Now open through until December 13th, 2024 is the Winter Showcase in support of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), through Team Diabetes of Second Life, ADA’s official and authorised in-world fund-raising team. As with previous years, the event includes live performers, DJs, dancing, ice skating, and the Winter Showcase for shopping and a seasonal hunt.
As is traditional for the event, it occupies one half of a region, with the Showcase shops for merchants bracketing the central events and activities area. The merchants participating in this years event are:
Merchants are each offering at least one item among their displays with 100% of proceeds from sales going directly to Team Diabetes of Second Life. The full shopping guide can be found on the Team Diabetes of Second Life website.
Team Diabetes of SL Winter Showcase 2024
Event Schedule
Sunday, December 8th, 2024
10:00 – Samuel James
11:00 – Mimi Carpenter
12:00 Noon – Mapoo Little
The Reindeer Hunt features prize-giving reindeer. Find them, pay L$10 and claim the prizes. All proceeds go to ADA. A list of prizes is available on the Team Diabetes of Second Life website.
About the American Diabetes Association and Team Diabetes of Second Life
Established in 1940, the American Diabetes Association is working to both prevent and cure diabetes in all it forms, and to help improve the lives of all those affected by diabetes. It does this by providing objective and credible information and resources about diabetes to communities, and funding research into ways and means of both managing and curing the illness. In addition, the Association gives voice to those denied their rights as a consequence of being affected by diabetes.
Team Diabetes of Second Life is an official and authorised fund-raiser for the American Diabetes Association in Second Life. Established with the aim of raising funds in support of diabetes treatment and to raise awareness of the disease in SL, Team Diabetes of Second Life was founded by Jessi2009 Warrhol and John (Johannes1977 Resident).
Angelic Bay, December 2024
Angelic Bay Winter Celebration Photo Competition
As noted, the Winter Showcase occupies one half of Kultivate Magazine’s Angelic Bay, a Full Region intended for photography. Currently dressed for winter, the second half of the region is open to visitors, and is currently hosting a photo competition offering a total prize pool of L$30,000 to be split between four winners.
Angelic Bay, December 2024
Details on the competition can be obtained from the main Landing Point, but in brief:
Images entered into the competition:
Must have been taken within the half-region setting.
On Friday 6th, December, 2024, Linden Lab hosted the second of its Zoom-base “Blogger Town Hall” calls with invited bloggers to discuss Second Life in a session. The topics discussed were wide-ranging, covering Mobile, marketing, the desktop viewer, support and other issues.
Participating directly in the meeting from Linden Lab were: Executive Chairman, Brad Oberwager, CTO Philip Rosedale; VP of Product and Engineering Grumpity Linden, Pluto Linden (Mobile UX), with Brett Linden hosting the event.
As reiterated in this meeting, the Lab is experimenting with routes of engagement with the broad user base of Second Life – many of whom may not read the official blog posts on secondlife.com, but who may follow one or more bloggers. Further, these bloggers know how to communicate with their audience / have come to enjoy an audience because of they was they blog – written or video, etc., and so they offer a far-reaching channel of communications. Most particularly, the zoom meetings:
They allow for face-to-face interactions between users and those at the Lab, allowing the latter to be seen as they are.
The format allows LL to easily bring together different groups of bloggers relatively easily according to the core subjects the Lab would like to discuss and take feedback on.
Given this, these meetings are not replacing other forms of meeting / channels of communication – the Lab is experimenting with multiple ideas for improving their overall communications with users – and leveraging existing communicators / bloggers within the broader SL community is just one aspect of this work.
On The SL Mobile Roadmap
SL Mobile Credit: Linden Lab
Pluto Linden provided a presentation to highlight some of the upcoming features and capabilities that will be coming to SL Mobile in the coming months (approximately December 2024 through to Quarter 2, 2025), although as with everything, time frames for precise delivery on the following is subject to confirmation / change.
