Linden Lab – Page 43 – Ciaran Laval

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015

Washington Post Wedding Reporter Suggests Getting Married In Second Life Is A Reason To Call A Wedding Off

Ellen McCarthy is a wedding reporter for the Washington Post and she has published a book; The Real Thing: Lessons for Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter’s Notebook. This post is not going to be a review of the book, however there’s something in the book that stands out for virtual world enthusiasts.

Number 10 in the top ten reasons to call a wedding off is :

Your avatars got married in Second Life and that worked out, so you figure this will, too. It happened. I swear.

In isolation, this does not sound like a good reason to call a marriage off, indeed it’s not implausible for people to meet in Second Life and live happily ever after, it has happened, I swear. However if two people meet in Second Life and then decide to get married without spending any real physical world time together, that’s one hell of a gamble.

However to just dismiss a marriage because people meet in Second Life would be somewhat churlish. Ellen McCarthy hasn’t just made this up, she has interviewed people who got married and therefore at some point, a Second Life inspired marriage must have appeared on her radar.

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September 4, 2015

Bare Rose Celebrates Its 10th Birthday With Story Based Hunt

Bare Rose, the prolific and popular Second Life brand is celebrating its tenth birthday in Second Life. This is quite an achievement for any brand in Second Life due to the changes in creation techniques and tastes over the years, but one of the things that June Dion, creator and owner of Bare Rose has tapped into is that Second Life residents like a vast array of choice in their garments.

Bare Rose most definitely does offer a wide array of attire for males and females with a massive range of styles. I’ve purchased wizard outfits from here before but this isn’t just a fantastical store for fans of fantasy, there’s pretty much something for everyone, include many freebie items.

As part of the tenth birthday celebrations, a story based hunt is currently taking place, which is entitled “The Lonely King and Dragon“. The prologue reads :

Summer is about to end for this year. Today, you are visiting the green wood to relax. While you’re staying under the shade of a large Pipal tree, someone calls your name. You feel drawn to it and turn to the direction of the voice, seeing a small girl looking at you. She says “Hello, nice to meet you, again”. However, you don’t remember meeting her. After a while, she says “Don’t worry, it is understandable. Uhm… though I might be remembering wrong. Please don’t worry about it”. But, she looks a bit lonely. She picks up an old picture book titled “The Lonely King and Dragon” and tells you “If you are interested, wanna read this book?” You feel a bit lost, but take the book and open it.

After that, you feel very dizzy and faint… You have no idea how much time passed, but when you wake up; you are standing in an old castle, and a man who wears a crown is sitting in a big chair. He seems to not notice you. Well, this is a problem… you are inside the world of the old book… and strange voice tells you in your head: “Are you ready? Yes, the story has begun!”

The hunt involves, as you would expect, finding items and following landmarks to a series of skyboxes to find and read the next chapter in the story. There are five chapters in all, but there’s more to it than that.

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September 3, 2015

A Chat With Marsha Warwillow On Bats, The Future Of Books & Magazines, Virtual Reality And More

I’m stood on a ledge at the HQ of SL Goth magazine in Second Life. Next to me on the ledge is Marsha Warwillow, editor in chief of the magazine. Marsha is sporting a dress made by her friend Moeko, for the Lovecraft Festival. The tentacles and the fact that the ledge is rather high up make me somewhat uneasy, but Marsha assures me that she’s not a pusher.

I have talked with Marsha before, all the way back in January. Then Marsha had explained to me the history and concepts of SL Goth Magazine. The magazine is available inworld, via Issuu and they even have their own website. Marsha is a fan of magazines and writing and yet she’s fully aware of the changes in how media is being consumed.

“Would you ever read a book in virtual reality? For instance… let’s say, you could open a book of the Hobbit, and then a virtual reading room that looks like a hobbit hole materializes around you?“, Marsha asks me.

This takes me by surprise, but yes, I probably would do that, although I confess to Marsha that I really do prefer books to book reader devices. I love the tactile nature of a book and dusty old book shops make me happy. Marsha informs me, somewhat mischievously, that a book scent spray is on the market to create the real book ambience.

Marsha continues with the book and virtual reality theme; “My focus is to.. have you heard Neil Gaiman’s talk, about how he quotes Douglas Adams on ‘Books are like sharks..they will survive because a shark is good at being a shark.’ I’m focusing on how to get magazines and books into virtual reality, outside of SL, in different environments, because I want them to survive, it can’t all be roller coasters and space games.”

This bring me to a theme I’m fond of in Virtual Worlds, storytelling by voice. I ask Marsha if she is aware of the work Seanchai do.

“Yes, I’ve been there a few times, I’m a fan!“, Marsha replies enthusiastically, “Recently I also went to the Chelsea Hotel, it was an open mic event.”

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September 3, 2015

Second Life Blog Enhanced With New Snapshot Widget

So there I was, minding my own business, reading the official Second Life blog page. Something did not feel quite right and initially I didn’t quite grasp what it was. The colour scheme was the same, there were no shocking new blog posts and then I noticed a section that must be fairly new; “Latest Photos Inworld“.

The widget that contains the photos is a clickable and there are a couple of places you can click. Those places are on a picture itself or by clicking “View All“. The only real difference is that by clicking on a picture, that picture becomes the centre of the next screen, whereas when you click “View All“, the first picture in the series will be the centre.

Hopefully you can see the above image. One picture in the centre and a series of pictures at the bottom. There are a few things you can do from here.

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September 2, 2015

Bright Canopy Get The Notion That Customers Might Tip The Boat Over

Bright Canopy, the company behind running Second Life (and OpenSim) in a web browser, recently announced that they were ready for launch. An inital price of $17.00 a month was announced, with an advisory that this may change if demand exceeded expectations.

Linden Lab then blogged about the service :

This weekend, an exciting new service is launching: Bright Canopy. With Bright Canopy, you can use either the official Second Life Viewer or the Firestorm Viewer to access Second Life in your web browser, and you can enjoy great performance and graphics, without a high-spec PC.

Customers flocked to the ship on the ocean, sailing with an inventory of love and devotion for the bold new product. Alas, it quickly became apparent to the Bright Canopy that customers weren’t just going to rock the boat, they were going to tip the boat over. This was of course not the desired outcome, forcing the Bright Canopy team to blog; We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat :

We’ve had so much response that we are going to have to make a change and offer a different plan to make sure we are sustainable and can be around long enough to take advantage of much more affordable hosting options from Frame in a few months.

New signups were put on hold and Bright Canopy were transparent about what had happened :

We burned through our contingency in a few hours. We tried modifying some things, but it just wasn’t something that could be fixed with a knob. We talked over our options and looked at the numbers. In order to be able to offer a service of any sort, we knew we would have to make changes.

There will be a limited time offer of a $10 credit for the first month, meaning the first month will be $7. This is our way of thanking you for bearing with us. This offer expires 12AM SLT on Sunday, September 6th. After that, each month will be $17. The plan comes with 20 hours, and additional time is available for $0.013 per minute.

This isn’t what we planned, and making the change is hard, but we believe it is the only way to keep this service available for the people who need it.

One thing was very clear, there was a larger demand for this service than had been anticipated.

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