In summary...
Q. Why are you killing Phoenix viewer?
A. We are not killing Phoenix or V1 viewers, LL informed us on an unofficial basis that they intend to turn off server side functionality which V1 viewers rely on. Originally the time line was by the end of this year, that has obviously changed however the reality is still the same.
Q. Why have you given up on Phoenix even knowing how many people still use it?
A. We have not given up on Phoenix. We made a promise some time ago that we would continue to keep Phoenix Viewer alive as long as it is feasibly possible and sensible. However our focus is now on developing a viewer you will 'want' to use when the time comes that V1 and Phoenix alternatives are gone. Is Firestorm ready for all of you? not yet... but we're still working on it. But if we spend large time commitments on Phoenix it puts us behind in our efforts to make Firestorm your acceptable alternative. We will not go back on our word, we will continue to maintain Phoenix but at a slower rate than we have in the past. We will keep it alive until it is no longer feasible.
Q. What makes you so sure LL will actually kill V1, with so many people on it they can't afford to kill it.
A. LL is in an awkward position in regards to V1 viewers, at the moment they can't afford to kill it and they can't afford not too. But ultimately we know LL will deprecate V1 viewers because it is not economically viable to remain profitable while V1's are still around. Financially LL can't afford to continue to maintain server side support and protocols for a viewer which is unable to adopt new and innovative features in a timely fashion. LL needs to see returns on investments like new features far sooner than V1's can adopt those features. And if LL cannot continue to innovate and improve their services and platform in a timely fashion, Second Life will stagnate. If LL cannot make a profit we will all lose far more than just V1. This is why we know V1 viewers have a short shelf life. V1 hinders their revenue stream.
You can watch the full video recording here
http://youtu.be/G4eIB-BGYCU
Thanks to Rockcliffe University for allowing us to use their 4 region auditorium for this venue.
Special thanks to Chantal Harvey who pulled herself away from her busy schedule on half an hours notice to record this for us. Those of you who don't know Chantal, she is an authority in the Machinima community in SL and abroad. As a token of our appreciation for taking the time to help us I've included her logo and ask you to pay her website a visit.Click here to visit her website or click here to see her blog.
Thank you for that timely and definitive explanation. Now it's time to move on.
ReplyDeleteAs always, thank you so much Phoenix / Firestorm team, I am in your debt!
ReplyDeleteI just held a performance on Saturday
http://vaneeesa.tumblr.com/tagged/vb29-doc
and the participants used a real mix of viewers, a chunk of LL V3, a chunk of Firestorm, and to my surprise (but probably not yours) still really a lot of Phoenix users.
Back at the initial launch of LL V2 I was upset in a half dozen ways and used Phoenix for a long time. I eventually migrated to Firestorm and found it, to put it mildly, a kinder, gentler V2, with so many extra features.
You have continued that tradition with your trademark generosity and I thought, perhaps just from my own lack of paying attention, that the world was shifting to Firestorm. And, to be fair, I actually do like the latest LL V3 release, it's so much better than the LL V2 of yore.
So I was surprised to hear about so many upset Phoenix users. You've made the transition as painless as possible and as the V2 / V3 features continue to grow it seems like the switch is ever more desirable.
SL continues to be a demanding environment that often runs poorly on lower end machines and sometimes runs poorly on high end machines, so I do understand anyone's reluctance to leave something that seems to be working.
I hope the continuing Phoenix users know how much this team has done for all of us and how long you've carried that platform beyond LL's offerings.
As the Phoenix / Firestorm team does so well, I don't want to push anyone off of Phoenix... but I do encourage you to try Firestorm.
I want to see this "inofficial" Linden Lab threat being an official one.
ReplyDeleteThe "awkward position" Linden Lab is in simply is the result of at least three years of total mismanagement and misconception. If Linden Lab does not manage to deliver a usable, working, reliable and attractive environment, nothing will save them or all of us, not Firestorm, not Phoenix nor any other open source contribution.
I'm going to need some evidence of this story that LL is going to kill V1 server side because I can't find info on it anywhere.
