Day: September 22, 2026

2026 week #39: SUG Leviathan Hour

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Simulator User Group meeting place at Longfellow

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, September 23, 2026 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting by Pantera is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks to her for providing it, and to Erik Mondrian for the chat transcript after my ISP suffered issues and disconnected me from the world.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas is held every other Tuesday at 12:00 noon, SLT (holidays, etc., allowing), per the Second Life Public Calendar.
  • The “Leviathan Office Hour” meetings are held on the Tuesdays which do not have a formal SUG meeting, and are chaired by Leviathan Linden. They are more brainstorming / general discussion sessions.
  • Meetings are held in text in-world, at this location.

Simulator Deployments

  • The Nectarine update was deployed to the BlueSteel RC in week #38. However:
    • It has a bug  that causes it to leave a bad zero-coded block on some ObjectUpdate messages. This shows up in the viewer logs and effectively is a form of packet-loss if the viewer tosses the data, or ignores the final block of data there.
    • Leviathan has been working on a fix for the issue, and if it passes QA, it will deployed to BlueSteel as an Nectarine update, with the updated code also being deployed to the remain RC channels.
    • This bug can occasionally impact the 26.4 viewer (currently available as a Release Candidate viewer), he expects this to be included in the in-development 26.5 viewer – and a Pull Request (PR) will be made available for TPVs wishing to pull the fix into their code.

Game Control

  • Game_control has been re-based on the in-development 26.5 viewer code base. a new pre-release viewer version, but further work on the viewer code is required.
  • This means game_control could be included in the 26.5 viewer when it services – however, the code has not yet been merged into the development branch of 26.5.
  • Leviathan is looking for feedback on the current pre-release builds of game_control, particularly:
    • Whether the default mappings of actions to buttons correct; are there any actions that should be made mappable that are not yet available; and what features are missing that MUST be in the initial release.
    • However, time is limited for getting suggestions in.
  • There is still work to be carried out to ensure that game_control doesn’t impact the current SpaceNavigator 3D mouse support.
  • A discussion on keyboard mapping to game_control (currently, it is not possible to map keyboard keys to arbitrary gamepad buttons).

General Discussion

  • When it surfaces, 26.5 will likely be the last major viewer release for 2026; Olive (which will follow Nectarine) will likely be the last simulator update for the year.
  • Region crossings:
    • Pepper Linden’s region crossing updates also introduced a subtle protocol change which had been previously tried – and had to be rolled back.
    • This does not mean Pepper’s fixes do not work; rather that there isn’t a lot of confidence that they are ready for full deployment. Right now, it isn’t clear  whether the existing system can be fixed or if LL need to move to a new QueueEventGet protocol.
    • More internal discussions are required on this, but Pepper’s work has renewed a desire to get more region crossing fixes into the works.
    • This sparked conversation on region crossings and vehicle use.
  • The latter half of the meeting was devoted to region / simulator capabilities – number of avatars support, number of objects, resource overheads, region pricing, and – yes – “megaregions” (those larger than the current 256×256 sq m size) + more.
    • This was a fairly wide-ranging discussion, and so please refer to the video below.
  • The above was intertwined on some history of SL provided by Leviathan Linden touching on the early attempts at social engineering (e.g. originally limiting the build height to 768 metres and limiting flying height to encourage people to remain near the ground and socialise more).
    • Again, please refer to the video for more.

Date of Next Meetings

  • Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, September 29, 2026.
  • Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, October 6, 2026.

Of a Grumpy Troll and Two Loons in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Approaching The Two Loons, Calas Galadhon, September 2026

This is going to be a slightly café and coffeehouse piece this time around. For one thing, it is as much about the journey as it is the destinations.

The other is that strictly speaking, one of my selected destinations is neither a café nor a coffeehouse but a wine bar – although a good cup of cappuccino (or whatever might take your fancy, caffeine-wise) appears to be available.

Calas Galadhon, September 2026

This is because I’m talking about The Grumpy Troll and The Two Loons within the Calas Galadhon estate. Now, to be fair, I’ve covered both in the past – in 2019 to be precise. However, I’ve never covered them together as they deserve. Nor have I really covered them in conjunction with the other aspect of this piece: horse riding.

