Second Life – Page 7 – The Kind Healer

Taking a ‘Page’ from SL to Re-Scale Uru

A post I made at UO bears repeating here:

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What I’ve heard of the server software (from UU’s perspective) would not require too much major rework for scalability I think. You’re connecting to only one ‘Age’ instance at any one time anyway. So…

Put each Cavern instance (I heard 5? More likely 2-3 for ‘Production’) on a separate server or CPU/core; That should allow better connectivity and up to 100 or so instead of the average 45 (though total in shard was almost over 100 once?). Terrapin’s fog concept works well in this respect too; Never quite understood why you’d send/rcv movement data for somebody you can’t even see.

Relto/Nexus and anyone playing the Ages in ‘Prime’ fashion moved to one scalable cluster; Instances spawned should balance similar to game instances on something like Diablo II Realm Games. And ‘hoods on another scalable cluster. Since KI comms is mostly text, a meta-process similar to an IRC-daemon can be stuck on a medium-grade box.

I’d be curious to know what is getting reworked on Plasma. Because you could still do all this on *one* server and be compatible to the existing format. The all important crux is how much the network communication code got ‘fixed.’

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I think I’ve spent too much time in SL, and as a Unix SysAdmin, to come up with something like this…

;)

:link:

An Amazing Birthday

Yesterday, the 9th, has had several meanings for me the past couple years.

Other than the obvious (my birthday), its the anniversary of Uru Live’s Shutdown, for which I’ve been rather bitter and vocal about in the past. Because of that, and the activities of last year, it also became a symbol or indicator of what the year would be like, see what I would participate in.

Well, two things happened that day which could bode well for an exciting year.

First, Marie S. of the DRC posted a [small, yet appreciative][DRC] note for the day stating “we are anticipating being able to gather again with you in one place next week.” Yay! Very nice birthday gift, thanks!

Then, a couple hours later, Linden Lab (aka [Second Life][SL]) opened a new Preview. There were three basic things on this pending release:

– Estate (Island) Tools makover. More like overhaul, IMHO, and for the better. There’s more than what’s being discussed on the notes, even the wiki’s, to explain here. Suffice it to say, if you own an island sim (or several) there, you should be happy.

– A better ‘following’ camera when in a vehicle. Before it was locked (though settable by the scripter). This should make things more natural.

– Better communication on the backend, aka ‘Grid,’ for stability and scalability. Though mostly transparent to the client users, its a big step towards cleaning up the grid architecture and makes individual simulator ‘regions’ more autonomous. From the notes, many of the major functions are going through a couple central servers when it crosses the region boundries. This change will have the regions talk to each other direct, and thereby also make the grid more like a peer-to-peer network too.

There were also some scripting changes made, mostly in the data gathering for sims/regions and individual parcels.

As I said, a lot happened yesterday, and I’ve overall been happy. But between these two events, I can definately tell that my life just got *very* interesting…

–Alan

[DRC]: http://www.drcsite.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=235
[SL]: http://secondlife.com

Comments and Second Thoughts

Those visiting may note I’ve added the ‘Second Thoughts’ weblog to my sidebar listing. It’s not a mistake.

Unlike those I see rampaging each other via the SL forums these days, I do feel that Prokofy does make sense at some level. I’ll admit it takes a while sometimes to figure out what, :) but as a ‘third party’ observer of sorts (my heart is still with Uru) its easier to see perhaps.

One of the most humourus things, though, is that both Prok and the FIC he rants about really are concerned about the same thing – the future of Second Life. However, they’re fighting each other so vehemently that they’re not doing the *correct* thing damnit, and turning collectively to Linden Labs with their grievances.

This is so much like the DRC-related sqabbles in Uru Prologue it makes me want to cry sometimes.

Perhaps that is why I applied for the Resident Moderator group on the SL forums.

We shall see…

–Alan

Cancelled the Sabbatical

Anyone following the posts in ‘Second Life’ catagory will note I got trounced big-time by the 1.7.x release. I was not the only one, and was annoyed enough (since this was the second major release this happened to me), to pick up and get away from SL for a while.

Well, apparently many more did that before I could, as with the 1.8.x series things have been gradually getting better. Still have very annoying texture issues, even on the frugal Numbakulla sim. But LL appears to be working on it, and at least I can move about for the most part again.

So, I’m giving things a second chance, will see how things turn out in the next month or two.

Mind ya, there is still this looming thing going on with Cyan, the Something Else project, and Uru as well perhaps. It would be a nice birthday present if they could have some official announcement around the time of the Shutdown two years ago…

–Alan

SL embracing a ‘Pay’ model like There – Part 2

Over [here][sl-t1], I mentioned that LindeX has generated quite a bit of income for Linden Lab. The current update as of last night is 3.6 Mil L$ at an average of about 265L$/1US$ (this rate has held now for the past week). Over the weekend the volume was over 4.2 Mil L$.

That’s coming out to about US$475-550 take to LL a day now (before ‘# transaction fees,’ still no word on that), about a 20-40% jump in one month. That’s coming out to about US$180K/year if the spike occurs every weekend. Not bad.

Now, yesterday, its been announced that the Developer’s Incentive is to be phased out. As [some in the forums][forum] have mentioned, this is another US$120K/year that will be available for LL’s internal use as well.

That will be US$300K (minimum) each year that will now be available for other things – like, say, another five well-paid developers (or another 8-10 beginning ones). Or an expansion to the data/asset system and/or how the whole mess is backed up.

The forum thread has arguments going several ways, all of them possibly valid to some degree. It is to some extent a belt-tightening move; They really could use the money for more people in such an enormously growing userbase. I’ve stated multiple times that LL needs to re-focus outwardly from a development standpoint to a stability, customer service, and automation standpoint. They’re on that road, I can see the signs (from personal experience), but they *do* need the money. The idea of them milking SL for all its worth before its cancellation is a bit premature right now, since I think we all need to wait on what LL has in mind – and also to discuss even if the DI can be salvaged as something else that’s not gamable.

One of the biggest things they’re going to need to do short- to mid-term is get more subscription payments, such as the Premium account or some similar method to ensure a more stable income base. I’ve heard a few suggestions by *residents* now that sound, at its core, a lot like There’s ‘pay US$ for our currency’ model; Talk about full circle (see my first link, aka the earlier post). Admittedly its in smaller doses, but that will be more dangerous to the impulse buyer – and better off to LL in the long run by as much L$ running through LindeX as possible. That could work, but it begins to make me wonder just what the hell I’m doing in SL in the first place, as – originally – an Uru-fugee who was looking for a new home.

I don’t have an answer as of yet (none that I have enough details to put forward anyway). I need to think about it, see what the Lindens say and do in the next couple days, and send another followup as we all learn more.

And, I wonder, where the influx of Therians to SL are these days (most of them joined around the time I did) – and if they’re laughing their asses off right now.

[sl-t1]: https://sungak.net/weblog/archives/23
[forum]: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=78329