What SL needs

I'm amazed that no one's really competed directly with Second Life.  It has so many neat things in it, and it could so be improved.  Here's my wishlist.  (Right this second; I'm sure I'll think of more!)


Can you find the visual glitch in this picture?

One, better avatar control.  You can import animations, and there are some gestures (mini-animations) available, but I want to be able to do things like move my right hand.  And move it in small, natural increments... even touch things.  And I'd like to be able to do it delicately enough that I can actually act with it... i.e., improve RP, do stage business, make sexual encounters more interesting.

I've often felt that a HUD with a bunch of animations could do it. The problem is making the animations... I can script and I'm a whiz with Photoshop, but 3-D animation programs are difficult for me.  (A friend of mine has the opposite problem: she's a guru with Maya but has trouble scripting.)

Two, a combat system.  Since it's not built-in, people have created HUDs and weapons with scripts, in a variety of incompatible systems, and they all suck in one way or another.  Scripts create enormous lag, which in turn makes aiming a crapshoot.  Wall detection is poor.  Since anyone can buy anything, fancy systems allow uneven, unfair gear.  Most good RP sims ban weapons systems, because they're no fun and they create nothing but drama. 

The best solution would be if a simple but effective system was included (optionally) in SL itself, so it'd be fast and universal.  For RP purposes it's more important to be fair than to be elaborate, and it should reward skill, not shopping.  (If there were hooks for a sim owner to tweak the system to tailor it to local RP, so much the better.  E.g. a medieval sim could turn off ray weapons)

Three, update the avatar mesh already.  It hasn't changed in five years, but computers have; SL is starting to look archaic compared to recent games like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect 2.  A finer grid would improve the appearance of clothing in a few problem areas, and greatly improve the appearance of avatars when bending limbs. 

Four, bag the Metaverse metaphor.  SL can't be as fast or responsive as other video games while it insists on doing some stupid things.  One is the overall grid: especially if you're on the mainland, you can see for several sims.  There's a reason video games have convoluted maps where you're usually in a building or a blocked-off street somewhere: it reduces draw times.  What you can't see doesn't have to be rendered.

SL also allows a sim to have a boatload of textures-- theoretically each of 15,000 prims could have six different textures, to say nothing of what avatars are wearing, or other sims you can peek into.  As a result it takes a noticeable time for things to rez, and shopping in-world can be a very frustrating experience.

Again, other games prove that all this isn't necessary.  It'd be far better for performance to have small levels, as small as as single room, where a single designer would have control over all loaded textures.  It'd also be much nicer for most homes and other areas that don't take up a whole sim: almost always your neighbors uglify the environment. 

That last one is such a biggie I don't ever expect SL to fix it... thus my hope that someone will start over and do it right.