Second Life – Page 105

November 3, 2014

The Meauxle Bureaux – Home Of The Moles

In her regular update on the number of sims on the grid, Tyche Shepherd pointed out that Linden Lab had added a couple of sims this week, one of which is named Meauxle Bureaux, home of the Moles, the busy bees of the Linden Department Of Public Works. Now if you’re wondering who the Moles are or what the LDPW is, let’s just take a quote from the wiki page :

The Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) is a program focused on improvements related to the experience of living on, or visiting the Linden Mainland. The LDPW will organize teams of Resident builders, artists, and scripters (the Moles!) to create new content on Linden Lab’s behalf and to the benefit of all. Rather than divert company resources from areas of development that contribute to important issues like stability and usability, Linden Lab is choosing to go to the experts…

The experts being residents. So I set off to explore this brave new world and found it’s an oldie but a goodie.

The sim may look familiar, indeed it will look very familiar to anyone who roamed the Lumenaria sim at Fantasy Faire 2013 because that’s where most of the build is from. However that was an impressive build and I’m pleased to see it given a second life by the Moles… second life, get it? Haha ok ok I’ll stop.

On the sim itself you will find buildings with a sign indicating which mole occupies the building. They may be moles, but they don’t seem to live in holes. Michael Linden also has a place there as well as a central building which has posters for attractions in Second Life such as portal park.

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November 2, 2014

Capital Exchange Suspends Activity Until Further Notice Due To Skill Gaming Policy

SL Capital Exchange have announced that are suspending activity until further notice as they await approval on their application to be an approved skill gaming operator. The announcement states :

On July 16, 2014, I filled out the first form for the Skill Gaming Application for Capital Exchange Stock Market Simulation Game. From that point until today, there have been numerous correspondences between me, my law firm, and Linden Lab. As of today we still do not have an official determination, positive or negative, on our application.

I was hoping that because much of the delay has been on the part of Linden Lab, that we would be allowed to operate past the November 1, 2014 deadline set forth in a recent post by Linden Lab. Unfortunately I was informed by Rowan Linden that we cannot. So therefore effective immediately, I am suspending all trading at Capital Exchange until our application is approved or denied by Linden Lab.

I do not know how long this might take, because honestly I thought this would all have been resolved already, however I hear there is a backlog of applications and Linden Lab needs the proper time to review them all thoroughly. So we need to be patient, and wait for Linden Lab’s counsel to do their job.

I’m a bit bemused as to just why CapEx are having such difficulty in getting a reply on approval, I’m also a bit bemused as to why they are seeking approval in the first place but more on that later. CapEx, for those who don’t know, is a fictional stock exchange where Second Life business owners list their business on the stock exchange and the value of shares rise and fall. I’ve engaged with this in the distant past by buying and selling shares and have never had bad experiences with it. I would imagine there have been issues when a Second Life business ceases to be, but I haven’t fell victim to that.

The suspension is due to the Skill Gaming Policy from Linden Lab which had a deadline of November 1st for people to cease activities even if they had an application pending, as explained in a blog post from Linden Lab at the end of September :

Beginning November 1, 2014, the enforcement of our Policy will apply to all Residents, including those with pending Skill Gaming applications that await Linden Lab review and approval. As of that date, any objects or regions found in violation of our Policy will be taken down.We strongly encourage all applicants to submit any outstanding materials for our review as soon as possible so that their applications may be processed before the deadline.

Whereas I have sympathies for both Linden Lab and applicants during this process, as new issues arise during the process, it seems a bit off that a venture that applied as far back as July are still left dangling in the wind in November.

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November 1, 2014

Exploring The Dwarven Mines of Marathon Caye

The Dwarven Mines Of Marathon Caye are the stuff of legend in Dwarven folklore. Rumour has it there’s gold in the mines, along with ale, great feasts and more importantly, feisty Dwarven ladies. However you know what legends are like, they don’t really exist.

However I was out with a witch by the name of Strawberry Singh, who told me that the mines really do exist and after getting fed up of me trying to get her to go dancing, she teleported to me to the mines! My first idea was to ride the train throughout the whole mine, do the tourist thing, you know how it goes, however halfway around I noticed a sign for The Dire Weasel Tavern and promptly ditched my ride.

The rumours you see, are true, there’s gold in that mine and plenty of it. However I wasn’t sure whether others in the vicinity were merely enjoying the tavern or whether the gold was for use by everyone. Chancing my arm I dipped into the gold, entered the tavern and engaged in an ale, or two, or three. The Dwarven ladies seemed a bit the worse for wear and I should warn you, you don’t want to try and chat up a Dwarven female after a few ales, they can be rather vicious. Instead I engaged in some polite conversation with the male Dwarves, who were still very much in Halloween party mood.

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October 31, 2014

Horror In Raglan Shire!

One of Second Life’s more serene locations is Raglan Shire. Home of the tinies, a place where you imagine birds singing, workers singing, animals singing, sun shining, a place of general happiness. However not during October, during October Raglan Shire celebrates Shocktober and a shocking experience it is indeed.

We’re talking zombies roaming the streets here, yes, in Raglan Shire! You still spot a few tinies around, and they do seem to be merry, but there are strange happenings afoot here with ghosts floating around and a very worrying fog enveloping you.

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October 30, 2014

So How’s Second Life Performing For You?

Linden Lab have posted a new blog post : Performance, Performance, Performance! The post details some impressive improvements to Second Life from Linden Lab’s metrics. In terms of the Second Life Marketplace the post informs us :

We recently deployed infrastructure upgrades for the Marketplace, and the site has since shown some of the best performance we’ve ever seen from it. Even during peak usage periods over the weekend, when in the past performance would degrade, we’re seeing response times that average 70% faster and page load times that are 30% faster than before the changes.

Then we see a bold claim, I mean this is a very bold claims, it’s so bold that I’m almost speechless, but Linden Lab are improving Group Chat! Indeed they’ve recently deployed new chat server configurations which metrics show have resulted in dramatic improvements in group chat performance. Now before we all get too excited, they also acknowledge that some groups are still seeing a reduction in performance but early indications suggest that group chat is improving. Linden Lab aren’t washing their hands on this matter though, they are still very much working on continuing to improve group chat.

Faster texture and mesh loading has been facilitated by Linden Lab utilising a content delivery network to the whole grid. This is more likely to be felt by people further away from Linden Lab’s data centres in the USA and the initial reports do indeed sound very impressive :

Our testing showed dramatic improvements: average download times for textures and meshes have been reduced by more than 50% on average, and the improvement is even more dramatic outside of North America.

The final improvement mentioned in the blog post is with regards to the HTTP Project. This has been a long ongoing project that has slowly but surely brought improvements to Second Life. The basic concepts is that the way the viewer communicates with grid services has been improved. The blog post once again posts some impressive stats :

With the HTTP Project Viewer out now, the faster content download times you’ll see thanks to the CDN change get even better – we’re talking 80% faster!

However there is one more improvement highlighted via this blog post, although it’s not one Linden Lab are blowing their own trumpet about.

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