Yesterday, Team Firestorm's Project Manager Beq Janus made their first blog post since December, wanting to explain why "It has been a little while since we released a Firestorm update, and I wanted to use this week to discuss why that is, where we are, and what to expect."
She stated that "if all goes to plan," they'll be making a series of posts explaining upcoming features, "But before I do that, I wanted to quickly recap where things stand today." She began with saying that last week, the Lab was saying it's "ForeverFPS" viewer was the default Linden viewer, while Firestorm's official release continues to be "aligned with what LL called 'DeltaFPS.'" Why didn't the Lab's earlier version, called ExtraFPS, have a matching update from Firestorm? Beq stated that the team concluded, "in part on feedback through the early-access group and other interactions," that there wasn't enough appeal for it among Firestorm users, and they had already done a number of updates in a relatively short time. In contrast, the Lab's ForeverFPS viewer mostly added numerous improvements, such as water and sky rendering quality, and bug fixes
"So if we are now a couple releases behind ... where are we at today?" Based on statistics provided by Linden Lab, almost 80% of Firestorm users are using a PBR-capable viewer, most of whom are using the latest one (PBR-WebRTC aka 7.1.10). Of the remaining 20%, most are using 6.6.17, the last pre-PBR viewer.
Beq would comment that most Firestorm users change to a new viewer within two weeks, 40% within 48 hours), commenting that some wouldn't move "until compelled by the three-version 'block,' relying on our roughly quarterly updates" to give them stable viewers. But under their new update model in which older versions aren't automatically blocked, those using older versions "no longer have anything to compel them to update."
This is not a problem in the grand scheme of things, but it is a problem when it obscures the users who are not updating for reasons other than “can’t be bothered” as we are unable to tell if we need to do more to help those users or whether they are happy as they are and will move when compelled by broken content or some other reason. This is undoubtedly true of the 8% on the buggy 7.1.9 version, where many of those still clinging to it are saying “well it’s ok for me”. Those people can and will update to a later 7.X viewer when they feel the time is right, and because they are already on 7.1.9 we know that their machines are capable and overall most of them will see a further improvement when they next update.
This is not a problem in the grand scheme of things, but it is a problem when it obscures the users who are not updating for reasons other than “can’t be bothered” as we are unable to tell if we need to do more to help those users or whether they are happy as they are and will move when compelled by broken content or some other reason. This is undoubtedly true of the 8% on the buggy 7.1.9 version, where many of those still clinging to it are saying “well it’s ok for me”. Those people can and will update to a later 7.X viewer when they feel the time is right, and because they are already on 7.1.9 we know that their machines are capable and overall most of them will see a further improvement when they next update.
At the end, Beq offered, "A quick survey. Tell us why you run the version you do." (link) She concluded, "There really is a lot of new stuff coming in the next update so please look out for more updates in the coming days."
To see the blog post in full, Click Here.
Bixyl Shuftan
No comments:
Post a Comment