Ciaran Laval

June 19, 2015

SL12B Avatar – It’s Finger Popping, Twenty-Four Hour Shopping, In Raptor

Second Life can at times be a very welcome distraction from Real Life. I’ve spent the last few days scratching my head regarding the audacity of Camelot, the operator of The National Lottery in the UK. In 2013 they raised the price of a ticket from a quid to two quid. Now they’ve told us that from this October we’ll have less chance of winning any of the cash prizes and in the most bizarre twist, they keep telling us that these changes are exciting!

Meanwhile the lottery regulator, explain why they approved the latest changes :

The Commission also considered the impact of the proposed changes on the odds of winning, and how this may be perceived as a negative change by players. Camelot’s research indicated that the majority of players are more interested in prizes than the odds of the game. The Commission noted the balance between odds rising on individual prize tiers with the increased overall chance of winning a prize and the improvement of the odds of becoming a millionaire, as well as the fact the same percentage of sales as before will go to the prize fund.

Having considered all of these points we were satisfied that permitting the changes to Lotto would be consistent with our statutory duty to protect players.

The regulator were convinced that people would not care about having less chance of winning a cash prize? The new prize is a free go! Seriously, you could not make this up.

Anyway, to save my blood from boiling, I welcomed Linden Lab’s blog post : Free Special-Edition Second Life 12th Birthday Avatar & Snapshot Contest. I then promptly went to Hairy Hippo Fun Land, because it’s a great location, with or without birthday avatars.

Now once you’ve got your avatar, it’s time to explore. Hairy Hippo Fun Land is in the Bay City vicinity and whereas it’s a lot of fun to roam the streets of Bay City and terrify residents, it’s nice to actually explore Hairy Hippo Fun Land.

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June 18, 2015June 19, 2015

OpenSim NPC’s Are An Easy Touch Of Fun

I’m catching up with Nara Malone in OpenSim. Nara had told me that there have been some good developments with Non Player Characters (NPC’s) in OpenSim and had asked me if I’d like to take a look. I had agreed, a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn’t managed to login to OpenSim until today. Fortunately Nara was willing to forgive me for being late.

I did try and go off on my own to look at NPC’s but I ran into a few errors, which were more down to me not understanding how OpenSim works than problems with OpenSim. In order to create and use NPC’s in OpenSim the land needs certain permissions and so does the user. However Nara quickly came to my rescue and took me to a suitable location, where I was introduced to Neo Cortex.

Neo knows his stuff and rezzes a camera, which he asks me to touch, I do so and receive a notecard with some settings, this is somewhat important. Then I am asked to touch the camera again, at which point a double of my Avatar appears in NPC form. This is quite impressive, but it’s static and not doing much. However this was a very quick process, less than a minute for me to be able to rez a NPC version of me.

However the new me isn’t doing a fat lot, it doesn’t move, it looks like a mannequin. However Neo and Nara want to shoe me more and they both suggest that I should engage in dancing with NPC’s.

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June 17, 2015

First UCC SL To Attend General Synod In RL

I’ve blogged about places of worship in virtual worlds before, for example looking at the challenges of virtual worship for places such as The Anglican Cathedral on Epiphany Island in Second Life and looking at Giulio Prisco’s more unconventional views on types of religion in virtual worlds. The latter also looked briefly at the tongue in cheek First Church Of Rosedale.

One observation on worship in a virtual world such as Second Life is that for a place that is considered in many quarters a den of iniquity, it does quite well when it comes to a religious presence. This is exemplified well by The First United Church of Christ And Conference Centre.

However more to the point, what struck me recently was the news that First UCC SL will be at Booth 834 at the General Synod in Cleveland Ohio. The General Synod runs from June 26th-30th.

The mission of First UCC SL is :

First United Church of Christ and Conference Center is founded and exists to be the voice of Progressive Christianity in virtual universes. We live out the United Church of Christ notion of extravagant welcome by providing for all who desire a place to worship and who seek a community of love and acceptance.

We are proud to be a part of the world’s fastest growing LGBT-welcoming church movement, the Open and Affirming Coalition of the United Church of Christ.

So this is quite a progressive outlook in many ways.

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June 16, 2015

Linden Lab Launch The “What Second Life Means to Me” Video Share Project

Linden Lab have launched an interesting project : The “What Second Life Means to Me” Video Share Project. The blog post announcing the project states :

We’ve been having a lot of fun with no end in sight to the good times – but you can’t turn 12 without a little pride and reflection. Second Life has been going strong for a dozen wonderful years and there’s a ton of things happening to celebrate. You’ll see more to come here in the Featured News Blog – but we wanted to stop and ask – “What is the meaning of Second Life?” To you – that is! This question may sound daunting – but the truth is, tapping into what makes “SL” so special to us as individuals and communities is a really amazing exercise in retrospection and self-discovery. This is your world – so what does it mean to you?

Whether you just got started, have been onboard for the full dozen years, or fall somewhere in between – we’d love to see a glimpse of your story in the “What Second Life Means to Me” video project. You don’t have to be a master of machinima to participate.

Linden Lab have a couple of suggestions as to what sort of software can be used for the project :

You can use something like Camtasia or Fraps to make some great stuff relatively quickly, and both have free or trial versions. Or, you can film yourself talking directly to your web or digital camera and telling your story. This doesn’t have to be a strictly inworld project – because we understand that Second Life impacts our offline lives as well.

I’ll add to that list and suggest people might want to give Open Broadcaster Software a whirl, which is free and open source. I’ve used this software myself for trying the art of recording virtual world videos.

As for how to share your videos, that’s explained in the blog post :

From a few seconds to a few minutes – just kick it off with this – “In Second Life, my name is …” and share your story from there! Once you have something set – share it! Upload it to YouTube and embed it on this forum thread. Together, we’ll watch the thread for new stories over the coming weeks – it should be awesome. If you prefer to express yourself in writing – share what Second Life means to you with a reply to the thread.

Now to give you a flavour of what you may want to submit, the blog post includes six videos, however they are all short, at around 90 seconds each, but they do manage to pack quite a punch.

Xiola Linden is first up, explaining how she came to Second Life from a popular journalling site. I used to blog on a popular journalling site in the early 2000’s, indeed I still have an account or two on one.

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June 15, 2015

LindeX To Be Only Authorised Place To Purchase Linden Dollars

Linden Lab have announced that they are Concluding the Authorized L$ Reseller Pilot Program :

In 2013, we introduced a pilot program for Authorized Linden Dollar (L$) Resellers. This pilot program was designed to give Second Life Residents additional options for purchasing Linden Dollars, particularly for those based outside the US.

Since then, we have expanded the payment options for Second Life users, and today, you can easily purchase L$ in more countries than ever before, using a credit card, PayPal, or Skrill, which supports a wide range of payment methods. We’ve found that these options support the vast majority of Second Life users, and we have therefore made the business decision to close the Authorized Linden Dollar Reseller pilot program.

We are contacting program participants directly to detail the next steps for them, and they will have approximately six weeks to sell off their L$ inventory.

As of August 1, 2015, the Authorized L$ Reseller pilot program will be closed, and the LindeX will be the only authorized place to purchase L$.

What this means is, if you have been purchasing Linden Dollars from companies other than Linden Lab, you will not be allowed to do so from August 1st 2015.

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