Top 5 Posts Last Week, Including the User Size of Metaverse Platforms and a Shocking Comparison of Second Life & ROBLOX's Economy for Creators

• Survey Results: With Philip Rosedale's Return, New World Notes Readers Overwhelmingly Optimistic On Future Of Second Life & The Metaverse
• Metaverse Platform Infographic: Monthly Active Users Now Nearly Half A Billion People (But Probably Many More)
• Second Life Blogger Reviews Virtual Hotels - Yes They Exist & Some Charge Over $12/USD A Night!
• Shock Stat: 1600 Second Life Community Creators Make $10,000+ Per Year From Their Virtual Content -- Despite Working On A Much Larger Platform, Far Fewer Creators On ROBLOX Make That Rate
• Sansar Wasn't The Successor To Second Life That Second Life Needed

Comments

[Dee]

Does anyone else find that graphic as depressing as I do? It occurs to me after the discussion of avatars that there is so much more to think about on the age of the SL population as a whole. Has anyone at LL been studying why there aren't more twentysomethings flocking to SL? Is it the age of the platform? From that chart, it doesn't look like it because of the age of the platform as fortnite and the others have been around a long time too.

At the risk of being booed and considering the age of much of SL tech, is another sister version of SL the answer? Sansar was a great idea that lost ground for a number of reasons, to my eye the main ones being that you couldn't take any of your SL stuff over to it, the fact that the headset for the vr makes so many folks sick, etc. But I wonder if having another go at it might not be a worthwhile thought. But this time, with the greater metaverse in mind, figure out how to make it where existing sl content could be made to work with it.

Or rather than making it a whole different system, bolt it onto the side of the existing grid, an alternate reality if you like. Where your avatar (whether current old avatar or new fangled one as per the other discussion thread) could pass back and forth between them... You could still be yourself passing through the looking glass, maybe your stuff would be different in each world. Perhaps some sort of simulator could help to bring some of your "stuff" to the other side based on some standards or some sort of converter that could bring it up to the new standards.

Such an alternate reality would allow LL to get on board with a new system that is compatible with the wider world of metaverse technology and items in that world could use better scripting/programming languages to do more interesting things. It might even be possible to make the improvements really needed for things like the avatar animations to work so that people could SEE how things could be better while still holding tightly to their beloved SL experience.

If there was a new 2.0 avatar with all the new bells and whistles that was "baked down" for use in the main grid it might be that there could be a way to bake older sl avatars so they would act like the new one when on the new side of the looking glass. It would probably be a PITA to make it happen but I think it would be worth it. The single biggest complaint I remember hearing from people (myself included) was that it was 'starting completely over' so a lot of people never went very far with it. If there was a way for them to take their normal SL avi to a new and shiny SL reality it seems like there would be more of a chance of it working out, and attracting new users.

In essence it would be making a metaverse of two (for now) - it could work to get people energized for advances in the experience, better animations, better textures/pbr, more powerful scripts inside of items making them more useful. I think that done right the newer side could attract the younger crowd and the decade long SL users could dip their toes in without total disorientation or requirement to buy expensive headsets. I think Sansar was simply too far away from the 'regular SL experience' to catch people's imaginations. It didn't have the same walking controls, for example, which made many of us stumble around like so many cussing drunks.

I know SL's big refrain is by the user for the user, but looking at the larger players in that chart, I have to wonder if LL wouldn't need to take a larger role in the base user content. Like having PROFESSIONALS create a sit system and other game system components that could be used by users to create things rather than having everyone in there trying to LSL when that is not their skill set. Optimally where it would be possible to add plug-ins to do specialty stuff. A plug and play system of optimized components would be a boon. Silly things like "open door", "sit on sofa", could be made to simply work in a standardized way rather than 100 different laggy possible ways.

Of particular interest would be components for game play, bullets, hit points, and whatnot. Meters in SL are laggy af and could be done so much better in ways that would empower more people to make mini games of their own without having to code. Oh sure there will always be those code warriors who want to get into the guts and 'do it their way' that's a given.

Having recently taken an adventure into trying to add specific particles to something, I can tell you I was NOT impressed with the complexity and frustration level it takes to make that all work. I found myself imagining more plug and play options where I never have to see lines of code, and could simply drop something into the item and plug the info into a nice little text box.

LOL, can you tell I have spent far too many hours chewing on 'how could this all be so much better' ideas?!