Ciaran Laval

November 17, 2014November 17, 2014

Linden Lab Ask : What Item Would Be On Your Second Life Wishlist?

Linden Lab are embracing the season to be merry by asking their residents “What Item Would Be On Your Second Life Wishlist?” The Lab are working on a holiday gift item for everyone and have embraced social media for the feedback in the shape and form of Facebook and Twitter.

This usage of social media often disappoints some people as they would prefer Second Life to utilise their own forums and blogs for such events but I’m just pleased to see that they are now prepared to go beyond Facebook. I’ll take that as a happy compromise although they do have an Official Contests & Events section on their forums, which would probably be ideal for something such as this gift idea. I would imagine there would be challenges with gathering feedback from too many disparate sources.

Feedback on the Facebook page includes requests for :

A 24 hour day cycle
Cheaper Land Prices
Huge Tracts Of Land
A PC So I can get back on SL

I’m not quite sure these are the droids Linden Lab are looking for here. Personally I want to see more Orcs but I’m not sure that is suitable for a Christmas wishlist item!

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November 17, 2014

Hold On To Your Hats (And No Copy Items) It’s Maintenance Week

Linden Lab have posted an update on their Grid Status Page that a week of scheduled maintenance on the grid is underway. The post, which I’ve altered slightly to reflect that the maintenance is taking place this week, reads :

Beginning Monday, November 17, we will be undertaking a full week of scheduled maintenance. This maintenance will take place at approximately 7:00 AM each day this week. Each region will be subject to one or more restarts, as its host takes its turn for inspection. A five-minute warning will be broadcast for each restarting region. Additional warnings will be broadcast to regions where multiple restarts are necessary. Please be cautious about going AFK for extended periods in the middle of build sessions or handling no-copy objects, as you may miss the shutdown warnings. Please keep an eye on this blog for further updates.

The reason for the maintenance remains unclear. Nalates Urriah reports that they questioned Oz Linden about this at the Open Source User Group and Oz’s answer was :

They’re doing some checks on some of our server hardware that requires that they take them down briefly. I don’t believe that all regions will be affected, but I’m not sure.

However one positive is that maintenance such as this suggests Linden Lab very much have their on the Second Life ball.

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November 15, 2014

Ambiguity In London

I went to London Ambiguity in Second Life looking for Guy Fawkes and ran away due to a Timelord seeking a Tardis. This was a very odd adventure to say the least. London Ambiguity had been holding a Guy Fawkes exhibition. However I went to the streets of the sim instead and soon ran into a protest Gnome!

I’m not quite sure what he was protesting about but he kept saying “Be wary of Kat Kassner, she will cast a great shadow over you … especially at your height!” I would find out exactly what he meant later in my adventure. However I decided to do a bit more exploring and found myself near a debt collector of Scrooge & Marley.

Anywhere with the name Marley in it is likely to be cool is the usual rule of thumb one should apply. However here I also noticed something of a time conundrum as alongside Dickensian splendour I noticed a very modern and equal opportunities employer in the shape and form of Britannia Buses, who proudly boast that their drivers are girls.

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November 14, 2014

The Lindens Storm Meauxle Bureaux

I’m not a bat or a rat or a cat,I’m not a gnu or a kangaroo.

One of the big myths about Second Life was this evening shattered at Meauxle Bureaux. The lesser spotted Linden was, well, much spotted, as The Lindens arrived in numbers to tour the Linden Department of Public Works home of The Moles. Many residents were there too.

Xiola Linden made graceful, cat like movements, as she awaited the start of the tour near the centre of the region.

Gray of the Lab from San Francisco (AKA Pete Linden) arrived to ensure that nothing untoward was happening. Now at this stage my camera wasn’t working nicely. I asked Strawberry Singh to take photos as I couldn’t get the shots I wanted. Strawberry simply told me “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for“.

This took me back to many fond memories of when I first saw this build at Fantasy Faire 2013, I had trouble taking pics there too.

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November 13, 2014November 13, 2014

Philip Rosedale Set To Talk About High Fidelity At Gigaom Roadmap 2014

Tis the season to be a speaker it seems. Last weekend’s events aren’t the end of the event season by any stretch of the imagination and Gigaom are talking up their Gigaom Roadmap 2014 event, scheduled for November 17th – November 19th. There are a couple of posts about this event and I’ll highlight this one first : At Roadmap, Delve Into Virtual World Design With Philip Rosedale.

The article doesn’t give too much away about what Philip may say, which is fair enough, otherwise why would people go and listen to Philip speak? However the article does start off on a controversial footing for those who are still very much engaged in Second Life :

When Second Life launched in 2003, it was the future. Now it is the past, with its once-hyped virtual storefronts and social centers empty (or nearly empty, as 1 million people still log on each month).

It’s possible that it came 10 years too early.

I’ve blogged recently about how some designers are finding those once-hyed virtual storefronts getting a new lease of life due to the number of virtual events. There’s something uncanny about that as I’m blogging here about the number of events outside the virtual world, although many of them are designed to talk about virtual worlds and peripherals. Hmm, this could get quite circular! Anyway, I don’t agree with Signe Brewster’s premise regarding where Second Life is today. Second Life is in a much stronger position than outsiders realise, although it’s certainly not at the peak of its popularity.

Philip Rosedale of course has moved on from Second Life and will be talking about his new venture, High Fidelity. I would imagine he may well cover some of the ground he discussed at the OpenSim Community Conference. Philip spoke well on a number of High Fidelity, OpenSim and Second Life related issues as a keynote speaker at the OpenSim Community Conference and hopefully an official video of that speech will be released soon. There were some technical difficulties with sound, but it’s a speech well worth listening to and involved a very interesting Q&A session too.

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