ReplyDeleteOne thing i would like to say that i thought was played down in the Q&A was the fact that a great many people have problems with performance and crashing with Firestorm and the new LL viewers and these are not people with old PC's but very new high performance PC's as well and its not a few people its a lot of people. From my own testing its nothing to do with the render engine but something within the v2 code in the UI or something else
ReplyDeletePhoenix mesh runs very fast on my laptop now and it has never crashed, i cant say that about Firestorm, it runs ok but does crash and is slower, but it is usable apart from the memory leaking and the crashes
Also as of LL loosing money coz mesh is being held back i think that is total rubbish, why? becase people only have so much spare money to spend on what most call a game so it does not matter how many bells and whistles LL build into SL simple math dictates if you dont have extra cash your not gonna be spending it on mesh or any new gizmo in sl simple as that!
Phoe, Jessica didn not mention the "Mesh", and "Mesh" is not "held back" at all. The "Mesh" hype is not done and sponsored by Linden Lab, but by other people who want to cash out that extra money by generating in-world sales. Linden Lab has more important and more promising features to take care of, especially fixing a lot of old bugs which they will definately not fix in the V1 core code. And of course new features will only be added to V2 code. They simply shot their own knee by releasing "Viewer 2". But how far the customer rejection of this software and the still prominent adaption of V1 viewers affect their "revenue stream" and "investment return" and "profitability" remains a miracle to me. This sounds like another theory based on Linden quicksand, as we had SO MANY over the past few years.
ReplyDeletehave you watched the youtube video i did all 2 and a half hours of it and she did state what i said i quote ll are losing money because mesh is being held back.
ReplyDeleteIn fact mesh was held back, but it was held back by LL because they released it too soon, when even their own viewer had bugs in the render engine, bugs it still has.
ReplyDeleteLL have a track record of rolling out stuff that's not finished, i am guessing because they have a time line so even if its not finished LL roll it out bugs and all, should i mention the depreciated OpenGL calls!
Phoe, if she really told you that Linden Lab is "losing money" because not everyone can or does not even want to eperience the splendid miracles of Blender spheres...that´s plain rubbish. 3D object imports are among the less urgent demands the average SL customer brought up since 2008, and their existance or non-existance do not really change anything, especially not LL revenue, which is mainly made by server space rentals and not content creation. And i disagree, it was not "held back". The bugs (unfortunately) were to be expected - but that´s not a matter of V1 or V2 code at all. Same for missing WoW Grunts or the Google Warehouse.
ReplyDeleteIn the SL places I go 9 out 10 people have the red name colour tags of Phoenix so I doubt Linden would be so daft as to stop V1 viewers when one V1 viewer at least is so popular.
ReplyDeletePS are both Phoenix non mesh and Phoenix mesh versions the same colour?
Could I just receive the same skin I had in Phoenix? That was my issue I've gotten use to firestorm though for some reason all my water look the same (guessing that has to do with the updated viewer) As I have Imprudence (yea still have that) Phoenix, Firestorm and SL Beta on my pc's (not all on the same one) I've crashed pretty much on all of them. I've crashed, I've stalled its pretty much the name of the game. My best pc has 500gb, windows 7,etc.. guess what i still crash, i still stall and i still lag, I lag in my own sim sometimes when theres no one there and im standing around. My point? it happens but what can happen is the skin I liked on phoenix hand it over boys...
ReplyDeleteI can't run firestorm at all, on either of the machines I have that are running WINDOWS 7!!!! It logs me out as soon as I log in, no matter what I do.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jessica for the clear explanation, which I entirely accept.
ReplyDelete1. Of course it is costly to maintain V1 functionality whilst rolling out new features.
2. Unless SL continues to attract new users, in a world where it competes with so much else, it will wither and die. So it has to evolve.
4. LL is a commercial company. If it ever moves to make losses, someone may just flick the switch and turn SL off, just like that.
5. Those who love Phoenix and don't want to change don't have to. It does today what it did three months ago, plus mesh if you want it.
6. But don't count on it doing it in three years' time - and that won't be down to Jessica and her wonderful team.
One more thing..
ReplyDeleteJust noticed what looks like the demise of Kirsten's Viewer.
This from her website:
"Enough rambling, lets tie up the loose ends and finish this.
Many many Thanks to Everyone who has supported this viewer you know who you are. The website forums will be closed, and the site will close at the end of December.
PS. I will no longer have the time ( or inclination ) to develop anymore, on January the 1st I start a new job, and will be busy looking after my nearest and dearest."
So a question?
Any specific features in this viewer that should be considered for Firestorm?
