Contingency Measures to Ensure Service as Second Life Grows
Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 3:04 PM by: Robin LindenSince September concurrency rates have tripled, to a peak last week of over 34,000. While we love that so many people are enjoying Second Life, there have been some challenging moments in keeping up with the growth, resulting in the now somewhat infamous message “heavy load on the database”. When this happens it usually means that the demand for transmission of data between servers is outstripping the ability of the network to support it.
When the Grid is under stress, resulting in content loss and a generally poor experience, we would like to have an option less disruptive than bringing the whole Grid down. So we’ve developed a contingency plan to manage log-ins to the Grid when, in our judgment, the risk of content loss begins to outweigh the value of higher concurrency. Looking at the concurrency levels, it’s clear heaviest use is on the weekends.
When you open your log-in screen and see in the upper right hand corner Grid Status: Restricted, you’ll know that only those Second Life Residents who have transacted with Linden Lab either by being a premium account holder, owning land, or purchasing currency on the LindeX, will be able to log-in. Residents who are in Second Life when this occurs will only be affected if they log-out and want to return before the grid returns to normal status.
At the same time, new account registrations will be closed.
We hope that we won’t have to implement this contingency plan. As you know, we have regularly improved the Grid’s ability to manage higher concurrency rates, and have comfortably doubled our capacity in recent months. If we determine, however, that we do need to limit log-ins, there will be an announcement made in-world and also on the blog.
Scaling the Grid continues to be our highest priority, and over the next several months we’ll be working on the following:
- additional caching systems
- reducing write load on the central database by partitioning or removing data
- addressing critical bottlenecks
- deploying more internal ‘web services’.
Beyond that we are building ambitious plans for re-architecting the Grid, so that in the future we can realize the full potential of the Second Life Grid to support millions of concurrent users.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:11 PM
this is soo what i want to read!
RESTRICTED AND At the same time, new account registrations will be closed!
i hope you will go seriously through with that - then we paying land owners/ business citizens can all exhale!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
Fantastic what you really need is a automatic camper culler ,,yep boot the campers they are dead weight ,,,but sounds awesome and i think you should implement it as standard operating procedure instantly
February 16th, 2007 at 3:14 PM
Its about time i think second life needs a population control of the sorts when SL went free we had lots of members join but the grid and performance of second life had declined when we had to buy our accounts customer support, lindens, and the grid was much more pleasing to deal with.
I have been a player for over a year now and now I’m thinking about quitting SL some times just because of how unstable it is
February 16th, 2007 at 3:15 PM
Very Fair policy. It was needed. Keep up the Good work.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:16 PM
this weekend would be a great time to find out if your plan works. i love the outline of the idea, but only the implementation will tell.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:17 PM
Hi, thanks. In my opinion the right step to give us paying/buying/owning user the proper experience with SL. Thanks
February 16th, 2007 at 3:17 PM
“Newb Mountain Says:
February 16th, 2007 at 3:13 PM PST
Fantastic what you really need is a automatic camper culle”
How about a limited time on secondlife at a time say 6 to 12 hours in a row before being kicked off and having to re-log back in
February 16th, 2007 at 3:18 PM
I agree with Newb Mountain on the camping thing. All those people idling for chump change hinders grid performance.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:28 PM
sounds fine to me.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:28 PM
If you actually implement this, you most definately have my support.
I was beginning to look at the cost benefit of continuing my Premium membership as renewal time approaches vs the generally unpleasant experience lately. This change is long overdue, and will definately create an added value to premium memberships. Which should in turn encourage basic members to become premium members. Which should in turn generate a much needed increase to the revenue stream, giving Linden the resources needed to fix some of the problems.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:30 PM
Hey, this is smart! Don’t be shy to use the contingency plan! Premium account holders should get benefits like this over free accounts.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:34 PM
Note that this really *isn’t* population control. This is resource usage at peak time control.
The message says nothing about stopping free accounts or the like. It simply says that *IF* the load gets top high to handle and the recognize it in time, they will *temporarily* disable new accounts (to reduce the load of lots of people coming and editing their appearance!) and restrict logins to the “most serious” user (not even just the paying users!)
