I’ve recently had the opportunity – courtesy of Gentle Heron of Virtual Ability – to get to know Besitaa, a student from Turkey who is currently studying at Çağ University.
Whilst a relative newcomer to SL, Besitaa has become well-known to Virtual Ability and Gentle, having helped with events and activities.
Currently, she is engaged on her Master’s Business Administration and Marketing as she notes herself:
I am a graduate student at Çağ University in Turkey currently majoring in Business Administration and Marketing. I am working on my Master’s Thesis. My goal is to write about other Second Life users besides myself to learn more about the metaverse and our future in it.
As a part of this work, Besitaa is looking at Second Life commerce, and specficially the virtual shopping experience associated with the platform, either via in-world shopping or via the Marketplace. To help with this, she has put together a questionnaire for shoppers to complete.
The form take just a few minutes to complete, and no personal data is recorded as a part of the study – only the responses to the questions. So, if you could spare 4-5 minutes and provide replies, you can fill out the form as embedded below, or follow this link to complete it.
Besitaa sends her thanks in advance to all who complete the form, which will remain open for around the next 10 days.
On Thursday, March 3rd, Linden Lab released the Newbrooke theme of Premium Membership Linden homes.
Our concept of a modern container home community is stylish, warm, and inviting, while being nestled in a contemporary setting of rolling hills peppered with small lakes, ponds, and public pools.
All of the Newbrooke regions are offered in both 1024sqm and 512sqm sized parcels. In total, there are 8 stylish house models to choose from, and the smaller 512sqm parcel homes can also be placed on a 1024sqm parcel, giving you a larger outdoor area.
from the announcement on the release
The Newbrooke was first previewed in December 2021 during the Christmas Expo (see: Previewing the Linden Homes “Newbrooke” theme) only to be somewhat quickly withdrawn for “update” following some unfavourable feedback. I’m not sure what the problem was with the theme – whilst somewhat reminiscent of the Meadowbank theme of the original Linden Homes, I personally felt this theme have a good amount going for it.
Although largely land in nature, the Newbrooke theme regions do include a number of lakes of various sizes
I’m not entirely sure what has changed with the theme since its preview; from my wandering around I couldn’t see that much that has changed (keeping in mind the preview was just a single region, so hard to judge the overall environment). Certainly, the houses all appear to be the same models – a total of eight styles, split between four designs requiring 1024 sq m parcels and four that can be used on either 512 sq m parcels or on the 1024 sq m parcels:
Styles available for both 512 sq m and 1024 sq m Parcels
Denver: a single-storey rectangular design with a central front entrance directly accessing a large main room with doors to the side aspect covered terrace, and a front hallway accessing two further rooms.
Ender: a two-storey property featuring a large open-plan ground floor with a single bedroom upstairs, together with a large landing that provides access to a balcony at the front of the house.
Faraday: a single-storey house with central front entrance opening onto the main central room with doors to the rear patio. This main room is flanked by two rooms to one side and an open-plan space to the other, which also provides access to a third room.
Gatewood: a two-storey house with front entrance and vestibule opening onto the main room, with a smaller room opening off of it to one side. A staircase leads up to a single bedroom with doors opening onto a large rooftop balcony with views to three sides.
One of the communal swimming pools to be found among the Newbrooke theme houses
Styles Requiring 1024 sq m Parcels
Bradbury: a single-storey house with a large central main room with multiple doors to the rear aspect accessing the patio and an open plan extension to one side that could be split into a separate room. Two further rooms open off of the other side of the front door for additional space.
Aldridge: a boxy, two-storey house with a patio running the full length of one side and two-thirds of a second side, each side providing access to the main ground floor room together with the front door. The latter accesses the room via an open-plan vestibule that incorporates the stairs and a door to a single ground-floor side room. The L-shaped landing at the top of the stairs provides access to three further rooms.
Coniston: a single-storey unit with front entrance accessing a large central room with four rooms / spaces opening off of it. There is a small room with a view to the front aspect, two rooms with views to one side, one of which has doors to the rear patio – as does the main room. Facing these two rooms from across the main room is an open-plan extension that could be divided into a separate room, if required.
Heaton: a large two-storey house with the front door opening onto the main room with two sets of doors to the rear patio. Dogleg stairs provide access to an upper hall with two rooms opening off of it with views to the rear. A ground floor hall with windows to the front aspect provides access to an open-plan space with a further room opening off of it to the front.
Faraday Style – Newbrooke Theme
Given the split of houses, when ordering through the website, make sure you request the correct parcel sizes to suit your needs!
As I noted in my preview piece, whether or not these “container” style homes are somewhat inspired by Meadowbrook or not doesn’t really matter; I personally rate them as light and airy builds in terms of their interiors, with plenty of windows. The floor plans tend to lean towards a more open-plan design with several of the styles, which might a reflection on the popularity of the open-plan variants of some of the previous Linden Home themes that have been released.
