It's curious because VRChat requires knowledge I doubt many casual users in SL can handle. It's the least user friendly, it's kind of the wild west, and yet it's booming commercially and with community. Competitive metaverses like roblox and fortnite have introduced tools for advanced content creation - and so on.

SL is struggling with dying communities - much of that is due to rising costs, parts of that is due to the restrictions SL has on content creation that becomes terribly frustrating.

ie - I can't mesh an entire world and upload it. I must cut it up in chunks and hope to not mess up rezzing it down.

There's no mesh physics or uploading with mesh physics bones. There are very few tools that create a desired world or effect. The graphics engine is behind (though it will be updated), but it's still behind its competitors.

tbh tho SL has a steep learning curve just to exist; like for new people coming in how to find things, how to wear those things, the difference between appliers/bom, and so on. In VRchat you can go in and find "starter" avs easily and get your feet wet, you can easily copy avs from other people, and then

if you want to go further you can go down the rabbit hole of getting custom avs/building custom worlds

Valent1ne: you can copy avatars, but if you want to put together an identity that is more -you- you have to pick up a 3D program and learning unity. Essentially, to customise anything that is you, you have to learn the basics of 3D modeling, though you don't need to be too indepth with it, depending on your resources.

I feel like the creation challenges are similar between SL and VRchat, and not all users are creating on those levels in both worlds nor do they need to. SL's struggle right now is mostly cost and also the demographic it appealed to - SL is an older crowd and there's far more younger people in VRchat. Why though I'm not sure

But in SL it's as simple as buying a thing, rezzing it out. Right click> adding > moving it around. You don't need external knowledge to customise a 'you' so to speak.

I get the feeling people in VRchat aren't quite as concerned with customizing their av in that way, it seems like people who want a more custom or at least unique av will buy it from a creator and settle for that. If you want one that is specifically you then yeah you have to either shell out for a complete custom job or learn a 3D program

Valent1ne: With VRChat, it's the low cost, resources/tools but also the opportunity and vast creation tools provided by unity. They can do so much more than SL ever could dream of -- but not only that, it's easier compared to SL

Right, there's pros and cons of both worlds. Creating a space in SL is prohibitively expensive and if there's nowhere to go because nobody can afford to buy land, then.. where is anyone going to go?

But you can definitely be more "you" in SL, much easier and cheaper with more custom options

Valent1ne: Right, coupled with outdated creation tools, there's no appeal.

I'm coming up on about 18 years in SL. I for sure think the community was more fun, interesting, and engaging when everyone was building visibly in the same spaces with prims, vs. when mesh came in and everyone started creating in other platforms and importing it.

First land was so much fun because everyone made these god awful homes, but they were hand-made and always unique and you could watch someone doing it live and also help. Everyone had agency in-world and everyone was always learning how to do things and very proud of their creations. Now, you need to do all that elsewhere. SL is Shopping Life.

It definitely was more lively back then, and lots more creation. I hung out nearly my entire time in a sandbox just building or watching others. But I also don't really think building individual objects in-world is going to come back really, unless someone makes a multiplayer version of Blender or something lol

Yeah, for sure! That's the real question - it would be so hard to make something like Blender on the grid. But people do miss the creation aspect being a social thing. If you could solve that somehow, it would help a lot.

thaumata: Valent1ne: Honestly, I don't think inworld creation would bring in new people, but it will at least keep the older audience around/coming back. I think SL's boom is it being a unique concept with little competition that can compare.

-but times are different. Technology's leaps and bounds above SL and content creation is easier on VRChat, roblox, and fortnite in comparison to SL.

yeah I don't think people come to SL for the building/creation alone but in any virtual world people want to be "themselves" and usually want to have their own space even if it's just an apartment sized area to be alone for 5 minutes or chill with friends. For me it's hard to get an av that's "me" in VRchat

Valent1ne: Yeah it's still in its infancy while they're trying to find a style that isn't uncanny looking. They're stuck in the anime style train, which is the safest from uncanny valley.

