Linden Lab – Page 59 – Ciaran Laval

June 12, 2015

The Drax Files World Makers Episode 30 – Listen, Do You Want To Know A Secret … Store?

I’ve known a secret video for a day or two ….

Drax Files World Makers 30

Episode 30 of The Drax Files World Makers features Maylee Oh, Second Life fashion creator and owner of The Secret Store. I’ll follow my traditional pattern and embed the video at the end of this post.

Regular and irregular readers of this blog will know that I’m not a fashionista. Indeed when I realised this was about fashion I thought, “They do it over there, but we don’t do it here …. Fashion!”

However in Draxtor Despres we trust and this is another excellent addition to The Drax World Makers series, with Drax doing what he does best, gaining insight into the person behind the avatar and allowing that person, in this case Maylee Oh, to describe and demonstrate their Second Life and outside of Second Life personality with words, images, video and machinima. There’s also a funky scene near the end in a park with Draxtor and Maylee Oh chatting to each other.

Maylee Oh is 28 years old and lives in Paris. Maylee makes mostly female apparel in Second Life, along with some quirky things, which you will see in the video.

Maylee talks of how she makes commercials for her store in Second Life, using a variety of tools including Adobe After Effects and her own illustrations. This is an excellent example of something that doesn’t really get talked about regarding Second Life or other virtual worlds, the ability to create advertisements in a digital realm.

Maylee admits that she quit art school in her third year, but does not regret it and that via Second Life she has been able to bring her artistic talents to a medium that has allowed her to generate enough income to earn a living. Now, as I have links to education outside of the virtual world I have to frown somewhat at this point and say “Don’t try this at home kids“, please, finish your art school classes and any other classes. Pretty please?

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June 11, 2015

Primitar 1.0, James Miller Taxi Company, It’s Second Life History Time

Before looking forward to Second Life’s twelfth birthday celebrations, I think it’s an opportune time to look back. Play funky music, close your eyes, and come with me on a journey back in time ….

Ever want to build a cathedral? Underwater? Change your clothes, your face, your whole body? Fly? You can’t do any of that stuff in real life, but you can do it all and more in Second Life, a startlingly lifelike 3-D virtual world now evolving on the Internet. Unlike other shared online adventures, Second Life isn’t about slaying monsters or zapping aliens. It’s about building things, meeting people and expressing yourself. Even if you already have a life, you may want to get a second one.

The above comes from Time back in 2002 regarding what they considered to be one of that year’s best inventions.

Meanwhile, back in 2004, The Houston Chronicle were telling us :

In the hands of the futurist, the virtual world’s combination of social anonymity and endless digital possibility becomes a conduit for mankind’s basest desires, the triumph of machine over man and a stern warning about technology run amok.

Well, the future is now, and it’s considerably more urbane than anyone expected.

Second Life, a massively multiplayer online PC game, brings us one step closer to a true virtual existence. Even calling it a game is a stretch: Games require an object — a purpose — and Second Life’s purpose is as enigmatic as that of real life.

It’s hard to overstate how genre-busting Second Life is.

That article makes for a fascinating read by the way. Articles such as the above can be found by typing a URL such as :

https://secondlife.com/news/archive/?year=2002

Changing the year at the end will give you news for a different year. Alas a lot of the old articles lead to dead ends, although with a bit of jiggery pokery on The Wayback Machine, you may be able to retrieve them.

Another good source for Second Life history is the old old forum archive. There we can find that in 2004, Robin Linden was informing people that Second Life was up for an award :

Second Life has been nominated as a finalist for Online Game of the Year by Gaming Industry News. Full voting is now open, and GIN readers will be choosing the winners over the next month.

If you want to vote for Second Life, just visit Game Industry News. You have to be subscriber, but subscriptions are free. Every subscriber gets one vote.

That’s interesting not just because Second Life was up for an award, it’s also interesting because Game Industry News had a subscription model back then, albeit a free one.

Continue reading “Primitar 1.0, James Miller Taxi Company, It’s Second Life History Time”

June 10, 2015

Second Life Group Listing Changes Are Probably A Matter Of Priorities

Inara Pey has recently blogged : Second Life group list changes explained :

Until now, it has been possible to open the details for any Second Life group you have joined and display all the information relating to that group, including the list of members.

However, with the new update, groups with 5,000 or more members will no longer display the list of members unless:

You are assigned the Owner or Officer role within the group
You are assigned an ability within the group which requires the members list to be displayed (e.g. you are able to assign members to assigners roles, or are able to eject / ban people from the group, etc.).
Instead, and until corresponding changes are made to the viewer, all you will see on opening the members list as a message stating “Retrieving member list (0 / XXXXX)” – where XXXXX is the total number of members in a the group.

