Fantasy Faire 2015, in support of Relay for Life of Second Life, will open the portals on its seventh successive year on Thursday, April 23rd, 2015, and they will remain open through until Sunday, May 3rd, 2015 inclusive.
The largest fantasy-related event to take place in Second Life, the Faire brings together fantasy enthusiasts, creators, performers and designers for ten days of commerce, special events, live music concerts across the Fairelands, all for a common cause and to celebrate the worlds of fantasy and adventure.
Regions and Designers
The ten themed regions were recently been announced, together with their designers, sponsors and key stores:
An official poster for Fantasy Faire 2015
Aurora: designed by by Beq Janus, sponsored by NeoVictoria. “On a world plunged into ice age, men of science seek answers in the ethereal shimmering of the planets energy field. Meanwhile the Mystics tell tales of the unweaver at whose feet they lay the blame for their ice-age, their hopes for salvation lie in legends of heroes, ancient tales of lands across the dimensions, their faith hangs on finding the lost knowledge that can bring forth the confluence. The two factions, poles apart in their beliefs are about come together as myth and machine meet beneath the Northern Lights.”
Ichi-go Ichi-e: designed by Sharni Azalee and Marcus Inkpen, sponsored by The Looking Glass. “Let your imagination fly you to a land where anything is possible. Walk on water among pink clouds in this surreal landscape where large sakura flowers and other exotic flora tower over you in a beautiful dream forest of pinks and grays and fawn.”
Odyssey: designed by Alia Baroque, sponsored by Fallen Gods Inc. “As you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that your journey be a long one, filled with adventure, filled with discovery” – Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth.
Poppetsborough: designed by Luna Barak, Alrunia Ahn and Kyra Reiter, sponsored by Dandelion Daydreams Factory. “Enter a storybook world with the emphasis on the book. Have your favorite stories pop to life as you walk into the book and become the characters of your favourite fairytales.”
Spires of Andolys: designed by Jaimy Hancroft and Eowyn Swords, sponsored by Dwarfins. “Crooked little fantasy styled houses inspired by the fairytales of your childhood. Centered around a magnificent castle that would be the envy of Sleeping Beauty. Careful though, the castle guards a secret dungeon hidden deep within its bowels where the darkest villains are forever forgotten.”
Sylvan of Spells: designed by Sweetgwendoline Bailey and Eldowyn Inshan, sponsored by Merchants of Dreams 2015. “Enchanted grove where our stories are collected and nurtured by mystic librarians. Books, scrolls and parchment litter the ground, the debris of the Forest of Enlightenment.”
Tangleshimmer Grove: designed by Searlait Nitschke, sponsored by Roawenwood.”Deep in the heart of the wood is the secret place of Fairies. Golden light bathes the lush green as flowers dance and the early morning dew lays a glistening shimmer over the world.”
Valacia: designed by Mayah Parx, sponsored by Epic Toys. “A floating market town, a bustling trade hub where denizens of the Fairelands come to trade for even the most obscure of items. Dark & weather-beaten, all matter of constructions criss-cross the waters to keep this hodgepodge of shacks,stalls and barges afloat. Magical mysteries abound in this haven for traders and thieves alike.”
Valley of Ish’Nar, Fantasy Faire 2013
Wildehaven Marsh: designed by Rynn Verwood, sponsored by Solarium. “Settled at the edge of a lake, the village was created centuries ago, as a safe haven for those who practised magic. An air of abandonment floats over the town now, however don’t be fooled, its magic is still much alive as one can see in the soft glows shining through the ivy covered windows.”
YoZakura: designed by Nya Alchemi, sponsored by Fuubutsu Dou. “In the late hours of the night, visit the Japanese Hanami Festival and dream… Traveller behold As Midnight courts the Moon and Cherry blossoms dance.”
Event sponsors for 2015 so far include: -AZUL-, Boudoir, Curious Kitties, Dark Unicorns of Lovelace, Death Row Designs, Junbug, L’Uomo, The Muses, ORIONITE, OtherSkin, Plastik, Safe Waters Foundation, Sanctuary RP Community, Spyralle, Stitched., The Forge, and The White Armory.
