Second Life Needs a Future
closed
EmpressLuna Moonchild
I’m really concerned about the future of Second Life. It has gotten to the point where, for me, there’s less and less reason to even log in anymore.
There are still a lot of long-time users who resist major changes, but at the same time Second Life isn’t really providing what younger generations are looking for, especially when it comes to VR and more modern social experiences.
The existing population is getting older, and Second Life itself is becoming too expensive and too outdated to easily attract the younger users it needs for the future.
I don’t want to see Second Life disappear. I’ve been part of it for a long time. That’s exactly why I think it needs to seriously look at where the next generation of users is going to come from instead of only trying to preserve what worked in the past.
Second Life needs to stop only asking its current users what they want and start asking what younger generations actually need.
The people already here are important, but if every decision is based only on keeping long-time users comfortable, the platform is never going to move forward.
They need to be asking younger people what would make them want to join, what kind of VR experience they expect, what feels too complicated, what costs too much, and what makes other platforms more appealing to them.
Second Life can’t build its future by only listening to the people who are already here.
Even some of the newer technology Linden Lab is adding already feels old compared to what younger users are used to today. That’s part of the problem. Second Life isn’t just competing with its own past anymore. It’s competing with modern games, social platforms, VR, and much newer technology.
Game creation tools inside Second Life should have been a major feature a decade ago. Adding them now is better than nothing, but it shows how far behind the platform has fallen compared to what newer generations already expect from modern games and virtual worlds.
- Proper VR support. This is probably the most obvious one. For something that calls itself a virtual world, not having strong modern VR support is a huge hole.
- Modern game creation tools. Linden Lab needs to go far beyond simply adding Lua or improving old scripting systems. Second Life needs modern world and game creation tools closer to what creators have with VRChat, where people can build interactive environments, game mechanics, custom systems, physics-based interactions, and much more advanced experiences without constantly fighting against decades-old limitations. Creators should feel like they are building a modern virtual world, not trying to force modern ideas through an old platform.
- A much easier new-user experience. Second Life still throws people into a very complicated world of viewers, inventories, attachments, permissions, land, scripts, body parts, HUDs and viewers. Younger users are used to downloading something and understanding the basics within minutes.
- Modern avatar creation. A new user should be able to make a good looking avatar from one screen without learning about bodies, heads, skins, BOM, alpha layers, appliers, deformers and a dozen different stores.
- Better movement and animation. Movement still often feels like a virtual world from another era rather than a modern game.
- Better physics. Vehicles, character interaction, climbing, grabbing, throwing, environmental interaction and object physics could all feel much more natural.
- Better social discovery. Discord, Roblox, Fortnite and VRChat make it relatively easy to find communities and activities. Second Life still relies heavily on destination listings, groups, word of mouth and knowing where to look. Even Linden Lab's current site still emphasizes destinations and communities in a fairly traditional directory style.
- Better event discovery. Open the app and show me what is happening right now, where my friends are going, what is trending, what games are active and what communities match my interests.
- Better creator collaboration. Multiple creators should be able to work together on a world or game with modern permissions, version control and collaborative tools.
- Better streaming and content creator support. Built-in camera tools, spectator modes, cleaner OBS integration, vertical-video options, replay systems and creator-friendly controls would help Second Life appear on YouTube, TikTok and Twitch.
- Modern voice and spatial audio. Voice should feel like a first class social feature, not something added onto the side. Linden Lab has been fixing WebRTC issues and recently added Windows Voice Clarity support, but that is still incremental improvement rather than a complete rethink.
- Better performance. A modern high-end computer should not struggle simply because a crowded region has badly optimized avatars and scripts. Linden Lab is still working on avatar complexity and UI performance, which shows this remains an active issue.
- Better mobile integration. The mobile beta is important and currently supports chat, destinations, movement, outfits and notifications, but younger users increasingly expect the mobile version to feel like the real platform, not merely a companion experience.
- Lower barriers to owning space. Land is one of Second Life's greatest strengths, but the pricing and complexity can make owning a meaningful space feel like something for established adults rather than teenagers or people in their early twenties.
- More reasons to log in. This may actually be the biggest one. There should constantly be something happening: games, seasonal content, community challenges, events, achievements, creator launches, competitions and things friends can do together.
Second Life has something incredibly valuable that very few platforms have ever managed to create: a world largely built by its own users.
But that alone will not protect it forever.
Linden Lab needs to start asking a much bigger question:
What would make a 20 year old who has never used Second Life choose it today?
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Isabella Cinder
This lengthy conversation being mislabeled and shut down by an automated chatbot pretty much answer the question if SL has a future at all, by design.
SL Feedback
updated the status to
closed
SL Feedback
Hello, and thank you for your feature request.
Incoming suggestions are reviewed in the order they are received by a team of Lindens with diverse areas of expertise. We consider a number of factors: Is this change possible? Will it increase lag? Will it break existing content? Is it likely that the number of residents using this feature will justify the time to develop it? This wiki page further describes the reasoning we use: Feature Requests
This particular suggestion, unfortunately, cannot be tackled at this time. However, we regularly review previously deferred suggestions when circumstances change or resources become available.
We are grateful for the time you took to submit this feature request. We hope that you are not discouraged from submitting others in the future. Many excellent ideas to improve Second Life come from you, our residents. We can’t do it alone.
Thank you for your continued commitment to Second Life.