The tools alone aren't enough, for sure. I used to work for a company called Vizor that was doing 3D creation online and it was boring without the social aspect, like the opposite problem.

-- and I will note this because the labour I'm doing right now in SL could be reduced to a mere few hours if I was making it for a proper engine. Animation in SL is like pulling teeth; we lack IK to do simple things like two handed prop holding, lacking physics bones makes it so rigging coats, capes, and flappy things is painful

I'm meshing a whole world and I need to chop up everything because of the limitations SL has, adding an extra 12+ hours getting everything labeled and set correctly with LODs

I can confirm that content creation in SL takes like, 3x more labour than its competing platforms

I'm hopeful for the PBR update, like personally one of the reasons I stopped making things was I just got sick of doing the whole 'baking' dance and having my things not be up to my own personal standards when I could make something that looks awesome in unity or UE

it's just so much more complicated making things for SL than even like, UE circa 2017

Valent1ne: Right, it's incredibly restricting with so much more labour involved. The sales I'm getting is monumentally lower compared to my colleagues in VRC and Roblox. Possibly Fortnite soon since it recently opened its content creation program

SL's only boon is its matured content, but its features are way behind and content creation is difficult - of course the high price required to even host a community is also a large factor.

So reading over your thoughts, SL is leaking community because: Sim prices are too high and competition costs lower to host, Competition has better tools for content creation that makes it easier to do.

The pricing is also a bit different for VRC, I know just looking on gumroad for avs, one av is easily $32 USD, that's roughly 8000L for an av you have minimal customization options for but people will shell out for it

Valent1ne: Right, which barely dents its thriving market. I have few friends making between 10,000 to 35,000 usd with single items (I've been scoping and asking about their numbers lately)

and yes, combo sim prices being too high + current RL economic situation leading to fewer sims, plus the demographic that got in at the boom - millenials - now having kids and stuff and going off to RL, and gen z mostly prefers VRC/other games it seems

and uh, gen x and boomers uh died to covid >_>

Valent1ne: I'm part of the younger crowds - millenials/genz. The biggest complaint among us are 'There's nothing to do here' - and a lack of community to do things with

I mean I do personally know bunches of gen z-ers in SL but going in to VRC it's like literally nobody over 32 or so, I felt like a dinosaur at 35/36 lol

Valent1ne: LMAO yeah. They're a clever generation too, considering how much they can already open up blender and rig their purchases for VRChat

VRC does also have better options for making actual games - the most thriving communities in SL right now are text-based RP sims because that's really what SL caters to. You can't hope to make much else with SL's jank-ass physics and slow script system

Valent1ne: Yep, we've tried. It's so jank in general. SL's content creation tools are restricted, difficult to work with, and there's not much we can do to turn sims into something more than a nice place to look at - and making cool, immerse effects too, requires some macguyvering.

I think this affects community as well.

yep for sure. The biggest complaint - "nothing to do" is a direct result of that. There's only so much Greedy you can play lol

Valent1ne: Right. This makes me wonder if SL's focus on a new welcoming area a waste. We can make things welcoming, tell them everything they need to know, but would potential new users actually stick? Sim costs are high, extra labour is needed to create, return is low, and there's restrictions on making fun things compared to competition.

Would things change if content creation tools are up to date, coupled with LL's already potentially vast available content and matured styles which is still its boon at the moment.

I forgot to add a ? there

Just so you know I'm enjoying this discussion LMAO

imo it is and it's a bit out of touch, like work on the other issues mentioned above first and then worry about onboarding. I think the PBR update is a big step in the right direction. I don't know what it would take to upgrade SL's sim architecture and networking to smooth out the jankiness of it but i assume it's a lot and i'm not holding my breath lol

Part of SL died when we lost viable building tools in the platform itself.

