On July 20th, 2015, Linden Lab issued two new Second Life promotional videos on their official YouTube channel.
Both are entitled Second Life – The Largest-Ever 3D Virtual World Created By Users, and combine footage shot by the Lab (some of which has been seen in past promotional videos) with footage from Draxtor Despres’ outstanding World Makers series.
There’s nothing actually new in this per se; the Lab combined their own footage with some from World Makers in their December 2013 promotional pieces, which I reviewed here.
However, what makes these different is that overlaying the video footage are a series of audio clips taken from the World Makers series (and possibly elsewhere), featuring Second Life users talking directly about the platform.
Thus, unlike the purely music-based videos before them, these offer a very user-centric look at Second Life which makes them compelling viewing, and perhaps the best promotional videos yet produced for the platform.
At a minute in length, the first video can afford to offer a more visual lead-in, with a series of clips from around SL. It can also obviously offer more audio content, and I have to say that the inclusion of a clip of Zachh Barkley talking about his own attraction to SL is particularly effective in adding depth to the piece.
The second video, just 30 seconds in length, offers a more defined view of Second Life ideally suited to the shorter attention span, but which is no less compelling or effective than the longer version.
I’ve long been an advocate of the Lab collaborating with users to produce suitable promotional material for Second Life, both by working with machinima makers and using the creative talents of users themselves.
While these videos move in a somewhat different direction to the one I imagined when writing on the subject, they are nevertheless a move entirely in the right direction. Both showcase Second Life beautifully and in a manner that really speaks to the audience. As such, I hope we’ll see them used widely in promotional campaigns – and see more pieces of a similar nature in the future.
Kudos to the Lab and all involved in their production.
Manatou (Ursus Broono), who along with Mz Marville, has been a driving force behind the Matoluta Sanctuary has announced the two regions on which it is located (Hudhufushi and Sartre) are to close on or around Monday, July 20th and Tuesday July 21st, 2015.
Having opened in July 2014, Matoluta Sanctuary was established with a unique aim in mind: to offer people the opportunity to engage in equine role-play (i.e. actually taking on a horse avatar), and to learn about the plight of the Colonial Spanish Horse on the North American continent – and in doing so, donate to the ongoing conservation of these horses.
The Colonial Spanish Horse, perhaps more familiarly known as the Spanish Mustang, is descended from the original Iberian horse stock brought to America from Spain, and are one of only a very few genetically unique horse breeds worldwide. Following their arrival in North America, some of the breed escaped into the wild. In time, due to their nature and abilities, they became the preferred mount of the Great Plains tribes of native Americans. Unfortunately, in more recent times their numbers have greatly reduced, and the breed’s extinction status is regarded as critical.
To assist in the preservation of the breed, donations made when visiting Matoluta Sanctuary go to Return to Freedom, an organisation dedicated to “preserving the freedom, diversity, and habitat of America’s wild horses through sanctuary, education, and conservation, while enriching the human spirit through direct experience with the natural world”. Return to Freedom is fully aware of the activities at Matoluta, and representatives from the organisation have been into Second Life to witness activities in the regions first-hand.
Manatou (Ursus Broono) at Matoluta Sanctuary, July 2015
Since opening, Matoluta has evolved, both in terms of its expansion to a second region in September 2014, and in terms of activities offered: equine care, conservation awareness, special events aimed at raising donations for Return to Freedom, and so on. However, while both Manatou and Mz Marville have met the cost of the regions directly in order to ensure donations go to Return to Freedom, the situation has been gradually changing, prompting the decision to close the regions.
“We’ve had good traffic since we opened,” Manatou informed me as we discussed the decision, “but to be honest, it has slackened off to the point where we’re better off donating the money we spend on tier directly to the charity, rather than relying just on donations.”
Matoluta Sanctuary, July 2015
Not that he is in any way blaming the situation on a lack of traffic. “It has been helpful in encouraging people become aware of the need to preserve wild horses,” he said. “It has led to others to join in with giving aid, so it has surely been of worth.”
