The grid, Twitter and various forums are awash with upset. In a repeat of a situation from February this year, Linden Lab have deleted popular megaprims from across the grid, impacting, as some have said, “thousands” of builds.Interestingly enough, now, as then, the name of Crowley Avro has been mentioned in connection with the situation.
Whether the affected prims were used in a girefing attack or not, and the items used removed on the basis of the creator’s name, rather than the owner’s name is unknown at this time.
A JIRA has been raised concerning matters – SVC-7382 and Alexa Linden was on the case fairly rapidly, and the blacklist was apparently reversed rapidly, but this has not helped those builds in-world.
For those who have been heavily impacted by this situation, Alexa is recommending they request a sim roolback (if you don’t own the sim, you will have to contact the owner and have them request a rollback), quoting the megaprim issue (I’d suggest the JIRA as well). However, as some have commented on the JIRA, back in February some requests for rollback were largely ignored. And rollback don’t exactly those who are based on the Mainland…
People are understandably angry over this, with fingers being pointed in all directions; it would be interesting to know the exact circumstances under which the affected megaprims / creator (however it was done) were / was blacklisted this time around. Not that we will, of course.
Update 23:00 BST
The following appeared on the SL Grid Status page at 20:53 BST:
“Due to a change we recently made to address a griefing problem, some megaprims were removed from the grid, which has affected users’ creations containing these megaprims. The issue has been resolved, and the megaprim objects can be re-rezzed from your inventories at this time. If you do not have a copy of the affected build, please go to your support portal immediately and file a case.
“If you are Premium member or above, you can use these case types: “Technical Questions” > “Objects (Rezzed) Issues. If you have a free membership and your group owned land was affected, please use “Land & Region” > Report an Offline Region”. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and are reviewing our processes to try to avoid repeating this situation in the future.”
Travel to Originalia is the newest art exhibit on Amase Levasseur’s Originalia sim. It features three new works, Postcards Home by Callipygian Christensen, Adapt or Perish by Cherry Mangaand and Gateway to Hell by Fuschia Nightfire, together with a chance to once more enjoy Scottius Polke’s acclaimed The Docks.
The exhibit itself opens this coming weekend, but I was lucky enough to be invited to preview the installations ahead of the formal opening.
Teleporting to Originalia brings you to a small arrivals area, with the ominous title Adapt or Perish.From here lay a series of wooden or stone paths leading to the different exhibits in the installation, three of which are visible without excessive camera-panning, two under their own respective domes, while the third appears to be a quite rural English Post Office of yesteryear.
There is no specific order in which you should view the exhibits; however, as I am English, I naturally felt drawn towards the Post Office, which also seemed to have a small welcome area in front of it. So that is where this preview starts.
If it wasn’t for the very obvious domes raising from behind and one side of it, one could almost imagine the Post Office is part of a set awaiting the arrival of Miss Marple and a BBC film crew. It’s a charming place, with a fountain out front and places to sit. There is also a poster for the exhibit, which provides an introductory notecard and a series of landmarks (which actually all resolve to the same arrivals point).
The Post Office
Inside are the orderly roped counter queue areas (we English so love our queues), a familiar counter and, on the walls, Callipygian Christensen’s images which form Postcards Home. Each, as the name of the exhibit suggests, features an image captured from somewhere within SL displayed as a postcard, complete with the “reverse” side tucked in behind it, some of the text just visible.
Callipygian Christensen’s “Postcards” – clever and evocative
It’s a clever approach; the images themselves can be evocative – there is one of AM Radio’s work which causes a slight pang given his sims are now sadly gone from SL. The partially viewed messages from the “backs”of the postcards give each one added depth, as we catch a small glimpse into the life and thoughts of the person who sent the cards.
This is something of a cautionary tale about our need to remain in harmony with nature or risk destroying it – and ourselves.
Cheery Manga: Adapt or Perish
Entering the dome, you enter a fantastical landscape, rich with flora, with fairies, fawns, centaurs. This is not a single tableau, however. Rather, it is as series of visual vignettes, all of them interlinked and accompanied by a short verse, which all build together into the overall piece and the story it tells.