Hopefully, the explanations and answers given will go a ways toward cutting down on the anger and flaming directed at the Phoenix team.
ReplyDeleteThey are busting their behinds to make Firestorm not just something current Phoenix users can tolerate, but will actually prefer to use.
Probably the most impressive thing I heard at the meeting was that even with the huge amount work that integrating the new FUI will be, they are already thinking of ways to make it even more flexible. Considering that much of the work they've already done with the UI is going to have to be redone from the ground up, I have to give some credit for tenacity.
Honestly, seems like a waste of effort. Then again some people are still using Windows XP and Visual Basic so there's always the crazies out there who expect the rest of us to do more work so they don't ever have to learn anything.
ReplyDeleteYou guys don't make my favorite viewer, but you do good, innovative work and if Phoenix and all legacy technology dying meant you'd have more time to do that I'd vote to DNR asap.
K.Q., i´d advice you to immigrate to a test lab on the moon so that you can avoid all the billion crazies out there who are not fond of rocket science.
ReplyDeleteI just want to say thank you to all the team for all the work they have done. It would be great to remember that this is being done for free. Anyways to all the team, Have a Happy Happy Chanukkah and a Merry Christmas or just great holidays. And we should all remember that these holidays are connected in that their central theme is bringing light into the darkness. I think both Phoenix and FS accomplished that in their own ways, in our own Virtual Worlds. Have a great holiday everyone and really, thank you for all the hard work - especially all the support team.
ReplyDeleteI spent an hour hopping through the 2+ hour video. I admire Jessica's composure. I kept expecting to see her Avatar go postal. "Umm, but why are you killing Phoenix?"
ReplyDeleteK.Q., it is politically incorrect to speak the truth. Thank you for doing it for me. I have difficulty seeing how anyone could find the V1 or V2 or V3 or Phoenix or Emerald interface difficult.
I really appreciate the Phoenix and Firestorm __features___. All the user interface work is rather hard to get excited about one way or the other.
Thank you all, Firestorm/Phoenix-team. IN all, I have to say you have done a great work, and the outcome is impressive.
ReplyDeleteFrom other postings I understand there has been a missive influx of feedback essentially saying that they'd rather like to keep Phoenix.
I'm verry sorry to hear abouth the verbal abuse you in the team have had to endure. Unfortunately, things very quickly get to a level of technical detail, which can be hard to have even a basic understanding of, uless one havs some hands-on experiance in IT-development.
Bottom-line, it is obvious, that one day, support (either at LL server-side or by third-party features the technology relies on) for the old features used solely by obsolete technology *will* go away. To believe anything else is beyond logical reason.
As I once wrote to the team - the old LL viever was/is hard to learn how to work and find all the tweaks. Things are/was sometimes far from logically grouped, and it took time to get used to.
To start all over from scratch might appear as an massive task, but tough beans... it happens all the time. Sometimes with a backwards compability-mode, but certainly not every time - just look at the re-design in the well-known in the MS Office suite, which took a major interface re-design for version 2007.
And for those ranting at the top capacity at the development team, I would kindly like to remind you of the following:
The team provide you with the result of their efforts *for free*. They are even willing to listen to input from the group of people having downloaded the outcome of their efforts. The least one would expect, is that any contacts are made in a polite and un-biased manner. Anything else is outright rude and a sign of extreley bad manners. In my sim, anyone showing signs of such will meet a 'mute-eject-ban' sequence.
Once again, thank you, Firestorm/Phoenix team, and best wishes for the Holidays and the new year 2012.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteZZ, pray don’t overrate your personal experience. It’s statistically insignificant. Just as mine: I, for one, see at the clubs I use to attend a growing usage of Firestorm, by, in Second Life terms, older and thus SL-savvy users.
ReplyDeleteI’d rather trust Jessica’s statements -- the Phoenix/Firestorm team is talking to Linden Lab, not I, or you, for that matter. And as long as we don’t have real usage numbers straight from the source, all speculation is just that. Playing around with arbitrary suppositions. That won’t buy anybody anything.
I'd advise people like KQ to NOT rant about others' choice in OS.
ReplyDeleteVista? 7?
Yeah - no.
Best examples of software in which the developers did not care one whit for usability.
V1 clients will eventually be unable to connect to Second Life - just as the older variations of the V1 client were locked out for various reasons.
