Any sort of facelift to the log-in screen is a welcome one, though the new one we got is a far cry from what I've read people suggesting. There's no animation, no buildings, no avatars, just a landscape, though now we get stats and news from LL's blog. This is all well and good as far as it goes. However, in the upper right-hand corner, we also get some stats that kind of made me cringe just a little: Total Residents, Logged in Last 60 Days, and Online Now.There's a large disparity between those three measurements, and it's very telling ... of what exactly, I'm not sure, but it doesn't look terribly good when only half the number of the over one million residents registered have logged in over the past two months. Over the past few days, I've also noticed that the residents online at any given time are a small fraction of the total number as well.
I'm sure this has always been the case to a certain degree, and any oldbie will be able to tell you stories about the Good Old Days (you know, 2003), but with all the extra attention SL's been getting, it sure doesn't seem like we're keeping many of the people who create an account to check out what SL's like. Will this trend continue? Will we see over 2 million registered users in a year's time (or sooner) and only 1/4 of those Online Now?
1. Well, bluntly the initial resident experiences are a bit pants.
What we have right now is a fixed, forced-pace new user experience, where the unnecessary plethora of presented user-interface options serve to overwhelm rather than clarify - so as the next orientation step is achieved, the lessons just learned are forgotten (they should be being reinforced!)
Transitioning to the mainland or a help island right now is a lucky-dip (or an unlucky one, depending on your perspective) based on exactly who you encounter. Some people will treat you gently, superbly, and help you along. Others will insult you, laugh at you or cage you.
There's currently no means in place to prepare people for that. If nothing else, orientation should reinforce lessons learned, rather than just going from new item to new item.
As for the randomness of throwing people in at the deep end, we've always had that. It's just more of the people they meet now are confused.
Oh, it's all fixable, end-to-end, but it requires a fair bit of commitment.
Posted at 4:45AM on Oct 31st 2006 by Tateru Nino