Inara also provides pictures to exemplify these changes. This is one of those changes that will not raise an eyebrow from many users, but for some, it will be a great annoyance. Examples of the issues that are likely to annoy people can be found in Jira-BUG-9393 : Important use cases for groups have been neutered by the recent changes on the RC channels to member list loading for large groups.

The annoyances listed include :

You need to find out what role(s) you are in within the group. With the recent change, it is impossible to do so.
You need to contact an owner or officer of the group. With the change, it is impossible for you to find out who to contact that is within certain roles in the group.
You need to know what abilities you have within a group. You can’t with the recent change.
Countless groups in SL function as a “personals” listing of sorts where people can find likeminded individuals for particular interests/activities.

Please read the linked Jira for full details. All of the above is true, but the issue Linden Lab face is whether these changes will be of greater benefit to more people, rather than sticking with the status quo.

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June 10, 2015

Visit Goatswood And Venexia In Second Life Before They Close Their Doors

I was reading Inara Pey’s blog recently when I noticed an article entitled : The passing of places in Second Life. The post deals with the sad news that two absolutely stunning roleplay locations in Second Life are going to shortly disappear. The Regions of Goatswood and Venexia are going to sail off the side of the Second Life in the next ten days or so. I’d advise people to go visit quickly and take snapshots if you want.

As Inara points out, both regions are very photogenic.

Inara’s post links to another blog post on the matter from Miya’s Journal, which also contains the text of the official announcement. The first part of the announcement reads :

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM BAAL AND KORA

It is with great regret that once again the ever present financial burden of the extreme costs of maintaining sims in second life means that we will be forced to close both Venexia and Goatswood.

These closures will take place on 13th June for Venexia and 19th June for Goatswood. Any rentals outstanding will of course be refunded. As Kos still has some active players we will try to keep it running for a while longer.

We would like to say a huge thank you to all those who have over the years contributed so much time and creativity towards the great success of these projects. They have provided us with many lasting memories, and we have derived immense enjoyment from seeing them brought to life by those who have spent time playing there.

We hope that you have enjoyed using as much as we have enjoyed creating them.

Baal and Kora, for those wondering, are Baal Zobel and Kora Zenovka, the duo behind these excellent builds.

Goatswood’s description in the destination guide states :

Delve deep into the dark past of Goatswood, a SGS Victorian role-play sim set in a mysterious English village. Goatswood features an incredibly intricate, detailed world, a unique story system, multiple character possibilities, Victorian social classes, structured role-play and magic systems, covens to join and plenty to explore and do. Will Goatswood be your escape, or is it what you’re escaping from?

Visiting as a visitor is pretty easy, and one that I found a pleasure. There’s information at the landing point and then they have this neat vendor which gives you a three day visitor’s pass, which you wear to indicate you’re OOC. Then you walk to a train, left click and as long as you have the OOC tag on, you will be teleported to the main sim. The three day pass is free by the way and can be renewed when the three days have expired.

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June 9, 2015

Second Life Premium Members Can Get Their SL12B Avatar Early At Premium Meetup

Second Life’s twelfth night, or birthday if you prefer, is fast approaching. The SL12B community Celebration, will run between June 21st-28th. Linden Lab are playing their part in the celebrations and will be releasing a commemorative avatar to celebrate the anniversary.

This is a long standing tradition and in recent years we were gifted a bear avatar for SL10B and a robot avatar for SL11B.

Premium Members of Second Life will get the chance to get early access to this year’s birthday avatar, according to a blog post from Xiola Linden : Premium Members:Get Early Access to the SL12B Commemorative Avatar at a Tiki-tastic Party!

Splish Splash – it’s a Tiki Beach Bash!

Premium members – this one is just for you, so be sure to save the date! We’ve lit the tiki torches and brushed up on our fruity drink-mixing skills to host a casual gathering with the added bonus of early access to our Official Second Life 12th Birthday commemorative avatar.

That’s right – come to the SL12B Premium Meetup on Thursday June 11th from 10:30 to 11:30 AM SLT, hang out with us, and be one of the first to glimpse and grab the celebratory 12th anniversary avatar. The nature of this particular avatar required us to select a remote island for our gathering as well as implement a strict quarantine on the subject, so you’re going to have to drop by our tropical jungle destination to find out what it is.

Ah but what about those Premium Members who want the avatar but can’t make the meetup? Do not worry, you can still get the avatar early.

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