On Friday, March 14th, Linden Lab officially announced the Second Life Lua Alpha, with testing now available on Aditi, the Beta grid.
Now officially referred to as SLua (SL Lua), this is a project to replace Mono as the back-end scripting language, utilising a version of the Roblox-derived Luau scripting language, which Linden Lab has been working on developing for some time now (as noted within updates in this blog, such as my Simulator User Group summaries), and this Alpha project is to allow early testing of the capability.
Note: this is the server-side scripting implementation of Luau, not the in-viewer support for Lua. This latter work is still in development, and will be subject to future updates from the Lab.
General Notes on Testing
The Aditi regions running Luau support are: [Luau Yardang], [Luau Tombolo], [Luau Mesa] and [Luau Tideland].
These support both native Lua scripting and compiling LSL to Luau VM.
Make sure your Viewer shows the Beta Grid in your login options. To do this:
Go to Preferences → Advanced and select Show Grid Selection at Login.
Then re-log, selecting Second Life Beta Test Grid from the drop-down under Last Location in the splash screen. Note you might need to log in twice the first time so your inventory can properly sync.
A Luau-capable viewer is required – download the latest from the Second Life Alternate Viewers page.
This viewer will work on any region in SL, but will only compile scripts to Luau on the Aditi regions noted above.
Additional general notes:
SLua scripting is in early development. Memory and performance characteristics, and API specifics may change! Regions will crash and it’s possible you may lose content if you don’t save often into inventory when working on the beta grid. Error reporting when compiling scripts from LSL to Luau is “quite spartan at the moment”, but will be improved “in the next update or two”.
If objects with compiled Luau script assets are rezzed in a non-Luau region, they won’t work.
To help promote SLua testing, Linden Lab is, from Monday, March 17th, 2025, running a creator contest to demonstrate the potential and capabilities of the language. with L$170,000 in prizes. For details, please refer to the official blog post for full details. Awards will be determined by committee in April, and winners as well as runners up will be highlighted on official Second Life news sites and social media.
As of Friday, March 14th, 2025, Firestorm is available as a viewer-in-a-browser option via Linden Lab
On Friday, March 14th, Linden Lab, in conjunction with the Firestorm viewer team, launched Firestorm Zero, an expansion of the Lab’s viewer-in-your-browser Project Zero which, as the name suggests, features the release version of the Firestorm viewer.
In this article, I hope to provide a brief re-cap on the work, and provide an hands-on to getting started and using Firestorm Zero.
Key Points To Note
Firestorm Zero is a means to access Second Life by means of the Firestorm viewer being streamed to your computer from an Amazon GameLift servers, and your inputs transmitted back to the server.
The service currently operates at a fixed 1080p screen resolution, and should generally provide a Second Life experience at least as good as any mid-range gaming PC, direct to your computer, no matter how old the latter might be.
As the service is being streamed to your computer, not all of Firestorm’s setting and options may be saved between sessions – see below for more on this.
Firestorm Zero is provided on a pay-to-play basis, using passes costing L$250 for up to five hours use of the service. See below on how to obtain passes.
Payment is for using Firestorm Zero only, the official viewer Project Zero access at zero.secondlife.com is still free, but with limited access to existing users.
There are a limited number of passes available.
The Firestorm viewer version is 7.1.11.
Purchasing a Firestorm Zero Pass and Accessing the Service
In the left-side menu column, click on Account → Purchase Streaming Hours.
Click the Purchase 5 Hours for L$250.
Purchasing hours for using Firestorm in your browser
Once you have purchased your hours, continue below.
Accessing the Service
On purchasing a pass, go to the the Firestorm Zero webpage – note that this may be referenced a “Second Life” in your browser tab, because it is Linden Lab providing the service, it does not mean you are about to be logged into the Official viewer.
If you are logging-in for the first time:
Log-in with your log-in credentials using the Second Life web log-in request.
As Firestorm Zero is provided via Linden Lab, you may be requested to log-in to the Second Life web services and, if you use MFA, to provide a Token
The warning that Project Zero is experimental will be displayed. click the Play button to proceed.
The viewer will load and launch, delivering you in-world.
Settings and Options: Available and Limitations
As Firestorm Zero is streamed to your viewer, not all of Firestorm setting / options for saving settings within the viewer may work / be available. The following is a list of features I’ve been able to test; note that there are other Preferences that may also disabled within Firestorm Zero when compared to the locally-installed versions of the viewer. Also, these are obviously at the time of writing, and subject to future changes.
