Second Life Login Screen, Now with More Info, and a few Questions
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 1:24 PM by: Katt Linden
Second Life Login Screen, now with More Information
We have made a few changes to the Second Life login screen, as you may have noticed, and we hope you’ll find them useful. You will see headlines from two sources, the most recent posts from the Official Second Life Blog and also the most recent Second Life Grid Status Reports. You can also subscribe to either feed, directly from the login screen, using the handy new RSS buttons.
A bit more detail:
1. Second Life Grid Status. This hasn’t changed, and does still display both the status of Second Life and the numbers logged in.
2. Second Life Grid Status Reports. This is new, and shows the latest few Status Reports. Each title is a live link, click to open the full report.
[A brief, recent history of feeds on this page. For some time after the Second Life Grid Status Reports page went up, the latest few Status Reports were displayed in area number three. For a few weeks they replaced the posts from the Official Second Life Blog, which were not shown on the login screen during this time.]
3. Official Second Life Blog. Back where they used to be, this area now displays the last few posts from the Second Life Blog. Posts are a live links, so you can click to go to the blog page and read the post.
4. RSS. Note the yellow circles we’ve drawn to highlight the RSS buttons in this screenshot. You can use to directly subscribe to a feed to either or both feeds, to read in your favorite RSS reader. (Click or drag them into your reader.)
We Want to Hear from You!
We Lindens would like to ask you about your thoughts, opinions and experiences in Second Life. Since there aren’t enough of us to speak to each of you directly, we are experimenting with login page polls as one way for us to ask for your feedback on a variety of issues. You may notice new questions appearing in a pop-up window when you login to Second Life.
Please, note that all of your responses are anonymous and you do not have to answer. We will not be sharing or selling your information or responses with other parties, (see our Privacy Policy.) These questions are simply to help us better understand you as a Resident of Second Life.
For now, these questions are in English and on the main login page, but we are working on ways to reach Residents with other languages and methods as well. Keep your eye out for new questions, and let us know what you think!
Thank you!
– This post is a joint project by Christa Linden and Katt Linden
Second Life Grid Status Report ( RSS ) ( Twitter )
June 11th, 2008 at 1:34 PM
Yes, I had noticed the changes, The Login page looks quite professional now, good work. I’ve had a couple of the polls appear too, glad to see it’s not the same old, “better or worse?” question.
Kudos to both of you.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:42 PM
looks mich better and polls looks better now but we need languages choice - you can chose language at log in - for example i chose spanish words from log in screen - it would be nice
and kudos to LL
June 11th, 2008 at 1:52 PM
I noticed, and already answered the “how do you spend your time” poll. I sincerely hope it is effective.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:53 PM
@ Darien and @2 andrew,
Thank you! I’m so glad you like the way it looks, and that you thought the poll was an improvement!
FYI, Christa will be commenting here today too, since she co-wrote this post.
We do want to offer surveys in multiple languages, but as we said it’ll take some time for that part.
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 1:54 PM
Are the polls still broken in the Mac client?
June 11th, 2008 at 1:54 PM
I don’t mean to sound rude, but, get your head out of the clouds, Katt! This is just more fluff! Pull Secondlife offline for a week, work on the problems, and THEN, once all these problems are fixed, or at least MOST of them, then and only then you can hand us shiny new toys and unnessesary problems…ahem, I mean, features. Or do I?
June 11th, 2008 at 1:57 PM
I’ve already filled in a couple of those resident surveys but you might want to know that the last one I was asked to fill in was just a blank empty black box, with no question or anything else in it.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:58 PM
Getting the “Login Failed” box too - Well, its bedtime anyway
June 11th, 2008 at 1:58 PM
Regarding the poll, I spend my time staring at a “Login failed.” message, kudos for updating the part of Second Life I see the most of though!
June 11th, 2008 at 1:59 PM
The new login screen is an improvement indeed.
