Phase 2 of Second Life’s display names feature went live shortly after phase 1 went live. Second Life surnames have now functionally ceased to exist.
Well, I suppose they sort of exist, for backwards compatibility purposes, but essentially the only surname on offer now is – the rather annoying – “Resident”, and viewers with Display Names support won’t really show you that surname.
New users now essentially sign up with a single first name – now called an ‘account name’.
That’s the name that they log in with (for any pre-Display Names viewer, they have to log in using ‘Resident’ as a surname), and that attaches to their avatar and possessions independently of their Display Name. Since that’s not what you might call ‘expected behaviour’ (if you’re expecting Second Life to behave like many MMOGs do, with regard to names), it’s probably not going to significantly reduce the amount of name-related account abandonment.
On the plus side, the last couple of days has seen a nearly 50% jump in Second Life signups, and median concurrency has risen a few percentage points in the same period. As yet, though, the change to concurrent usage isn’t anything to write home about.
It’s too early to tell if either Project Skylight or Display Names are genuinely having any positive effects on the in-world economy or on user retention.
“to the exclusion of anything that, you know, actually works for the existing userbase”
Yes, like (my personal opinion) the marketplace. Why did LL not aquire xstreetsl and shut it down – to get people actually ‘live’ in-world.
Yes, it’s more difficult to find items in-world, it might take longer too.
But isn’t this the fun of shopping ? Hopping through stores, meeting people who are also on a shopping trip, exploring new/interesting things just occasionally ?
As one who tried and rejected Viewer 2 and remains on 1.23.5, I have not noticed any changes due to the release of the Display Names feature. So SL gets a good grade for backward compatibility.
For a while, I was attempting to consult with companies about using SL… the working inworld thing. One problem that always arose was registration and inworld names. People wanted their employees to use their actual names inworld, which was not an option. The best they could do was pay for a custom “company” last name and condense their true first and last name into a spaceless first name.
Display names appears to exactly address this issue. The inworld worker registers with a unique username, appears inworld with an employer approved display name, which may be their true real life name. The fact that the display name is not unique reflects the fact that real world names are not unique.
As to identity theft, I assume that we will all learn to not depend on display names for any type of authentication, and we will have available a method for obtaining an avatars unique identifier, such as seeing it in their profile.
Ah – another explanation for the jump in signups. Many people are finding themselves ghosted on the grid and having log in as alts in order to get the sims restarted so they can log in as themselves.
Had a resident yesterday who was ghosted on the Mainland, we anticipate it may take him some time to get back to himself
This is a nightmare for merchants who only see ONE name the first name in their transactions and marketplace transactions.
Merchants havent even been told that when ‘Lucy’ buys an item it’s ‘Lucy Resident’ purchasing…
One of the things I loved in Second Life was being able to have a first name that rolled off the tongue, aka keyboard, naturally. One that was familiar and needed no thought of spelling. Other games need non-cognitive spelling or long names to get a name that is not already taken. I got my best friend to finally try SL the other night. She was so frustrated that the character creation screen kept saying every name she wanted was already taken, that she finally closed it. I tried to help her by trying to find the SL list of surnames available but could not find them. Now I know why. Thank you, LL, not.
Display names, V2, Minors on the grid, lag, zero customer service, no longer being able to select the first name you want (which was almost always possible due to the many surnames)..thanks LL for destroying Second Life. I will stand back and watch the Titanic sink.
I’m a ‘new’ user (83 days now), and i am not happy to have the last-name ‘resident’ by force; and it all seems incredibly confusing all these names to the point that i don’t care to find out – i need my brain already for things that do matter. Now i look forever stupid for having a stupid last name. If last names are suposedly obsolete, then why would anyone care what anyone sets as their last name for those people who for whatever reason don’t see them as obsolete. If it is a spare/obsolete field, why would they care, it is merely a few bytes.