What's Being Done?

As a live performer since 2006, I've seen many changes in the quality of Second Life. It used to be getting 100 people on a sim, and have them STAY there, without crashing and minimal lagging, was not a problem.

Over the past year or two this has become increasingly worse and increasingly more and more frustrating. Now when 30-40 people are on a sim while I'm performing, many crash, public chat is horribly laggy, people cant move, cant dance and as the performer on stage, I am running more programs and using up more resources. So having SL be so unstable is causing even MORE strain on my system's resources. I can't imagine what michinima artists and videographers are dealing with!

What about when we DO crash and try to log back in? It now takes about 5 minutes or longer many times for SL to log me out completely so that I am then able to relog. For a live performer or other host of an event, 5 minutes is an eternity. It makes people question what's happening... are they coming back.... is it all over? Which means the audience may choose to leave.

Then of course there's the MASH as I have begun calling it. This is a "Massive Crash" which affects a good half or more of an audience. Have you ever been to a live show and suddenly the people you see in front of you are gone? POOF!

This has been going on for far too long and I would very much like to see some effort being made to either upgrade the SL servers and in the very least, take the highest traffic venues and locations and put them on a more stable server.

The SL music community has grown so much since 2006. SL is a great place for artists to come perform, or even just have fun singing to tracks, having karaoke contests, etc. But when the platform itself is ridiculously unstable, the fun is completely lost as is the vibe of the events.

What's being done?

Awesome Celebration of MVW 2012

What a great time and turnout today for the party that Brandy/Kalli and I threw for Miss Virtual World 2012, Anna Sapphire, over at our venue, Club Graffiti in The Village, in Second Life.


I definitely wouldn't call myself a fashionista in ANY sense, I'll leave that to the pros so have a look at the article on the BOSL Website, written by "rusalka"


I will say that with about 80 people on sim at peak, the sim held up fine, laggy yes, but crash we did NOT! This is likely because we started off with a 60 person limit and slowly raised it to control how quickly new people arrived. There is such a thing as "Crash Lag" which occurs when too many people are teleporting in to one place at the same time. Controlling the speed at which they are allowed to TP in seems to help... A LOT! 


Thanks much to those who came out. I really had a great time performing for Anna and everyone else in attendance and welcoming her in as MVW 2012.  For those who couldn't get in, well I hope to catch you at future shows and events :-)


Anyways, here's the article.
http://thebestofsl.com/2011/12/celebrating-anna-sapphire-miss-virtual-world-2012


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The Source C-C-C-CRASHHHH!!!

It seems lately that almost everywhere I play in Second Life, the venues are crashing. I'm not saying it's due to ridiculous attendance. No! That was the old days of Second Life. These days, tonight for example, like for the past few months, when 40 or 50 people are on a sim, it crashes.


It may be a matter of the servers, or some other "ghost in the machine", but no matter how you slice it, the problem is here and it doesn't seem like it's being addressed. I've heard from friends, fellow musicians and venue owners alike that this is a repeated occurence so it's not just me and my shows.


I WOULD like to give a hats off to Gargravarr Rau, owner of The Source. He provides Second Life with constant live shows at his venue but more than that, he was prepared with a contingency plan. Tonight, The Source sim crashed about 10 minutes into my show with about 40+ people there and within 10 minutes, we were up and running at Ground Zero, another friend's Second Life venue.

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I would urge all SL venue owners to take a cue from Gar. Have a back up plan ready to go for just such a situation and PLEASE keep an open line of communication open with the performer. Second Life performers do work hard at their craft, setting up, learning new music, writing new music, buying updated equipment, etc. there IS overhead, believe it or not and when a sim crashes and half the crowd doesn't come back, it will more than likely hurt the artists' and venues' revenue for the night.


So venue owners, please be prepared to quickly work together with your performing artists to get the show up and running quickly and I believe this will be somewhat of a bandage for the gash in the SL servers... temporarily at least.


I'm pretty sure Linden Lab is working to resolve the matter as my personal connections have told me but we'll just need to hang tight until we're back up to 100%. Second Life is my home away from home and I don't plan on going ANYWHERE!