Day: May 24, 2011

Voice comes to the Basic Mode Viewer 2

Posted on by Inara Pey

Viewer 2’s Basic Mode gains a new feature today – that of Voice.

While I don’t use Voice myself – I have nothing against it, I just move largely in the world of role -play in SL, and Voice can be illusion-shattering in that regard – I think it’s a pretty good option to have within Second Life, and adding it to the Basic Mode makes sense. To a point.

The problem is, a lot of things are “coming” to the Basic Mode (or have been indicated at coming) – currency, for example. To be fair, I’ve suggested some additions myself, although they appear to be fewer than those LL are contemplating. Which leads to a problem I’ve touched on before.

If LL keep adding to the Basic Mode, how long until it ceases being the “Basic Mode” and becomes “The Viewer”?  The function of a Basic Mode, I thought, was to ease new users into the Second Life / Viewer experience. Ergo, it makes sense to keep the Basic Mode relatively simple and clean. While things like Voice are very useful to have, the fact remains that if things keep getting added to the Basic Mode, then it won’t be long before any advantages gained in introducing it are going to be washed away.

In discussing this with Rodvik a while ago, I pointed out the need to provide a better transitional experience between the Basic and Advanced modes of the Viewer. It’s something he apparently generally agreed with, although he also appeared to imply that Basic might be more to do with making Viewer development more iterative, and that at some point in the future, Basic may merge with Advanced – presumably because the code base has been overhauled and made somewhat more modular, making future Viewer maintenance a lot easier.  If so, this throws the purpose of the Basic Mode into a whole different category than “simply” being a tool to help new users – and it’s future becomes somewhat more intriguing.

Personally, while I’m all in favour of making the Viewer a lot more modular (something I understand Bagman Linden (Jeff Petersen) is quite keen on) to the point of potentially making elements of the Viewer “optional”  / “installable as required” where users are concerned, I still think that the Basic Mode holds a lot of potential where new users are concerned, providing LL address its current shortfalls without overloading it with features and providing they add the means to bridge the gap between it and the Advance Mode smoothly.

It’ll be interesting to see which direction they do opt to take.

Who is spamming?

Posted on by Inara Pey

We all hate spammers – you know the type, they pitch up in Group chat and fire off an IM, complete with Surl for some sale or event that has nowt to do with the Group itself. Groups with open enrolment are, sadly, particularly susceptible to these idiots.

Deeply annoying.

But, in the case of large Groups, equally annoying is the tirades that then follow said spammer as Group members proceed to gnash teeth, yowl, shakes their fists and generally react – sometimes for several minutes at a time, the comments scrolling up the Group Chat window, and, well, spamming the rest of the Group.

Yes, spammers are a PITA but I really wish people would remember that by the time they’ve pulled up the IM window, typed a reply and hit RETURN the spammer is long gone. They’ll have closed their IM window and sodded off somewhere else – if not left the Group entirely to find another target.

So, before jumping on the bandwagon of condemnation (however tempting it may be), please spare a thought for the rest of your fellow Group members who have been equally affected and try not to become as much an irritant as the original culprit.