The Drax Files Radio Hour Episode 4 – The Breaking Of The Fellowship

When I was a lad, Friday was Crackerjack day and people could win a Crackerjack pencil. Many moons later Friday is Draxtor Despres day, aided and abetted by Jo Yardley (not Yo Yardley, Yo Yardley is a greeting) and you can’t even win a virtual pencil. As I write this post, there has still been no update from Linden Lab about anything regarding the CEO, but there is a post about  the latest episode of The Drax Files video show, which I did say the smart money was on! Alas there was no betting available for that prediction.

The latest edition of The Drax Files Radio hour not surprisingly covers the departure of the beloved CEO, or not so beloved by some, there is balance in the opinions. The show is introduced by Flufee McFluff.

There’s an interesting interview with Venturebeat’s Dean Takahashi regarding Rod Humble’s departure. Second Life artist and Dwarfins legend Jaimy Hancroft calls the show from Belgium.

Jaimy Hancroft

There’s something in the water in Belgium, not content with finding an absurd amount of brilliant footballers, they are also dipping their toes into the virtual world arena, world domination may be on the cards, you heard it here first.

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The Drax Files Episode 16 – Feed A Smile

Feed A Smile Stage

Episode 16 of The Drax Files finds Draxtor Despres speaking to Brique Topaz (Second Life name) who raises money for the Live and Learn in Kenya charity and their Feed A Smile programme. As usual I’ll embed the video at the end of the post. The video touches upon the variety of ways that the charity raises funds and also talks of how some folk weren’t that convinced about the prospects of raising money via a virtual world …. until they saw the money rolling in!

The charity have a club, The Lavender Field, where artists perform for free, with their tips going to the charity. We see artists from different parts of the world projecting themselves through their real self into their virtual self to perform at the club. There are a number of singers featured and unfortunately I don’t know their names.

Feed A Smile Elephants

 

Brique points out that 100 Linden Dollars will feed a child for a day, that works out to around 30 US cents. Some singers have better followings than others, Brique cites one popular singer who in an hour will generate tips that will pay for 800 meals. However Brique will welcome any singer, it all adds up.

The board of directors were not at all convinced about Second Life, indeed Brique says that “They are no longer against Second Life“, suggesting there were some doubts regarding the venture. This is why The Drax Files is such a good platform for Second Life and other virtual worlds, people do not realise quite how powerful virtual worlds can be. In this case, Brique explains that Second Life is raising around 1,000 Euros every month and paying for around a third of all meals via this venture, pretty impressive and heart warming stuff.

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Land Bots Prohibited – Now That Is A Surprise, Are Tier Prices About To Drop?

Well the surprises have arrived quickly, Inara Pey (via a shout out to Mona Eberhardt) reports that Land Bots are no longer allowed to be used to purchase mainland parcels. This would have been pretty hot news four or five years ago, I’m not sure what good this policy is in an age when land in Second Life is going for peanuts.

The official policy can be found here : http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Inworld_policy_on_bots

The relevant sections of this quiet update state:

Mainland parcel sales and bots

Some bots are used to automate the purchase of Mainland parcels priced below fair market values.

Policy

Using bots to purchase Mainland parcels is not allowed

The use of bots, autonomous software, scripting (manual or automated), scripted agents, or any systems or software internal or external to the Second Life service that circumvent, automate and/or remove the human interaction required to purchase a Land parcel within Second Life on the Linden Lab owned Mainland is prohibited.

When I was a lad in Second Life I used to regularly go to the Jack Linden office hour, where land bots were often a hot topic. Land at the time would regularly be sold for L$10 – L$15 per square meter, if you’re new to Second Life those figures are probably eye popping, land has dropped way below L$1 per square meter in many parts of the mainland. Land prices are so low that land bots at this stage are probably more of a help than a hindrance as people can find the price to make some small income from selling, rather than abandoning their land.

I’m really puzzled as to what the motivation behind this policy is today. The part about purchasing parcels below fair market value has my spidey senses tingling, and not in a good way. I hope they are not going to try and set a minimum price for selling land or hoping for a new land bubble from people manually flipping parcels.

However maybe there’s a surprise policy change in the works, maybe tier prices are going to drop and the lab expect a free for all with people trying to buy more parcels. The policy would actually make sense were tier prices to drop, or people were allowed more tier free land as part of their premium membership.

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The Silence Of The Labs

I know I know, it’s Linden Lab, but The Silence Of The Lab doesn’t work as well for a headline, anyway, http://lindenlabs.com does take you to the right place. However the right place still has no mention of a CEO, as we come towards the end of day 7 of “One of our CEO’s is missing“.

The silence from the lab is pretty deafening at the moment, which is now getting beyond the useful stage. The smart money at this stage seems to be on the next Second Life blog post that isn’t a pic of the day being a shout out for the next video installment of The Drax Files. A very worthy addition should be released tomorrow, well worth a shout out that’s for sure but not exactly reassuring to the expectant masses.

Over at New World Notes Hamlet Au has another tease of a post: Relax: Rod Humble Leaves Linden Lab, But Second Life Steams on (With Surprises Still on the Way) :

Rod Humble is gone and that is too bad for many reasons, but Second Life is doing fine (more or less). Not only that, some excellent surprises are coming soon

At this stage, an excellent surprise would be someone at Linden Lab finding their way to the blog and posting some information. Whereas the silence of the lab has created a buzz of sorts, the buzz is getting close to being stewed, which means it won’t leave a nice taste in the mouth for much longer. The issue isn’t just that the CEO chair is absent, there are other issues too.

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The Big Question About That Eve-Online Battle – Was Porky Gorky Involved?

The Eve-Online mega battle that led to the estimated loss of £181,000 worth of virtual spaceships and goods has been making the news. Some of the figures being bandied about are a tad misleading because they are talking about the value of the inworld game currency of ISK. The thing with ISK is that it’s not like Linden Dollars, they can’t legitimately be sold for real money, but they can be used to buy Plex, which in turn can be used to pay for game time and other services.

If you’re familiar with Cloud Party coins or Kitely credits you may have a better grasp of this. Anyway, back to the main question, was Second Life’s Porky Gorky involved in the battle? Back in July 2013 Porky talked of his love of Eve-Online on the Second Life forum:

The only other virtual world I have committed to over the years is EVE. 9 years nearly in both EVE and SL. In SL pretty much everyone I have known is gone. In EVE I can name at least 20 people who have been very active for over 7 years and still are now. I think that says allot about the EVE and CCP’s ability to retain users when compared to LL.

When I read of the news of the battle in Eve-Online I thought of Porky …… yes that did disturb me too. However the Hydro Homes building legend is a fan of the game and having been involved for that long, he may know a thing or two about the value of a Titan ship.

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