Socially|Mundane

I am now well on my way toward my third rez-day and for most I might seem like an "oldbie", but for many others I'm still a newbie. Time compression in Second Life can be amazing. And you know what I'm talking about.

Everyone seems compelled to make predictions for the future with regard to Second Life and the grid. I think I'll go opposite and take an endearing look back.

Things happen considerably faster in Second Life than they do in real life. For example, those weddings usually create relationships that last for a couple months at most. If digital procreation is involved, the incubation period is between six and two-weeks instead of nine-months and the bizarre talking body parts and fetuses continue to creep people-out.

Everything happens incredibly fast in Second Life. Hence: time compression.

So my two-and-a-half years in Second Life actually feel almost like a lifetime. A lot of good memories in there. Amazingly, most of those memories are more about Linden Lab and the viewer than actual activities, though there are a few of those that really jump out.

I have written often about the ridiculous whining and shrill vitriol many users have shouted-out at Linden Lab. The real world changes and so does Second life. Not just in our own perspectives, but also in real code-law. Code-law being what you can and cannot do based on what the software allows you to do. Though many users have scripted work-arounds for code-law, there still are some things that just couldn't be worked-around and even a few "bugs" that were exploited, for bad or for good, by scripters.

So I am curious what your favorite Linden Lab/Second Life Grid/Viewer gaffes are. Now keep in mind, I am not talking about grid instability or the asset server eating your inventory or those times you try to cross from one sim to another and keep getting bounced back in unceremonious fashion.

Left: I was green once, too. No, neither of these are me, but I'm proud to say I have never, ever worn a facelight and I don't recall wearing bling - but I won't promise that, I'll just deny it. But to wear both at the same time is just wrong on so many levels no matter how newbie you are. This picture was taken at midday by the way. Yes, that's how horrifically bright facelights can be.

I'm talking about those niggly little things you never really complained about (though of course some people did,) that you fondly remember that might now be fixed.

I have a huge list of these things but I'll list a few here in no particular order. It's just a fun little list to remind me, and you that Linden Lab does want to quash these buglets and quirks whether you think they are ignoring them or not (in most cases.)

My favorite gaucherie has got to be the the first one on my list because it was funny and irritating at the same time:

PoseballPopoffs: It used to be when you were on a poseball, no matter what it was for, you were best to do by keeping hands off your mouse. If you changed anything, so much as your shirt, the change would pop-you off the poseball and you would be standing again.

Back when I was SL-green I, like almost all of you, had discovered the naughty poseballs. And it was pretty hilarious when on a pixel-date and things were getting a bit warmed-up to hot-and-heavy and you removed your shirt... POP! You are standing again. And then again when you removed shoes, trousers, undies and so on.

This is in the days of the prolific poseball. Every piece of furniture (or not) has pose balls all over it. A room would have great-looking furniture and be littered with blue and red balls hovering all over the place.

It got to where you would be adept at: take-off pants; zip mouse to poseball, right-click, left-click, pose again, continue. All at lightening speed. Those adept at the right-click, select pie menu choice, left-click, continue know what I'm talking about.

It was actually huge news when Linden Lab announced a viewer/grid update that allowed you to strip from full street-clothes to stark naked without popping off your hot-and-steamy poseball activity.

Booty-Hair: This one seemed to quietly fade away and it's a good thing, too. This was a hugely annoying bug that at one time was actually a dependable event: teleport somewhere and when you land your attachments, most commonly your primhair and shoes would end-up at the 0,0,0 (zero) coordinates on your avatar.

Your avatar is just an object mesh like any other prim. The zero-coordinate is at your pelvis as it is in most 3-D modelling applications. This gave the appearance that someone ripped your hair off your head and shoved it up your backside and gave you a good swift kick in the pants, to boot. Literally.

It was hugely frustrating. Especially since it was viwer-based. If you saw yourself that way, others didn't and vice-versa. As far as I know, it was Nicholaz Baresford who actually discovered the cause and fixed it in his version of the SL viewer and passed the information onto Linden Lab. It was another few months before the fix finally made it out into the official Linden Lab viewer. Quietly.

First Land: If you have a premium account, you are allowed to purchase virtual land on the Grid's 'mainland". However, before the days of higher-quality freebie-flooding like now, resources for users just weren't that abundant. The economy was better then and prices weren't so inflated. An average pair of shoes sold for about L$100 to L$200 and land was about L$3.5 per square meter (if I remember right - but that's not the point.)

