ClosedLife?

Quite a few people are flooding over to OpenLife Grid, and I was one of them today. I will be taking a very keen weather eye to this service, however, to see if it is the usual goofy and incompetent geek operation with lousy customer service we can expect in the opensource movement reverse-engineering Second Life -- or whether even being a pioneer, it can work with reasonable competence. I'll also be watching the forums very keenly to see whether the responses to my newbie help query are the usual smug, arrogant assholery, of the type "But I never had that problem, you must be retarded" or "there must be something wrong with your computer" or "I could help you but you can't be rude" blah blah blah. You can tell A LOT about a service on the basis of these simple tests -- and let me say, Linden Lab flunked them all when I came 4 years to SL, too, because the community they had enabled and supported at that time was nasty, snarky, belligerent, and sneering about newbie technical problems, and used social Darwinism to cull its ranks. I expect absolutely nothing less of new open sim communities -- if anything, the attitudes will be worse, redoubled with their sense of entitlement and hubris about escaping the evil Lindens.

I wasn't surprised to find that my name "Prokofy Neva" was seemingly taken there -- I find that in many places because goons get there first and grief me in this fashion. And that will be a test too -- whether the makers of OpenLife can fix that problem, or whether they take a Linden-like libertarian extremist position of saying, well, you didn't trademark the name, and everyone is free to chose their own name so blah-blah-blah. I took the name Prokofy Parvenu, because I won't stay long if I don't find reasonable access and service in a place like this -- service is paramount if you start a business and other people have to depend on you.

The template for trying to buy a sim is the most daunting thing I've ever seen on the Internet, even the U.S. government's electronic tax-payer site, that requires LESS information from me and has LESS repetition and frankly WORKS unlike this site. These idiots have you typing in the same information at least 4 or 5 times, very detailed, with MANDATORY cell, fax, etc. numbers and even "department' of your "company". They demand your tax ID number twice on each of the four repetitive templates -- it's insane. I've never seen a requirement to turn over a social security number for an $89 purchase on the Internet, even with recurring billing. It's not rational. These people are either paranoid freaks or amateurs -- the template is home-made or some sort of totally anal-retentive third-party biller, I think the former.

Worse, when I selected the $89 sim (yes, sims only cost $89 for 65536), I couldn't purchase it, even after filling out the ridiculous template. It kept telling me shopping cart was "empty" although of course...duh...I know how to select an item and click off a box showing that I want it into my cart. I refreshed...I struggled for a half hour, and then finally I wrote on the forums, "Hey, do you want to sell sims or not? Or do you want to keep it close"?

I landed on newbie island with a half dozen other newbs, in Ruth format. That's always annoying, but understandable. Unfortunately, appearance mode and its edit for body shape, etc. was stuck -- you couldn't get into it. I was glad to see there was a reasonably easy and workable downloadable viewer that puts you on newbie isle quickly, but I see in the forums lots of other people have problems. I crashed, and gave up for the day.

So here's what I had to say to these folks: hey, write when you want to sell me a sim. Make it easy. Otherwise, I will not be jumping over hurdles.

Comments

[Khamon]

OLG and Legend City do both seem to be simply tracing over Second Life. The virtual wora'uld concept was innovative and fun for a while; but it's just a form of entertainment not attractive in rehashed forms. These two are working under the same misguided notion that if you build it, communities will form around it and willingly accept the abuse and limitations you impose on them.

When a large, existing community I belong to builds a grid for it's members and guests to use as a tool for communication, work, and play among themselves, I'll bite.

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, Khamon, if one of my RL communities were to say, "let's make a grid somewhere" and put the grid in service of the community, instead of the community in service of the grid, it will simply flow a lot better.

[Ann Otoole]

Same exact experience I had with one of those open source SL hacks. The attrition rate of new accounts must be near 100% since those grids appear to be largely unusable.

No the replacement for Secondlife will not look like Secondlife nor will it be based on Secondlife code. Secondlife has too many issues built in. Let me know if a real effort gets going that does not involve LL, RRR, or IBM, operates on a real database platform, and uses real middleware transaction management layers. I'll help with the database side since metadata, object, and data architecture would be the drivers of all the code and not the other way around.

[radar]

I had the same type of experiences with openlife re: their website. It's the worst.

And I'm not 100% sure their "name taken" thing is working right, based on my results and a couple others I talked to, but I haven't gone back to figure out what I was doing wrong yet.

Ann, question, what's the beef with IBM involvement? I have no real feelings either way except if anyone knows how to run scalable platforms, they're one of them. Agree on the real database platform, in the case of database servers you kind of do get what you pay for.