In doing so, Pluto emphasised the fact that all that has happened with the SL mobile product is foundational; “and now, a lot of the really exciting stuff is to come, and on the horizon for 2025”.
The presentation itself highlighted the following upcoming new features and capabilities:
2024 Plans
Ability to create accounts via Mobile, including creating an initial avatar and logging in using the existing new joiner workflow – also see below for more on this.
Extending the work on push notifications to include Group notices, including the ability to specify which of your Group from which you wish to receive notifications .
Persistent chat / IM conversations between log-ins.
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SL Mobile plans for late 2024
Quarter 1, 2025
Implement an Address Bar, making it possible to:
Search landmarks /create landmarks.
Share SLurls with people on other apps (Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp, etc.) via the native share cards found in Android and iOS.
Allow maps.secondlife.com work on the Mobile App.
Shipping the first version of a new feature called Lobby, intended to:
Reduce the time between launching the App and in-world interactions.
Provide information and a focus on communication within the App, allowing the user to see and respond to incoming messages; see who among their friends is on-line, even as the App is loading the world, .
Provide an ability for those on lower / mid-tier mobile devices to make use of the App as a communications tool.
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SL Mobile plans for Q1 2025
Quarter 2, 2025
Better and faster access to chat, avoiding multiple taps on the screen.
Better selection of, and interaction with, in-world objects.
Laying the groundwork for item-level avatar editing, which is seen as a springboard to offering other / further ways of interacting with Inventory, including the potential of eventually making Marketplace purchases through the App and being able to unpack and use them.
SL Mobile updates planned for Q2 2025
Mobile App – Audience and On-Boarding
As noted in Second Life Mobile: free to all users & Lab execs discuss the product and goals, SL Mobile is being broadly developed at the moment with two primary audiences in mind: existing users, as a means for them to enhance their SL experience through being able to engage with the platform whilst away from their desktop viewer access; and “Lapsed” users who have left SL, and who have stated a reason for them doing so is because SL doesn’t address their preference for using mobile to access the things they want to do.
This was reiterated by Brad Oberwager when discussing the fact that SL Mobile will have the ability to create new SL accounts in the very near future.
We built the Mobile App for current residents with the hope it brings lapsed residents back. But because we’re not putting any marketing dollars behind getting people into [Second Life] through the Mobile App, the join flow is really going to be getting an alt put together [so] while you can do all sorts of things through the join flow, this is really designed for current users.
We wanted to put the full experience on the Mobile App, because that would cool if VentureBeat was going to write something, and they want to come through, it would be cool to have that happen; but that’s not what we’re marketing towards.
-Brad Oberwager, December 6th, 2024
Measuring SL Mobile’s Success
In terms of measuring the overall success of SL mobile, the Lab is not focused on technical elements (features, crash rates, bug fixes etc.). The key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the App’s success are focused on usage, for example:
How many times a month is the App being used overall / how many times a month is an individual using the App.
How many times a day is the App being used overall / how many times a day does an individual log-in to SL using the App.
How long does an individual spend in-world when logged-in via the App.
How many people are downloading the App is considered a separate measure, as it both leads to the above three as meaningful measures, and is more a “ego statistic”.
On Marketing Second Life and Top-Level Goals for the Platform
What our goal is as a company … as we start to gear-up marketing dollars and things like that, is to do two things. One is to bring folks back who have recently been engaged as residents [and] who have now stopped that engagement for whatever reason, to bring those folks back in to enrich the community; and to do outreach to bring in new residents. New residents that get excited about living in Second Life [and] they spend a lot of money because they’ve got to dress their avatars and get their houses and things like that.
So everything that we’re doing now is designed for those two things. So that means making Second Life easier – high priority; giving a better experience for current residents – high priority, because if you can satisfy that, then you can have those current residents bring-in lapsed residents. So everything that we’re thinking of goes in that lens … We’re spending our money towards the desktop, getting ne folks in through that channel so that they can spend more money on our creators, so our creators are reinvigorated and the community continues to be invigorated.
