Lauren Bentham has brought a fairytale winter to Storybrooke Gardens, high over her Baja Norte region (which I last wrote about more than 18 months ago!). Snow falls across the garden’s trails and paths, layering them in a soft blanket as sunlight slants through frosted white branches of trees, and lanterns drift on the breeze.
Along the tracks and paths circling around and cutting through the gardens, a variety of animals and fairytale folk can be found, some sitting or standing on their own, others forming delightful vignettes, such as the little chipmunks gathered in a tiny field, or the bears and raccoons looking like they’re trying to deal with the excesses of Christmas one way or another.
There is a wonderful attention to detail here; so much so that a casual visit may not reveal all there is to see. To help you take everything in, there are a number of places to sit, either on your own or with a companion, if visiting together.
Tucked away in the south-east corner of the gardens is a little snowbound cottage which is more than likely a photographer’s delight (I confess to snapping it from several angles and then having a play around in GIMP, as shown in the topmost image here). Nearby, and whom you might encounter first depending on the path you follow to the cottage, little fairy folk hover around bright hued mushrooms across the road from a little camp site …
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 I hope you’ll forgive that as I look back over the year as I’ve managed to report it through this blog, I’ve broken it down into three parts, this being the second, and you can catch-up with part one or jump ahead to part three, if you so wish. Not everything that happened through the year may be here; there are some aspects of SL in which I’m not active, and so may have missed some headlines. Nevertheless, I hope this review sparks a few memories and provides some interesting holiday reading. As with the first part, rather than just offer a month-by month account, I’ve tried to group things together by topic to hopefully give more of a narrative flow.
The Lab
The promised new Patterns UI is launched, and things continue to look rosy for the PC / Mac sandbox game.
In a surprising (and welcome) U-turn, the Lab agree to allow Emily Short and Richard Evans to carry the Versu product and it titles forward as an independent entity. The news is followed shortly afterwards by the launch of Versu’s first title under its own name and Emily Short is interviewed by Drax about Versu, the Lab and interactive fiction as a whole, and Blood & Laurels receives New York Times approbation.
The Lab agrees to allow Emily Short and Richard Evans, together with are joined by Graham Nelson to take Versu forward
However, the big news of the quarter is Ebbe Alltberg’s confirmation (with audio) that the Lab is working on a “next generation” platform. The news first came during a TPV meeting. This was perhaps not the best way for the news to break, as within minutes there were Tweets and feed comments flying around, most of which tended to overstate some of what he actually said, and others really did misrepresent (albeit it accidentally, rather than maliciously) what was said – something that did a lot to further the anger and outcry that followed.
While it might have been better for a more prepared statement on the new being made, particularly given the hoo-haw that followed, my personal take on the news was, and remains positive. As much as we love SL, the fact is that it is getting long in the tooth, it is gradually getting harder to make sizeable improvements without considerable effort (2+ years of the Shining Project, 10 months to tweak around the edges of group chat, etc), and it is hamstrung by its revenue model. Ergo, the Lab do need to move with the times.
Fact is, for all the hard-edged protestations from some quarters, we’re all a fickle bunch, and there’s a good chance that when something bigger, better and shinier than SL comes along, it will wean us away, whether it’s because of broader creativity options, lower fees, greater market potential, more innovative technical capabilities / challenges – or all the aforementioned; and worries about inventory “investment”, etc., be damned. And it really is a mistake to think that just because it hasn’t happened so far, it by definition, won’t happen. At last this way we know who is developing a new alternative, and it is in their own best interest to keep SL going as strongly as they can, just in case the new shiny doesn’t work out.
Where might the Lab’s new platform take us? What form will it take? These have been two (of many) questions people have been pondering since it was confirmed the Lab were actively developing a “next generation” platform
Anyway, following the meeting, the Lab confirms it’ll be hiring-in around 40-50 additional staff to work on the new platform. And as the news on the new platform overshadows other statement made by Ebbe, I offer a piece on his comments on user retention. Official confirmation of the new platform’s development is finally given in a late July press release.
