The Portal Park offers access to The Cornfield, Linden Realms and other experiences, as well as places of its own to explore
On Monday July 14th the Lab announced the opening of a new Experience Keys demonstration game, featuring a return to the The Cornfield.
The blog post announcing the new demonstration reads in part:
Experience Keys are a new tool in Second Life that make it so you can opt-in to an entire experience made up of numerous scripted objects, rather than having to grant avatar permissions to every individual element of that experience. In other words, they allow creators to make experiences that are more immersive, because they’re not interrupted by permissions dialogues. Additionally, with Experience Keys, each of the scripts in the experience has access to a common private database that stores information across user sessions and simulator restarts; a powerful new capability for scripters.
Experience Keys are part of the Advanced Creation Tools the Lab has been developing over the last few years, and a special beta programme was recently opened to allow content creators the opportunity of trying-out the capabilities in their own experiences.
An old barn contains the portal leading to … The Cornfield
The Cornfield (reached via a Portal Park), created by the Linden Department of Public Works (aka the Moles), is based on a piece of Second Life history familiar to many long-term residents.
The special trailer video below provides more information on the game.
To try-out The Cornfield, you’ll need to download and install the Experience Keys project viewer. – and I’ll have a more detailed looks at this viewer available soon.
Like Linden Realms, the SLurl initially delivers you to a Portal Park, which has been updated from the originals, and offers a number of places to explore, as well as the portals to both The Cornfield and to Linden Realms or the Premium-only Magellan Grid Hunt (neither of the latter appear to have yet been updated to use Experience Keys).
As the trailer suggests, The Cornfield is something of a shoot-’em-up, but with elements which will be familiar to anyone who has played Linden Realms – and there are wider game choices players can available themselves of as well.
So if you’re in need of letting off some steam, grab the project viewer, install it, and head over to the The Cornfield and give Experience Keys a go!
As news of the changes to the Lab’s policy of games of skill continues to ripple outwards, people have been questioning what it might mean for assorted games held within their inventories and / or on their land which offer payouts and pay-to-lay options. In particular, a question was asked on the forum thread created by the Lab on games like Greedy Greedy, which have a pay-to-play option. The response from the Lab’s Community Manager was that such games would indeed fall under the updated Skill Gaming policy.
Greedy Greedy and other KR Engineering games offering pay-to-play / L$ payout options are to be updated in light of the Skill Gaming policy changes, with the pay-in and payout options removed (image: KR Engineering)
As a result of this, and subsequent enquiries on the KR Engineering Facebook page, Karsten Rutledge, KR engineering’s owner, posted an article on changes that will be forthcoming to all KR Engineering games offering a pay-to-pay / L$ payout capability.
Karsten’s article can be found under the heading Skilled Gaming! What is it? How scary is it? Are we all DOOMED?! On the KR Engineering Facebook page. While this doesn’t require people log-in to Facebook in order to read it, the key points are reproduced below for those who have KR Engineering table games but who prefer not to access Facebook at all.
Because games like Greedy Greedy, On-a-Roll, Triumph, etc., are considered subject to the upcoming changes to the Skill Gaming policy, Karsten has decided to make them all free-to-play and remove all payout options, informing customers:
Before the end of the month, I will be issuing updates to all of my games that remove all money and payout functions from them. With no payout option on the game (no buy-ins and no betting), the games will no longer be subject to the Skilled Gaming Regions policy. You will be able to rez and play them wherever and whenever you like as usual. The new policy ONLY applies to games that have an option to pay the winner of the game a L$ prize. To be in compliance with the new policy, all you will need to do is update your games (which is FREE, as always) before the end of the month, or realistically, whenever you next pull them out. You won’t get in trouble for having them in your inventory, whether they’re in compliance or not.