– Brad Oberwager, December 6th, 2024
He went on to confirm that with all the work that has thus far gone into Second Life and the Lab over the last few years, including the recent restructuring is to pave the way towards growing the platform and in Marketing it more and more clearly.
Everything we’re making [in SL}, we’re putting it back in. What I am going to do, is I’m gong to start to change where I’m putting that money. And I’m going to start putting that money into marketing dollars because I want to bring folks into the world. … I think that our product is relevant; I don’t think it is relevant for everybody … but I think there’s an imperative that [Second Life] continues and it’s extremely valuable for folks out there to learn about and come in. That costs money.
– Brad Oberwager, December 6th, 2024
This work as actually starting now, with money “dribbling out” with a focus on SL on the desktop and in bring people back to the platform, on getting existing users to log-in more, and on bringing-in the people who would likely find Second Life a great place in which to spend time. Some of this will be experimental, with the Lab continuing to analyse what works and what doesn’t over the next few months, and the marketing work will, interestingly, be synced with new product releases.
On SL Desktop’s Accessibility and Future
The focus with desktop viewer development over the last several months has been on making the platform more accessible to lower-specification computers (as reported in the likes of my CCUG meeting summaries). This work has most notably included significant performance improvement work on the viewer, and the purchasing of a lot of older hardware / graphics cards on which Second Life ca be tested and better determinations made as to how best to handle performance shortfalls / bottlenecks / enable SL to perform reasonably well on such hardware (affectionately referred toas the Potato Farm at LL).
We did identify various pain points for people on lower-end machines, and there’s been a lot of work our team has been doing to address them. They’re working quickly and they’re working together with Firestorm so that those changes [many in the ExtraFPS viewer, which at the time of writing was in Release Candidate status and close to being promoted to release status] are rolled out to everyone as quickly as possible once they’re ready.
There’s going to be changes to viewer settings that will improve performance and some controls people are able to have over choices that they make in terms of how good things look and how fast they run. And we’re also looking to put together some recommendations for [hardware] configurations where we know Second Life will run really well at different price-points.
– VP of Engineering and Product, Grumpity Linden
The overall goal of this work is “to meet you where you are, on the hardware you are [on], and we want you to have the best possible experience in Second Life.
In addition, Philip Rosedale noted that LL have a lot of “different tools in the hanger” which can help further improve the viewer when running on older hardware, including the Unity-based rendering engine developed for Mobile.
It is, as you know, not exactly the same by any stretch as other engines that are out there, but we have it as a tool. How we use it to, say, improve the desktop experience, we’re not sure yet. But we’re definitely happy that we’ve got a pretty good Second Life renderer running on Unity, we’re just not sure how we’re going to use it. But we are going to make Second Life more accessible on all machines.
– Philip Rosedale, December 6th, 2024
In this, it was also emphasised that the presumption at the Lab is that the primary mode for accessing and using Second Life will remain the desktop viewer (in some form), and that SL Mobile will be very much an adjunct / companion to that use.
We do not believe the the experience of Second Life at this point in time can be transitioned entirely to a a “black mirror” experience, as I like to say, because it is more the small size of the window that is the challenge here … Even if we could do anything technically we wanted to, we remain cautious – in fact sceptical – about the ability to do all the things one wants to do with Second Life on a mobile device.
– Philip Rosedale, December 6th, 2024
On Matters of Support
It was noted that in the recently company restructuring (which saw a number of layoffs and was geared toward a focus on customer success and trust and safety, the ball was dropped on matters of general user support for a time. This is not improving, and Brad Oberwager, whilst taking full responsibility for the slip, believes that by the years end, support responses will by “100% better and faster”.
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log transcript of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, December 5th, 2024.
The session was livestreamed by Strawberry Linden, and her video is embedded at the end of this article. Timestamps are provided to the relevant points in the video for ease of reference.
Meeting Purpose
The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work. This meeting is held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis.
Meeting dates and times are recorded in the SL Public Calendar, and they re conducted in a mix of Voice and text chat.