[Tinsel Silvera]

Welcome to OLG. Glad to read that you are checking it out. I have had a sim there for a couple months now - I believe it has crashed 3 times so far. Inworld communication is still sketchy like all the OS grids. Most of us communicate through the website Chat which can be brought up via F1 while inworld and we also use the Forum IM's and postings. Inworld money system is on the way and then things should get more business like. Scripts can be iffy - I have had to reset mine a few times. I use the R15.1 viewer by Kristen listed on the website and keep my settings on low. Let me know if you need any help.

[Prokofy Neva]

Tinsel, don't be an ass. You are being watched carefully. Nothing you have said here answers the damn question. The website interface is totally fucked. It's impossible to buy a sim on it. I don't *care* if YOU bought a sim. If you can't fix your interface so that others can buy them normally, then it's no good. This isn't about comms, money, or scripts. It's about getting to square one by buying the damn sim.

[Sean Williams]

How about YOU stop being an ass and actually treat those who have or may offer to help you with RESPECT and be POLITE.

See, people are going to treat you the way you treat them Prok ... That's a simple fact. eventually, everyone gets tired of being treated like shit. eventually, you will find yourself only able to turn to those who are actually being PAID to take your shit for fear of losing their jobs. some of them will probably not care anymore if they get you frequently enough.

There is nothing at all that says you have a right to treat people who offer to help like shit: That's not a right, it's a personal choice and a flawed one to boot.

The Help Desk and anyone that offers to help you ... These people are NOT your personal, verbal punching bags.

[Teagan Blackthorne]

I had put this on my plurk but it fits your topic.

OpenLife is not the answer right now. It is too unreliable. If people are flocking there, they need to know issues that I encountered while testing it out.

1. Perms are dodgy. The perms I have set on items change on whim. This is not secure for any business future. Having items randomly change to full perm can kill your inventory.

2. Prims randomly remove themselves and liter the area. Yeah, that is not going to work for me. (I forgot to add that when you pick them back up, they have changed back to the default attachment point.)

3. Money system is really not in place with your "linden" balance changing each time you log in. (Granted uploads says $5L but never charge you right now but without a working system of payment that doesn't help.)

4. Search system is tied into Second Life so currently you can only map your way around so you better know your way around already.

It seems that is has a long way to go to be a truly stable replacement/alternative to SL.

[Ann Otoole]

None of this matters anymore. Non LL grids are now the future. Linden Lab being dumb enough to begin destroying evidence that would be used against them in an FTC investigation and trial pretty much seals the fate for SL. When a company's execs become federal convicts then it is all over.

Why don't I like IBM? Because they cannot be trusted. In over 2 decades of working in the IT business I have witnessed nothing but underhanded dealings, poor service, arrogance, and badly working products from IBM. If IBM shows up there is always a bad reason. Since IBM is in with LL along with RRR and the current really dumb crook activities have begun I fully expect IBM to begin distancing itself from LL as fast as it can go. In that I expect IBM to act in an expedient professional manner and withdraw completely from Secondlife and throw it's efforts behind some other grid or grids.

Kapor has firings to do asap starting at the top.

[Prokofy Neva]

Teagan, yes, all of that sounds pretty dodgy, to be sure. The Lindens had all of that locked down before they opened the doors, but they did NOT have a way to securely purchase Lindens -- they did allow the third-party site Gaming Open Market have terminals with connections to their website and the SL browser, however, to buy and sell Lindens, and it was secure. Perms on objects didn't change -- that's something that we've now been experiencing in later years but it was less of a problem in fact.

But that's all secondary. What I'm talking about is step one: where you buy a sim, and get started seeing what it will do. If you can't even buy the sim because the interface is too wonky, then it's crap.

[Paisley Beebe]

Prok I bought a sim in Open Life about 8 months ago just to see, very unstable environment. When I bought it I got no acknowledgement that I had bought it and not even a landmark to the sim so I could go to it, and for some reason I couldn't teleport to it. After a lot of emails back and forth I got to it. Built a house met some friendly people. But every time I logged in, I had to go through and adjust my appearance, I always defaulted back to Ruth. And after an absence of about 2 months I TP'd back in to find my land repossessed, and no house, I sent an email about it earlier this week and have not had one single reply. Now these people have my email address...if there was a problem with some sort of tier payment credit card not working ect..don't you think I would have gotten an email to say we are repossessing your land where are you?...what ever. And yes I do check my spam folder. I think its just some guy at home doing it for fun. Clearly there is no back end....I lost my 90 bucks thanks a lot, and good bye, my advice is clearly do not buy here, untill they have some customer service!!!
Paisley

[BJ Tabor]

Did I read that right, you gave your Social Security number to some website on the internet? My brain just refuses to accept that.