As noted in my last update for Fantasy Faire 2015, store registrations are currently open for those designers wishing to participate in the event – but spaces on the regions are filling-up fast!
DJ Registrations
Music has always been a special part of Fantasy Faire, and 2015 is no exception. Fantasy Faire Radio is now taking applications from DJs who are willing to be a part of the on-air team through the event.
If you are a DJ who can commit time to one of more 2-hour sets on air at the Faire, please fill-out the application form ASAP, as slots are limited!
It’s time to kick-off another week of fabulous story-telling in voice, brought to Second Life and Kitely by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library.
As always, all times SLT / PDT, and unless otherwise stated, events will be held on the Seanchai Library’s home on Imagination Island, or at their Kitely Homeworld.
Sunday, March 22nd
11:00: Seanchai Kitely: Gorak the Gobbler
An original tale written and read by Caledonia Skytower (grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai).
12:00 Noon: Happy Birthday Seanchai!
A special 90-minutes session at Seanchai Library SL, with stories and readings to celebrate the Library’s seventh anniversary, followed by dancing with DJ Aoife!
Some Seanchai library facts:
Seanchai Library was founded in March 20018 by Derry McMahon in Second Life, and the Library’s Chief Storyteller, Shandon Loring, told the first story as he has gone on to do with each branch that the group has opened
Since March 2008, Seanchai Library has presented over 2000 individual titles, stories, and selections from fiction, essays, and poetry, representing an estimated 2070 one hour story sessions between March 2008 and March 2015, presented solely be volunteers
Between January 2011 and January 2015, Seanchai Library made charitable donations totally $2,853 to 16 non-profit organisations around the world, doing good work in a variety of areas including environmental heath, housing, education, peace, social justice, and wildlife preservation
Seanchai’s recent EXPLORE The Great Gatsby pilot program reached over 1500 patrons and guests through its partner, Tacoma Little Theatre, during preshow and at intermission of its production of The Great Gatsby, as well as over 100 Hypergrid visitors from around the world, including residents of Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and various parts of the United States. Visit the EXPLORE. website for more information on this fascinating project
Seanchai events in Second Life generate an average of 70 unique visits a week, for a total of approximately 3640 visits annually.
Cata Charisma continues his reading of John Stephens’ The emerald Atlas, the first volume in his fantasy trilogy for young adults, The Books of Beginning.
Having been passed from pillar to post through orphanages, three siblings, Kate, Emma, and Michael, find themselves lodged at the home of one Dr. Stanislaus Pym. Kate, the eldest of the three is driven by a promise made by her mother, that if Kate protects her younger sister and brother, then their family will be one day reunited.
But in their explorations of Dr. Pym’s house the three of them find their way into the basement, where they come across a mysterious door and a equally mysterious emerald-covered booth, entirely without text. When an old photograph touches the blank pages of the book, however, the three are immediately transported to the time and place depicted in the photograph. Her they find themselves in a realm populated by witches, henchmen, giants, dwarves and more – and one Dr. Stanislaus Pym, a good deal younger than when they last saw him in his house…
19:00: Starswarm
Starswarm Station is a remote research station established to study strange alien life. The planet on which it is located is the home of the starswarm, intelligent plants living under the planet’s shallow lakes and seas, and roaming bands of centaur-like creatures dubbed “haters”.
The station is also home to Kip, a teenage boy living under the guardianship of his “uncle”. However, as Kip begins to discover, he has another guardian: Gwen, an AI system his mother had been working on, prior to her death, and which communicates with Kip via a small implant placed inside his brain at birth.
Gwen knows far more about the planet and the lifeforms it harbours than Kip could imagine. It also knows a lot about the company that runs the station and, for all intents and purposes, “owns” the planet on which it sits.
