both sides.

Or... progress... the nature of technology...

Mesh will allow SL's look and feel to move forward. It will let SL seem a lot more polished. It will allow artists to do a lot more.

Yes, it will hold back people who just can't figure out working with 3D modeling apps. Which to some degree sadly includes myself. But it will at least let me experience what others provide.

And the more segmented we become as people cling to technology still rooted in 2009 and based on 2003 code... causing split communities and an inability of people to interact with each other... well, that's a heck of a lot worse of a problem than making everyone move forward a few baby steps.

[Kimberly Rufer-Bach]

Pussycat, until you post statistics that show the percentage of users that will be lost due to locking out non-mesh viewers versus the number that will be gained by this, and how long it will take for the gain to offset the loss, and whether Linden and the users who create the world can hold out that long, you are basically just spouting characters.

I, however, am not talking about statistics. I know people who will leave if forced to switch to a mesh viewer, people I care about, so for me it is personal and not a matter of statistics.

There is a huge difference between We Have Mesh Now and Now We Lock Out Non-mesh Viewers. The former, that is progress. The latter ... Why again are you so hot for that to occur? Because people aren't using mesh on their own -- to FORCE them to use mesh. Even though some of them have computers that can't. Why? Obviously none of your friends or family members have a problem with mesh viewers, or maybe you're going to bust out your credit card and upgrade their systems for them. Lot of people don't have a rich friend like you, though, Pussycat, and until you know some stats on what percentage of SL users don't, you're not just being insensitive, but also irresponsible.

Fortunately, I believe Rodvik and co. will act based on fact rather than unsupported blog comments, even my own.

[Gaga]

If the Mesh dictators have their way and Linden Labs try to force me out of Second Life if I don't conform then fine. I will leave, close my sims, my premium account and take the $1000 a month I spend in SL some place else. Simple.

Personally, I am sick of Linden Labs profiteering and a certain bunch of people that are only in SL to make money out of it. I am sick of the griefers, the spammers and all those little drama freaks that have nothing better to do than spoil other people's virtual life.

After 5 years I have to ask myself if it's worth the bother any more.

[Gaga]

Far from improving Second Life, which this survey was meant to explore, it has done little more than given vent to those who would ban any one that refuses to conform to the dictates of a vocal minority which begs the question; How is this meant to improve Second Life if a whole bunch paying residents have to be thrown out for one reason or another?

Given that SL has not seen any growth in several years with people leaving as fast as more are joining I don't think it's a good time to be talking about banning none-confomists. I mean, for years now we have been invited to use many different viewers so it should come as no surprise that people have their preferences. Blame Linden Labs not the users. It was the Lab that let the Gene out of the bottle when they released the viewer code.

[elizabeth (16)]

Kimberley Rufer-Bach- "There is a huge difference between We Have Mesh Now and Now We Lock Out Non-mesh Viewers"

^^ yeah that

[Ezra]

Pretty sure no one is suggesting a non-working viewer be forced on anyone. Obviously if mesh is mandated, it should occur in a viewer more functional and better performing than all before it.

Anyone that actually feels they -hate- mesh right now because of this poll or hated it before because of bugs Linden Lab introduced at the same time with the new shading model, needs to take a step back and evaluate what exactly they're angry at and opposed to.

It makes 0 sense to be angry at mesh as a new asset type; its just triangles composed of vertices used to spit out pixels from your GPU no different than sculpties or prims.

Unrelated viewer bugs and performance issues however, those warrant being angry at, and obviously they should be fixed before anything is forced any kind of way. Would the poll question have been better if it were "Declare all viewers must be mesh capable AND working"? The latter should be a given, not a point of contention to dream up some faux mesh crusade.

This isn't some civil war declaration. Everyone wants better features, better performance, better usability. Why split the community on the assumption anyone wants different? Stop posturing mesh vs. a usable viewer because no one is suggesting that battle.

[Rin Tae]

I am reading all this and I have to ask myself where all this hate is coming from? I have not seen it inworld, I have not heard anyone screaming about mesh and everyone was so far very eager to get the (for them) best working mesh viewer (oe of my freinds actually after I shown her the mesh outfit I got recently and when people buy stuff made by extremly talented people then this i the best that can happen).