In further addressing this change later in the post, he continues:
So in conclusion: Keep calm and carry on. Don’t worry, keep playing and have fun. I will announce more as I get questions answered from Linden Lab, and of course announcements will be made when updates are available for each game to bring it into compliance. The games you know and love aren’t going anywhere, they will play just the same and the only difference will be you may not pay money into them, which as it turns out, doesn’t happen 99% of the time anyway, so you won’t even notice.
However, Karsten believes the changes to the Skill Gaming Policy will not affect the Greedy Greedy jackpot, commenting:
As far as I currently know, that will not be going away, playing any appropriately configured Greedy game will still qualify you for the jackpot even after August 1st. The Jackpot is not considered gambling because you do not have to pay to be entered into it. If this changes, I will certainly make an announcement about it.
In addressing the potential for future versions of KR Engineering games offering a payout, Karsten indicates this is questionable, given the amount of outlay required. Furthermore, were it to happen at all, it would likely to be only with regards to Greedy Greedy, and would be a special version of the game entirely separate to the current version:
According to Gaming.SL, only 1.6% of games played to completion this year involved money of some kind. At the moment, I’m sorry if you’re in that 1.6%, but I will likely not be pursuing becoming a creator of approved gambling games, as it will cost me at least $2000 USD per year to do so, and that’s not counting the up-front costs of hiring an attorney, and paying the application fees and review fees.
Depending on the answers I get from Linden Lab in the coming weeks, I may eventually pursue approval just for Greedy, I don’t think any other games get gambled on at all anyway. Even if I do get Greedy approved for skill gaming in the future, it will not effect anyone who already owns a Greedy table, because it will be a completely separate version of Greedy. From now on, there will always be a “no money” version of my games for general use, any “money” versions will always be separate.
So if you have any version of a KR Engineering game which includes a pay-to-play option, do keep an eye out from updates from Karsten, and on the KR Engineering Facebook page for further information.
Linden Lab has issued a blog post announcing that while gambling in Second Life will remain strictly prohibited within the platform, and that games of chance will remain a violation of the Second Life Terms of Service, games of skill are to be managed more closely within Second Life, and that the SL skill gaming policy has been updated to reflect this.
The changes are to come into effect from from August 1st, 2014, and applications are now open to those wishing to apply to become approved creators and approved operators of games of skill within SL.
However, such games will be subject to strict control, as the blog post outlines:
Skill games that offer Linden Dollar payouts will be allowed in Skill Gaming Regions only. This is a new region designation that will apply beginning August 1, 2014. Those Second Life residents who wish to convert their regions to Skill Gaming Regions can do so by contacting Linden Lab in accordance with Linden Lab’s Land policy. Due to the additional administrative and compliance-related costs associated with these regions, the monthly maintenance fees will be greater than those for regular regions in Second Life. We will include Skill Gaming Regions as a new category in our Destination Guide (unless the owner requests its removal). As a resident, you will be able to check the setting of each region to verify that it has been recognized by Linden Lab for the placement, operation, and use of approved Skill Games.
Only operators approved by Linden Lab will be allowed to run skill games that offer Linden Dollar payouts on Skill Gaming Regions. Those wishing to become approved operators can apply now. Due to processing and compliance-related costs associated with maintaining this program, there is a one-time nonrefundable application fee as well as a quarterly license fee (waived through December 31, 2014, upon approval of an application) for those designated as approved operators. We will maintain a public wiki page of operators.
Creators of skill games that wish to make them available in Second Life may do so only through Skill Gaming Regions and only after the games have been approved by Linden Lab. Creators of skill games that offer Linden Dollar payouts can apply to become an approved creator and to have their games approved now. Due to processing and compliance-related costs associated with maintaining this program, there is a one-time nonrefundable application fee as well as a quarterly license fee (waived through December 31, 2014, upon approval of an application) for those designated as approved creators. We will maintain a public wiki page of approved creators and their approved games of skill.
