Linden Lab – Page 70 – Ciaran Laval

April 6, 2015

We Love Roleplay – A Monthly Shopping Event Aimed At Second Life Roleplayers

We Love Roleplay in Second Life is a monthly shopping event aimed at nerds … in their words! I’ll say it’s aimed at Roleplayers. The aim of the event is described on their website as :

Our goal is not to make money, but to spread the word of awesome creations delivered by our favorite designers and support the role-play community with an event that offers great deals and quality items. We wish to support true creativity and true talent, especially with the current influx of ripped content, which often lets the motivation of true designers diminish.

This goal generally is visualized, too, by a carefully and tastefully designed location with attention to details. We wish to deliver a feeling of a true role-play event, almost as if you could come shop in character.

The event usually starts on the 4th of each month, although they do make an exception in July.

The themes you’re likely to find here are described as :

Medieval (Fantasy), Gor, Ancient Rome/Greece/Egypt, Victorian, Vikings, Barbarians, Native American, Wizards* (Merlin etc.), Steampunk, Fantasy and similar themes.

However the organisers are open to other themes, so if you have a theme you think may be suitable for this event, contact the organisers.

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April 4, 2015

Dandelion – Land Of Adventure Supplies

Dandelion in Second Life is home to Fantavatar & Moonstruck, Lilith’s Den, [ Oblivion ], The Wishbringer and The Medieval Fantasy Grid Crier. In short, it’s a place where you can get supplies, clothing and items for your fantasy roleplay.

However there’s more to it than that, because it’s a rather gorgeous sim with nooks, crannies and a strange homage paid to Frog Lords!

Fantavatar and Moonstruck are purveyors of medieval fantasy creations including clothes, shoes, armor, Fae wings, hair, complete fantasy avatars, tree houses and gardens.

Wishbringer are purveyors of fantasy items for your home or role play, including building kits and Sim designs. They create custom made designs and meshes.

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April 4, 2015

Second Life Premium Membership Offer Is Served With A Twist

Linden Lab have once again made a discount offer to entice people to engage with Premium Membership in Second Life : Don’t Miss This Limited-Time Sale on Premium Membership!

You know how this goes, Linden Lab offer a discount on quarterly membership and throw in a gift. However, in a bid to ensure we’re all paying attention, Linden Lab have changed the offer!

If you’ve been waiting to upgrade to a Premium account, now is a great time, because today we’re kicking off a great new sale: from today until April 13, 2015, you can upgrade to Premium subscription for less than $5 for your first month! That’s a 50% discount off the regular rate, and this offer won’t last long. Upgrade today and start enjoying Premium benefits at our lowest-ever monthly rate.

Wait, what? Let’s check the small print on this :

TERMS & CONDITIONS FOR 50% DISCOUNT This limited-time discount offer is available only for purchases of memberships on the Monthly billing plan. Discount will be applied to the first monthly billing cycle only, and all future charges will be at the regular Premium price ($9.95 USD, excluding VAT where applicable). Sign-up bonus will be paid upon 45 consecutive days of membership. To qualify, Second Life members must have an active Basic account or create a new Second Life account. Discount offer begins on Friday the 3rd of April at 8:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and expires on Monday the 13th of April 2015 at 8:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).

So this offer is based on monthly membership, rather than the traditional quarterly offer and there’s no gift!

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April 3, 2015

Remnants Of Earth Sci-Fi Roleplay In Second Life Attracts The Attention Of Kotaku

I took a brief look at Remnants of Earth back in February when I boldly went in search of Science Fiction action in Second Life. However it’s worth revisiting again because it’s now being discussed by a wider audience, even beyond the Second Life blogsphere.

Remnants Of Earth is a cyberpunk roleplay game in Second Life and was recently covered by Hamlet Au over at New World Notes : Remnants of Earth, a User-Made MMO in Second Life.

However now news of the world has gone beyond Second Life, thanks to Hamlet Au’s post, Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku has noticed it : Players Built An MMO Inside Of Second Life, And It Looks Wild.

The article consists mostly of screenshots from the Remnants of Earth website, which is an impressive website on its own, although be warned, it is quite bright and has some flicker.

So first of all, just what is Remnants Of Earth?

Remnants of Earth is a cyberpunk-fantasy role playing game within the metaverse of Second Life, with a heavy basis around classic pen and paper RPGs elements, like; dice rolling, stats, monster fighting, story driven events, MMO-like adventuring, and gathering. RoE is the first second life pen and paper table top game in SL, while still keeping the core features of any other roleplay sim. Players can interact with NPCs and other players to accomplish goals, and even engage in heated PvP faction wars. We even have a full crafting and mining system! Think of RoE as a fully functioning table top game in SL, like Dungeons and Dragons, or ShadowRun.

The world is extremely photogenic and has a definite cyberpunk feel to it. However as I haven’t engaged with the world properly, therefore I am unable to review the game mechanics.

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April 3, 2015April 3, 2015

Scepticism Of Cloud Gaming May Be The Real Reason SL Go Is Closing

A blog post from OnLive sheds a lot more light on the Sony deal : A Bright Future for Cloud Gaming at Sony. The post also confirms my thoughts that it’s unfair to paint Sony as the evil corporate villain in all of this, because there are some cold hard facts about the viability of the business are explained in the blog post.

One important point to note is that the blog post suggests that OnLive were indeed looking for someone to purchase them, and this section of the blog post spells out the situation quite clearly :

Since 2012, the company has dramatically improved its technology and business models such that all of its 5 services are gross margin positive, ranging from 43% to 86% margin. The fact that we had such positive margins should prevent repeat speculation that we were “crushed by infrastructure costs.” The company also was able to achieve conversion rates from free trial to paid of between 64-78% for its services. Despite these positive metrics, the lifetime value (TLV) of a subscriber was still less than the cost to acquire subscribers (CPA), but they were converging. While we knew we could not get to break-even on our own, we believed that there were many large companies who would be able to get there due to: 1) being able to communicate broadly and inexpensively (lowering CPA), 2) having their own distribution platform for the service, and 3) being able to license the most popular games and MMO’s, the latter 2 would have had the effect of both reducing CPA and reducing churn (thereby raising TLV). Despite these positive developments, we were unable to entice an acquirer who wanted to continue the service, and Sony already had their own service.

Therefore OnLive were seeking assistance in terms of breaking even and whereas some of that assistance could come from companies such as Linden Lab, they needed more companies to jump aboard the ship to make this project viable in the long term.

Step forward Sony. Unfortunately for us SL Go users and those who use OnLive Desktop, Sony have absolutely no need for a streaming service, as they are already running one in the shape and form of Playstation Now.

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