On Monday, June 23rd, 2025, Linden Lab held the first of the SL22B Meet the Lindens events, featuring personnel from the Product Operations teams. The session was a live event and featured:
This is a summary of the majority of topics discussed at the session, and the official video of the session is embedded at the end of this article. |
Table of Contents |
For ease of reference, timestamps are provided to the relative points within the video where specific topics are discussed, allowing readers who prefer to listen to the comments directly to be able to do so. Note this is not intended to be a full transcript, but rather covers those items discussed which are liable to be of the most interest.
Linden Homes
Plans
[Video: 4:21-7:19 and as noted below]
- LL recently released the Premium Aspen Ridge Homes and new styles for the Premium Log Homes.
- As well as updating theme with new styles, the work also involves updating the back-end technology and improving the overall look of the Linden Homes.
- The size of Bellisseria makes updating all Linden homes to things like PBR “a challenge”, but will be “chipped away at” as things progress. Updates will continue through the year.
- [Video 16:19-17:52] Updates will be made on an ongoing basis, notably with PBR improvements, but it might not be possible to implement the seasonally changing landscaping across all of the Linden Home regions.
- [Video 1:14:15-1:14:30] There have been requests from content creators to be able to hook-into the Linden Homes season changing capability, and this is being worked on.
- By the end of 2025 the Linden Homes offerings should be: 10 Premium themes (with Trailers also supporting Plus); 5 Premium Plus themes and 1 theme of mixed Premium / Premium Plus.
- [Video: 1:16:57-1:19:39] Why does the Lab move on to a new theme of home before an existing theme is “finished”.
- No theme is every really considered “complete”; while there is an initial map, the Lab is more driven by a mix of demand and diversity.
- Demand: rather than deploy a “complete” build involving (say) 50 regions, only a handful might be initially released, and those then added to over time based on the popularity of the theme.
- Diversity: additional themes are released whilst others are still available / not fully occupied to give users an broader choice of themes / styles.
Next Theme – Ridgewood Enclave
- The next theme will be Premium Plus Homes and is “right around the corner” and will be offered under the name Ridgewood Enclave.
- It will “be separate and kind-of its own thing” and be LL’s first foray into offering allowing commercial activities (which has long been requested).
- Those obtaining a parcel within Ridgewood Enclave will have the option of devoting their parcel to a home, or splitting it between home and commercial.
- The roll-out will likely be the homes first, followed by the ability to split parcels between home and commercial.
“Game of Homes”
- Will the selection process for Linden Homes within a theme be improved to that the system does not re-select a parcel a user has already rejected in their current batch of searches (limited to 5 per 24 hours)?
- Not really. The system is a) old; b) as random as it can possibly be.
- However, it is recognised it will keep serving up specific parcels, even if far more are available, and may only move on when the parcels it keeps offering are all taken.
- If a user finds they are constantly being re-offered the same parcel within one of their 5-picks periods, they can contact support, who can reset the user’s number of picks once for any given 24-hour selection period.
- Premium Plus users have the ability to place a ticket with support to obtain an available Linden home parcel they would particularly like to claim (outside of the initial 24-hour after the release of a new theme).
Land
Discounted Homesteads for Premium Plus
- There are no plans to offer discounted Homestead regions to Premium Plus account holders.
- As a reminder, it is possible for Premium Plus users who also hold a region (or regions) to pay their tier to LL in Linden Dollars.
Land Capacity
- The Lab is constantly experimenting with Land Capacity, and has tested Full regions with 40K-80K Land Capacity.
- However, increases have to be considered alongside a host of other issues (load balancing across instances, impact of simulator performance, etc.).
- As technology does improve, there may be opportunities in the future to increase Land Capacity as the Lab gains confidence in doing to.
Region Management and Region Server Options
- Are there plans to offer region holders more autonomy over managing their regions?
- LL has already added the option to restart regions to the holder’s secondlife.com dashboard.
- Allowing regions holders to take other actions – renaming a region was given as an example – is under consideration, but no time frame as to when such options might be delivered.
- Are more server options going to be made available for hosting regions?
- LL already off a bonus Land Capacity option for Full regions and offer both the Event and Elite Event region products, all of which are also available as upgrades.
- All three cost extra in tier, the Event and Elite Event regions are underpinned by more performant AWS hardware, allowing them to support more agents (avatars) per region, etc.