Access to Skill Gaming Regions will be restricted to Second Life users who are of sufficient age and are located in a jurisdiction that Linden Lab permits for this kind of online gaming activity. If you are in a permitted jurisdiction and you meet the relevant age requirements, you will be able to access these regions just like any in Second Life. If you are not eligible, you will receive an error message. However, you are responsible for knowing which jurisdictions are prohibited and the requisite ages of participation and not attempting to access a Skill Gaming Region if you do not qualify. Attempts to circumvent our controls will constitute a violation of our Skill Gaming Policy and Terms of Service.
In summary, skill games that offer Linden Dollar payouts will be allowed in Second Life, but each game, its creator, its operator, and the region on which it is operated must be approved by Linden Lab.
Those wishing to apply to become approved creators and approved operators of games of skill / Skill Game Regions can apply to the Lab now via Echosign.
For those wishing to play such games of skill, the Lab additionally notes:
If you live in a jurisdiction where gaming is permitted and you plan on playing these games in Skill Gaming Regions in Second Life, you should not need to do anything differently. However, adding payment information on file now is a good way to ensure you’re able to play as soon as Skill Gaming Regions are live.
Also, The Lab as created a FAQ page to address the most common questions arising from this move, and have established a Skill Gaming thread on the forums where additional questions can be asked and hopefully addressed.
For further information, please refer to the blog post, the forum thread and the official FAQ.
Episode #26 of The Drax Files Radio Hour was posted on Friday July 4th. Marking the 5th interview segment while the “regular” podcasts are on hiatus for the summer. It features none other than the remarkable Tony Parisi.
As usual, and as well as being available on the show’s website and on Stitcher, episode #26 is also on YouTube, and that version is also embedded at the end of this article.
For those not familiar with the name, Tony Parisi is the co-creator of the VRML and X3D ISO standards for networked 3D graphics, and a 3D technology innovator. He’s a career CTO / software architect and entrepreneur, has and is serving on a number working groups, and may also be familiar to some as one of the SVVR Creating the VR Metaverse panel in April 2014.
In June he published a blog post entitled Virtually Anywhere, which serves as the launching point for the interview. In that post, he makes the case for the metaverse being the 3D web, pointing to the work of Vladimir Vukićević and Josh Carpenter (who was also on the SVVR Creating the VR Metaverse panel) of Mozilla in bringing native support for the Oculus Rift and other VR devices to Firefox; work which is also being being paralleled by Brandon Jones at Google for Chrome and also within Internet Explorer. This is something he sees as undoubtedly beneficial, commenting:
We’re now seeing attempts to develop Virtual reality for the Oculus Rift using web technology. There are a couple of browser extensions you can get for Firefox and Chrome that will talk to the Oculus headset, you can write some JavaScript code for WebGL to render in stereo. And so people are starting to experiment with that, which is a really good thing, because I believe that open technology is the way we’re going to build the virtual reality metaverse.
He admits that the post is something of a manifesto to get VR onto the web, rather than seeing it recycled through walled gardens utilising proprietary applications which must be downloaded and installed in order to be used. It’s a manifesto worth reading, and certainly one to give pause for thought. A 3D web has long been talked about – often in terms of the technology which will supplant the web as we know it (e.g. as SL was once glowingly described) – actually seeing the web itself evolve to leverage virtual and augmented reality makes far more sense, being a more logical evolutionary step.
Vladimir Vukićević and Josh Carpenter – working on browser support for Oculus Rift and other VR devices – see their joint presentation (images: Wikipedia and Mozilla, respectively)
Through his development of VRML and X3D, Tony is no stranger to the potential of VR or, for that matter, virtual worlds. In discussing VRML, he points to Blaxxun Interactive (originally “Black Sun Interactive”, a name taken from virtual night club featured in Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash), credited with the development of one of the first 3D community platforms designed for the Internet back in 1995.
While VRML didn’t catch on in the manner hoped, being an idea somewhat ahead of its time given the state of play with hardware, data transmissions speeds on the Internet, etc., it did give rise to X3D. This, together with improvements in home computing capabilities and better Internet connectivity, saw Tony and his colleagues poking at virtual world environments.
