Some SLers Wonder If Insilico Could Have Been Saved

With weeks left for the soon-to-evaporate landmark Second Life location, this melancholy (and curiously empty of avatars) tribute by Die Villa. Perhaps more poignant, some longtime SLers say Insilico could have been saved if it had been made more sustainable. As regular readers Rin and Rei put it:

Insilico closing is sad news because it was a nice looking place ... but it is also not surprising in some ways. It long ago become stale. No new, up to date products, the mall was always laggy (besides malls like this having long ago started to loose out to the more frequent fairs) and no one wanting to rent there anymore it seems. The people liked to go there for a look, but no one liked to stay and I can't see any way to recover the cost in such a situation ... unless someone with money to burn steps in to keep it up just for the pleasure to keep it...

In my experience Insilico was not the most welcoming of places. I get that the them was supposed to be a hard edged cyberpunk city, but after a couple of weeks of trying to get into some RP there, I gave up... Heck, I never was even able to rent an apartment there.

If that's the case on top of the incredible internal drama we know about, Insilico's demise isn't a total surprise.

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Comments

[I remember Phoenix]

Insilico looked nice, but its RP community was insular and rotten to the core. They made a hobby of stamping on anyone that tried to do anything creative and they bent the rules to suit themselves. If they were a poker game, then they were the most crooked one in town.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Communities looking to establish themselves in the vacuum left by the closure of many of these private concerns should do well to remember that adopting any stance that discourages new blood from entering may gradually lead to stagnation, and when the bleeding happens (and it will due to many reasons that may often not be within force of will to avoid), they're going to bleed to death.

It can't be a coincidence that some of the entries on LL's Newbie-Friendly Destinations list are often some of the oldest communities in SL. In some cases, part of or even all the original crew that established them have gone, but they have new folks helping out, and they're still ticking along quite well. That list isn't just for newbs - students of worldbuilding in VR should look in them closely, for the ways of longevity of experience may be in their secret sauces.

[JohnC]

In SL you have to build environments for your own pleasure first and foremost. As long as you are happy with what you have produced then anything else that comes of it is a bonus. When you open something new in SL, if it is good, you will be stormed by visitors in the first few weeks, maybe months if you are lucky. These people will all tell you how amazing it is, then those same people will a few months later tell you how stale and boring it is, how you are not doing enough to keep them there, and when you close they will tell you it is your fault for not spending your life trying to please them.
This is the way of it in SL. You have to adopt a kind of street artist attitude to what you do. You build it as best you can but be prepared for it to get washed away by the first storm and eventually trodden underfoot by the same people who once tossed you some pennies in admiration.
I have in my time wondered why people even bother building beautiful environments there. Although it is marketed as a virtual world, there is no world there to speak of, unless you understand the term world to mean a label given to potential virtual space, or a random collection of mostly abandoned experiments at making money.
A real world contains places of presence, permanence and history. The most popular and long lasting places in SL are almost always little more than chat rooms that do not need the luxury of 3 dimensions. SL should by now have contained many beautiful “worlds” that resemble something like The Witcher 3, or Red Dead Redemption environments, without the games. Massive themed worlds where people can wander freely or set up home. There can still be chat room type places, but they exist in a world. Sand box spaces are great for creativity, but they will never be virtual worlds IMHO, no more than anyone will ever draw a decent portrait using the party game method of each person drawing a part of the body and then folding it over so the next cannot see what they drew. The terrible thing about this for me is that once you take SL out of the equation, and despair at the random nature of progress in OS, then you are left with nothing much at all.

[Carlos Loff]

They can transfer their stuff to Opensim - Digiworldz, as long they are the owners of builds and scripts - Export than import just by using the viewers - With 185$/Month they have their own server and can have great performance on something like 100 SIMs clustered together, each one with 20K prims - Their lands will be on the Grid - https://www.digiworldz.com/store/cart.php?gid=12

[Carlos Loff]

Im not a Digiworldz member, just wanted to share this great professional proven resource as a heave for whoever is tired of SL

[Carlos Loff]

I mean, Im there using that Pro Server solution but Im not within the company, not tring to spam just passing the word out - Come to Opensim, it has reached a professional level and communities are much more helpful, we need to grow more, all grids are small compared to SL but most of them are interconnected - Hypergrid

[JohnC]

Open sim is not Professional in any way. At any point the so called "core" developers can, and constantly do, just leave. Talk about building your house on sand.
They seem to dislike anyone who tries to make a commercial success of it. The Moses team recently proposed making the whole place more professional and got shot to bit's by many of the the so called long term community. The only hope OS has is that the Army continues with it's browser based viewer.

[Carlos Loff]

Let's check something - By professional service I understand - Delivering what is expected and promised (Check), assuring long time stability on all functions (check), assuring good performance and its continuity after building and scripting (check), offering 15 mins maximum customer service response with ALL issues and tickets solved and taken care (check) - and all is bern going like this for many months, something DL could not grant even by one third - John C, if your idea of a professional service is bettet than this than we start entering utopy - But I will make you happy if the next srntencecsuits you better - OS is not profesdional but its 20 times more professional than SL has ever been - Of coursr this democratic easyness in opening grids will bring manybsmall projects that fade and many promisses of free lands thatvin the long run dont makevit sustainable but if you go for Kitely, Digiworldz or Metropolis you will have a very pleasant surprise, just try them and than come here to review

[JohnC]

Have you tried promoting or, heaven forbid, selling your product outside of OS. I mean to anyone who is not an ex SL user. The fact that what you have now works ok is fine. I can tell are not someone who want's anything more than a good service from your provider.
I am talking about anyone who wishes to take the engine for what it is and develop something of their own. As have Inworldz dared to do, and been slaughtered by the "community" for daring to do so.
But apart from them, it is all dependent upon a development team that is constantly in flux, and passes down code if and when it has the time or inclination to do so. I am talking about the future, not how good you feel now. Ask any OS developer, if there are any, where they hope to get their users from. What they hope is that SL fails and they can pick up the survivors. I am talking about reaching out beyond this suffocating walled compound to the whole world beyond, who right now know and care nothing at all for some ex SL based retro product. All you have in OS right now are people like those from whom you rent your virtual space, small time LL clones. People who set up shop to make money from those who know no better.

[Carlos Loff]

The article was about a great project leaving SL and nowadays to be honest there are no Virtual Worlds that are successful and can warranty long term stability and evolution - I was answering the article and surely with the main pro grids working and the extra safety of OARs, they have the chance to do much more for much less money