User:Andrew Linden/Office Hours/2009 01 29

Transcript of Andrew Linden's office hours:

[17:00]	Sindy Tsure picked up a new hairstyle that's sorta 1/2 hat.. that simon always wears a hat reminded me of it..
[17:00]	Moon Metty:	hey Andrew :)
[17:00]	Kitto Flora:	Hi Andrew
[17:00]	Sindy Tsure:	heya andrew
[17:00]	Jahar Aabye:	evening Andrew
[17:00]	Morgaine Dinova:	I was the first one here, maybe something funny happened. Rest see me?
[17:00]	Sindy Tsure:	& psi
[17:00]	Andrew Linden:	Hello everyone.
[17:00]	Morgaine Dinova:	Hiya Andrew
[17:00]	Gellan Glenelg:	I can't believe the topic is hairstyles- with simon and andrew here! ;P
[17:01]	Siann Beck:	Ah, there you are!
[17:01]	Morgaine Dinova:	Hiya Psi
[17:01]	Jahar Aabye:	yeah, I see you, Morgaine....the place takes a while to load, the animated textures on the waterfall next door probably don't help, might be useful to disable animated textures if you're loading slow
[17:01]	Gellan Glenelg:	or you could just wear a Psi on your head, I guess :)
[17:01]	Moon Metty:	lol
[17:01]	Sindy Tsure:	so.. is this the meeting where i rant about http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3521 ?
[17:01]	Morgaine Dinova:	I'm fine, Siann was loading slow
[17:02]	Siann Beck:	yeah, it took a while for the place to rez.
[17:02]	Jahar Aabye:	Advanced->Rendering-> uncheck "Animated Textures" may help a bit
[17:02]	Morgaine Dinova:	Wow, nasty bug
[17:02]	Sindy Tsure:	:(
[17:02]	Siann Beck:	I'm good now :)
[17:02]	Andrew Linden:	Ok, so the only announcement I have is that Prospero made a proposal today on a way to reduce the time between bug fixes and their deployment.
[17:03]	Siann Beck:	Ooh, that is!
[17:03]	Sindy Tsure:	oh! any details on how he's going to do that?
[17:03]	Andrew Linden:	We haven't yet had a full consensus feedback (not everyone has replied and not enough time has gone by) but so far everyone is on board.
[17:03]	Simon Linden:	Nope, you've been stuck as a fuzzy blob since I logged in
[17:03]	Moon Metty:	for server and client bugs?
[17:04]	Kitto Flora:	Coalesced has been a pain in general, costs me hours of time
[17:04]	Morgaine Dinova:	Is there an SLA with LL for items item by the infrastructure? After all, it's real money lost, it can't be just waved away.
[17:04]	Morgaine Dinova:	lost* by the infrastructure
[17:04]	Andrew Linden:	The way it would work is that we'll branch for the next server version (1.26, 1.27, etc) early, and for a few weeks *safe* bug fixes will go directly into that branch.
[17:05]	Andrew Linden:	Any bug fixes that we're worried about (need more testing) would go into other branches.
[17:05]	Jahar Aabye:	would also create more time to be checking to make sure that said bug fixes really are "safe"
[17:05]	Kitto Flora:	Does that mean they turn up on Aditi sooner? (The fixes)
[17:05]	Gellan Glenelg:	so, you get faster fixes, but not necessarily all of them?
[17:06]	Andrew Linden:	Yes perhaps. The bug fixes would show up on ADITI (preview) as soon as they are in the branch and that branch is open for public preview.
[17:06]	Morgaine Dinova:	Is there a log of item deletions?
[17:06]	Simon Linden:	My last chat message took about half a minute to get through the system
[17:06]	Andrew Linden:	Morgaine, not necessarily. We don't log all item deletions.
[17:07]	Simon Linden:	That one was fast
[17:07]	Jahar Aabye:	are these items not showing up in your trash, either?
[17:07]	Jahar Aabye:	or in Lost and Found?
[17:07]	Jahar Aabye:	I mean, I know it's a dumb question, but....
[17:07]	Andrew Linden:	Some get logged (parcel returns, and returns to inventory).
[17:07]	Andrew Linden:	A few others.
[17:07]	Andrew Linden:	But if you fire an army of temp-on-rez bullets we don't necessarily log their deletions.
[17:08]	Jahar Aabye:	thank g_d
[17:08]	Siann Beck:	lol
[17:08]	Morgaine Dinova:	I wonder what a good way to handle item loss would be, something portable to all providers once we have interop.
[17:08]	Morgaine Dinova:	Yeah, not temp rez
[17:08]	Sindy Tsure:	unless somebody else has something pressing, i wouldn't mind hearing more about that.. how can things lost not be recoverable?
[17:08]	Kitto Flora:	What do you mean by 'handle item loss' ?