Slowly, Gwen reveals these various truths to Kip, including his own destiny. But in doing so, it puts Kip, and potentially the entire station, at risk.
Join Gyro Muggins as he concludes a reading of Jerry Pournelle’s 1998 novel intended for teenage readers but which offers an interesting look at subjects such as neural nets and living computer systems.
Tuesday March 24th, 19:00: A Walk in the Woods
By his own admission, Bill Bryson isn’t the world’s greatest adventurer. This being the case, you’d think he’d have serious misgivings about undertaking this particular “walk in the woods”, as he disarmingly calls it: taking the 3,500 kilometre (2,200 mile) Appalachian Trail – a journey which would take five months to complete.
Travelling with his good friend “Stephen Katz”, the book is both a humorous guide to the trail and a set of serious and insightful comments / discussion on the trail’s history as it winds its way from Georgia (where Bryson was living at the time the book was written in 1998), to Maine. These discussions cover a broad range of subject including the sociology, ecology, trees, plants, animals and people of the states through which the trail passes (Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine).
Join Kayden Oconnell as he resumes retracing Bryson’s footsteps through the pages of this classic.
Wednesday March 25th, 19:00: The Real Winnie!
Join Caledonia Skytower as she presents the story of a truly one-of-a-kind bear who helped inspire the character of Winnie the Pooh!
Thursday March 26th, 19:00: Celtic Myths and Magick
With Shandon Loring.
Saturday, March 28th, 12:00 Noon: Seanchai InWorldz Opens!
Mark the date in your diaries, and check the Seanchai Library blog for more news nearer the date! I’ll have more on this is due course!
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Please check with the Seanchai Library SL’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule. The featured charity for January / early March is Project Children, teaching and building peace in Northern Ireland, one child at a time.
Central Park North and South, Fashion for Life: two regions in the midst of seven fashion capitals of the world where you can catch your breath, attend fashion shows and enjoy music and entertainment. Regions designed by Spankmy Boucher and Sofia Corleone; sponsored by Miss SL Organisation
Saturday, March 21st marks the start of Fashion for Life 2015, a full week of non-stop, boundary-breaking, uplifting, shop-till-you-drop, dazzling entertaining events and more, all as a part of the 2015 Relay for Life season.
As I reported in my last update, this year’s event will allow you to visit the great fashion centres of the world – Milan, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Berlin – and experience the best and greatest in virtual world fashion and couture. Throughout each region will be lots to see and enjoy, starting at 10:00 SLT on Saturday, March 21st, and ending at 23:00 on Sunday, March 29th.
Paris, Fashion For Life – where better to start your world tour than the glorious boulevard of the Champs-Élysées? Region designed by Kaya Angel; sponsored by Chop Zuey Couture
I was fortunate enough to be granted a special preview of the regions ahead of the opening, and having toured them I can say quite honestly that where all of the Fashion for Life builds are always as amazing as the event itself, this year is very special. Travelling through each of the nine regions, I felt as if I were on a world tour, starting from my own “back door” of London.
Tokyo, Fashion For Life – a fusion of the ancient and modern in a bustling metropolis just right for shopping. Region designed by Ryo Ixxel and Ouka Ugajin; sponsored by ::Gabriel::
Fashion shows
FFL will feature a series of fashion shows throughout the week, all of which will take place at Central Park South. As usual, all times SLT:
Saturday, March 21st, 14:00: 1st Styling Challenge, MISS SL 2015 by MISS SL Organisation on the theme Why do you relay?