Themed Mainland Areas
- Mainland has always had a “free to build” outlook, without the imposition of zones, covenants, etc., by Linden Lab.
- A frequent request to the Lab is to offer such zoning / covenants within Mainland to allow people to build themed communities there.
- This idea is seen as potentially having merit and benefits, and is something the Lab has considered, and tends to revisit as an idea. However, it does have complexities:
- Should it be a full covenanted Mainland area (like Bellisseria, but without the Linden Homes)? Is it something on a smaller scale? Is it something primarily aimed at stopping specific activities – e.g. preventing ban lines?
- How would the model work / impact private estate regions offering their own models and covenants, etc.
- As such, the idea is not rejected, but it is not on the current roadmap, and if it to reach the point of being actively considered, then it would be a topic to bring back to the community for a more focused discussion and to gain feedback.
Support and Customer Success
Governance and Abuse Reports
- Adult-rated content an images can be seen within moderate rated Mainland regions, often simply by using the road system. What is being done to remediate this?
- It is acknowledged that this does happen, but given the size of Mainland, LL often rely on users reporting instances where it can be found / seen via the Abuse Report mechanism.
- The above also applies to avatars behaving in appropriately as well.
- The name of the avatar account filing any Abuse Report is never revealed to the subject of any subsequent investigation.
Support Ticket Responses / Support Availability
- There has been a delay in responding to support tickets. This has in part been due to a reorganisation of the support teams at the end of 2024, which resulted in a backlog of tickets.
- The estimate was that in January, the backlog stood at 7,000-7,500 tickets, and this has since been halved, with the remaining number being rapidly reduced.
- Older tickets in the backlog are being addressed in order to clear them as quickly as possible.
- This, and the nature of more recent ticket that have been coming into the system, has meant that certain cases have taken much, much longer to resolve.
- LL have been recruiting-in new support personnel, and has almost completed this, to make the customer Success and Trust and Safety teams larger than they were previously, by around 10 people.
- Currently, most areas of support – tickets, live chat, phone – are back to within their 72-hour SLA requirements.
- To further help with support matters, weekend support is being re-introduced as from Saturday, June 28th, 2025 (phone and live chat).
- [Video: 1:21:51-1:23:25] Could live chat support be extended into the evening (SLT)?
- There are currently no plans to change support hours.
- However, as more of the new staff come on-stream, it is possible that times can be reviewed and adjusted to better meet the needs of users.
Support and Thunes (Tilia)
- With the sale of Tilia to Thunes now complete (see: LL completes Tilia sale to Thunes: What you need to know) work is underway to streamline handling of support issues over things like cashing-out from SL between the two companies.
- Those experiencing delays or issues should always submit a support ticket to Linden Lab first, to see if the issue can be addressed directly, and to allow LL to deal directly with Thunes.
- Going directly to Thunes first can lead to greater confusion and delays.
Account Holds/ Banning Copybotters
- Should someone who has had their account placed on hold receive notification that this is the case?
- When an account is placed on hold, an e-mail is sent to the address specified in the account. This should include the hold notification and the reason for it, and a timeline as to when to expect access to be re-enabled (if available).
- These notifications can end-up being steered towards spam or junk or promotions-type folders, so be sure to check these in case filtering has misdirected the e-mail.
- Those who are sure they have not received any such notification, but have found their account on hold should contact Support.
- [Video: 44:49-47:54] Can more permanent action be taken against copybotters – e.g. IP bans?
- Instances of copying content should be reported by the creator of the original content, who can supply LL with all the relevant data (e.g. item location, UUID, etc.), and information on the original.
- To assist in the process, and if required, LL might additionally request the creator to file a DMCA Notice, if they have not already done so.
- In terms of preventing repeat offenders returning, LL is always evaluating how to better prevent this / slow repeat offenders from being able to quickly re-access SL.
Account Security
- Malicious messaging, scam links, phishing e-mails are very much an issue.
- This has been the subject of recent official blogs posts, and posts from bloggers like myself (see: Linden Lab: keeping your Second Life account safe).
- In short:
- Never share your account password with anyone.
- Never supply your log-in credentials in reply to any e-mail, no matter how official-looking; LL will never ask you for them.
