If only it Actually Worked!!!!

I was just daydreaming. I was thinking about what Sl would be like if everything worked! Imagine, if network vendors were completely reliable. No more Instant messages from angry customers demanding product or money back. No more ruined evenings when a friend says "if i crash one more time, I'm not coming back tonight". I wonder what that would be like?

I feel sorry for those of us who try and make cool products for SL, people that slave for hours over hot code to make it work, only to have that work made unreliable by bugs and limitations.
Want to make a cool vehicle for SL? Don't bother. No matter how cool it is likely going to explode the second it crosses a sim barrier, and if the first one doesn't take it out, the second one will. Not only that the attempt will probably crash the driver and any passengers at the same time! There can be no doubt the world that we all live our second lives in is seriously flawed.

Still it's not any worse that the real world I suppose. I think the reason why we get so angry when things don't work here in SL, is because the real world is so messed up, so full of restrictions and barriers. We want, or I dare say NEED SL to be an escape from that.

This is the simple fact that Linden Labs needs to understand. Nobody cares if it's pretty, if they can't walk. Still you know what? I really believe that the Lindens are doing everything they can to make Sl work. I just don't think they are up to the task and frankly I don't see how anyone could be. Just maintaining this virtual world is a herculean task, never mind fixing anything! Now take that one step further, you can barely maintain it, you've got features that have been broken forever now, (recent items jumps to mind) you've got the government telling you all the most popular stuff in the game is illegal, and people actually want things to get BETTER? How dare they? Are they insane?

I'm not a programmer, unless you count drum machines! If I could help make things better I would. What is the answer I wonder? Is it just that the internet is just not robust enough to support SL properly? Do we all need faster connections? Is the average computer incapable of running SL well enough to make the experience all it could be? Is it a video card problem? OR is it, as many of us suspect, the fault of inefficiently written code in the viewer and servers? Is a better game engine required?

I guess we'd all feel better if we understood exactly why it is the game is so unstable. Why do I walk forward a few steps only to be violently jerked back to where I started from, my avatar running on the spot like some broken cartoon? Why do some people see me normally while others see my male avatar as a short bearded creature with breasts?

I guess all I can do is give a heads up to the Lindens and warn them that the sky isn't falling, but the frame rates most certainly are!

Zed Essex