The notes herein are a summary of topics discussed and are not intended to be a full transcript of the meeting.
Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC (multiple performance fixes, etc), dated September 11, promoted September 17 – No change.
Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.12150664210, December 5. This focuses on performance improvements for lower-specification / old viewer hardware and includes:
Enhanced texture memory tracking, broader hardware compatibility and higher FPS gain; additional code to improve texture streaming on rigged attachments (e.g. if an earring is made with 2K textures, the viewer will correctly calculate the required resolution for the textures and download them, rather than downloading the full 2K textures), etc.
A new checkbox to disable HDR- this will improve performance for lower-spec machines but will see some of the “banding” previously seen in things like skies – and PBR emissive. These may be split into two separate checkboxes to allow one or the other to be disabled / kept.
A pass on “legacy” skies (e.g. those in the Library and / or which have no been converted from PBR skies) will look much as they did on pre-PBR viewer. This is described as the “least bad” option to address issues.
Aesthetics improvements: new Antialiasing setting – SMAA; Contrast Adaptive Sharpening; Khronos Neutral Tone Mapping (can be changed to ACES via the RenderTonemapType Debug setting).
UI Optimisations.
It is hoped that the December 5th RC version of ExtraFPS will be the version that will be promoted to de facto release status soon.
Near-Term Viewer Release Roadmap
There is additional work going on around performance that isn’t seen as urgently enough to delay the release of ExtraFPS, so there may be a “hotfix” viewer release to handle some of these, if required. Some of this additional work could take the form of:
Improvements to avatar loading, work which it was noted at the SUG meeting that Monty Linden had recently been tasked with looking at.
[Video: 6:38-6:55] Further texture streaming improvements (if these do not make it into ExtraFPS prior to promotion), which prevent the viewer repeatedly loading redundant textures.
The work in combining the “pre-performance work” Maintenance B and Maintenance C RC viewer codes into a single RC update is continuing. However, exactly what will be in it and when it is likely to appear as an RC viewer is still TBD.
General Discussion
[Text only] It was noted that some are seeing the texture bias tends to get stuck at high values in ExtraFPS, and failing to unstick until the viewer is restarted. This has been acknowledged by LL, but so far they have been unable to consistently repro it. SLurls of regions where it frequently occurs have been request (feedback portal).
[Video: 12:08-14:45] a request to have settings in the viewer to allow users to set their own loading / rendering priorities depending on what they are doing, such as “near avatar”, or “near camera”, “avatars”, “rezzed items” , etc.
For example, while most use cases might be biased towards “near camera”, there might be situations where such as landing in very busy environments where “avatars” might be a preferable priority, so as to avoid shoving other avatars around when trying to move because they cannot be seen. Conversely, when cam-shopping, the priority is liable to be camera+ objects, with loading other avatars a much lower priority.
This was seen as having potential (allowing for the viewer and simulator carrying out different roles in scene loading: – the simulator sends the basic data of where things are and whatever meshes and textures are associated with them, but the viewer decides for itself what it is actually going to fetch (from the CDN) and when), but the current focus of work, per above, is on simply getting avatars + their attachments to simply load faster.
[Video: 17:38-18:31] Linux viewer status: the Linux work is defined as being in the “big bundle of stuff” which originally formed the Maint B and Maint C viewer code branches, which is in the process of being combined into a a single viewer under the Github Develop branch. As such, its progress and disposition is tied to this work, and while their are builds within the Github Actions, they are not in a condition for general release.
[Video: 18:47-21:33] A request to be able to crate new folders in Inventory from the Recent tab (or have newly-created empty folders at least appear on the Recent tab).
This was seen as a reasonable feature request submission.
A request was also made to be able to purge Trash from the Recent tab – however, given the Trash only shows items added in the current log-in session; purging all of Trash from Recent could have unintended consequences (e.g. an item previously and unintentionally dropped in to Trash gets mistakenly purged on account of it not showing in Trash under Recent).