Sunday, March 22nd, 10:00: Limited Edition Fashion Show by AIM Impression Modelling
Monday, March 23rd, 16:00: Fashion show by BLVD Fashion House
Tuesday, March 24th, 16:00: Fashion show by aQuarela Models
Wednesday, March 25th, 16:00 Fashion show by SCALA Models Agency
Thursday, March 26th, 16:00: Fashion show by PENUMBRA
Friday, March 27th, 16:00: Fashion show by The queenS
Saturday, March 28th, 10:00: 2nd styling challenge MISS SL 2015 by MISS SL Organisation
Milan, Fashion For Life – the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II awaits you! Region designed by MaximilianIII Massenberg; sponsored by Sage
Music and Entertainment
The entertainment through the week promises to be something special as well, and I’ve been given some highlights of the activities which will be taking place at Central Park North. Again, all times SLT:
Saturday March 21st
10:00: Opening
12:00 noon: Seth Regan
13:00: DJ Blake Hambleton
16:00: BBOY_DAN dance group
Sunday, March 22nd
12:00 noon: DJ Boniefacio
13:00: Kyle Sbra angel – live
15:15: T1 Radio
Los Angeles Fashion For Life – “Come fly With Me”, Frank Sinatra once sang while signed to Capitol Records, and you can go flying in Regi Yifu’s stunning Los Angeles build, sponsored by Zaodyeck Magazine
Monday, March 23rd
13:00: Currently TBD
14:00: DJ Blake Hambleton
Tuesday, March 24th
13:00: DJ Theo (Zimny)
14:00: “The Jersey Boys” by the Kittens and Tigers Dance Group
Berlin, Fashion For Life – The Brandenburg Gate stands tall over proceedings. Region designed by Setsuna Infinity; sponsored by Yasum Designs
Wednesday, March 25th
13:00: DJ Boniefacio
14:00: Lady Garden Cabaret Dance Troupe – Chandra Meehan
Thursday, March 26th
13:00: Anek Fuchs – live
14:00 pm DJ Zimny Zane
London, Fashion For Life – cross Tower Bridge as you make your way around the world, but don’t miss the Gachas when you do! Region design by Rebeca Bashly; sponsored by Argrace
Special Events
In addition to the above, the Fashion Hunt will be held across the two Central Park regions, and include many items generously donated by creators and designers. so – Happy Hunting!
The London region is home to the FFL Gachas for 2015 – so don’t forget to visit Tower Bridge!
Please note that all SLurls contained in the article will not be open to the public until Fashion For Life officially opens its doors on Saturday, March 21st, at 10:00 SLT.
New York, Fashion For Life – round off your trip in support of FFL and RFL of SL with a bite of the Big Apple; region design by Sofia Corleone; sponsored by Zanze
On Wednesday, March 18th, Ebbe Altberg gave the keynote presentation at the 8th annual Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education conference, which runs through until Saturday, March 21st inclusive, in both Second Life and OpenSimulator.
Ebbe Altberg: opening keynote at the 2015 Virtual worlds Best Practice in Education conference, March 18th
His key address lasted a little over an hour, in which he outlined the Lab’s approach to education and non-profits, provided some insight into what Lab’s future plans, and discussed further information on the Next Generation platform. Following this, he entered into a Q&A session, which ran beyond the main session time, switching from voice to text chat in the process.
The following is a transcript of his initial comments and review of the Lab’s relationship with the education sector, his overview of Second Life as it is today, a look to the future, and his concluding comments. I have produced a separate transcript dealing with his comments on the next generation platform.
As well as including the official video, embedded below, I’ve included audio playback of each part of Ebbe’s talk for those who prefer to listen while reading. Timestamps to both the audio segments and the video are provided.
[00:00 / 02:55] First off, I’m really, really happy to be back at the VWBPE. Last year, I was pretty much brand new at Linden Lab, and we’ve had a year since then, and a lot of good and interesting things have happened that we’ll talk about. Like you heard in the introduction, we’re going to leave plenty of time at the end for Q&A so that we can talk about all [the] things that are on your minds.
Changes at the Lab
[00:38 / 03:34] So, since last year there have been a lot of changes at the Lab, We have simplified the portfolio of products that we are working on. Since I was here last year, we’ve discontinued work on six products [actually five (that were known about): Creatorverse, dio, and versu, and Patterns and Desura].
The little “Dorito man” headed off into the sunset in October, as Patterns followed Creatorverse, dio and Versu in being axed from the Lab’s nascent product portfolio. It was followed in November by news that Desura had been sold.
