Category: News-Opinion

Firestorm seek feedback on “restore to last position”

Posted on by Inara Pey

Restore To Last Position (RTLP) was a joint server / viewer capability that presented uses with the ability to right-click on an object in inventory and return it to its last recorded in-world position, relative to the region in which the user is standing. However, due to an exploit used be griefers to rez objects on regions where they otherwise had no rezzing rights, the Lab made changes to the simulator code, which also impacted how this capability worked. As a result, the viewer-side code was removed from the official viewer.

Restore to Last Position as found in Firestorm's inventory context menu
Restore to Last Position as found in Firestorm’s inventory context menu

Nevertheless, TPVs have continued to provide RTLP to users. Unfortunately, the the capability has been long been known to cause a range of genuine inventory issues, and since the changes made to the simulator code to prevent griefing, the shortfalls with RTLP have been somewhat exacerbated (such as with No Copy items, which is why some TPVs have blocked the capability from being used with No Copy objects).

However, as I reported In my last SL projects update, as a result of the recent survey the issued in respect of inventory loss issues, the Lab is considering deprecating the last of the server-side messaging which allows RTLP to work.

This has understandably given rise to concern among some TPV teams, simply because they are aware many users do find the capability useful, despite its limitations, and communicated this to Oz Linden at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday, March 13th.

As no final decision on the future of simulator-side messaging for RTLP has been made, Oz suggested to TPVs that they provide reasoned arguments as to how and why it, or a function like it, should continue to be supported by the Lab, which can then be considered when the time comes to determined the future of the current capability.

To this end, the Firestorm team have issued a blog post asking users to offer their own clear, concise explanations as to how they use RTLP and why they find it beneficial. The aim is to take  the submitted examples and build them into a reasoned argument that can be presented to the Lab and hopefully encourage them to either reconsider deprecating the RTLP messaging or to provide functionality that might help meet some of the more common use cases supplied to the Lab.

So, if you do have a clear use case for wanting to see RTLP, or some similar type of functionality to continue to be offered, and regardless of whether you are a Firestorm user or not, you should consider helping to build a reasoned argument for retaining RTLP by adding your use case to the comments following the Firestorm post (please do not add them to this post, as I am not directly involved in compiling the information).

This doesn’t men RTLP will be saved, but at least the opportunity to present user feedback to the Lab has been provided; if that feedback is sufficiently constructive and consistent, it may influence future thinking on and around RTLP.

Lab calls a halt to the direct exchange of Linden Dollars to other virtual currencies

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Friday, March 13th, Hypergrid Business relayed news that Linden Lab has called a halt to the use of Linden Dollars outside of their own platforms.  The news itself came from the OpenSim based Avination, which has for several years provided the means to exchange Linden Dollars to their own currency (C$) via the use of an in-world ATM mechanism.

In an announcement, which has also been distributed to their users via e-mail, Avination state:  “Due to recent interaction with Linden Labs, we regret having to inform you that the transfer of Linden Dollars to Avination is no longer available, including the payment of your Avination sims via the Avination ATMs.”

The announcement goes on to further read in part:

Following discussions with Linden Labs they have advised that any use of Linden Dollars in payment for currency of ANY other virtual world, or for external services which are not used in SecondLife [sic] is in violation of the TOS …

According to Linden Labs [sic], users of SecondLife [sic] must cash out through LindeX before using real currency to pay for services not rendered within SL.

This move is being linked to matters of potential liability for the Lab. In 2013, the company moved to put greater controls on the re-sale of Linden Dollars through third-party exchanges. At the time, there was a lot of speculation (including my own) as to whether this was in response to FinCEN recommendations or as a more general means of dealing with issues of fraud, etc.

In 2013 the Lab moved to provide greater control over the re-sale of Linden Dollars, including prohibiting third-party exchanges from either buying back L$ amounts from users or providing them with the means to cash-out L$

While the Lab did subsequently allow third-party operations to continue to sell Linden Dollars to users (said L$ having been purchased from the Lab), a prohibition was placed on such operations to either buy L$ amounts from users or cash them out of the platform; a move which allowed the Lab to demonstrate it can effectively monitor and control the outward flow of money from Second Life.

However, it might be said the the use of in-world scripted devices such as “ATMs”, which enable the direct conversion of Linden Dollar values to other virtual currencies which can then be cashed out, potentially gives rise to liability exposure for the Lab, should it be shown that such mechanisms might be used for illegal purposes. Thus, the Lab has made this move to distance itself from such a risk.

In their announcement, Avination also suggest that this move may affect how Second Life users can pay for external services such as audio stream rentals in the future. Whether this is the case or not remains to be seen. Most of these services provide such a payment mechanism through a registered Second Life account, without any supplemental transfer of the value of the payment outside of the platform (the funds can effectively only be cashed-out via the Lab’s LindeX). Thus, there wouldn’t appear to be any issues with services working in this way to continue to do so. However, this is purely speculation on my part, and we’ll have to await official word from the Lab.

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Lab asks educators to share their success stories

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeLinden Lab has issued a blog post and started a discussion thread in the forums on the subject of educational success stories in Second Life.