Option
Firestorm Zero
Retain Preferences between sessions
Yes
Set and retain Graphics Presets
Yes
Set and retain Camera Presets
Yes
Customise Toolbar buttons
Yes
Set and retain Camera Presets¹
Yes
Retain toolbar button size and alignment between sessions
No
Access Advanced Menu
No
Access Developer Menu
No
Upload textures, sounds, models, etc.
No
Retain IM histories
Yes
Retain Local Chat history
No
Back-up and Restore Settings
No
Enable RLVa & retain
Yes
Space Navigator Support
No
Save Snapshots to Disk²
No
I personally had issues with accessing Firestorm Zero after setting custom camera presets, and have reported this as a potential issue. Your mileage may vary.
As alternatives – use the options to save snapshots to e-mail or save to Flickr.
Support And Feedback
Firestorm Zero is a collaborative effort between Linden Lab and the Firestorm viewer team.
Linden lab is responsible for the overall provisioning of the service: purchasing passes, accessing Firestorm Zero, providing capabilities such as viewer Preferences and settings being retained between sessions, etc.
Issues relating to any of the above can be reported through the Firestorm Zero category of the Second Life Feedback Portal.
The Firestorm team retain responsibility for general support within the viewer itself.
Issues relating to using the viewer itself should, in the first instance, be raised through the usual Firestorm support channels.
June 2025 will mark the 22nd anniversary of Second Life opening to public access – and as we’ve all come to expect, the month will mark the start of several weeks of events and celebrations running into July under the umbrella of the Second Life Birthday (SLB) otherwise know for this year as SL22B.
On Thursday, March 13th, Linden Lab officially announced the dates and theme of this year’s festivities, and opened applications for those wishing to create and host an exhibition within the SL22B event regions.
Dates and Theme
This year the SLB festivities will open on Friday, June 20th, 2025 and will run through until Sunday, July 20th. The theme for 2025 is Myths and Legends, which the Lab describes thus:
It reflects the Second Life experience because we are all the heroes of our own adventures! The emphasis is on the characters and stories people create in SL both personally and within their communities.
However, as has been the case over the last several birthday events, exhibitions are not confined to the theme itself, with the Lab additionally noting:
Share your Second Life passions with us. Your interests. Your communities. Your world! Every year we celebrate because of you, the amazing and creative Residents who have chosen to call Second Life home. What has drawn you into this world, and what keeps you here? These annual festivities are an opportunity to show us what fuels your Second Life. Let’s celebrate that together!
The SL21B Stonehold Stage, June 2024
Exhibitor Applications
The announcement also notes that applications for those wishing to host exhibits within the Birthday regions are now open. Those wishing to apply should note the following high-level requirements, and refer to the application form for a full set of exhibitor rules.
Applications will be accepted through until Monday, May 19th, 2025.
There will be both General and Adult rated regions available to exhibitors.
Exhibits do not have to be in keeping with the Myths and Legends theme, as noted above.
Exhibits must not be commercial in nature (e.g. no selling items, no tip jars or the solicitation of donations – this includes tip jars, etc., associated with any performers appearing within an exhibitor space), but gifts may be provided to SL22B visitors.
Exhibits to be presented within the General rated regions of the event must be in accordance with the General Maturity Rating (e.g. no nudity –artistic or otherwise–, no Adult animations and/or gestures, furniture, etc, must not contain Adult poses / animations, etc.).
From Friday, March 14th, 2025 (if all goes according to plan) Firestorm will be available as a viewer-in-a-browser option via Linden Lab
On Wednesday, March 12th, 2025, Philip Rosedale, the Lab’s Chief Technology Officer and Syntax Linden, the lead for Project Zero, the viewer-in-a-browser project, provided a special update to members of the Blogger Network on the status on the project, including the news that Firestorm is joining the project with “Firestorm Zero”.
Firestorm Zero
The release version of Firestorm will be available to users as a viewer-in-your-browser offering in collaboration with Linden Lab. All things being equal, it will be launched on Friday, March 14th, 2025, in addition to the current Project Zero offering of the Official viewer (see below for more on this) and has the unofficial title (likely to become official now!) of Firestorm Zero.
Audience
The primary audience for Firestorm Zero is seen as existing and returning users – the majority of whom already use Firestorm, and who might therefore find Firestorm Zero a more attractive option that Project Zero’s Official viewer.
Payment “Passes”
Unlike Project Zero, Firestorm Zero will be offered on a pay-to-use basis from the outset, in the form of purchasable “passes”.
Passes will cost L$250 and provide up to 5 hours of use with Firestorm Zero (passes will not apply to the official viewer at this time, which remains free to use.
Passes will be available through a Dashboard web page “similar to how you purchase Linden Dollars”, once the service has been announced and is live.
