Second Life 2 - Told you not to panic

It has been a quiet year really and a good three years on, we have the result in of the much feared Second Life 2 and while I am trying not to be smug, all I can say quite bitterly is I told you so.

Let me just have a little bit of a recap on events considering what has gone on.

In July 2014, Ebbe Linden managed to stick his foot in his mouth by letting slip that Linden Lab had a new virtual world in development. I think as most will have realised by this point that this may not have actually been true. They had an idea for a new virtual world. With this news, a wave of panic and rumours spread like wild fire over the Second Life grid.

The primary form of panic was this. When this new Second Life 2 arrives, SL will be closed down. The two grids will not be compatible and everything you have spent your hard earned money on will be lost. Don't buy anything as you will lose it. Second Life has as little as 18 months left.

Ironically I had heard this before, rumours spread by people that mesh would destroy the grid and any purchases you made would be useless. I stepped in at this point with my first article on the subject. I looked at this with the facts on offer, not the rumours and the conclusion was this.

Second Life 2 was a separate grid, an entirely different project that would take years to arrive. There was no justification to spread panic or rumours and it was not going to replace SL.

From this point things progressed slowly and very little news came out on Second Life 2. In fact after the initial flurry of calming words from Linden Lab they went painfully silent. I think considering the fact they did go so silent refusing to even acknowledge the fact that they were even doing this project only helped to stoke the fires of rumour and panic on the grid.

In January 2016 we finally had some news to report. Second Life 2 had evolved in to the new brand name of Sansar with Linden Lab breaking their silence on it, although I have to say this very clearly, not on Second Life. 18 months had passed, and we were only at the basic specs stage with Sansar in very early Alpha testing. I posted my thoughts on the subject and I was far more critical of what Sansar was and how it would play out.

I made a clear prediction at this point that sadly Sansar would most likely fall on its face due to a central problem that Linden Lab seems to have. They still don't understand their own product. Second Life in its history was never meant to be the lunatic asylum it is today. In fact it was originally designed as a business tool that was opened up to the public and from there it evolved in a very haphazard and organic way. The problem that they have is this.

They think they created SL, and as a result if they build a new one people will come.

It is a flawed premise. They actually created the tools and the infrastructure, not what is today Second Life. That was solely down to the thousands of creators on the grid, the crazy people who saw SL as a utopia of crazy and stupid ideas. A playground for the wonderfully insane.

Sansar would need to try and emulate that, and from what everyone was seeing, it would never be designed to do that. In fact it seemed that they were trying to recreate the original idea of SL as a business tool.

Let's skip ahead to today.  Where are we now?

In July this year with great fanfare, Linden Lab released Sansar as an Open Beta.

I have not tried it, but I know dozens of people who have and the result is this.

Fantastic. This looks awesome. (Five minutes later) Okay... what is there to do here?

Funny that. I said 18 months before this that Sansar would be an empty, pointless wasteland and guess what?

I can't blame LL's for trying this, but I can blame them for nearly killing their primary business through their lack of information. They let the rumour mill run riot and the result is SL is in a bad state today.

In fact and I will say this very seriously. Their only communication up to the point they started talking about the Sansar open beta, from 2014 to early 2017 was one reference to Sansar in 2016. On April the first. Yeah, they decided it would be funny to put Sansar in to their April fool's joke.

User log ins are down, hundreds if not thousands of companies have gone out of business, sims are closing down because of lack of traffic. I won't say the rumour mill has won, but it has had a terrible effect on the grid.

So where is Sansar now? From what I hear it is still in development, but the initial user reaction to it was far less than positive. Will it survive? I would say they are flogging a dead horse, but I think those of us who have seen how LL's do business will understand they will keep going and who know, some good may yet come out of it.

There is one truth however in this whole story. It looks like LL's finally woke up and smelt the coffee.

They sent out an email to all users at the start of the month. At first glance it looks very positive and upbeat as they announced their recommitment to Second Life promising big investment in Second Life and loads of new features and goodies (of which most of them were actually long term well known projects).