Adapt or leave.
If you honestly believe that Firestorm and V2 are the same UI .... you've got another thing coming.
I've used V2 - Firestorm has it beat.
I do enjoy Firestorm, with its bugs and quirks, but they are manageable. For a lack of a better term Who said a New car design was perfect for the first year? There will still be others that prefer their 1980 vehicle over a 2011 vehicle for many reasons. Comfort level for one, but lets face it Progress comes at a price for comfort, and the old car sooner or later will be placed in the Garage for the new vehicle we all come to adore after become..Comfortable with the features. So lets move on quit complaining what worked in the past will work but sooner or later that Vehicle will breakdown.
ReplyDeleteWe are human and Progress happens, or we would still be playing with sticks and marveling at a fire. Thanks again for the Improvements and commitments to the supporters of your Product.
@ZZ Bottom You seem to be trying to speak for many when you are really just speaking for yourself. If you find Singularity or Cool Viewer to be better for you, then by all means use one of those. The Phoenix team won't have their feelings hurt if some decide to use something else.
ReplyDeleteThe facts don't back up your other statements though. Firestorm has a LOT of users and is getting more every day. If you change 'everyone' in your statements to 'some' they would probably be accurate.
The Phoenix crew knows they won't please everybody. Trying to do so would likely make for a less usable rather than a more usable viewer. Fortunately, you have several choices in V1 based viewers while they last. That alone is reason enough they should and are committing most of their development to Firestorm.
In case you haven't seen, Kirsten's viewer has ceased development and the website will shut down at the end of the year. Kokua is nowhere close to a useable release. That leaves the ONLY real choice for a V2 based viewer other than LL's. I'd kind of like to see it be as good as possible when V1 based viewers become unusable so people still have a choice on what to use.
I'd be ecstatic about using Firestorm Viewer, IF I could get a usable framerate. Maybe if I changed my monitor to sepia-tone I could RP Charlie Chaplin. The 1600 mesh version of Phoenix has me being followed by the Monolith from 2001 in rhe sky. Unacceptable... Back to Phoenix 1185.
ReplyDeleteAgain and again I keep hearing all of these bizarre unfounded statements and what sound like conspiracy theorists.
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly do you people asking "The HARD questions" think Jessica and the team are about? Ruining your experience? Fronting for the dark forces of LL who so shrewdly provide you with free access to all of this?
They work for free on their own time, on whatever they want to work on, NOT what you say they should. If you know enough to be saying anything meaningful here and have complaints, get on the team. Put your time and efforts into it.
If you are not on the development team or sending in some supporting funds to support the effort you are entirely off base telling these people what they should be doing.
Where you get the incredible gall to call people working for free on something they believe in "elitist" is beyond my comprehension.
If you don't like what they do. You CAN learn to do it yourself like they did. It is not arcane secret knowledge. It IS work. It is time consuming. When it is not YOUR WORK and YOUR TIME being consumed on this project you have no business saying anything but thank you and submitting polite requests.
Next time you sit down to type your shock, dismay, or disbelief do us all a favor and include a little info about what makes you a better judge of what should be worked on and what direction should be taken. At the very least tell us what it is that YOU do to provide anything towards these efforts other than your annoyance and disrespect for the many hours THEY devote to this.
Thank you Devs,
Georgie T
»They work for free on their own time, on whatever they want to work on, NOT what you say they should. If you know enough to be saying anything meaningful here and have complaints, get on the team. Put your time and efforts into it.«
ReplyDeleteGeorgie, I undoubtedly agree with you in the main, but I find this is going a bit too far. Making sensible contributions on the JIRA (which is not only about reporting bugs but also about suggesting improvements and new features) is good enough to be stimulating and of help. I think that is one of the main aims of the JIRA: giving users the opportunitiy to share their ideas. But that’s very, very far beyond ranting alright.
Now I understand the necessity of the focus on Firestorm. With the GL updates coming down the pike and Mesh needing to come online, v1 is a sinking ship now and while it's still floating, sooner or later it's going to take that final plunge. Hopefully our Firestorm lifeboats doesn't have any leaks when that time comes.
ReplyDeleteNow all we need is unity between the Firestorm and Phoenix community, bring the Phoenix Viewer users into the fold, and get more eyes on the bugs that need exterminating!