I like this policy. It tries to stick with the “ideals” of supporting free accounts and so forth, while admitting that reality means that when times get rough, the people who’ve paid are the ones you should make sure things work for first.
And I do hope that they do a good job of increasing the infrastructure support so that they won’t have to do this emergency measure very often.
But, yeah, if they found a way to kick campers without collateral damage… I’m all for it!
-Rob
February 16th, 2007 at 3:35 PM
There, perfect. We don’t all want you ending free accounts, but for users who trade L$, own land, and work in SL should always get priority over naked noobs who’ve never had a L$ pass though their fingers.
We were all noobs once, but if there are so many noobs we can’t get any work done, the experience we’re creating for those noobs and everyone else is hampered.
I’d actually quite like to see some kind of bandwidth proritizing, too, during times of local heavy simload - let the naked noobs have less bandwidth while veterans slinging prims and scripts about get a bit of extra boost, maybe….
February 16th, 2007 at 3:36 PM
The Gods do listen
Must remember to pay homage when I am back in next.
I know this will be unpopular for some but stability must come first.
I hope the issues with some countries not being able to go premium easily will be addressed as well but this move is over due and very welcome.
Quant
February 16th, 2007 at 3:36 PM
all i can say is it’s about time and yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
February 16th, 2007 at 3:37 PM
Brilliant. Thank you!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:37 PM
I can sum it up in one word…
YAY
February 16th, 2007 at 3:38 PM
Yay!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
And speaking of campers, how about changing the idle logout, so that after, say, 3 hours of concurrent usage, sl prompts you to click ok in a blue box dialog, just to make sure you’re still really there.
It’s only a millisecond of annoyance, but it’ll end the careers of all the campers out there with anti-idle scripts on while their rl self is really in bed.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Sounds like a good idea to me. I’m a premium member and I broke out the credit card and bought land for a reason.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Sean: Jinx!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Great stuff. Much better plan then making a fine meal, setting a nice table for 5, and then selling 10 seats to produce zero happy customers.
I whine like a beotch sometimes. It’s fear and disappointment. I’d much rather cheer!
The recent developments have lots of potential (nasty word). I look forward to being able to rez things like the old days.
Of course, you know if you ever restrict paying customers, like rolling blackouts, there will be virtual blood in the virtual streets
Good luck with growth, Philip and LL.
Go performance!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Thanks for this measured and thoughtful response to the recent recurring problems. I, too hope that you don’t have to actually enact it, but if I were a betting woman…
In the meantime:
/me stands up from her worn computer chair and begins to slowly clap.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:41 PM
This is a common-sense plan. Good luck with “scaling the Grid”.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:42 PM
I would just like to go on the record and congratulate LL for taking this step.
This is I believe is a very fair method of dealing with the situation. One question I have though, is this going to be implimented “at” the breaking point or prior to it? It does very little if the grid is at the breaking point and this goes into effect, as additional users will still be comming into the system, but if it starts prior to the breaking point, it still allows a little room for additional users to log in before the performance pentalty hits.
As for the campers, I don’t think that there is really a way to automatically eliminate them, shy of having a police force finding them and forcing campers off (as well as some form of action against the rezident who is providing the camping object, after all you can’t punnish the camper for doing what is being offered unless you also punnish the rezident who is providing the objects/pay), as there are probably a significant number of Rezidents who may have similar appearance to a camper, but is active. I think one of the things that should be done is to eliminate the effectiveness of these “anti-idle” scripts that stop the system from logging idle users out. (Something I’m sure a lot of campers are using.)
Additionally, with regards to campers, I’m going to assume based on what I know, that in and of itself, campers are not as large of a load on the asset server as one may think, since as they are not moving, they are only polling it for textures/sounds of those avitars walking around them, whereas the avitar that is walking around is polling for all the new textures of objects comming into rez-range. I am not condoning the actions of campers, I am just saying I am confident that the asset server performance is affected by them much less than active rezidents.
Once again, thank you for the new policy, definatly a step in the right direction.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:42 PM
While I agree that a filtering system is needed to improve functionality, a better criteria would be to cull the unverified accounts first. I’ve never seen the value in “Premium” membership when renting can be cheaper.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:43 PM
Halle-freakin-lujah. I love you, Lindens, I love you one and all!!!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:44 PM
good idea!