[17:09]	Jahar Aabye:	well, I think a few of us probably have our own JIRA issues to discuss, but I guess this is the first issue
[17:09]	Andrew Linden:	I think I'm unclear what the exact questions are.
[17:09]	Morgaine Dinova:	I mean accept that infrastructure fails occasionally, and therefore have a mechanism to restore lost items.
[17:09]	Morgaine Dinova:	Requires logging
[17:09]	Sindy Tsure:	by 'handle item liss' i mean doing a support ticket with the time & slurl of something i lost and support saying 'sorry. it's gone forever'
[17:09]	Kitto Flora:	I have such a system in place, for my steam trains
[17:09]	Sindy Tsure:	and item loss
[17:10]	Andrew Linden:	In this case "lost items" means things in-world that you don't know where they are?
[17:10]	Morgaine Dinova:	No, washing your hands of the issue is not "handling it". It could be worth millions.
[17:10]	Sindy Tsure:	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3521 in particlar, andrew
[17:10]	Sindy Tsure gives up on spelling for the night..
[17:10]	Andrew Linden:	Or things that used to be in world but now can't be found and were not returned to inventory?
[17:10]	Sindy Tsure:	attempt to rez failing in my case
[17:11]	Morgaine Dinova:	Andrew: you're right, "lost" is ambiguous. I meant deleted by a system fault.
[17:11]	Andrew Linden:	Ah. Truly lost.
[17:11]	Kitto Flora:	Theres 'lost on rez' 'lost on take' lost when the sim gets restarted. Lost from Inventory. Probably more
[17:11]	Andrew Linden:	That would be a bug. Even if we did log that the items were lost... we don't log the full contents of the objects.
[17:12]	Andrew Linden:	The asset would be a reference -- it would show the coalesced set of objects.
[17:12]	Siann Beck:	Isn't there some kind of handoff verification on rezzing, taking, etc?
[17:12]	Andrew Linden:	However, this bug is particularly bad for when the asset is no-copy and the item gets removed from inventory.
[17:12]	Sindy Tsure:	and that asset id isn't stashed or logged somewhere?
[17:13]	Andrew Linden:	The asset is logged on rez. So yes there is a record in the logs.
[17:13]	Jahar Aabye:	the asset ID is just a placeholder that points to its location
[17:13]	Andrew Linden:	The "asset_id" is logged, I mean.
[17:13]	Sindy Tsure:	hi arawn
[17:13]	Sindy Tsure:	& rex
[17:14]	Siann Beck:	Hey guys.
[17:14]	Moon Metty:	hi Arawn and Rex
[17:14]	Jahar Aabye:	one short-term solution is to lobby your favorite content creators to sell their items copy/no-trans
[17:14]	Arawn Spitteler:	Hi Sindy, et al et sundry. Haven't seen Moonhere, before
[17:14]	Rex Cronon:	hi sindy, moon, and everybody else
[17:14]	Morgaine Dinova:	How about maintaining a constraint for no-copy objects, and enforcing that constraint as a postcondition across sim crossings and TPs etc? Then, should an item not appear after crossing, it gets automatically recreated.
[17:14]	Moon Metty:	:)
[17:14]	Andrew Linden:	So I guess I would say... in theory the lost assets could be recovered, however the cost of doing so is far lower than fixing the bug.
[17:15]	Kitto Flora:	Morgaine: Thats only one loss mechanism.. and a rae one
[17:15]	Kitto Flora:	rare
[17:15]	Sindy Tsure:	lol
[17:15]	Jahar Aabye:	instead of getting automatically re-created, a better option would be to try to ensure that it gets sent to the Lost and Found or Trash folder
[17:15]	Sindy Tsure:	wait.. the cost of recovering it is less than that of fixing the bug?
[17:16]	Kitto Flora:	Actually the cost of running the guarantee on my steam trains is significant
[17:16]	Morgaine Dinova:	The constraint could be applied everywhere, and only invoking a user-delete would remove the contrsaint.
[17:16]	Sindy Tsure:	or, rather the cost of having to recover it for N residents is less?
[17:16]	Kitto Flora:	3600 emails a day for starters
[17:17]	Morgaine Dinova:	Customer Service doesn't scale, so this has to be automated.
[17:17]	Kitto Flora:	Then 300 individual complex items that otherwise could have been the same item - just copies
[17:17]	Kitto Flora:	Oh, I have it automated Morgaine
[17:17]	Andrew Linden:	The automated actions you're pondering are harder to implement than fixing the bug.
[17:17]	Jahar Aabye:	heh, how about tossing the cost off on the content creators who sell no-copy items? :)
[17:18]	Andrew Linden:	The reason the bug is not fixed yet is that no one has had time to get to it yet.
