Measuring Satisfaction
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 PM by: Philip LindenStarting about 10 days ago, we began randomly asking around 1000 people per day who log into Second Life whether they feel their experience is getting better or worse, with an additional option to give some keywords or a sentence about why they feel that way. The results so far are interesting and I hope will be quite helpful in helping us to prioritize our work.
As a particular example, the problems we had over the last weekend with a database failure that temporarily broke searching in Second Life and slowed grid performance were immediately measurable as an increase of about 15% in the number of people who answered that their experience was getting worse. As we have gradually repaired and restored service, the satisfaction level has improved.
While you might argue that we should already know (and of course we do) that there are lots of frustrations and bugs to fix in Second Life, this statistic is potentially very useful in quickly reporting the magnitude of impact across the overall population of Second Life to either improvements or problems. Knowing the specific impact of a change can greatly help us to prioritize our work. For example, several months ago we released an update that greatly improved viewer framerates - typically by about 25%. But how much did that change improve satisfaction with Second Life? I would love to have known, so that we could decide how much of our development bandwidth to focus on incremental improvements to framerate versus working on crash rates, for example.
Another appeal of a system like this is that is can give us almost instant feedback when something is going wrong. We have a number of statistics on Second Life (like overall concurrency, for example) that we watch in real time on large monitors in the office and also on internal web pages. When concurrency drops abruptly for any reason, we instantly start looking for problems without needing to wait for any sort of automated alerts to go off. In a similar way, we are going to watch the real-time performance of this satisfaction level with the hope that changes might show us problems that would not be visible in any other way.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:51 PM
since that electrical problem u had in san francisco someplace i go i crash every 2 minutes. before that problem everything was ok can u help me plz cause that is not funny
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:53 PM
A positive move why not make the feature available to all residents who log in. Once a month or even a week then we would all feel we are able to communicate with you guys about the issues and problems which affect us.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:55 PM
free expression? so griefers have a right to free expression disrupting other peoples enjoyment of second life. griefers get reported often but rarely any action is taken and then it seems to be a paltry few day ban which does not deter or stop then on very rare occasions their accounts are frozen the create a new free account to continue their harrasment. why not use the details given in creating these accounts to stop those found guilty from creating new ones and continuing their harrasment and making people want to leave second life.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:57 PM
“In a similar way, we are going to watch the real-time performance of this satifaction level with the hope that changes might show us problems that would not be visible in any other way.”
*satisfaction
Would be nice if you could at least spell it correctly.
Please fix Second Life.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Where the hell has Biondello gone?
Not only is half my inventory missing, now my home and the whole place is missing.
I’m afraid you can print my views on satisfaction because I dont want to wear my F key out.
Just take it that extremely pissed off is only half way there.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:58 PM
The lack of search has been incredibly frustrating. It really limits what one can do in exploring this wonderful envirornment for new areas, etc. Fixing it would seem to be a high priority. Little little information available from LL about what the problem is or even that it exists. Ther inference is that it is sporadic but it seems to be almost constant.
Second, voice is a disaster in my opinion. I am deaf in one ear and severly disabled in the other. I am not alone I find. In RL I read lips, but that is impossible here. Also, I understand there is a lot of thoughtless chatter whereas text chat is often better thought out and to the point. Voice has uses, but its universal adoption would disenfrancise many people who are like me
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 PM
Thank you, I think this post was informative about how you guys feel. But when I answered the question, it wouldn’t let me leave enough feedback that I wanted to. I felt I couldn’t explain myself, I think that this is a step in the right direction but you might want to expand the amount of text when we give an opinion so that you may better understand what we’re trying to say.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 PM
fyi, i didn’t think 80 characters was enough room to say anything of substance. So while i wanted to answer negatively and explain myself, I ended up changing my answer to positive and saying something relatively meaningless about meeting new friends and whatever. Leave more room for comments and you might get different answers.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:01 PM
Well Log in problem , lost inventory, SLX purchases lost, account payments not going through, 9-10 days for a problem ticket to be looked at, 2 day & 6 hours on phone to get billing issue resolved and many more issues lead me to give up buying more land.
I hope the best and keep trying!!
I wish SL/LL would hire more personal to assist paying members and help the support staff with the millions of new people joining SL.
You can only do so much with the people you have, you need more help in LL to make SL run more efficiently !!!
SL is a nice environment that needs improvment.
ps. I’m taking the time to write this since I can’t log on!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 PM
Firstly, crash rate before frame rate, any day, but secondly, and more importantly, please please please bring back the post-support satisfaction surveys that I used to get before the new support portal was introduced. So far I have had 3 out of 5 support portal issues handled in an unsatifactory manner - 2 of them simply fobbed off with cut and paste rhetoric that in no way related to the problem. One of them, I was so disgusted with a second response, which basically said “see first response” (but in less words), that I simply didnt bother responding any further.
As for the viewer, I feel its getting better, but the overall second life experience has been getting steadily worse in the past few months with all the stupid decisions announced recently (and no, Im not just talking about the big one).
You guys have a long way to go to fix your customer support, but at least you know that, and are asking why.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 PM
I got the survey thrice. Guess what? The first time, I was satisified. The second time, less so, and the third time, I had enough of Linden Lab meddling with me.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:05 PM
1,000 residents won’t be very accurate.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:05 PM
Good idea.