It would even be nicer if the “grid status” and “status reports” wouldn’t be lagging behind so severely - such as now when the “status” indicates ONLINE but logins fail and the message “logins are disabled” appear. There seems to be room for improvements.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:00 PM
well asking me if I would reccomend SL to a friend just as Im trying to relog after a crash isnt going to make me want to subject a friend to this
June 11th, 2008 at 2:00 PM
LOL…nice screen, why doesn’t it reflect the fact that SL is currently down for maintenance…I guess its like the web site…neither ever has current info till long after the fact…if your gonna advertise all the “goodies”, make sure they work!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:02 PM
Hey, the login page looks awesome now! Lots of helpfull information - like the last time the grid is *oops WAS* down, usefull tips to try and use with a corrupt database, and lots of fluff to impress those of us not losing tons of $ on land, lost sales, and persistant downtimes.
Everybody aboard the fail train! Wooo Woooooo!
SL is down again, last time I got to log in I got the ‘would you recommend SL to friends and coworkers’ question.
Er, No?
Yeahhhhh Anyhow - Bitter and Jaded once more it’s NI <3 peoples.
FYI: I don’t *hate* the lab - I <3 SL - I just </3 all the problems with SL
June 11th, 2008 at 2:02 PM
Awesome Job, Its organized nicely and doesn’t look like too much info in my view. I havent seen the poll could it be an RC thing possible?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:02 PM
I see that the blog hasn’t been updated, since the logins are blocked, but theres no news of this development. C’mon, Lindens, try to warn us BEFORE you shut us out.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:03 PM
While i do appreciate the effort, i see no reason for the Login screen to have changed at all. To be honest most people never actually notice it. I have to agree with the previous comment,surely time and effort would have been better spent fixing the problems in game. Not blaming anyone in paticular and still love sl but its so frustrating dealing with the same probs over and over again.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:03 PM
OK how about an accurate grid status?
- can’t open group member lists for the past 3 hours
- can’t teleport
- can’t see anything on map
- can’t view object inventory
- overshoot and coast to death when moving within a sim without even crossing sim boundary
Aha - closed for maintenance. Sigh.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:03 PM
@Artemis, yes, that is kind of harsh, don’t you think? I understand that you are frustrated, but I assure you that the folks working on the poll and news feeds are certainly not being taken off of essential infrastructure work.
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 2:04 PM
Well, i would like the improvements and polls if they would be actual. They are never telling me WHY i cant TP first and then login fails when i need to know why. it just tells me approx 60.000 in (the people who want me to dj for them, too) and ME OUTSIDE!
;(
June 11th, 2008 at 2:04 PM
I like that, nicely done. Would be nice if i could see that also at full screen size (jira: VWR-667).
June 11th, 2008 at 2:04 PM
lol - I feel sorry for you Katt and Christa - Timing couldn’t have been worse for this post. Cheer up though, besides the problems, its nice to get more info on the login screen insted of having to check the individual pages
June 11th, 2008 at 2:05 PM
Hm. It’s a nice touch, but unfortunately it seems to lag behind a tad in updating the actual ‘Offline’ status.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
Artemis, settle down. No, pulling SecondLife for week wouldn’t be viable for most people.I’m not against it, but isn’t practical for what people are paying for in land and all. Settle down. Count to ten, drink some chamomile tea and take a breather.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
All good except for one suggestion- the “grid status” part is quite misleading.
Currently, the grid is showing as “online” with 59,000 people on it. However, I am getting a “login failed… temporarily CLOSED for maintenance etc” message for the fourth time in as many days….
Possibly a “relative” grid status message would be much more useful (i.e. will SecondLife work for me right now, not everyone else who’s apparently in there…).
June 11th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
Maybe Meta Linden should include monthly stats on the average number of blog posts before someone writes an abusive post or off-topic post?
@6 You do sound rude
Back on topic, I like the new login screen changes. The information is useful and doesn’t clutter the login screen. Good work. Thanks
June 11th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
froze for the 20th time, decided to relog, well thats me out for a while.there is a little blue box on the top right of the screen that can be used to send messages in world, I KNOW you know its there, I have seen it used a few times, its very useful to warn people not to try to relog you know, that would help the login load as well.
Also, isnt it about time logins were moved to e seperate rack??
June 11th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
I love how the status page says [Resolved] Logins disabled, even though logins are still disabled. Who’s in charge of resolving stuff on the status blog? Because it seems that person isn’t communicating with whomever’s actively working on the grid status.
I like the surveys, I fill out one each time I see the popup, although I do find it funny that we now need the status blog because the main blog was being overrun with grid failures. Dark humor, and all that.