[17:18]	Morgaine Dinova:	Andrew: but constraints protect you against future bugs too.
[17:18]	Sindy Tsure:	oh.. it's not just plugging an asset id into something and pushing the "send that to sindy" button?
[17:18]	Siann Beck:	Well, if you want to make something transferrable, it needs to be no-copy unless you're releasing intot he wild.
[17:18]	Jahar Aabye:	but fixing them could inadvertently create some interesting bugs....for instance, I could see it creating a situation where no-copy items could be copied
[17:18]	Andrew Linden:	Not all future bugs. The contraints are only as smart as you make them, and can have bugs.
[17:19]	Morgaine Dinova:	True enough. But you can't just wash your hands of losses :-)
[17:19]	Kitto Flora:	LL has .. so far
[17:19]	Sindy Tsure:	no.. there has been progress..
[17:20]	Sindy Tsure:	good progress even.. there are still some really painful points, though
[17:20]	Arawn Spitteler:	Customer Service isn't a los, but a chance to meet those you otherwise wouldn't.
[17:20]	Morgaine Dinova:	Automatic recovery will keep you from going to court ... and that's priceless.
[17:20]	Jahar Aabye:	nobody's going to court over this
[17:20]	Jahar Aabye:	and even if you wanted to, the ToS is pretty clear
[17:20]	Siann Beck:	People will often sue over anything.
[17:20]	Kitto Flora:	Nobody has bothered - yet...
[17:20]	Andrew Linden:	LL is interested in reducing the losses, however there are unavoidable losses, so there is language in the TOS which basically say, "We might accidentally lose stuff."
[17:20]	Kitto Flora:	Individual losses are small
[17:21]	Morgaine Dinova:	Jahar: if a sufficiently costly item is lost, you can jolly well bet your life that someone will be going to court.
[17:21]	Andrew Linden:	IANAL (I am not a lawyer), however.
[17:21]	Kitto Flora:	But - a class-action suit - Thats possible
[17:21]	Arawn Spitteler recalls Litigation as violating the ToS
[17:21]	Siann Beck:	Someone could try to invalidate the TOS.
[17:21]	Sindy Tsure:	still, i can be unhappy.. lost an expensive, custom object and the creator seems to have left sl.. that's it.. gone..
[17:21]	Jahar Aabye:	you really don't want to invalidate the ToS, trust me
[17:21]	Jahar Aabye:	whatever short-term gains you might think you would get, the long run would be disastrous
[17:21]	Siann Beck:	Well, sure, I don't want to.
[17:22]	Sindy Tsure:	not grumpy with andrew & simon, tho.. ty for the info
[17:22]	Moon Metty:	compare SL to any major airport
[17:22]	Rex Cronon:	explain jahar
[17:22]	Kitto Flora:	Er - as its a take-it-or-leave-it ToS its already been invalidated :)
[17:22]	Morgaine Dinova:	The judge in the Bragg case already told LL very severely that their ToS are very unbalanced ... so yes, it can happen.
[17:22]	Sindy Tsure just wants to go on record by saying bragg was a dork
[17:23]	Andrew Linden:	In any case, I've seen that bug go by my triage efforts.
[17:23]	Morgaine Dinova:	But the judge wasn';t
[17:23]	Arawn Spitteler:	Was Bragg the lawyer, who found a system exploit in the auction system?
[17:23]	Jahar Aabye:	yes, and it's fairly irrelevant
[17:23]	Andrew Linden:	We haven't yet worked on it because a bunch of other stuff has eclipsed it..
[17:23]	Andrew Linden:	Such as a failing database, and some exploits, and crashes, and so on.
[17:24]	Jahar Aabye:	is this one of those things where, even if the specific cause were fixed, another one would likely pop up elsewhere eventually?
[17:24]	Jahar Aabye:	yes, the database definitely takes priority
[17:24]	Andrew Linden:	Today I fixed a crash bug and an exploit that I learned about just this morning.
[17:24]	Arawn Spitteler thinks every kid should drive a Moel T Ford, so as to learn how to fix a car.
[17:24]	Kitto Flora:	It may just be that the recent improvements in the AssetSystem have reduced the random losses
[17:24]	Jahar Aabye:	ah yes, MarkByron and I needed to discuss an exploit we found last night with you
[17:24]	Jahar Aabye:	but that can wait
[17:25]	Andrew Linden:	Arawn, perhaps they should be driving GM's or something that breaks down more often?
[17:25]	Sindy Tsure:	lol!
[17:25]	Siann Beck:	lol
[17:25]	Arawn Spitteler:	Nothing could match the Model T
[17:25]	Andrew Linden:	Hrm... actually Jahar it would be better if you could file an SEC jira issue that describes the exploit.