If you let us know, what you are doing, we could be more patient and confident.
If something goes wrong, I myself always are uncertain whether somebody at LL knows or cares about the problem.
How often there was a problem reported in the blog as “resolved” and I was experiencing the same problem and thought “no, it is not resolved.. how can i let them know”…
but all methods to tell you something include that I don’t get any feedback saying that a real person got it and some actions is taken or (if not) why not.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:06 PM
The man himself posts… good to know you’re still here.
Broccoli
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:06 PM
@1, I like the idea of having it be a small sampling that constantly changes, actually. In surveys such as this, there’s the potential to get too much data and end up dilluting the useful conclusions you can draw from it. For example, if everyone’s always filling out a survey each time they log in, they’ll probably start to either ignore it, fill in a bogus answer, or otherwise be unable to determine how they feel RIGHT NOW, and they might get the feeling that “LL isn’t listening”.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:09 PM
(This is how one of my Picks reads: )
So - I get this pop up from the client before I log in:
Opinion survey - “Is your Second Life Experiance getting better or worse?”
I answered: ‘Worse’ and under ‘Why?” - said:
“Because you insist on adding bells and whistles while the basic infrastructure and functionality degrades. You. You folks dug the hole you’re in. Only hard work on Real Issues will get you out. Not cosmetic changes or whoohoo new eye candy. I don’t give a damn about voice, sculpties or windlight. I want the world to work correctly. THEN wow me.”
What happens? I get an error when I try to submit it - must be 80 characters only. So I trim - and trim and trim - it wouldn’t accept anything until it was blank!
THERE’S MY SECOND LIFE EXPERIENCE!
I’m an angry Paying Customer! Listen to me Damnit!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:09 PM
@#2
it would be nice if you didn’t waste a post nitpicking at the Lindens.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 PM
This whole article scares me more then anything else . OMG you cant really be that out of touch that you have not been reading the blogs or hearing the residents of SL for like the last 6 months at least almost screaming out to you that improvements mean nothing if they dont work if they just make the stuff we already have work even worse . Who the heck knows what frame rates are when they are red in the face and thinking of leaving SL because they crash every 5 th time they try to turn around or start to walk , or they pull up search and it dont work again or they are stuck somewhere because teleport isnt working again, Come on please this article just blew my last hope out of the water i was actually trusting you thinking you were all really working so very hard fighting all these flash forest fires breaking out every day in Sl but now i see you need some kind of survery for crying out loud 15 % who did you talk to linden employees i cant believe only 15% were saying it was worse its been steadily declining in user friendliness for like 6 months . Sorry to be upset by this but i hardly never want to even log on anymore to Sl because of the frustration with stuff always not working as good as it used to . And i am just a nobody i dont create stuff i dont sell or need to advertise i cant believe anyone who is trying to make SL a real money makeing adventure was part of your survey because i cant believe any of them would feel its better to have a better picture and no one can stay on to see it or search to find there place of business or teleport there to buy from them .
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 PM
well thats nice but if you really knew what you were doing you would use six sigma monitoring techniques against the the database metrics such as locks and other key performance related measures and have an automated alarm whenever the database began trending or suddenly jumped out of the established control limits. The same techniques should be applied against the network aspects of the system.
Not possible? bull. i have personally developed such proactive monitoring systems for a truly superior database platform called Oracle. This system was able to alert us to such low level problems in progress such as but not limited to tiny watch batteries on disk array controllers going bad.
I thought you guys were smart but you seem to be lacking in critical enterprise infrastructure areas.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:11 PM
And far be it from me to complain that we are again being faced with sim FPS rates in the low SINGLE figures, no Search, etc. And I had to go back to a sim today to get a freebie that I lost yesterday.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:11 PM
I was asked…but it didnt let me make a comment. How about fixing the inventory problems…like Recent Items gets bigger every day and it wont go away….not even with clear cache. And I am still losing inventory which fails to rezz. That having been said…..SL is better than it was 6 months ago and LL seem to be trying to be more proactive. Maybe the new hiring campaign will pay off soon…it can’t happen overnight. I live in hope …… then maybe I will start investing in more sims.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:12 PM
Too many crashes in the last days are not fine. Hope you can improve that.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:12 PM
@#10
F.O.
Waste that.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:13 PM
Fantastic idea. Similar but more granular kinds of data can be mined from the support database and from jira if these were to include random surveys when tickets or bugs are submitted. In these cases, the satisfaction rating could be linked to particular classes of issue, providing a clearer picture of where the problems are occuring. When support tickets are closed, the addition of a satisfaction query for every issue could also be a valuable point to collect data. If you extended this idea to allow a customer the ability to feed back at every point of contact they have with your organisation then this will serve as both a valuable prioritisation mechanism and also as a way people can constructively vent frustrations.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:13 PM
I had the survey and found the options “Better or Worse” to be limiting, as well as the 80 character comment section. I responded with Better though simply because not withstanding the issues of the past week, my experience with SL has been better. Granted there are always hiccups and those do stand out when thinking about my time in SL. But overall it does seem to be better. Now as I prepare to be flamed for this post, I am aware that there is still too many in SL who are suffering several issues that ultimate make their experience Worse.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:14 PM
I think the single biggest thing people want is stability. Framerates don’t mean anything when the screen is black and white following a teleport that timed out.
