Category: News

Seeking new horizons: Humble and Short talk new products and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

Games Industry today carries an interview with Rod Humble and Emily Short. Along the way, Humble discloses what drew him to Linden Lab in the first place.

Humble’s reasons for joining the company are enlightening – he’d actually forgotten about the platform and had been thinking of developing something along the same lines when the opportunity to join Linden Research popped-up. A nice example of serendipity in action.

Since joining Linden Research, Humble’s focus has been on the platform’s usability, which the article describes as being “far from perfect” – something many users would doubtless regard as an understatement. While there is still a good way to go in making things “better”, only the churlish would refuse to accept there haven’t been improvements in a number of areas, and that Linden Lab is working to get some deep-rooted issues – stability, performance, region crossings, even (dare I say it) the official Viewer – properly addressed.

There are also some comments that are liable to have users cringing in some quarters. Humble’s comments on gaming mechanics in particular may well offer little comfort to some as to the future of the platform. While SL may not itself be a game, it is a perfectly valid platform upon which users can develop games of their own if they so wish. Indeed, one might argue many have been doing precisely that almost since the platform entered open beta 10 years ago. That LL are now making the capabilities to do so easier to use is demonstration that the company is working meet user demands and provide more effective means by which the platform can be leveraged by users themselves.

As well as wanting to get issues around SL’s usability sorted out, Humble reveals that one of his overall goals would be to expand LL’s portfolio of products – to put the “Lab” back into “Linden Lab”. Reading this, one is tempted to wonder if this desire formed a part of his  pitch for the CEO position, and was thus one of the reasons he was hired. Thirteen years with just a single product is a remarkable achievement for any company – but it is also a precarious position to hold.

In terms of the acquisition of LittleTextPeople, it appears to be something of a natural symbiosis more than a straight buy-out: Humble / LL were working in a particular direction and at the end of last year it became apparent that Short and Evans were working towards the same destination. Thus, the acquisition was to their mutual advantage. It’s also interesting to note that the Humble / Short / Evans relationship is a lot deeper than the EA Games link between Humble and Evans many of pointed to when news of the acquisition broke.

As to the product itself, little is said in detail, but what is mentioned helps frame the product more clearly. It will be primarily text-based with 2D graphics. It will be a story form, but deal with social interactions – how people treat each other and what say to one another. Most intriguingly of all however, is that it appears the product will be capable of supporting user-generated content. “Although it will launch with some very, very well crafted content, the overall plan – just like all Linden lab products – is to democratise the actual creation process. Other people will be able to make things on that platform. That’s really the business we’re in: building platforms that allow people to express themselves in different ways.” Humble informs Games Industry when mentioning the product.

Of the other two products currently being developed at the Lab, even less is said other than the intimation they will also support user-generated content – although Humble did hint this would be the case when the development of new products was first announced at SLCC-2011. However, this is the first time we’ve had it directly confirmed that three products are currently in the pipeline. Again, Humble has only previously hinted at this in a comment on New World Notes, wherein he made reference to the LTP project being “Product 3”, and there being a “Product 2” under way at the Lab as well – although at the time, some did speculate as to whether “Product 1” was perhaps Second Life.

The interview isn’t going to satisfy everyone within the SL community, but for my part, I found it a worth-while read, not so much the for the titbits of information that emerge about the upcoming new products, but because it again shines a light on Rod Humble’s thought processes and some of his strategic thinking where both the company and SL are concerned. Given the company has been pretty quiet when it comes to talking to the community as a whole on such things, it’s refreshing to gain this kind of near-candid insight, and actually does help restore one’s faith that, overall, SL is in a safe pair of hands right now – a perception that has been slipping a little of late.

Obviously, the new tools being rolled-out / developed for SL and the new products themselves aren’t going to lift LL out of the perceived mire, and it fair to stay the company is facing further clouds on the horizon –  particularly around the stormy issue of tier. But taken as a whole, this is a positive piece and carries with it the promise that we may well be hearing a lot more from LL as whole in the coming months – and that in itself will be refreshing.

Don’t just take my word for it – go read the article, and don’t miss the side-bar piece as well.

With thanks to Daniel Voyager for the pointer.

Direct Delivery: 21st March launch

Posted on by Inara Pey

In keeping with the time scale indicated by Oz Linden (as pointed to in these pages by Latif Khalifa), Direct Delivery will be launching on March 21st.

The news came via a post from CommerceTeam Linden in the Merchant’s Forum, which states:

Beginning on March 21, purchases on the Marketplace using Direct Delivery will go directly to recipient’s Received Items folder. The Received Items folder will NOT be used for other inventory transfers at this time. Magic Box purchases will continue to go to the Objects folder.

The Delivery folder will appear on the order and in all email notifications to the recipient.