[17:26]	Morgaine Dinova:	Even more opportunities for item loss when we have interop ... that's going to be fun, no-copy but interoperable items crossing grid boundaries.
[17:26]	Andrew Linden:	Then you could just point me at the Jira. Also, SEC issues get triaged relatively quickly by others.
[17:26]	Jahar Aabye:	yeah, we will, but I'll want to ask you a few questions before I do, just so I don't file a JIRA that says "we don't know what's happening, and we don't know why"
[17:26]	Jahar Aabye:	ok
[17:26]	Andrew Linden:	If one falls in my domain I usually hear about it by a direct email from another Linden.
[17:27]	Andrew Linden:	Ok sure. Just send it to IM then. Or if you need a 3-way conversation we can move it somewhere else after the office hours.
[17:27]	Arawn Spitteler:	Others may have found the Jira, so Iu expect a lot of redundancy in that project.
[17:27]	Arawn Spitteler:	It'll be fixed faster, if you just tell everybody, but a Jira gives something to Triage
[17:28]	Kitto Flora:	Morgaine: If you want to sell no-copy trans expensive items with a 100% no-loss guarantee, then talk to me, I'll show you how I do that. Systems never been broken. In 3 years theres only been 2 cheat attempts.
[17:28]	Siann Beck:	Andrew, any chance we can get http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2741 into the lineup?
[17:28]	Morgaine Dinova:	Kitto: I don't want to sell anything, but I want to enable others to sell in an interop world, which is where we're heading.
[17:29]	Jahar Aabye:	it's a DDoS attack, Arawn, I'm not going to discuss it in open chat, sorry
[17:29]	Andrew Linden:	SVC-2741 = llGetBoundingBox returns incorrect values when axis dimensions are less than 0.100
[17:29]	Arawn Spitteler:	Double D?
[17:29]	Morgaine Dinova:	Distributed DoS
[17:29]	Siann Beck:	Yes.
[17:29]	Jahar Aabye:	maybe single D
[17:29]	Jahar Aabye:	not sure
[17:29]	Jahar Aabye:	go on with this ticket
[17:29]	Kitto Flora:	Oh - he interop thing is a monster that I seriously doubt LL will ever deal with. The OS guys - who knows... I was looking at money last week with one OS op
[17:29]	Morgaine Dinova:	Ie. source addresses in packets are randomized
[17:29]	Andrew Linden:	Ah, the bounding box is using the physics engine's bounding box
[17:30]	Sindy Tsure:	is that it clamping to the minimum collision distance?
[17:30]	Andrew Linden:	which has a collision tolerance
[17:30]	Morgaine Dinova:	Kitto: LL is dealing with it just fine, it's their plan, and they're working on it with the community
[17:30]	Andrew Linden:	also... there is some trickery that we do for small objects when it comes to providing them with collision shapes
[17:31]	Sindy Tsure whispers: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-22
[17:31]	Andrew Linden:	Siann, it might be possible to fix that. I'll have to think about that one.
[17:31]	Siann Beck:	OK
[17:31]	Siann Beck:	From what I understand it worked before.
[17:31]	Sindy Tsure:	with havok4 or before that?
[17:32]	Arawn Spitteler:	Is it possible, to reduce the collision shape to visible, for objects more than 20 cm?
[17:32]	Andrew Linden:	We'd have to abandon using the physics engine's bounding box, since there are several ways in which the collision shape can be wrong.
[17:32]	Siann Beck:	I don't know; I never had a chance to test it while it was working.
[17:32]	Kitto Flora:	I met a -22 related problem last week
[17:32]	Andrew Linden:	However, we currently do some of our own bounding sphere calculations.
[17:32]	Andrew Linden:	I wonder how hard it would be to also do our own bounding box calculations.
[17:32]	Sindy Tsure:	it's pretty annoying when it happens, kitto..
[17:32]	Kitto Flora:	A ridden vehicle passes a 'no entry' border, but when there's no rider its stopped at that border
[17:33]	Jahar Aabye:	that's by design, I think
[17:33]	Arawn Spitteler:	That sound inverted
[17:33]	Andrew Linden:	Oy, SVC-22. My favorite.
[17:33]	Andrew Linden:	Kitto, have you lost any train cars lately?
[17:33]	Moon Metty:	:)
[17:33]	Kitto Flora:	No Andrew, the same 2 cars are still running
[17:34]	Kitto Flora:	and the boat
[17:34]	Sindy Tsure considers rewriting svc-22.. there seems to be a few different symptoms in there
[17:34]	Arawn Spitteler:	SVC-22, the horse doesn't know it's ridden
[17:34]	Jahar Aabye:	sounds like a Zen koan
[17:34]	Andrew Linden:	Good, lets keep our fingers crossed. I have no idea what might have changed that would fix that, so I don't really expect it to be truly fixed.
