Second Life – Page 9 – Ciaran Laval

March 23, 2018

Fantasy Faire 2018 – The Press Release

Fantasy Faire Image here

Fantsay Faire in Second Life turns 10 this year, which is something to be very excited by. Plans are well underway and I’ll do a couple of posts on the subject but in this post I’m simply posting details from the official press release.

PRESS RELEASE

* * Fantasy Faire 2018, April 19 – 29* *
A Benefit for the American Cancer Society

Celebrating its tenth year, Fantasy Faire 2018 is the largest gathering of fantasy designers, enthusiasts, roleplayers and performers in the virtual world. From Thursday, April 19 to Sunday April 29, treat yourself to eleven days of shopping, dance and theater performances, DJ parties, auctions, questing, Literary Festival, fantasy art, events and roleplaying as thousands of Second Life residents and creators bring their own visions together to support the American Cancer Society’s vision of a world without cancer.

Avatars, clothing, furnishings, gadgets and exclusive items are available from more than 200 of Second Life’s top Fantasy Creators across ten stunning shopping sims designed by some of the visionary artists behind many of the hottest spots on the Second Life destination guide.

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March 21, 2018

Second Life Heads For 15th Birthday With 15 Reasons To Be Cheerful

Linden Lab have blogged Happy 15th Birthday, Second Life! Fifteen Reasons To Celebrate. Two of those reasons are long term issues. Linden Lab are addressing the issue of the tier being too damn high and they are also planning to bring back last names.

Linden Lab recently announced reductions to mainland tier pricing as well as allowing premium members 1,024m of free tier, a doubling of the old 512m limit. The latest blog post points out that this isn’t the end of addressing tier pricing though :

Currently, Land costs can be quite high, and make up a lopsided portion of our Second Life revenues. To improve this imbalance, we plan to increase revenues in other ways so that we can lower land costs further. In order to avoid shocks to the in-world economy and to take care that we keep the business healthy, we plan to make these changes in a measured way, taking time to assess the impacts of each change as we go.

I’ve long said that Linden Lab need more revenue sources and that tier was far too large a part of their business model, so I’m definitely encouraged by this.

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March 15, 2018March 15, 2018

Philip Rosedale Wants His Old Second Life Avatar Back

When Second Life turned three, Torley took the above photo, it shows Philip Rosedale, founder of Linden Lab, in his iconic avatar.

Moving on far more years than most of us want to admit, Philip Rosedale can be found in High Fidelity, looking much more like Philip Rosedale does outside the virtual world. In the below image, Philip is on the left side of the stage talking to Kent Bye of Voices of VR Podcast.

The video of that chat can be found here by the way, it was a fascinating and very interesting discussion, if you have time I definitely recommend that you watch it.

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March 14, 2018

Second Life Mainland Tier Prices Cut and Added Free Tier Bonus Increase

Linden Lab have announced changes to tier prices for Second Life mainland which result in a cut in tier prices, a new pricing point in the tier table and an increase in the amount of mainland you can own as part of your premium member free tier allowance. They’ve made this announcement on Pi Day too.

Here’s an overview of the pricing changes :

Old land allowance (m²)	Old Price	New land allowance (m²)	New Price
512	Free with Premium account	1,024	Free with Premium account
1,024	$5.00	1,536	$4.00
1,536	$8.00	2,048	$7.00
2,560	$15.00	3,072	$13.00
4,608	$25.00	5,120	$22.00
8,704	$40.00	9,216	$35.00
16,896	$75.00	17,408	$67.00
33,280	$125.00	33,792	$112.00
Not available	Not available	49,152	$150.00
66,048	$195.00	66,560	$175.00

Official details can be found here, and that’s an important link to go to because there’s an additional point regarding the tier table :

Above the maximum shown on this table, tier allotment increases in quarter-Region increments at $44.00 each.

That suggests that owning a full second region worth of tier would cost you an extra $166.00 a month, but I also thought that you could only go up in half region increments before, maybe that had already changed.

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November 29, 2017

Net Neutrality Debate Requires Compromise To Move Discussion Forward

The text of the FCC’s “Restore Internet Freedom proposal has been published in PDF format and can be found here. I’m firmly against the proposal and find the name to be extremely misleading.

The FCC have also linked to a “Myths and Facts” PDF document, which is actually very light on facts and engages in a lot of speculation, that can be found here.

MYTH: Broadband providers will charge you a premium if you want to reach certain online content.

FACT: This didn’t happen before the Obama Administration’s 2015 heavy-handed Internet regulations, and it won’t happen after they are repealed.

That’s not a fact, it’s a hope. There is support for FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai’s proposals. A decent article has been published by Ben Thompson at Stratechery – Pro-Neutrality, Anti-Title II :

Regulation incurs significants costs, both in terms of foregone opportunities and regulatory capture.
There is no evidence of systemic abuse by ISPs governed under Title I, which means there are no immediate benefits to regulation, only theoretical ones.
There is evidence that pre-existing regulation and antitrust law, along with media pressure, are effective at policing bad behavior.

The problem for Ajit Pai and the FCC is that even that article points out flaws with Ajit Pai’s proposal :

I believe that Ajit Pai is right to return regulation to the same light touch under which the Internet developed and broadband grew for two decades. I am amenable to Congress passing a law specifically banning ISPs from blocking content, but believe that for everything else, including paid prioritization, we are better off taking a “wait-and-see” approach; after all, we are just as likely to “see” new products and services as we are to see startup foreclosure. And, to be sure, this is an issue than can — and should, if the evidence changes — be visited again.

Ajit Pai and the FCC are not looking to address the issue of blocking with new laws and furthermore the article points out that the cornerstone of Ajit Pai’s proposals, the markets, aren’t competitive enough.

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