Virtual Worlds – Page 136

June 25, 2014

Ebbe Altberg – “We Will Continue To Invest In SL And Keep Improving And Have No Plans For Any Shutdown. “

Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden) has been engaging with the Second Life community on the official forums. In a forum post Ebbe reiterated that Second Life isn’t closing down, despite the announcement of plans for a new Linden Lab virtual world.

I’m still somewhat at a loss to understand why people seem to be ignoring the fact that Second Life isn’t closing down, but people seem convinced that the new virtual world is a replacement for Second Life, rather than just another virtual world from Linden Lab.

In the forum post, Ebbe stated :

I pretty much only said these things:

We are embarking on a huge project to build a better virtual world from the ground up.

We are not going to constrain how good it can be by forcing some levels of backwards compatability (Sine then I’ve added some detail that identity and social connections and Lindens$ will come across and quite a bit of content as well, but with content we need more time to figure out exactly what will be backwards compatible, people will have plenty of time to see how this plays out and get a chance to try the new while still also hanging out in SL)

We will continue to invest in SL and keep improving and have no plans for any shutdown.

The rest is all speculation that has since then popped up.

That really is pretty much all Linden Lab have said, yet people seem to be reading between lines that don’t exist. Here’s the thing, even if Linden Lab wanted to force migrate people to their new world, a lot of people wouldn’t go because their virtual world love is Second Life, if Second Life closed down some people would give up on virtual worlds, others would move somewhere away from Linden Lab properties and some of course would go to Linden Lab’s new world, but it would be extremely foolish of Linden Lab to close Second Life in the next few years and to be fair to Linden Lab, there are absolutely no signs whatsoever that they intend to close Second Life.

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June 24, 2014

Second Life Can Still Thrive With The Birth Of Linden Lab’s New World

Back in March 2009 Tateru Nino wrote an article for Massively : Give Us More Worlds Linden Lab. The general point of the article was that Second Life should not be the only virtual world Linden Lab managed. Tateru’s idea was that there could be multiple grids running on Second Life technology and that each world could have different characteristics. However Tateru also wrote :

One-size-fits-all doesn’t just doesn’t work in the mass-market. Otherwise there’d only be one kind of iPod. What the Lab really needs is a number of differentiated ‘world’-products, each offering something a little different.

In October 2011, I wrote a blog on a very similar theme : Multiple Linden Lab Grids For More Virtual Worlds. I also talked of Second Life technology being used for multiple use cases and that Second Life did not need to be the only club in town :

This isn’t to say I feel the main grid should close, the main grid is where it’s currently all at and Linden Lab should nurture and cherish what they have, develop it and make that product an appealing product to current and new users who want that level of freedom and creativity, it remains a wonderful idea. However in terms of wider appeal and getting others interested in their own controlled spaces, Linden Lab could well consider making Second Life the technology the option for those who seek it, rather than Second Life being the only product in town on their servers.

Now Tateru and myself were largely talking about multiple grids using Second Life technology, rather than virtual worlds running on completely unrelated technology. However with news of Linden Lab’s new virtual world plans making the news, I really don’t see why Second Life and the new world can’t exist at the same time. They will simply offer different options and appeal to different people. Obviously both worlds will also appeal to people who want to engage with both worlds but this is no different to how things are now with people who engage with one or more of Second Life, Kitely, Inworldz and Opensim. People are also keeping an eye on High Fidelity.

I’m a bit bemused at the reaction in some quarters to Linden Lab’s announcement on the new virtual world. People are talking of how problematic it will be to migrate. They are talking of how they should be compensated for their Second Life land. They are talking of how higher sales tax fees and lower land tax fees will hinder rather than help content creators. The reason I’m bemused about this is because Linden Lab have not announced that Second Life is closing and that people will have to move to their new world, indeed, as Inara Pey reported, they’ve said :

Does this mean we’re giving up on Second Life? Absolutely not. It is thanks to the Second Life community that our virtual world today is without question the best there is, and after 11 years we certainly have no intention of abandoning our users nor the virtual world they continually fill with their astounding creativity. Second Life has many years ahead of it, and in addition to improvements and new developments specifically for Second Life, we think that much of the work we do for the next generation project will also be beneficial for Second Life.

Now I can understand people being cautious about the future of Second Life, especially those who own a lot of land, but I can’t understand some of the outrage at this point in time. I would have a different point of view if Linden Lab were telling people they must migrate, but that is not the case.

