22 June, 2009

solitude stands in the doorway, and I'm struck once again by her black silhouette

Somehow, I have gone over--far over, actually--ten thousand views of this journal!

Now, while I know a good number are me, poring over my words line by line to make sure all the coding works, a larger number are other people traipsing in to read along.

You're all mad.

I thank you all.

Moving on, there's an odd game on the net I'm severely tempted to join. Fawkes introduced me to it here. Another baffling example details the tragedy of escorting...or something.

They go very very oddly, the calls and responses. Sometimes one starts with fart jokes, and ends up with bees. And sometimes, they start off wrong...and stay there.

I may sign up. I certainly can't make things weirder...

This? INSANELY important issue. I cannot stress the importance of this issue, and for me and many others, this IS a showstopper.

For anyone who has not actually tried out the 1.23 viewer yet, it does fix a lot of bugs. Yes, many things are better. And yes, they have the all-new sparkly-shiny, we-is-all-protectified-from-adult-content ratings in place.

They have BROKEN, utterly, the pie menu.

BROKEN. In cannot-be-fixed ways. In they-must-fix-this-NOW ways.

I'm serious. I cannot play using 1.23. I cannot! If I'm not flipping myself into Appearance every five seconds, I'm randomly ARing people. The game is non-functional now.

Valiant Westland said it better than I ever could:

As recently as Wednesday on Metanomics, M Linden stated that LL is "in the process of working on a major overhaul of the SL client." Making unnecessary / unrequested changes to the user interface (UI), that have a significant negative impact on user productivity, prior to the release of the the new client, is foolish at best and at worst, demonstrates a complete disregard for the users.

The release of a completely redesigned client will pose a huge training and documentation challenge for users, the Lab and those of us who provide client training and support. In addition to the hard and soft costs associated with transitioning to a significantly different UI, it will also cost the Lab significant amounts of "good will" capital. In anticipation of this, the Lab should be doing everything they can to build their reserves of user "good will," not squander it on unproductive and unnecessary interim changes.


Please vote for this issue, and pray the Lindens wake up. Because they've just destroyed how most people build, interact, get dressed, and contact each other. In one move. It's terrifying.

2 comments:

Rhianon Jameson said...

Random changes to the UI? Hey, it worked for Microsoft! (I still can't find anything on the silly "ribbon" in Office 2007.)

Emilly Orr said...

But these are random and damaging changes. For the most part, while Microsoft products can be deeply frustrating at times, for the most part the way most people use the interface hasn't overly changed from iteration to iteration.

This change by the Labs took us, equivalently, from a campfire ringed with stones and logs to sit on, where meetings were held, and people had developed places they felt comfortable sitting...to a kitchen inside a house on fire, while we're being told to sit in the freezer.

It's bizarre, it's surreal, it completely changes the user experience, and it's completely pointless. And I'm not the only one who is insanely upset at the degree to which the interface is now rendered useless.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...