Read between the lines, it looks like LL's have panicked. They have been hell bent on Sansar development for over three years now putting all their eggs in one basket. Now they see that Sansar didn't come out as they expected they suddenly realise SL is in a sorry state and they need to save it.

I welcome this news from LL's and maybe now we can try to tempt people back to the grid without the dark storm cloud threat of Sansar swallowing and destroying the grid hanging over it.

So, me being Nostradamus and all predicting the future where do I see Sansar going from here?

I think I said it in January 2016. At some point in 2018, Sansar will be quietly swept under the carpet and the development work and features created for it will be cannibalised and integrated in to SL.

See you next year?

Second Life 2 – Still don’t believe the rumours

Back in July 2014 (18 months ago), the grid went in to uproar when Ebbe Linden stuck his foot in his mouth and let slip that they were developing Second Life 2.

I say stuck his foot in his mouth because not only at this point was SL2 nothing more than words on a scope document with more questions than actions, but also because of the fevered pace of the Second Life userbase’s rumour mill.

At the time, there was hysteria, panic and chicken little style, people running around screaming the Linden Sky is falling.

Ebbe then tried his hardest, with the few items on his wish list, to calm the mass panic down answering questions, and trying to stop the hysteria.

It kind of worked but there has been very little since that time from him officially and quietly in the background, those rumour have persisted and grown stronger.

The results of these hysterial rumours are having a real impact in world. Sales are declining, users are declining and the people who care about SL are now trying to fight back. Recently Firestorm (one of the architects of blurting out that there was an SL2 coming and partly responsible for starting the rumour mill off in the first place) have now started a push to try and either get people back in to SL or get new users to join the grid.

My take on this is more simple. I am going to go back to my historical blog post, and see where we are today – facts... not fiction.

Quoting my original 2014 post “SL2 – Dont Panic”...

“..... SL may have as little as 18 months left” (Referring to the panic bringers comments)

Its 18 months later. Looking around, SL is still here. In fact very little has changed on the grid outside of the persistence of rumours and hysteria.

And where is SL2? Good question. Still in Alpha testing as far as I am aware.

In fact rereading my original blog post over time scales, I screwed up. I based an estimate of a beta at 9-12 months.. Its now 18 months and they still haven’t hit a beta.

Considering this dilated time scale, I would almost be hesitant to say SL2 will be released this year.

Anyhow... I think its time I looked at a few things and gave you a realistic look at why running around with your hair on fire is not a great idea.

SL2 however isn’t the official name of this new grid.

Sansar is the new Grids name.

The Second Life 2 mission statement that Ebbe Linden put out there 18 months ago follows roughly along these lines

“Sansar was to feature a whole new rendering engine – built from scratch. It was going to offer superior graphics and realism. LSL (the programming language of SL) would be replaced by a main stream language like C++ for a more professional approach.  Finally the limited way of creating rigging on SL would be a thing of the past with independent mesh and skeleton uploading being available (which means no more limitations and superior control for creators).”

This mission statements of sorts was written in 2014 and highlights the “Leap forward” Sansar would offer users.

However its 18 months on now and I have to question quite a few things here.

Firstly since that first “foot in mouth” moment, we have learnt the official brand name for SL2 – Sansar. I find that interesting as Second Life is an extremely well known brand name with good recognition out there. For Linden Lab to choose a whole new brand name should hint at the fact this new product is nothing to do with Second Life. In fact the name distances itself from SL.

When it comes to the new rendering engine, Second Life has since 2013 had the ability to run materials  - specular and normals mapping. When it was launched it went down a bit like a damp fart. It was heavy on your graphics card – it made things hard to work with, and caused multiple problems. But, since then, the viewer has been finessed, cleaned, and improved. Add to that the catch up of peoples graphics cards and the arrival of fitted mesh and since launch, more and more people have moved over to using Advanced Lighting Model by default. This is why during 2015, I have put so much effort in to materials support on my products. They make the world more realistic and offer superior graphics.

You only have to look at the new Tartarus Horns to work out how amazing SL is now with the use of materials.

But... you need to ask yourself this.

