Category: News-Opinion

Reminder: Second Life VMM migration set to commence

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeUpdate, 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.

A reminder that as recently announced by Linden Lab (and as I reported here), automated migration of Direct Delivery items on the Marketplace to the Viewer- Managed Marketplace capability commences on Thursday, July 23rd, 2015.

All Marketplace merchants will receive an e-mail at the start of the migration process, and another when it has completed. In addition, those with 5,000+ listings will receive an e-mail related to the scheduling of their store migration.

Operations will run from 21:00 SLT through to 09:00 SLT on weekdays, starting on Thursday July 23rd, and will continue in this manner until all stores on the Marketplace have been migrated. Merchants will not be able to modify their stores while their items are being migrated, but sales of items that are not in the process of being migrated will continue.

Note that Magic Box items will not be migrated during this process; they will require a manual migration, and no date has yet been given as to when support for Magic Boxes will discontinue.

The Viewer-Managed Marketplace ideally requires a viewer updated to support VMM in order to make managing items easier. At the time of writing, viewers supporting VMM are:

Non-VMM viewers will display VMM items in a Merchant Listings folder - do not delete this folder or its contents! folder
Non-VMM viewers will display VMM items in a Merchant Listings folder – do not delete this folder or its contents! (Shown in Singularity.)

Note that if you are a Merchant using a viewer that does not have VMM support, once your store has been migrated, you will have an additional folder in your inventory display called Marketplace Listings.

This is the controlling folder for VMM, and should not be deleted, or have contents deleted or moved (it will be hidden in the majority of viewer with VMM support).

While it is possible to use this folder to continue to add new VMM items to your Marketplace store (providing you create the required folder structure, etc.), as Whirly Fizzle notes on the VMM migration forum thread, this is not a recommended approach given that it might lead to mistakes or confusion.

It had been indicated that VMM migration would not commence until after the viewer code had been promoted to release status. As such, the sudden announcement of the start of migration ahead of such a promotion has caused understandable consternation with TPV developers and merchants, prompting the Commerce Team to comment:

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.

Those who are concerned about the migration process should refer to the migration forum thread, linked-to above. I also have a high-level overview of VMM (written when the project viewer first appeared), including a look at manual migration.

The Lab’s own resources on VMM can be found here:

Lab launches resident-focused Second Life promotional videos

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn 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.

A farewell to Matoluta Sanctuary in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Matoluta Sanctuary, Sartre; Inara Pey, March 2015, on Flickr Matoluta Sanctuary (Flickr), March 2015 – click any image for full size

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.

Matoluta Sanctuary, Sartre; Inara Pey, July 2014, on FlickrMatoluta Sanctuary (Flickr), July 2014

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
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
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.”

Matoluta Sanctuary and Bay; Inara Pey, September 2014, on FlickrMatoluta Sanctuary (Flickr), September 2014

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.

SLurl Details

Viewer-Managed Marketplace migration commences July 23rd

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeUpdate, 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.
If you have the viewer configured to use its internal browser (the SL viewer allows you it set it for *just* links to SL websites), you can
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.

A look at Dr. Phil’s show “featuring” Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Dr. Phil McGraw is a psychologist turned television talk show host who first rose to prominence in The Oprah Winfrey Show in the 1990s prior to migrating to his own show in 2002, simply entitled Dr Phil. In it, he deals with a wide range of topics, offering advice in the form of “life strategies” based on his experiences as a psychologist.

Dr. Phil McGraw (courtesy CBS Television)
Dr. Phil McGraw (courtesy CBS Television)

The show is a staple in the diet of US weekday television, and in the run-up to the July 14th show, Won’t Work, Won’t Go to School: “My Son Just Wants to Game All Day”, there was much brouhaha about the announcement that Second Life would be featured in the segment.

“Featured” tends to suggest a major role; as such, there were many efforts to promote the platform’s inclusion in the show through social media. There were also a number of blog posts expressing some concern as to how SL would be represented in the show.

Such reactions are understandable. This is our platform after all, so promoting it when the mainstream media will result in a natural reaction of anticipation. However, given the focus of this segment was advertised as being about  computer game addiction, the anticipation was countered by a degree of concern as to how the platform might be portrayed.