At launch, we will be sharing additional details as well as updated Knowledge Base articles in all four languages supported on the Marketplace. We will also provide more details on migration.

Direct Delivery is the mechanism that will replace Magic Boxes for merchants using the SL Marketplace and which should bring improvements to the overall delivery of items purchased on the Marketplace. It has been in development now for around a year, and reached public beta in January this year, which presented the first real opportunity to report on the system in detail to a wider audience.

No Wider Use of Received Items – Yet

A core part of Direct Delivery is the Received Items panel. This was originally going to be a sub-section of the inventory floater and would be used to received items purchased on the Marketplace into your inventory. However, Linden Lab recently sought to extend the functionality of Received Items so that all new incoming items to your inventory would arrive in Received Items, essentially breaking-out the idea into a project of its own, which was not particularly well received by the community.

As a result of feedback on Received Items, and because of wider impacts of the system on SL functionality, LL have started revising aspects of the broader Received Items functionality. Because of this, and to repeat LL’s own statement, Received Items will only be used for SL Marketplace Deliveries at the March 21st launch. All other items incoming to your inventory will continue to be handled as they are now. 

Merchants have requested as to when the wider functionality might be rolled out, but LL has, at this time, declined to comment beyond re-confirming that the project is “on hold”.

While it would be nice to have a clearer roadmap as to Received Items itself, the fact that LL have listened to concerns from all parties – merchants, RLV users, those providing feedback to the initial survey and the follow-up is to be applauded, and one hopes that the dialogue will continue in the run-up to the Direct Delivery launch and thereafter through to the roll-out of the wider Received Items functionality (assuming this goes ahead), in order to ensure all potential adverse impacts are either avoided or at least reduced to manageable levels.

Problems

Direct Delivery itself, as a long-term project, both serves as demonstrating the complexities involved in making alterations to the overall SL infrastructure, and the need for open and on-going dialogue between the Lab and the merchant community / community as a whole; something that many feel has been distinctly lacking at times, with the project almost rolled-out inspect of known issues.

Even now problems potential remain, with questions still being asked about ANS functionality once Direct Delivery goes live, a subject Darrius Gothly gave considerable insight to last November. Potentially more damaging is the fact that little further communication on Direct Delivery appears to be on the cards prior to the launch, again as noted in the forum post:

At launch, we will be sharing additional details as well as updated Knowledge Base articles in all four languages supported on the Marketplace. We will also provide more details on migration

Direct Delivery is a major change in functionality, especially for merchants. While many have been involved in the development of the project and the initial “private beta” (even with its daft requirement to complete an NDA before merchants could find out what they were signing-up for) prior to the public beta, many equally have not – and precisely what has changed as a result of the public beta – if anything – many be equally unclear.

As such, there needs to be a positive communications campaign ahead of the launch in order to ensure merchants have all the information at their fingertips prior to the launch, and have time to ensure they are fully prepared for Direct Delivery going live. Similarly, a more pro-active approach to announcing the roll-out needs to be taken towards the user community as a whole – preferably through a full blog posting ahead of March 21st announcing the arrival of Direct Delivery and informing / reassuring users as to what to expect, with a follow-up on the day of the launch.

If nothing else, a more pro-active approach to the launch will help restore some of the trust between merchants and the Commerce Team / Linden Lab, which has been somewhat eroded during the development of Direct Delivery and through earlier projects, such as the morphing of XStreet into SL Marketplace (itself frequently a morass of conflicting communications) and other breakages.

I’m not alone in being concerned over the “wait until the day” approach when it comes to further information, as implied by the forum post: Tateru points to this with a comment on her blog about allowing 14 days for information absorption, and Darrius Gothly also posts on the subject as well.

It’s good that LL have been listening to concerns over Received Items and that they are responding to such fully and carefully by placing the broader aspects of the project on hold. I very much hope that they do listen to concerns being voiced around the matter of Dirrect Delivery announcements and documentation and continue to respond positively to these concerns by addressing them ahead of time, as suggested here and elsewhere.

Code change impacts RLV functionality

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update 12th March: As can be seen from the comment from Trinity below, Brooke Linden has responded to concerns over this issue, and has confirmed that the code causing it will be rolled-back from LeTigre and BlueSteel this Wednesday (RC channel release window) and won’t be re-deployed until the problem is fixed.

Kitty Barnett reports via JIRA SVC-7748, that functionality related to the InventoryAPI maintenance project adversely impacts the widely used RLV / RLVa functionality within Second Life.

RLV provides a means by which, and under controlled conditions (the user “opts-in” to the process by clicking an acceptance button), a folder is created within the #RLV folder under MY INVENTORY. Items are then delivered into the new folder, wherein a script runs to attach the items to the recipient avatar.