It was also pointed out that opening an additional Inventory floater (CTRL-SHIFT-I) can help with issues of moving items around, rather than solely relying on one floater and its tabs.
[Video: 22:00-24:32] Add a checkbox to the Build / Edit floater – Select Only My Objects, rather than having to go through the Build → Options menu to set it:
A problem here is the Edit / Build floater is already overcrowded, and the Build menu can be torn-off when editing / creating (although this can obviously impact screen real estate when open with the Edit / Build floater).
Simply enlarging the Edit / Build floater to accommodate additional options is also seen as a problem, again due to the added screen real estate taken up, particularly for those using lower-resolution screens.
Rather than having a single set of folders defined for uploads of specific types (e.g. a set folder for images, a set folder for sounds, a set folder for objects, etc), allow users to define which folder they wish to use for a specific upload / number of uploads via a drop-down, which can then become the default until next changed.
This is seen as advantageous to content creators, etc., as it would allow them to upload different asset types by “project” (so all mesh items, animations, sounds , etc., for “Project X” go to the “Project X” folder, for example).
A feature request was requested for this, with the added not that the current work on the viewer is not focused on adding to the UI, so it may be a while before such requests are reviewed & potentially actioned.
[Whilst not precisely the same, a similar request has been made regarding the upcoming llGiveInventory function, so that rather than having receiving folders simply defined by the object giving them, recipients can select the folder into which they can receive the incoming items].
[Video 26:57-48:14] & intertwined with the above bullet point] Various discussions on hiding the current outfit folder, avatar customisation, etc., which were more general in nature and of a more historic / subjective nature than covering potential changes / improvements. This also touched on avatar creation in Sansar, the use of devkits / applications (such as Marvelous Designer) etc. This also bled into a re-hash of oft-raised issues around the new user experience, the use of Senra vs. the continuance of the Creator Avatar option in the viewer (which references the older starter avatars), which has no connection to Senra, etc. Please refer to the video.
[Video 51:18-53:47] The above led to a question (from LL) about the provision of a “private changing room” for people to be able to change their appearance anywhere in SL without being seen.
A similar capability was provided in Sansar, where altering the avatar’s appearance happened in a editor “outside” of the current scene, with the avatar returned to the scene post-update.
The idea has been the subject of requests for Second Life as well, being tied to the Appearance Editor; as such it is on the Lab’s radar for possible future implementation.
[Video: 55:45-End] In terms of implementation, one option under consideration is the re-cloud the avatar to other viewers whilst the avatar is having its appearance edited. An alternative would be to impostor the avatar to others.
[Video: 53:48-54:50] A reiteration that LL do plan on integrating RLV/a into the official viewer (code contributions from kitty Barnett for RLVa have been received, together (I believe) with input from Marine Kelley on RLV).
However, it was emphasised that this is a large project requiring significant code contributions / integration, so the work in regarded as in progress.
Because of the stigma associated with RLV/a (e.g. the “restrained” element of the title), it was suggested a rebranding might be in order.
† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a gathering of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.
The Dickens Project, a seasonal celebration of the life, times and work of Charles Dickens with a focus on what is perhaps his most famous story, A Christmas Carol, officially opens to the public on Friday, December 6th, 2024.
Now a tradition within Second Life – the first edition of the event was held in 2012 (and which itself grew out of a special presentation originally made in 2008), the Dickens Project offers a mix of reading, storytelling, music, events and activities. It is organised and presented by Seanchai Library and offers visitors an immersive environment across two regions evocative of Victorian England in Dickens’ time. Within this settings, Seanchai Library and friends will be hosting a variety of events and activities, including readings of A Christmas Carol.
This year brings with it new features and tools to help visitors feel more immersed within the setting. These include:
A Personal Audio HUD (developed by Shandon Loring) and a Map HUD: (developed by Arrehn Oberlander) designed to assist guests in connecting the words of Dickens’ novella with the created environment and sorting through the many “Points of Interest” across both regions of the setting. Both will be available at the Welcome Centre and various locations around the Project. The Map HUD required accepting the Caledonian Studios SL Experience which is also used for the regions’ teleportal system.