I hope you post some followup metrics. I’m curious how the polls have turned out.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
It seems like the left hand dones not know what the right is doing .. grid status says ‘Offline for maintenance’ .. SL Login sys ‘Online’ .. wth is it .. of or on ?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:08 PM
Umm, While i do like the improvements in the login screen, I’m not sure it helps if the back end feeds don’t also have the current info…
I just tried to login, and the Status Report shows that logins disabled for yesterday June 10 as [Resolved], yet the login screen comes back that logins are disabled, and restricted to Lindens…
Hope this is helpful…
June 11th, 2008 at 2:08 PM
I hate the databasa :-(((
June 11th, 2008 at 2:08 PM
“C’mon, Lindens, try to warn us BEFORE you shut us out.”
I have to agree with Tyler. A warning before we were shut out (about ten minutes ago for me) would have been nice. I didn’t see any pop-up come up to let me know.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
The grid is open, and I just successfully logged in. If you’re having trouble, try again.
Thanks!
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
Good idea and nice info to have, but as long as the blog is out of date its useless. Like now. Logins disabled no info on the blog or grid status.
No point saying online when its not.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
Oh, a few more things. Firstly, i also have experienced the same problem (blacked out resident survey thing) that #7 has mentioned. Secondly, #12 brought up a point I was trying to make, about the fact that the “current events” in this blog are hours after the fact. And, finally, I do like the new layout, but i would like it more if I could go past it, and actually use SL, not be forced to admire the login screen and the “Logins restricted” window.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:10 PM
Great , comes exactly to a time when logins are disabled again and of course no update on the status page. Well is ok, is same as yesterday, just change date.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:10 PM
I too am glad to see the addition of items such as recent issues etc listed right on the page. The problem with this however is that less then an hour after this very announcement, it seems these updates do not show that the fact that the logins are disabled, nor do they show any listing of any problem at all. That seems a bit strange in my mind that something made to show us MORE info is not showing us correct info. Please have this looked into Katt. Thank you
June 11th, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Katt in response to you being able to log in, that is correct. That is because it is on Linden login only
June 11th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
2nd night running now I’ve not been able to login. Katt I dare you to have the Poll ask me if my experience is better or worse…I think you know what the answer is though.
Anyway enough ranting…Katt can you please tell us, or have someone post, telling us when you expect these problems to start getting less frequent?.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
Ahhh Ignoring the obvious huh Kat?
We have a right to be harsh, you want kudos when the thing doesn’t even work has described?
NOT IMPRESSED is putting it lightly, how about totaly disgusted…
and it’s not just because of the “Login Failed” screen, but here you are touting your wears when the application your talking about isn’t even working…are you folks in the same office?
I guess if the Linden’s don’t log in like the rest of us “common” folks, they have no clue about these activities…
Now the good news…If and when the screen will be consistent with the actual product, it wil be a good thing…and how about letting us know the results of these “polls”? I’d like to know what everyone else is thinking/saying…
June 11th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
Since this is Katt’s thread and we’re having the usual login-problems, asset-server-problems, tp-problems… (did I forget anything?) a direct question to you Katt, that you as the official spokesperson / communicator should be able to answer (I know you’re not a developer inside the lab, but a spokesperson surely knows how to extract and publish this information?):
What has become of the announcement that paying customers will take precedence over non-paying accounts when the load becomes critical?
Considering that I pay substantial fees to LL each month I find it unacceptable that I cannot log in while operations like “Traffic Injection” hog the grid.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:12 PM
I agree with Artemis.
“We Want to Hear from You!
We Lindens would like to ask you about your thoughts, opinions and experiences in Second Life”
This is a whole load of bull. I remember when 90% of us said, “NO voice, NO voice!!”; did you hear? NO.
Or maybe when 90% of us said, “Let windlights be OPTIONAL”. Did you hear? NO.
Hear us why? You never LISTEN anyway.
Yes, the new opening screen is all cool and all, new features are dandy, but what about the OLD PROBLEMS? The lags, inventory losses and overall instability are still there. Maybe you forgot your priorities on the socks?
Harsh? Yes, maybe sometimes some harshness IS needed. We cannot teach kids by petting them everytime they forget their homework but do a great job placing yet another silly, unnecessary painting on their bedroom walls.