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June 23, 2014

Linden Lab’s New World Gets Early Publicity Thanks To New World Notes

One of the reasons Ebbe Altberg cited for breaking the news about Linden Lab’s planned new world was because he had been talking to the press, implying that he had mentioned it to them. I decided to google the news and didn’t find many news stories featuring Ebbe Altberg. I did find one from San Francisco’s SFGate : Just how real can virtual reality get? This is largely about virtual reality itself and talks of the Oculus Rift. However Linden Lab have been in the news because of Second Life’s adoption of Oculus Rift and in the SFGate story they quote Ebbe Altberg :

This week, new Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg demonstrated for the first time how his company’s virtual online world Second Life looks when redesigned for an Oculus Rift.

Since taking over in February, Altberg has tuned the company’s focus to developing a next-generation Second Life that will include immersion technologies.

“We want to be part of it and help it succeed because it gets us closer to what we have in mind for what a virtual world should be,” he said.

However the press stories regarding discussions with Ebbe aren’t appearing in droves. The story that is appearing is the news of Linden Lab’s planned new world and those stories are largely based on Hamlet Au’s confirmation of the news over at New World Notes.

Digital Spy Uk : Linden Lab building spiritual successor to Second Life. That story doesn’t cite Hamlet, it cites Gamasutra’s story about the new world :

The team behind Second Life has given a statement to New World Notes about its next major project, saying that it is aiming to build the next generation of virtual world.

Polygon go with the spiritual successor headline too and say :

Second Life developer Linden Lab is currently working on the spiritual sequel to the massively multiplayer online social title, according to a statement the developer provided to Polygon.

This new game, first reported by New World Notes, is a “next generation virtual world” that is “in the spirit of Second Life,” an open-world game that will focus on user-created content and interactions. The San Francisco-based studio noted it is actively hiring for this project, which is still in its “very early days.”

The Gamer, gets itself a little confused in a couple of areas in their reporting of the story :

Linden Lab’s highly successful social experiment Second Life is today celebrating it’s 10th birthday, and what better way to celebrate than announcing to the world that a follow-up to the unique online sandbox is in the works?

According to a statement released by the developer’s New World Notes blog, this new ‘spiritual sequel’ will be “an open world where users have incredible power to create anything they can imagine and content creators are king.” Stopping short of admitting that the new game will be identical to it’s predecessor, Linden expand on the statement and say that “The next generation virtual world will go far beyond what is possible with Second Life, and we don’t want to constrain our development by setting backward compatibility with Second Life as an absolute requirement from the start.”

I think we can forgive them for not realising Second Life is celebrating its eleventh birthday but New World Notes hasn’t officially been part of Linden Lab for many a year!

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June 23, 2014

Beware Of Sequels

In the film industry sequels are generally found to be lacking in terms of the original film in the series. There are obvious exceptions, such as The Godfather II and The Empire Strikes Back, but generally the sequel doesn’t seem to quite reach the heights of the original film.

When it comes to remakes, it’s even worse. People cringe when they read about their favourite film receiving a reboot and with good reason. A remake often lacks the edge and ingenuity of the original, again not always, but all too often that’s the case.

So news that Linden Lab are talking of their new world should be treated with caution until more details emerge. So far Linden Lab have said things like :

If we had one message to share with Second Life users about this new project at this point, it would be: don’t panic, get excited! Again, Second Life isn’t going away, nor are we ceasing our work to improve it. But, we’re also working on something that we think will truly fulfill the promise of virtual worlds that few people understand as well as Second Life users.

They’ve also said things like :

I can’t tell you much more at this point. Very general stuff. It’s too early. So for now it’s just the fact that we’re investing a lot in a next generation platform, in the spirit of SL, that will be better…better quality, better performance, more devices, enable incredible experiences…with time we’ll talk about it more and more and you will all have a chance to provide a ton of input before it’s anywhere close to complete…

They’ve also said things like :

I believe the virtual worlds market is ripe for their own ‘World of Warcraft’ to come along and show us just how much bigger this market could be. And I don’t think you need to leave behind anything (concept wise) that made Second Life successful in order to see that growth. But you do need to raise the bar, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

The thing is that a lot of people seem to think we’re heading for Second Life 2.0, that there will be links between the old world and the new frontier. However there is no indication that this will be the case. The new world looks like just that, a brand new world. A place that may well be very different to Second Life, one that may well attract a very different audience and one where expectations and economic models are likely to be very different. They will certainly be looking to attract a larger audience to their new world.

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June 23, 2014

SL11B Kicks Off With A Bang

SL11B kicked off on Sunday with a feast of events ranging from talks, DJ’s, Live musicians and many a funny hat. The scale of the events taking place is extremely impressive and I haven’t even started look at the exhibits.

Draxtor Despres’ two hour live show was rather impressive as the talk with Jo Yardley, Superflufee, loz Hyde, Skypinner Soulstar and Maxwell Graf went largely without a hitch.

Meanwhile DJ Mikedacook Dinzeo was spinning tunes in the extremely impressive sim of Impressive .. no that’s really its name!

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