[01:02 / 04:00] So we have a much more focused company now, and we’re focused on things that are all relevant to user generated content, either through Second Life, or blocksworld, or through this next generation platform you have yet to see but we’re working on very, very hard to bring to you all.
[01:21 / 04:30] So focus has greatly improved. The other thing I wanted to talk about is some of the improvements made in Second Life. Performance and quality has greatly improved over the course of the last year, with the CDN work and the HTTP pipelining work some of you may have heard of, which should make access to worlds snappier than it used to be. i still feel we still have a lot to do to make it even more performant, but we’ve made great strides in that area.
[02:04 / 05:01] We also brought you the ability to experience Second life with the Oculus, so you can get sort-of an introduction to virtual reality if you have a chance to get your hands on an Oculus device.
The Lab’s Relationship with Users
[02:19 / 05:18] And we’ve also, I think, made a lot of improvements in how we market ourselves, how we’re connecting with you and many other customers and different audiences. I would say that when I showed up here a year ago, the relationship between the Lab and customers and partner was not great; and I think that’s improved greatly. We’ve spent quite a bit of effort, particularly Pete and myself, but also many other Lindens, socialising with you all, talking to you about what we can do better, how we can do things differently, better understand what you’re trying to accomplish. and so I think today, the relationships between us and you are much improved.
The Media, SL and VR
[03:19 / 06:18] We’ve spent quite a bit [of time] talking to the press; Pete and I have spoken to many. I would say a year ago, that was a difficult thing to do; Second Life was seen as old and not particularly relevant. Since the, we’ve had a tremendous boom and boost in all things virtual reality. It sort-of kicked-off with the big acquisition Facebook did when they acquired Oculus for two billion, and when the world started to realise that virtual reality was something that could be achievable much sooner than people [who] had been working in this area had previously thought. So there has been a massive acceleration in people’s mind of what virtual reality can and will do.
[04:16 / 07:15] So now it’s pretty easy to find people who want to talk to us, whether partners or press, about what we’re doing, and people are realising that our experience running Second Life is actually extremely valuable now that virtual reality and virtual worlds are all a sort-of hot topic again. So it’s very exciting for all of us to have the rest of the world sort-of get re-introduced and re-energised by what’s possible in virtual reality.
The Lab and the Education Community
[04:50 / 07:50] We’ve also spent quite a bit of time focusing and understanding education specifically in the context of Second Life, and also understanding it so that we can do a better job with our next generation platform to meet your needs in even better ways. And it’s absolutely clear that the capabilities of 3D and virtual experiences such as visualisation and simulation, and the ability to interact within those environments is an extremely strong component of how we can improve learning and teaching.
[05:33 / 08:32] We see evidence over and over again of how it’s proven that people can more quickly understand subject matter, content and experiences much better and much faster with much better retention of information, if they can experience something in a virtual context where they can do things, not just read or watch.
300+ Organisations and Success Stories
[06:00 / 08:58] We have well over 300 organisations that are taking advantage of our discount programme for educators and non-profits. I think there used to be more than that in the past, and we’re looking forward to making that grow back as we do a better job of meeting your needs.
[06:26 / 09:24] And we continue to hear over and over again just great stories from the community of educators about what they’re doing in Second Life, the success they’re having in Second Life to teach and learn all kinds of subjects from languages to chemistry to economics to health. The stories just keep going and going, and that’s really motivating for us to hear these success stories.
[06:56 / 09:54] And we started a thread on our forum, and I know there’s quite a few stories elsewhere out there, especially on [the] VWBPE.org site. so please continue to share these stories and successes with us; it helps motivate people, it energises us, and also helps us learn what we can do to help you be even more successful.
Collaborating with the Community and Prioritising Needs
[07:25 / 10:24] Like I said, we’ve spent quite a bit of time collaborating and communicating with various groups in the educational community in Second Life, and that’s absolutely great. It’s a great group of people to interact with, and often times I’ve asked these groups to work together to come up with the things that they find [as] the most important things for us to work on.
