Submitted by Rin Tae on Wed, 08/09/2010 - 17:27
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And so the story is over. For now at least what might save me the trouble to write more about it and get back to more important topics that need to be covered. However from the standpoint of seeing this as of great importance for the community in Second Life I think that it is necessary to follow this affair to the very end. I have started, so I can at least go on and make sure it is covered right to the point where it has arrived now and maybe beyond:
Yes, LL has finally said what everybody knew would have happened sooner or later. They even send out E-Mails about it to reach out to all those who have so far not heard about the affair happening. Being one to read blogs and forums at least on a semi regular basis it might be difficult to believe that there are still thousands of people who had no clue. But they are and a friend of mine has confirmed that in the places she was often staying at the Emerald usage was still around 50%. This is something I have experienced differently with the use of this viewer constantly dropping during the course of the events when more and more people found out what was going on and found alternatives. This is of course the case of different communities putting a different weight to different issues with the extreme of people not even trying to get informed about the broader aspects of what is going on in the grid and beyond. I have met those all the time and as far back as the introduction of age verification. Most of those are just perfectly happy about staying in their little corner of the world but there are a few between those who are simply ignorant about issues that might affect them in one way or another or disregarding towards anything that is further away as the end of their nose.
But people are different and I hope that those who have not yet found out about what is going on will eventually get a smooth transition from the old viewer to one of the new ones. After all there are now a few options more on the table with LL apparently taking the opportunity to update their directory of approved third party viewers:
http://viewerdirectory.secondlife.com/
Not that it would mean much to be on the list, but it is a great way for users to at least get a good idea of what they can get. And those viewers are generally the better options after all and are at least under some sort of semi control. So I am happy even when my own decision to switch the viewer has fallen long before LL has taken the final step. I am even more happy to see that the viewer I have chosen to use made the list in almost record time. Actually both viewers made it since as of now Emergence and Phoenix are on it. It is a bit surprising to find Emergence on it, considering that this viewer has been made to act as a bridge until some lasting alternative to Emerald could be created. Now of course this has happened and the Emergence developer is on it's team as the lead developer for the windows version:
http://jessicalyons.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/from-the-ashes/
This is of course a considerable boost in faith towards this viewer as the person in question, LordGregGreg Back, is the one who outed the first part of the Emerald-gate affair and left stating to be unable to continue to support Emerald if he was unable to verify all parts of its code. Him, and other names of generally trusted developers as well as one former Linden on the team gives this viewer a good head start that might move it into the position of the preferred viewer of a big portion of the community.
But this is nothing but a guess and pointing to the third party viewer list above shows other possibilities that people should look into if they decide to stay away from the official LL viewer. Now I have never made any secret of my absolute distaste for it's UI, but it still has a few nice functions (now mostly adopted in other viewers as well) and some people like it so I wont comment on this since it is a matter of personal taste (however it is still questionable from LLs point of view to keep it when the percentage of those that like it is as small as in this case). It is actually interesting to watch the development of this all now and also to compare the reactions found in some communities and compare them with what is going on in other. Like the forums (not only the
SL ones) where it seem to be a certain leaning towards Phoenix as the best choice right now while inworld, I would be willing to grand that title to Imprudence that for sure got a big boost in numbers. And rightfully so as it is a good viewer and has suffered a rarely noticed life in the shadow
of Emerald long enough:
I don't use this one but it has it's advantages with, at least for me, fast rezzing speeds and all functions I got used to using in emerald also found there. However my preference has still gone first to Emergence and then, in a natural succession of this to Phoenix:
http://code.google.com/p/emergence-viewer/
Mostly because of those viewers similarity to Emerald (what is not surprising considered that both are developments right out of Emeralds source code) and with this, Emeralds big preference tab and relatively easy access to all of it's functions. It is personal preference here again but I think Imprudence lacked on this point and was less comfortable in use. I also had a thing for Emergence red interface that some described as being 'eye-killing' ^_^. I certainly can imagine why people would describe it as such but I like it and might even turn Phoenix into something different once I find a good skin for it to do so. And the viewers also have proven to be more stable .. much more stable .. fantastically more stable .. as anything else I have tried so I gladly accept the slightly slower rezzing speed I get compared to Imprudence. But that is something that might differ for other people since a friends experience has been different with Imprudence running more stable for her.
So I guess it is all about testing and looking for which viewer runs best and is best suited for our own personal needs. There are of course even more viewers out there so I would not tell anyone to limit themselves just to the options presented here. Look around and decide but if you are on emerald then do it before 10am SLT today because after this moment it might get risky to be found with a banned viewer. Actually it might even become a problem if people run across one of those die hard emerald haters who would use any method to
repeat every spin LL would tell them and attack everything they don't like without even considering the concept of maybe being wrong. It is not like Emerald did not deserved the way it died considering what some of it's developers have done and have been connected to but it would suit the community better to just let it die and take it as a good lesson about what one should not do when being in the position where the emerald team has been. I feel sorry for those who have done honest work on the viewer and created it in the way that so many found it to be perfect for their needs. But
at least those can now work on Phoenix and I wish them a bright future. After all I have decided to use it myself so they better deliver me my inventory-linking-feature fast! ^_^. I want it!
I hope however that everything has been done and said now and that once the dust settles over the block being finally implemented the discussions will move away into the hidden forums of those who like to dwell in past drama or spread strange conspiracy theories. There are more important things to move our attention to going on and while I will still cover emerging stories as they appear, I like much more to write about ideas and visions about virtual worlds. However now that I type this I think I wont get much chance to do so with the display names coming to the grid. I have written a bit about it already and since the LLs have used the words 'should it go life' in their announcement about it, there is a slight chance of it being dropped and forgotten. Of course LL does have a record of ignoring customer feedback so I have little hope that we will be spared from this.
But anyway, Emerald is dead long live … some other viewer
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