Sansar probably has an amazing rendering engine. I have seen screen shots and its pretty cool. But with Second Life evolving at such a rapid pace, as creators start putting materials on their products, you have to ask is SL’s lasting legacy of content catching up to Sansar’s standards and with that, is the superior graphics of Sansar ever going to be enough to deal with the sheer volume of slightly lower quality content SL has to offer?

Then there is independent Skeleton and mesh uploading. Until last month, this was a big plus for Sansar. I have looked at wings, or tail, or even heads on SL and wished I had more advanced control options. Other have too, and they have been employing all sorts of hacks and tweeks to get them to work without having to upload huge mesh models and stop frame animation.

However, once again, Second Life is catching up to Sansar. Linden Lab released their official Project Bento last month, and most likely it will be on the grid by Feb 2016.

Bento gives a new series of bones to work with. Fully articulate hands, Wings, Extra arms, Tail and a very well developed face expressions system, with a new animation uploading feature.

Once content creators like myself catch up to this new tech, it will transform the grid all over again.

So another question.

Project Bento is not independent skeleton uploading (although for statement of fact, I believe this was previously looked at as an option and was even developed by Linden Lab for SL as part of the mesh project back in 2012). However the Second Life approach is very smart here with a set of standard rules to work with. Admittedly they have been slow to adopt, usually reacting to naughty creator hacks of the SL skeleton and attachment points more than an effort to improve but... Bento really gives you a massive advantage now, and although not perfect, is extremely good (pending me testing it of course).

Sansar’s independent skeleton uploading gives you the ultimate flexibility to create amazing items. But you have to say that SL’s Project Bento actually gives you more than enough to work with as a creator and will offer probably 90% of what you need from the perspective of independent skeleton uploading.  Is Sansars extra 10% of flexibility really worth it?

The only other thing I pointed out here was C++ as a default programming language. Sure, that would be brilliant on SL, and lets be honest, they could do it if they wanted to. But while LSL is a utter pig to work with and has an infinite list of flaws, the fact is, you can get it to do most of the things you want it to do.

So what conclusions can we draw from this relook at SL2 or as its now known, Sansar.

As another bloggers on this subject pointed out, Linden Lab is a company, not a product. They created Second Life, but they also created many other products over the years, including things like Blocksworld. Linden Lab seem to have made it clear, Sansar is a separate product from Second Life, much like their many other products over the years and indirectly they are distancing Second Life and Sansar. The only thing that can be said is that Sansar is in the same area as Second Life. It could be said its the successor to SL, but only time will tell there.

18 months on from the initial slip up, Sansar is still an embryo. Its a closed world, mostly likely buggy as hell, and still pending the development and design of many of its support systems like groups etc. Thats why its an Alpha test – they haven’t got to the closed beta test stage yet of a working product.

Even when Sansar arrives, it will be a pretender to the throne that is Second Life.

I am not going to mince my words here. Sansar follows in the foot steps of many other virtual world clones of Second Life, some of which were light years ahead of Second Life in the technical department. And they effectively failed to dethrone the ruler of virtual worlds which is Second Life.

Second Life is Linden Labs bread and butter. Its their most profitable product outright. When the “doom bringers” and “Chicken Littles” out there scream that that Second Life has months to live, they are talking rubbish. Anyone in business knows if you have something, you don’t kill it in favour of something new. Linden Lab has shareholders to answer to and I doubt they would be so insane as to kill their most profitable business in favour of the idea of opening something cooler (if devoid of users, sims, creators and content).

There has been talk in some areas that Sansar will cannibalise the remains of SL when it arrives. This is yet another misinformed, misguided and idiotic statement. However the idea may not be far fetched if utterly wrong.

I have been thinking about Sansar a great deal since my original post on the subject and I have been watching the technical developments on SL. The past is a great teller of the future, and putting the idea of previous pretenders trying to takes SL’s crown in the past, and failing totally I have come to a prediction.

Sansar will launch, there will be limited interest in it. However Second Life thanks to the content and user base will continue to be the dominant product. Eventually Sansar will be deemed a commercial failure – how long it will take Linden Lab to realise this is another matter. However focus will return to Second Life again, and in the end, Second Life will cannibalise Sansar, picking the best features and technology from Sansar and integrating it in to Second Life.