[Ric Mollor]

I can't help you on sim purchasing but can explain avatar customization on OpenSim grids.

The default shape and clothing that the 'Ruth' avatar has is not modifiable as you observed. One must first create a new shape and clothes, wear them, then modify them to suit. Once that is done the changes *usually* stay permanent between logins.

To continue your explorations of non-SL solutions I would also suggest looking at the grid list at http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Grid_List and perhaps visiting a few of those. The most interesting concept are grids that allow users running sim software on *their* computer to become part of the grid. Given the current hobby status of non-Linden grids this will probably show the most growth in the short term.

You may also want to give the efforts of the RealXtend team a look as they are pushing beyond what current SL technology. Be sure to look at their videos as it offers a quick overview of the project. http://www.realxtend.org/

[radar]

@Ric:

RealXtend lists system requirements as windows only. Is this the case?

Windows only VW's have the largest bulk of the marketshare atm, but looking forward 5 - 10 years I don't see this as a smart move.

[Prokofy Neva]

Ric, DUH, not only did I figure out that you had to make your own body shape but the people at the WA told me this. But the problem is you can't even get into edit mode on yourself to even do this. That was my experience. Instead of being the usual tekkie nit telling me extraneous stuff and telling me "how it is supposed to be" and acting as if I don't get it, listen to what I'm explaining about how it DOES NOT WORK.

[opensim]

"I wasn't surprised to find that my name "Prokofy Neva" was seemingly taken there -- I find that in many places because goons get there first and grief me in this fashion."

You really think a lot of yourself don't you. Well contrary to your Open Sim grid bashing, I assure you that the only reason your name is taken in the forums and site logins is so you couldn't possibly post there using it.

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, if my name has been removed in order to prevent me from posting on the forums and creating an account there, then we can understand just how "free" this totalitarian berg is. Thanks for the heads up.

[Anna Gulaev]

Did you get around using your SS# or did you actually give it to them?

[pyotr wolf]

dear prok,
why do you assume a stalinist conspiracy every time you don't get your way? your name wasn't banned, somebody just snapped it up before you did; sakai even offered in his reply to you to investigate the matter and transfer the avatar name to you if it wasn't being actively used.

for the record, sakai went out of his way to try and replicate your trouble, including trying several different browsers. there's been a huge run on regions in the last few days, but not one other user has reported the same trouble you had (one of the reasons sakai is still looking into your problem; he really wants to fix any issues that come up.) i was one of the first residents on OLG and i'e never even heard of anybody being asked for any tax information, and the staff are at a loss as to why you were asked this; the current guess is some sort of major glitch in the region purchase system, which, as sakai mentioned, is shortly due to be upgraded.

the funny part is you could have just joined the chat at any time and talked to somebody who'd help you troubleshoot, but instead you've made huge strides in alienating the community in a single day.

bravo prok. as ever, you've managed to drown your good ideas in a sea of bile.

[Prokofy Neva]

Anna, a corporation's Tax ID number is routinely put on all invoices. I don't have a problem putting a company tax ID number on a sales template on the Internet. The template refused to go through, however -- you can't click it through. If somehow they got this number and misused it, they will be sued, of course.

Pyotr, what a gross, persistent dickhead you are. Nobody "snapped up" a name like "Prokofy Neva". It was either a) seized by griefers to grief me and prevent me from having a presence on another service (I've had this happen a dozen times, including on Facebook, where Plastic Duck seized the name); b) taken by the owners to prevent my name appearing or c) a mess-up that happens on some systems whereby if you sign up with a name, it then tells you the name is "taken" -- which it is, by you, but there's been a glitch.

I don't care if whatsis said he'd investigate the issue. It's indicative of what we're dealing with: a griefer-infested asshole place, where the same assholes that ruined SL have lodged (like Lektor Hannibal to cite one very obvious case), and where even if some griefer hasn't taken it, as some other member has posted here (if he is to be believed), the owners blocked it. Whatever.

Sakai did not "go out of his way" to try to replicate this problem. He pulled down the view as he sees it and said "It isn't happening for me". That's how geeks do "customer service". They say "I can't replicate this bug" or "it isn't happening for me so you must be wrong".

What normal people do for customer service is to say "Tell me what you see." or "call me, and let's walk through what you're seeing" or "send me a screenshot of what you see". They assume the customer is right, and not an asshat for reporting something. A customer can't *make up* shit like four templates on a long Internet page (sign-up, billing, shipping, and shipping AGAIN) with a clearly defined TAX ID box.

