Category: News-Opinion

Of snowball fights and premium discounts in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Winter Wonderland - the snowball fight Arena awaits
Winter Wonderland – the snowball fight Arena awaits

The Lab has been awash with blog posts this last week. There was news of  a new Marketplace promotion – the 12 Days Of Savings, which launched on Wednesday, December 14th and runs through to December 25th. It sees the Lab hook-up with selected content creators to offer up to 70% off selected goods for the period.

That was followed by the announcement of the Jolly Holiday Crawl, and a chance to meeting Linden staff as they hop across wintry regions before retiring to Winter Wonderland for the time-honoured residents vs Lab snowball fight.

The Jolly Holiday Crawl will start at 1:00 SLT on Monday, December 19th, and conclude at :12:00 SLT at the Winter Wonderland, ready for the snowball engagement at Winter Wonderland, which will continue through to 14:00 SLT (officially!). There’s a special gift on offer for those taking part, and the itinerary reads as follows (all times SLT):

Winter Wonderland
Winter Wonderland

To coincide with the above, and the opening of the all new Portal Parks (see my post here for more), the Lab officially announced the re-opening of Winter Wonderland on Thursday, December 15th, together with an end-of-year Premium Membership discount drive.

The five regions of Winter Wonderland offer the Village of Lights (with the main landing point), the snow track for snowboard and snowmobiles (rezzers at the starting point), the skating rinks, Ferris wheel, walks in the snow, and – of course – the snowball fight arena.

The Premium Membership discount is this time in respect of the Quarterly  Billing plan, and relates to 50% off your first payment under that plan.  (all subsequent payments will be at the standard rate), and provides all the usual Premium perks. In addition, new and existing Premium members can claim yet another premium gift, which this time also includes a Premium Badge which unlocks exclusive options at Winter Wonderland (e.g. upgrading snowball weapons in the snowball arena).

For those who are interested in the Premium Membership offer, it expires on January 2nd 2017, at 08:00 SLT – be sure to read the small print on both the official blog post and the Premium sign-up page.

The all new (new) portal parks open in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
New Portal Parks
New Portal Parks

Back in October 2016, Linden Lab blogged about various updates to Second Life (see here). One of the updates mentioned concerned the new two-region Portal Parks, which I wenet on to write about in a little more depth (see here).

Well – guess what? It’s all changed again!

“We made everything fit into one region again,” Naughty Mole told me as I dropped into one of the new Portal Park regions on the suggestion of Dee Linden. “These will be replacing the 2-region ones, which will be gone in a few hours.”

There is something distinctly Tolkienesque about the new parks, which offer a very compact design. At the centre is a huge tree, rooted in a massive crystal, which itself hovers gently in the air, light rising in twists and spirals around it from the glimmering water below.

New Portal Parks
New Portal Parks

Around this is a circular pathway, sitting between the rim of the pool and the great walls of an all-encompassing dome, ageist which great statues and pillars stand, feet garlanded in flowers and plants, the walls behind them set with growing ivy while crystals light the scene. Within these walls are set great doors. Some are closed, their lintels guarded by ancient runes – representing destinations still to come. Others are open, offering walkways to waiting portals, the destination displayed in glowing letters above the runes which might otherwise guard them.

All of the current Lab-provided destinations are represented: Gaming Island, Halloween Haunted, Horizons, Isle of View, Linden Realms, PaleoQuest, The Cornfield and Winter Wonderland. However, if any are not currently open to the public, their teleport portals are sealed and inactive.

New Portal Parks
New Portal Parks

Of the various portal parks designs, this is both the most compact – and potentially the best looking. A landing point built out over the central well present people with a place to sit and a map of the available portals on the surrounding walkway. Admittedly, this started to get a little crowded as people were diverted from the “old” parks – but things will hopefully settle down as both of the portal parks come into use.

SLurl Details

Lab adjusts billing and trading limits in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Tuesday, December 13th, Linden Lab announced updates to the caps placed on trading volumes across the LindeX which are designed to help prevent fraud.

The announcement reads in full:

Many Residents participate in the LindeX® exchange – trading L$ and contributing to the Second Life economy on a regular basis. As part of our commitment to prevent fraud and comply with applicable regulations, there are limitations in place that cap the trading volume for each Resident’s account at certain tiers.

We have recently reviewed and adjusted these tier limits to better accommodate the needs of Second Life Residents. For most, these changes will be beneficial, and you can review the details of your current trading limits by logging into your account and visiting your order history.

If you find that you need higher limits, you can request a tier limit review through our support system. Simply submit a ticket –> Billing –> LindeX Billing and Trading Limits Review Request (for basic accounts) or  Billing and L$ -> LindeX Tier Review ticket options (for premium accounts).

Happy trading!

A Petrovsky Flux gone from Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
A Petrovsky Flux - no longer in Second Life
A Petrovsky Flux – no longer in Second Life

A Petrovsky Flux, the stunning, ever-changing cluster of devices that would assemble themselves and grow almost organically, only to blow apart and rebuild themselves over and over again, taking on a new form each time – has gone from Second Life.

Designed by Cutea Benelli and blotto Epsilon, the installation had, since 2010, been curated by the University of Kansas at their Spencer Art Museum region in SL, where it had over the years been a popular draw. However, at a time when eyes were all on the opening of the Horizons regions (see here) and return of Mont Saint Michel to Second Life in November 2016 (see here), the Spencer Museum of Art region quietly slipped away from Second Life, pretty much unnoticed.