[17:34]	Kitto Flora:	Either something got fixed in 1.25, or its due to the adjusted Asset Server
[17:35]	Jahar Aabye:	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1253 if we have the chance
[17:35]	Arawn Spitteler deafens Jahar, with the sound of his one clapping hand: You didn't hear that, did you?
[17:35]	Andrew Linden:	Ah yes Jahar, I was curious if you were going to bring that one up.
[17:36]	Jahar Aabye:	I don't know if you read my latest comment on that, but it turns out that it's not just SL Damage that's affected, DCS, CCS, and PC's health meters don't register damage either
[17:36]	Andrew Linden:	I've been seeing all the activity there showing up in my email, however I've deliberately not read them because I was too busy and didn't want to get distracted.
[17:36]	Andrew Linden:	I was hoping there would be some discussion going on there.
[17:37]	Andrew Linden:	What I would love to do is witness some grand consensus about what to do so I could just get it done and not have to think too hard about it.
[17:37]	Jahar Aabye:	well, I think that fixing the bug first, and then having someone submit a request for phantom avatars as a new feature might be best
[17:38]	Jahar Aabye:	that or, have collisions still be passed to the phantom avatars, VolumeDetect-style, so that collision_start() events get triggered in objects that they're wearing, and the damage collisions get registered
[17:38]	Jahar Aabye:	otherwise you've got a lot of broken content
[17:38]	Sindy Tsure:	i'd like an option to have sitting avatars phantomable
[17:38]	Sindy Tsure:	some new LSL call would be fine, too
[17:38]	Morgaine Dinova:	I think LL really doesn't want to get into the never-ending game of balance in warfare.
[17:38]	Jahar Aabye:	they don't, but this isn't about that
[17:38]	Sindy Tsure:	can you blame them?
[17:39]	Morgaine Dinova:	Indeed, it would be totally pointless :-)
[17:39]	Andrew Linden:	Actually, we'd love to support shoot-em-up gameplay. The original lack of a phantom avatar feature was a nod in that direction.
[17:39]	Arawn Spitteler:	Phantom Prohibitions in games, with a metod to detect, is what sounds good to me. I recall we were going to have racers shout, when selected.
[17:40]	Jahar Aabye:	yeah, and I'd initially thought that simply preventing phantom in Damage-Enabled areas would be a decent solution, but I don't think that's an option since DCS, CCS, and other health meters are affected too
[17:40]	Rex Cronon:	kind of hard to support shoot-em-up witht he current health system:(
[17:40]	Morgaine Dinova:	Easy fix. On entering a Health sim, you accept agreement to participate in the game. If you go phantom, you are killed.
[17:40]	Arawn Spitteler:	VolumeDetect isn't an option, when phantom, since Volume Detect merely suppresses the physics of collision, and Phantom doesn't regard collision.
[17:41]	Arawn Spitteler:	That wuld sae a flag
[17:41]	Simon Linden:	yeah, the damage system should be re-done or thrown out
[17:41]	Arawn Spitteler:	Careful not to apply that to Gods.
[17:41]	Jahar Aabye:	like I said, this is more than just damage-enabled areas....privately created health meters are affected too
[17:41]	Morgaine Dinova:	If you don't accept the agreement, then you;re not part of the game, so phantom has no effect, and if you harm others then you are a griefer --- instant AR.
[17:42]	Andrew Linden:	Just a technicality, but Phantom = "collides with terrain only" whereas "volume detect" = "truly collisionless with special overlap callbacks for scripts".
[17:42]	Jahar Aabye:	Morgaine, that doesn't help the fact that a lot of content is broken, and the GTeam doesn't want a hundred ARs from CoLA and Toxia
[17:42]	Andrew Linden:	They really are two separate features, but behave almost the same for most collisions.
[17:42]	Andrew Linden:	Well Jahar, I can tell you my preference...
[17:42]	Morgaine Dinova:	Jahar: kk, I don't know the details of those breakages.
[17:42]	Jahar Aabye:	yes, and if the phantom avatars had collisions passed to the scripts that they were wearing, it wouldn't be too bad of a problem
[17:43]	Jahar Aabye:	but the collisions aren't passed to those scripts, even when the object they're sitting on is volumedetect
[17:43]	Andrew Linden:	I would prefer to fix the bug, and eventually add a collisionless avatar feature that could be used in some places (mostly for anti-grief reasons).
[17:43]	Jahar Aabye:	that sounds like a good solution
[17:43]	Arawn Spitteler:	VolumeDetect Abatars aren't passing collisions?
[17:43]	Jahar Aabye:	especially since if it's added as a new feature, it's easier to work out what its limitation are and how it gets implemented
[17:43]	Jahar Aabye:	nope
[17:44]	Andrew Linden:	Meanwhile, the "cool content" where a phantom avatar is effectively inside a vehicle (on which they aren't really siitting) might have to just get broken.