I don’t apologize for my harshness or for my opinions and I agree with Artemis. FIX problems FIRST, and only AFTER everything works fine, only then, you take care of embellishments.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:14 PM
Now, a final note, I have to ask all you guys to back off. Katt’s right. SL is online again. for how long, i can’t tell you. just hurry through the opening before it closes again. *dives through*
June 11th, 2008 at 2:16 PM
You people need to realize that:
1. Not every website/game is perfect. There is always going to be problems no matter what. If LL is having server problems, they will work to fix it. Sometimes notices are sent out before block outs and sometimes not. But fixing the block out is more important than sending out notices about what we already know.
2. If you shut down SL for a week some businesses will suffer. Because believe it or not some companies do run a big chunk of their business off of the SL world. Even so, problems always happen because there is such a large database.
I don’t want to know about the individual problems SL is having, I can figure that out myself when I can’t TP or rez items. However I do like the new format of the login page because it is a lot easier to see information on the grid as well as what the Linden’s are up to. And as everyone else said that survey was a lot more useful, I thought.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:16 PM
@23 - Do you think that you’d get any more actual online time by keeping up with this vicious cycle they call grid status?
My last post was removed, so - No, I don’t think I’m being harsh; I think I’m being realistic. This is not to be taken personally, but stepping into the future with this “attitude”, for lack of a better word, will get LL(tm) nowhere.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:17 PM
“We Lindens would like to ask you about your thoughts, opinions and experiences in Second Life. ”
But obviously not enough to always sort through the comments….read everyone’s comments at an office hour…or even *gasp* respond to JIRA tickets, as evidenced by many many MANY JIRA’s just being collectively IGNORED. It’s rather hard to believe people care, when there’s no acknowledgement of specific issues raised, and instead “here, have some distracting shineys!” is peddled instead.
Business as usual…
(Yes, I’m getting cynical in my old age…)
June 11th, 2008 at 2:17 PM
yes it is back online, however it was offline per the newly posted Grid Status at 2:12pm:
Logins were temporarily disabled to address a database issue for a few minutes, they are open now. In-world transactions and related issues are now behaving well again and you may return to normal activities.
That does not change the fact that the login screen never showed the correct info and that is what some of us were questioning based on the posting of these new features to provide us with MORE info. That is all.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:19 PM
About the survey:
We just checked the survey and do not find any problems. If you experience a problem, please let us know, ideally by filing a support ticket but at least let us know more — about your OS, your viewer version number, and any other info you can share — we can’t fix it if we can’t reproduce it! Thanks!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:23 PM
Nice to see some stats on the login screen. If only i could login. lol
Now how about a poll to have a choice between a voice veiwer that freezes every minute or a non voice viewer that don’t. Yes half my time is spend shouting at a frozen viewer screen. come on LL get on top of this one, it’s been around since the first voice viewer.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:24 PM
@Otenth and Katt
User survery does not allow comments on the Mac client, and has not for… well, since it’s existed. Same with all Mac client versions. It is acknowledged on the survey itself, although the alternate link it provides also seems to be borked. See also http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-600 and other JIRA entried found by searching on the word “survey”
June 11th, 2008 at 2:24 PM
I like the new login screen. I noticed the general help links have gone. That’s a good thing though I would probably have one link on the login screen to help and support pages for noobs.
I have flown the flag before for MRU ‘drop-down’ form fields for names/password/location on the login screen.
I have legitimate reasons to login as an alt sometimes and currently have to find the file with my passwords before opening the SL client. This is clunky and MRU’s would be an intuitive addition.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:26 PM
Katt?
Is this week 10 or week 11 of daily borked asset servers?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:27 PM
The new page sounds great. More information can be helpful and I like the tips on login that can be very useful.
The surveys are a nice touch and would like to see more of them. This is kind of a constructive approach to seeing how your customers are feeling about the service being provided.
Wow the grid is overloaded again? If these problems we are having is due to an overload of people, I wonder how much smoother Second Life would run if age verification was implemented at log on to keep the children from entering the adult grid?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:28 PM
@27 McCabe
The folks who post to the Status Reports are, themselves, the people working on the problems — the team designates one individual who updates that report. Sometimes they don’t post details because they don’t yet know the cause of problems. Sometimes issues are not widespread, for instance whatever had some experiencing login failure just now, and in cases like that the Status Report might not always be updated. (I don’t know what happened there, I’m simply listing some reasons I can think of why the page may not be up to date in terms of your own experience of the grid.)