Raymond,
ReplyDeleteI agree entirely, I consider JIRA submissions both helpful and polite. In fact if more people JIRA'd their complaints, requests, and difficulties we would all get a lot further down the road.
Thank you for pointing out that the tone of my post seemed dismissive. I don't want anyone thinking I want them to be silent. I just wish people would stop bashing the devs as if they know better, when they present us no credentials or examples of their superior skills and judgment beyond their opinions.
And please don't think I want or would have anyone censored. I'm just trying to convince some people to stop making themselves appear as petulant spoiled children. If that's what they want to do, well more power to them.
In the cradle of the universe's loving arms,
Georgie Tungsten
Georgie, don't worry about your tone, I didn't mean that. I don’t greatly care about mincing my words much myself. The unmitigated bleating of the people you were referring to is a nuisance in every respect.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned the benefits of the JIRA to just maybe motivate the well-meaning followers of this thread to take advantage of its possibilities what with taking part in this project at a constructive level. An infinity of small ideas will certainly add up to one great viewer, and that’s what I personally want. Pure self-interest here. Hehehe!
And the baloney just keeps on being dished out.
ReplyDelete1.) V1 isn't dead yet, and LL isn't giving a set date for "turn[ing] off server side functionality which V1 viewers rely on", because they realize that more than half the grid still uses viewers that use the V1 UI. As much as you want V1 to go away, and as much as you keep telling us that LL is going to shut it down eventually, the fact remains that without a set date it is irresponsible to keep lying to people about this.
2.) We get that you hate V1. You were the ones who sucked up to LL in the Emerald viewer fiasco and that is why Phoenix viewer was able to sustain more then half of LL's user base for so long. But you, just like LL, are shooting yourselves in the foot. Like LL, you pinned all your energies on an inherently bad viewer that no one but elitists like you like, and you are turning off everyone else (wild guess, 90% of your user basse) with this chip on your shoulder that you insist on carrying. Knock it off and give your user base what it wants, which is obviously not your precious V2 clone.
3.) You might have better luck w/ these Q&A sessions if you didn't announce them literally two days before they are to take place. This leaves alot of people out.
I don't "hate" V2 or V3 viewers, but I'm on Phoenix for at least the next few months, if not longer. Quite simply, I can't afford to upgrade my computer at this time. When I started SL last year, I though it would be a cheap form of entertainment, and for the most part, it has been. But when help group suggestions of "buy a new laptop" or "get a desktop" are tossed out to the person seeking help, it makes wonder what kind of disposable income you all have, because buying/upgrading a computer isn't the same as buying a Happy Meal.
ReplyDeleteI realize that I have to give up a few things at this time, like seeing mesh (even the Phoenix with mesh overtaxes my laptop), but I can live with that for the next few months. Given today's economy, and prioritizing the need to buy the new tires for my van, the brake job for the truck, the wisdom teeth extraction for my daughter, or buying a new computer, seeing mesh really isn't all that important.
Don’t fool yourself: Linden Lab will go to any length to regain control over their own product. From Linden Lab’s standpoint the predecessors of the current management have shortsightedly and irresponsibly allowed for a far too strong role of TPVs. I expect that abandoning V1-based viewers will be the first step to repair that. The next step will be making their own viewer really competitive and generating a growing user-base for it. All they have to do is look at the popular TPVs and implement their key-features in the Linden viewer.
ReplyDeleteThey are already busy doing that.
Don’t fool yourself: Linden Lab’s stats tell them who uses what and brings how much money. I take it that they monitor those stats all the time. One day those stats will tell them that the users of V1-based TPVs are dispensable in economic terms. That will be the day when they pull the plug.
I expect this to happen by April. At the latest.
mesh on viewer phoenix,
ReplyDeletethe only issue using mesh, with the viewer phoenix, is that u can't use alpha shoes, or u use 1 mesh clothing and u can't use the alpha shoes, no multiple layers,
that's the only issue im struggling
Ohh Smirky,
ReplyDeleteThere you go calling names and disparaging the people who are doing what they want to do, on their own time, for free.
" the fact remains that without a set date it is irresponsible to keep LYING to people about this.
You were the ones who SUCKED UP to LL in the Emerald viewer fiasco
you pinned all your energies on an inherently bad viewer that no one but ELITISTS like you like "
But what are you doing, what do you do to make what you want happen your way?