When the grid is stable, people are happy. People can go places, find things, make purchases with confidence.
When the grid isn’t stable, people feel “lifeboated” on a sim because it’s the only one they can get to. People don’t want to make or buy things because they don’t know if they’ll be there the next day.
Until the rolling restart to “improve voice performance”, things were pretty good. The 1.18 update went smooth and things were looking up. (Thanks for that effort, btw *thumbs up*) Since that rolling restart, searches have been down, teleports failing, things don’t rez, things get lost… not happy times.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:14 PM
A bunch of people is having massive problems and loosing stuff they buy. The merchants are helpless and have to argue with them, find out if ppl really lost things or if fraudulent avatars use the current situation to get replacements for stuff they actually did not loose.
As a consequence I meanwhile closed down my shop until this issue is fixed. I have been busy for 5 days now replacing things.
And you are “measuring customer satisfaction” instead of fixing the problems? Sorry, but this drives me into final frustration
The problems started with the rolling restart last friday and after a short break it seems to be getting worse again now. Any suggestions to help us with the current problems?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:15 PM
The reply to your metaphysical questions about what impact got a given change in Sl is very easy to reply to, Lindens… In fact, if you were actually reading the blogs and listening to the residents, you would quickly find what is the proper plan for the future…
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
Seriously, Lindens, are you proud of the last rolling restart with the so called “update” (I would rather say downgrade) aimed at voice users ?… You just managed to reintroduce the old and dreaded bug, where no-copy objects failing to rez in-world get lost… Your residents are loosing inventory every day, and your merchants are loosing sales and valuable time trying to solve the problems on their level (providing their customers with replacements, when at all possible)…
PLEASE: ROLL BACK THE LAST “UPDATE” AND STOP IMMEDIATELY THE VOICE PROJECT TO PUT ALL YOUR PROGRAMMING POWER ON THE BUG FIXES !!!
A very disgruntled premium user & merchant.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:15 PM
Wow… I’ll hafta think of what I’d say, if I ever get it. In some ways it’s gotten better… but I tink the bad might be outweighing as far as the service and product itself is concerned. It’s my involvements inworld dat keep me coming back.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:16 PM
Stop adding stuff and start fixing bugs! don’t add anything to second life until 98% or more of the bugs are fixed!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:17 PM
Hire more lindens! Go work for linden lab someone! Pay them more!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 PM
hehe, I got this twice over the weekend. First time I rated satisfied, as at the time i figured they meant overall. but after a couple days of things vanishing and no search etc, I gave a not so satisfied reply.
I think 1000 is a decent sample range, statistically speaking it should give a good enough idea of the state of user satisfaction. Although I think the random part of it needs tweaked, as it appears I’m not the only one to get the survey multiple times. Out of millions of users, that shouldn’t be happening…
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 PM
Proactive or Reactive?
Some time ago Microsoft got hit by sever security issues. Someone throw the brake and halted all development and put every resource into review existing code on order to regain (or obtain :)) a secure and stable environment. This did delay a lot of upcomming releases, but I say they did well
Consider that Linden Lab. You got at fantastic product, a lot of dedicated user and a lot of potential, but you can’t walk on water (not even in SL). We all love to see new things and better performance, but start by giving us stabillity.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:20 PM
Wonders who your asking lol.. The issues that are here are just the same things over and over.. I haven’t noticed any significant increase in framerate.. and The group chat is still borked.. Loosing items for no reason.. I didn’t even pull out of invo and they disappear… Memory leaks, Lack of support, borked traffic, borked searches, borked classifieds.. Loss of Lindens to customers inability to buy products which I sell, because the invo and rez objects is still borked.. Ya we really need to concentrate on voice chat when we have the same frikken problems from 6 months ago… How rediculous of a statement is that.. Well thats how it is here lol.. Lets quit trying to cram new stuff in, and just work on the issues that are getting worse rather then better.. Pull the plug on voice.. If people want to chat in voice, they can use skype like they already do lol..
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:20 PM
hey if Linden Research had a blog open to comments all the time they could simply monitor the number of entries per second and the count of negative words and words like “fix” in the posts. when sl is really bad the 100 limit gets hit in minutes on this inadequate blog comment system.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:21 PM
@#20 Marianne, don’t think TOO hard about what to say in the SL survey. You only get 80 characters. Try saying something in <80 characters. About the only thing that fits is, “Everything is great.”
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:22 PM
#6–> “Starting about 10 days ago, we began randomly asking around 1000 people per day ”
PER DAY… I think it would be a bit hard for them to read more than that each day with all what they are already doing.
That does not mean that I’m very happy with SL though…
Ok… search is still on and off very often. Groups posts don’t always go through, notices either. Ghosts prims are back in Trueblood. If I request to restart the region it will take 2 weeks at least before they’ll do it. Once every 2 times my avatar’s hair don’t show up and I can’t edit my apearance because the window does not load at all. Very often I can’t wear any attachment, even though it says that an attachment is already pending for that spot… its not the case and it still does not loads. Even though i clear my cache its not helping. When I edit something, sometimes its not really updating, and after I relog I see that I lost what i rezzed and the edit of other items of course did not work. Textures I try to upload just won’t work saying that an unexpected error happened or something to try again later.