Thanks for your patience!
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 2:29 PM
Well, perhaps some of my messages on the sldev list did not fell into deaf ears, after all… Yes, using polls is excellent. I only wish they will focus on immediate things, such as “Should we release Dazzle with its current (eyes-blinding) skin ?”, or “should we extend the (slow, unpractical) web search to the groups, people, places, etc ?”…
THESE are important questions, as they are related to SL overall usability.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:30 PM
Okay will try to give you ferdback when asked via the login screen.. the information is getting quite cluttered though. I would appeal to you to make sure teh actual login area comes up fast and does not wait fro other cionetnt connections and loading… so we can type through and get in withjout wiatign ages.. as happened some time ago with an earlier viewer release.
Another thing while I am on… in case the Viewer Linden code folks spot this… thought I know I should take the time to report it as a bug or probem… with the 1.20 RC viewers the saved last location screen is not the usual clean image. it now shows all HUD items, splash screens, tools that are up and even the drop down menu if yiou have logged off via File -> Quit! Surely that needs fixing before the RC viewer gets to be the standard one?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:32 PM
How about adding a field on the login screen that shows “Uptime since last asset server failure”?
It looks as if that number would of only have risen to about 24 hours today as there are problems again.
Unless 7,500 people decided to log off at exactly the same time.
Right at peak concurrency.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Love it, looks great….. fix the missing inventory items and undelivered bought items? Please.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:36 PM
Katt… The grid is still highly broken. Logged in, sure, but I’m Ruthed, inventory won’t load or interact in the slightest, groups are taking an inordinate amount of time to function in any fashion; Please close the grid back down and actually get it properly fixed. Half-functional is unfortunately not good enough.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:40 PM
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the input on the surveys. I’ll look into possibilities for sharing results. We will be changing up the questions on a regular basis, so you will see a mix of issues addressed.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:41 PM
I really kind of doubt that when the first TV’s were designed they said O.K….thats it…good enough! So why all the ballyhoo about changes and improvements? Yes I would love to be able to log on right now,…of course having it all flawless would be great but lets face it…it takes a hell of a lot to do a hell of a lot, and theres a hell of a lot of us in there doing God only knows what and doing it using who knows how many different OS’s and an endless amount of differing styles and types of computers from all over the world! It amazes me we get to do as much as we are in the system, not to mention it still works at all with the load WE put on it daily! The grid is the best I’ve seen so far! Got better? Lemme know!!! It is just as bad on LL as it is on us when things go south if not worse with all the bickering! If the possibility that it is a work in progress and it may never be completed to your satisfaction is too much to get your head around,….Sorry, cant help. On the other hand, if this is a thought you can even remotely concieve, it is easy to understand how problems will arise, and it will take time to solve them as they occur. There is no crystal ball that shows the future! We are creating it here and now. Katt, You freakin ROCK!! Thanks for doing what you can to keep us all in the loop. Hope to see ya soon! Imagine please, closed minds are dusty and sad,…so it seems.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:41 PM
@55 Ai
If you don’t file a ticket on that issue, I assure you that the support folks won’t know you’d like it fixed!
Really, they need you all to do this step when you find issues, because that step puts issues in the process, allows them to know if one or dozens of people see the issue, and give essential feedback to enable reproducing it so it could be looked at….so please! file the tickets!
thanks,
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 2:43 PM
kattunications, why are you always away for two weeks not taking care of us poor logged off PAYING PREMIUM residents? pls don’t waste our time with your plattitudes and rather show us for the first time the short term, mid term, long term plan for this game.
I love SL, I love voice, I love windlight, I love Dazzle, I love my avie, I love my alts, I love ad farms, I love ugly mainland, I love dull campers, but I do not appreciate the performance of this game
be proactive!
best regards
June 11th, 2008 at 2:45 PM
YEAH
Well done! Very nice work indeed.
Suggestion
1- I wish I could customize and share the wallpaper.
2- Every time I log in a different account I have to type first and last name. Would be nice if we have just one text field for full name and a option to save it.
tkx
June 11th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
OK!