It wasn’t until Chantal Harvey contacted me about the possible status of the Spencer Art Museum region that I found out something may had changed.  “I’ve been trying to get there for weeks now,” she informed me via IM, “I was filming there. but it seems it is gone, do you know?”

A quick check on the map confirmed the region had indeed gone from the grid, and a check through Tyche Shepherd’s excellent Grid Survey summaries showed it had been removed from the grid during the week ending Sunday, November 13th, 2016.

It’s not clear if the removal is permanent or not – as I reported in 2014, the region came close to vanishing from Second Life, due to something of a miscommunication involving the Spencer Art Museum, the University of Kansas and the artists. As a result of that situation, I’ve written to Stephen Goddard, the Spencer’s Associate Director/Senior Curator of Prints & Drawings. He was responsible for the Museum’s presence in Second Life, so hopefully, he can shed some light on what has happened. Should he reply, I’ll offer and update.

In the meantime, here’s Toxic Menges’ 2010 machinima of A Petrovsky Flux to remind us of this fabulous build.

Full Private region LI upgrade now available in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

As per my coverage of the increased LI allowance across Second Life (see here and here), the Lab announced the availability of an additional 10K LI for full private regions on December 7th, 2016.

The recent LI increases represented, on average, a 33% increase across regions. now  – as announced in Upgrade Your Full Private Region to 30,000 Land Impact Today! – owners of FULL private regions can increase their LI allowance by a further 50% – taking them from 20,000 to 30,000.

Upgrades can be requested by submitting a case through the support portal on the Second Life website under the case type Land & Region > Land Impact Change Request. However, when making a request, keep in mind:

  • There is a one-off upgrade fee of US $30 applicable to each Full region being increased to 30,000 Land Capacity.
  • There is an additional monthly maintenance fee applicable to each updated region. This stands at US $30 per month at the time of writing, but please refer to Land Impact Change in the Managing Private Regions Knowledge Base article for current fees.
  • The upgrade must be maintained for a minimum of one calendar month.
  • Downgrading to 20,000 Land Capacity will incur a further one-off charge of US $30.
  • No pro-rating or discounts are permitted with the upgrade.

Telrunya Winter; Inara Pey, November 2016, on Flickr Telrunya Winter – blog post

Second Life Skill Gaming applications to re-open in 2017

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn December 1st, 2016, Linden Lab announced they would be accepting a new round of applications from those interested in becoming Skill Gaming Operators and / or Skill Gaming Creators.

Applications will officially open on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017, and the blog post announcing the move reads in part:

As we blogged back in the Summer of 2014, gambling is strictly prohibited in Second Life and operating or participating in a game of chance that provides a Linden Dollar payout is a violation of our Terms of Service.

However, games of skill are legally permitted in many jurisdictions, and we’ve seen that many Second Life users are interested in playing such games for Linden Dollars. We updated our gaming policy in Second Life at that time and opened applications for Skill Gaming. Skill Gaming applications will reopen on January 3, 2017, for those who wish to become authorized creators and/or operators of Skill Games in Second Life.

Skill Gaming is covered by the Second Life Skill Gaming Policy, which in turn is supported by a Skill Gaming FAQ.The latter will have a link to the Skill Gaming Application form, once applications have re-opened on January 3rd, 2017.

In short, Skill Games are games which, in the Lab’s words:

1) whose outcome is determined by skill and is not contingent, in whole or in material part, upon chance; 2) requires or permits the payment of Linden Dollars to play; 3) provides a payout in Linden Dollars; and 4) is legally authorized by applicable United States and international law.

All Skill Games in Second Life must be created and / or operated by Lab approved Skill Gaming Creators (SGCs) and / or Skill Gaming Operators (SGOs), and must be located within Skill Gaming Regions.  The latter must be Full regions, which cannot be located on the Mainland, and cannot be located adjacent to non-Skill Gaming Regions. They have an increased maintenance fee (tier), which (at the time of writing) is US $345 / month. Existing Full regions meeting the criteria above can be converted to Skill Gaming Regions for a one-off fee of US $100 per region.

Applications for those wishing to become Skill Gaming Operators and / or Skill Gaming Creators re-open on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017
Applications for those wishing to become Skill Gaming Operators and / or Skill Gaming Creators re-open on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017

The Skill Gaming Policy sets out all requirements in full, and should be read, along with the FAQ, by anyone wishing to become a Skill Gaming Operator and / or Creator, or who wishes to access Skill Gaming regions and participate in the games on offer.

The first round of Skill Gaming applications in 2014, took somewhat longer to come into effect than the Lab had planned, and several applicants experienced some delay between submitting their application and receiving confirmation of acceptance (or refusal). In the end, some 45 SGOs, five of whom are also registered as SGCs, and between them, they provide 44 skill games in Second Life.

In August 2016, and as a way of introducing Second Life users to Skill Gaming, Linden Lab  introduced Gaming Islands. These can be accessed either directly or via the Portal Parks and provide information on what Skill Games are, the kinds of games user might encounter, how and where they can be played – and why, in some instances, users may not be allowed to access the regions where they can be played.

Links