In the event, any concerns regarding just how Second Life might be portrayed proved to be without cause. Not so much because SL is shown fairly positively within the programme, but rather because, quite frankly, its role in the show was pretty minor; the overall focus for the programme was  squarely on the stated subject of computer game addiction.

Yes, Dr Phil is shown in-world at places like Creations Park and Mont Saint-Michel, but really, SL is completely secondary to the show's focus
Yes, Dr Phil is shown in-world at places like Creations Park and Mont Saint-Michel, but really, SL is completely secondary to the show’s focus

We often joke about being “addicted” to this or that – including computer games; but the truth is that in extreme cases, “addiction” is precisely the correct term. Those suffering from it demonstrate the same responses and reasoning as those caught in more “traditional” forms of addiction such as drugs or alcohol; so much so that it is now beginning to be treated as a clinical condition by healthcare specialists.

Such is the case with the focus of the show: 23-year-old Justin, who is in every sense of the word, an addict. He is almost completely dependent upon playing computer games to the exclusion of all else (other than marijuana), including caring for his own body.

To be honest, it was this aspect of the show which caused me more concern than how Second Life might be presented.

Justin - the young man at the centre of the show
Justin – the young man at the centre of the show

Addiction of any sort can be a traumatic situation for all parties caught within it; be it the person with the addiction or their family or loved ones. As such, I couldn’t help but wonder just how Dr Phil  –  a programme I’ve admittedly never seen before, but which has oft been accused of taking a “simplistic” approach to the topics covered – would handle the issue. Would it sensationalising the issue and Justin’s situation, or would it reduce the issue  to platitudes and sound bites for the sake of daytime television?

However, what we actually get is a reasonable study of Justin’s life and the factors which have contributed to his situation. These include long-standing family history (suicides, mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse); his mother’s own reticence to constructively deal with his childhood obsession with video games; his own personal trauma of being hit by a car at age 15, with a possible undiagnosed closed head injury that brought about a subsequent change in his nature. All of these are covered in a manner which is neither accusatory nor gratuitous, with Dr. Kenneth Woog of the Computer Addiction Treatment Program, providing context for the similarities between computer gaming addiction and more recognised forms of addiction.

There are the inevitable elements of drama in the show – notably around Justin’s examination by Dr. Rachael Ross and the clips of his home lifestyle; but on the whole what is presented here is a balanced look at a young man’s addiction, although it has to be said that given the segment is just 38 minutes in length, some matters are only lightly touched upon; at several points I found myself wanting Phil McGraw to follow-up more closely on comments passed by both Justin and his mother.

However, for a show that does get critiqued at times for its manner in addressing some issues, as noted above, this one did seem to offer a solid means by which Justin could obtain further help, both through the Lawlis Peavey PNP Centre (often used as a referral centre in the show) to further evaluate Justin’s condition, and the offer of a stay at a dual diagnosis treatment centre to help Justin deal with his addiction, depression and anxiety. I’d also hope that some measure of support was also extended to his mother and step-father, both of whom could perhaps use some counselling in how to more positively support Justin in handling his addiction.

I’m still not overly convinced as to the amount of clinical good that comes out of programmes like this, and there is certainly a good deal that could be debated about their merits or otherwise. As it is, and strictly in terms of this particular segment, it would be interesting to see a follow-up, say a year or so hence, so that we might learn how Justin has managed with his addiction and the results of the assistance offered to him.

As far as Second Life is concerned, the show references it twice. The first time is just after the opening titles, when there is around 90 second of footage showing McGraw’s avatar in-world (and McGraw initially manipulating it). Then, around two-thirds of the way through the show, Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg gets to talk about the more positive influences of virtual environments, overlaid with further clips from in-world, for about 60 seconds. In both instances, the platform is used to underline the fact that engaging in computer games and virtual environments is not in itself necessarily toxic, and to counterpoint any generalisations that might be drawn that this is the case. As such, I’d say the platform stood up well in the show.

Lab invites users to “Ask the CEO”

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeOn 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
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?