It’s a business, they should serve the paying customers first.
want preferred treatment? pay Linden Labs $9 a month ( or subscribe and pay less )
It’s a privilege that they even allow free accounts at all.
I’d say that even of you pay for a subscription, cap logins when any more would ruin the experience for everyone. Even DISNEYLAND gets full ( rarely ).
I’m a software developer, I understand bad computer days, I spent sunday programming an access control badge in text edit, since once i detached an object i couldn’t re-rez. I worked on my code and got it done. since rezing from inventory was a problem I worked on construction.
Why pay the $9 - because you use it enough to care when it doesn’t work.
THANK YOU linden labs.
You’ve done something innovative. It’s not a chat room it’s not a MMOLRPG either. It’s a place where you can learn 3d architecture or teach yourself a programming language, learn about business in a place where you’re got little to loose for trying something crazy.
It’s funny that even in SL us land owners feel that owning land and contributing to society makes us the foundation of the world, Land owners did make the world, if there’s no benefit to being a land owner or a paying member why would anyone do it.
Land owners are the ones that make all those new sign ups happen, no attractions, no press, no new members.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:44 PM
Thank God Almighty! (And LL!)
coco
February 16th, 2007 at 3:45 PM
If Linden Labs is serious about fixing the scaling issue with the database, the will get rid of that “tinker toy” MySQL database, bite the bullet, spend the money and install Oracle. MySQL is nice for desktop development or for small business, but for a system like SL it is woefully inadequate. Hey, Ellison might even GIVE you an installation if he can use you in his advertising.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:46 PM
February 16th, 2007 at 3:47 PM
I agree what Ephemeral Flan Says, most normal people won’t be on for 12 hours and if they get logged, hey log back in. Or have a special pop up with one of those picture letters you enter in in case your like on the slots and have money in there.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:49 PM
“Beyond that we are building ambitious plans for re-architecting the Grid, so that in the future we can realize the full potential of the Second Life Grid to support millions of concurrent users.”
Kinda thinking this should have been done in the first place…
February 16th, 2007 at 3:50 PM
re: idling campers
sometimes SL logs me out after 30 minutes and sometimes it stays logged in for many hours.
seems like that could be a problem too.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:50 PM
While I see this being a great idea, I also see a loop hole. The being able to log in if you have purchased currency part…Is there a limit to a minimum you would have to buy? I can see someone spending a one time amount of X amount of money so they can get in world during the busy times then never buying again.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:51 PM
I’d like to say YEA HAA to this idea!!! I’ve been playing in SL for over a year now and really enjoyed it in the past. I’ve gotten around the laggy sim experience by having multiple places to hang out so when one sim is lagging I move to another home.
But lately with the network latency issues it hasn’t mattered where I’m at. So I’ve had to start evaluating the value of my premium account and high tier payments. If I can’t log in when I want to and enjoy the activities I normally engage in (which is building, scripting, exploring, and some socializing) then maybe a basic account is all I need. At least these have been my thoughts lately. If this change works and I think it will then I think the value of my premium account will continue to be higher then using a basic account.
Since I don’t post much I also want to take a moment to say I appreciate the work you all do and the problems you face in growing your business and our world. As a system administrator for a large population of computer users I understand the balancing act of providing more services and at the same time keeping current services stable. Its a tough job and sometimes a grind when things aren’t going well but I want you to know at least one person appreciates what you all do. I know others do to even though that’s not always reflected in the forums and blogs.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:51 PM
Congrats to Linden Team!
A policy like this is a start to the answer! While I do support non pay accts and we all benefit fromt he commerce they generate for the SL economy at times of stress anything that protects the interests of paying customers and thier ability to enjoy the platform they pay for need to be protected!
Way To Go Linden Labs!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:52 PM
How about starting colonies, perhaps space, or other very remote places. This could be a second instance of the software running. This probabally would split the load on the main game program.
Since these “other worlds” would be so remote, there would be very limited interaction between the off worlds, and the main world. This would be perhaps IMs, maybe some other sort of written interactions. To get between worlds or back to the main world would of course be on scheduled “flights” Which would have to be paid for or earned, to limit spurious travel (increases load)
The off worlds could have unique properties. Perhaps some are inhabited by dangerous creatures or non friendly races. The players might be able to build Mechs or unite in a “Borg like” collective to exist.