All that happens rarely… sometimes but recently it,s been worse. Yesterday me and my friends noticed that flexis were not working for a little while even after clearing the cache and rebooting. Some modify scripts don’t open, I cannot reset them.
This is all very frustrating. I know that this is not really the purpose of this anouncement to post what I wrote but I still haven’t got the survey… and it seems like you only ask for keywords or a sentence to explain why we feel that SL is worse than before… but I know that you will read this. Now if I go and request a sim restart… how long will it take? ;p I hate ghosts prims and my customers too…
How could I resume all that in one sentence… I don’t think it would be very helpful.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:22 PM
Dear Philip Linden,
Had I been one of the random people asked about satisfaction with Second Life, I would honestly say I am 95% satisfied with life on the Second Level platform all the time, regardless of whether something has gone wrong or whether it has worked so well that I did not even notice.
It’s not perfect. It needs to be tweaked now and then. And majorly overhauled at other times. SL’s rapid rate of growth makes problems inevitable. You just can’t anticipate everything.
But there is nothing else out there that compares to SL, nothing. Many try, but no one has been able to create a better mousetrap.
I can handle a bit of inconvenience without my level of satisfaction dropping. It’s at 95% now - that leaves a 5% room-for-improvement level. Go for it, Lindens.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:22 PM
I was already planning on closing my account in the near future but after the display of horrible service I and everyone else have received over the last few weeks I’ve decided to close my account ahead of schedule and leave Second Life for good, and I’m sure that I am not the only one feeling this way. There is no way I am going to continue to pay $300+ a month for such horrible quality service. Linden Labs: You have disappointed me in many, many ways.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:23 PM
@ 24 hehehe I forgot to say it… Pls Linden fix it… ;p Joking… but still… lol
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:23 PM
While overall I have enjoyed my experience on Second Life. I’ve spent a lot of my time frustrated or annoyed at the many quirks and performance issues that crop up. In many ways I feel like I am constantly fighting upstream against a current.
I would like to see more effort on improving stability and increasing speed and performance over adding new features.
My business partner and I as well as my many friends have spent a couple years building a thriving community. It is that community and my friends that continue to anchor me to Second Life as well as the business I help to manage there. If it were not for them I sometimes feel that I would have left in frustration long ago.
However, not to be completely negitive I do still see a lot of potential and slow progress towards improving the overall experience. I know LL does not have an easy job. You have to balance a bottom line, juggle legal and moral issues, deal with an unending tide of complaints and whining, and still somehow keep everything running with at least the illusion of performance. It’s a tall order and I respect LL for not giving up on it.
I am also greatful for the opportunity to have an environment where I could help create a wonderful community and meet such great people. So you have my thanks in that.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:23 PM
@20 - sorry Scott… they don’t hire people they think might make them look bad. it is a common psychological defect amongst primadonna programmers that think they are the smartest in the universe.
(no i’m not the smartest. just well trained and experienced in some rather unglamorous areas of enterprise metadata architectures and enterprise data architectures which is something Secondlife is in dire need of.)
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 PM
My overall satisfactionhas dropped steadily over the past month, thanks to your policy of fixing 3 minot irritations whilst at the same time introducing 19 major flaws. I’ve lost about $15000L of inventory do to the rez problem. And why is it you post warnings about the problem 2 days after it happens.
By the way, Search is STILL hosed, and now TP seems to be going the same way. Come on, guys: fix the basics, and worry about the frills later, huh?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 PM
@Xen Akula: Telling Linden Lab to “Fix second Life” does absolutely nothing whatsoever. No information was provided to tell them exactly what problems you have had, nor have you offered up any suggestions.
Your second comment does nothing to help the Lindens “fix” anything either.
Now then - on to the topic at hand:
I haven’t had many problems at all recently - mainly due to the fact that I pay attention to what is going on. I check to make sure all the servers are running properly and avoid doing anything if all that is running is the log in system.
That aside there have been a few lag issues in some of the newer SIMs. I also agree that the recent Items tab needs to be fixed.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:25 PM
But was was the point of limiting comments to 80 characters? I couldn’t begin to outline my issues and how unhappy I am. Inventory loss, huge lag, corruption of the landscape by multiple (by the hundreds) billboards, auto-rezzing griefer objects that can’t be deleted…and so on. Plus many of my landmarked places have now dissapeared or have been re-located causing huge confusion and I’m sure loss of revenues for the sites as well as loss of interest in going to them.
Odd how at the same time as the “database failure” many sims were hit by object bombs and heavy griefer attacks…and you still refuse to acknowledege that it happened or that and attack occured on Sl (by the way, this same weekend many RL sites were attacked with disruption of service issues including fake splash pages, redirects and bogus loging - mostly phising.
After several abuse reports filed and even working with the Anti-Griefer Org., my sim is still littered with thousands of “killer footballs” and “killing barrels” that can’t be removed for some reason. And what about the redirects and sudden teleports to oblivion that forces you to ctl-alt-del to get out off the grid? Still happening guys….fix that huh?