- Be wary of any e-mails or links promising cheap or free Linden Dollars, they are most likely phishing traps.
- Don’t click on links in group chats, IMs, etc., unless you are absolutely sure of their origin.
- Strengthen your account with a strong password + the use of the Lab’s Multi-factor Authentication option.
- LL is actively looking at tools to identify and prevent malicious activity within the platform, and making some basic changes to alert people to the risks in clicking on links, etc.
- In addition, the Trust and Safety are looking to implement a new Trust and Safety User Group meeting to replace the old Governance User Group, so that matters around account security, etc. Can be discussed.
Payment and Billing
- More payment options (e.g. Google Pay):
- Payment and billing is now handled through Thunes, per the links concerning Tilia, above.
- Thunes is looking to make additional payment options available to SL users, but which options in particular might be put forward is not yet clear, but will be checked.
- Any new payment options agreed to between the Lab and Thunes will be announced on the Second Life official blog.
- Can an option be provided to allow those paying tier directly to LL to do so early, if required (e.g. to cover for when they might be on vacation, or in hospital, etc)?
- It would require extensive programmatic changes to achieve.
- However, would appear to be a good idea, and a Canny Feature Request was requested via the Feedback Portal.
Lifetime Premium and Premium Plus Membership Offers and SL22B
- There will be no Premium or Premium Plus Lifetime membership offered at SL22B.
- Such offers are now being reserved for special events (e.g. with partners such as the American Cancer Society), where it is specifically possible to have the funds generated through such offers donated directly to charitable organisations.
General Questions
- [Video: 32:31-33:26] Does Support hire people to operate remotely?
- Depends on the position: Customer Success & Trust and Safety operate out the Atlanta offices, and so people working on those teams are based there; Product Operations and its related teams does have the potential for remote working.
- [Video: 53:02-54:43] Removal of Voice capabilities from InfoHubs
- This was a difficult decision, given InfoHubs are intended to be newcomer-friendly social gathering spaces.
- However, too many people were using Voice within these places to harass and cause disruption, so in the interests of the larger community using the InfoHubs the decision was made to disable Voice.
- The Lab will continue to monitor InfoHubs and may revisit this decision in the future.
- [Video: 54:54-56:49] Do the Shop and Hop events complete too heavily with user-created shopping events held at the same time (e.g. Valentine’s Day, Christmas, etc.).
- LL are always “cognizant” of the potential for such impact, but thus far has not directly received any complaints from the organisers of other shopping events or the creators attending them.
- Shop and Hop is perhaps a broader tent than other shopping events, many of which are geared towards specific genres (sci-fi; fantasy; adult; etc.).
- Shop and Hop is intended to be seasonally limited (with the special SLB Shop and Hop being an exception), and not driven with the intent to “blot out” other shopping events.
- If people do feel it is harming other events, then feedback is welcome on that.
- Creators selected for the Shop and Hop events are selected more-or-less on the basis of a lottery, not based on how quickly they apply.
- Not everyone who applies can automatically be granted store space at a Shop and Hop, as they are limited by scale and manageability. For SL22B, for example, there were over 840 applicants – doubling the overall logistical requirements for hosting, running and managing the event.
- [Video: 1:07:15-1:09:49] Is it possible to use the Name Change capability and not have the new name linked to previous names?
- Currently no, for assorted reasons (e.g. to prevent someone doing something nefarious and then using the Name Change capability to hide their guilt).
- The above was also something the community was worried about at the time Name Changes were introduced.
- If attitudes have since changed, then the suggestion is to raise a Canny Feature Request was requested via the Feedback Portal.
- [Video: 1:19:50-1:21:24] Will Cape Ekim (read: Saying farewell to the original Linden Homes – and a Second Life mystery?) be preserved when the old Linden Home mini-continents are retired?
- Cape Ekim has been considered “very, very seriously” in terms of preserving the history of Second Life Linden Homes.
- Once all the old Linden Homes have been retired, the plan is to make a special area paying tribute to them, and as such, Cape Ekim, “isn’t going anywhere”.
- There was a final question on AI tool for translation services, and a full answer on the subject was deferred to the Operations and Engineering session.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
“LL recently released the Premium Plus Aspen Ridge Homes”
Aspen Ridge Homes are Premium.
Ridgewood Enclave Homes are Premium Plus.
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