What will it take?

Over at the other hangout where I make my feelings known to Linden Lab, I've raised some questions concerning the stagnation of the Resident population within Second Life.

It seems to me that many of the "regular" and even "older" Customers have grown weary, if not just downright angry, with Linden Lab and how they've chose to ignore the Customer pleas to stabilize the world, the Asset Server, the GRID overall. In as much, it seems many of those have chose to stay away. Most likely, not because they don't like Second Life, as I've admitted many times before, I am a HUGE supporter of Second Life, but instead, out of the constant LIES and deceptive practices of Linden Lab. When the proprietor of a product starts to blame the Residents for the problems they see within the World, then one must strongly question whether that company can succeed in the business.

Linden Lab has claimed, and I have the logs and emails to prove this, that the "missing objects" problems are due to insufficient machines of the users, the objects are really there, they just can't see them. Now, I MIGHT be willing to believe this, but when they claim the same for myself, then I know they are just lying. You see, I'm one of the lucky ones when it comes to graphics capabilities, I have TWO 7900 GTX boards connected together thru SLI and there's no game out there at this time that I can't handle full force. I was even able to run the "Middle Earth Online" beta with FULL GRAPHICS MODE and never saw a single lag issue related to graphics, so to claim that MY COMPUTER GRAPHICS aren't up to snuff and my objects are in-world but I just can't see them, then you are lying to me, and I know it, and so do you.

This is the overall problem at Linden Lab. Their product required many of us first users to have very powerful computers at the time (over 4 years ago) and it also required a very technical knowledge of our computers in order to get the most out of Second Life. This is a two-edged sword for Linden Lab. First, it brought in competent people that could solve most of their own issues, and also practice their creativity thru LSL or the building system. Second, it gave them a user-base that knows when they are being lied to. While Linden Lab wants to believe they know more then their own Customers, these same customers they know turn to and ask for help to fix bugs, they all but turn a deaf ear to those who know how networks work, speak about adding more crap onto the GRID without bolstering the GRID first, and why that effects the Residents of Second Life so badly.

Now the problem is, a lot of those same technical people are starting to stay away from Second Life, tired of hearing their nonsensical excuses and lies about what is causing the problems. There's a wealth of information out there in these "stay away Residents" that Second Life residents now don't get to draw upon, and so, Second Life is taking a HUGE STEP backwards in it's Community knowledge. This is the direct fault of Linden Lab, make no mistake of that. When a company like Linden Lab reports the same problem every single week in their blog, and most cheery Residents just stroke their egos, it serves to give them a false sense of security. These cheery Residents will one day start asking the same questions others before them have asked, and where will that put Linden Lab then?

What will it take then to get Linden Lab to stand up, accept responsibility for it's own mess in Second Life, and start to fix these issues? Will it take the death of a beloved product, like Second Life? I hope not, but then again, apparently Linden Lab believes everything is OK and they have nothing to be worried about. I wonder just when they will start worrying, will it be when they start seeing only 10K people online at a time, or 5K, or just 1K? By then it will be too late for the world, and Linden Lab will realize it, and then we all lose. So, what can we do? The only thing I know is to write Uncle Philip and Aunty Robin and tell them to fix the world. Otherwise, we will watch our world die a slow and much too early death.