Nor does it mean the end of in-world activities related to equine preservation, as Manatou informed me. “We will still do activities to raise money to help wild horses; we’ll open up a special region a few times a year for this, most likely once a quarter. That way we can continue involving people in raising money to benefit these efforts of preservation, and keep awareness of the need to preserve wild horses in people’s minds. Return to Freedom is very conscientious about how they allocate funds, most of every cent they receive go towards rescue efforts, very little goes towards administration.”
In the meantime, Matoluta Sanctuary is still open to visitors, with the regions due to close, as noted, on Monday, July 20th (Hudhufushi) and Tuesday July 21st (Sartre) and might be around a little bit beyond that. So if you want to visit them before they go and enjoy their natural beauty, do make the time over the weekend. And, if you’re so minded, feel free to make a donation towards Return to Freedom’s work.
Update, July 30th: The lab has issued a new version of the VMM viewer, and the links to the download in this article have been updated accordingly.
Update, July 20th: Linden Lab have given the following explanation for the acceleration with VMM migration: “As many of you noticed, we did shorten the time line to get Merchants migrated to VMM. This is due primarily to the need to get Merchants off of Xstreet, as it was down for a weekend in early July, forcing us to accelerate our dates.” (With thanks to Whirly Fizzle for the pointer to the comment.)
Coming by way of the Commerce blog, Linden Lab has announced that the Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM) capabilities are now released, and that automated migrations of SL Marketplace items is to commence on Thursday, July 23rd.
Migration will commence at 21:00 on July 23rd, and each weekday thereafter until all all stores on the Marketplace have been migrated.
The blog post lays out the core aspects of the migration process, which I’ve summarised below – but do still please read the official post:
All merchants will receive e-mail at the beginning of the migration process, and another once it has completed
Merchants with around 5K or more of listings will have their migration scheduled, and will receive an additional e-mail for the Lab providing them with advanced notice – see additional notes below
Migration will occur weekdays between 21:00 SLT in the evening and 09:00 SLT the following morning
A Merchant will not be able to modify their store while items are being migrated, but sales of items that are not in the process of being migrated will continue
Merchants who have had their stores migrated to VMM should use the Second Life VMM Viewer (or a TPV which offers VMM support) in order to manage their Marketplace inventory.
Viewer-Managed Marketplace allows items sold through the Marketplace to be managed directly from the Merchant’s viewer using the Marketplace Listings panel – there is no need to upload items to the Marketplace servers. Listings can then be created and amended from within the viewer using the built-in browser or, if preferred, can still be edited directly from a Merchant’s Marketplace pages via a web browser
It’s also worth pointing out that the automatic migration process will not run against Magic Box items; these must be manually migrated, and no date has yet been given as to when support for Magic Boxes will discontinue. However, this notice from the Lab should perhaps be taken by those who do still have items in Magic Boxes as indicative that they should start planning to migrate them to VMM.
Both the automated and manual migration process have been undergoing beta testing for some time now, and most reports on both have been positive.
VMM has been moving in this direction for that last couple of months. However, it had been thought that actual migration wouldn’t commence until after the VMM viewer code had been promoted to the release viewer. Given that the Lab tends to prefer promoted a viewer every other week, and this week (week #29) has already seen the attachment fixes viewer to release status, it would appear that migration might be starting prior to the VMM viewer being similarly promoted.
To help people get to grips with the Viewer-Managed Marketplace, the Lab have produced a number of resources, and those unfamiliar with VMM are referred to them for further information.
On Friday, June 26th, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg faced questions from Saffia Widdershins, Jo Yardley and the audience in the last of the Meet the Lindens series sponsored by Prim Perfect.
I have a transcript of that discussion / Q&A, as recorded by Chakat Northspring, available in this blog. Since posting that blog post, the Lab have posted the official video footage from the session.
