Author: Inara Pey

Note: for convenience, all SLurls to core SL17B event spaces and Shop and Hop can be found at the end of this article.

Second Life marks its 17th anniversary in 2020, with a week-long celebration of music, entertainment, art and more across 23 regions, seven of which are given over to exhibits from Second Life residents and through the companion Shop and Hop event.

Events officially kick-off on Friday, June 19th, with the full opening of the SL17B regions, where celebrations will start with the SL17B Music Fest, and the Shop & Hop event. However, members of the Second Life Birthday in-world group can access the SL17B regions from Thursday, June 18th.

The following is intended to offer an overview to the main SL17B regions, including SLurls to core locations, and offer an overview to some of the events.

Fifteen of the regions are (or will be) given over to the main celebratory facilities, with seven more devoted to resident exhibitions. The main facilities comprise:

• The Auditorium – where you’ll be able to attend (among other activities) the Meet the Lindens sessions (more below).
• The Welcome Area – pick up your Linden gift and free Swaginator HUD to seek and find unique gifts scattered across the SL17B regions.
• The Main Stage – focal point for the SL17B Music Fest.
• The DJ Stage.

The Auditorium and Main Stage each have three landing points apiece, and the DJ has two – again, all SLurls can be found at the end of this piece.

In addition, the core facilities also include:

• The Tapestry of Time exhibition – more below.
• The Gift Area fun fair: grab an assortment of gifts and ride the rides – again, more below.
• The Dinosaur Park and the tram ride.
• The drive-in theatre, showing official SL videos.
• The beach and cove: sunbathe or take a swim – and maybe try some scuba diving

The best way of getting around is via the Teleport Maps, one of which is shown on the right. These can be found throughout the regions as sign boards, and the SLurls to the event regions given at the end of this article will generally land you close to one of them. Just click on an individual panel to be teleported to that location.

The theme for this year’s celebrations is “Road Trips and Vacations” – although the Lab have made it clear that exhibitors do not have to keep strictly to that theme; it is the participation that’s important. Many have, however, attempted to offer a reflection of the theme in some manner, either directly in layout and content, or through more subtle touches – Bay City Alliance, for example, offer the opportunity to discover more about their leading members within a bus station.

As is common for SLB events, the mix of content is varied, and the representation of interests broad. Role-play groups, arts, communities, are represented across the seven regions open to exhibitors; some are static, others are interactive in nature. Social and support groups like Survivors of Suicide, together with social events such as 1 Billion Rising, whilst some offer social commentary.

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Events and Activities

In terms of major events, what does SL17B hold? Well, the best way the stay abreast of all that’s going on is via the official calendar of events, which I’ve embedded below. Use the Week / Month options, top right to change the calendar view. Major events are also summarised below the calendar.

Meet the Lindens

Now a staple of SLB activities, Meet the Lindens features the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of, employees of Linden Lab at 14:00 SLT, Monday 22nd June through Friday, 26th June at the SL17B Auditorium.

You can find out more about who is taking part this year in my blog post, Meet the Lindens at SL17B – who and when, however, the schedule for the sessions is given below for ease of reference.

In addition, you can learn more about staff at Linden Lab by following the the SL17B Employee Social Media Campaign available on the forums and through outlets such as the official Second Life Twitter account

SL17B Music Fest

The SL17B Music Fest will take place on Friday and Saturday June 19th/20th at the Main Stage. The line-up of performers is:

Other Points of Interest

The Tapestry of Time

First presented in 2018, the region-wide Tapestry of Time presents visitor with a walk-through of Second Life’s history from 2003 through to the present day using images, text and videos. True, not everything has been recorded, but there’s enough within the region to be of interest to the historically minded.

The Gifting Area Fun Fair

The SL17B Gifting Area offers over 150 gifts from the Birthday exhibitors and from merchants participating in the Shop & Hop event. Gifts include several exclusive breedables and other commemorative pieces to celebrate Second Life turning 17!

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Linden Homes Preview Region

Once again, the Second Life Birthday celebration will include a special preview of the next Linden Homes theme that will be released by the Lab. A teaser image from Patch Linden to his Flickr stream has set off a lot of speculation in the Linden Homes forum thread on whether the new theme is something like beach houses or a refresh of / addition to the original Traditional Homes theme released in the first batch of the Bellisseria Linden Homes.