Another world might be stuck in the 1950’s or a WWII world acessible by time machine rather than physical transport.
The possibilities are endless, all lessening the load on the main game and opening up new innovative areas to capture new users.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:52 PM
3P.M. on a Friday announce a major change in service delivery that will go into effect immediately.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:55 PM
Sounds great! It’s about time! But… remember to consider those “land owners” who own ACS/Dreamland properties, and may not be in the premium account category. Chances are they are covered by having made currency purchases through Lindex, but this is a class that should not be restricted.
I’m an ACS landholder with a premium account, so I’m covered both ways, but if you restrict avies who own ACS property (which dont require premium accounts) you’re going to get a lot of heat.
Rawk on Lindens! This is a great start! Until the grid can support the premies AND the freebies, this is the way to go!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:56 PM
THANK GOD ALMIGHTY THEY LISTENED!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:56 PM
Stormy Wilde wrote:
I can see someone spending a one time amount of X amount of money so they can get in world during the busy times then never buying again.
——————————————
Indeed but the account would still have to provide valid payment information, lowering the likelyhood of griefers as well. I for one say Woot!
February 16th, 2007 at 3:57 PM
could you imagine in 2003, hey let’s make a huge virtual world with 2000+ servers that supports 100,000’s of concurrent users and renders it on the fly to a client @ 30fps in near hi-def quality.
I used to just think how cool it would be to have NES PIRATES! as an online game, then wouldn’t it be cool to play vice city online.
Shoulda,Coulda, Wooda… armchair engineers - join LL or start your own project.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
sheesh, when will everyone finally understand that campers contribute the least amount of load to the system?
It’s pretty simple logic, yes?
Someone that is sitting and doing nothing will cause much less load than someone building, scripting, walking around, chatting with others, which all contributes to the load on the database, no?
Have you ever stood in one place more than 30 seconds or so? The bandwidth goes down to like 3 or 4 very quickly, but if you walk around it will be from 50-750!
OMG!
Campers are the lowest drag on the DB you will find in all of SL, they are just sitting doing nothing.
It is not them, it is you and me, walking aroung, chatting, creating new objects and scripts (that have to upload to the DB) that are creating the lag and drag on the system, not someone that is just sitting in a chair. You are angry at the wrong people.
Lindens, if you want to restrict the grid to paying customers, you are in desperate need of expanding your payment options then. Try asking the people that run SLexchange and SLBoutique and ask them how many of their users are forced to buy L$ from them because you will not accept other payment methods. You want to go global and yet you do not keep in mind that not everyone outside of America has access to the (only 2) payment methods you will accept. What about the people that dump hundreds (thousands?) of USD into your system that don’t have premium because you will not let them? I personally know several people (at least 4) that do this, and are very unhappy that this talk of only allowing premiums into SL, and they contribute more USD than most.
If you wish to only provide service and support to those that pay for it, then you *seriously* need to stop and think about who those people trully are! Premium Account means absolutely nothing. You have paid maybe 72 USD for a year, a whole YEAR, big whoop?!
Please consider your real customers, the ones that are paying REAL money into your system every day, and not these greedy fools that think premium makes them something special. Restricting login access to Premium accounts will not solve your problems and you know it as well as I.
The only way to solve the problem is to fix the system, not to stop people from using it.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
[...] Today, Linden Lab announced that it may restrict logins to “Residents who have transacted with Linden Lab” during peak times. Here is a quote from the blog: [...]
February 16th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
What needs to be done is target the accounts who camp for hours on end getting free $L. I’ve seen all kinds of camping areas and they’re all jammed with residents just sitting there. And sitting there… and sitting there… and sitting there… without a sound.