However, as the Lab notes in a blog post published on Tuesday, July 14th, there were a number of questions asked (many in chat from the audience) which didn’t get to be addressed. There are also doubtless many more questions people have about both Second Life and Project Sansar they hope might be answered.
To this end, as again as indicated by the Lab’s own blog post, a new forum discussion thread has been opened, and residents are invited to Ask the CEO questions about either platform which he, or designated staff members from the Lab, will endeavour to answer – starting with those that didn’t receive an answer during the show.
Ebbe and Saffia getting ready for the SL12B discussion on June 26th – now you can put further questions to him on Sl and Sansar via the forums
This isn’t the first time the Lab has taken such an approach; following the initial news about Sansar’s development being given by Ebbe back in June 2014, he spent a considerable amount of time within a forum thread attempting to answer questions from users (and at the time, unfortunately being faced with no small amount of trolling by some determined to try to derail the discussion).
So, if you need to refresh you mind on what was said during the SL12B interview, feel free to check-out the official video or cast your eyes through my transcript. Then, if you have questions for the Lab on either Sansar or SL (or both), why not head on over to the forum and write them up?
Sometimes it takes us humans quite some time to admit something to ourselves that we don’t want to admit, but eventually there’s no more putting it off.
It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce the end. It’s over. No more new Dolphin Viewer.
Thus opens a blog post dated June 22nd, from Lance Corrimal, which I am ashamed to admit I missed when it appeared. It serves as an introduction to Lance officially announcing the end of all Dolphin viewer development / maintenance work at his end of things.
He goes on:
With my current RL job and all the travelling that I’m doing there are more exciting things to do with the little time I have to spend on SL and other hobbies, than maintaining a third-party viewer… especially when most of the “maintenance” involves fixing stuff that shouldn’t have been broken in the first place.
I have been porting a few of the things that used to be in Dolphin Viewer 3 to Firestorm in the last few weeks … I invite the FS team to grab anything from there that they like.
The Dolphin Machinima Toolbox was one of the last additions to Dolphin to be release (in beta form), and held a lot of promise
This is sad news; over the years Lance had built the Dolphin viewer into an excellent offering (it was my second viewer of choice of a good while). But time has conspired against him, even though he did attempt to get the viewer back on track (and in doing so started implementing some nice additions, such as the Machinima Toolbox, seen on the right).
But the viewer is very much a living, evolving things, and playing catch-up, even with the best will in the world, can become increasingly hard (and probably more than a little demotivating when the “to do” list constantly remains longer than the “done” list). This being the case, we can hardly blame Lance for wanting to spend what free time he has to devote to SL in enjoying things in-world that he finds fun and relaxing; I know if I were in his shoes, I’d have given up a long time ago.
Lance closes his blog post with a paraphrase of a Douglas Adams quote, saying, “Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!”
I’ll add a small response of my own, “thanks, Lance, for all of your work over the years. May the wind be always be at your back!”
Updated, July 2nd: A series of questions were asked at the Simulator User Group meeting following the release of the Experiences Tools viewer. A summary of those asked and which I’ve seen asked elsewhere has been added to the end of this article for reference.
On Tuesday, June 30th, the long-awaited Experience Tools viewer was promoted as the de factorelease viewer by Linden Lab.
An official blog post announced the move, indicating that while experiences created using the new capability will be open to all, the ability to create new experiences using the tools is available to Premium members only, who have the opportunity to create one Experience by default.
For those not previously aware of Experience Keys, I’ll simply quote from the blog post issued by the Lab back when Experience Keys reached release candidate viewer status:
Experience Keys are a powerful feature that allows creators to build more seamless and immersive experiences in Second Life. Without this feature, you need to grant individual permissions to every single scripted object included in an in-world experience, and that can mean a lot of dialogue boxes interrupting the fun! Experience Keys make it possible for creators to build experiences that ask your permission just once. In other words, you can opt-in to the entire experience, rather than having to grant individual permissions to every single scripted object included in it.