The Dickens Project 2024 Feature Markers
Feature Markers to help guests discover points of engagement including task animations. These comprise:
The red hammers icon: indicating that here you can perform a task such as baking a pie, hammering out a horseshoe, chopping wood, weaving baskets or making gingerbread.
The blue camera icon: indicating a pose scene is available for you and your friends to use and take pictures.
The green people icon: denoting that there is a sitting action available including things like drinking tea and cakes in a shop, playing a game. There are also scenes available where you can mind a store, or a market stall, or tend a fire.
The Dickens Project 2024
Readings and Events
The Dickens performing community is back in force this year, including opening weekend performances by Angelicus Boy Choir, the opening celebration of the Hermes Kondor art show, and a reading presentation by Poet Klannex Northmead from Dickens’ “Little Dorrit.”
These are all in addition to the live story reading programs which Seanchai Library is known for. The popular Carol Week will begin on Friday, December 20th with a section of Dickens’ novella presented live each day in a Story Tour presentation at the sites on the estate inspired by the story.
Also returning for 2024 is the Community Virtual Library, once again providing research and information on Victorian life in the time of Dickens’ works; the Angelicus Boy Choir; the Raglan Shire Tiny Carollers; the Seanchai readers and friends, and, of course a broad range of entertainment and parties featuring DJs and live musicians from across Second Life.
The full calendar of events for the Project is provided below – note all times are SLT.
To keep up-to-date on daily events and updates, be sure to keep an eye on the Seanchai Library website.
Important Note: The Dickens Project uses several Experience-based systems including Caledonian Studios, Quantum Products, and MetaHarpers Interactive Theatre for teleportation and to enhance guests interaction. If you are prompted to join any of these Experiences during your visit, please ensure you accept them.
Dickens Project Art Show
Returning for 2024 is the Dickens Project Art Show, which is currently open (until December 16th, 2024) to submissions from artists wishing to participate.
This is a non-juried show which will formally open on December 22nd, 2024 with a special opening celebration at 11:00 SLT on that day, and will run through until January 5th, 2025. Artists are invited to submit 2D art (some 3D art can be accommodated by arrangement), with the organisers given priority to art with the following themes:
Elements of The Dickens Project.
Victorian Christmas.
Winter beauty.
Multiple submissions are allowed, but the number of works shown per artist may be limited in order to allow as many artists to be represented as possible.
Submissions (and enquiries about the Art Show) should be made via notecard to Stevie Basevi, with submissions no later that December 16th, 2024. These notecards should include: the artist’s full SL Name (that is, Display Name and account name); the artist’s physical world time zone or best SL times when they can be contacted; a brief description of the piece + an artist biography; a *preview* image of the art to be submitted (i.e. a lower-resolution, thumbnail copy in order to provide the organisers with an idea of the work – not the art itself); and optional links to a related website, Flickr page, etc., for the artist.
The Dickens Project 2024
About Seanchai Library
Seanchai Library (pronounced Shawn-a-kee, which means “Storyteller” in Irish Gaelic.) was founded in March of 2008 in Second Life. The program remains dedicated to promoting the power of stories to transform and inspire through live voice presentations: “We bring stories of all kinds to life, in Second Life and other virtual worlds.”
The Dickens Project was created for Seanchai Library by Da5id Abbot, Dagmar Kohime, Gloriana Maertens, Stevie Basevi-Morane, Iniry Vaher, and Caledonia Skytower, in presenting it, Seanchai Library acknowledges the support and sponsorship of Linden Lab.
The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday December 4th, 2024. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting, recorded by Pantera Północy, is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks as always to Pantera for recording it and making it available.
The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), the forums.
As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
Marketplace UI: work on updating the marketplace with a new user interface is described as being in the final stages of internal testing and thus “very close”.