Mid-July finally brings word that the controversial Section 2.3 of the Lab’s Terms of Service has been updated. Sort-of. I’m initially sceptical that the change really amounts to anything, due to the way the wording is arranged, and go into greater depth a little later. I’m not alone in feeling the re-wording isn’t up to the desired snuff, as Agenda Faromet offers a similar perspective, and in August hosts an SLBA presentation on both the changes and the Skill Gaming policy, for which I put together a transcript.
Second Life
The Lab launches a new range of mesh starter avatars designed to make use of fitted mesh – except the base shapes for most of them are issued No Mod. Oopsie. While an update is quickly promised, it doesn’t appear until mid-June. We also get the Interest List viewer reach release status, while the initial release of the Oculus Rift project viewer arrives and Loki Eliot offers guidance on using it with the Xbox controller, mirroring work by Strachan Ofarrel with his CtrlAltStudio viewer.
In a continuance of opening the doors on communications, Landon McDowell (Landon Linden in SL), the Lab’s VP of Operations and Platform Engineering offers up and informative blog post on recent issues with Second Life which I can’t help but praise. The Secondlife.com splash / log-in home page gets a revamp and meets with a positive response.
The Guardian newspaper in the UK carries an on-line article about virtual cities, and aspects people to contribute images of their favourite virtual places, and a fair few from SL show up. June also sees the Lab indicate that, but for a small subset of updates, the major work on Project Shining, after more than two years, is complete. This has been a large-scale undertaking to work across a lot of aspects of the SL service – HTTP delivery for textures and mesh, improvement to avatar baking, updates to object rendering and caching, all designed to improve the overall performance of the platform and to make better use of the data shared between simulators and the viewer, etc.
The group ban functionality, introduced in 2014, is intended to give group owners more say in who can join their groups, and to ensure trouble-makers can be removed without risk of return.
Baker Linden’s group bans work also gets a project viewer release, so I provide an overview of this much anticipated functionality.
Once again the Lab is running a New Year’s photo competition. Running now through until the deadline for submissions at 10:00 SLT on Saturday, January 10th, 2015. The blog post announcing the competition reads in part:
We want to know how you celebrate the coming of the New Year in our New Year Snapshot Contest. If it’s a whole new look for your avatar, or an in-world party to celebrate — share your snapshots.
On offer are four Linden dollar prizes:
Grand Prize – 10,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at US$40.00).
First Prize – 5,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at US$20.00).
Second Prize – 3,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at $12.00).
Third Prize– 1,000 Linden Dollars (estimated value at $4.00).
Winners will be decided on the basis of popular vote.
In a move that should keep people happy, the competition doesn’t require posting anything to Facebook. Rather it sees the return of of uploading entries via the forum post itself, under the Entries tab, and then clicking on the New Entry button (you must be signed-in to the forums for the button to work.
The competition blog post also includes word on the seasonal gift all residents can claim by visiting the Portal Parks and finding the red gift box – a charming gingerbread cake by Vitae Mole
Competition entries are limited to one per account, and there are, inevitably, some contest rules to go with the competition, which should be read and followed. For some, one of the most intriguing rule might be the fact that, “Canadian residents will be required to answer an additional mathematical question in order to claim their prizes.”
This, I’ve been given to understand by a Canadian friend, appears to be in connection with the Promotional Contest Provision of the Canadian Competition Act, which states that the “selection of participants or distribution of prizes is not made on a random basis” (and selection by popular vote in this competition is a random basis for distributing the prizes). To avoid this, it’s common for Canadian competitions to include a math-based “skill test” to demonstrate a measure of skill has been involved – hence the requirement with the Lab’s contest!
So, Canadian or otherwise, should you opt to enter – good luck!
As many know, I’ve been gradually getting my head around machinima, and specifically music videos. I’ve got a way to got to get up to the likes of the real exponents of the art, but hopefully I’m making progress.
One of my favourite places in SL is Binemist, Biné Rodenberger’s region – if you’ve never visited it, you should; it is a absolute delight. It’s been an aim of mine to capture it on video for myself; a daunting task, as Biné is herself an accomplished machinima maker, and I still cannot eliminate all of the judders from my footage as (I assume) the capture software and the viewer fight for attention.
I did actually capture footage over a couple of visits, but I was then stuck for music; nothing seemed to fit. Until, that is, I was listening to chorales on Christmas Eve; one in particular stuck out, so I thought I’d have a little play.