[07:54 / 10:53] Sometimes it can be difficult for us to filter all of the ideas and wishes and needs from a community as large as yours, and when you take the time to collaborate among yourselves to further refine priorities and needs for us, it helps a lot. We have to do less guesswork to understand what really matters to you all.
[08:19 / 11:17] I’d particularly like to thank Serenek Timeless, Aldo Stern, JJ Drinkwater Lorelei Juno who, at the end of last year took that request to heart and talked to … more than 60 educators to come up with a sort-of prioritised list of issues and concerns and opportunities for us to think about and focus on to help you all. so I’ll speak to some of these, and what I don’t speak to, obviously feel free to ask questions about afterwards in the Q&A session.
Platform Pricing and Discounts
[08:57 / 11:56] One thing that comes up quite frequently, and probably because we’ve made mistakes in the past, is the question about pricing. I just want to make it very clear that we have absolutely no intention of repeating the mistake we did in the past of removing the discount or increasing the pricing.
[09:17 / 12:15] So we have absolutely nointention whatsoever to make it more costly for you.
[09:22 / 12:21] We spend no time thinking how to make it more costly for you. We spend actually quite a bit of time thinking about how we can make it less costly for you; and it might be difficult to do in the context of Second Life, but we will try. But as we think about the next generation platform, this is something that’s thought about from the beginning, about how we can make it more economically feasible for more people to participate.
Content Creation and Creators
[09:51 / 12:49] Another thing that comes up is the ability to easily create content. you know, simplified building and scripting capabilities so that all users can create something.
[10:07 /13:06] We do think of creators in sort-of three categories of users that we believe we have to meet the needs of. You have the sort-of artisan or professional people that can create some really high-end experiences. We have the hobbyist, which I would say is where there’s a lot of them in Second life, who don’t necessarily have a formal background in 3D or animation or CGI, but are able to use Second life to create incredible things.
[10:43 / 13:41] And then we have the vast majority of people, who we call “customisers”; they don’t necessarily create original content, but they take bits and pieces by shopping or finding or being given items that they can then place, whether it’s to get dressed or to make their space laid-out just as they like it. So they don’t necessarily make the chair, but they put the chair where they want it. It’s sort-of like real life; most of us don’t build the clothes and cars and homes that we live in and use every day. We’re customisers, most of us; we get dressed in clothes that others make, and that’s probably how it’s going to be in the virtual space as well.
[11:30 / 14:28] We do want to make it as easy as possible for people to create content and contribute content. and I don’t expect there to be huge changes in Second life in this area, although we are working to improve the ability to import content from the outside world.
[11:50 / 14:48] As we think about the next generation platform, which I will talk about more later on, we’ll make a number of difference I’ll speak about then. But the scripting language will change, support for third-party will be very important to us; but I’ll talk about that in a bit.
New User Experience (1)
[12:08 / 15:06] Another thing [is] an improved and customisable new user experience, including entry points. This is something I’ve spoken about before. We feel it’s important to make it very easy for the creators of an experience to be able to attract an audience to come directly to that experience without the need of having to go through some generic front door to get going.
The Lab wishes to move away from the idea of a centralised, generic new user experience within the next gen platform, to something over which experience creators have more control – this might filter into Second Life
[12:39 / 15:37] And so we will continue to think about that in the context of Second Life, of how can we bring back notions we’ve had in the past of community portals or some such, and also how SL URLs, or SLurls, can be optimised to be [a] more efficient way of bringing users directly into a particular place. I would say the SLurl today is kind-of a crooked path to come on-board from from the outside world.
[13:10 / 16:09] So we want to improve all these things, so it is easier for all of you to bring users into the experiences you want them to come into.
On Wednesday, March 18th, Ebbe Altberg gave the keynote presentation at the 8th annual Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference, which runs from March 18th through 21st inclusive, in both Second Life and OpenSimulator.
