December 2013 – Page 4

December 9, 2013

Private Sim Losses Swell Due To Large Estate Closure

So last week I blogged that private estate losses were slowing down and that losses were around the teen to high 20’s mark per week. Now just to prove me wrong, this week Tyche “Statto” Shepherd reports:

“A net loss of 63 regions this week, Private Estates down by 69 while Linden Owned were up by 6”

However I do have a defence here, this change in pattern of net losses is due to the departure from the grid of 47 sims owned by Beach Front Realty, if you exclude that then this week’s losses would have been in line with the recent net loss pattern at around 22. There are still 16 sims owned by Beach Front Realty on the grid but the company have announced that all their sims will close by the end of December.

A notecard sent by Beach Front Realty stated:

“Dear Beach Front Residents:

The company of Beach Front Realty will regrettably be closing its doors effective immediately. Tiers will not be excepted on behalf of the owners at BF. All tenants will have a until the end of December to relocate to a different company.

For your convenience, we have located a reputable company that are willing to take our residents with a warm welcome. This company has been in business since 2007 and we assure you that you will be pleased with the new owners of the Estates.

The Estate name is called: Tribe Estates

The owners are as follows:

Alexxa Despres

Driftwood Miles

Please contact them as they are aware of the transition.

On behalf of Kandee and Breeze we want to take this chance to thank each and every one for the loyalty you have provided throughout the years. And would like To wish you all a Happy Holiday Season.”

I have been on friendly terms with Driftwood Miles and Alexxa Despres for quite a while, we used to joke around at Jack Linden’s office hour so I’m glad to see that they are trying to help out with soon to be homeless residents. Tribe Islands are good people.

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December 7, 2013

Toysoldier Thor Takes His Digital Art To The Real World

Second Life artist Toysoldier Thor has blogged about his first ever art exhibition outside of a virtual world. Toy exhibited 40 works of art at a corporate campus between October 26th – December 3rd and feels very happy about the experience.

This was not just a first for Toy, the corporation who invited him to exhibit were also experiencing their first exhibits by a digital artist. Financially this was a burden for Toy because unlike the digital world where you can upload an exhibit for L$10, printing artwork to canvas is a tad more expensive, to say the least. However whereas Toy wasn’t financially better off after this exhibit, the event was far from a failure, as Toy explains:

“Well I can tell you now with the conclusion of the exhibit, the response was simply amazing. More importantly, for this being my first ever real world art exhibit, the value I received from the experience was beyond my expectations in many ways”

Toy did make sales, 16 pieces were sold, which compares well with other artists who have exhibited at this location, the previous exhibit sold 2, whereas others have in the past sold a lot more, so for a first exhibit Toy did well.

However overall this was a very rewarding experience from Toy, taking the skills he’s learnt in Second Life and taking them to a RL exhibit was a huge step forward, not just for Toy, but also for other digital artists who can now see an example of how art can exist inside and outside the virtual world.

Toy started on this journey as a digital artist in 2010, he was of course already artistic and had commercial work to his name, which obviously helps, but he was a relative noob in the virtual world art scene. Spurred on by his friends in the Second Life art community, Toy gained more knowledge and skills to bring his work to life.

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December 6, 2013

Come On, Come On, Hurry Up Array, Come On!

We’re going down the pub! Warning, this post may containt geekiness and nuts.

One of the things that has always puzzled me in Second Life has been the lack of arrays in LSL. I mean arrays, they are sexy, they are useful, they store data, they beat lists, strided lists and any other sort of list by a country mile. Basically arrays are too sexy to be bodged as lists.

I didn’t do much scripting in Second Life because scripting consumes much time in my day job, so I felt it would be like a busman’s holiday, but arrays, how can you not have arrays? That was one of my first questions to myself back in 2007 when I joined Second Life and it remains a questions that puzzles me as we come close to 2014.

I was so scarred by Second Life not having arrays that when I took a look at Cloud Party and saw that they supported arrays, I cheered!

The power of arrays should not be underestimated, indexof, finding matches of, adding, removing, substrings, two dimnensional! Arrays are bloody sexy and more importantly, they are bloody useful.

