Unia - Why i hate it already.

You remember the "quality content" and "compatibility" section of my previous posts? Yes? Good. Ever heard of UNIA inworld? I didn't. I heard about Last Remnants of Earth lately and i was inclined to test it out. It appears that UNIA seems to be something very similar to it and it seems to be very popular lately. As good as UNIA may be, it is a good example of how you shouldn't advertise your stuff. I looked into the How to Play section of the website to see if Furrys are allowed (yes i really have to check that on every damn game), seems like yes, "Good" i thought, until i scrolled further down. I became instantly enraged when i saw the About Game Play section. Let's check it:

Before beginning, please note:

• While any sized avatar can play the game, because this game uses motion capture animations for immersion, the animations are designed for average sized human avatars.
• Some AOs may override in-game animations. If you are not seeing animations when you interact with game elements in UNIA, please turn off your AO.
• For fullest immersion, make sure you allow the region windlight to set the correct atmosphere for you. All game scenarios have been made with a special windlight in mind.
• Also for the purposes of immersion, be sure to enable sounds. This game is rich with voiceovers and environmental sounds.
• It is advised that you set your viewers to a draw distance of 256 meters. *Please note, that for some players, this may also increase lag. If you feel increasing draw distance to this level is a drawback rather than a benefit, feel free to reduce it to the level you feel most comfortable with.
• For best graphical experience, please also be sure to set your Level of Detail (LOD) value to 4.0. This should not noticeably affect lag, but if it does, feel free to adjust accordingly:
• For Firestorm: 

1. Click on the Firestorm "Quick Preferences" icon, located toward the bottom right of your viewer window.

Mh. Mh. Mh. Mh. 256 Draw Distance?....okay... and then. Cockslap. 4.0 LoD? Are you telling me you build the entire SIM based on 4.0 LoD? I remember someone telling me that Firestorm magically enforces a 4.0 LoD as minimum to people, don't get me wrong here, setting LoD to anything higher than 3.0 (default ultra) is ok but why are you putting this into a sort of "requirements before you play" list, are you telling me that your entire stuff is based on a non default broken LoD value? So if i go in there with a normal 3.0 LoD (LL Viewer) without changing it in Debugs stuff might look broken and not like it was build? What is this? This is absolute bullocks! If you create content it should work properly with default settings. Number 1. Number 2 coming right after. Firestorm. Seriously? Almost the entire explained tutorial section is made with and for Firestorm and there are only half-assed links to the Linden Viewer. This is absolutely unacceptable. It's the same as my previous post about mentors forcing to use a certain Viewer to get help. THIS is literally rubbing it through their face, manipulation. It also shows that proper compatibility with the default Linden Viewer is not met here unless you modify Debug Settings. "Hey look, i'll try to explain to you now how you can play the game, but i'll explain it in my entirely different and totally not default Viewer", that's what i think they are doing right there. Stop it. You don't write a tutorial on how to play your game in a certain Viewer unless it is the default everyone should be familiar with. Firestorm is NOT the default, Linden Viewer is. Write your tutorials for the Linden Viewer and design your game for it otherwise you are subtle forcing people to switch to a certain Viewer to make full use of your game and its features. I don't sell a collar that only looks good in my own Viewer, i sell a collar that looks good in the Linden Viewer because it was made for it and looks even better in my own, THAT is how you do it, maximum compatibility with the defaults. Compatibility went wrong here. Quality went wrong at the part where you started basing your open (non specifically for this purpose created) experience on a graphical preset that is not available without doing some debug editing. FIX IT.

As you can hopefully see and understand, things you may see as totally "normal" are sometimes absolutely bogus to the point where i qualify them as "bad content" or in this case the proper would be "badly optimized" and "badly executed information sharing". I hope the creators will see it and learn from it.

I hope we all learn something from this.

Don't base your products and/or experiences you want to share on Viewer specific features or non defaults. 

Exception: The product and/or experience is specifically created for that Viewer and is advertised as such.

Example: Don't create an atmospheric game that is meant to be played by the entirety of Second Life and using a Viewer specific feature like Parcel Windlight to achieve your atmosphere, you are effectively locking everyone out of your game's atmospheric aspect, everyone who doesn't have this feature... and as we know there are Viewers that have no desire to include such features unless officially implemented.

According to this, some of you should hope that there won't be someone like me ever to control your content, otherwise you might be seeing yourself confronted with a lot of additional work and/or a straight up declination. You sell something as "high quality"? Why are you using multiple 1024x1024 textures on a necklace and why does your necklace have 30k polygons... where are the material maps?! You could have used the massive additional free texture memory of those obselete 1024x1024 textures to add a specular map (and possibly normal map for details on certain parts of your necklace). Goddamnit. Please Linden Labs. Content Creation lessons, teachers, weekly approval tests and manual (voluntary) content quality checks by qualified people. Here! Here! Take me, i would do it!