While this functionality does have a direct use within the BDSM community, it can have uses elsewhere as well.  However, changes rolled-out to the BlueSteel and LeTigre RC channels this week as a part of the InventoryAPI maintenance project, have inadvertently broken the functionality – the required redirection to use #RLV doesn’t occur and the associated script fails – hence JIRA SVC-7748.

The degree of impact on RLV is debatable. As Marine Kelley states within the JIRA:

On a positive note, if LL decides not to do anything and leave things as is (i.e. in a broken state), the RLV could simply check what’s coming into the “Received Items” folder and move it automatically under #RLV if the name matches. This would be transparent to the user and would overcome this breakage. 

Nevertheless, it would be preferable for LL to ensure the functionality isn’t broken in the first place (as Marine herself goes on to state).

A potential problem here is that, despite Kitty’s own efforts to point out that Received Items itself is not the problem per se, many of the comments appearing on the JIRA are further critiques of Received Items rather than a discussion of the problem as identified by the JIRA itself.

As strong as feelings are around the subject of Received Items, what is more important here is that functionality that is key to a range of user expectations / desired experiences has been inadvertently broken within LeTigre and BlueSteel, and there is a risk that this could become more widespread if the fix is rolled-out beyond these two RC channels. As such, it is important that LL hear, read and understand the core issue itself (i.e. via use-cases where the update breaks things), in order for them to try to correct the matter.

Given it is the weekend, it will likely be a while longer before any response on this matter is heard from LL – which also gives people more time to submit specific examples on the issue that outline the problem. It’s also worthwhile pointing out that LL are prepared to reconsider proposed actions – as has been demonstrated around the concern relating to llGetAgentStatus (which Oz has indicated is on-hold as a result of the number of clear-cut use-cases received), and have shown a willingness to re-think elements of Received Items based on constructive feedback from users.

Received Items: LL provide feedback

Posted on by Inara Pey

On March 1st, due to the level of concern arising from the initial beta, LL put out a call  for feedback in the form of a short survey (now closed). This weekend they provided feedback to those who participated in the survey in the form of a proposal on how the new functionality might be improved and a further request for people’s views on the proposal itself.

The notice of feedback came through a notecard from Brooke Linden which was delivered in-world via Dakota Linden. The notecard reads:

Hi all,

We’d like to thank you for your feedback on the use of the Received Items folder. Based upon the feedback, we have pulled together a similar, but hopefully improved, proposal. Please take a look and provide feedback.

After which there are links to the proposal and an additional survey.

The proposal offers the promise of some improved functionality over the initial beta, including:

  • Context-sensitive menus within Received Items that allow you move specific asset types directly to their system folder OR to the Objects folder (so that notecards can be moved directly to the Notecards folder, landmarks directly to the Landmarks folder, etc.), without the need to drag-and-drop manually
  • Selecting multiple items (as opposed to folders) within Received Items will display a similar context menu allowing the items to be moved to an appropriate folder or to the Objects folder
  • Selecting multiple folders will display a menu presenting options to move the folders either to the Objects folder or you MY INVENTORY root folder
  • The promise to “fix” current issue around offline delivery problems through the use of the Received Items folder.

There are a number of other changes outlined, some of which LL are requesting specific feedback against (for example: they are proposing capping the number of items a resident can receive in an hour to prevent the system being used for griefing, and they are looking for suggestions as to a reasonable number at which to cap hourly deliveries), as well as instigating measure that are presumably aimed at getting people to manage Received Items: such as blocking the ability to rez items directly from the panel (which may actually become a floater in its own right).

Overall, the proposal is a step forward compared to the initial beta system, but it is unlikely to address all concerns – which is why open feedback via the JIRA and on blogs / the SL forum relating to specific concerns remains important. However, what is being offered in terms of context menus, the ability to search (and hopefully sort) Received Items does make the idea something of a stronger offering, and if the system does solve issues around failed deliveries, etc., then that alone might well outweigh some of the shortcoming people might otherwise feel the system has – although there are still potential problems that need to be addressed.

It will be interesting to see how the RI project develops, and whether there are further revisions based on the feedback given to the new survey – and whether all the ideas outlined in the proposal are implemented. However, what is really important within this process is the fact that LL are demonstrating a willingness to pro-actively engage with the community and seek solutions where a fundamental change in the way most people work with SL is seen to be counter-intuitive to the ways in which people use the platform, or which seemingly fails to offer any significant advantages over current capabilities – and this is to be applauded.

March Mesh Madness

Posted on by Inara Pey

March Mesh Madness kicked off on March 1st, and has caused some upset / confusion. The event “brings together unique mesh designs from 20 established Second Life”, and is open until March 15th, and has been organised by Damien Fate, himself a mesh designer, and is hosted on Fate Island.