Continue reading “Come On, Come On, Hurry Up Array, Come On!”

December 6, 2013

Ever, Jane Reaches Kickstarter Goal

Ever, Jane has reached its kickstarter goal with pledges of USD$109,563 helping it sail past the USD$100,000 target. Wait wait wait, what is Ever, Jane I hear you ask…. maybe! Ever, Jane is an upcoming online roleplaying game set in the world of Jane Austen’s novels.

This is an interesting project, although it’s certainly in its early stages and people will definitely need patience, it should be noted that the power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

Behind the project are ex Linden Lab Senior Engineering Manager Judy L. Tyrer. Judy’s work covered Second Life. The lead artist is Renee Nejo and PR and community management will be handled by Annabel Smyth, which isn’t a bad thing because a lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

The game will be free to play but there are also plans for subscription models:

“Free-to-play allows you to be a peasant and you have 3 months to find work or starve (or poach, but you can go to jail if you get caught).

$5.00 per month puts you at the merchant/farmer level where the best you can do is earn a lot of money and your children marry into a gentrified family due to your wealth.

$10.00 is the basic subscription and lands you in the gentry at the level of a second son or a daughter. You have a very small yearly stipend but you are gentry so you get to do all the gentrified things.

$15.00 is the equivalent of a first son. You get a stipend and land.

$25.00 gets you a title and an estate

$50.00 gets you a royal title, an estate, and your own town..”

There will be no slaying of Orcs in this game, gossip and social status will be the tools of the trade. In terms of community management they have very large ban hammers at their disposal and won’t be afraid to use them, so be nice and try not to get angry, remember that angry people are not always wise.

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December 5, 2013December 5, 2013

Second Life – It’s Not In The Game

Over at New World Notes Hamlet Au recently published a post about declining tier income for Linden Lab. In the post Hamlet argues that cutting tier prices is not the way forward, attracting new users is. I agree with him on the tier angle for now, cutting tier would drastically cut Linden Lab’s income. However I’ve long argued that Linden Lab need more income streams, Second Life is too reliant on tier. Hamlet argues that Second Life needs more users, but more users are not the answer to the tier conundrum on their own. They need to be incentivised to part with their money and tier is a barrier not an attraction.

Hamlet also makes the following comment:

“So no, the future for Second Life isn’t private land — it’s new users, and new platforms, and radical experiments in how Second Life is used and designed. For instance, some Lindens have been trying to add game mechanics to Second Life for several years, but have been stymied by bureaucracy and fear of protests by a minority of hardcore “Second Life is not a game!” users. But as we keep seeing, something dramatic has to change, or the hemorrhaging will continue, until it no longer can.”

The problem here is that game mechanics are not going to deal with the income issue, Linden Lab need new income streams which may in turn lead them to be in a position to reduce tier costs. The other issue is that game mechanics will put some people off because Second Life is indeed, not a game, although there are games within Second Life. A Second Life wide gamification system would be controversial. An optional gamification system that people could tie into their own game development would be potentially wonderful. For example a Linden Lab hosted achievement system that you could tailor to the needs of your roleplaying sim or even your store would have potential.

One way of attracting new users to Second Life is to have more games inworld. Linden Lab could develop pathfinding further and introduce skeletons that can be animated and used as NPC’s. That way more exciting experiences could be created, which in turn may attract new users.

However then we’re back to the tier is too damn high because there are not enough people who can afford to throw away USD$295.00 (plus VAT for some) to create the kind of experience that may attract new users. The fact that tier will be due whilst people are planning, developing and testing these experiences undermines the concept even more. Vicious circle indeed.

However there are games in Second Life. Estelle Pienaar’s SL Play Instinct is largely dedicated to highlighting games within Second Life. The destination guide also has a games category with pages of games. Some of the games are made to be played on parcels or breedable games. Breedable games are good for Second Life as they require those involved to have land. Other games are sim wide experiences, the latter are much harder to maintain.

Continue reading “Second Life – It’s Not In The Game”

System Failure