Saz Ninetails
Have you seen the new onboarding area? They land with big info boards around them at intervals but still just run through until they find a portal which they run through then shout WHAT DO WE DO HERE.
AlettaMondragon Resident
Saz Ninetails Guiding people is pretty much like herding cats! I can't even remember which welcome hub I landed at the first time, then I went on a totally clueless adventure for 3 days. Nothing wrong with that tbh, I got a lot of help and met very friendly and helpful people in those 3 days so I wasn't lost.
ST33LDI9ITAL Resident
Regarding VR, I think there's a nice medium to consider... webcam tracking.
I don't think full VR is needed for SL, but I do think it could benefit greatly from webcam mocap/tracking and IK. I think that would fly far more than VR for most of the userbase. Most everyone has access to webcam and the tracking support has become very good. Would definitely allow people to better express themselves and without the hassle or barrier of VR.
EmpressLuna Moonchild
VRChat, which is dominating the social virtual-world space right now. Yes, you can use VRChat on a regular PC, but the experience is built heavily around VR and is far better with a headset. VR has not simply “come and gone.” Its popularity and accessibility have grown substantially, especially in social platforms. Dismissing VR entirely would mean Second Life ignoring one of the clearest paths for this type of platform to evolve.
Camden McAndrews
I'm sure the folks at Steam would love to have SL on Steam; otherwise, I don't see value in that.
VR may some day come into its own among popular media. Within my personal experience, it was great for training astronauts to do EVA tasks. But for casual users, especially young folks, no, it's not even on the radar.
Based on what we have observed from user behavior these past few years, Second Life's strongest appeal is that it can present simulated real-world environments where realistic human avatars can interact. Market that--human avatars, real life; and maybe adaptation of human adventures from fiction.
Tour the world. See famous places. The branch out from there.
Have adventures as an avatar that you can't do in real life--explore historical places and live their lifestyles, climb real mountains, take a submarine down to explore the Titanic, put on your space suit and walk on the moon, see New York City from the top of the Empire State Building. Have lunch with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Race at Le Mans. Turn a bunch of users loose on building all of Middle-earth and Westeros, and the world will beat a path to your door.
All of these adventures would require some banging on the technology to make detailed local environments work with expansive backdrops, but I suspect that would pay off big time in the number and quality of user-created experiences; and it is those experiences that put the beer on the table at Linden Lab.
Warthog Jun
The cost of compute is skyrocketing. This is pricing both the young and the retired (fixed income) to be able to afford a computer that does SL well
Nifty Goblin
The game needs to connect to steam, its a free game if people want to buy linden they can from the SL website to get around steam.
The entire game needs a full rebuild. They're building on spaghetti Im sure unable to remove code without breaking something else unrelated (adding EEP broke how physics worked)
We need a from scratch rebuild that can support the transfer of players inventories and existing products and avatars.
Add player based physics, rag dolling, the ability to directly interact with eachother (We're competing with GTA5 right now, see some of the things they're able to do)
Have base mechanisms that creations can be built on, like a vehicle system of cars, boats, planes that are built into the game and can have creators activate on their creation. (Like how we turn on animesh) This will eliminate the need for basic vehicles to be scripted, and have players assign seats to specific points and work without breaking.
A better base set combat system with sims able to activate or deactive defaults they'd like.
We need a rebuild that isnt trying to eliminate secondlife (Sansar was a bust because they neglected a huge portion of the 'adult' community, and the freedom of creation by policing the market.)
Number One thing is that we need to be on steam to attract a newer crowd, the new adults have no idea what Secondlife is.
AlettaMondragon Resident
Nifty Goblin I'd say better vehicle scripting standards and a simplified workflow would be very much needed, eliminating vehicle scripting altogether wouldn't be great though, that would take away our ability to script vehicles the way we like. Not always realistically since some vehicles are not meant to be realistic. One thing, however, recognizing floating on water without having to check for the water level constantly, would help a lot, not only for watercraft and for any other vehicle that is not supposed to be underwater, but also for swimming for example. It would be great if any physical object would interact with water naturally without scripting and if we want to turn that off, either use a script for that or an object flag.
Kimi Richez
Nifty Goblin
I suggest you look into the history of Project Sansar.
Aliceoneder Beaumont
Secondlife has been trying to do this but their approach to it has traditionally been Laissez-Faire, since it was never a "game". It is a vast canvas that the user can create on their own, making it a game ( developing one) or just being here to exist as an avi. The main issue though is as you mentioned, long Time users are aging. I have been surprised that more younger people aren't here since it is a way to deal with the complexities and offers a great respite from real life. But, once here, the learning curve is real. That learning curve along with a lack of friends already here, likely contributes to them wondering what to do once they log in. Twenty year olds have grown up playing all sorts of levels of "realism" so I don't understand why many say SL isn't advancing, since PBR, my whole SL, has changed in a dramatic way for the better. I now feel things are way more realistic and maybe that is the problem, performance wise, if that is what you meant. Kids play minecraft and roblox so SL must blow their minds, assuming they're of age to be here. I don't think it is a bleak future though at all. There are people returning after being gone for a long time. We forget that they once were here. As they age, and they will, they'll be back. Also millenials are aging. Think of the true challenge, getting younger Boomers, Gen Xer's and then older Millenials here and keeping them, and they'll have plenty of people here all shiny and new again. That's the ticket.
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