Sorry Linden Lab, but it has to be said, you still don’t understand Second Life or why its successful.

As Linden Lab, you provide the sims, the viewers and the tools to create a virtual world. However it is the communities, the people who use Second Life, and the creators who invest their time and effort in to creating products that make what Second Life is. Without them, Second Life would be... well, Sansar. Empty, devoid of anything.

And irony here, the reasons people would possibly consider moving to Sansar grow smaller every day as Second Life catches up to the technical aspirations of Sansar.

There is one final thing to bring up though to hopefully quash the rumour mill.

The statement is Linden Lab will kill SL and replace it with Sansar. Everything people have in the SL inventory will be lost, all their investment will be lost.

In the last 18 months, Second Life has evolved, changed and improved. Linden Lab are releasing new features and improvement every week or two, and large projects on the grid, like Project Bento are still happening.

In addition, Linden Lab are investing in Advertising SL to new users, they are creating new user “portal” points, and trying to get new users in to this world.

If you have given up on a product, you don’t do these things.

Maybe in another year or 18 months I will post up another blog post about this subject.

As far as I can see though, my predictions were right about NOT PANICING!

SL is still here, growing more technically advanced and is still the undisputed king of virtual worlds.

SL2 - Don't Panic.

As the Book Says “Don’t Panic”

I got something of a surprise yesterday as I logged in to see a message from a certain TPV maker to talking about “the Future of SL”.

A read later, I actually felt, much as everyone else who read the article, a little sick.

Cutting it down to a rather over dramatised sound byte.

“SL2 is now in development – it will be in the spirit of Second Life, but you won’t be able to take anything from SL to SL2 inventory wise and SL may have as little as 18 months left”

Before you start running around with your hair on fire screaming refer to the title... DONT PANIC

One thing I have learnt over the years is that certain communications officers for certain TPV makers really don’t have a clue how to communicate things clearly or logically, and while the things above were said, they were said out of context, and in a very very poor way that could easily incite panic.

Which over the last 10 days, is exactly what has happened with the web, forums etc catching fire with rumour, doom and gloom, and blind panic.

Honestly – after I read the article, my heart sank through my stomach with the thought “5 years work down the drain”.

However to learn more, I decided to check out a few places including Nalates’s blog which I have trusted for many years to give clear, unbiased information written in a clear, easy to read way.

Thanks to Nalates and the intense work that’s been put in by her to get CLEAR information, here is the facts.

Where did this all start?

Apparently at a TPV meeting Ebbe Linden (our new CEO of Linden Lab) made a classic Faux Pau and got over excited and accidentally slipped the SL2 was in development much to a shocked and surprised gathered mass.

From what I understand, he didn’t say a great deal about it outside of the fact it will be an entirely new platform, it will be in the spirit of SL and it would be separate to SL which the original would continue and have continued development.

Got that bit?

What happened next?

Said certain TPV maker posted up a second Faux Pau and in effectively a Chicken Little Style, wrote “The Sky is Falling” article, inferring to fill in the blanks over what had actually been said, and leaving very open ended statements that could then easily be construed by readers to be something else entirely. They have since this backpedalled over what was said, and tried to clarify the position and make themselves out to be champions of the new SL (which is Ironic considering the mass panic they caused amongst SL users).

What was the Aftermath?

From here, the discussions went effectively viral over the web, with forums and blog lighting up over this shocking news. Ebbe obviously by this point realised he really had put his foot in his mouth and surprisingly for a LL’s CEO, did some real time damage control, going to one of the largest Panic Threads out there, and actually filling in the blanks with what is Official Information.

So, let’s  actually get down to facts here and as the Hitchhikers Guide says, Don’t Panic.

The big question that’s got everyone foaming at the mouth is this.

What is going to happen to Second Life?

From everything I have read, nothing. It will be here for probably the next 5 years or more.

It’s not going anywhere, your inventories are safe, your sims are safe, there are no issues.

It will be developed further, improvements made and it will be continued to be supported.

This is not conjecture, rumour or me filling in the blanks. This is from Ebbe Linden.

What is Second Life 2?