So some of you said you were seeing problems with the actual survey, so I checked up on it. We are not able to reproduce the issue, and I’m using a Mac (and no special Linden magic! ) so,
if you do have a problem with the survey, pretty please, note it here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-600
Thank you!!
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
Odd…. the comments I’m trying to post dont appear on my screen, but the site says theyre up…
June 11th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
I think it’s time for an end to the “smoke and mirrors” development, and time to get some real work done on the back end systems. Daily at 60k concurrency the Grid mysteriously goes down due to “High load” or “Maintainence.” and several thousand people drop offline.
We need a solution, learn from Nero’s mistake, you can’t just keep on distracting people and fiddling with a shiny interface or fancy graphics while teh Labs burn.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:53 PM
Front door looks good.
I always change the front door to a nice pretty red one when i’m selling a house. Has some mystical effect and lures buyers in.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:59 PM
Hello kat
is there ever comming a viewer in dutch ???
there are more then 90 000 dutch registerd residents now
almost every software is availeble in dutch but not the SL viewer
June 11th, 2008 at 3:03 PM
For the questions, it might be nice to have another box where we could write our own answer (if you really want my opinion that is). For a question like would you recommend friends and/or family to second life, the answers yes, no or maybe just dont cover it. Some I would. Some I wouldnt. If you want to know which is which and why, I need a text box.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:03 PM
as long as there are not 90000 dutch concomitantly online, there will be no dutch viewer lolllllllllllllllllllllll
June 11th, 2008 at 3:06 PM
I like to suggest maybe we could have *an all knowing linden* who knows about the database as a GUEST on the blog so we can ask questions and maybe JUST maybe some answers to when and why and who WILL fix these daily issues i se them asked daily for over a year now and there is never an answer its always pass the buck to someone else or this is not the place,, well i would really like to know where the hell the place is that answers this cus your knowledge base or your support people do not give us a TIME or an ESTIMATED DATE when this will be REALLY resolved and not bandaided… why dont you really relate to your customers and give us some real answers for once
June 11th, 2008 at 3:08 PM
cause it is not their fault, disgusted
June 11th, 2008 at 3:12 PM
I have a question for the next survey:
“Would you like to buy grey things?”
June 11th, 2008 at 3:14 PM
And the follow up question: “Would you like the grey things you buy to show up and stay in your inventory?”
June 11th, 2008 at 3:16 PM
@71, Thanks for the suggestion about offering a text entry field for survey questions. We’ll keep that in mind as we move forward.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:22 PM
[...] The Lab has posted about the new entry screens and surveys, although specifics about the questions aren’t [...]
June 11th, 2008 at 3:22 PM
i sat and did the ‘how do you rate these av’s’ survey between crashes lock out and massive lag…and had to ask myself why? who spent this time designing new av looks that no self respecting newbie sports for longer than they can locate the first freebie place offering skins and shapes???
The only av’s using off the self forms are the bots….a new body is priority #1 for real people (well maybe #2 after new private parts:)….)
Don’t waste time making new robot wear, if you want to be artistic try and work out how we can have 2 alpha/tga whatever textures in close proximity and not have one disappear….
June 11th, 2008 at 3:25 PM
LL, listen. Please. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CLIENTS. if you dont start listening, they might start to leave. all these new features are nice, but the people want the MAIN problems fixed.
I believe you should recall an old saying of yours…:
“We Want to Hear from You!
We Lindens would like to ask you about your thoughts, opinions and experiences in Second Life”
Was that just a meaningless phrase designed to make us feel like you cared? or do you actually listen? if you listen, heres the people’s message:
“GET TO WORK.”
June 11th, 2008 at 3:26 PM
The problem occurs as if on a clock perhaps the techs need to check for a router with an incorrect maintenance schedule It seems as if some brain dead entered 2 PM instead of 2 AM for the automatic cycle to begin. Just a thought because there was not much of a load on the system at this time.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:27 PM
seeing as you have given up on trying to fix the growing performance issues of SL I am glad you have decided to move on and make the loginscreen more entertaining, the only part that will be accessible for everyone in the future. great work, may I suggest developing a few minigames to put there, you could make the people sort the database issues manually and disguise it as a funny game. what do you think?