I think a lot of the money side of things in SL is that people have been trained to not pay, so they refuse to. If VRChat people are paying 32.00 a hit for an avatar they cannot change hair on every hour, cannot chang e shoes every other minute etc, then SL may just be doing it wrong. We used to pay a lot more for a lot less ten years ago than we pay now.

my custom avatar on VR chat cost nearly 100$

i think sl people would be blown away if they were asked to pay those kinds of prices for avatars in sl

however i paid more because i bought a base model and head for my own personal tweaking, so i got the object files, texture files ect.

SL going Mobile will bring in new people. New people will cause change. Taking your wishlist of improvements to SL I think is a really good idea, especially as it turns 20 and is working to improve. Maybe SL can do something like Twitter Blue Checkmark (pre-Musk) Certified Designers who know how to build correctly, can upload larger chunks.. or something

BishieStyleSL: right now they are talking about labeling those that practice better management of LOD complexity etc, a lot of creators will get a shock when that comes in to play if it does and customers start to actually pay attention to that with their money

Contraption: it is a shame that as a region owner you cannot build an entire region and bring it in as a file, is there anything like that in 'experiences' they were supposed to revolutionised SL and I never really see them used

Sasypants: "experiences" are strictly a script thing, not a build thing, for handling permissions like starting animations and attaching objects and such. And they definitely are used quite a bit

Valent1ne: I don't get out enough and I have only experienced two and was not sure if the build itself was part of that, thank you for clarifying

Contraption As you know PBR is soon, but live avatar animations and scripted IK is actually on the way as well (called Puppetry). This next year I think will bring SL up to more acceptable use levels. The PBR update should increase frame rates on what we already have too. The lindens responsible for those updates want to increase framerates more...

... so that we can have an acceptable VR experience if that presents itself as an option. Before the pandemic development on SL was glacial. Mid-pandemic all sorts of projects are making SL way better, not just on the viewer end of things but simulator-side as well. I think SL has a genuine desire to keep improving in leaps and bounds; ...

But region fees are still an issue, even if they just added a small discount last month; and the fact that premium plus can get a homestead without a full region to start is another boon. I think LL understand that the spaces to play are expensive, and are trying to make adjustments to the pricing structure to offset land, vs purchases.

As for uploading whole scenes, that may be worth your time to make a feature request JIRA, and propose how it'll all work out. I haven't the slightest idea, and I know that folks I've worked with feel the same pains you do for large scale content.

Personally, as the owner of a small 10 region post apocalyptic community; I still think it's hard for people to find something to do. I think the destination guide is a great boon, but I don't know that it gets enough attention. Or that searching for stuff in SL is easy. There's a lot of white-noise with regards to mislabeled places or ones that are gone.

That, and so many places in SL are run by users who sometimes have... not great community leadership / business skills... tend to fold rather fast. So it's hard for users to plant their roots in to a place they like.

So going back to your initial post Contraption , is it just easier to FIND a place to hang out in VRChat than SL? Because that may be the key to it all.

I'm in VRChat and I love it. Here's my latest avatar.

If any of you join VRChat, let me know! I'm "Aemeth" there.

As far as if VRChat's going to implement a market and better avatar system... they're getting ready to, but they're also moving very slowly and it's frustrating. However, if any of you need help with avatar styling, let me know. I can show you some easy tricks for putting one together.

As far as a guide for how to avoid assholes in VR, here's my safety guide. Please read! VR is a little more advanced than SL, because of the immersion. Head games take on a new dimension here. Easy to dodge if you see it coming though:How To Stay Safe In Social VR

Also, one more thing: this game is filled with 80% bottoms, men included. There are a few tops around but uh... yeah. Don't expect to find that special dom daddy here. That dude is 20-something and sewing his wild oats, you get me?

NeoBokrug: Creativity and potential is stifled by the soaring outdated costs in SL. To lead a successful community in SL requires work, and on top of that you're 200+ usd a month to work in what is considered to be a separate skill set with its own industry: community management.