[17:44]	Jahar Aabye:	yeah, I definitely like some of the possible "cool content" ideas, but we're talking about tens of thousands of USD of already created content that gets broken by it
[17:45]	Andrew Linden:	When I fanned the flames on that jira item I really did believe that a fix for that wouldn't get out until server-1.27 at the earliest.
[17:45]	Andrew Linden:	Now I'm not so sure... if I could fix bugs in server-1.26 while it sits in testing.
[17:45]	Jahar Aabye:	well, when it's fixed, it'd be nice to fix SVC-2450 as well
[17:45]	Jahar Aabye:	that one affects SL Damage only
[17:45]	Morgaine Dinova:	Maybe there should be an intermediate av mode between Resident and God .... a Fair Witness (taking a leaf out of Heinlein), immune to Health dmg, and unable to use weapons, usable as a monitor in game sims.
[17:45]	Andrew Linden:	However, this might be one of those bugs that wouldn't be small enough to squeeze into server-1.26 -- not sure.
[17:46]	Rex Cronon:	u mean a spectator:)
[17:46]	Andrew Linden:	Bugs that take a lot of work (lots of code or lots of testing) would be deferred to a real branch in Prospero's proposal that I was talking about earlier.
[17:46]	Arawn Spitteler thinks Umpires are simply not to be shot at.
[17:46]	Jahar Aabye:	privately-designed health meters have safe/non-combatant options, but that's a separate issue
[17:46]	Morgaine Dinova:	Not really ... a spectator has nothing to protect. A Fair Witness would lose that role if ever transgressed the rules.
[17:47]	Andrew Linden:	Also, I would like to overhaul SL damage... but lets not wander into blue sky territory,.
[17:47]	Jahar Aabye:	that'll raise a real &*$%-storm
[17:47]	Jahar Aabye:	especially from a certain maker of teleporters
[17:47]	Morgaine Dinova:	Andrew: this is a VW --- it's all blue sky, and that's why we love it ^_^
[17:47]	Andrew Linden:	Torly usually has watermelon skys I hear.
[17:48]	Morgaine Dinova:	Hehe
[17:48]	Siann Beck:	lol
[17:48]	Sindy Tsure:	lol
[17:48]	Jahar Aabye:	but yes, it does need an overhaul at some point, it's buggy and ridden with exploits that allow people to become invincible
[17:48]	Moon Metty:	lol
[17:48]	Andrew Linden:	Actually, perhaps damage is a good topic.
[17:48]	Morgaine Dinova:	Yes
[17:48]	Arawn Spitteler:	Are there any SCA Marshallls, familiar in the management of Rhino-Hyde?
[17:48]	Andrew Linden:	Can you think of ways in which it could be tweaked/improved without a full overhaul?
[17:49]	Sindy Tsure:	i think you could probably hold 6 months of weekly meetings on that and still not get consensus
[17:49]	Jahar Aabye:	mostly by improving things like SVC-2450, anything that allows for unexpected behavior and being invincible
[17:49]	Morgaine Dinova:	Andrew: first of all, I suggest that one shoe doesn't fit all. Perhaps the properties of dmg should be per-sim configurable.
[17:49]	Andrew Linden:	One problem with damage is that the way it normally works... if you're sitting on something and that thing gets shot, you get all the damage, no matter where you're sitting on it.
[17:49]	Andrew Linden:	What if the damage were modulated by collision proximity to your avatar.
[17:50]	Andrew Linden:	How much stuff would that break?
[17:50]	Jahar Aabye:	that would fix SVC-2450
[17:50]	Andrew Linden:	Oy, per sim damage settings.
[17:50]	Rex Cronon:	right now there isn't even a lsl function to get the health of an avatar:(
[17:50]	Arawn Spitteler:	Eventually, we'll have per server physics engines.
[17:50]	Jahar Aabye:	per-sim damage settings would raise military drama to levels heretofore only seen in fashion circles
[17:50]	Morgaine Dinova:	Instead of worrying about what would get broken, don't implement a single solution. Decouple all the individual elements of behaviour, and let sim owners set them up as they want.
[17:51]	Andrew Linden:	I thought there was an llGetHealth() or some sort of call. We don't have one?
[17:51]	Jahar Aabye:	well, right now the beauty of the SL Damage system is its simplicity, there aren't a lot of individual elements...if you collide with an object scripted with llSetDamage() you take damage
[17:51]	Morgaine Dinova:	Physics will change per sim .... don;t forget interop.
