Ciaran Laval

January 30, 2014

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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January 30, 2014

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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January 30, 2014

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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January 29, 2014

Everquest Next Landmark Announces Alpha System Specs

First of all, you may be wondering what Everquest Next Landmark is. I’ll provide Sony’s words:

EverQuest Next Landmark is a Free to Play, next-generation online sandbox game. Build and explore a world unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Bold claims and not much to go on you may be thinking, so I’ll provide more information from Sony:

Build Anything — Create and build anything you can imagine. With Landmark’s state of the art tools, you have unprecedented control over your creations. A range of materials with realistic physics means how you build makes a difference.
Explore — Explore massive Landmark worlds and claim territory, building materials and much more. Delve deep into the earth and discover procedurally—generated adventures that will never be the same twice!
Make Your Mark — The best buildings players create will become part of Norrath — the EverQuest Next world — FOREVER! We’ll run exclusive contests to design parts of the world AND our designers will keep an eye out for the coolest fortresses, castles, caves, treehouses, fireplaces – anything awesome that fits within the world of Norrath.
Collect — The rarest resources, objects, gear, character customizations and secrets are scattered across the worlds of Landmark! Can you find everything?
Earn Money — Buy and sell items in Player Studio, SOE’s marketplace for player-created goods. Design, create and sell items and earn real world cash on every purchase! Click here for more details on Player Studio.

The last point may be the one that grabs the attention of Second Life content creators, although it should be pointed out that for now, Player Studio is only available for US players. The text I pasted doesn’t actually include a link for Player Studio, but one I made here does! Eligible creators can earn 40% of net sales, here’s a bit more info:

SOE’s Player Studio program invites players to download sample geometry files for actual in-game objects and through the use of standard third party art tools, learn how to develop, design and personalize items of their own – from re-coloring and re-texturing, to reshaping an item’s geometry. Once complete, players are encouraged to name and create a description for their item, describe how the item will fit into the game’s ongoing narrative storyline, and submit it to SOE for review and possible inclusion in the SOE Marketplace. If a player-created item is selected for inclusion in the SOE Marketplace, SOE will share 40% of the net amount it receives from the sale of the item with the player that created the item.

The link also has links to 3D modelling software, such as Maya and Blender as well as links to Adobe Photoshop, familiar tools for Second Life content creators, so there’s potential here.

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