Ebbe Altberg: opening keynote at the 2015 Virtual worlds Best Practice in Education conference, March 18th
His key address lasted a little over an hour, in which he outlined the Lab’s approach to education and non-profits, provided some insight into what Lab’s future plans, and discussed further information on the Next Generation platform. Following this, he entered into a Q&A session, which ran beyond the main session time, switching from voice to text chat in the process.
The following is a transcript of his core comments on the Lab’s next generation platform. These commence at the 31:20 mark into the official video of the event, although obviously, mention is made of both in reference to education earlier on in his presentation, as Ebbe discusses education, issues of accessibility, etc. I’ve included audio excerpts here as well, for further ease of listening to his comments whilst reading. Time stamps to both the audio tracks and the video are supplied.
Ebbe Linden as he appeared in-world at the VWBPE 2015 conference
On the Name
[00:00 / 31:20] So, the future platform for virtual experiences. We’ve said that the next generation platform, we still don’t have a name for this thing; we have a code name internally, but we don’t want to leak that out or use that, because that could just be confusing and distracting, and it’s probably going to change soon anyway. So we just refer to it as “the next generation platform”.
[00:21 / 31:42] We do notrefer to it as “SL 2.0”, because that might imply a little too much linearity, and we don’t want to necessarily constrain ourselves by the past; but we also want to obviously take advantage of, and leverage, our learnings from the past.
Progress to Date
[00:39 / 31:38] But the progress is going every well. I would say we’re about 8-9 months in on working on this; I would say the last six months have been absolute, full-on with a big crew. We’re talking close to 40 people or more; probably 30+ just engineers, and then obviously a bunch of product managers and designers working on this product.
New User Discovery and Experience
[01:12 / 33:33] And there’s a number of areas where we think about it quite differently from Second Life, and we did spend quite a lot of time thinking about why did Second Life hit the ceiling, if you will. You know, many years ago it peaked at 1.1 million monthly users and these days it’s around 900,000, so it’s not a huge difference from the highs and where we are today,
[01:38 / 32:59] But why didn’t it go to five million, ten million, 100 million? And what can we do to solve some of the things we thought caused it to sort-of max out there?
The Lab is hoping their next generation platform will bridge the gap between niche and mass adoption. This may prove easier said than done
[01:52 / 33:11] One area where we want to think quite differently is discovery; how do I discover an experience? Today you pretty much have to be inside Second Life to discover an experience, and we want to make it a lot easier for people to be able to discover an experience from the outside. So that you can create an experience, and [people can] much more easily find your experience and enter your experience without having to necessarily at that point being aware of the notion of this platform or what other types of things are available to them. They can discover those as they go along. Make it easier for you to bring your audience directly into your experiences.
Platform Accessibility
[02:36 / 33:55] Accessibility. Today, when you leave your PC, you pretty much leave Second Life behind, [so] what can we do to make sure it’s available on more platforms? It’s obviously getting more complicated now with all these VR platforms, so what used to be PC, windows and Mac, which we support today; and then mobile, which you can get access to today if you use a third-party service like SL Go or some other clients that support mobile.
[03:10 / 34:29] But we want to think about mobile as something we can support form the beginning; but again, the number of platforms across mobile, PCs and VR … [there’s] more and more of them. so it’s tough to keep up. So we are building a next generation platform from the ground up to make possible for us to take advantage of all these different platforms.
Scalability and Creativity
[03:37 / 34:57] Scalability. This is a really important one; an event like this highlights it. There’s a tremendous amount of effort that goes into putting on a meeting like this with just a couple of hundred people in-world. We have to put together four corners and you have to do a lot of work, and it’s still creaking at the seams as we speak, to put something like this on.
[04:06 / 35:25] We want [with the] next generation platform to make the size of an event like this to be a trivial exercise, and then figure out how, with various techniques, to make it possible to do events like this for tens of thousands of people.