[17:51]	Rex Cronon:	imagine. one parcel allow 100%damage while others allow only 10%:)
[17:52]	Jahar Aabye:	now that might be interesting.....allowing the owner to set a max damage per collision
[17:52]	Jahar Aabye:	of course, people will find ways around that
[17:52]	Jahar Aabye:	but it could be interesting
[17:52]	Morgaine Dinova:	Indeed, a very popular config will probbaly be to limit dmg to 99%, so that people don't get TP'd off
[17:52]	Jahar Aabye:	ummmm, no
[17:52]	Andrew Linden:	Okay, so suppose there were per-region settings. What would the settings be? How many?
[17:52]	Andrew Linden:	max-per-collision-damage, ok
[17:53]	Sindy Tsure doesn't find such any llGetHealth on the wiki, andrew.. there's a suggestion for llGetAgentHealth but that's all i see
[17:53]	Andrew Linden:	what else would be necessary?
[17:53]	Moon Metty:	recovery speed?
[17:53]	Morgaine Dinova:	Andrew: every possible element of dmg behaviour. Decouple everything.
[17:53]	Jahar Aabye:	there aren't many elements of it, Morgaine
[17:53]	Morgaine Dinova:	Add more :P
[17:53]	Jahar Aabye:	no
[17:53]	Jahar Aabye:	bad idea
[17:53]	Rex Cronon:	max health increase, assuming u eat an apple:)
[17:53]	Arawn Spitteler:	Open another 32 flags, on damage enables dims?
[17:53]	Andrew Linden:	Well, there are a few magic numbers in the damage system. I haven't looked at them in a long time.
[17:53]	Morgaine Dinova:	Jahar: you obviously aren't a systems developer.
[17:54]	Andrew Linden:	Internally the health reserve maxes out at 100, at 0 you're dead.
[17:54]	Jahar Aabye:	making a system more complicated is never a good solution
[17:54]	Morgaine Dinova:	Decouple everything, because one shoe does not fit all, and you really don't want to get into subjective balance wars.
[17:54]	Simon Linden:	I think one idea is to make it more scriptable, and let the builders sort it out. Could be limited to the parcel-owner's objects as well
[17:54]	Jahar Aabye:	Morgaine, there are plenty of resident-designed combat systems that do the stuff you're talking about
[17:54]	Siann Beck:	One person's complication is another person's option.
[17:54]	Andrew Linden:	An advantage of one system is that scripts work the same way everywhere.
[17:54]	Jahar Aabye:	most of the stuff that people want to add to SL Damage is already available in DCS, CCS, PC, etc
[17:54]	Morgaine Dinova:	Leave the balance to sim owners in their config.
[17:54]	Jahar Aabye:	yeah
[17:55]	Jahar Aabye:	the advantage of SL Damage is that it's a known quantity, and works the same everywhere, that's why SL Militaries use it
[17:55]	Jahar Aabye:	because they know that the same rules on their base also apply on the opponent's base
[17:55]	Morgaine Dinova:	You need to think further ahead.
[17:55]	Jahar Aabye:	again, resident-designed combat systems allow for dozens of different variables
[17:55]	Arawn Spitteler had a rough idea, that Global Climate Changes could be expressed as a war, between Lycans and Yetis: I'm heading downstairs, to fetch my soup; good luck planning the Total World Destruction Laboratories.
[17:55]	Andrew Linden:	So, any ideas on simple ways to tweak damage?
[17:56]	Andrew Linden:	Consider the idea of collision proximity affecting how much damage to the agent.
[17:56]	Jahar Aabye:	the only one that I think could be done without pissing off half the combat community might be to allow a sim to set a max damage per collision
[17:56]	Andrew Linden:	Right now if you're sitting on an armored vehicle, the slightest hit can kill you.
[17:56]	Siann Beck:	That would certainly be more realistic, Andrew.
[17:56]	Rex Cronon:	really?
[17:56]	Sindy Tsure:	instead of proximity, could you do something like prim materials?
[17:57]	Morgaine Dinova:	I can assure you that dmg and warfar in general will vary hugely across open grids. If your combat community can cope with only LL's system, you're cutting yourself off from the bulk of the metaverse.
[17:57]	Jahar Aabye:	maybe, but then you're just asking for people to abuse it
[17:57]	Sindy Tsure:	different materials pass more damage to the avatar sorta thing
[17:57]	Siann Beck:	I'm not a combat person, though, so I don't know the ramification.s
[17:57]	Jahar Aabye:	yes Morgaine, do you actually have any experience in SL combat?
[17:57]	Andrew Linden:	Hrm... that's an idea. But everyone could just make their vehicles out of metal or whatever
[17:57]	Rex Cronon:	how about a functionto get the currrent health for an specific avatar
[17:57]	Jahar Aabye:	in any event, I think this is discussing the SL network, not some future metaverse run by others
[17:57]	Andrew Linden:	How would that be used Rex?