One thing I have changed my mind on is that while seeing the houses on the preview region left me feeling as though they would not appeal to me personally, having seen them in situ, I’m very tempted by the idea of grabbing one and having a play with the various styles.
The Newbrooke Community Centre
The new theme is located on its own “island” group of regions, located of the west side of the Chalet regions as they have off the southern tip of Satori. This gives the estate room to grow west and north (with some relocating of private regions), leaving the Chalet estate free to progress to the east, should either / both require expansion.
Unlike the Fantasy theme – which marked the theme released prior to Newbrooke, this theme comes complete with its own community centre, rather than having to wait for one to be built. At the time of writing, this sits at the northern end of the new estate, occupying a large island linked to the rest of the estate by a trio of bridges. And, at the risk of giving Patch a reason to growl, the first thing that structure me about this latest community centre is that it appears to be heavily modelled upon (if not outright lifting elements of) the Welcome Islands variant unveiled in 2021.
The Newbrooke Community Centre and (inset) the new users Welcome Islands variant unveiled in 2021
There is nothing inherently “wrong” in doing this – but I admit that in lading in the community centre, and having visited the Welcome Islands design, I was momentarily spooked by a strange feeling of déjà vu, and half expected Gaius Baltar and Six stroll by discussing the idea that “all this has happened before, all this will happen again” (yes, an obscure sci-fi reference, just to see if you made it this far!) – which, given the faint Meadowbrook vibes to the houses, actually all isn’t that out of place for Newbrooke (and I really do not mean that negatively!).
In fact, if I can grab a Newbrooke 1024 in a location I like, then I likely will make the hop!
The 2022 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference will be taking place between March 31st and April 2nd inclusive, and both a call for proposals and a call for volunteers to help run things has been issued.
The core schedule of events for the conference has been officially announced, and highlights include (all at the main auditorium and times SLT, unless otherwise stated):
March 31st:
08:00-08:50: Kick-off event at the VWBPE Gateway.
11:00-11:50 SLT: What’s up at the Lab? with Patch Linden and hosted by Kevin Feenan (Phelan Corrimal), VWBPE Director; Rockcliffe University Consortium.
April 1st:
08:30-08:50 SLT: Keynote address – Randall Sadler, Professor of Computer-Assisted Language Learning Telecollaboration (incl. Virtual Worlds and Virtual Reality
April 2nd:
18:00-19050 SLT: Closing ceremony.
This might sound like a brief set of highlights, and direct keynote events are limited this year, but the conference more than makes up for this in the range of presentations, workshops and education-focused Above the Book sessions that are to be held – so be sure to check out the schedule in full.
Call For Volunteers
Volunteers are still being sought to help with the conference. The organisers are looking for people willing to get involved in the following areas:
Event hosts.
Mentors.
Steaming support.
Technical support.
Those wishing to give of their time should visit the volunteer page and look at the tabs and then click on the volunteer button.
About VWBPE
VWBPE is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments which attracts over 2,000 educational professionals from around the world each year, who participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits.
In the context of the conference, a “virtual world” is an on-line community through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. As such, typical examples include Second Life, OpenSimulator, Unity, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and so on, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest or any virtual environments characterised by an open social presence and in which the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifest in the community.
Bella’s Lullaby, March 2022 – click any image for full size
It was back to Bella’s Lullaby for me recently, after Shawn Shakespeare let me know the setting has a springtime rebuild by holder Bella (BellaSwan Blackheart) – and given its been around 6 months since my last visit and the fact that it has since moved to a new region – it was actually about time I dropped by again!
Bella’s Lullaby has always offered something of an easy, tranquil visit for those dropping in, and this remains the case with the current design. Set beneath a spring sky in which the Sun’s light is enough to wash the off-region islands in a bright haze, yet overcast enough to suggest spring showers might be on the way, the region again offers a pleasing mix of land and water – in this case, two long islands split by an off-centre channel running north-to-south between them, and plenty of open spaces, together with a sprinkling of buildings and structures across both islands.
Bella’s Lullaby, March 2022
With the channel splitting the islands guarded at each end by a tall windmill sitting on its own small island and a squat lighthouse rising from the waters on four sturdy legs respectively, the two large isles are connected by a single low bridge that effectively presents passage along the entire channel by the little boats dotted along its length. Not, given the rocky, shoal-like nature of parts of the channel, that this would necessarily be possible even were it sans a bridge.
The landing point sits within the courtyard of a small café sitting upon the larger island. This is actually one of three brick-built structures on this island; to the south stand a pair of linked shops which some visitors may recognise as also having made an appearance in the previous iteration of Bella’s Lullaby, and which now rise shoulder-to-shoulder from a paved square. Between these shops and café lies the remaining brickwork, a long, tall wall that divides the land between them even whilst it starts and finishes without apparent purpose, a single door set within it.
Bella’s Lullaby, March 2022
A low, capped stone wall runs parallel to the waterway to also help connect shop to café, whilst something of an overgrown garden sitting between the latter and the brick wall also acts to draw café, wall and shops together to complete a vignette awaiting exploration. Surrounding the shops is a degree of urban detritus – a telephone box, vehicles, an aging bus stop and tram sans tracks – that help to give them a further unique sense of presence in this place.