And, to let my ego out of the biscuit tin I generally keep it locked inside (and hidden under the bed): it is also not untrue that I had a role to play in the history of both.

Arriving at The Grumpy Troll, Calas Galadhon, September 2026

Having visited The Grumpy Troll – the waterside café – when it opened in 2019, I noted that a) as it what just off the Coast Trail running around and through the estate for those keen on horse riding, it should have a hitching post and horse rezzer outside; and b) given its name, I was surprised on my first visit to find it was a café rather than an inn in the manner of Tolkien’s Prancing Pony and given Calas’ tied to Tolkien.

As a result of making these observations, Ty Tenk from Calas dropped me a note to say The Grumpy Troll gained a hitching post and rezzer, and a short time after this, the Two Loons opened as a wine bar a little further along the Coast Trail.

The Grumpy Troll, Calas Galadhon, September 2026

Horse riding is a popular past-time in Second Life; so much so that there is a Group / resource dedicated to providing information on riding in SL and helping to organise riding events: Second Life Trailblazer Atlas – and I’ll have more on this in a future article.

With its fourteen regions, Calas Galadhon is a haven for horse riding, and Ty, Truck and the Calas Team have sought to make it a pleasurable experience for all by setting up riding trails complete with rezzers feature horses from both Teagle and Waterhorse for those wanting to give it a go (with the Waterhouse horse offering rides for two).

The Grumpy Troll, Calas Galadhon, September 2026
As I have both a Teagle horse and a Waterhorse, I opted to use one of my own horses (being wearable, they don’t require rezzing), and arbitrarily picked a horse rezzing location in Glanduin, as one of the more open regions of the estate to start my journey, making first for The Grumpy Troll.

This sits on one of the large models within Dimrill Dale, and coming up from the south-east of the estate, it is perhaps one of the first stops along the coastal part of the Coast Trail. Located just across the water from the whitewashed Little Church of Calas, it looks westwards over the waters and open spaces of the Gulf of Lune, Belagaer and the Grey Havens, forming a perfect point from which to enjoy sunsets.

The Grumpy Troll, Calas Galadhon, September 2026

The Two Loons lay further to the west, lying across the intervening wetlands. Navigating your way there on foot (or hoof, in this case) takes a little care and will involve some time passing over stout wooden boardwalks.

This is a somewhat larger establishment than the Troll, comprising two buildings and an upper floor level. It also offers a good westward view together with one to the north, where the causeway points towards the wilds of Armenelos and the opportunity to head west to New Santorini.

Walking the Calas Galadhon wetlands boardwalks with Sisko, heading for The Two Loons, September 2026
Separate they may be, but The Grumpy Troll and The Two Loons have much in common beyond both being within Calas Galadhon. Both offer invitations to stay a while, and both offer indoor and outdoor seating (including a hammock in the shade of a tree just to the back of it, in the case of The Grumpy Troll).

Both also make excellent  use of building by Cory Edo – in fact The Two Loons makes used of the second half of the tree house used for form the main structure of The Grumpy Troll – kitbashing at its best!

The Two Loons, Calas Galadhon, September 2026

Horse riding in SL can be a lot of fun, particularly if there is somewhere with plenty of space for doing so. Calas Galadhon is one such place, and I also have a piece on following the entire Coast Trail, written back in 2017, not long after it had opened, and Bento was very much the in thing for SL.

As I’ve noted above, however, Calas isn’t alone in this regard, and I’ll be offering more on horse riding courtesy of SL Trailblazers in the near future.

A glass of wine at The Two Loons before continuing my ride, September 2026

But even if you don’t have a horse of your own and, many places – like Calas – offer rezzers for visitors, so you can always get started that way. And when it comes to Calas Galadhon in particular, with places like The Grumpy Troll and The Two Loons available to visit, as well as places like: Villa Eirini,then there is even more reason to mount up and head on out along the trails!

So – happy riding to all!

The Two Loons, Calas Galadhon, September 2026

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