[17:58]	Morgaine Dinova:	Jahar: I don't have SL-only blinkers. LL started the interop project, I suggest you factor in their vision.
[17:58]	Jahar Aabye:	this isn't Interop office hours, drop it
[17:58]	Rex Cronon:	llgethealth(usekey k) returns int from 1 to 100
[17:58]	Andrew Linden:	If there were per-region settings then scriptors will also want llGetMaxCollisionDamage() etc
[17:58]	Object: Hello, Avatar!
[17:58]	Jahar Aabye:	ah yes, that would be useful
[17:58]	Andrew Linden:	Sure Rex, but how would that be useful?
[17:59]	Morgaine Dinova:	Everying is interop hours. Deciding on things that will break when the interop team implements its work is just a waste of everyone's time.
[17:59]	Andrew Linden:	pretend I don't write a lot of warfare scripts.
[17:59]	Rex Cronon:	i want to know how much life i have left
[17:59]	Jahar Aabye:	you can tell that from thetop of the screen
[17:59]	Andrew Linden:	Oh ok, so just a health meter in HUD
[17:59]	Jahar Aabye:	but it could be useful for figuring out the health of your team
[17:59]	Object: Hello, Avatar!
[17:59]	Jahar Aabye:	or for that matter, your opponents
[17:59]	Rex Cronon:	so i can use the secondfunction: llsethealth(userkey k, int value):)
[18:00]	Andrew Linden:	Yeah, ok I get it.
[18:00]	Andrew Linden:	What about health power-ups?
[18:00]	Kitto Flora:	llGetHealth() seems not to exist. Not in wiki, not in cut/paste
[18:00]	Rex Cronon:	maybe i want to deploy automatic defences if health goes tooo low
[18:01]	Jahar Aabye:	I think health power ups would be too easily abused
[18:01]	Jahar Aabye:	again, most private combat systems use them, but that's because they're proprietary coding
[18:01]	Rex Cronon:	second function is for powerups:)
[18:01]	Morgaine Dinova:	Does the viewer get told when the av has been hit (network event), or is the only notification that health has been lost? (I'm on the Imprudence team, wondering if we can provide some nice feedback on being hit)
[18:01]	Sindy Tsure:	could do powerups.. have to make them so that only the parcel owner can call that function, tho
[18:01]	Arawn Spitteler wonders if Phillip ever read Zelezny: I guess we're looking for functions friendly to Damage System Design
[18:02]	Sindy Tsure:	like the meida commands
[18:02]	Simon Linden:	What sort of functions or settings would help the SL combat system builders more?
[18:02]	Andrew Linden:	Hrm... I'm interested in studying the damage system to see what can be done, and to hearing suggestions. Just don't know when I could get to it.
[18:02]	Andrew Linden:	I've got a dozen personal projects I'd love to work on
[18:02]	Jahar Aabye:	well, one thing to do would be to study what private developers have created
[18:02]	Sindy Tsure:	like svc-22
[18:02]	Jahar Aabye:	DCS isn't very well coded, but CCS is
[18:02]	Andrew Linden:	but I tend to get overwhelmed by ermergencies and "oh my ghod save the grid" type problems.
[18:02]	Morgaine Dinova:	Hehe
[18:03]	Andrew Linden:	Ah yes, SVC-22, one of my personal favorites indeed.
[18:03]	Jahar Aabye:	that's because when trouble strikes, only one man can save the grid
[18:03]	Andrew Linden:	lol
[18:03]	Arawn Spitteler:	We still have that lDetectedPos Issue, Where the collision might be in queue, while other stuff is lagging.
[18:03]	Sindy Tsure:	somebody needs to make andrew a cape
[18:03]	Siann Beck:	lol
[18:03]	Morgaine Dinova:	Jedi Linden
[18:03]	Sindy Tsure:	:)
[18:04]	Arawn Spitteler has a cape, but fog heavy, and black
[18:04]	Andrew Linden:	Ok, looks like this hour is up. Thank you all for coming.
[18:04]	Morgaine Dinova:	Thanks Andrew
[18:04]	Moon Metty:	thank you Andrew :)
[18:04]	Jahar Aabye:	ah, one last thing, any plan to deal with SVC-1038?
[18:04]	Sindy Tsure:	ty andrew & simon
[18:04]	Sindy Tsure:	cya, all!
[18:04]	Morgaine Dinova:	And thanks Simon :-)
[18:04]	Siann Beck:	Thank you, Andrew and Simon.
[18:04]	Kitto Flora:	When trouble the grid strikes, use The Force you must!
[18:04]	Arawn Spitteler:	Try for Welsh Grammar, Kitto
[18:04]	Morgaine Dinova:	use the Force must you ;-)
[18:05]	Rex Cronon:	kitto , r u sure u r not yoda:)