Nowwhere I have seen a palce where mesh viewers would be in the majority or where people would complain about me not looking right when wearing it. And when I read about a sim wanting to ban mesh I was all oO about it and hope that it was just a case of misinformation that has now been corrected.

But anyway, never in SL history we have seen a viewer that worked perfectly for anyone. Most have been very buggy and each one that works usually only works for the specific computer set up and the specific way one person uses it.

There are 'lightwight' mesh viewers available and the question is jsut to get one of those and see if they work better the what LL offers (however I have heard good things about v.3 so even when I am not using it it is a good sign that LL has done something right for once too xP ).
Mesh is the biggest and most important addition to SL since sculpties and just like sculpties it is going to turn the entire market aroud and allow for more content to make and to buy and to fill our inventories with.

A great day in my opinion and no reason to scream.

The exact same things have been said when windlight came out or when sculpties came out. Thousands would leave, old computers could not handle it, it would be the end of the world as we know it ... but it has not been and the addition of mesh might come with a smaller impact then what has happened before.

I would almost say, that it is fear and panic .. like I remember a post from way back when sculpteis appeared when a merchant complained how sculpteis are bad because now his prim skills would be less worth and that it would force him out of the market and that this is the reason for why they should not be implemented.

Such a argument is silly of course since there is jsut one answer for it ... 'Take up the new tool given and learn how to best use it'

But of course it is not only fear and panic but also a lot of misinformation and often lack of information about how to make SL run smoother or where to get the right viewer that would work better with someones system. That is bad for thsoe that don't have anyone to ask but not a huge deal breaker either. After all it is easy to get suggestions by simply asking in the 'Answers' section of the forum or by the use of Google. And SL does not need a high end gaming machine to run .. it might need a better one when set to ultra grafics but if performence is the issue then that is the first thing to lower (I have run SL on mid-grafics for yeas until I finalyl got the high quality capable grafic card and was just as happy as people on ultra grafics)

So all in all .. there is no reason to fear or shout about the end of the world. There is just the advancement that will give people more and better things to build and buy.

In the end LL wont force any viewers to be mesh capable or ban people who aren't able to see it (some sim owners might, but that is just individual silliness). As far as I can tell, the residents have already opted in the wast majority for mesh and are buying it .. or are waiting for the deformer to be ready before going on a wild shopping spree (provided the moeny but I know I will spend a bit ;D)

So there is no question about mesh being adopted or not. As far as I can tell from my observations, it has already been.

[Adeon Writer]

I have not yet seen mesh hate. I've gotten a few "Why are you wearing box shirt?" and I send them a texture of what I actually look like. I get a comment along the lines of "oh that looks nice" followed by a "I wish it worked for me" or a "I guess I need to upgrade" and that's all.

This really isn't a war.

[Gaga]

Its not about Mesh hate at all. It's about a badly worded survey that suggests banning people for not conforming or wanting to give up using their preferred viewer. 31% agreed they should be banned and 18% wanted to see merchants goods be delisted for not logging in for a month. The survey itself is a declaration of war for which those who agree are invited to vote. This is corporate dictatorship at it's worst and total disregard for the vast majority who are not in SL to make money but rather, here to have fun. Hell, you can have fun without Mesh or the need for it. So, I can be banned, denied the use of all the inventory I have already spent a small fortune on and cut off from the fiends and role play I so much enjoy. And for what? So I can be made to use a viewer I don't like or understand when I did have choices and made the choice that suits me.

[shockwave yareach]

Gaga: No. You are merely required to run a viewer which will meet a bare minimum basic requirement to enter second life, no different than the 7-11 requiring you to wear shoes and shirt to come in. Running a viewer that is incapable of rendering mesh just because you no like is just as illogical as running one that is incapable of rendering cubes just because you no like. Either we have a common virtual world or we do not. The problems with the mesh viewers are in setup and can be fixed. My puny laptop runs V3 viewer just fine and it is hardly a powerhouse. In fact, I get more FPS with V3 on the cheap lappy than I did with Snowglobe. If you can run 1.23, you can run V3, and the same is probably true for the TPV viewers as well.

Want to play in the virtual world? You need to see the virtual world to do that. No reason not to... save for stubbornness. If my wussy laptop can run a mesh viewer, no reason to believe you cannot.