Second Life Dashboard (secondlife.com): this is also being updated to a new design, and there is a chance it may be deployed in the next month / during January 2025.
Web Log-in and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): this is ongoing work to update the Second Life web log-in splash screen to a new design which will will work better on all devices, and will support MFA.
Marketplace MFA: work is continuing on adding MFA to the Marketplace.
Also in the works:
Changes to Linden Home store, adding some UI updates.
Updating the Second Life web maps – described as “still in early design”. Some of this work was mentioned in the November meeting – also see below.
Single Sign-On
[Video: 5:28-5:58] The subject of single sign-on (SSO) – allowing a user to log-in with a single ID to several related but independent services (e.g. SL dashboard, the Marketplace, (possibly) the viewer, etc.), just once (and possibly with unified authentication factors) Has often bee requested – and looked at – by the Lab. In response to SSO being raised at this meeting, Sntax Linden responded:
SO and Federated login is something we have been looking at doing in the future. The MFA on web login and marketplace will just be reusing the existing MFA we have on viewer and mobile.
This has been discussed at past meetings. Gifting is seen as confusing for some (having the Add to Cart as Gift and Buy Now buttons so close together suggests Buy Now must be clicked when gifting); plus the Shopping Cart is often used as a means of storing things people might be interested in purchasing, but as gifting is tied to it, carts must be cleared of anything stored therein.
As such, requests have been made for a direct means of gifting items in a manner similar to the Buy Now button (e.g. an “Gift Now”) button.
Commenting on this, Juniper Linden said:
We do have some updates to the gift UI coming out soon-ish; minor changes to that flow that might be better but nothing like “gift now”
Sntax indicated the MP team will get to gifting as soon as they can.
The basic requirement for this was seen as a simple button within listings, per above.
However, maintaining the ability to still add gifts to the cart as an option was also seen as useful – so having the “Gift Now” button present the current steps for gifting (enter recipient’s name + an optional message) followed by options to send the gift directly or add it to the Shopping Cart was seen as the optimal solution.
The main pressure from the meeting was to have some form of “band-aid” solution for direct gifting, and then refine things after-the-fact. This was seen as the preferable course of action.
This conversation also spiralled into use of legacy (user) names over Display Names and mis-gifting people.
As noted above, LL are looking at updating the Second Life web maps (https://maps.secondlife.com/), and to this end, a series of questions were asked on the functionality they provide:
Do people use the web maps or just the in-viewer World Map. Probably fair to say the if a broad audience were asking, there would be a reasonable split between “viewer” and “both”.
Is the Create Your Own SLurl option in the viewer World Map a useful option?
Do people use the Destination Guide element of the web maps to find places?
Do people use the Search option on web maps?
A Second Life web map (https://maps.secondlife.com/) showing: 1. the Create Your Own Map Link option (opens a dialogue box), 2. search bar option and 3. the Picks Destination Guide
That those at the meeting assumed that these questions were focused on the viewer’s World Map (with ensuing confusion as to the Search and Destination Guide questions) is possibly indicative as to how often the web maps are directly used (although eight people at a meeting is far too small a sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions).
Web Maps are frequently used, however – and possibly without people realising they are a map system – when clicking on SLurls included in things like blog posts, etc., in order to locate and teleport to the region / location in question.
The above spread to a discussion on sharing SLurls and how people go about it (including the misconception that the viewer World Map does not allow for the copying / creation of SLurl, despite the large button at the bottom of the Map legend).
A request was made for possible information to be added to the SL maps. Replies focused on the viewer World Map and included:
A “show rez zones” option.
A “show Set Home locations” option to help new users to find regions where they can set their home position.
Ability to find out more about location via the map. Fore example, clicking on a location on map.scondlife.com gives a default dialogue (which LL have stated will be updated to actually reflect the region information) – having this available for regions / parcels on the viewer World Map was suggested (on a mouse-over hover?).