However, these are not the only buildings to be found within the setting. Sitting over the waters of the channel is a wood-built artist’s studio, whilst on the other island sit a wooden barn and a small brick-built cottage with but a single room offering a cosy observation point – although the sign hanging above the door seems to suggest it was going to be something else. Barn and cottage sit at opposite end of their island, a scattering of birch trees and the hints of a once-cobbled path connecting them.
Bella’s Lullaby, March 2022
Throughout the entire sitting there is much attention to detail – such as a robin helping himself to a meal outside the café, the carving of a heron watching the narrow waterway, the cats lazing in the Sun, and so on. There are also multiple places to sit to be found across the landscape, indoors, and out on the water and within some of the vehicles, whilst photographers will doubtless find much to capture and frame as well.
Bella’s region designs never fail to offer something fresh and uplifting to see and appreciate, and this latest iteration of Bella’s Lullaby is no exception. The open landscape that runs over the two main islands gives one a sense of space and peace, the trees and shrubs also presenting a sense of privacy in the way they break-up the low-lying lands, whilst the generally overgrown / unkempt nature of the spaces around the buildings hints at a sense of age / the passing of time.
Bella’s Lullaby, March 2022
This is very much a setting where one can gain a sense of being able to breathe and leave worries and concerns behind, whether one opts to sit quietly or explore and spend time spotting the local birds and the other fowl that make up the majority of the inhabitants.
The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 1st, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.
Server Deployments
Tuesday, March 1st saw the SLS Main channel updated with simulator release 568388, previously deployed to all of the RC channels.
This update should include a fix for llRequestSimulatorData() to return the correct data.
Wednesday, March 2nd will see all simhost on the RC channel restarted, but no actual update deployment.
We’re using a new version of our internal tools to handle this roll which we believe will avoid recent problems with content loss during rolls. However the trade off for this is that we will roll somewhat slower. Individual regions should still not be down for very long, the roll as a whole may just take a bit longer (at least until we get the new process worked out and figure out if we can speed things back up).
(In fact, no sooner had this news been given at the meeting than the Denby region went through a restart as part of the deployment, forcing the meeting to decamp!)
Available Official Viewers
The J&K Maintenance viewer, version 6.5.3.568554 was promoted to de facto release status on Monday, February 28th.
All other official viewer pipelines remain as follows:
Release channel cohorts:
The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
Project viewers:
Performance Improvements project viewer version 6.6.0.567604, dated January 24.
Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
In Brief
Predominantly a general discussion on miscellaneous WIBNIs (Wouldn’t It Be Nice If …) and currently-accepted feature requests with no time frame for delivery (again, Accepted for feature requests doesn’t mean the Lab are actively working on something; more usually it means “this is something that would be good to do if / when there is time an resource available and more urgent things aren’t standing in the way”).Please refer to the video for the guts of the meeting.
On Tuesday, March 1st, Linden Lab announced a new initiative to help promote communities active in Second Life through a new web-based resource, “in-depth” Community Pages designed to be “living projects” and intended to “be extensive resources by and for each community”.
To mark the announcement, the Lab has launched the first such page – Black Culture in Second Life – which launches just as Black History Month in the United States draws to a close.
The importance of community simply can’t be understated, and in Second Life, it’s invaluable. Think of how many different groups of people you interact with each day — what if you had a go-to comprehensive page that illustrates various aspects of each community in Second Life?
We’re excited to announce our new initiative! We’ve begun building in-depth community pages that will live directly on the Second Life website. Each of these pages will celebrate Residents in all different communities, and showcase the meaningful experiences that strengthen the social fabric of Second Life. This will include stories, quotes, photos, videos, and more — all directly from Second Life Residents.
– from the official announcement about the new community pages
The post goes on to note that those participating in such community pages should “keep an eye out for announcements on specific community pages, as there will be a (Google form) open to the public for each of them”. However, the post also cautions that not all submissions may necessarily be included within any given page.
It’s not clear exactly how visible these pages will be. They are clearly designed to be accessible to the world at large, but while the parent URL for the Black Culture page is secondlife.com/community/, there is no actual link from that page to the Black Culture page, as the direct URL given above is currently required.
Hopefully, this will be addressed as these pages grow, and a meaningful means of perusing / filtering the pages will be provided; two of the reasons Place Pages (arguably the last initiative similar in nature to this) didn’t take on were that a), the places.secondlife.com parent domain was never really folded into the rest of the SL web properties such as to make navigating to it easy without lodging the URL firmly between your ears; b) there was no convenient way to peruse / filter available places other than Search – which was far from handy.
You can read the complete blog post announcing the pages right here.
I’ve recently had the opportunity – courtesy of Gentle Heron of Virtual Ability – to get to know Besitaa, a student from Turkey who is currently studying at Çağ University.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 