In particular, they are keen to hear of success stories within the educational sector and by those who have been using the platform for educational purposes (outside of teaching new residents how to use Second Life, An area in which the Lab already knows there are in-world organisations at work in that area as well).

The blog post reads in full:

Are you an educator seeing positive results from using Second Life? We’d love to hear from you! Please join us in this Education Forum thread to share your answers to the following questions:

  1. What educational organization do you represent?
  2. How do you use SL in your educational endeavours?
  3. Most importantly, what positive results have you seen from using SL?

From direct conversations, press coverage, and the like, we’ve heard of a number of organizations seeing positive results using Second Life for education, but we’re always eager to hear more and we hope you’ll add your voice to the thread.

Thanks!

Commenting on the post and requires, Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications told me, “We kicked off this thread because having a current collection of shared success stories is certainly helpful to our PR efforts, helps further our understanding of that community, and can also be a useful resource for people who may be interested in using SL in similar ways. We’ve spoken directly with a number of educators active in SL and certainly keep an eye out for these kinds of stories in the press as well, but we’re always eager to hear more.”

And it is not only educators and educational institutions the Lab wished to hear from, as Peter went on to state, “While we’re particularly interested in success stories from educators affiliated with educational institutions, we’d also be happy to hear from anyone who’s seen positive results using SL in their educational endeavours.”

So, if you do have a story of educational success and Second Life to tell, please be sure to join the conversation.

“We are building a new product *in addition* to Second Life”

Posted on by Inara Pey

Just Another Tequilla Sunrise, Isle of Love; Inara Pey, October 2014, on FlickrJust Another Tequilla Sunrise, Isle of Love (Flickr)

It’s no secret that the Lab is working on a “next generation” virtual world(s) platform. Since the original announcement and follow-up confirmation, the matter has inevitably led to some controversy.  Since that time the Lab has sought to give reassurance to users that doing so is not the “end” of Second Life.

Hence why the Lab are continuing to develop Second Life and continuing to plan for its future, up to and including a planning meeting which took place at the Battery Street offices during February 2015. Hence why the Lab continues to circulate manpower and expertise between Second Life and the development of their new platform, so that both might equally benefit.

Indeed, after recently advertising a software engineering position specifically for Second Life work, Oz Linden, the Lab’s Technical Director for the platform, was able to Tweet:

And no, the Lab will not say who it is, or what their involvement in SL might be
And no, the Lab will not say who it is, or what their involvement in SL might be

In this, it’s also worth pointing out that Oz has very much been the cheerleader when it comes to SL’s prospective future. In 2014, when the Lab was starting a process of aligning its resources to support both Second Life and its new platform, he actively campaigned for the post of Technical Director for Second Life. In July of that year he was happy to go on record saying:

I went through kind-of a process with Linden Lab management to try to get the new position I’m in now. This is something I wanted. I wanted this. This was not some kind of booby prize that was handed me. I got a couple of IMs from residents, I’m sure they were mostly kidding and mostly all in fun, but saying, “Oh, poor Oz. He got left behind.”

Poor Oz did not get left behind. Lucky Oz got exactly the job he was looking for.

Oz Linden - Technical director of Second life offers some pragmatic and open thoughts about the platform and its future
Oz Linden – Technical director of Second life offers some pragmatic and open thoughts about the platform and its future

He also takes a very positive attitude to the debate over the new platform and how it might or might not impact Second Life, noting that for the Lab as a whole, that such a debate is going on within the community demonstrates that they still have a very passionate and supportive user base for the platform:

People wouldn’t bother to criticise us for what they see as our flaws, and we can all either agree or disagree with whether or not individual issues are a big deal, and that’s a conversation I’m looking forward to. But they wouldn’t be bothering to criticise us if they didn’t think Second Life was worth having and worth improving.

This was again demonstrated during the February 13th TPV Developer meeting, when the subject of the new platform was raised in passing, Oz again emphasised that the future of Second life is far from over. In doing so, he also demonstrates the kind of pragmatic attitude towards the new platform we should perhaps all consider adopting. He’s further  given me permission to reproduce his comments here in both audio recordings and as written transcriptions.

 

The folks that are working on the new platform would love to be able to say that they’re making something so amazing and so wonderful, and so much better that everybody will want to move over to it. And maybe that will happen; and if it does, then Second Life will be this vast, empty place, and there’ll be no activity happening here, and if we turn it off, nobody will notice.

I don’t expect that will happen, and realistically, none of them expect that will happen right out of the box, anyway. Because there’s an awful lot in Second life that will take time to to create equivalence for in whatever they end-up decided to call the new thing. So it’ll be time.

But if Second life continues to be a sound working environment for people, and they’re still enjoying it, and they’re still using it and it’s still economically advantageous to keep it alive – why would we turn it off? I mean, we won’t. It’s silly. And I think that’s going to be years and years. [That’s] just my personal opinion.

And in the meantime, my job is to continue to make it better. Not “keep it alive”; not, “keep it limping along” – to make it better.