If you want to make SL a better place, one, fix the myriad of issues you already have before trotting out voice and other resource eating devices…as obviously the community DOESN’T want, and two, stop allowing objects to be made, bought or sold for the only purpose in SL to cause disruption - at least make bullets, bombs, “corkscrew bullets” and the rest self destructing or have a limited life or give residents the ability to clean up these nasty little objects/landmines.
Please?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 PM
Henri beauchamp allready wrote what I think:
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
STOP ADDING FEATURES, AND FIX ALL THE BUGS !
_____________________________________________________
don’t want pretty skies
don’t want voice chat
don’t care about sculpties contests
-> want decent support
-> want stable platform
I have a dream.
I have a dream that one day the SL nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: all residents deserve a stable and optimized SL”
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:27 PM
Please don’t let a weekend like the previous one happen over the course of SLCC weekend! It is a hard enough challenge trying to stream in world, let alone when sims are crashing, log ins aren’t working, and the grid is generally a wreck.
As for hidden indicators on how the grid is doing; how about logging in, trying to cross a sim border, teleport, and rez an object? If any take longer than 10 seconds, it isn’t good enough.
Regards,
-Flip
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:28 PM
I am just glad this has been considered and addded. But the idea of only randomly selecting 1000 is a bit too little, I think.
Yet it could be a way to assure that there won’t be too many ignored opinions.
If this is a success I hope there will be an increase in random active residents to voice their opinions.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 PM
I had a billing issue as well.. took them nine days to reply back to me. I highly doubt I’ll be using the premium service again, with customer service that horrible, god forbid they make a mistake with my billing again.
They really need to improve so many areas of SL before expanding and adding all these new features.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:31 PM
Oh yes, and at number 18 …
Yes, let’s blame a problem that has been occuring each and every time one of the asset servers gets old and has to be retired on a feature!
seriously now - and here is where the sarcasm ends - this issue has been cropping up for some time now and was never linked to any one feature.
They’ve even admitted it was a hardware problem!
I really do wish some would get their facts straight first ….
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:32 PM
It is evident that you want a very short-term answer to the question: it would be extremely helpful if the fact that you want a short-term answer could be made clear in the question, so that people do not think that you are asking whether things are getting better or worse, overall, over a period of months or years.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 PM
@11. Thare *are* smart, Ann - hence the SL system. What they lack is some good sense in how to develope.
It’s common knowledge that the users want the thing to function properly all the time. We don’t want to spend minutes in the black TP screen, for instance, when out avs are already there. They don’t need surveys to tell them that users want it to work properly. But they are too busy trying to add things to it to do the job right. For instance, nobody was crying out for voice, and nobody was crying out for windlight, but what will those things do - like everything else that’s added, they will screw other parts for a while. Spend the time making the current system work properly before embarking on additions.
There is too much concern in LL about login numbers. It took a long time between hitting 30,000 to hitting 40,000, and the numbers won’t improve as they should, because it’s a continually faulty system. People leave SL because it’s too faulty. Has anyone noticed how you don’t often see ‘old’ users? Most people are newish. Make it work properly first, and think of additions when it does work properly.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 PM
1,000 people is a good sample but how many of them actually answered? If only 150 of them are answering then the stats are going to be skewed.
Customer satisfaction surveys are a positive step, you should also employ more people with a customer service background. The geeks won’t inherit the earth.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 PM
I think the major issues people are having with Second Life were pretty well addressed in Project Open Letter which so many of us signed.
You really don’t need to have a survey to find out whether people are more or less satisfied anytime you tweak something.
The problems are the same and I can’t imagine you don’t’ know what they are: asset server issues, presence, lag.
When you can’t log in, or can’t TP or search or do much of anything when you do, for days on end, you have serious problems.
Just work on the major issues and you will find there is less complaining. Which generally means greater satisfaction.
Aren’t the Lindens who work inworld the best resource for what the major complaints are? If people aren’t complaining, it’s a good guess it isn’t a problem.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 PM
Oh.. Like Diana says… I I have lag issues, I now lag more since 2 days. It did not happen like this since before installing my new video card about 2 weeks ago. I freeze and lag… and yes its true that the recent items tab is not working right again.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 PM
I carefully watch the concurrency levels in my sims in real-time also, and don’t need an alarm to go off to tell something is seriously wrong. I’ve found the problem killing my business (and other content creators across the grid), and it’s the fact that Linden has let SL go to the camping farms. And LL doesn’t seem interested in doing anything about it until we’re all extinct, and nothing but the free-money parasites remain.
Until Linden does something to abolish the broken traffic system, and provide us reliable in-world offline and online messaging, and search that isn’t traffic-based, so we can rebuild our communities and businesses from these ashes, my own satisfaction levels will remain very low.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 PM
““In a similar way, we are going to watch the real-time performance of this satifaction level with the hope that changes might show us problems that would not be visible in any other way.”
*satisfaction
Would be nice if you could at least spell it correctly.
Please fix Second Life.”
Quoted for truth.
Fix the damn thing. If you were to get any other game developers in there, they’d fix it because games AREN’T supposed to be this glitchy.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 PM
I was just wondering how you pick the people for each survey. If you asked a 1000 newbies or 1000 residents with 3 years experience, the results might be quite different. I think the mix of residents and what they get asked might also give a better indicator of satisfaction. Obviously questions about Orientation Island are usually better targeted at newbies, whilst questions about estate tools are best answered by island owners.