Firestorm Zero passes will not be available via either the Project Zero website or the Firestorm website.
While the number of passes available at any given time may be limited, once purchased, they guarantee immediate access to Firestorm Zero without any of the waiting experienced with Project Zero.
With regards to the above, the idea of selling passes for Firestorm Zero is two-fold:
To test the waters on charging for the streaming service, to see how users respond to it, how they go on to use the service based on the fees charged, etc.
To offer the service at a price-point potentially in line with the expectation of the actual streaming costs coming down over time to match or come close to the cost of passes.
Additional Firestorm Zero Notes
The viewer is streamed at 1920×1080 (as with Project Zero).
Whilst this is the Firestorm viewer, it is being surfaced to users directly by Linden Lab. As such:
If a user has opted-in to MFA, they will be required to provide a token (again, as per the usual requirements).
The viewer will be accessible through a Linden Lab web page after a pass has been purchased, not through the Firestorm website nor the current Project Zero web page.
Once available, issues with Firestorm Zero can be reported through the Feedback Portal dedicated Firestorm Zero category.
As noted above, the Official viewer Project Zero option will remain available at no cost at present, through its dedicated website, and with individual sessions still limited to 1 hour.
Project Zero is currently provisioned out of Amazon’s AWS facilities on the US West Coast. However, Linden Lab is in discussion with AWS about offering Project Zero through UK and European end-points “soon”.
Work is continuing on the React / HTML updates to the viewer UI within Project Zero, but these are not ready for surfacing just yet.
IMs within the Zero viewers are now saved – however, local chat sessions cannot, at present, be saved.
More general work on Chat is being carried out to try to ensure chat messages are properly synched between different modes of access (e.g. between the viewer and SL Mobile).
More On Possible Future Fees
Currently, Project Zero is costing Linden Lab around US $1.75 per hour per user.
While there are expectations / confidence that this price will be reduced in the future, it still means LL are running the service at a loss at present.
Some of the ways these costs are likely to come down involve switching the service away from Windows machines to Linux systems (hence why at the week #10 CCUG meeting, Linux support was described as becoming “more and more of a forefront priority” with “internal dependencies on supporting it”), and in moving away from dedicated per-user hosting for the streaming viewer to more of a “shared tenancy” model.
It is the expectation of the overall cost eventually coming down to under US $1 an hour which has encouraged the Lab to settle on the idea of selling “passes” in conjunction with Firestorm Zero, as a means to test the water among users.
In terms of charging for the service in the future in order to cover costs, it was indicated that offers passes as a subscription perk of some kind (e.g. at a reduced fee(?)) might be considered.
New Users
The Lab has been seeing “hundreds” of new users per day come into to Second Life via the workflow that leads them to running Project Zero and the Official viewer rather than having to download and install the viewer.
New users have up to four hours for a session when accessing Second Life through the on-boarding process / Project Zero.
Those entering SL through the workflow / Project Zero who have responded to the Lab’s surveys have done so “very positively”.
However, it’s not clear how well these users are being retained beyond their first log-in, as this is harder to track, particularly as retention really needs to be measured in terms of multiple months rather than weeks.
As a broader note on new user on-boarding, LL is looking towards a “simpler” approach to the on-boarding process as a whole, including giving people the option of using Firestorm / Firestorm Zero as a part of the workflow.
General Notes
It was suggested that as there is no facility to save snapshots to a local disk in either Project Zero or Firestorm Zero, that those taking snapshots on either try the Save to E-mail option on the Snapshot floater (both Zero and Firestorm Zero) or Save to Flickr (Firestorm Zero) and – if post-processing is required, download the image from there.
Update: the issue of saving Preferences originally mentioned in this article was fixed on March 13th.
The Forest of Hours, March 2025 – click any image for full size
A recent entry into the Destination Guide was for a mainland location called The Forest of Hours, described as a newcomer-friendly setting with a lot to see and enjoy. It immediately caught my eye, with the description drawing me in even further through its mention of Cael Ystafell, a place I know to be held by Kinn (Kinnaird Mainlander) and her Second Life partner, Ziki Questi, two people with whom I’ve been acquainted for a long time (Ziki being a former Second Life arts blogger I’ve greatly admired for her work promoting the arts in SL, and who is a massively accomplished photographer as well). As such, I was keen to hop over and spend a number of visits exploring.
To describe The Forest of Hours without including Cael Ystafell would be somewhat akin to a visit Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower; both are completely intertwined and open to visitors and genuinely include a lot to see and discover, with portals and other surprises waiting to be found by wanderers. Both have been landscaped by Kinn, with Nix Onyx working on the core of The Forest of Hours alongside Kinn.