The famous Business Week magazine cover
“We were sitting in a garage doing it together,” he recounts, “And then Second Life got on the cover of Business Week in 2007. Everyone probably remembers the famous Anshe Chung avatar on the cover; and that’s when the boom starter and hype started around Second Life, around ’07.
“And by that summer, literally two months, three months later, I had a lot of investment money from large venture capitalists to do the same thing in a web browser, lighter weight, a little more mainstream targeted. Second Life was thought to be for the geeks, the shut-ins, all these pejoratives you can imagine, disregarding the creative impulse and all the wonderful stuff that was built. And so a lot of folks, including management in my start-up, for example, felt that there could be a middle-of-the-bell-curve mainstream virtual world experience targeted at about everybody that would work just great.”
The product was originally called Flux, and while it didn’t quite go as planned, as Tony wryly notes, it did morph into Vivaty, which carried on through until 2010, and Vivaty Studio is still around today.
On Wednesday July 2nd, the Lab issued a call for creators to apply for a beta test of the Experience Keys (also referred to as Experience Tools) project.
As I explained in my overview of Experience Keys / Tools, this is a new permissioning system which allows people to create an activity (initially restricted to region / estate level for private islands / estates and parcel level for mainland) such that anyone wishing to participate in it need only give a single confirmation of their wish to do so, rather than having repeated requests for permission pop-up on their screen whenever something wants / needs to interact with their avatar – such as teleporting their avatar to the next location in a hunt or quest, or when wanting to attach a gun or piece of equipment to the avatar as a part of a game.
Experience Keys are the latest addition to the Lab’s Advanced Creator Tools deployed in August 2012, and which in turn grew out of work first put to use in the Linden Realms game.
A video helps explain the concept from a user’s perspective.
While the video focuses on using Experience Keys in games, they could conceivably be used in other activities as well: hunts, puzzles, tours – any immersive experience which may otherwise require users to repeatedly give assent for some action to be taken with their avatar.
The Lab is now seeking SL creators willing to join a beta programme and use the new Experience Keys to build a range of “experiences” within Second Life, as the blog post explains:
We used this technology when creating the Linden Realms game, and we’re now ready to start putting this tool in the talented hands of creators in the Second Life community. Experience Keys is a powerful tool, and we need to be sure we test and roll out the feature carefully, so the first step will be a limited beta, then the viewer and server releases shortly after.
Creators wishing to participate in the programme should send an email to slexp_beta@lindenlab.com with “Experience Key Beta” as the subject along with the following information:
The experience name.
What genre does it fit in?
A brief description of the experience
How would your customers benefit from Experience Keys?
As noted in the announcement, a more public beta in which users can try out experiences using an Experience Keys project viewer will follow-on from this initial call.
Jessica Lyon has announced that the Firestorm team will be hosting a Q&A session entitled The Future of Second Life.
The session will take place on Wednesday July 2nd at 07:00 SLT (that’s 7:00 AM PDT – I’ve always used 24-hour clock notation in this blog) at the Firestorm Auditorium, with seating on a first come, first serve basis.
Oz Linden: Linden Lab’s Technical Director of Second Life
In attendance will be Oz Linden, Technical Director of Second Life at the Lab. Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications may also be present as well.
Note that the focus of the session will Second Life – the session will not be a forum for discussion of the Lab’s next generation platform. Opportunities to discuss the latter will doubtless come through various mediums once the Lab more solidly release details about it.
So if you want to learn more about what is planned for SL, this may be a meeting you want to attend. However, if you can’t attend, the blog post points to the following:
The event will be recorded and made available after the fact
The event will be live streamed though I do not have all the details yet. Stay tuned to this bullet for edits.
If you have questions to ask concerning SL’s future, please leave them in a comment on the Firestorm blog. Jessica will attempt to ask as many as she can. Please do not leave questions here, as they unlikely to be collected and asked at the session.
I’ll also most likely provide a transcript of the meeting as time allows after the event.
Episode #26
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 