Matching the right survey to the right demographic would be a good way to tweak this exercise. However the surveys are a good start.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 PM
Ya sure you didnt mix up the numbers there and get the wrong % of happy customers? Cause being on the grid unlike you guys we the residents see LOTS of people that are way unhappy with all of sl not just the botched update you guys did this last time..you might want to go inworld a little more
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 PM
Again stopped buying / rezzing because of persisting problems with inventory loss.
Alone on the SIM (Class 5 Server) - impossible to log in with complete avatar “Clothing is still downloading” - and remains downloading untill logoff. Inventory is empty it needs 30 - 45 minutes to load.
Login problems, some problems with SLX and a lot more….
Nice to have voice, sadly no windlight… but these features are “nice to have”. A stable system is a “must have”. And you don’t have a stable system at all”
Nice to read you’re watching data on a big monitor… got ever an idea that this is only a method to _react_ to problems? It seems to me it would be better to take actions to prevent the problems occuring instead of waiting until they’re there. A stable system base is one of the points to take action.
Again and again we read “Problem solved” in the blog - until the same problem occurs again shortly later. It’s a sign for a lot of ad hoc fixes, curing symptoms but not the problems.
Raban
(abologizing for his wooden english)
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 PM
Stuff measuring satisfaction.
Can you check for missing regions……Biondello in particular.
You do that and I’ll keep listing all my missing inventory Items.
Then we can add them together and come up with big fat ZERO.
Thanks LL
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:38 PM
Sounds good!
But, if you’re counting fish, you gotta clip their fins when you throw them back so you don’t count them again!
———————————-
p.s. a UK company recently offered free broadband with their cellphone package, but they couldn’t deliver to the huge demand that resulted. The boss of the company, when interviewed on TV said that the problems were with the Call Centre not being able to cope with the calls from customers who said their broadband wasn’t on yet. He said he was increasing the number of staff at the Call Centre.
So it’s easy to lose sight of the actual problem - in his case not the complaints, but the actual service he was selling.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:38 PM
Perhaps off topic, but none the less: Xen has a point. Taking the time to proof reflects a careful attitude. It might not be important to some, but when was the last time an employer hired someone based on spelling mistakes on a resume? (Yes, I am an english major!)
Yip, probably in a rush because lots to do…C.E.O. after all!
Yip, probably don’t have time to proof because there’s lots to do.
Oops, I’m sorry…I have lots do too! So, I won’t be able to pay your tier this month Mr. Linden. I know you’ll understand because you also have lots to do, and I know you’ll be understanding and let me skip next month as well.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:38 PM
if you guys would just take the time to read the forums you would already know if the players are happy or not. Also…stop publishing updates till you got the KNOWN problems fixed such as the constant server problems for example.
Honestly guys and gals of LL, you dont need random surveys..you need to listen to your forum feedbacks and bug reports.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 PM
Just wanted to draw attention to the first line for the people complaining about the size of the sample: “Starting about 10 days ago, we began randomly asking around 1000 people per day who log into Second Life whether they feel their experience is getting better or worse”
Per day. For ten days. My math tells me this is about 10,000 people.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 PM
Haha. I was one of the people who recieved this survey.
I made sure I said my experience was getting worse, and why. Not only was it the recent screwups, but the overall lack of care to user needs and user reports. I once had a griefer on me that made SL unplayable. If it weren’t for me fixing the problem myself, which was hard, I wouldn’t have been able to play SL until my abuse report was solved. How long did that take? Oh, only a few WEEKS. GROW UP, MORONS, AND LEARN TO GIVE A CRAP ABOUT OUR ABUSE REPORTS, BECAUSE MOST ARE IMPORTANT.
Oh, you know, that, and the fact that Second Life still looks like it’s a v0.01 beta because of the amount of glitches and lag.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 PM
I wish LL would ask me how my experience has been lately… because its definitely getting worse by the day. SL is infested with issues upon issues that multiply and worsen by the day, and do not get corrected for weeks/months, if they ever get corrected at all. We’re always referred the blog, that gives little to no information at all. When theres a serious issue in world, we’re lucky to even see a blog post but once every 5 hours, and after waiting hours to see an update - all you write is “We’re still working on the issue”. Not to mention issues are always marked “Resolved” when they are far from resolved.
On top of the log in issues, failure to rez, map, TP and search issues - As a creator, SL has become nothing but frustrations. We get tons of customer complaints daily that their product has failed to rez and vanished, they never received the product in inventory, etc etc. And customers are quick to blame the creator for the problem, instead of pointing the blame where it belongs - at LL’s.
Not to mention all of the US dollars we pay for sims that are constantly crashing or lagging to the point you can’t even move. And opening tickets are a joke, they close them and tell you your sim is fine, when it’s anything but fine.
And lets talk about the customer service level we’re provided with - it’s slim to none. Trying to get a Linden to help, is worse than sitting in an ER at a hospital. You’re lucky to get a response at all, and if you are lucky enough to get one - its a generic response that doesn’t even address the issue, or provide a solution.
With the amount of US dollars that LL’s generates, along with the amount of publicity - I would think that the game performance and customer service level would be more professional, and high priority.