The Forest of Hours, March 2025
Kinn, Nix and Ziki describe the combined landscape thus:
It was our goal to create a space to show the possibilities of beauty on the Mainland … our joyful attempt at “reforesting” the Mainland on the Northwestern shore of the Heterocera Atoll. The Forest of Hours blends into Cael Ystafell … to the West, creating an unbroken treeline from Route 4 in Scape through Route 2 in Echo. Please feel free to explore all of the nooks and crannies and fun spaces tucked into the forest.
The Landing Point for The Forest of Hours lies at the side of Route 4 in the region of Scape and just inside the forest’s edge, close to a stone arch bearing the forest’s name. From here, the path winds into the mist-bound land, winding between trees through which rays of sunlight slant; the tree trunks and mist work together to give a sense of mystery to wandering, concealing at they do what might be found, so that places of interest hide among the shadows, emerging from the mist in greeting as they are approached.
The Forest of Hours, March 2025
The first major location to so reveal itself is that of a once extensive structure built of carefully cut stone, the walls now broken and in places entirely absent, any roofing that may have once covered the shells of rooms now long vanished, the stone flagged floors and worn steps slowing giving way to the returning grass and moss of the forest. Within these remnants can be found a charming café, an open-air set for live music and dancing, places to sit (outdoors and in – the latter courtesy of the House of Variants tucked into one corner) and even a magic potion brewer!
Where one goes from here is a matter of choice – paths wind onwards from the ruins, passing from them by means of arched doorways. Perhaps the most prominent of these, given it is signposted, is the one pointing towards Cael Ystafell – but don’t be in too much of a hurry to follow it; taking the path under the other arch away from the ruins offers its own mysteries, both above ground and under it.
The Forest of Hours, March 2025
Reached most obviously via a cave entrance sitting close to the path winding up the southern uplands to the forest, the landscape has hidden beneath it a network of tunnels and caves of a kind that just as you think you’ve found everything they contain, reveal something else within a waiting chamber. Meanwhile, the path up over this underground labyrinth offers its own many paths of exploration and places to discover, with camp fire meeting places, Japanese-themed elements and paths, meandering streams and tumbling waterfalls, and further routes pointing towards Cael Ystafell.
Along the way there are wonderful touches of detail to be found, from foxes and birds and more extraordinary creatures alongside trails and in the trees, to elements of 3D art carefully placed to surprise when encountered, together with multiple places indoors and out in which to spend time. The latter range from an artist’s studio hidden among the woods to a glamping tent with cosy bed and a Japanese tea house through to what appears to be (from the outside at least!) a witch’s cottage – and more besides, with the more outdoor places to sit equally as richly varied.
Cael Ystafell, March 2025
Also waiting discovery are a number of portals and references to other locations held by Ziki and Kinn. I’m not going to spoil things by saying where to find them, but do keep an eye out for the following:
A doorway to Bay City, the community in which Ziki and Kinn are very active.
A portal to The Far Away, a location originally created by AM Radio, and now in Ziki and Kinn’s guardianship (and which I wrote about way back in 2013!)
A magic mirror that will lift you to Club Echo, a new venue where (I understand from Ziki) social and other events may be held in the future.
Other portals and places – such as the underground New York apartment.
The Forest of Hours, March 2025
While exploring, visitors might also come across little references to things like Lucy van Pelt from Peanuts, a touch of Tolkien in the greeting over a doorway and what might be a further homage to AM Radio and his work, in the form of a radio studio and tower within Cael Ystafell, to name but three.
The Forest of Hours and Cael Ystafell are wonderfully landscaped and make for a relaxing and engaging exploration with a lot of discover and appreciate. Whilst naturally under a misty environmental setting, the locations are ideally suited to many ambient environments – as I hope some of the images here demonstrate. Do be sure to visit.
Project Zero is a significant step towards making Second Life accessible directly through web browsers. Following your feedback, we’ve made substantial progress in enhancing the platform’s performance and usability. During the upcoming Community Roundtable, Philip Rosedale will share some news about these developments and the project roadmap. The Product and Engineering teams will also talk about the overall Roadmap and strategic vision for Second Life in 2025.
Question from user are invited on the subject, and those wishing to submit a question in advance can still do so via this anonymous form. As usual, I will endeavour to provide a written summary† of the event as soon as I’ve collated notes and quotes following the event.
via Linden Lab
†While they are not officially representative of the Lab or these meetings, please note that I attempt to provide summaries of meeting such as this, and for a number of user group session within these pages.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 