[Gaga]

@shockwave

I don't have a problem seeing Mesh! I can run any viewer I want but, as I said, I made a choice in using Imprudence which I am happy with but it doesn't render Mesh and, to be honest, I don't much care since it's not a priority for me. I want a light weight viewer so I can open more than one on my PC (would be better for me if we had tabbed viewer windows actually). But anyway I rarely leave my own sims these days unless I visit friends on OSgrid. So this is not all about Mesh but about choices and a badly worded survey that effectively declares war on me with the threat of a ban for being awkward and selfish which, being a big payer of tier and other, I reserve the right to be.

[elizabeth (16)]

i have a new mesh capable computer and i use olv3 for my day to day sl. i love new mesh. i pile into jane to get as soon as she made. i get niran within an hour of it being released so i could see how the deformer works inworld \o/

i just upset to read here that 3 in 10 sl ppl voted to ban non-mesh viewers without any care for the ppl behind them. i got annoyed when i read ppl backing up their votes with comments that basically say do it our way or gtfo sl. we a ban happy mob in sl. is why whenever anyone mentions sl inworld guard/moderator and volunteer in the same breathe i go nuuuuuuuuuuuuu !!! they would not have time to ban any real greifers, they be way to busy banning each other jejejjejeje (:

anyways i finished my spit now (:

so ps. i wear a romper suit that i get off jane under my mesh clothes. is heaps diff colors and they free as well. tnks jane and tnks also to all the other new mesh makers who done the same (:

i wear rompers for same reason i wear glitch pants under my prim and sculpty skirts. ppl can derender prims, and sculpts not even rez sometimes. if u not wearing underwear when that happens already then ur bum is going to hang out in public

we still going to need underwear or some clothing layer baked with our skin even with new mesh deformer. just bc the new mesh derenderer be the next thing for some tpv makers. like lol everyone jump up and down and qarl and runitai and all them ppl work really hard to make new mesh clothes work really well and .... derender

[Pussycat Catnap]

"Pussycat, until you post statistics that show the percentage of users that will be lost due to locking out non-mesh viewers versus the number that will be gained by this,

...

There is a huge difference between We Have Mesh Now and Now We Lock Out Non-mesh Viewers. The former, that is progress. The latter ... Why again are you so hot for that to occur? Because people aren't using mesh on their own -- to FORCE them to use mesh. Even though some of them have computers that can't. Why? Obviously none of your friends or family members have a problem with mesh viewers, or maybe you're going to bust out your credit card and upgrade their systems for them. Lot of people don't have a rich friend like you, though, Pussycat, "

Earth to whatever planet you're on...

Your rant is just going all out crazy-train there.

Where did I say lock them out? That wasn't my stance. Untangle your whos from your whats. I advocate a very strong push for the mesh viewers, and think V1 needs to die. But I didn't vote for the lock out non mesh - leaning towards it perhaps, but its not the stance I backed up there.

You've put my name on the stance of one of the other people here... Just because I agree with their rationale and think some action is needed, does not mean I am one of the ones holding an AK-47 in the plaza...

Rich friends? I'm talking about $350 laptops here. Something I bought while I was unemployed.

And stats smats... seriously? Yeah... all I can say to that is everytime anything changes in the world there's a crowd of people who say they're jumping off the planet, and only a handful actually open that window in their office skyscraper and jump out...

Life moves on. With or without the drama queens adjusting to the fact that the hand of time only moves in one direction...
- Most of them raise a massive stink and then actually do adjust.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"If the Mesh dictators have their way and Linden Labs try to force me out of Second Life if I don't conform then fine. I will leave, close my sims, my premium account and take the $1000 a month I spend in SL some place else. Simple."

Dictators?

That's a little over-dramatic don't you think?

So far the only actual "dictator" in all of this has been the owner of the 1920s Berlin sim with its sign banning Mesh, that has since been taken down.

Everything else has just been discussion, though the 1920s Berlin folks sure did 'raise the stakes' a lot by showing that if action isn't taken, the anti-mesh crowd is prepared to, and has already fired a shot in the attempt to, lock out mesh. That sort of action can get a strong rise out of people - inspiring them to support draconian measures to force the issue.

Reading about the Berlin sim's sign basically took me ===>.<=== this close to supporting the idea of forcing mesh viewers. I'm not there yet, but if I see more sims try what the Berlin sim did, I might be.