If they’re too lazy to use their gray matter in contests or building or scripting the next gotta have gizmo then they’re missing the party. And we will never see what their creative talents are capable of.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
Finally, something to hinder the flood. It’s a good thing I used my PayPal, heh. If things improve further, I may bump up to premium.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Any action that enables us premium account holders priority is most welcome.I look back only 6 weeks ago when I first came accross secondlife and everything was running smoothly,I quickly became a premium account holder,then things went from bad to worse and I thought I had made a big mistake,but now I am glad you are attempting to address the problems….I agree with the comments regarding campers…find a way to get them off the grid…..whats the point in taking up all that space just to earn a few $`s…when buying lindens is so cheap and much more rewarding in the end
February 16th, 2007 at 4:02 PM
SL is in a better place now than when i joined in oct 06.
way less crashy and with firstlook fast and beautiful rendering.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:02 PM
Smart move, though it’s a shame that this has to happen. We *will* reach the point where even allowing only payment-info-verified users to log in will still not be enough, however. Camping should be banned - this would free up a lot more room for people who actually log in to enjoy second life instead of those who log in to be parasitic zombies.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:04 PM
I’m with you on this one LL….Thanks for the plan and I know that you will work very hard to expand so eventually that plan will no longer be needed….however in the mean time that means a lot to us who are investing in this virtual world and growing our product/business lines here.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:04 PM
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
February 16th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
has anyone thought about the fact that one person could be logged in from one machine under different accounts and camping from all of them.
using up multiple connections and resources.
That could become a problem.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Good move……getting rid of camping, will of course, help in you never having to implement the contingency plan……..
All in favor of banning camping say “Aye”
February 16th, 2007 at 4:07 PM
Great plan! I appreciate that those of us who buy $L but aren’t premium members yet are included. I’ve only been in sl since Christmas, but quickly purchased up to my limit in $L within the first 30 days and spent it just as fast. Although I haven’t focused on building or purchasing land (yet) I am contributing to the economy quite a bit by renting and shopping…..
February 16th, 2007 at 4:08 PM
As a paying member i could live without camping, and the antics of campers getting into cat fights over chairs,etc…
it may be hard to ban camping short of LL making it harder to avoid going idle. Also too many places use it as a way to get people to loiter around and make it look popular.
why do we need to pay people to come to our businesses?
February 16th, 2007 at 4:19 PM
I disagree to the prevention of new residents and stoping access of someone without a pay account ,or campers. Just scale larger not too much of a question if you will get a return on money invested to boost performance.If you start cutting service and people drop out just opens the doors for competition to eventually push you out look at yahoo and google!!
February 16th, 2007 at 4:21 PM
Eliminating campers: Very easy - getting kicked by a Linden for Camping earns you a 1 week suspension from SL. That will soon eliminate this onerous practice.
Along with it - delete the wretched Casinos that they are camping in - hogging up all the sim resources with Av scanners, slot machines etc.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:21 PM
great
as one of those NON paying accounts that means that I will get bounced or NOT be able to log in. even though I might actuall be more than dead weight to the society in SL. Why dont you restrict those people who have NOT logged in in the last 7 days, I cant see why my second life experience will improve if I pay a monthly fee. I dont rent land, I work in worl to make the money I spend in world, occosionally buying more lindens.
I dont think excluding free acounts at large is the answer. I think booting anyone who has been idle for more than 10 minutes or not logged in for days would be more fair.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:28 PM
It’s just a protection for the grid. it’s no good if the experience for everyone is unpleasant.
this becomes a philosophical question not one of database scalability.
it’s capitalism, we ask who should get preferential treatment, people who pay or people who don’t? People who pay tend to think they deserve preference. People who don’t tend to feel that nobody should have to pay and everyone should be treated equally.
I was a fee member for about a day, I wanted land to start playing with building. it seemed like $9 wouldn’t kill me if it wasn’t a good time.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:29 PM
Thank you LL! Can you shed some light on the threshold you will be using when you implement this. i.e. how many users online until you flip the restricted switch?
February 16th, 2007 at 4:30 PM
I think it’s a shame it has to happen…but I support it if it should be necessary. However, everyone cheering - realize that not much will change in another month when there another million accounts, and many verified. Hopefully, they won’t need to do it - but if they do, hope it works as described!