Patch will only say people should await his Meet the Lindens session on Tuesday, June 23rd for more – at which point the new preview region will be dropped into the SL17B estate – and I’ll obviously have a report!

SL17B Shop & Hop

As well as the SL17B celebratory regions, there’s also the Shop & Hop event. Opening on June 19th and running through until July 12th, 2020, it takes place in the familiar Second Life shopping event mall. For SL17B, Shop & Hop covers 10 shopping regions, each with 20 stores per region, making for a total of 200 merchants in all. Each merchant will have at least a 20% discount on all items, and some will have a gift people can pick up for free either at their Sop & Hop store or at the SL17B Gifting Area fun fair.

Refer to the complete list of participating merchants for more – including store SLurls!

Advice On A Better Experience

The SL17B regions – celebratory and Shop & Hop can get exceptionally busy. To help ease the pain for you:

• If you have a high draw distance, reduce it to 128m (or less if required).
• Turn off shadows in your viewer if you usually have them enabled.
• Go to Preferences → Graphics and reduce the slider Max # Non-Imposter Avatars to a minimum.
• Remove texture-heavy HUDs to free-up more texture memory.
• To assist the simulator, remove unnecessary scripted attachments.
• If you are using Firestorm and still encountering issues, try going to Preferences Graphics → Rendering and:
  • If you are running a 64-bit version of the viewer, make sure Restrict Maximum Texture Resolution to 512px (will require a viewer restart).
  • Use the Max Texture Quality Level drop-down to set texture rendering quality to Mid.

SLurls and Links

SLurls will be available to members of the Second Life Birthday group on Thursday, June 18th, and to all Second Life residents from 09:00 SLT on Friday, June 19th.

The 17th anniversary of Second Life’s opening to the public at large – SL17B – is just around the corner (official starting on Friday, June 19th, with a preview for members of the SL17B group on Thursday, June 18th). And, as has been the case with SLB events over the last few years, the celebration will feature a series of Meet the Lindens sessions featuring individuals and teams from the Lab discussing their work and Second Life.

The two-hour sessions run from Monday, June 22nd through Friday, June 26th, each one commencing at 14:00 SLT. They will be held in the SL17B Auditorium (SLurls at the end of this article), with the schedule lining up as follows:

For those who may be unfamiliar with some of the above names and their areas of expertise:

• Ebbe Linden, as the Lab’s CEO since 2014, really needs no introduction. Open and honest, he has always endeavoured to keep SL residents appraised of business at the Lab – and on the management perspective of running Linden Lab and its products (SL and Tilia Pay). Should anyone want a potted biography on him however, I offer the one I pieced together when he officially joined Linden Lab.
• Patch Linden oversees the content development teams, the Mainland Land Team, and the Linden Department of Public Works As such, he oversees things like the development of the new Linden Homes continent, the Lab’s games and experiences such as Linden Realms and Horizons, and so on. He is also responsible for managing the Second Life team, and the account support team.
• Oz Linden oversees the engineering side of Second Life – this encompasses viewer development, simulator development and a lot of the back-end services required by SL (e.g. the asset service, the appearance and baking services, etc.). This includes managing the development and implementation of SL projects and features.
• The Marketing Team comprises: Brett Linden is the Lab’s Senior Director of Marketing, who has been with Linden Lab for over a decade; Darcy Linden, Senior Marketing Manager, Maveric Linden, Tara Linden and Strawberry Linden. Key facets of their work include promoting and marketing Second Life and the acquisition and retention of new users.
• Meet the Moles! introduced at SL16B, and gives Second Life residents a chance to learn more about the Moles – the Linden Department of Public Works – other residents who work in support of Linden Lab and Second Life in a variety of ways (such as building the regions for SL17B) and are paid for doing so.

The sessions will be hosted by Saffia Widdershins, and will be streamed via the Lab’s channels on YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, and Periscope. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have a written summary of each session for those who find watching video / listening to audio difficult. These summaries will also likely include audio extracts of any key comments made.

Additional information can be found in the Destination Guide Meet the Lindens pages.

Auditorium SLurls

Note that all SLurls will not be operational until the official “soft” and “hard” openings of the celebrations.

• Auditorium #1
• Auditorium #2
• Auditorium #3