You cheapen your opinions by interspersing them with these attacks.
Attacking and criticizing people who OWE YOU NOTHING doesn't say a lot of good things about your character.
The team at least is doing something about what they want, rather than kvetching about how what they want isn't being done by others.
For example, consider that they were thrown a curve ball by the new V3 interface. LL could have let them know they were developing that and saved them a lot of unnecessary work in a dead end direction. I have heard it mentioned only in passing. The team picks it self up, dusts off and gets back to what they are about.
That speaks volumes about their character.
I am sorry Smirky but I have to grade your post FAIL.
Cheers and a happy new year to all,
Georgie Tungsten
Georgie, this guy’s at an age when it’s still fun to swear at people you can’t hurt.
ReplyDeleteQ: Where is the "add instead of wear" option from Phoenix? I miss this option and get frustrated every time I double click an object and accidentally remove another object because of it.
ReplyDeleteA: Phoenix doesn't have multiple layers so there is no "add" option.
ReplyDeleteCincia, that question refers to attachment points, not layers. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteI just looked: about 137,000 downloads of Firestorm 3.2.2 as of now. People don’t seem that disinterested.
ReplyDelete@ Raymond ... sorry I was confused by the "wear" word lol. In retrospect the question seems to be aimed at using Firestorm anyway.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about one thing, to log in and enjoy Sl, i don't do it with firestorm as it is.
ReplyDeleteIf next version works and it will be as easy to use and configure as other's tpv's already doing so, Niran's being the best example in how to do a great job with latest linden Lav viewer base, much better for all!
And Ahappy new year, no matter how you ling, just do it!
Dudes, look, V1 is not going away. As Linden Lab makes more changes, those will simply be backported into the V1 UI viewers. I was reading Henri Beauchamp's forum posts and according to people who were firsthand witnesses, Rodvik himself stated earlier this year that while Linden Lab will no longer be offering updates to V1, they have no plans to turn off "server side functionality" or anything like that.
ReplyDeleteHenri Beauchamp said the following himself, and he is the coder whose skills were lifted to make the Phoenix viewer with mesh backported in:
This said, I doubt *very much* LL would turn off such services any time soon when a third of their regular user base is still using v1.23 or SG v1.4... LL does a lot of stupid things, but I don't think they are suicidal.
So there you have it. No plans by Linden Lab to turn off V1. To say that they will is a flat out LIE, and if that offends some people to have it pointed out, tough cookies. Tell the liars to stop lying.
Michael, you are only talking about the status quo and an assumed preservation of this status quo. This is not very sensible. As we are undoubtedly in a transition period, things are very much in flux. So any assumptions here are subject to change. And as to your quoting Henri and »people who were firsthand witnesses«, that means the Lindens were lying to the Phoenix/Firestorm team, or the team are liars themselves. That, too, isn’t very sensible both. Your statement lacks a lot of plausibility. I don’t buy.
ReplyDeleteMichael, I commented extensively on this on my blog at http://secondden.blogspot.com/2011/12/game-has-changed.html . Whether you like it or not, V1 will stop working at some point. To be told I'm lying about this is nothing less than highly offensive and insulting.
ReplyDeleteAnd you were lying then just as you're lying now. If you don't like being called a liar, don't lie. You've been caught in a whopper.
ReplyDeleteMichael, your statements are just as bright as those made by people who said Linden Lab could no way afford to kill Emerald.
ReplyDeleteTonya, I and everyone else here you and your friends have been lying to find your lying to us offensive and insulting, but you're doing it anyway. If the viewers that carry the V1 UI are going away, why can you never supply anyone with a date for shut off? Are you calling Rodvik, who said LL won't be turning off access to V1, just that they won't be offering anymore updates, a liar?
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that no matter what changes LL makes to its viewers, some clever programmer will find a way to backport those changes into the V1 UI. It's been done, and it's being done now, and it will continue to be done as long as capable, dedicated programmers remain dedicated to keeping the V1 interface alive. For you to tell people that V1 is going to go away when no date has been given and when the reality is that it's only the V1 UI that's staying — with the V2-V3 stuff all going in under the proverbial hood — is simply a flat out lie, and you know it is a lie. The truth is that you and your team fouled up by hitching your wagon to a bad user interface that no one likes and few stay on once they find out that there's something less glitchy and less crashtastic that works on their computers just fine. Your every response to people's issues is some combination or variation of "get new computers", "adapt to the future and come out of the past or leave!", or "we haven't had any issues on our end, so it must be something you're doing wrong". Oh, and then there's the ever-classic "file a JIRA report" that will assuredly go ignored because you can't be bothered to actually read them and see nothing wrong with your attitude.