However, to help new users obtain land, Linden Lab offered what was called "first land". This was a 512 m2 parcel on new land created by LL that a new user 30-days old or younger could purchase for L$1 per m2 parcel. You only got one. And back when people were still learning to build prim-efficiently, 117 prims just wasn't enough.

Unfortunately, when LL began allowing free accounts, the beginning of the alt invasion happened when people created alternate accounts and bought-up all the first land in a new sim. Then sold the land for zero back to their main account. Discontinuing 'first land' was probably a good idea on LL's part. Though the idea of first land was a good one to begin with. It's a case of the left hand slapping the right without thinking ahead.

Money Trees: They still exist and no, this isn't really a 'gaffe'. They were all over the place 'back in the day' and I know they still exist. Somewhere.

The idea was to help out new users and established users would donate L$ to money trees. New users, usually 30-days or younger could click on the fruit or whatever the paradigm was and get free L$. Usually L$1 per click and a limit of between L$3 to L$5 per tree, per day.

The benefit for the host was that it generated traffic, which was calculated very differently back then. Now, there are so many freebies scourging the grid that money trees are practically extinct. I have a money tree in the shape of a pyramid and works differently: anyone can use it, but it's a trivia model. Answer the questions correctly, win money. I still believe in them and thinking back about this gives me idea to throw one into my shop again.

Profile Voting: I really liked this. In each persons profile you could vote for them on one or more categories including their appearance, building skills, helpfulness and so-on. It lasted about six-months after I rezzed in world the first time and I was excited when someone actually voted for me in the "appearance" category, (no, this is not a picture of me in case you are wondering.)

Excited because it meant they were willing to spend L$25 to cast that vote and no, the L$ did not come to me. That was part of the problem with the profile voting: the cost. I understand it, though. It meant each vote was , supposedly, genuine enough that someone was willing to part with that much money to make their impression known.

The number of votes someone had was a good indicator of their 'trust status' with regard to reliability if you were thinking to hire them to build for you, for example. I miss it now because I would definitely vote for a lot of people I know who deserve it and I am better experienced with SL to know what I like. But, like first land, people 'gamed the system' as they always do. So Linden Lab killed the whole idea. This one I really am sorry to see go to the 'that was then, this is now" heap.

Location Voting: I still see the old Linden voting posts around sometimes. These are the tall green posts with the Second Life logo at the top and a proclamation to "VOTE!". Even though they still exist around the grid in places, clicking to vote doesn't do anything. At least, not officially.

Those places that had the highest votes would rise in rank in listings and, if I recall, there even was a L$ prize for the top-tier from Linden Lab. It also populated the 'most popular places' tab in search. This functionality and idea ceased within a couple weeks of my initial entry into Second Life. Gamed. As usual.

Telewho? Very quickly after my first arrival or possibly just before, the new 'teleport anywhere' feature was big news. There are some sims that still use telehubs. A telehub is the forced landing zone when coming into a sim, (yes, the whole sim,) but will stagger the exact landing point so people don't land on each other creating a resident totem pole. Once in the sim, then you had to walk, run or fly to your final destination. I honestly don't recall of you could teleport there once inside the sim or not.

Now, if the parcel/sim owner allows it, you can teleport from point-to-specific point, specifically.

AlphaBotch: The one gaffe that still bothers the hell out of me is the whole alpha-sorting issue. I am told Linden Lab claims it's not a bug and that it is set that way because of some graphic card chip that needs it that way. At least, that's my understanding.

This is the issue where transparent or semi-transparent items and textures look wholly funky when a transparent or semi-tranparent object or texture is in the background and they overlap. The foreground object practically disappears or appears behind the background object.

Way to go LL. Break the majority's experience to make the minority happy. Oh well. Guess I'll have to just live with it. I gave up on any hope this most irritating bug will ever be looked at, much less fixed any time soon.

It appeared after a forced viewer update in early 2007 and has been around ever since.

There are others, many others like prim-taxes, grey-goo, original copybot panic, teleport failures = crash from grid to desktop, the day they 'fixed the grid' and broke scripting that then allowed all vendors to give items for free - so they allowed the grid to remain open, but turned off ALL scripts on the grid (and being stuck inside some TV shop - before I knew the sit-on-a-prim to escape trick) and so on and so on.

So, what fun gaffes or faux pas are your favorites from Grid days gone by?