Residents are not happy, and this will eventually start hitting LL’s pockets, as well as ours - and leak to the press thats been running rampant talking about how great SL is. And thats probably what needs to happen, before you’ll finally take the residents concerns and complaints serious. As long as its not effecting your pocket, what do you care if we’re frustrated and annoyed - as long as we still log on and give you traffic, and pay our tiers.
And honestly, Philip I find it amusing that you would pretend to be concerned with what your residents think, when you don’t even answer your emails regarding severe issues that are taking place in your game, and your staff doesn’t even answer the residents that request help in world at all, they totally ignore your IM’s. If you cared, you’d answer your emails, and hire staff that actually know what they’re doing. Simple as that.
The residents are what keep SL going… It’s never wise to bite the hands that feed you…
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:41 PM
“37 Apollo Case Says:
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:36 PM PDT
I was just wondering how you pick the people for each survey. If you asked a 1000 newbies or 1000 residents with 3 years experience, the results might be quite different. ”
Damn good question. Does the person being surveyed own land? Have a large inventory? Do they build or script? Do they make a lot of purchases? Use search? Are they aware of how SL is supposed to function as opposed to how it does sometimes?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:41 PM
i am unsatisfactied with the discription of gaming games…
a list of all games is required as some games they do have pots to pay intoand gamble can also be played without gambling ie
slingo ,pizza, greedy greedy and the likes
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:42 PM
Do you really need 1000 weather reports to know what it’s like outside?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:43 PM
4 years later and your now asking how we feel. I agree with the 1st poster. Ask us all.
SL has not improved enough over the past 4 years. I find it sometimes very frustrating to even log on. With the price increases should come justification for that price increase. Which I have not yet seen. If anything I see less CS. Just ask my concierge who often fails to answer my IM’s.
Catherine
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 PM
It was great up until a couple of weeks ago when the lag pretty much rendered my land unusable. When my framerate drops to less than a frame every 10 seconds, and I my support ticket basically says “We’re looking at the problem”. In two weeks I haven’t been able to complete any products for my business because my land (all 45000 sm) won’t support a simple task like making an object with less than 50 prims.
How long will this keep up? At least let us know if we should cut our losses and move on to other things..
Interesting to note the site is laggy enough to resist posting this, if it succeeds. I used to be able to fix region problems by getting a Linden to do a reset via live help, but now there is no avenue for that.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 PM
Except for the grid problems now and again, the only thing I’d appreciate fixes on are crash rates. And….since ALL the new computers are now coming out with Vista (and many with high speed graphics for 3D games), why aren’t the Lindens making SL compliance with these newer features a top priority? I just bought a new computer with super speed graphics and a Vista operating system. Guess which program is the only one that crashes on it within the first 10 minutes?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:44 PM
It’s for the first time in 3 years i’m worried. The satisfaction of SL is something we as residents create for ourselves and others, it has very little to do with the service Linden Lab provides us. The ones among us that pay, pay alot and more for a product that over time just gets worse and worse.
The media has his nose in it, Second Life gets bad publicity (last one in Wired). It’s obvious that this wonderful idea, Philip’s dream, is run by a very incompetent team.
If you have no idea what to work on and take the time to set up that silly little survey, maybe better one of you get eye surgery or a brain transplantation: DO WHAT WE ARE SCREAMING FOR FOR MONTHS NOW, FIX THE DAMN BUGS!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:45 PM
Too late and too little but we seem to like the pain so we will take it.
Thanks Phil for posting.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:46 PM
What would improve my satisfaction is if you would finally once and for all fix this bug where we lose items that aren’t copyable. I have now lost $500 in items, one of which was to be a gift. I don’t see any warnings on your site or anywhere else that this issue is suppose to still be occurring. When are you going to fix it? And when are you going to repay us for the poor service? For the lag? For the constant crashes? For the lost of revenue for all the time your product doesn’t work properly? SL is a wonderful idea, but currently its a failure as a service or product. A product most of us pay for in one way or another, either by purchasing land, membership fees, buying lindens and purchasing other designer’s products, services, items. Come on Lindens for once fix it.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:47 PM
Have you thought that unhappy customers are less likely to answer surveys and probably come to SL less often?
How do you randomize the interviews, I mean are you sure that this results are representative of the whole population?
Anyway, it’s good you’re creating ways to hear us, it would be nice if you published this results.
LL must open their ears and codes, it’s the only way for you to stay ahead of the game.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:48 PM
For an accurate satisfaction indication, you need to ask more than 1000 people, and you need to ask the same people every day (if they logon ofcourse :P).
Another accurate indication is the comments you find below the blog entries (that is, the positive blog entries that you still allow comments to be given, since they’ve all been closed for negative blog entries).
And don’t forget the continuing drop of concurrent users and the drop in the L$ value. That should give you a clue if you’d pay attention.
Lyn
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 PM
What I don’t understand is why does the same damn bugs and even new ones happen over and over again… I’d understand once in a while but this is too often. Plus now.. the search being on and of…
How can I plan a boxing event if I’m not even sure that I will be able to even just wear my gloves or if the script thats in it will work this time? wtf :(((
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 PM
Ill give Linden an “B+” for effort … but 1000 out of an average(?) of 40000+ users per day??? Ahh…statistics…not my strong point. But it does seem a small sample!!