February 16th, 2007 at 4:30 PM
remember a fair solution makes nobody happy.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:32 PM
Only thing to say:
IT’S ABOUT TIME.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:32 PM
Read the post again, shadow laviolette. As long as you have paid for Linden dollars once, this will not affect you. I was a bit worried myself as I am a free account - but it does not affect me as I rent land and I have verified my payment info by buying $L and by being an ex-premium. The post says:
only those Second Life Residents who have transacted with Linden Lab either by being a premium account holder, owning land, or purchasing currency on the LindeX, will be able to log-in
February 16th, 2007 at 4:33 PM
I think this is an AMAZING idea.
“RESTRICTED AND At the same time, new account registrations will be closed!”
Kudos LL!
February 16th, 2007 at 4:33 PM
This was not only inevitable as the SL registered user base grows, but also a very good thing.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:34 PM
@shadow
“I dont rent land, I work in worl to make the money I spend in world, occosionally buying more lindens.”
It says people who have transacted in any way, so buying Linden Dollars would qualify
February 16th, 2007 at 4:34 PM
presumably they do it based on transaction times not some arbitary # of users, since they will still be working on scaling more, so maybe this is an emergency thing to keep the people in world functional.
What makes me the most unhappy is getting inworld and having nothing work predictably. It would be better to let us know it’s full and come back later. Maybe let you make a reservation and when someone leaves you get in, that way it’s just a matter of waiting for a table to clear ( as it were )
February 16th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
I’ve spend over 200 euro’s over the last 3 weeks, only not with an creditcard since i am still waiting for it.. but i am counted as the useless dead weight? thanks.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
Let’s hope that they now realise with the growth, that for future suitableness they need to act right now, and concentrate fully on handling the load no matter how many users.
I’m no technician, but again I have to say, lets see someone come up with SL2 knowing that they will handle any load.
Not moaning, it surely most be possible with today’s tech, to have a stable enjoyable platform.
Just wondering what Linden would do if COMPETITION came along & implemented a similar SL experience, without all the “Load issues”
FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
I can see it happening.
But the news is all good on what they are doing.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
why was the last part of my post remove?
therefore i will have to post again. i hope it won’t be removed:(
IMPORTANT
If this measure is implemented then the following should be too:
Do NOT allow users to log in with the main account/avatar and the alternate ones at the same time. Each user should be logged in with only one account/avatar.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:36 PM
Well, one way that might work to discourage campers…
(Note that two of my best friends in-world are campers, and I’ve been known to do so when just chatting with someone elsewhere in the world, just to give my avatar something to do.)
Limit the length of time that someone can remain seated. This is the most common form of camping, since it allows avatar animations to occur, like dancing. A couple of hours, tops, and it kicks you back to standing. It’s rare for me to stay seated that long when I’m active, unless I’m using an anti-griefer object.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:36 PM
OKI, i have a question. what about residents who don’t have a premium account but are owm land that is not mainland? Willo they have a tiers reduction for the period they can’t enter SL?
February 16th, 2007 at 4:38 PM
Wow. If this isn’t an acceptance of the failure of the Second Life infrastructure than I’m not sure what would be. You will disenchant a whole heap of people here. Actually, the vast majority. Disenchant them at your peril.
What you cast as something you hope not to use will be, within months, something used every single day. Of that I have no doubt. Please prove me wrong.
Scaling is difficult but not impossible. To resort to such measures indicates an acknowledgement that you do not have the ability, either via. personnel or via. resources, to scale to fit demand.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:43 PM
@Moopf
I think this is more of a temporary fix while they begin the process of allowing more and more people in:
“Beyond that we are building ambitious plans for re-architecting the Grid, so that in the future we can realize the full potential of the Second Life Grid to support millions of concurrent users.”
Not a admission of failure by any stretch, more of a taking steps to keep things flowing where they can at present.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:44 PM
Linden Labs,
I very much appreciate the fact that Second Life exists and we are able to use it for fun, socialization and other things. I’ve found Live Help as well as the Liason’s to be a terrific help to me.
Please try and ensure:
Figures benificial to LL > Quality of its Service
Doesn’t occur in the future and that those making the higher descisions know that most residents I speak with think:
LL’s prosperity/image > How valued it’s customers are
Please do correct us if wrong with effective activities that provide a balance between the two of each area above. I would hope that is in the works.
Customer Service Staff are exempt from the above as anyone not involved with the descion making process.