[04:26 / 35:46] That’s one way to think of scalability: how do you get more people in a region, how do you get more people to be able to participate in an event at the same time. but [there’s] also the scalability for creators. How do you make it possible for creators to not only be able to reach a larger audience, but also make more money, too.
[04:44 / 36:14] Take the classroom that Texas A&M put together for teaching kids chemistry. The developers of that experience of teaching chemistry, they probably did as a one-off, for some fee, job for Texas A&M to create that classroom. When the classroom is used by students at Texas A&M, you know, 20 students, whatever, then that experience is fully in use.
[05:22 / 36:41] What if that developer could have an unlimited number of copies of that experience to rent out or sell, and every institution could use that virtual classroom all at the same time? That makes for a much more appealing prospect for a creator of an experience, and gives them a greater opportunity to monetise their experience. And then we’ll get more high-quality content creators introduced into the economy, and then everything sort-of heads upwards. So that’s something we think about a lot.
Quality and Ease of Use: Physics, Avatar Design, Shopping
[05:56 / 37:16] We also think about quality. Quality is a range of things: ease of use, quality of physics, lighting, basic performance of how smooth are things, how easy is it to do things, how natural an avatar can we make.
[06:21 / 37:41] The skeleton system in the new avatars we’re working on are way, way, way, more complex than what we have in Second Life.
[06:29 / 37:48] How can we make it easier for people to shop and get dressed and do these types of activities with much higher visual fidelity at the same time. So we think a lot about that.
Revenue Generation for the Lab
[06:46 / 38:05] And then monetisation – the way we [Linden Lab] monetise. I’d say our business model is a little be strange in Second Life today. We charge you a lot for land, and then we charge you almost nothing for all of the transactions that happen in-world. So, I’ve said this before, but generally we think about how do we lower our property taxes by a lot and at the same time, we’ll have to raise sales taxes to make some of the difference.
[07:15 / 38:35] And then also how can we build a platform that [is] technically less demanding, so that it costs us less to operate all of this content that we’re running all of the time, so that we can have a lower barrier to entry, and make it possible for people to come it and create some really interesting things at very low cost. And so that’s a big focus for us. How can we make less money per user, almost, but have a lot more users, is kind-of the core of the puzzle we’re trying to solve for.
Update: As per iSkye Silverweb’s comment below, it appears that plans have changed since I was originally informed of the event, and the film will now not be screened at the Sojourner Auditorium as stated. However, the panel discussion, commencing at approximately 20:00 SLT will be. If you wish to watch the film, Drax will be streaming it.
Login2Life is one of the most engaging and inspirational documentaries made about virtual worlds. Almost four years in the making, and originally released in 2011, Daniel Moshel’s film follows people from around the world who spend their time engaged in the virtual worlds of Second Life and World of Warcraft.
While it has had numerous broadcasts in Europe (notably in Germany), and a number of You Tube encores, it has never “officially” been premiered in the United States. However, as I recently reported, all this will change on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th 2015, when Login2Life is screened at the JCC Manhattan as a part of the 2015 Reel Abilities Film Festival.
The open-air Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability Island, will host the in-world showing of Login2Life on Tuesday, March 17th, 2015, at 17:30 SLT and will be the venue for the SL side of the SL / RL post-presentation discussion
To mark this event there will be a simultaneous showing of the film at Virtual Ability’s Sojourner Auditorium, set to commence at approximately 17:30 SLT.
Both screenings will be followed by a special cross-over Q&A session, which will seen Login2Life director Daniel Moshel, film participant and founder of Virtual Ability, Gentle Heron and the film’s soundtrack composer, Draxtor Despres, all in-world at the Sojourner Auditorium, where they will address questions from the audience at the JCC Manhattan, under the moderation of anthropologist and film-maker Faye Ginsburg, assisted by our own Avajean Westland.
If you haven’t seen Login2Life before, this is a most excellent opportunity for you to see one of the most engaging films on the subject of virtual worlds and the people who participate in them yet to have been produced.; a film I cannot commend strongly enough, and which I originally reviewed in 2011. Not to be missed.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 