Stone paths over the water lead you deeper into the piece, past those who have learned to adapt and accept what Nature has to offer, taking no more than what is needed, sharing, making nature their home and giving thanks for all that they have.
But as one moves deeper, so things grow darker. The grass dies. The leaves wither from branches overhead. The trees themselves become bare-branched, misshapen grotesques. So to, does the music change, a haunting, deadly voice slowly filling the air the further one continues.
Here is the realm of those out of harmony with nature; those, we are warned, who steal and kill, who always want more. Their footprint is that of desolation where a dank mist covers the ground and nothing but fungi flourish. The air is filled with the sound of leaden, warning drums and a deathly chanting, and the path leads us inevitably to chaos and death.
It is a sobering message, one only too clear in its meaning – and it is also one beautifully rendered, although I must admit that I wish something other than a refrain from the soundtrack of Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut had been used for the more menacing element of the background music; this tended to allow images from the film slip into my mind, spoiling my focus on the piece in front of me.
Gateway to Hell in some ways continues the theme of death and damnation as it presents us with burning image of the entrance to hell, the air heavy with ravens, a fire pit heaving and pulsating beneath, the tentacles of unknown creatures writhing up through the fiery rock. As lava flows down from the walls, so to become visible the spirits of the damned as they are pulled down through the pit into hell itself, few willing to go without a struggle.
The Docks
Scottious Polke’s The Docks won acclaim when first presented in SL, and became a popular subject for Machinima makers across the grid. Now it makes a welcome return to its original home. It is a haunting place to visit, one that is perhaps best summed up in What isn’t Underneath by Textcavation.
Opinion
Travel to Originalia is an interesting mix of exhibits, each with its own context and meaning, yet three of them – The Docks, Gateway to Hell and Adapt or Perish carrying, for me at least, a common subtext. I enjoyed all four pieces – The Docks perhaps slightly more than the others, as I had missed it the first time around, and have only had machinima to allow me to see it; so having the opportunity to visit it in person gave me a sense of anticipation the other pieces, being original items, couldn’t match.
Which is not to say they are not worthwhile seeing. Rather then reverse, in fact. Whether see as a whole, and in a single visit, or as individual displays, each visited independently, they are well worth the trip. Should you visit all three together, I would recommend you do so in the order I used: start with the Post Office and Postcards Home, then go to Gateway to Hell via Adapt or Perish.
Alongside the new Viewer 3 UI that has reached the Development Viewer, further small steps have been taken with Direct Delivery (DD).
On the 18th October, DD related code previously released onto Le Tigre was rolled out on the main server release channel. Again, this does not mean that DD is now active, just that the road is being further prepared for DD’s arrival – or to allow for further code compatibility testing.
The code was rolled-out alongside an Agent Inventory update which means that any TPVs that have merged merged since Viewer 2.5.1 should experience much faster inventory response times than previously.
Direct Delivery: Received Items section added to the Inventory floater
Alongside of this, the latest Development Viewer, as well as getting the new UI shiny, also gets an update aimed at Direct Delivery: a new section in the Inventory floater called RECEIVED ITEMS.
Click on this, and you Inventory floater opens a new panel (left), wherein any items you purchase via the SL Marketplace will be delivered once Direst Delivery goes live, either boxed or in a folder hierarchy (or both, in some cases).
One assumes items delivered to this area can be drag-and-dropped into your main Inventory folders; as I’m not in the DD beta, I’ve actually no way of testing this. However, until the DD system is active, Marketplace deliveries will continue to be made as before, with items arriving in the main section of Inventory.
There is currently no corresponding new section (or folder) that can be used by the system to retrieve merchants’ items that are to be listed on the Marketplace. One assumes this is to prevent any confusion with people thinking DD is now active and thus trying to use the capability.
So, that’s another couple of steps forward, although the silence that has followed what are valid and reasonable questions on the project from merchants has now been going on for long enough to give the crickets leave to start chiruping.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 