Thanks
February 16th, 2007 at 4:44 PM
I don’t remember the TOS saying anything about letting as many people as want log in.
LL’s doing a terrible job, all these people wanting to check out SL and 3x the # of users at the same or better stability.
they should give up and get a job at microsoft. then they can learn the art of programming from experts.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:44 PM
I myself being a free user(money goes to bills and the like first ya know) think its a good idea as well. Granted I am sure there will be whining and groaning, but theres not much you can do..As far as the Asset server issue, I honestly dont know much about them, but I do agree something has to be done to fix the current issues with it.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:45 PM
i would like to see sl sold to a real group with real business minded people that are willing to retain only real business minded engineers. slamming those who boosted your numbers, at your beest, is a rather dumb idea. the real solution is to plan ahead and have the capacity to handle the load. not say f u to all those who made you a success. historically this behavior is a death knell over time as your reputation becomes destroyed and you become known as a liar and charlatan.
you have lots of money. hire the right people, including a real executive staff, and go sail around the world on a golden sailboat. you earned it. now give it up and let us have what was promised. at the moment all you are doing is breaking the promise implied to millions. do you think the press you cultivated is going to give you a sweet time for turniong away all those you wanted in here? no. they will decimate your reputation till you are incapable of finding a shred of support anywhere for future ventures.
wise up. increase the capacity and hire non-primadonna resources to make sl what you promised.
save your flames people. i’m not going to read them
February 16th, 2007 at 4:46 PM
This is good news. I have long thought that land ownership should be one of the denominators in determining status. Want camping removed? I say then that traffic count should be reworked. I recently opened a new store and have around 35-45 visitors a day, but it has no effect on my traffic because they shop, buy and leave. The casino nearby has the same 3-5 people sitting in camping chairs, with practically no other visitors for hours on end, and yet reaps the benefits of a high traffic count. Fix the problem, not the symptom. Traffic count by numbers, not dwell time.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:47 PM
*grins* Neil i disagree there.. learning from microsoft? hell they bought there first os and stole the second.. and took years to get something decent.. think LL is doing a better job then microsoft..
February 16th, 2007 at 4:47 PM
Congratulations LL on making a ballsy move. Many people said you would dare do something like this because the eyes of the press on you of late. But thankfully logic prevailed.
And oh, yes! Ban camping…what does the person who provides camping get besides climbing up the ladder in Polular Places? It’s almost laguhable when i try to get to one of those popular places and find it filled with zombies creating lag. It just makes me leave 5 seconds later.
I dont think LL offers Dwell anymore, so can someone please tell me what is the benefit to the camp providers?
February 16th, 2007 at 4:49 PM
@Macphisto. After 3+ years in SL, I’m afraid that when announcements are made of the “see how it goes”, “only use it if needed” variety it invariably opens a backdoor to their prevalence.
This is a world of 4,200+ CPUs. Yet it’s a world that can’t handle 30,000 people smoothly. That’s just over 7 per CPU. That’s not scalability by any stretch of the imagination and highlights fundamental flaws in the future scalability of Second Life and in the ridiculous cost base it has to operate upon. Something there, I’m afraid, has to change.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:51 PM
people seem to think LL is rolling in the money and is doing these things maliciously.
there is little previous experience with a system like this.
LL is always looking for good people.
The people who might get froze out feel that it’s unfair and a failure of the system to not be able to allow every user to get in at once.
I think SL would be better with a few less primadonna avatars.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:52 PM
I think this is something we, the 58,000 premium members have been waiting for. Could we maybe get a little clarification?
premium account holder - self explanitory
owning land - assumed to be Linden Linden, not private sim land?
purchasing currency on the LindeX - is this the same as purchasing inworld using the client, or only the Lindex on the web?
Thanks
DR
February 16th, 2007 at 4:53 PM
@Neil: Actually, for what it’s worth I don’t think LL is rolling in money which may indeed be part of the problem. And I’m not somebody who would get frozen out either. Go figure, eh.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:53 PM
Thanks for nothing. I have been a preminum account holder and land owner. At this time I choose to do neither. I have spent more than enough money on Second Life to qualify to enter.
This is how you reward loyal customers?