June 11th, 2008 at 3:27 PM
The work on survey and login screens is hardly going to take up much time from those working on fixes, if any at all, different ball game. You’re complaining to the wrong people here, Katt is a communications person, she’s expanding communications, she’s not a techie.
Talking of login pages, any chance of putting the status page link on that toolbar up there next to community, land blog support yadda yadda yadda, that’s where it should be.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:27 PM
Katt et al (er, I mean et Christa)…fascinating and useful to be collecting the survey data. Good metrics I’m assuming for…well, I’m just wondering for what? First, can you give us a run-down of what the surveys currently cover? So far I’ve had a gender survey (is your avatar the same gender as you are) and a “how do you spend your time” survey (which includes shopping, exploring, socializing I think, education….but is what happens on R-rated sims “other”? And is role-playing socializing? Not that I would have selected these things of course).
I’d love to hear what the surveys currently poll, out of interest. What they’re being used for in general. And whether any of the data will be released, whether it will be segmented by location or country, etc.
Feedback appreciated!
June 11th, 2008 at 3:31 PM
Hmm, do we get any graphs or charts after voting, I really like to see what people have voted on, because I’m nosey and I really like graphs and charts. XD
I haven’t seen anything on log in yet to answer anything but I’ll try and answer them all.
I like the RSS feed and the calendar too, please always keep the calendar because I have it showing within mine and appearing on Google desktop so I can quickly see what’s happening all the time.
See ya,
SDF
June 11th, 2008 at 3:49 PM
I’d like to say… good job Katt. I noticed and appreciated these changes. I have noticed also that you are working with “low noise” but on the communications that matter. All of this (including your approach) is much appreciated by this resident. Thank you
June 11th, 2008 at 3:50 PM
The new login screen is an improvement on previous versions.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:00 PM
@ 41: “This is a whole load of bull. I remember when 90% of us said, “NO voice, NO voice!!”; did you hear? NO.
Or maybe when 90% of us said, “Let windlights be OPTIONAL”. Did you hear? NO.
Hear us why? You never LISTEN anyway.”
You’re right - this IS a load of bull. You’re aware that the Windlight rendering and the voice component ARE optional, right? Just turn voice OFF in Preferences and disable the advanced water/sky shaders, and you’re right back to pre-WL rendering.
LL does listen - but they’re not magic fairies with nothing else to do but fulfill all your wishes with a wave of their wands. They’re only people, too. o_O
June 11th, 2008 at 4:01 PM
Oh, and Kate & Christa, cool job
Hope I catch a survey soon 
June 11th, 2008 at 4:01 PM
Simple peice of advice — the graphic displayed in the background of the login screen, that island with some terraformed trees?
It’s old, and frankly, it’s kinda ugly. That’s the first graphic your potential customers will see, and there’s so much better to see then a empty island with a few linden trees from a distance of about 100m. How about some party shapshots? Or bunches of avatars shopping? Or one of the dozens and dozens of builds that push the envelope of what can be done with this system?
Time to start showing off, Linden Labs. You’re worth it.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:07 PM
And a P.S.
To all you people using this form to whine about “lag” (Funny, I run second life at 50-60 FPS in max settings regardless of location and stay connected for *days* generally — it’s called a properally configured system) — How about staying on topic?
June 11th, 2008 at 4:11 PM
@82, all I have to say is LOL! issue minigame. sounds fun. Maybe a collectors card game. “220 different issues, collect them all!”
June 11th, 2008 at 4:28 PM
What (informative) logon screen? All I have ever seen is the button strip along the bottom and the rest is black!!! I used to see the graphic and the number of people online, PDT, etc. But it all turned black about when the 1.19.X clients arrived. So, through all the later updates and the Release Candidates… I see only a BLACK LOGIN SCREEN!
Is there something different about my equipment? Damn rignt there is. I use a 30″ 2560×1600 pixel display. If I resize to a much smaller pixel count, I do see the login screen detail. But it disappears when I resize to fit the full screen.
It is a freaking nuisance to go through the resizing at every login so obviously I do not do it and never see the login screen information.
Someone at LL has disabled support for my screen. What is that?
