Second Life – Page 83

February 11, 2015

Linden Lab Ask Us To Check Out Improvements To Second Life

Linden Lab continue to demonstrate their vastly improved communication policies this week by making good use of their blog. A couple of days ago they posted : Check Out the Latest Improvements to Second Life. This post discusses improvements in areas such as :

Hover Height
Notifications
Mesh Import
Viewer Managed Marketplace
Graphics Settings
Second Life Developer Tools

Some of these developments are more technical than others. Hover Height deals with the thorny issue of where your feet may land in Second Life. The issue has always been that your feet may not land where you expect them to, leading to unexpected and inconsistent results. Linden Lab have been working on this and even have a Project HoverHeight Viewer involved in this work. The blog post explains what they are hoping to achieve :

This viewer, and some accompanying server changes, improve things in two ways: the order in which we make adjustments to your vertical position has been made more stable — combining the same set of attachments and animations should now always produce the same vertical offset: even if it’s not perfect, it will at least be predictable. Because it can’t always be perfect, we’ve also introduced a new final adjustment that is directly under your control: a new avatar right-click selection allows you to tweak your vertical position. This final adjustment is shared with everyone around you so that they too will see you correctly, and is saved locally by your viewer so that it persists between sessions. This new feature was inspired by a proposal from the Firestorm viewer team, and they’ve been helping with testing it.

In terms of notifications, let’s face it, they can be a pain, especially when you first login. The more notifications you get, the more of a pain it can become. Part of the reason for this is that all notifications look the same in terms of pop ups. A future viewer release is in the works that will provide different pop ups for different notifications. For example a money transaction notification will have a separate display when compared to a group notification, meaning you should be able to prioritise your notifications.

The Mesh Import improvements include one really interesting improvement, the ability to import models with more than eight unique faces. I’m sure this will please many Mesh creators. Better error reporting and improved association of physics representations and LODs by name are also promised. If this interests you then you’ll be pleased to know that work is already under way with this and you can check it out with the Project Importer Viewer.

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February 10, 2015

The Guardian Talk About The Second Life Penis & Virtual Romance

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic has posted an interesting article over at The Guardian : Virtual love: is your Valentine an avatar? The article looks at the rise of digital romance and looks at virtual boyfriend and girlfriend apps, the website Tinder, the issue of cybersex briefly and even has a mention of Second Life. I don’t know much about those virtual boyfriend and girlfriend apps and the first I head of Tinder was via a recent story regarding some major websites being down for a short period of time recently, Tinder was mentioned. When I asked some of the folk at work about it after that news story there was much mirth and very little belief that I had never heard of Tinder!

The article itself links to a website that has advice for lovemaking in virtual worlds such as Second Life :

Virtual communities, such as Second Life, recreate all aspects of the relationship cycle, including pregnancy and birth. In fact, there are now multiple guides on how to have sex in a virtual world, which perhaps suggests that physical skills are not necessarily transferable to our avatars. One salient difference is that most avatars are not equipped with genitals. As an expert notes: “The first thing you need to do, get yourself a penis/vagina. Here’s a piece of advice: Second Life is a visual medium. Hence it does have a certain importance that you choose a penis that actually looks realistic and is in-line with the colour of your skin.” Other suggestions include upgrading looks – because “with the prefab [Second Life] avatar you will find it very difficult to get laid” – and making an effort to role-play a seductive or erotic situation. Indeed, directness and bluntness is as discouraged as in the analogue world.

The website it links to even goes into the murky world of the talking penis. I’m really not a big fan of the Second Life penis, indeed I don’t find it very realistic at all. There would be a world full of pain if you had to walk around with one of those all day outside of Second Life. Obviously there are some advantages, the detachable nature of the appendage would have uses and of course your partner could hide it when they were miffed at you, but realism isn’t something I’d associate with that accessory.

A more interesting aspect of Second Life and virtual world relationships comes near the end of the article.

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February 9, 2015

If You’re A Fan Of BBC Drama Wolf Hall You May Want To Visit Lightbridge In Second Life

I’ve been to Lightbridge in Second Life before, a medieval roleplaying sim set in the year 1529 in part of English controlled France. The thing with Lightbridge is that the roleplay is aimed at human characters rather than the more fantasy based element we usually see.

The other thing with Lightbridge is that it’s set in a period of history that is currently being covered in the excellent BBC drama Wolf Hall. The BBC drama itself is based on the book Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.

There are of course some key differences between Lightbridge and Wolf Hall. Whereas Wolf Hall deals with the rise to prominence of Thomas Cromwell at a time of great upheaval for the church and monarchy in England, Lightbridge is set in the fictional harbour town of Pont de Lumière, which lies between Calais and The Duchy Of Burgundy. This is a small garrison city and therefore you wouldn’t expect to see characters such as Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII or Cardinal Wolsey roaming the streets and popping into the tavern.

Indeed the character generation forbids the roleplaying of such characters :

We do not permit players to play important real life characters (Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey, Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor, etc.) as they are reserved for admins for special roleplay events. Players may, however, play a real life character if there is no significant history to speak of that might be altered by their gameplay. Players must provide references for the existence of the character.

However fans of Wolf Hall, armed with their knowledge of these times could indeed create quite interesting characters whom would know of the politics of the times.

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February 9, 2015

A Visit To St John Parish In Second Life

I stumbled across St John Parish in Second Life via someone’s Flickr stream when I saw some nice photos of the land. St John Parish is owned by Gabrielle Riel, Prim Minister, The Duchess of Carntaigham and makes up a group of sims that extend to Lake St John, Bayou St John and St John Woods.

St John Parish itself is a bustling urban sim with a theme set in historic New Orleans, Louisiana in the early part of the 20th century.

Rolpelay is positively encouraged but is not at all required. Indeed the rules will allow you to visit the sims without even being in period attire. However if you do want to get into theme then you should be looking at anything from Medieval to Victorian, to Edwardian to the early 1920’s, so quite a lot of scope.

This means you can generally stroll around, take photos and not get chased off the lawn for not being dressed in the right attire. However you may want to try and ensure you don’t get ran over by the tram that traverses St John Parish.

In terms of entertainment St John Parish offers ragtime and early Jazz.

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February 6, 2015

Dispatches From The Snowball Warzone – A Snowball Fight With The Lindens

They came from all corners of Second Life, the young, the old, the weak and Strawberry Singh! They split into teams, some residents backing The Lindens. Xiola Linden purred and recruited.

Uccello Poultry not far from her side aiding the recruitment drive.

Meanwhile Vitae Linden was aided and abetted by Pygar Bu as they prepared for battle.

The Lindens were out in force and looking very menacing, big guns and little guns were on display.

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