It’s once again that annual time of reflection. The winter is with us, the old year is slowing dying, the new year awaits, and it is time to look back across the highs and lows of the virtual year as seen through the pages of this blog.
This year has been even busier for me than previous years, so rather than give you a sea of text to wade through, I’ve opted to break things down into three more manageable offerings, starting with January through to April, and have tried to limit myself to bullet-points to the various links. I’ve not attempted to dot every “I” and cross every “T”; rather my aim is to highlight the main items of news for each month (or those which raised a smile), and those aspects of other VWs I had time to cover and well as a look back on some personal elements of my SL times over the year.
For those into art and SL exploration, I’ve also summarised installations and regions visited by month in the hope that doing so will stir your own memories of those events / places.
- May-August can be found here
- September-December can be found here.
January
Second Life and the Lab
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I couldn’t help poking at the Lab early in the year with the “Palme d’Face” award I start the year with a look ahead at 2013; not as a series of predictions, but a look based on what we’d seen in 2012
- More details on Versu’s upcoming release start to emerge
- Together for Sway raises a stunning L$ 1,551,825 in just two weeks to help Sway Dench meet her RL living costs during a 6-month convalescence following major brain surgery and unable to use SL, her major source of income, as a result
- The long-running dispute between Gala Phoenix, proprietor of Curio Skins and Hush Darkrose / Verikai Vargas, proprietor of Hush Skins, reaches an out-of-court settlement
- Region and event griefing as a means of extortion comes into sharp focus
- I look at the issue of tier and tier cuts from the Lab’s perspective
- The Lab updates the Mainland Abandoned Land Policy
- The Lab acquires Blocksworld
- Linden Lab launched dio in a “beta” mode, (and I sign-up and took a look through it
- The Lab starts to promote SL via Amazon in the US, offering both the viewer and special “vehicle” packs; I wonder if they’re really on the right track with the packs, while a bit of a cock-up in the “free offer” department presents the opportunity for a little humour
- The month rounds-out with a sneak peek at materials
Platform News
- The Lab starts the year with further work on threaded region crossings, improving the way very large objects are handled by the server during rezzing and working on a new pathfinding capability to keep characters within parcels
- Work continues through the first half of the year to bring CHUI and materials processing to maturity, Server-side Appearance marches cautiously forward and Monty resumes his HTTP library work, something which will occupy his time for most of the year, and Andrew continues his focus on interest list work
- There is no major news on the deformer – the state of play for most of the year – but Baker Linden works to improve mesh object rezzing performance
- STORM-68 work commences, to allow content creators to set default and persistent permissions against object creation
Art Reviews
Events
- One Billion Rising in SL is announced
- The initial calendar for RFL events in SL is released
- MadPea Games launch Room 326
Pey’s Travelogue
Personal Notes
- I resume my coverage of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission
Other Worlds
- Kitely announce their online Kitely Marketplace
February
Second Life and the Lab
- I kick-off the month with coverage of Simon Linden’s work on Leap Motion
- dio gets a further look
- The Lab launches Versu on the iPad
- On behalf of the Firestorm team, I commence detailed coverage of their User Meetings
- The excellent SL-focused documentary Login2Life gets a new lease of life on YouTube
- The Lab starts adding external advertising to their web properties.
Platform News
- “Deferred rendering” in the viewer becomes “Advanced Lighting Model” ahead of the full deployment of materials processing
- Server updates result in an increase in incidents of diagonally adjacent regions failing to render in the viewer increase and region crossing issues continue
- Aditi log-in and inventory issues continue
- Work continues trying to resolve camera issues and “content warping” when crossing regions, and reports continue about sudden and massive region lag at live events
- I played with the SSA viewer after a further SSA load test is held on Aditi and problems continue to delay the release of the materials viewer-side code
- Towards the end of the month Region restarts get new notifications and concerns grow over the “breaking” of z-offset height adjustment with SSA, while Andrew’s interest list work moves forward
- CHUI reaches the SL Beta and Development viewers
Art Reviews
- Art Deco – Art India Gallery
- Dangerous Evolutions – LEA
- The Inspiring Orientation Stage 2 – LEA
- Mediamorphosis – ars Simularcra
- Song Bird – Song Bird
Events
- One billion Rising launches the official SL video, the regions are developed, and following the event, I offered a reflective piece on it
- Fashion for Life releases its 2013 schedule
- Accept: a story in modern dance
Pey’s Travelogues
Personal Notes
March
Second Life and the Lab
- Draxtor Despres launches The Drax Files, featuring the work of Kriss Lehmann
- The official retirement of Magic Boxes is announced and later in the month, the Lab launches the Merchant Outbox project viewer to encourage people to transition over to Direct Delivery
- I take an objective look at SL’s health
- I wonder if machinima could be more effectively used to promote SL, while the Lab expands on web property advertising plans
- LL quietly starts offering educational and non-profit organisations a tier discount three years after discontinuing the programme
