Viewer 2 – getting there?

Linden Lab have released an “Alpha” of Viewer 2.1.

They’re making progress it seems – calling the release “Alpha” rather than trumpeting it as an “almost ready Beta”. Who sez they don’t listen?!

On a serious note, the new release (which admittedly, I have yet to download and try) brings with it several much-needed improvements – such as the bane of my life, the Sidebar, now “overlaying” the world-view as an option, rather than shunting it rudely off to the left. Why anyone would want the latter option constantly shattering their experience, I’ll never understand; but at least we now have the long-overdue option to get rid of it for something altogether smoother.

They’ve also finally got the message about camera controls – recombining things into a single pane (why, oh why were they ever split-off in the first place?), and they’ve made the bottom button bar somewhat more customisable to meet the needs of experienced users.

All this is very much to the good – although again points to a broken train of thought somewhere along the development trail, as all of these features should have been there from the get-go, and thank heavens for Kirstenlee Cinquetti for demonstrating to LL that all this and more could have been done from the get-go via her (still) infinitely superior S20 viewer.

Viewer 2.1 brings us a step closer to OpenID authentication for SL-related services. About time to.

A novel feature being introduced to Viewer 2.1 is Voice Morphing. Clearly, despite claims that we’ve already clocked up 28+ billion years of chat on Voice, not enough of us are using it. There are many reasons for this – some of which I’ve pointed to in that post.

Voice Morphing is an attempt to resolve some of these issues by providing the means for people to “sound like their avatar should sound” – with a range of robotic, furry and other voices – including the option to sound like a member of the opposite sex.

I have to admit that I’ve avoided Voice in the past in part because I simply don’t want my mental image of the people / creatures I’m interacting with shattered by hearing the real voice behind the avatar. It’s not the only reason I’ve largely steered clear of Voice after some early playing (and using it at a couple of OH meetings in-world), but it is one. As such, I’m going to be curious as to how the morphing tool is viewed / taken up.

On the one hand, I can see it being a lot of fun; on the other, I can seen some trying to use it for drama purposes (anyone using a female avatar and one of the female voices in place of their own must be a guy, for example). On the third hand (yes, I occasionally have Beeblebrox moments) I can see it not making an iota of difference all ways around.

The main reason for presenting the third hand is simply because a) people are slow to change their ways, and in terms of rp, where this has the biggest potential use, if it is not adopted by the many within a particular rp environment, the few won’t bother either; and b) it is, at the end of the day, a subscription service; and while “only” about $3 a month (L$750), given LL’s recent track record, doubtless many will avoid it simply because of the pleasure they’ll have in not giving LL more of their hard-earned  pennies. Especially when the voices are pre-packaged. If you only want a female voice – then it is “only” $3 a month. But if you vary from, say a male gladiator to a sci-fi robot to a furry according to your mood, then you’re looking at $9 a month to give all your forms a voice.

Mind you…I can see the MOTD promotion for Premium Accounts now: “Upgrade and (homes, support, blah, blah)…offset the cost of your in-world Voices with weekly stipends!”

All-in-all, however, the moves being made with Viewer 2.1 are welcome.