This is why I say programmers make lousy public relations reps. At some point people get sick of the abuse and they lash out. Why wouldn't they? So yeah, keep wondering why you get so much flack from people. Keep wondering why no one wants to wake up to the splenderrific awesomeness that is your buggy, laggy, computer-crashing V2 clone. But you think you can get anywhere with lying and trash talk, think again.
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ReplyDeleteMichael, your suppositions and those of your sockpuppets don’t stand up to scrutiny what with logic. And they don’t gain weight by repetition.
ReplyDeleteOver 150,000 downloads of Firestorm 3.2.2 as of now. Certainly all by children who the pied pipers are leading underground.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions. I look forward to the future of Firestorm.
ReplyDelete"V1 hinders their revenue stream."
ReplyDeleteLol. V2 not? Why are so many people still using V1 based Viewer? V2 doesn´t change anything for newbies.. they think V1 was to complex but you know what? Yesterday I met a newbie he was completely overhelmed with V2 and said that he probably will leave SL because he dont understand anything.. I did tell him to stay and I will teach him and tell him about SL. Be he wanted to log off. So V2 does not change anything. Do they really believe that a noob Viewer can people give more access to a virtual world which isnt simply not made for noobs? I dont think so.
Dear Michael: If you can't or won't switch to an updated viewer then please enjoy yourself inworld with it for as long as it works. No one can make you switch viewers anymore than they can make anyone else use a specific viewer. And regardless your rationale or argument no individual or TPV team will continue working to back-port newly released advanced features to a deprecated V1 code base (for free) indefinitely. So enjoy SL with your beloved V1 while you can because, just like other old software (for example IE6), eventually V1 will go away.
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ReplyDelete"Raymond Martinek said...
ReplyDeleteMichael, your statements are just as bright as those made by people who said Linden Lab could no way afford to kill Emerald."
In this Linden didnt have a choice...as a few (not all) at Emerald did some bad things.
»Stacie Meier said...
ReplyDelete"Raymond Martinek said...
Michael, your statements are just as bright as those made by people who said Linden Lab could no way afford to kill Emerald."
In this Linden didnt have a choice...as a few (not all) at Emerald did some bad things.«
In which way does this contradict my statement? Linden Lab have killed Emerald because they had to alright. But luckily there was an immediate successor in Phoenix which meant they could easily afford to do so. The decisive question is whether people would make a deliberate decision to leave Second Life because the viewer of their choice is no longer available. I doubt it would be very many. Most people would be very grumpy, but they would love playing Second Life too much to drop it and would choose one of the remaining available options. Even if the only option were the official Linden viewer. The only real risk for Linden Lab that I can see would be a different one and one which would be very dangerous marketing-wise: erosion. I’ve already described this mechanism on this blog on November, 26:
»People probably won’t even mainly stay away because of a conscious decision. They will just find, at a rather sub-conscious level, handling the Linden Viewer somewhat tedious, so their sessions will get shorter. Then the frequency of sessions will drop. Then they will reach the point where they ask themselves what the heck they are playing Second Life for anyway. That’s when they will stop playing altogether.«
Michael,
ReplyDeletePlease enjoy the free and unrestricted use of the viewer of your choice.
As you said "The fact is that no matter what changes LL makes to its viewers, some clever programmer will find a way to backport those changes into the V1 UI. It's been done, and it's being done now, and it will continue to be done as long as capable, dedicated programmers remain dedicated to keeping the V1 interface alive."
See? you have nothing to worry (gripe, whine, bitch, moan, kvetch, or be petulant) about. All is well!
Go now and rest easy my son.
Basking in the glow of your love,
Georgie Tungsten
You know what shortens Linden Labs revenue stream? If I walk away from SL entirely because they cut off my favorite viewer. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it. To be honest, I don't appreciate the push by a certain someone at the phoenix project trying to kill off phoenix because of her favoritism for firestorm. Just because you personally like it doesn't mean you have the right to force it on everyone else. k
ReplyDeletea bit late, but I translated the short article in french here: http://tarnix.info/?p=2081
ReplyDeleteDear blakesteel,
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact "she" does have the right to do whatever she likes. You are the one telling other people what to do. No one is stopping you from developing some skills and working on your own viewer.