- dio gets an update
- The Lab’s Patterns for PC and Mac moves to Steam’s Early Access platform
Platform News
- The Lab offers a fix for the “z-offset” issue in the form of a “hover function”. While it addresses the initial concerns as raised to the Lab, it doesn’t offer a solution for all use cases
- Simon Linden looks at ways of making the viewer more robust when rendering lots of avatars in crowded locations
- The Lab offers a region crossing fix, announce object caching work on the viewer as a part of the interest list work and announces new LSL particle system parameters
- Server-side animation capabilities arrive
- I offer an overview of Monty Linden’s HTTP work
- Group ban lists, original a feature request, starts to progress as an LL project
Art Reviews
- Potpourri Markets Art Show / Competition – Potpourri Markets
- Art at Insight – Insight
- Inside Art/Alice’s Adventures – LEA
Events
- UWA launches the 6th MachinimUWA Challenge, Reflections, with a prize cache of L$1.1 million
- Fantasy Faire 2013 store registrations open
- RFL of SL 2013 kicks-off with Fashion for Life
- Moulin Rouge stage show in SL
- Seanchai Library SL celebrates five years of storytelling in Voice
- The 5th annual SL Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome takes place, complete with a special benefit concert
- The 3rd annual Storyfest takes place
- The community-led celebrations for SL’s tenth anniversary are announced
Pey’s Travelogues
- Pyri Peaks
- World of Beauty
- Angel Manor
- Sheepville
- Wretched Hollow
- Neva River
- The Haven
- The Garden – now closed
Personal Notes
- NASA’s Curiosity rover finds evidence for water “good enough to drink” to have once been present on Mars
- Thanks to the generosity of Erick Gregan, I take to the air in a beautiful Spitfire Mark IX
Other Worlds
- I look at the in-browser Pixieviewer
April
Second Life and the Lab
- The Firestorm team start the month with a 1-day offer of the incredible, nanotechnology driven Firestorm Mobile for tablets, smart phones and even stupid phones!
- The US Treasury’s FINCEN department issues set of interpretive guidelines (PDF) sees questions asked as to the possible future status of the Linden Dollar
- The Lab launches Trooble Pigs on Amazon
- The “Become Your Avatar” marketing campaign is re-re-re-run
- Firestorm launch a series of tutorial videos
- The pricing models of Creatorverse on the Kindle and Android fall into line with the iOS offering
- Exodus announce changes to the team
- Singularity updates ready for SSA and offers mesh uploads, pathfinding updates and more
- Firestorm offers a settings back-up function
- Bobbiekins stories for children: interactive entertainment created in Second Life
- Kirsten’s S19 viewer is unexpectedly updated
- The Lab offers a “clean-up option” for incorrect Marketplace listings
Platform News
- The month starts with news that CHUI generates an annoying inventory bug, speculation starts to rise over Oculus Rift and its use in SL while CHUI’s woes delay SSA
- Magic Box retirement gets underway
- The Lab updates the Creatorverse pricing model and also updates pricing for private region management services
- Further region crossing and interest list improvements are rolled-out, together with the next stage of Monty’s HTTP work. However, a sharp increase in the “missing prims” issue is noted by many users, and collaboration between users and the Lab point to it being a viewer issue
- I offer a further update to the overall status of the Server-side Appearance work
- CHUI reaches the SL viewer release channel
- The Materials project viewer is released and I have a play with it in-world while concerns are raised over materials falling under the “new” land impact accounting system. Later in the month, materials arrives in the Good Building Practices page of the wiki as a viewer update is announced
- I offer an overview of the interest list and object caching work
- Bugs create problems in materials and SSA, speculation on Oculus Rift and SL gets another boost
- Region crossing camera issues make a return and “missing prim” problems escalate again
- Aditi issues continue, the next round of HTTP work is given thought and “Advanced Creation Tools are poked at
- Server-side Appearance deployment and communications are discussed
- Current Outfit Folder corruptions results in avatars unable to log-in to SL
- Baker Linden moves forward on group ban lists and the Lab confirms Oculus Rift integration on the cards
- Most viewers are SSA ready by the end of the month, but issues (COF, SUN-69 and others) persist
Events
- Fantasy Faire 2013 is previewed by The Drax Files before getting the full Draxtor treatment while I offer a preview. The event itself launches, and I become a traveller making my way through the regions, starting at Luminaria, and from there to Evensong Woods, Titan’s Hollow, DragonSpire and the Crimson Fields before arriving in Magnificat, then onwards to the Fairelands and Ravenshard Junction, before previewing the Key of Hope Quest and then taking my rest at Lotus Valley Dreams
- SL10B preparations continue with a call for exhibitors and more
- The second Bay City Fashion Week is held
Art Reviews
- Tyrehl Byk’s Catharsis – Eden Celebration
- Beguiled Art Gallery – Kakapo
- Machinima Open Studio Project – LEA
- 9 Planets – LEA
- Ascension – LEA
Pey’s Travelogues
- Chakryn Forest
- 🙂 BCC
- Happiness is Liberty (now gone from SL)
- Noble Storybook
- Skye Neist Point and Skye Elgol
- The Far Away
- Taiga
Personal Notes
- The LAQ range of cottages almost tempts me into renting private land again
Other Worlds
- Pixieviewer gets an update
- I try-out the New World Studio OpenSim-based self-hosting capabilities and provide a further update later in the month
- News reaches me of efforts to add materials processing to OpenSim
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
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