I wish you all well. Perhaps it is time to knock the dust off my sandals and move on.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:53 PM
Imagine all the building in SL and resources,time,etc devoted to it.Why is there no SL building program To be run on users computers…then imported into SL?That would eliminate 80 percent of the load I and many others cause.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:54 PM
This is the BEST news I’ve heard in a long time. I hope this contingency plan gets implemented frequently.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:55 PM
You didn’t win, anti NPIs.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:55 PM
hmmm
i’m not worried.
I like SL and spend too much time on it.
i’m not naming names, it’s just one of the common viewpoints, that LL is malicious or incompetent.
I think they are too hands off in managing things like this.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:55 PM
Wow Neil.. thats like 360 degrees.. last post you said LL needs to get a job over at microsoft and now your telling there doing alright..
not that i dont agree about LL doing an alright job,but i do think they need to find a way to verifiy acounts without cc’s due to not everyone having one.. i’m hoping to get mine soon, but people always think people without verified acounts dont spend on the game.. there needs to be a system implented to check who spends more.. think some verified acount holders will drop then with limited acces)
February 16th, 2007 at 4:56 PM
To clarify: in order to login, your account needs to have, at any point, used payment information. So you do not need to currently be a premium account, if you were previously a premium account.
The system is based off of the “Payment Info Used” part of your account (visible in your profile). If your account says “Payment Info Used” you will be able to login. If it says something else, you will not be able to login.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:56 PM
an offline modeler would be great.
SL opensource could make it happen
February 16th, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Oh well, that should have said Linden Land, not Linden Linden. My brain has lag today. LOL
In truth, I think LL has done a remarkable job on scaling. I find the experience to be pretty much as it was back in Aug. No problems during normal use. A nice slice of their favorite pie to the Lindens
However, last weeks network problems are another story completely. While I think most of us who have worked on networks, especially those that have servers out in colo’s, understand problems occur. What I truly find unacceptable, was the lack of information and inaccuracy of what little was provided. At one point, the client Grid Status showed online and ppl in world, the web status showed Offline, the blog said all had been fixed, and all I got was could not connect to server or a timing error message.
We are not just Avatars, we are defenately not mushrooms, we are people, some of whom have paid a substanial amount of time and money to be a part of SL. Please try to do better in keeping us accurately up to date when problems arise.
One last question, are the details of what that actual outage was caused by available anywhere?
DR
February 16th, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Yes !!!Offline 3-d modeler…sl could sell it at a small price and pay for service upgrades.
February 16th, 2007 at 5:02 PM
it was a bad piece if network equipment. probably a router somewhere started doing those things routers do than mess up your nicely runnign network.
remember before when it was the grey goo and massive griefer attacks that were going to destroy SL.
February 16th, 2007 at 5:03 PM
wow i was mad about this till i read it hehe
Good Move Lindens
it may just be nice weekends now
and just think of all the new premium accounts
that will be great!
February 16th, 2007 at 5:04 PM
Jeska, think lindenlabs could work out something with systems like dutchx to beable to pay for premium acount and to verify payment status?
February 16th, 2007 at 5:04 PM
hey that’s a good idea, sell a useful piece of software to users that WANT it!
I’d pay $25 - 40 for something that i could build and script offline ( even while locked out !!! )
^^^^^^ this is a good idea
February 16th, 2007 at 5:04 PM
Ban griefers when they keep griefing = down to 2 mil.
People’s alts = down thousands
:O No problems.
February 16th, 2007 at 5:05 PM
a local version only of a ’sim’ to run on our own machines, and connect to with a client to build and experiement (and also demo the functions of owning a sim to prospective buyers) would be cool
February 16th, 2007 at 5:05 PM
Its their servers. This stuff can take more.
February 16th, 2007 at 5:06 PM
but jeska, what wrong with my account? i already paid
February 16th, 2007 at 5:08 PM
This is the first time I have ever posted a reply to the blog when I wasn’t complaining about something.
I love you, Lindens. Forget every nasty thing I ever said (until the next batch of dismal grid performance strikes).
February 16th, 2007 at 5:10 PM
Neil hehe if 1/4 the population purchased a 25$ program that would be $22,970,594
February 16th, 2007 at 5:10 PM
me too, i love you lindens but disabled my account for what?