February 2013 – Ciaran Laval

February 28, 2013

Linden Lab Should Talk To The Virtual World Media

I like Metareality Podcast, there, I’ve said it! I mean Draxtor can talk about his Xanax, Qarl can tell us he got jaded whilst being a Linden, Gianna can sound fed up whilst giggling and the two boys can swear like troopers, but it’s an entertaining affair. I’d like to hear a Linden being a guest, but Gianna has made comments that they keep cancelling at the last minute.

I can recall seeing Lindens make appearances on the former inworld chat show: Tonight Live With Paisley Beebe. Paisley has moved on, as have most of the Lindens she interviewed! Hmmm. Treet TV has a number of shows, although these days Designing Worlds seems to be the big one, not that that’s a bad thing. Some of the shows listed are no longer active but are fun to look back on. Media outlets like this are good for Second Life, it’s a shame they aren’t more widely promoted. Surely Linden Lab are the ultimate world designers? Would they fit in Designing Worlds? Saffia Widdershins of Prim Perfect could probably answer that!

Tomorrow will see the launch of something very interesting from Draxtor Despres who is unveiling a new show on his youTube channel at 10am.

I mention other media channels because I see on the Second Life blog, a blog about improvements to Second Life. The post talks about the CHUI beta viewer, improvements to region crossings, the new email options on the marketplace, the cocoa project viewer, which is intended to improve performance on the mac as well as talking about the forthcoming materials project, for which there will soon be a project viewer. I am extremely pleased to see Linden Lab making better use of their blog. However, how about making better use of their world too?

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February 28, 2013February 28, 2013

Chui Hits Beta, LL Equip Their Flak Jackets

The Communication Hub User Interface (CHUI) has hit the beta viewer and will cause some major flak when it hits the main viewer, if it ever hits the main viewer. I’ll start off by saying that it has some really nice features, but they are going to be unfamiliar features and people will undoubtedly complain about the amount of screen space it takes up.

I’m not going to go into too much detail here, if you want more detail read the Second Life forum post from Viewer Linden, alternatively read Inara Pey’s blog post or watch Torely’s video, I’ll embed that at the end of the post. I’ve also edited my images to protect the innocent and not so innocent, so if it looks odd, it’s because I’ve blacked out text and names.

When you go into conversations, you get some previous chat and then today’s chat, as well as some options and it’s these options I’ll briefly touch on. There are four options:

Open Conversations Window.
Pop Up The Message.
Flash Toolbar Button.
None.

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February 28, 2013

Fantasy Faire 2013 Pencilled In For April 20th – 28th

I’ve had no official information regarding Fantasy Faire 2013, although Fantasy Faire 2012 was a great event. I’ve been getting more and more worried by the day that there is not going to be a Fantasy Faire 2013.

However as I’m an evil Drow Wizard, breeder of Dwarfins, owner of protest gnomes, have a chief Elf and army of minions, I have been able tov(via dubious and not at all dubious means) get the skinny on the lowdown.

Fantasy Faire 2013 is pencilled in for April 20th – April 28th, registrations should be opening in early March. We’ll all have to wait for more official information before getting all excited…. now that’s not going to work, I’m excited already!

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February 27, 2013

Will Second Life Ever Be Able To Address International Issues?

I was listening to MetaReality Podcast over the weekend when Qarl mentioned that Second Life under Mark Kingdon had been considering ways to bring back gambling, according to some it has never really gone away, but the days of casinos on the landscape are certainly long gone.

This remined me that I’d been reading about real money Facebook apps: Facebook strikes deal with 888 to launch more real-money gaming apps in the UK. The key here being the in the UK part, so as to not fall foul of laws regarding online gambling in jurisdictions where it’s not allowed.

A quick recap on gambling in Second Life, as far as I’m aware it was never licensed. However it was popular and it did require land, so it generated tier revenue. Linden Lab took a business decision to ban it, but I can recall a forum or blog post where Zee Linden, former CFO, said they had been considering finding a way to bring it back. However that has never happened.

When Linden Lab struck a deal with Dragonfish to process payments, I wondered if this was to do with introducing gambling back to Second Life, as Dragonfish are related to 888, the same 888 who are introducing gaming apps to Facebook. When you used to email support, they had an 888 address. This was for the now defunct Local Payments System, US residents didn’t have their payments processed in this fashion.

Now one way of bringing gambling back to Second Life would have been to do what Facebook are doing, and restrict it to residents of a certain country, so for example if 888 had opened an 888 sim, only UK residents would be able to enter. This would obviously be problematic, especially as gambling winnings would find their way into the wider economy, but it does raise the issue of restrictions on Second Life based on the geographic location of Linden Lab, rather than their customers.

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February 26, 2013

How About Introducing A Verified Merchant Scheme For The Marketplace?

I think it’s probably coincidence but I’m seeing more reports of dodgy market place stores appearing and end users getting ripped off. Let’s get some things straight here, The SL Marketplace is not a hive of villainy, the vast majority of people shop on The Marketplace happily, they receive good service and goods they want.

Dodgy goods and practices in Second Life are also not exclusive to The Marketplace, long before The Marketplace arrived copybot was being misused. I’ve had a skin creator in tears inworld showing me a store selling her ripped skins and she was extremely frustrated about the options open to her.

However The Marketplace, unfortunately, makes dodgy practices easier, the question is, is there any way of minimising the issues? I’ve seen suggestions such as requiring premium membership or PIOF to operate a Marketplace store. PIOF hasn’t stopped dodgy Mesh items being sold on The Marketplace and a premium membership requirement would drastically cut the number of sellers on The Marketplace, whilst at the same time punishing honest sellers who may even spend more than premium membership fees each month renting land.

However I don’t think doing nothing is an option anymore. Maybe we need to see a simple verification scheme, whereby people who have a payment history with Linden Lab become verified merchants and can display a verified merchant logo on their listings.

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