Category: News-Opinion

SL Halloween: of house tours and premium gifts

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Haunted Halloween Tour is back, with new twists

On Tuesday, October 2nd, Linden Lab announced the seasonal re-opening of the Haunted Halloween Tour together with a further Premium member’s gift.

Now in its fifth iteration since being unveiled in 2014, the Haunted Halloween Tour is an experience-led ride through (and under) an old house that echoes the Bates residence from psycho (I’m still surprised there isn’t a trip through a bathroom somewhere along it).

Reached via either Portal Park 1 or Portal Park 2, this latest take on the tour keeps the house, the usual coffin “cars” to ride in, and takes a familiar route through the house. But, as with previous years, there are a fair few new tweaks and changes to things.

We’re all probably familiar with Experiences by now, but do remind you need to grant permissions to the Tour in order to enter it. These are revoked on your departure

As the Tour is experience-led, those wanting to try it will have to accept the experience prior to passing through the Tour’s portal at either of the Portal Parks. This sometimes causes concern, partially due to the large dialogue that is displayed by experiences which indicates control of some aspects of the user’s viewer will be taken (see right).

There’s actually no reason to fear these dialogues: they are there to inform users over what is likely to happen and offer reassurance that it is all correct and proper (although admittedly, the dialogues could perhaps be made to be a little less threatening). And at the end of the ride, all permissions are automatically revoked until the next time you join the Tour.

However, if there are lingering concerns after taking the ride, the permissions can always be manually revoked – just go to the Avatar / Me menu (viewer 5+), selected Experiences, locate HA2014 in the list, click on it and select Forget. Should you do this, you will have to re-allow the experience on your next visit to the Tour.

I’m not going to dwell on the tour too much – there are new wrinkles, as noted. What I will say is that since 2015 and the first return of the Tour, I’ve tended to find it perhaps a touch too long, running for about 15 minutes. This variant is roughly the same length, but I (mostly) didn’t feel as if time was dragging as I have done with past iterations.

The Premium Gift comprises a camp site with tent, open fire and logs set around it for seating, the basics of the camp might suit any number of locations. The Halloween element comes with the inclusion of a spooky tree, pumpkins and grave stones.

The entire LI for the set is 85, but this can be reduced by only rezzing the items you require – so, for example, the tent, fire and seating could be used year-round, as the pumpkins could be removed. The gift is supplied with a rezzer in the form of a radio on a tree stump, which will also “read” stories in chat – one story is supplied and more can be added, if desired.

The 2018 Halloween Premium gift camp site. Credit: Linden Lab

I’m admittedly not a great fan of this type of Premium Gift – I much prefer practical benefits, vis more group slots, etc.). However, high LI aside (when compared to other mesh camp sets), some could find this one has use well beyond the Halloween season, although the static animations might be seen as a little limiting.

Premium gifts can be collected from any of the kiosks located in the Premium sandboxes.

It’s Dog Food Day at the Lab!

Posted on by Inara Pey

Eating your own dog food is a colloquialism that describes a company using its own products or services for its internal operations.

The Second Life team already do this to some extent – as a geographically split company on both coasts of the United States (operating out of both San Francisco and Seattle on the West Coast), and having a support centre in Georgia, the company frequently uses its own platform for staff meetings and the like. There are also, of course, the various in-world weekly user group meetings that hold as well.

However, starting on Friday, September 21st, the Lab is starting on what they are calling their Dog Food Days.

It’s not clear how frequently these will be held, but the idea is for members of the Second Life team to use the platform in ways outside of what they might normally do, and see things more from the perspective of users – including the pain points people might feel when using the platform or learning about it; as well as how the limits of the platform are being pushed creatively.

Alexa Linden, as one of the instigators of the idea, offered an example of her thinking around it:

One of the reasons I wanted to have Dog Food Day … it that a lot of people [at the Lab] have still not gone through the process of meshing up their avatar … I’ve done it on all of my alts, and it’s a learning process; it’s not an easy thing to do. And it’s something we need to understand as new users come in, it’s important for us to understand their frustrations, the learning curve, what people are creating, what the quality of content is, etc.

– Alexa Linden, Product Supervisor, discussing the Lab’s Dog Food Day idea

Given this, Alexa is interested in receiving constructive suggestions for what might be considered for inclusion in these Dog Food Days. One suggestion already put forward was to have Lab staff run through the SL sign-up and on-boarding process from end-to-end, including going to the Learning and Social island and experience the entire process from a user’s perspective – and this has been taken on-board.So, if you do have a suitable idea, please consider dropping Alexa a note card.

Also, every Tuesday, Alexa runs an in-world tour of public places on the grid for Lab staff. She’s always interested in appropriate recommendations – places where staff will feel comfortable going, etc., – and welcomes suggestions on possible visits as well (I’ve actually passed on a few myself). So again, if you have ideas for interesting / photogenic / fun locations, drop her a note card with landmarks.

Second Life: switches to Stella Connect for support feedback

Posted on by Inara Pey

Whirly Fizzle tapped me about a recent change to the support ticket system she recently noticed.

