Second Life – Page 125

May 2, 2014

The Drax Files Episode 19 – Virtual Chemistry

This post is not about Fantasy Faire, I repeat, this post is not about Fantasy Faire! I do make one or two non Fantasy Faire related posts during Fantasy Faire and in this case I’m looking at yet another excellent episode of The Drax Files : World Makers, in this case; Episode 19 – Virtual Chemistry. I will, in traditional fashion, post the video at the end of the post.

In this episode the star of the show is Wendy Keeney-Kennicutt from Texas A&M University, who is very enthusiastic about teaching chemistry in Second Life. There are some very good reasons for this and they are reasons that may surprise some people.

One of those reasons is that students who engage with Second Life report that they enjoy this aspect of their course, in some cases they enjoy the virtual labs more than the real labs because there are less distractions in a virtual lab. I must admit I’m surprised to hear this but maybe it’s because someone in a virtual lab feels more in control of their environment and that the environment is less hazardous.

Another advantage of teaching chemistry in Second Life is that Second Life is a 3D world and Chemistry has a lot of interests in shapes of molecules and understanding their 3D nature, which a 3D virtual world can demonstrate admirably. Then there are interactive periodic tables, at this point I was tempted to run screaming from the video, periodic tables are the stuff of nightmares, however I persevered in the name of truth and justice.

Yet again we see the use case of collaboration being highlighted regarding Second Life with Wendy pointing out that people don’t need to be physically next to each other to build together or examine each other’s work.

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May 2, 2014

Surviving Fantasy Faire

Fantasy Faire, like any busy event in Second Life, can be a troublesome affair, the lag, the bumping into things, the sims being reset. However if you take a little care, you can have a far more enjoyable experience. The first thing to remember is that we all contribute to lag, some more than others it has to be said, but we all contribute and we all add load. Now we can’t all be invisible, but we can pack lightly.

Yes I know, it’s Fantasy Faire and we all want to look awesome, wear our wings, hit people with wands, strike others with a curse of doom, but there are plenty of days for you to do this and you don’t have to do it all in one sitting.

Scripts, there’s always controversy about scripts at busy events, there are tools that inaccurately reflect resource usage, but scripts, like everything else, use resources, so if you are going scripted, try to be lightly scripted to avoid disappointment.

Taking photos, now this is tricky. There are other people there for a start and when you’ve played with your windlight settings, tried to ramp up your graphics and finally got the perfect angle, don’t shout abuse at people who wander into the shot. Unlike real life, in Second Life people don’t realise you’ve been piddling around for twenty minutes trying to get the best shot.

Also, don’t shake your fist, curse and roar with anger when you try to save a snapshot to disk and the viewer crashes .. maybe that’s just me.

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May 1, 2014

All The Fun Of The Fantasy Faire

Draxtor Despres had posted a teaser video:

The Fantasy Faire blog had been previewing like crazy but now the wait is over, the hype will be delivered, Fantasy Faire 2014 is open!

Linden Lab have even joined in the fun by blogging about it. This is a far cry from the days when my post on the official forums about Fantasy Faire was deleted by a moderator and I received a warning … I really should let bygones be bygones on this …. but it still irks me!

However back to the Faire, it will be running from May 1st, (which is a rather special day in my calendar and one on which I’m a year older than I was yesterday) to May 11th. The event will be very busy, at some times maybe a little too busy but that’s the beauty and beast of such events.

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May 1, 2014

Linden Lab’s Bizarre System Requirements Move

Yesterday Linden Lab blogged about updates to the Second Life system requirements. This mainly centred around Linden Lab no longer wanting to support Windows XP because Microsoft no longer support Windows XP. This is fine and lots of companies will follow suit.

However where matters get a tad distasteful is in Linden Lab’s moves to block future installs of the client on machines that aren’t running Windows XP Service Pack 3.

This is a very bizarre move considering the client will happily run on Windows XP SP2. There are numerous reasons why clients crash on systems, people running Windows XP are likely to be running older hardware and have less RAM than modern systems, for example, but upgrading to a new OS or Service Pack is not likely to improve their performance to any great degree in terms of Second Life.

I don’t see the problem with Linden Lab saying they are going to stop supporting Windows XP, it’s a sensible move but it’s not Linden Lab’s role to dictate to people whose systems can run Second Life, what Service Pack level they should be at unless it poses a threat to the Second Life service as a whole, which is clearly not the case or else Windows XP would have been blocked long ago.

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April 26, 2014

Achievements In Second Life – Sometimes We Do Need Stinkin’ Badges

Recently I was reading how Russian player Хируко had become the first player to achieve all the available achievements in World Of Warcraft, this is no mean feat as there are around 22,000 of them. Second Life doesn’t have achievements and has met resistance at the idea, indeed when they were introduced to the Second Life Forums there were achievements of a sort in terms of rankings and this met with resistance. Many people felt We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!

However those rankings have remained, I wanted an opt out, but they have remained and they do no real harm. The problem for an achievement system for Second Life as a whole is that Second Life is not a game, there are games within Second Life but it’s an open ended virtual world and many people really do not want badges.

However there are places where they would be useful and I’d like to see tools available for sim owners to build achievement systems for their own sims, this would be especially useful for roleplay sims.

There is also room for an overall achievement system for Second Life, which could be built in conjunction with Second Life business owners and Linden Lab. This could start at a very basic level, which would be appealing to new residents. For example earning an achievement for your first teleport, but it could be built upon.

Visit all the sims at Fantasy Faire and earn an achievement, visit the skin, hair and shoe fairs, earn an achievement. Visit x amount of locations on the destination guide, earn an achievement, visit the Linden Village, The Governor’s mansion and take a balloon ride, earn an achievement, yadda yadda yadda.

This isn’t an easy system to implement because of the dynamic nature of Second Life but it could be done.

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