Whether or not a location is open to public teleporting / a user’s ability to teleport (e.g. whether there is a minimum age set for access, or access is controlled by having Payment Information on File).
General Discussion
The last 10 minutes of the meeting focused on issues around links to outdated videos on web properties such as Where Next? the Support portal, etc., and the potential negative impact they have on new users / incoming new users.
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024 – click any image for full size
‘Twas off back to Luane’s World at Le Monde Perdu for me at the start of December, and a visit to LuaneMeo’s always-engaging public region.
As one might expect given it’s the end of the year, the region has been redressed for a northern hemisphere winter, with Luane working with Gorba McMahon to bring visitors a lot to see and do within and snow-covered landscape.
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024
A white winter blanket has settled over Luane’s World, a Nordic-inspired haven with charming red houses by a frozen lake. Explore the illuminated Christmas market in the village, then take a chairlift to a cosy mountain bar. Ski or sledge through snowy forests and down to the rocky shore to uncover a stunning ice cave with a museum of ice statues. On the island’s other side, visit a quaint fishing hamlet with a rugged, captivating atmosphere. Wonders await—so wander, explore, and enjoy!
– Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu Winter 2024 description
For this iteration of the region, the land forms and inverted U around a cold water bay, watched over from the south by two mountainous off-region islands. The landing point is located on the western headland, where stands a little Nordic-style village with something of a carnival atmosphere about it. A Ferris wheel offers rides, the houses are cosy and warm, and a little skating rink has been set-up, complete with little stalls selling refreshments and goodies to keep people warm, with plenty of seating scattered around.
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024
Low-lying, the headland and village overlook the semi-frozen waters of the bay, with the second headland away to the east also marked by buildings, these built right against the shoreline. To reach them, people can either make their way around the region on foot (or using one of the forms of land transport dotted around!), or they can cross the bay directly using either an inflatable boat or – in quite a novel option – by taking a bumper car over the ice!
When crossing the water, I’d advise saying clear of the polar bears out on the larger ice floes; they might look cuts and cuddly, but my experience (such as it is) is that you can never be sure that if one mentions “lunch” to you, it is and invitation or a recognition that you’re edible 😀 .
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024
The buildings on the far side of the bay form a little fishing locale; it appears to be largely closed for the season in terms of actual fishing, but the cabins are warm and the puffins are hopeful you might have a treat for them!
A well-defined track runs between the village and the fishing shacks, following the curve of the bay as it does so. Along the way, the path passes a chai lift climbing up the local peak. At the top, a bar awaits as Santa flies past outside, and people can catch a drink or head out skiing or sledding. Two routes for the latter ware available: either back downslope or a little backcountry skiing / sledding along the northern ridgeline of cliffs.
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024
Another trail zig-zags down the eastern extent of the ridge, linking once more with the lowland trails and paths. Little cottages sit in the lee of the cliffs, each one offering a warm welcome – and one with a slightly lewd snowman outside! The last of these cottages forms a literal log house. It sits across the lane from a tall A-frame cabin, complete with a red and white jacket, pants and hat are drying on the line, suggesting that prior to taking to the air in his sleigh once more, Santa may have stopped off for a change of clothes!
Throughout all of this, the landscaping is simply perfect, the snow falls gently and the wildlife obligingly poses for photographs. As well as all the activities available, the setting offers opportunities to simply sit and pass the time, either indoors or outdoors, with some nicely tucked away for those wanting a little privacy.
Luane’s World – Le Monde Perdu, December 2024
Luane notes that PBR materials are used within the region, and the note suggests these may not have Blinn-Phong fallbacks; so if you are on a non-PBR viewer, you may see “missing textures”.
It’s always a pleasure to visit Luane’s world at Le Monde Pedu, so I have no hesitation in recommending it as a winter destination for your travels. While visiting, keep your eyes open for the little touches of humour scattered around – the aforementioned snowman, for example, together with the little birds dressed for the festive season; but most of all – enjoy!
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Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 