Previously, when a support ticket was closed by the originator or by the Lab, a pop-up feedback box would be displayed. Well, no more, as Whirly Fizzle noted to me via IM:

I just had a ticket closed, and I got an e-mail from something called secondlife-at-stellaconnect.net. I thought it was a scam at first!”

– Whirly Fizzle

However, she checked with Alexa Linden, who confirmed the e-mails to be genuine.

Stella Connect is actually platform geared towards improving support staff motivation, increasing the quality of support services and provides a means to help train and develop support staff skills – and it is now being used by the Lab to help in their Second Life support operations. The most user visible element within the system is a  new approach to obtaining feedback on support cases, as exemplified by the e-mail Whirly received.

With Stella Connect, when a support ticket is closed, the originator of the ticket receives – as noted – an e-mail via secondlife-at-stellaconnect.net. Within this e-mail is a link the user is asked to use. This takes them to a web page that:

  • Displays information on the Second Life support team member who assisted them
  • Allows them to rate the support team member’s performance on a star rating where 1 star is a rating of “poor”, and 5 a rating of “excellent”.
  • Provide text feedback on why they have given their rating.
A sample of the new feedback form users will see when responding to an e-mail from secondlife-at-stellaconnect.net after their support ticket has been closed. Image via Whirly Fizzle.

In addition, and depending on the star rating given, the user will be asked to do one of the following:

  • If they have given a high star rating, they will be asked if they wish to recommend a reward for the support team member providing the assistance (below, left).
  • If they have given a lower star rating, they will be asked to indicate specific areas where they feel the support experience could be improved (below, right).
If a user gives a high star rating to a support team member, they are additionally asked if they would like to have the team member rewarded for their efforts (l). If a low star rating is given, the user will be asked to indicate where the support experience could be improved (r). Images via Whirly Fizzle.

The rewards system is an interesting way of both motivating support staff to provide a positive experience for users, and to help engage users in the entire support process. Alongside of providing information on the support team member who assisted them, the rewards option can help personalise the entire process where the user has had a particularly positive experience.

While discussing this approach, Keira Linden, who supervises the Land Team,  informed me the exact details of the rewards are still being finalised, and, over time, may well depend on how popular they are with both support staff and with users (e.g. which of the available options do users tend to select).

We’re still working out the rewards system, but I kinda like giving my folks that go the extra mile to make someone happy an actual reward. The lunch thing will probably happen, but it’s pretty new still. We’ll get feedback from the support folks as well as take a look at what options are popular from the resident side. We’re able to do a lot of customisation there on the rewards.

– Keira Linden, Second Life Land Team Supervisor

Beyond this, all of the feedback generated  – positive or otherwise – is directed back into managing support operations. This both allows overall customer satisfaction to the be assessed, and also helps in highlighting weaknesses within support activities / responses with may need addressing. Additionally, the data generated by the system could, if required, be made available to other customer experience teams to help further improve interactions with users, and so on.

So, if you do have support tickets filed with Linden Lab, and you find yourself receiving an e-mail from secondlife-at-stellaconnect.net, you can be assured it’s not spam or a scam – it’s a genuine Second Life related e-mail, and one intended to help the Lab’s Second Life support team assess and improve the support service they are giving to users – so do please take the time to respond to it.

With thanks to Whirly Fizzle and Keira Linden

A look at the new Second Life sign-up pages

Posted on by Inara Pey
The first of the new sign-up pages. Courtesy of Linden Lab

Linden Lab has deployed a new format sign-up process for those joining Second Life.

Using a simpler, more unified page design, the new sign-up process brings together the previously separate avatar picker and sign-up form into a single page, effectively reducing the number of individual steps a new user must take from initial sign-up through to downloading the viewer.

Picking a starter avatar is now a case of selecting one of two galleries from a drop-down menu in the left-hand panel in the initial page (shown below): Classic Avatars (the default) or Fantasy Avatars. Clicking the portrait of an avatar will display a full body animated thumbnail of the avatar, while personal information can be entered into the form on the right-hand panel.

The avatar selection panel, showing the Fantasy Avatar, complete with the thumbnail of the highlighted avatar

The options for selecting Basic or Premium membership follow the same page format, although the Premium button takes a user to the more familiar Premium upgrade page, allowing them to choose their preferred payment option: monthly, quarterly or annual. The Basic option button will complete the sign-up process and allow present the download option for the viewer.

The revised Basic and Premium options display

The new sign-up process also gave me the opportunity to try the latest iteration of the Learning Island new users are delivered to the first time they log-in to Second Life using the official viewer.

As I reported in 2015 and 2016, the Lab have been using experience keys to help guide new users in gaining familiarity with the basic movement controls in the viewer. The most recent version of the Learning Islands continues this approach, offering incoming new users a basic set of tasks  – walking, jumping, flying – using the camera – they are asked to complete, before moving through a set of portals that deliver them to the Second Life Social Islands.

On arriving at the updated Learning Island, the guidance HUD automatically attaches, guiding users through the initial exercises. It detaches on leaving the island through the main portal

The new island design is a route through a series of broad halls built around a central terrace that might be suitable for socialising with other newcomers, and which is reached via a portal at the end of the final lesson (using the camera), and which contains the portal that delivers users to the Social Islands.

The lessons themselves and are indicated both on the HUD (seen in the image above) and via instruction tablets within the halls. Animated arrows (again seen in the image above) and on the floor help direct users around the halls.

The lessons are simple enough, and have been used before. however the environment is a marked improvement over the last iterations of the Learning Islands I’ve visited

Overall, the new sign-up process is a lot cleaner and – perhaps more importantly – a lot more modern-looking than the last iteration, which always felt cumbersome to me. It is concise enough to hopefully prevent a new user from bailing out before getting as far as downloading, installing and running the viewer.

Similarly, the updated Learning Island  – which may well have been in use for a while, I’ve not been keeping an eye on the generic islands of late, only the themed islands, – offer a much more straightforward approach to getting started with the basics of the viewer. It might be argued that as this particular iteration doesn’t include information on inventory, Linden Dollars, etc., it might be a little too light on details; but keep in mind this may be one of a number of Learning Island variants the Lab might periodically rotate into use.

 

September SL Town Hall with Ebbe Altberg – reminder

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Town Hall meeting venue

Just a quick reminder.

The next in the Lab’s in-world Town Hall series, again featuring CEO Ebbe Altberg, will take place on Thursday, September 13th, at 09:30 SLT (17:30 BST / 18:30 CET). The event will take place at the Town Hall meeting regions, with the landing point URLs as follows:

Selected questions from the Town Hall meeting forum thread (now closed) will be put to Ebbe during the session, and there may be an opportunity to ask questions from the audience, if time permits.

All things being equal, I hope to have a summary of the session up after the event, which will be similar in nature to my summary of the April 2018 Town Hall – see here for more on that.

SL Land User Group and User Group summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Concierge & Land User Group meeting area

In my week #35/1 SL projects update, I referenced the upcoming re-launch of the Governance user group. Since then, the Lab has added a further group to the list that people might want to take note of.

The Concierge & Land has a fortnightly schedule (meeting every other Thursday), commencing on Thursday, September 13th, 2018, between 12:00 noon and 13:00 SLT; this puts it immediately before the Content Creation User Group. It will be led by Theresa Linden, and it will be held at the Linden Estate Services meeting area.

The focus for the meeting is described as being:

Discussion & education of SL topics such as current known issues and bugs, project viewers and new features, and general Mainland issues.

I assume the “known issues and bugs, project viewers and new features” relate directly to the land management tools within the viewer, rather than being for a more general discussion on all things viewer. However, the emphasis on “general Mainland issues”  is a little curious, as it almost appears to rule out private estates from discussion. So, it will be interesting to see how this is perceived / carried forward.

A typical TPV Developer meeting

User Groups – General Information

There are now user groups held on a weekly / fortnightly / monthly basis, together with the Third-Party Viewer Developer meeting. All of them are open to general attendance by users – but those joining a meeting are asked to keep questions they have rooted to the topics covered by each of the meetings.

So, for example, the Simulator User Group is primarily for questions on the simulator / back-end services; questions relating to governance issues, cannot be answered at these meetings. Similarly, specific content creation questions cannot be addressed at the TPV or Web meetings, etc.

Full details of the user group meetings can be found in the SL wiki user groups page. The following is a brief summary of all eight (including the TPV Developer meeting). Click the group links for the individual information pages:

Day Time (SLT) User Group Frequency Focus Location SLurl
Tuesday Noon-13:00 Simulator Weekly Simulator issues and technology. Denby
13:00-14:00 Governance1 Fortnight Governance-related issues such as in-world abuse, Abuse Reports, Forum Reports, Marketplace Reports, etc. Havenhurst
Wednesday 07:00-08:00 Open Development Weekly Open discussion of SL development, including open source contributions. Oz’s Raft
14:00-15:00 Web2 Monthly Discussion of issues around Web properties such as Marketplace, Profiles, Place Pages, Search, etc. Denby
Thursday Noon-13:00 Concierge & Land3 Monthly Discussion & education of SL topics such as current known issues and bugs, project viewers and new features, and general Mainland issues. Land Services 4
13:00-14:00 Content Creation4 Weekly Discussion of SL content creation including avatars, animations, and other meshes. Hippotropolis Campfire Circle
15:00-16:00 Server Beta Weekly Anything pertaining to server changes and public beta testing. On Aditi: SLurl
Friday 12:00-13:00 TPV Developer5 Fortnight Discussion of viewer & related development, updates, important changes. Primarily aimed at TPV developers Hippotroplis Theatre

Notes:

  1. Commencing: Tuesday, September 18th, 2018.
  2. Date of next meeting (at the time of writing): Wednesday, September 26th, 2018.
  3. Commencing: Thursday, September 13th, 2018.
  4. Excludes the first Thursday of each month.
  5. Date of next meeting (at the time of writing): Friday, September 7th, 2018.

Further:

  • All meetings are subject to US holidays.
  • Changes to the schedules are generally noted on the wiki pages.
  • You will need to have Voice enabled for the Content Creation and TPV Developer meeting (text can still be used at both for comments / questions, as can Voice).

With thanks to Whirly Fizzle for the pointer to the Land Group meeting.