If you are not working on the team you may complain but you don't get to decide what work gets done and in which direction. That privilege goes to the workers, the people who put in the time and effort.
For every pathetisad whine out there, there are another 500 happy Phoenix and FS users who appreciate the fact that they are riding on the bounty of the teams generous sharing. Suppose they were just in this for themselves, building the viewer to their specs and keeping the whole thing for themselves, saving their having to be accused and insulted by freeloading non performers.
If you don't like what they do, use another viewer or make one. Just stop complaining about how people are taking care of YOUR desires.
Enriching the world one post at a time,
Georgie Tungsten
I think this blakesteel is just another troll sockpuppet.
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ReplyDeleteOver 162,000 downloads of Firestorm 3.2.2 as of now. This is way, way past the number of the usual early adopters who try everything that’s new. So I think it’s just a matter of word of mouth. People download because others who like Firestorm 3.2.2 recommended to do so. Good enough.
ReplyDelete@blakesteel
ReplyDeleteThe Phoenix team isn't trying to kill Phoenix. They are supporting it still. They just aren't putting much development time into it anymore because it's more important for Firestorm to be good enough not just for those of us who already use and like it, but good enough for those who currently don't to enjoy as well. They have every right to make that decision.
Like it or not, the percentage of users using V3 and Firestorm is going up every day. At some point a point will be reached where LL feels the number of people who will leave vs those who will switch (even if grudingly) to a v2 based viewer is acceptable financially. It's 100% certain that point will eventually be reached, even if they have to start breaking parts of v1 viewers to make it happen. What do you think LL will do at that point?
I got all Firestorm versions and yet i don't use any.
ReplyDeleteSo 160.000 downloads mean what?
But as nobody can show me how to make a mesh viewer, let the inbuilt graphic settings, be overridden by a simple Nvidea control panel setting on My 580Gtx and i prefer to see the World with 32 AA and 16HqAf, I use Phoenix pre mesh and will use it till i can get the same graphics quality with any mesh viewer!
About 164,000 downloads of Firestorm 3.2.2 as of now just mean that about 164,000 people have found it worthwhile to give it a try. Certainly not because everybody told them it were crap. Some people might even be using it as their bread-and-cheese viewer. Much to the surprise of the ZZs of this world, I should think.
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ReplyDeleteZZ, if mesh-viewers don’t you give the graphics quality you desire and this gives you grief, that’s certainly a serious concern which I fully acknowledge.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I of course don’t assume that over 160,000 people are using Firestorm 3.2.2 as their regular viewer. A fair estimate would be a number between 80,000 and 120,000, I think. And it seems sort of obvious (when you look at the download statistics) that more people are using Phoenix (mesh and pre-mesh) than Firestorm. Mesh doesn’t seem to be the killer-feature Linden Lab have expected it to be – people don’t seem to care much. And as long as users of non-mesh-viewers don’t bump into some mesh-products all the time, there’s no pressing need yet to switch. Simple as that. It’s rather a matter of taste, not a matter of viewer-philosophy. As long as there is a set of options to choose from to suit individual needs and wants, well and good. This »war of the viewers« stuff is somewhat silly and exaggerated, anyway. Time will tell.
i can't agree more, a war of viewers or in between them is not only futile as can make, and remember All, they work for free, some developers/testers/ even get discouraged!
ReplyDeleteOops, must of course read: ...»don’t give you the graphics«...
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ReplyDeleteLL Viewer 1 is now depricated. See:
ReplyDeletehttp://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Supported_Viewers
Over 200,000 downloads of Firestorm 3.2.2 as of now. Where’s the wisenheimer who said nobody wanted it?
ReplyDeleteok i would like to say to the Phoenix, Firestorm great job on what yall are doing i have been on Phoenix and Firestorm and i must say they are both great i am running WINDOWS 7 and it dose great with both i had to play with the settings a bit but its great now and i all so wanna say TY for the built in AO i love that about Firestorm :) great to not have all the extra scripts running and i have found out you can load dances under your stands part of the ao so no need for a dance hud now any ways just want to say great job and keep up the good work :)
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