NeoBokrug: Destination guide is as useful as SL's destination guide. But it does highlight areas that are currently populated.

I did notice one thing though: A lot of maps are very interactive with games, purpose and things to do.

looking at the discover menu, I'm seeing things like a fully functional five nights at freddy's game, murder mystery games, a functional mech FPS game, VR among us, functioning dancing game, a...functional omegle platform? Hangouts with interactive decorations and more...?

Thanks to aemeth I've been spying on and in awe of the possibilities in just the club scene of VRChat. The possibilties in content creation is so endless in these pastures compared to SL.

Even if SL /had/ the best destination guide possible, the restrictions in content creation and sim costs stifles it community building and being able to 'give' the community things to do.

The value of land and a somewhat seamless continent - while it is SL's more unique feature, is also its bane.

Contraption: I haven't talked about this much, but the new thing coming up is going to be multi-platform content creation. Remaining platform agnostic and understanding that these platforms serve you is super important now. One woman has clients in Engage for building stuff but she socializes in VRChat.

So many simple things can't be done without a lot of knowledge, macguyvering, and tonnes of work to only achieve a mediocre version of what others could do in less time in a platform with a proper set of creation tools.

And we lose money for it to keep it existing.

There's also another creator who makes mesh heads in Sims and VRChat, but she's been in SL, IMVU, and so on. People make things and then just re-fit them as they want to for different platforms (they have the energy for it though, they're going super hard into that for the cash)

aemeth: Right, Roblox uses Unity, VRChat uses Unity, any other platform that uses Unity makes it so content can be shipped over with little effort. There may be soem adjustment for Unreal with Fortnite, but it's still not as big of a monumental task as Second Life.

Yeah. People exporting their buildings from Altspace, for example, are just packing up the fbx and plopping them into Unity. There's re-working for scripting but that's it. Avatars are harder, but it isn't the hyper-capitalist endgame that SL is.

Also, big talk: every platform has a form of bigotry they struggle with. Many of SL's creative leaders were racist and transphobic back in the day. VRChat's worldbuilder scene has a problem with a few prominent people who are still transphobic or openly flirt with Nazi shit. Beware of this...

It's super easy to just go with the crowd and let bigotry slide, but just like when we remember who used to kowtow to that shit here, people will remember who did that in VRChat. So as you are crossing over, it's time to start anew. Let any of that crap go if you were known for it.

I will also note that SL is also not instance based, and that makes it so world builders/world creators can only have 1 of that world, and that 1 of that world can only exist so long as that builder is willing to pay for it, (or rarely, if ever: multiples)

This is just a general message for anyone reading btw,

OH! And there's a lot of older people, especially older women women creating here already. DJ'ing, giving dance classes, acting, they do major shit here.

I’ve messed around in creation for vrchat but I noticed there’s a very specific type of avatar people will want to actually spend money and the bases people use are constantly changing. It reminds me of SL before “standard” sizes

one thing i would like to note, is that there are other virtual reality spaces to check out that are similar to vr chat. i had to quit vrc because they removed the ability to use mods. for me that removed the ability to pre-load worlds because my internet sucks and loading a world can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour

while mods were not meant to be used in vrc, a variety of people used them for accessibility reasons.

the majority of us have moved over to neos and chillout vr which are mod friendly (and for me.. .both have the ability to pre-load worlds..)

aemeth: define "older" lol

Valent1ne: well my ass is 41...

nimil: According to a friend deep in VRC, apparently they've implement a bunch of mods officially. I'm not sure about the one you've mentioned specifically, buy maybe aemeth knows?

Valent1ne: Oldest active DJ is almost 60 now.

Contraption: Not as many mods that help with what Nimil is talking about. I get it, though. I had some friends leave for Neos and CV too. I love that we have different platforms to pick from, which is why a separate avatar market was such a naturally occurring result.

It's also great for if you're a platform-hopper and love going to different places. Recently I visited Township Tale, which to me felt like going to a cabin in the woods, or spending time in the country.