Part of the confusion seems to be that people mistakenly took this to be an LL-sponsored event as it is currently appearing on the splash screens for those Viewers using the official splash / MotD notifications. As has been pointed out in the thread linked-to above, such MotD links aren’t that uncommon – they are pulled from the Destination Guide (wherein Mesh Madness is listed), and so seeing it linked their isn’t necessarily a sign of any LL collusion.

Anyway, I decided to jump over and take a look. The sim itself is nicely designed in a modern, minimalistic look, comprising a central arrival plaza with a display kiosk in each corner, surrounded by 16 more kiosks, four to a side to form a square, all linked by walkways over water. The majority of the build appears to be mesh (or at least partial mesh) and as such, one would expect it to be relatively low-lag.

March Mesh Madness at Fate Island

Sadly, this is far from the case. With just 12 avatars in the region, Fate Island exhibited more-or-less the same amount of lag experienced elsewhere with a similar number of avatars combined with the likes of multiple textures, vendors, etc. Rubber-banding was the order of the day.

In terms of the content on display, I’d have to say that things are – disappointing in some respects. Around twelve of the kiosks are devoted to clothing / footwear / accessories, with another three devoted to mesh hair and the remaining five offering up such items as furnishings, trees, and so on. There is little imagination shown with the various kiosks; most of which resemble mall-like slots, rather than attempts to showcase mesh. The one real exception to this is the Rustica kiosk, where Max Graf has (as ever) demonstrated his talent by producing a first-rate display of his mesh creations.

The Rustica display at Mesh Madness

Of course, one might argue that it’s easier perhaps for Max to produce such a display than others – his items are very much touch / feel, whereas clothing is more look / try. Even so, his kiosk and that of Organica, situated almost exactly opposite in the region, are the eye-catching units that tend to draw one to them.

As mentioned, the majority of the creations being displayed here are of the looks / try variety – clothing, accessories, hair, etc., and most of the vendor boards offer demo versions of items so you can try before you buy – and this is strongly recommended.

It would have been nice to see a more varied selection of mesh on offer here – whether the final selection was down to a matter of whosoever applied for a slot, or whether the event was specifically more geared towards the fashion / accessory side of things, I’ve no idea. Until Pamela Galli made mention of the event, I wasn’t even aware it existed, and only saw the MotD as I happened to fire-up Dolphin this morning while running my weekly Viewer version checks (I use Firestorm as a rule, so don’t get the MotD otherwise).

Obviously, a single-region exhibition doesn’t allow for large-scale displays such as buildings, but it would have been nice to see more in the way of furniture and perhaps vehicles, etc.

That said, if you’ve not tried mesh clothing / footwear / hair, this is a place to visit if you want to grab a handful of demos and give things a try before you plunge deeper into the world of mesh.

March Mesh Madness

Rodvik blogs: No Last Names

Posted on by Inara Pey

So, Rodvik has blogged on the subject of last names.  In sort: they’re not coming back. The overall direction of the post is pretty obvious from the outset – that last names won’t be making a return just yet  – simply because the first couple of paragraphs ramble somewhat – as if Rodvik knows what he is about to say is going to draw howls of disappointment.

As the Lab can’t strike a balance between freedom of choice and pre-set last names, they’re not doing either. However, special characters are being introduced to the sign-up process to allow some degree of freedom. This means, as Rodvik says, the someone signing-up can be “Horatio-Nelson”; it’s a step forward, given that the Lab are also looking to expunge all last traces of “Resident” (and Rodvik has asked to be informed if people come across any) – but it’s a very small step.

I have to admit, I found the claim that pre-set last names appeared to cause more new-user sign-up angst than the current system surprising. Admittedly, it’s been  a long while since I signed-up, and almost as long since I was forced to create what is now my “crash test alt”, but I can’t ever remember feeling frustrated by being limited to a list of pre-sets (which was pretty extensive). Rather the reverse, in fact – I found I was dallying over the name selection as the available presets were intriguing – a make of name-up names, names from history and fiction, ethnic names, and so on which (I do remember) got me thinking on the whole question of identity and how I wanted to project myself in Second Life – what aspects of my personality, which interests, and then playing with various name options to see how they worked before I made my final choice.

But then, I’m weird like that.

So as the Lab can’t strike a balance between pre-set and free-form last names, neither will be making a return to the sign-up page for new users. In the meantime Rodvik will be kicking-off a new Profile Feed “round-table” to discuss recapturing the “frontier feel” of SL, probably next Monday. Interestingly, one of the ideas he put up for discussion what that of allowing new users pick from a list of pre-set last names after having been involved in SL for six months or so. Also offered-up for discussion is the potential to re-think Linden Homes (which I thought they were doing anyway…or did I simply dream I’d received a survey on linden Homes last month…?), and the idea for a new “Mainland-like region” – something that is bound to intrigue / cause concerns ahead of the actual discussions.

Rodvik’s post can be read in full here.