Can the survey be aimed at ALL users….maybe a month or older?? I dont know.
Ive downgraded my account because of what has happened recently. MY choice …but im not going to pay for what i personally see as a deteriorating service/game.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:50 PM
Germany still has DNS problems as of this morning. Just thought I’d mention it, if you’re wondering about concurrency
I had to switch to OpenDNS to access SL.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 PM
Apollo Case’s point illustrated:
Ask two different segments of the SL population what’s wrong and you’ll get two very different answers, by and large…
Ask business owners and content creators:
“Broken core functions, community-building and communication tools, too many campers.”
Ask the vast majority of newbie campers:
“Not enough camping!”
—–
I have to wonder who you’re trying to satisfy here.
You sold us a dream. A dream of the next evolution of the internet itself, a paradigm shift in online computing. But all evidence suggests that instead, you’re more interested in bloated, misleading subscriber figures than providing us with even the barest set of tools to build the dream we were sold in the first place.
Put SL back in the hands of the content creators. Empower us, so that we may steer us back on course, true to the dream, while there are still a few of us left.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 PM
I’d like to echo Henri (#18). Enough new features until what you have works and KEEPS working. The voice chat seems like the answer to a question no one has asked. I fear it will massively destabilize the game.
Like most software providers, you seem to believe new features are the key to selling more product. Not. You have a core of dedicated supporters who just want a crash free, memory leak free, bug free world in which to interact. I know you all can provide it if you make it a priority. Please!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 PM
Well Philip Linden looking at all the posts here I would say your customers are very UNHAPPY! You should make it manditory for your staff to come inworld atleast 1 hour a day..I mean ALL your staff including you cause SL is REALLY messed up and you the Lindens have done that. Remember project open letter remember the fixes that were asked for? ya havent done a single one instead you gave us windlite and voice..you really think people are happy with you?
The idea is grea…the product is CRAP!
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:53 PM
If it matters to anyone, the current web poll question at the M2 concerns whether residents anticipate SL performance to be better or worse by years’ end. Currently the poll stands at:
Better - 42%
Worse - 38%
Undecided - 20%
As everyone knows, this was pretty much a horrible week for being in SL, but I am still optimistic that things will improve. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I believe in Linden Lab. Please keep working toward a better SL.
P2
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:54 PM
also i would like to know when you are gonna sort out the recent part of the inventory…. the recent is becoming just another inventory now
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:54 PM
Suggestion (Though I know it might be unpopular with some of you):
Lindens, you really need to start hiring people like Ann Otoole. Apparantly you cant fix the problems, despite what should be ample monitoring via bug reports, so how about employing a few people that know what they’re talking about to fix a few things?? This isn’t hard. There are plenty of MMORPGs on the net which WORK PROPERLY!!!!
You’re screwing us all over with voice. Why dont you work to get it properly functional before you force it on us all?
And yes, before you all start whinging, I’m not paying to use SL. I happily will when I can play for more than half an hour without a crash. In the meantime, for all you anti about free accounts: You’d be the suckers for paying for a non-functional product. Ever heard the phrase “vote with your feet”?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:55 PM
I’d be really nice if you justq quit, Philip. Would help SL A LOT!
And please take Daniel and Jeska with you.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:57 PM
So I notice people talking about crash rates before frame rates but Not everyone crashes left and right I for one would prefer frame rate with a supporting Assist server that can keep up with demand.
I think this idea is really something though and I hope its taken seriously not just some PR to raise our spirits :3
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:58 PM
#58…. Juliet, that’s a bit harsh.
I’d rather have *more* of Philip… not running round giving speeches, or schmoozing with potential investors… but actually in SL, experiencing SL day in day out (and not on a high level computer but an average spec) and then you won’t need to ask the question… you’ll see for yourself.
Get a throwaway alt, Philip, let me know who it is (I promise to keep quiet) and give me one hour of your time. I’ll take you round a few places, and show you what things need looking at.
I won’t even charge you consultancy fees.
Broccoli
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:00 PM
To LL/Philip:
Please stop adding new features to already broken code, subsystems, and systems.
Broken + New Features = Broken * (2~10)
(Read that as making it 2 to 10 times more broken)
All you’re doing is obfuscating (making more confusing) the problems you already have.
Fix what’s broken until you have a solid base to work from. Only then should you consider adding new features.
Shiny is not shiny unless it’s completely shiny - any tarnish ruins the effect.
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:01 PM
Dear Phillip;
Please take the time to think this through. Programmers (yourself included) almost universally suffer from Developers Syndrome. I.E. It is lots more fun to work on something new than to figure out what is wrong with an existing, very complex and interconnected system.
This almost always leads to new features being introduced on top of an already wobbly system, creating havoc for the User and making the life of those devoted to the drudgery of Maintenence and Repair (YUK) worse.
In your own words:
“While you might argue that we should already know (and of course we do) that there are lots of frustrations and bugs to fix in Second Life….”.
“….But how much did that change improve satisfaction with Second Life? I would love to have known, so that we could decide how much of our development bandwidth to focus on incremental improvements to framerate versus working on crash rates, ….”
Ask yourself this:
When was the last real bug “FIX” something that reduced satif