Today I announced that my shop, NixTech, will be closing down on April 30th, 2010. The reasons behind it are related to the Third-Party Viewer Policy that will take effect on that day.
It's no secret that I prefer certain third-party viewers(Imprudence and Hippo, specifically) over the official LL viewer for many reasons(OpenSim support, content backup and restore, better performance, etc). Since many of the developers of third-party viewers have rejected the policy for several good reasons, after April 30th if I use any third-party viewer I run the risk of being banned.
Now, I could simply use the official Viewer 2.0, but to be honest it is a disaster of a viewer in comparison. It suffers from major slowdown, rezzes everything at a snail's pace and still consistently sucks up over 100% CPU use. It is absolutely not good enough for normal use, unless the Lab fixes these problems by April 30th(highly unlikely).
So as it stands, that means I won't be able to stay in Second Life for a long session(greater than a 1/2 hour) without suffering severe performance problems. This in turn affects my ability to run a shop in SL and offer support to my customers. Even my ability to merely socialize in-world will be adversely affected. So I decided to close it down on the 30th and convert the plot into my own residential spot(as I had it before I opened up NixTech). I will continue to have a presence in SL, but due to Viewer 2.0's volatility it will be a greatly diminished one.
However, this doesn't mean NixTech will be dead. I will continue to offer support to customers who have bought my items in-world or via META-life. I have already exported a good selection of my creations to my hard drive, and I plan to re-open NixTech in an OpenSim-based grid(most likely InWorldz) where legitimate third-party viewers are welcomed.
This was a decision not taken lightly. I've been a Second Life resident since 2006 and I've hung on through many events that have sent other people packing: the Linux client's sub-par quality before Tofu Linden fixed it up(no sound, no media, no shiny, not even copy/paste back then!), the gambling ban, the Lab pushing voice chat against the community's input, the OpenSpaces fiasco, and the XStreetSL freebies tax. This third-party viewer policy was simply the last straw and I can't just lie down and take it anymore.
See you all on the other side of the metaverse :)
7 comments:
Wish you luck, Antonius. I myself am slowly migrating away from Second Life over to InWorldz, so I'll be glad to see you over there!
I think Antonius, before much time passes, you will not be the only person making such decision. Whether people migrate to OpenSim or some other online endeavor... or simply return to real life, I have had numerous long-time users tell me lately they are growing increasingly tired of Second Life and are considering leaving the platform. This is coming from people that it surprised me to hear it from... including you. A growing trend, it seems, with no one to blame for it but Linden Lab itself.
Antonius --
I wish you luck on your move. It's not easy to move from an established world like Second Life out to the 3D frontier of OpenSim.
If you move someplace hypergrid-enabled, let me know, and I'll add you to our directory: http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/worlds/
-- Maria Korolov
Editor, Hypergrid Business
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com
Good luck! I know how you feel, Ener Hax and I are refugees from Second Life and finding great joy in Reaction Grid. There are severeal options out there that should fit well for many people.
lol, subbie beat me by mere moments on this post
yeah, stoopid LL is really messing up what was an awesome place. it's a real shame. we should have pulled out a year ago . . .
but, like subQ said, Reaction Grid is working very well for what we want to do and the RG team is aewesome. there are indeed many alternatives out there for creative people and as more move, the advances will occur faster - like in-world commerce (and I want groups lie mad!!!!)
good luck and i am sure that after some growing pains, you will feel ener-gized and full of wonder at all the possibilities
=) namaste
I just hypergrid teleported to metagridnet.com:9000 and I see the NixTech sign up! Congrats!
- Maria Korolov
Editor, Hypergrid Business
Actually Maria, that's not a sign. That's one of my NixTech products that I ported over from SL: an in-world parcel media HDTV :)
Also I have two boxes of content for visitors and MetaGridNet users: one contains a bunch of furniture pieces that are only 1 prim each(surprising what a little prim torture can do to one prim) and the other contains some sample prefabs I made. So I'm building it out, little by little.
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