It's not about the browser, in a world of geeks using Firefox as I do. It's about their own crappy service or their crappy third-party service.

THERE IS A FUCKING TAX ID BOX ON THE FUCKING TEMPLATE.

This is a 5-alarm fire for a business like this, and their attitude -- and the attitude of their existing fucked-up asshole members like yourself --tells us EVERYTHING we need to know about how these "open sims" are going to work. EVERYTHING.

I am happy to "alienate the community" -- the community of thugs, griefers, losers and assholes. They seriously NEED to be alienated. This guy has a moment to rise above his petty geek bullshit when everyone could be flocking to his business. If he can't do it, he loses. I don't lose. I'm happy in Second Life, as it is, even with all its problems. I don't *need* to go to another service. If he WANTS customers, he can fix his fucking problems without a heap of fucking attitude, and tell his fucking little friends to fuck off, they are losing him customers.

I don't get on live chat IRC channel bullshit in order to solve a problem losing to other goofy losers LOL and FACEPALM the day away. I post a notice on the forums, and see if it sticks. If it doesn't, I move on.

Paisley's experience has given me considerable pause.

[Connected Worlds]

is it just a coincidence Prokofy that your mannerisms are patterned off Andrew Dice Clay??

He had just as much credibility

[Prokofy Neva]

BTW, what's really funny is that if you go to that openlife website now and go to the Land Store, it's COMPLETELY changed from what I definitely saw yesterday, struggling with it for an hour. They must have hurried to do this upgrade after this public complaint or something. You can now see a completely different template.

[pyotr wolf]

or for fucks sake prok, you're tilting at windmills.
sakai (who you should realize is OLG's equivalent of phillip linden) said in his reply to you that "[...]We did a test checkout to check for the TaxID? you wrote above. I'm not seeing it (see screen shot below).
It would be great if you could let us know some more details ie. via the contact us page of what viewer you are using and we can try to replicate it."
how is that calling you wrong? where's this "attitude" you're wailing about? it sure sounds like he's asking you for more information to diagnose the problem to me, but i suppose that qualifies as "petty geek bullshit" to you.

as for your username, it was snapped up by a user. i presume it's to keep you from having it, but so what? do you honestly expect a guarantee that services you aren't a member of will reserve your username?

for that matter, you conveniently ignore the fact that the management offered within 15 minutes of your forum post to try and get the name transferred to you.

of course, what i'm wondering most of all is why you joined in the first place if we're all "thugs, griefers, losers and assholes."

as for the "the attitude of their existing fucked-up asshole members" such as myself, do you really think that this post is going to endear you to the handful of users who aren't familiar with you from SL? your reputation precedes you prok, and your reputation isn't so great. as best as i can tell, you're just trying to scare users away from OLG to protect your investment in SL.

oh well, at least it's a nice change from the moral panics you normally try to stir up.

[pyotr wolf]

checked this out for you:
---
Pyotr Wolf Thu Oct 30 2008 11:53:43 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
sakai, is the land store code the same as earlier today?
for mainland

Sakai Openlife (here to help) Wed Oct 29 2008 20:53:57 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
yes
exactly the same
no changes for about 2 months
---
no changes due to complaints; ever considered the possibility that you might have done something wrong?

also, just FYI, the mainland purchase system is completely different from the (newer) one for private clusters, which possibly could explain the differences you're seeing if you've logged into a different store; sakai mentioned to you in his reply that in the near future the mainland store will be moving to the same platform, but that hasn't happened yet.

[Prokofy Neva]

No, fuckface, I didn't "do something wrong".

The templates are "simple" -- seemingly so.

I understand the difference between "mainland" and "private clusters" asshole -- DUH and FUCKING DUH again.

This is why you people are DOOMED. And that's fine, because nobody needs you.

The land store template, when you click through to CHECKOUT is definitely, definitely different today. Your little friends aren't checking this, or following it through, or thinking like a customer.

It isn't that the customer is doing something wrong. It's that the templates are messed up -- and severely so.

You *can't* do something wrong on a website that has a huge big ass button LAND STORE that you click and see MAINLAND SIMS and click again to chose one of them, and put BUY NOW and CHECKOUT. I mean, any *monkey* can do this.

I didn't log into any "different store". Any fucking idiot can see that they changed something, either on their end, or the third-party sites end, it is definitely different today, I did the exact same thing.

Oh, bTW, it still didn't work to buy a sim ROFL.