Second Life Improvements On Their Way

Linden Lab have announced in a blog post that some improvements are heading the way of Second Life. The improvements aren’t exactly what you’d call sexy but they do have the potential to be rather impressive, if all goes to plan.

The first change mentioned is with relation to how graphic settings are detected. Linden Lab are doing away with the old graphics table and using a new benchmark to detect your graphics card instead. On first glance this seems to be more accurate, you may see something like this :

An Image Should Be Here
New Graphics Card Detection

The point of this is described in the blog post from Linden Lab :

Maybe this has happened to you: you got an awesome new graphics card, fired up SL… only to discover your graphics settings are set to Low, and can’t be changed? No more! This Viewer does away with the old GPU table and instead uses a quick benchmark measurement to detect your GPU to assign appropriate default graphics settings on startup. The settings on shiny powerful hardware should really let that hardware shine.

My graphics settings stayed exactly where I expected them to but yes, the new tool did produce more accurate results regarding my graphics card. However if you want to test out this new feature, you will need to download a project viewer, which you can get here : http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Project_Benchmark/3.7.17.294710/ There’s a Jira issue linked to this entitled Death To The Gpu table but that’s not viewable.

The next change discussed is to do with the login screen, which has been covered brilliantly by Inara Pey already. I recommend reading Inara’s blog post about this because those using the Second Life viewer will see these changes in the near future and Inara’s post has plenty of details on those changes.

The changes currently in the works for the login screen include the addition of a my favourite places dropdown to allow you to login to, well, your favourite places directly from the login screen. This is on top of still having the last location and region option that are already there, but really, read Inara for more information.

The final part of the blog post covers two projects that compliment each other and should bring improvements to the Second Life experience.

Continue reading “Second Life Improvements On Their Way”

The Philomena Book Fair And Library Grand Opening

Philomena Library

Philomena is a quite picturesque sim, it has old style buildings, a trolley ride, shops and most important of all, a library! The reason why the library is important is because it is the setting for a a book fair that runs from September 27th until October 4th.

There is also the grand opening of the new Philomena Public Library and libraries should very definitely be supported. I’m not going to talk too much on this subject because there’s a notecard with all the information and I’ll post that under the cut. If you’re already under the cut, it’s the next section!

Continue reading “The Philomena Book Fair And Library Grand Opening”

Storm Septimus Talks To Me About The Chamber Library In Second Life

Admiring The Bookshelves

Linden Lab continue to impress with their Destination Guide promotion and their latest blog post highlighting the destination guide contains some real gems. One that particularly caught my eye was The Chamber Library and so I popped along for a deeper look and was fortunate enough to bump into the creator and owner Storm Septimus.

The Chamber Library officially opened just a few days ago on September 21st and is already being expanded, with Storm hoping to have a new chamber open by September 29th. Storm has been working tirelessly on this build, filling the bookshelves with notecards for books on subject matters such as Poetics, Dream & Short Stories, Demonology & Horror and Superstition. The works of famous authors such as The Brothers Grimm, TS Eliot, William Shakespear, TS Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, Voltaire, HG Wells and Oscar Wilde are featured. There’s also a section for budding Second Life authors, more on that later.

Looking at work of SL residents

The build brings together two of Storm’s greatest loves, literature and art. Storm explained to me some of the inspiration and work that has gone into the build :

The library was built on the advice of someone who told me …. in SL everything has been done to death , so give them something that they have never seen before. So I have tried. Another chamber should be completed by September 29th, I am almost there on one chamber and there are two more empty but I have a good idea what I will place in them so it should come together quickly.

I commented to Storm that the build was wonderfully atmospheric and it appears that Storm has been getting good feedback about the build, although she also told me that the work she has put in so far has been exhausting.

Continue reading “Storm Septimus Talks To Me About The Chamber Library In Second Life”

Introduction To Second Life For Educators Part 2

USMP In Second Life

When Linden Lab ditched the education discount a few years back a few people felt that education in Second Life was dead. However it wasn’t and has been given a boost in the not too distant past by the return of the education discount and Linden Lab showing a more proactive role in promoting education within Second Life.

This is exemplified by Linden Lab’s blog post : Introduction to Second Life for Educators – a Course in Spanish 2nd Edition.

The course is from the University of San Martin de Porres Perú and is aimed at Spanish speaking educators who want to learn how to use Second Life for education purposes. The blog describes the course as :

The Virtual Worlds Project of The University of San Martin de Porres from Perú starts this September 29th the second edition of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) entitled “Introduction to Second Life for Educators 2nd. Ed.”. The course is free and is designed to train Spanish speaking educators on the use of the virtual world Second Life, and to provide knowledge that allows educators to benefit from its potential, especially in the education field.

The course starts in a few days time on September 29th.

Inside the building

Continue reading “Introduction To Second Life For Educators Part 2”

Blizzard’s Decision To Cancel Titan Should Sound A Warning Bell For Linden Lab

Hamlet Au over at New World Notes has a blog post about Blizzard’s decision to cancel Titan. Titan was a planned new MMO from Blizzard, a long rumoured new MMO, indeed seven years long and it never seemed to see the light of day but it was supposed to be the next big thing.

Hamlet’s article has a link to a Polygon post on the same issue : Blizzard cancels its next-gen MMO Titan after seven years. That article has some great quotes from Blizzard’s co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime and Blizzard’s senior vice president of story and franchise development, Chris Metzen. Linden Lab should pay careful attention here to what is being said and what has happened. Mike Morhaime is quoted as saying :

We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs, So we set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn’t come together.

Linden Lab have created Second Life and I’m pretty sure that they feel really confident on how to make virtual worlds. They have now set out to make the most ambitious virtual world that one could possibly imagine, but will it actually come together?

Chris Metzen is quoted as saying :

We were losing perspective and getting lost in the weeds a little. We had to allow ourselves to take that step back and reassess why the hell we were doing that thing in the first place.

Linden Lab need to ensure that they don’t find themselves in this position with their future virtual world, that they don’t find themselves making something that isn’t fun, that isn’t really progressing how they would like it to and that might not be worth their time at the end of the day.

Then there’s the World Of Warcraft factor. World Of Warcraft may be in decline but it’s still quite healthy. The same can be said of Second Life. Chris Metzen confirmed that Blizzard will continue to support World Of Warcraft, indeed he goes further and says :

My hope personally is that we’ll support it forever

Linden Lab have said that they will continue to support Second Life, I’m sure there are people at the lab who hope they will support Second Life forever.

Continue reading “Blizzard’s Decision To Cancel Titan Should Sound A Warning Bell For Linden Lab”

Follow

Get the latest posts delivered to your mailbox: