Category: News-Opinion

LL Premium promo and some thoughts for the tempted

Posted on by Inara Pey

Friday 24th August marked the start of another of the regular pushes by LL to encourage people to sign-up to Premium accounts, with the usual banner headline “Save 50% on your membership when you sign-up”. This time the offer runs through until Friday 31st August.

As per usual, the discount comes with strings: it only applies the Quarterly plan and only to the first quarter’s payment. This tends to make a bit of a mockery of the “Save 50%” headline (which should more correctly read, “Save 50% on your first payment” – but that doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it?).

The promotional page again features the same list of benefits and the same glitzy video, and still carries the same overall question marks around it.

While I’m Premium myself, I admit that there is much about these ads I find objectionable and misleading, particularly the “more” statements, something I touched on when reporting the last Premium offer. But that’s the major problem with Premium; when all is said and done, it actually offers little in the way of tangible benefits outside of Mainland ownership and Customer Services support. Even stipend, it might be argued, is little more than a refund of money already paid to LL.

A Personal Opinion

I re-upped to Premium at the start of November 2011, and went through getting a Linden Home and trying-out the Premium Sandboxes. If you’re considering Premium, you might want to give those articles the once-over. However, before you do so, consider your options carefully.

If you need a decent amount of space in-world (anything over 2048 sq metres and allowing for the 512sq m free tier option), you’re probably not going to get much out of upping to Premium. Similarly, if you’re a builder and have your own space in which to build, you’ll need to weigh-up how often you need to use a public building space and whether or not non-Premium sandboxes are really that bad when you do.

However, if you are downsizing in SL, the Premium may well offer benefits: the Linden Home may not be a state-of-the-art build, but it comes with an available prim allocation / land capacity of 117. This is enough to provide reasonably comfortable living space, particularly if you’re not downsizing with a view to leaving, but simply don’t want the expense of land rental. Even at $22.50 a quarter ($7.50 a month before your refund … er, stipend …), Premium does offer value-for-money if you want to maintain a modest home without the hassle of weekly tier (and $7.50 is an amount you can easily pay out per week elsewhere for a small parcel of land). Just make sure that, as per my item on getting a Linden Home, you have a good look around – and don’t forget that if the first place you get doesn’t suit, it’s easy to abandon and try again.

The end of October marks my first full year since re-upping to Premium. I’ll be offering more thoughts and feedback then.

Steaming into new waters

Posted on by Inara Pey

There has been a lot of humming and hawing since the announcement of SL’s forthcoming dip into the world of Steam. I passed brief comment at the news, but refrained from saying too much because a) I’m not a “gamer” and b) I’d never used Steam (although I did sign-up as a result of LL’s announcement to see what things are like for myself).

Steam client

Some of the feedback has been downright thoughtful and thought-provoking, as with Darrius Gothly’s take on things. Others have been the expected doom-laden predictions.

Sure, there is a potential for some trouble to come as a result of the link-up. Some will find temptation calling and coming into SL with the express intent to cause trouble; but I seriously doubt the amount or impact of outright griefing, will be anywhere near as bad as the doom merchants predict. What is more likely is that the vast majority of Steam users will like as not ignore the arrival of SL on their collective doorstep, either because they are too busy doing other things like knocking seven bells out of a digital foes somewhere, or because their preconceptions about SL are such that they have no interest (beyond, perhaps, poking their nose in to confirm those preconceptions).

As to those that do decide to take a leap of faith and sign-up for SL, why do people automatically assume they’ll do little than turn up and stomp all over our virtual daisies? As Darrius notes in his piece. A lot of SL users are also gamers themselves. They manage to bridge the “divide” between SL and games without issue – so why can’t people coming from the other direction do the same? Not every gamer is a hoodlum looking for the digital equivalent of a forehead to nut.

Steam is Also Opening It’s Doors

The negative bias expressed by those unhappy with the link-up seems to be born out of an assumption that Steam is all about playing games. It’s not. While games are the central emphasis, Steam is far more a community of people interested in a wide range of activities that reach beyond shooting up the next zombie or six. There are 3D modellers, content creators, machinima makers, and so on. In fact, such is the breadth of interest among users that Value, the company which owns the site, recently announced that they’ll  be launching a new “non-game” software service on Steam. In the official press release announcing the move, they state:

The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity [my emphasis]. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.

More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight.

Ergo, when considering how SL will be promoted and where the appeal will lay, it’s worth remembering that there is an even chance it will not be placed within the “game” categories within Steam, but rather in the “creativity” category – something which immediately puts a different spin on how it will be perceived.

This would additionally fit with the fact that – for now at least – Second Life isn’t ready to be promoted as any kind of “game platform” (or as I prefer to term it, “game-enabling platform”). Oh, true enough, almost the entire thrust of LL’s development with the platform over the last 18 months has been to make it far more capable of supporting games and game-play environments; it doesn’t take a particularly keen observer to spot that. However, the platform isn’t there yet, not by a long shot. As such, it would be foolish for LL to push the platform as some kind of wonderful new game development tool or gameplay environment for a while.

The Needs of the Not-So-Many

I’d also tend to suggest that far from seeing the link-up with Steam as a means of trying to bring gazillions of users (“gamers” or otherwise) into SL, again as some have suggested (and others have blown raspberries at), Linden Lab are looking for something far more modest – again, at least to begin with.

Continue reading “Steaming into new waters” →

SL Viewer: getting up steam for Steam?

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeFollowing-on from the announcement that Second Life will soon be available through Steam, it appears the viewer itself is going through some small changes in order for it to be better used with SL.

Yesterday, I downloaded the latest Development version of the viewer. As per usual, I performed a clean install, removing the older version & the associated user and log files. On starting the viewer, I was surprised to see the log-in screen displayed with an additional pop-up:

SL Development Viewer 3.4.1.263582, (August 16)

Clicking Create Account pops-up the familiar “Do you want to open your web browser” dialogue box, prior to taking you (on clicking OK) to the SL sign-up page. I confess I have not (as yet) run through th actual sign-up process to see if that has changed in preparation for the Steam tie-in, but I’ll be doing so around the time the tie-in is announced as being live, if only out of curiosity.

Clicking Continue from the prompt will allow you to log-in using an existing account, and the prompt to sign-up is not repeated the next time you launch the viewer.

Alongside the new pop-up message, the actual log-in area of the viewer splash screen has been tidied-up and made more presentable.

The cleaned-up log-in credentials area of the splash screen, completed with grid access option enabled (Main and Beta grids only)

Assuming these changes are a part of the preparations for the link-up with Steam, they would appear to answer how users coming to Second Life via Steam will be directed to the sign-up pages. As such, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, will be done to make at least the initial sign-up page more informative as to what Second Life is, or whether this will be handled directly through the SL page(s) on Steam itself (I personally suspect the latter).

Second Life’s Steam-powered approach to new users

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab has issued a blog post announcing that Second Life will be expanding to steam “in the next month or so”. The announcement reads in full:

As some sharp-eyed developers have speculated, we’re going to make Second Life available on Steam in the next month or so. 

Many of us have friends who are avid Steam gamers, but if you’re not familiar, Steam is a very popular online game platform that offers a wide range of titles (and will soon also offer other software as well). 

What does this news mean for Second Life? You’ll still be able to access Second Life just as you can today; there won’t be any change to that. But, the more than 40 million people who use Steam will also be able to get Second Life as easily as they can get games like Portal. 

We’ll make an announcement on the blog when Second Life is actually available on Steam, but in the meantime, if you have friends who are Steam gamers, let ‘em know it’s coming!

Steam is a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Corporation. It is used to distribute games and related media online, from small independent developers to larger software houses. The primary service allows users to download games and other software stored in Steam’s virtual software library (some 1500 titles as of August 2012) to their local computers. In addition, Steam offers a range of other services, include the ability to purchase games in your local currency, some DRM protection for titles, and a comprehensive communications platform service that allows for direct contact between users, the ability for users to join in multi-player games, etc.

It is estimated that Steam has some 54 million users world-wide as of August 2012, with an average concurrency rate of some 5 million users.

Given the volume of users enjoyed by Steam, and the fact that many SL users are also engaged in games and may well use Steam already, this move is clearly aimed towards increasing SL’s visibility and increasing the potential influx of new – and retained – users. As such, it is no coincidence that this announcement comes almost hand-in-glove with the blog post about materials processing coming to SL.

With pathfinding now “released” on the main grid, the promise of much improved materials processing on the way which should, among other things, lead to a much more “realistic” looking in-world experience, and the roll-out of advanced experience tools, the move to make SL accessible to “hard-core” gaming community using Steam could be seen to be indicative of Linden Lab’s desire to have Second Life perceived more as a “games enabling platform” than perhaps as a “virtual world”.

We’re promised a follow-up blog piece when the service is launched, possibly some time in September. It will be interesting to see how the platform is promoted and what the potential response is from the world at large.

Virtual Landmarks: solving an age-old problem?

Posted on by Inara Pey

On July 24th, Toysoldier Thor posted about an idea he calls “virtual landmarks” in the Merchant’s forum. It’s a potential solution to an age-old problem most of us in SL face at one time or another: making sure all landmarks relating to your location in Second Life are always up-to-date.

Whenever we move in SL, we’re faced with the fact that every LM we’ve ever given out for our old place is now worthless, and we have no choice but to start issuing new ones. For some, this isn’t a problem – but for others it very much is.

Merchants, for example, are faced with the fact that every single landmark they’ve ever placed within a package contained in a vendor server or magic box or in a Marketplace folder or used within landmark givers they’ve placed around the grid (at malls, satellite stores and so on), now needs to be individually replaced (and in the case of Marketplace folders, each folder manually re-linked to the relevant listing). For some this can run into several hundred items and many hours of additional work. Nor are merchants alone – the likes of role-play groups, clubs, and so on, can face similar issues, both in terms of updating landmark givers, etc., and in terms of ensuring patrons get updated LMs.

In short – it’s a nightmare.

The issue: change your SL location and old LMs no longer work – click to enlarge (credit: Toysoldier Thor)

Toysoldier Thor’s idea is so elegant and (in some respects) obvious, one is tempted to ask why such a system wasn’t developed for Second Life from the outset. He calls it Virtual Landmarks (VLMs), and it essentially works in a similar manner to how we navigate the web. He describes the idea thus:

The concept of a VLM would be identical to the critically important Internet service of DNS (Domain Name Services) in that Internet users can create and use easy to understand HOST NAMES to access all Internet services where the HOST NAME actually masks the underlying required IP Address that is needed to actually route and connect their computer to that respective host.

Well the same would hold true with VLMs.  A VLM would be the equivalent to a DNS HOST NAME and the LM that is configured to be associated to this VLM would be equivalent to an IP ADDRESS.

One Change

In his proposal, rather than creating and distributing a landmark, a store-owner (or whomever) would create a user-friendly VLM (e.g. “My Wonderful Store”) which is then associated with the actual landmark for the store itself. This association is stored in a new service Toysoldier calls the “VLM Mapping Service”, and it is instances of the VLM – not the original – which are given to people or placed product packages, landmark givers, etc. When someone uses the VLM, their viewer sends a request to the Mapping Service, which  looks-up the physical landmark associated with the VLM and sends the information back to the viewer, enabling the user to be teleported to their desired destination.

The beauty here is that if the underlying landmark is subsequently changed (because the destination store moves, for example), all the creator of the VLM has to do is associate the VLM record stored in the Mapping Service with the new landmark – and every instance of the VLM in existence will automatically route people to the new location when used. There is no need to pass out new LMs, replace existing LMs or anything else; one change, and that’s it.