SL2 is a separate development – a whole NEW grid based on vastly improved all new gaming engine which can finally break free of the constraints imposed by the prehistoric SL original software.

It is going to be developed parallel to Second Life – so as a user you will be able to use Second Life and Second Life 2, but you will most likely need to swap viewer to log in to SL2.

SL 2 is NOT going to replace Second Life.

Again, this is fact direct from Ebbe Linden.

Will SL2 be Sanitised?

One thing that people have been seriously worried about is will SL2 be a PG rated Playground. Ebbe Linden has confirmed that whatever you can do or is available in SL will be allowed in SL2. So adult products, Adult sims etc etc, all available. It will be in the Spirit of SL. Which is good.

Can you Transfer your Inventories between SL and SL2?

Right now, they are saying no although there is a caveat to this (see time scales). However it doesn’t mean that in time some transfer won’t be possible.

In addition, you are NOT going to lose your inventory.

Your Second Life Inventory will remain exactly as it is, as for the simple fact, SL itself is NOT going away. The SL2 Inventory will (at the time of writing) be a blank sheet which you will need to repopulate, however again as said above, in time this may change.

What are the Time Scales?

This part hasn’t really been commented on outside of saying 2015/2016 before release.

There is a good reason for this being so vague though, and it goes back to Ebbe’s original Faux Pau over letting slip that SL2 is in development.

Ebbe has only been CEO of LL’s for 6 months. I would guess from statements made and from the short amount of time he has actually been in the job, that the SL2 project is currently in its Embryonic stages – probably less than a few months old.

From what I have read, the software engine hasn’t been chosen, decisions over the scripting languages, Animations formats, etc etc etc have not been chosen .

What this says to me is this project is still in information gathering stages.

Having quite a bit of experience in large software development, we are probably a good 9-12 months away from a semi operational Beta and considering the mountain of features that SL offers that have to be adapted and ported over to SL2, the beta itself could be 6-12 months.

There are of course, commercial games engines they could buy in with ongoing support which may reduce that time down, but we are looking at a year to two years minimum.

But... Even when you have a live system running, you have to remember, this is a blank sheet.

No sims, No products to buy... Nothing. SL’s greatest selling point is the fact it has such a massive volume of products to buy, places to visit.

It is then up to builders like myself and many others to adopt SL2, build stuff of them and make SL2 a fun place to be. That process by itself could potentially take years to do before SL2 could even rival Second Life itself.

So realistically, designers and users shouldn’t really expect SL2 to be viable before 2018 and for SL2 to be fully established, think more like 2020.

In conclusion then, perhaps now people should think less “the sky is falling”, and more “Don’t Panic”.

Bring it on?

Hell yeah. I was talking with Addy from AW Design yesterday about this and she remembered the rumours of SL2 first appearing as far back as 2007. Of course, they decided to flog wheezing SL engine more and more, trying to add in more and more features, but the fact is, SL is a dinosaur only propped up by the sheer volume of creators that enjoy building for it.

I don’t think any builder on SL would disagree, SL as an engine isn’t fit for purpose compared to the other games engines out there and it takes rather large nuts to actually embark on this project.

Kudos to Ebbe Linden for making this move.

I personally can’t wait to see what they come up with, although it has to be said, while SL2 shouldn’t be built by user committee (as is being kind of proposed on certain sites), Linden Lab should engage with creators before they commit to things. I would recommend a board of creator advisers who could put forward ideas without the “mob mentality” forcing issues. Collaboration is far better and we do need to remember that even as creators, we are users, not owners.

We all want to see SL succeed though and the Lab should recognise the valuable input creators can put forward in helping to shape this new engine.

As a creator, I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with, and being able (I hope) to finally realise the products I would love to built, but I currently can’t due to SL’s Limitations.

Where do we go from here?

Well. Nowhere really.

The fact is we know something we didn’t know before. SL2 is now in build, but it’s going to be some time before we even get to see it, let alone use it.

Second Life itself isn’t going to change, is still going to be around so nothing changes there.

All we can do, is sit back, get on with things just like we did before knowing NOTHING is really going to change in the short or long term and wait to see how things take shape with the Second Second Life.