June 11th, 2008 at 4:29 PM
kudos…
June 11th, 2008 at 4:35 PM
#90 you are on to something here….we could have a survey on the best front page graphic….
the half ruthie look?
the ‘I see grey people? or graphic missing’ crowd?
the head up my backside look?
the incontrollable walking off sim image?
or
all the robots standing in a skybox cheating traffic shot?
vote now
June 11th, 2008 at 4:52 PM
@84 Dusan,
I really appreciate your question. We’ve initiated additional surveys to sample Resident attitudes across a range of subjects. We are experimenting with this as a new channel for communication and expect to hone the questions over time. Currently there are about a dozen questions on rotation. Some issues currently addressed include: brand awareness (”Have you seen the inSL logo used in your community?”), brand comprehension (”Do you know what the Second Life Grid is?”), popularity trends (”What is your favorite Second Life mainland community at the moment?”), and learning tool effectiveness (”Have you viewed Second Life Tutorials? What skills have the Tutorials helped you learn or improve?” ) among others. We hope that the data from these questions will help us understand common perceptions about the experience of being active in Second Life as well as identify the effectiveness of certain tools and programs. For the time being the surveys aren’t differentiating segments or locations, although it is something we are thinking a lot about.
@85 Steven,
We are looking into ways to share findings with Residents as well as how to extend these surveys in languages other than English. It will take time to get there. But we, as always, greatly appreciate your interest and patience!
Thanks,
Christa
June 11th, 2008 at 4:57 PM
i like it. i also like the surveys lately. the GUI one was a really cool feedback tool
keep up the good work!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:00 PM
It Would Be Cool That The Login Picture could Be personalised……
But ITS STILL AWSOME!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:02 PM
The surveys are certainly a welcome addition, and it will be interesting if we are to see the results.
With any venture the size and complexity of Second Life, there are always avenues of improvement, and the increase in communication, and response in some of these blog posts by LL employees is a much welcome thing!
One of the biggest issues that I have seen is the lack of knowledge of how to address some issues that we as members face. The PJIRA is generally considered to be much to complicated (and with a lack of on simple info on how to use it - face it, not many are going to take the time to read the pages of how to properly fill in a bug report). Other things come down to education, such as how to properly file an AR, or a support ticket - as it is, I believe Lindens spend way too much time having to wade through the ‘garbage’ in order to get to the reports of problems that actually have enough information to help solve them.
Better communication is key in keeping up resident morale, so keep pushing towards making this better
June 11th, 2008 at 5:10 PM
Hi Katt.
We already pay LL hundreds of thousands of US$ a year. How much more do we have to pay to NOT have those surveys appear on our login screen?
If you want our opinion on something.. You have our phone number. Just ask.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:22 PM
@99 Chaos & others who need help with filing bug reports, this is Torley Linden’s video tutorial on that subject:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/01/17/tip-of-the-week-18-how-to-report-a-bug/
Also, on searching the pjira:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/01/31/tips-of-the-week-19-text-chat-macros-20-quick-searching-the-issue-tracker/
Hope this helps
June 11th, 2008 at 5:24 PM
How about making the login page compatible with Digital Persona so we can log in with a fingerprint scanner? That’s some really good security and saves time too! Thanks.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:32 PM
BTW, https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-667 reports on this 30″ screen blackout issue.
Please vote to fix this bug.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:36 PM
I agree with # 90…please change the background of the login screen. Perhaps make it different each time.
Oh, I noticed a couple of days ago someone used the blue screen notice to announce transaction failures and they just discovered it..perfect timing to announce the issue, it’s timely and very much appreciated.
Though what I hated was not being able to login when the page says ONLINE. If only there’s the ability to refresh the screen to update the info.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:40 PM
@100
Hi Garth,
If you don’t want to take the survey, you can decline — sorry if the request bugs you!
If we’d like to ask questions of many of you, where would you prefer to see surveys, or how else would you suggest we do this? I’m curious.
(Phoning is hard to scale, but also we would never go through your personal data, of course.)
Thank you!
– Katt
June 11th, 2008 at 5:44 PM
I noticed the new features in the viewer and like them. I’ve done a couple of the polls, and they worked fine for me. I strongly agree that the viewer’s image needs to be more dynamic - it doesn’t do justice to the SL experience at all. Of course, I’d much rather have the SL performance issues resolved than prettying up the viewer, but I’ll take what I can get
I’m not sure if this is the appropriate place, but is it a known issue that the viewer’s “remember password̶