Liisa imagines the future
:: Simulators can handle a lot more avatars. Sim borders behave like parcel borders. Draw distance is 5 km by default.
:: We have gathered to the town hall square and LL has 500 employeesdressed up as riot cops to keep the demonstration of 50,000 avatars peaceful.
:: Governor arrives on the balcony of the town hall, she waits for the typing sound to stop before she starts.
:: Governor gets straight to the point. She tells us that the rumored system will apply within 6 months. She raises her hand to silence the massive typing sound that suddenly started in the crowd.
:: She tell us that there is no point slowing down the progress just to keep backwards compatibility. This is good news to many of us, but there is still people who think Mystitool is cool, they start to type again.
:: Governor tells us the new improvements in a nutshell and gives us a link to find out more details. People cheer and [CENSORED]
:: Suddenly some Mystitool user throws a blitz ball towards the governor. It doesn't reach her but falls into the crowd instead. Everyone's lagmeter turns to red.
:: The sim cleans the laggy blitz ball automatically but the riotcontrol Lindens lower their visor.
:: When no one is watching, Governor shakes her head and walks back in.
:: Most avatars start to take off or rez a vehicle to travel to their homes.
:: A small group stays behind, the Mystitool fanclub.
:: The end
(I mostly corrected only the punctuation and I added capitals.)
In 10 years maybe? Any way, back to the reality...
We know what the immediate future of Second Life holds: Viewer 2.0, shadows, meshes, LSL improvements and C#.
I know nothing about the Viewer 2.0 except that the marketing department would like to sell it to us a "SL 2.0". Bleh! (I hate marketing which promotes shit with cool names.) All I know for sure is that only 2 reactions are possible: disappointment or a V*sta Syndrome.
Disappointment because we will have waited for so long that expectations will be very high. People will want to see all bugs fixed in "SL 2.0" even if these bugs aren't actually related to the viewer. And that won't happen. Neither global illumination with shadows nor meshes. Nothing. This is supposed to be only a user interface revamping.
Apparently LL forgot the (little) riots when Dazzle was released and it was only about a color change. Honestly, I'm sharpening my fork and preparing a stock of vaccine against the V*sta Flu... err... Syndrome.
Radical UI changes will not be more welcome than a change of colors. The core of Second Life is the old-timers who defintively don't need an UI ("that will be much more compelling and relevant for a new Resident." (Quote from Howard Linden on Second Life Blogs)
All that we, old-timers, will retain is "frustrating", "dramatically", "different", "new ways", "challenging transition". (Almost a sentence.)
I heard somebody talking about the 3rd party clients to avoid the V*sta Syndrome. But will these alternate clients become obsolete because not "SL 2.0"-alike? Hmmm... I have doubts. Does any of these clients currently have a different UI than the official client? I don't think so.
When I see the awful mess that LL is about to shove down our throats to replace the good old forums, I have big doubts about the definitions of "good" and "better".
But let's drop the subject. I know nothing about this Viewer 2.0 but I offically already hate it. First, I hate the way LL handled the whole thing behind closed doors barred with Non Discolure Agreements although it's supposed to be OpenSource. LL must want to make us a surprize, forgetting that the last one was Dazzle and it didn't go well. Second, I hate the fact that everybody is waiting for this client. All innovation in SL and in the alternate clients is suspended until the release.
Let's switch the shadows on. Ho, it's nice but it's not for you nor for me. If you want any kind of performances, you better have the last graphics card that will be made next year. Prepare your wallet!
The meshes are a subject which deserve a blog post just for themselves. The implications behind the technicality are very serious for the future of Second Life.
Scripting improvements. Finally something that talks to me. The minor glitch is that we have to wait for this damn Viewer 2.0 before being able to test the new functions. I don't expect to see a new Release Candidate until then. The whole project is really good but the team which takes care of it is greatly underpowered and they must focus on a few chosen ones amongst the large number of functions actually needed. We will get closer from the final goal of reducing the number of scripts in Second Life but probably not as close as expected.
A second layer of improvements will be necessary and it should happen with C#. This would definitively not have been my first choice for a language to replace LSL but we don't have much option beyond taking what LL offer to us. Babbage already said no to any improvement to LSL besides new functions. So...
Let's wait and see!
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