Binemist isn’t a “winter” or “seasonal” region right now, so there is no hidden message in the choice of music; the piece just seemed to fit the video clips as I was playing around; I certainly hope Biné doesn’t mind that I’ve set her region to a traditional hymn!
Anyway, rather than prattle on, I’ll leave you with the video.
On Sunday, December 21st, The Firestorm Team held a short-notice meeting which focused on Firestorm and SL Go. The special guest for the event was Dennis Harper, OnLive’s Product Manager for SL Go, who provided commentary on the background to SL Go and OnLive, and addressed audience questions.
Chakat Northspring was on-hand to record proceedings. As usual, the video is embedded here, and a transcript of the Q&A session is provided. However, in the interests of brevity, the first part of the meeting is provided a summary format, rather than a full transcript. Time stamps are provided for key topic areas, and for the Q&A session, for those who would like to listen to any point of interest within the video. Note that dates mentioned in the initial conversation reference 2012 and 2013, in actual fact, these should be 2013 and 2014, as reflected in the text.
A Summary of the initial Conversation
This initial conversation on SL Go, OnLive and the relationship with Firestorm lasted some 35 minutes, and is summarised here. Some questions were asked during the discussion on topics such as privacy and payment options. For ease of reference these have been moved to the Q&A section and placed with other questions on the same topic. Time stamps are provided to the relevant part of the video (below).
How Firestorm Got Involved with OnLive SL Go
Gary Lauder, OnLive’s Lead Investor (and company chairman at the time), approached LL’s former CEO, Rod Humble, about OnLive providing SL to users through their service (Image courtesy of LinkedIn)
[0: 03:57] The OnLive / Linden Lab partnership came about as a result of OnLive’s Lead Investor (and at the time, Chairman), Gary Lauder, indicating he believed SL would be a good match for OnLive and then initiating contact with Rod Humble at the Lab in May 2013 (see my article on the launch of SL Go)
[0:0515] Initial closed beta testing commenced in October 2013, while Dennis Harper joined in November 2013, charged with getting the product published and launched. The occurred in March 2014, using the SL viewer, offering to Mac and PC systems and Android tablets
[0:05:25] The initial metered pricing plan wasn’t popular with users. However, OnLive launched with it as they really didn’t know what to expect. Their service costs money to provide (servers, data centres, network, support), and SL users are a very different type of user compared to games users, spending up to 10 times longer active on the platform compared to someone playing a game. Metered payments were seen as a means of balancing use against cost
[0:06:48] As the reaction to metered payments was bad, OnLive revisited things and in April changed the pricing model to one of unlimited use of the service for US $9.95 (UK £6.95) a month – and the service started gaining traction, Then in October, the service launched on the iPad
[0:07:25] OnLive had always been aware of Firestorm and its large market share of the SL user base, and it was felt that offering Firestorm through SL Go would be a good way to bring the OnLive experience to a wider audience
[0: 08:24] Jessica Lyon was initially unsure of the, but was convinced when Dennis pointed-out that a large take-up of SL Go was among users on low-end computer systems, who were finding the service gave them renewed access to the platform, complete with a rich graphical experience. As many Firestorm users on such low-end systems complain that each new update of the viewer is pushing them further and further out of SL, she felt that having Firestorm on SL Go could include them once more
SL Go is a Service
[0:12:59] The launch of Firestorm on SL Go drew some negative feedback from Firestorm users (and from elsewhere). However, it is important for people to remember:
SL Go isn’t intended to be another viewer offering like a TPV. It is a service intended to meet very specific goals:
To provide people who are on older, lower-specification systems with a rich, immersive Second Life experience comparable to that enjoyed by someone using a much more capable computer
To provide those who wish to have the same rich, graphic SL experience as supplied by the viewer when accessing SL from their Android Tablet or iPad
[0: 12:25] Dennis Harper is the first to admit that the service isn’t for everyone, but for those who might have a need for it, it is available on a 7-day free trial basis, so people have nothing to lose in giving it a go.