[Pussycat Catnap]

"Far from improving Second Life, which this survey was meant to explore, it has done little more than given vent to those who would ban any one that refuses to conform to the dictates of a vocal minority"

Who exactly has banned who?

Oh that's right. Berlin sim banned mesh users for a while at least - until it was brought to public light.

===
What's my preferred way to solve this BTW?

- Send out the moles and convert all those mold builds to convex hull. Do the same to Linden Homes - but in that case GIVE the people with a linden home the extra prims earned back as a result, rather than holding them to the linden land, turning linden home land into 1.5x prim land.

Once people see how much of a performance gain and prim gain mesh gives, and once its ubiquitous around SL's mainland; holdouts will switch over for their own benefit.

But again, if more sims try toe 1920s Berlin's former route of banning mesh... the hostility will just fly into the sky on this...

[Pussycat Catnap]

"This is corporate dictatorship at it's worst and total disregard for the vast majority who are not in SL to make money but rather, here to have fun."

I'm all for calling out the corps... but this survey was not that at all.

Hamlet polled his readers and asked for some questions - things people thought would improve SL.

My answer BTW, was the one to send noobs to places with other noobs, so they could meet and become newbies instead. ;)

But Hamlet took all the responses and made them into a poll.

No corps involved.

I didn't vote for lock out non-mesh viewers, and I didn't vote for the delist merchants. I voted for my own idea, and am probably the only person who did... :)

- I -do- think the Mesh issue needs pushing, but my solution would be to do it with mole builds and freebies. Throw a lot of baseline mesh out there, and it'll grow organically.

- I do think something needs to be done about vacant merchants. But I think we need to be able to link alts together into a master account first - so that if I log into my alt Bunny, but fail to log into Pussycat for a month, it still thinks I'm active. The only merchants who should be removed are the ones who've actually been banned or account deleted from SL (which is supposed to happen, but sometimes fails to happen).

(ps: Almost daily I feel tempted to partner my alts together, but you can only have 1 partner... in the MMO City of Heroes and Guild Wars - both of which I tried in past, I had a global username that made it much easier for me to stay in contact with friends despite whatever "toon" I logged into that day...)

[Gaga]

@Pussycat

When you pay the tier for 1920s Berlin then you can dictate to them if they may allow mesh on their sims or not. We all pay for choices but there are those in Second Life that think others should conform to their views and Linden Labs, if put under enough pressure from vocal minorities, are very likely to agree and bow to that pressure.

This is what make Hamlet's survey dangerous and a menace stirring up resentment in the community.

As I keep saying!

This is not about Mesh. This is about a badly worded survey [BADLY WORDED SURVEY] that clearly invites people to vote to lock a whole section of the community out of Second Life and deny them the right to use everything they have paid for over the years.

Hamlet, by wording the survey like that is expressing what he thinks and is inviting readers to agree with him.

That is a declaration of war!

[Linda Brynner]

Come on now,

what kind of spin is this. So many users are heaving a huge battle of using V2/3 since 2.8 and therefore also mesh, and now all of the sudden all is okidoki here? Little users are using the official viewers at all. And mesh is little used in SL because of it.

This site is a huge spin doctor... and always have been due do its relations do Linden Lab.

It would be time for LL to actually restart development of a usuable viewer.
Sofar logins and new signups are still plunching and no wonder. The average computer can't run SL anymore, and there is no reason why it should be the crippled way things are at the moment.

It is time for LL to listen to the average user instead to a dominant group claiming all kinds gizmos.

[foneco zuzu]

So true in a way Linda, but i really don't believe LL really listens to nobody but themselves!
As so i really doubt Hamlet has any more influence then any other!
But v1 mesh viewers already exist, so if LL wants to ban non mesh viewers (and wondering if they really can do so, as a few still login with banned viewers without a single problem) that will not mean the end of V1 code.
Still is scaring how a few (indeed when 50.000 ppl login every day, what means the votes of 30???) can induce some that they really have the power to dictate to LL how to act!
And btw, Henry already got multiple lawyers on its cool viewer so sooner all v1 viewers (Well, being as stubborn as some on this forum, lets see if Firestorm team, that is becoming really surpassed on the v2/v3 use dally and are starting to see decrease on v1 as Phoenix mesh is just impossible for most to use)!
Stil I hope that what Rod Humble said, that Sl is all about freedom of choices and that includes using a viewer that will or not, see all the features the world has to offer, can be keep!