A number of Experiences are already available across the grid for people to use. The Lab’s Cornfield shooter game available through the Portal Parks, for example, utilises Experience Keys, as does Loki Eliot’s outstanding Childhood Dreams, available at SL12B through until Saturday, July 4th, 2015. There’s also a growing section of the Destination Guide devoted to Experiences.
You don’t actually have to use the Experience Tools viewer to visit and participate in any Experience. However, the viewer does provide a lot of additional information to users than viewers without the code, and is essential for those who wish to build Experiences – so expect TPVs to be updating with the code as soon as they can.
An Experience dialogue box. On the left, as it appears in an Experience Keys enabled viewer, and on the right, in a “non-Experience Tools” viewer. Both will allow users to join / refuse experiences, and indicate the levels of permissions the Experience is requesting, but the Experiences Tools viewer provides additional options
As explained in the Lab’s video, once you have accepted an invitation to join an Experience, you never need to do so again; the fact that you have accepted it and the permissions you have awarded it in respect of your avatar are remembered – so each time you re-visit, you’re not hampered by having to accept. If there are HUDs and other attachments applicable to the Experience, these are automatically applied to you on your return; if there are scores or points associated with the Experience, these are also recorded and restored on your next visit. When you leave, HUDs and other attachments belonging to the Experience are removed and any permissions you’ve granted are revoked.
If you spend time in a place that has an Experience you’d rather not join, and don’t want to be bothered by invitations to do so each time you visit that place, you can opt to block the Experience (or specific objects offering invitations to the Experience). This will prevent further invitations being sent.
The Experience floater (left) can be used to manage your Experiences and to display more information about them through the Experience Profile (right) – click for full size
For Experience users and creators, the viewer introduces two new floaters – the Experience panel and the Experience Profile, both shown above.
The Experiences floater (Me > Experiences) helps you keep track of the Experiences you join or block, or which you are involved in as an owner or collaborator. It also allows you to search for Experiences in SL, and tracks the actions taken on your avatar by the Experiences you’ve allowed.
The Experience Profile provides additional information on a specific Experience, and can be displayed a number of ways. You can, for example, highlight an Experience in the Search tab of the Experience floater and then click the View Profile button. You can also click the Experience’s link in the Allowed / Blocked / etc., tabs to display its Profile.
The Profile allows you to Allow or Block an Experience, make an Abuse Report if it is doing something intentionally abusive (such as repeatedly orbiting you). If you wish to leave an Experience, you can use the Forget button. Note that the next time you visit, it will treat you as a new joiner. If an Experience Profile includes a SLurl, clicking on it will open the Places floater, allowing you to teleport to the Experience.
The Experience Keys viewer introduces additional Estate and Land tabs to allow management of the Experiences enabled at estate / region and parcel level.
Experience Keys – which allow Experiences to run – are currently restricted to the region / parcel level. There are currently no keys which automatically allow an Experience to run across the entire grid, although this may change in the future. To help land owners to decide which, if any, Experiences they wish to have running on their land, the Experience Keys viewer also introduces two new tabs to the Region / Estate floater and the About Land floater (shown above).
Adding an Experience to your Land should only be done if you’re actually an active collaborator / participant in providing the Experience to others, or have created it yourself. Do note as well, that a hierarchy that exists between regions and parcels; if an Experience is blocked at Estate level, it cannot be run within a parcel on that estate.
Loki Eliot also has an Experience based game available at Escapades Island
In terms of creating Experiences, and as noted above, this is limited to Premium member. There is a lot of power involved in the capabilities, and so maintaining some degree of accountability with those using them is vital; so limiting the creative element to Premium members is a good way of ensuring that accountability (providing accountability is also why there are options to report abusive Experiences in both the Experiences floater and individual Experience Profiles).
On July 20th, 2015, Linden Lab issued two new Second Life promotional videos on their official YouTube channel.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 