SL Go and the Firestorm Take-up
[0:13:40] Dennis describes the take-up of SL Go following the addition of Firestorm as “scary” and being like “the hockey stick term” in the way that there was gradual take-up up until the Firestorm launch, which saw a large substantial increase in initial adoption, as Firestorm users gave SL Go a try under the 7-day free trial offer. He also notes that there is an affiliate programme available for those wishing to refer people to the service via blogs, websites, etc., and earn money via referrals to the service.
[0: 15:32] There was an initial issue with the system as a result of the way the texture cache was being handled.
The SL viewer uses a default 512 Mb cache, which users rarely adjust. Originally, on exiting the SL Go service, an entire user’s cache, together with their settings would be copied to a secure, encrypted store. Then, the next time the user logged-in to SL Go, the cache and their settings would be copied to the server they were assigned for their SL session, a process that didn’t take long
Firestorm, by default uses a 2Gb cache, and users often set it larger. This made the copy process a lot more protracted, with the result that if a Firestorm user opted to restart the viewer by logging out (which ends their SL Go session), on immediately relogging, they’d get an error
To avoid this, users now get a 2 Gb cache, which is automatically flushed at the end of each session, leaving only their inventory files and settings to be copied back to and from the secure store.
Your quest: help the Winter Engineer recover his magic crystals
Back when my island was called ‘Goony Island’ it would get to these winter months and Christmas would slowly take over Second Life. But rather than celebrate a coca cola deity, we decided to create a character only available in Second Life that all countries could meet.
Thus opens a blog post from the Chief Digital Mischief Maker (all in the best possible fun, of course!) Loki Eliot.
The post introduces Loki’s latest experiment with the Lab’s new Experience Tools / Keys, which in turn offers people a little light-hearted fun over the holiday break. It’s called Egnog the Winter Troll.
As an Experience Tools game, the quest makes use of a single scripted attachment – a HUD – to help you progress through the game and record the crystals you’ve found (in the watch itself)
As Trolls go, Egnog isn’t that awful. During the festive season, for those who come to his winter grotto via the magic portal, he’s prone to giving gifts.
And this is where you come in. The portal must be opened each year by the Winter Engineer, using a magical fob watch. Unfortunately, the four crystals that power the watch have been taken and hidden around the island, each one with a clue to the whereabouts of the next, and the first clue left with the Winter Engineer. All you have to do, is riddle the clues and find the crystals. When you have all four, the portal will be open, and Egnog will reward your efforts. Or quite possibly dine on you (yes, that’s on not with – he is a troll, remember!), depending on his mood!
No, neither of these guys are Egnog., and that’s not the portal they’re guarding, but they might help you find him…
As already noted, this is a light-hearted quest, so don’t expect anything too heavy or convoluted, just a little bit of gentle fun to while away 10 minutes while you let your Christmas dinner settle. Game play is simple enough. Find the Winter Engineer and touch him; by return you’ll receive a HUD that will explain the game, track how many crystals you’ve recovered, provide you with each clue in turn and, ultimately, take you to Egnog.
Because the quest uses Experience Tools commands, the HUD will control everything (other than you actually locating the crystals). No permissions are requested (such as to transport you to Egnog on finding the last crystal), because you gave permission when you joined; thus everything is seamless. However, should you detach the HUD or leave the region, all permissions are revoked and the HUD will detach. If that happens before you complete the quest, nothing is saved, and you’ll have to start over with the Winter Engineer.
And as to your rewards from Egnog? They’re actually quite spiffy; one in particular comes in handy on snowy days – and also makes a passably good jet ski (as I found out when I totally missed the bridge on a region crossing in Second Norway!).
Having fun on the Egnog Snowmobile, one of Loki’s presents to successful questers (helmet and goggles not a part of the gift)
Egnog the Winter Troll will be open through to the New Year, so if you have 10 minutes to spare, why not give it a go. If you do, be sure to enjoy the rest of Escapades in it’s winter wonder – there’s a lot to do (including another Experience Tools game). And please do show a little Yuletide spirit and offer a donation to help keep the island open!
Storybrooke Gardens, Baja Norte (Flickr) – click any image for full size
Storybrooke Gardens, Baja Norte (Flickr)
Storybrooke Gardens, Baja Norte (Flickr)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 