The solution: VLMs and the Mapping Service – click to enlarge (credit: Toysoldier Thor)

There are further benefits of the idea, as Toysoldier points out:

  • The system could be developed such that a single VLM could be associated with multiple landmarks (such as a primary store location, a secondary store location, etc.). Then, should the primary location be unavailable for any reason, the person using the VLM would be automatically routed to one of the alternate destinations
  • A round robin capability could be included, such that a single VLM is linked to a number of arrival points at the same destination (such as a club or an event that is liable to be popular, etc.). People using instances of the VLM are then automatically delivered to the different arrival points in turn, helping to prevent overcrowding at one particular point
  • Duplicate names could be supported for VLMs through the use of asset UUIDs (so there could be many VLMs called “My Beautiful Store”, and asset UUIDs could be used to ensure a VLM sends a user to the correct destination
  • As with LMs at present, VLMs held within peoples’ own inventories can be renamed without affecting their function
  • The system does not prevent the direct use of landmarks.

While there is some potential for griefing within the proposed system (people maliciously creating an VLM with the intention of flash-mobbing a venue or mis-directing people to a location, for example), the risk is probably no greater than is currently the case with the use of landmarks. Griefing via the use of VLMs might even be easier to limit, as LL would have control of the Mapping Service and so could effectively remove / disable VLMs shown to have been created with malicious intent.

Continue reading “Virtual Landmarks: solving an age-old problem?” →

Mesh content creation: morph targets proposal

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Content Creation Improvement Informal User Group has started work on putting together an exploratory proposal for consideration by Linden Lab on the subject of morph targets.

Morph targets (also known as shape targets, per-vertex animation, blend shapes, shape interpolation in some 3D applications) are generally used for complex animations that would otherwise be hard to accomplish with skeletal animation – such as facial animation and avatar customisation. In this latter respect, the SL viewer already uses morph targets to a degree.  The proposal being drafted is aimed at the implementation of a more widespread use of morph targets, for use in such areas as:

  • Complex facial animations on rigged meshes
  • Additional ways for a user to customize the appearance of their avatar
  • Animating the surface of a prim without the need to use a custom skeleton
  • Fine grained control for content creators over how their clothing and avatars deform
Morph targets: animating facial features

It is with regards to this last bullet-point that morph targets are particularly interesting to content creators, as they are seen to have significant potential advantages for clothing deformation than might otherwise be offered by either the parametric deformer, or RedPoly’s alternative approach.

The proposal outlines some of the drawbacks in the latter two approaches, and covers some of the advantages and issues in adopting morph targets. One advantage in using morph targets is that they would allow a content creator to “sculpt” how a morph target should appear, directly within their 3D application of choice, thus giving them the ability to directly control over how a mesh deforms around an avatar (or how a rigged mesh replacement avatar deforms around the base avatar). A potential issue with the approach is that morph targets require additional information to be encoded either within a mesh, or within a texture. This means that additional bandwidth will be required to transmit any mesh which uses morph targets.

Morph targets: a better means of getting mesh clothing to deform?

As it stands, the proposal is in its early phase, although the intention is to complete it and submit it to LL for consideration and feedback as soon as it is felt enough information has been put together. Geenz Spad, co-chair of the CCIIUG, is aware that at the moment, much more input is required in order to get to that stage.

“There could be more input with regards to the content creator’s and the technical perspectives,” he commented to me in discussing the proposal, “The biggest bottleneck is just getting enough input to finish the proposal at this stage.” Of the two perspectives, Geenz feels that it is the technical side of things that is perhaps the more lacking of the two and he would like to see more input from those of a technical mind in terms of potential feature implementation, advantages, disadvantages, possible issues, and so on.

If you are in a position to provide input to the proposal itself, your views would be most welcome, as would your presence at the weekly CCIIUG meetings, which take place every Tuesday, from 15:00SLT at the Hippotropolis Auditorium.

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