Second Life makes a lot of effort to get users to upgrade to Premium Plus, but they keep falling short. I occasionally upgrade my alts to Plus in order to get the Linden Home concierge service, but none of the other features—not even the larger land holdings—interest me. I was immediately interested in reading today’s blog post on the new SpeedLight benefit for Plus members. Even though I don’t to use Second Life on my phone, it would be convenient to be able to send money, chat with friends, and perform some basic land administration.
What exactly is SpeedLight and do you need Premium Plus to use it? SpeedLight is a mobile viewer that is free to use. You don’t need Plus or Gold (which costs L$1,990 Lindens a month) unless you want to utilize some extra features like 3D World. So I thought to myself, if 3D World renders Second Life as good as the low graphics settings on a viewer, I would be okay with that.
My experience with games on mobile viewers is limited to Decentraland, and it works quite well. I was shocked to see that the SpeedLight viewer is actually worse than Decentraland. Blocky stick figures serve as avatars; even when I used the right click to render them completely, nothing happened. Although my computer is a good one, the SpeedLight viewer in my browser is so slow that I could hear it whirling and possibly dying. If you’re trying to utilize this viewer for any visuals, you’ll be as disappointed as I was because movements are slow and the objects didn’t render. If you have to be in Second Life for simple tasks, this viewer might suffice, but it is a last resort.
Even if SpeedLight is better than nothing, I would not upgrade to Plus in order to use it because it takes away my favorite aspects of Second Life, like the stunning visuals and quick rendering. Now that Second Life is sort of offering a mobile viewer via SpeedLight, I think it spells the death of the mobile viewer development.
Are you a Plus member? What prompted you to upgrade? If you’re not a Plus member, would you upgrade with the current benefits? Let me know in the comments!
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Was debating but not much extras I would use