 And in terms of future activities related to Second Life, he went on to say:

 

It’s no secret we had a big planning conference in San Francisco last week; it wasn’t meant to be a secret, we did. We got everybody involved in Second Life get together; we had developers, and QA people and support people, and operations people and product planning people and business people….

And everybody got together and talked about what was working, what wasn’t working, various ideas for how to improve things, and it was fantastic. It was really fun; everybody there learned something they didn’t know when they got there, and we came away with a lot of great ideas. And we’re going to go ahead with some of those ideas. So, we’re having fun!

So really, there’s no reason to fear for the future of Second Life at this point in time. It’s liable to be around for a good while yet. Hence why I use another quote from Oz as the title for this article, one which I’ll paraphrase in closing. The Lab aren’t building a new platform instead of working on Second Life, the Lab are building a new platform in addition to working on Second Life.

Lab invites residents to the Isle of View for Valentines

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlifeThe Isle of View, the “official” destination for Valentine’s Day reappeared on the grid earlier in the month (my thanks to Bixyl for poking me about it when it appeared), and on Thursday, February 12th, the Lab invited people to consider spending a part of Friday, February 13th visiting the isle.

The blog post with the invitation reads in part:

Love is in the air and Valentine’s Day is just a few days away! Pink and red dominate, chocolate sales sky-rocket, and we’re reminded that the true hallmark of love is in the quality of time we spend with our loved ones.

Come to the Isle of View on February 13th for some Pre-Valentine’s Day fun. Meet up with other Residents and enjoy all the romance that Isle of View has to offer – boat rides, fireworks, kissing booths – a treasure trove of memorable moments just waiting to be made with someone special.

Why Friday, February the 13th? That’s a good question. Once upon a time, the Lab used to participate in Valentines Day through things like kissing booths (yes, you could get to kiss a Linden!). So, given the invite is for a week-day visit, does this mean those popping along might just find a Linden or two within the Isle’s kissing booth?

Will there be Lindens in in the Isle of View kissing booths?
Will there be Lindens in in the Isle of View kissing booths?

The Lab is keeping mum on that; instead, all they are saying is:

Why February 13th? Because we believe in love, and there is still time to find a special someone for the big day.

If you’ve got a Valentine – bring them to the Isle of View.
If you’re currently looking for a Valentine – come to the Isle of View.
If you have several Valentines – well lucky you – bring them all to the Isle of View!

But you never know, after all, they did recently re-launch another staple of Lab / resident fun, the snowball fight. So, if Valentine’s day is your thing, why not pop along to the Isle of View on February 13th and find out. You can always visit again on the 14th with your loved one, if you don’t want them to spy you loitering around the kissing booths…

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One year on: Ebbe’s Linden Lab

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Monday, February 10th, 2014, Ebbe Altberg officially took-over the reins as the CEO of Linden Research Inc. (aka Linden Lab).

The news of his appointment, which had been released not too long before his arrival, and after the Lab remained steadfastly silent after the departure of his predecessor had entered the public domain, tended to bring retorts of “who he?”, promoting me to pull together something of a profile on him from various sources, which tended to draw largely positive feedback. I also took the liberty of offering a couple of suggestions on the day he arrived at LL, which appeared to be appreciated:

So, now we are a year on, how have things been, overall?

For me, given I originally wrote that “open letter” to him on the subject of communications, the turn-around has been both noticeable and appreciated. At the first of his many public appearances with bodies of users and groups which marked his opening months at the Lab, Ebbe effectively announced at the 2014 VWBPE event that the door is once again open, and demonstrated as much by spending almost 90 minutes addressing questions from users.

Following that, we saw re-engagement through forums, further bridge building with educational and non-profit organisations, the re-opening of the JIRA, the lifting on the ban on Linden staff entering SL using their Linden accounts unless they were on official business, and fresh (and persistent) use of the blogs once more to present news, information and updates – such as Monty Linden’s superb range of posts on the HTTP work, or Landon Linden’s equally informative posts such as The Recent Unpleasantness. As the year progressed the Lab continued to open windows as well as doors, seeking to re-engage with the community through a variety of means, from pro-actively seeking input from users on potential improvements to SL through to something as simple as the return of the annual snowball fight.

Ebbe Altberg: one year in the Hot Seat
Ebbe Altberg: one year in the Hot Seat

All of this has been to the good, even if some approached this “new” openness (actually more of a return to how the Lab used to be) with suspicion. Some of it was perhaps understandable; at the start of his tenure at the Lab, Ebbe’s predecessor seemed to initially breathe life into matters of communication (even then a priority in many people’s eyes) – only for the door to been slammed shut again within a few months.

Some might even argue that such re-engagement is trivial “in the scheme of things”; I’d say not so. Engagement and communication lie as two of the foundations of trust between a company such as a Lab and its user community; therefore putting them both back in place does do much to stem the erosion of that trust.

Elsewhere, things may seem to have been a little slower. While there have been changes for the better for SL in technical terms, it’s fair to say that these have been more incremental and evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. But then, SL is a decade-plus old platform; getting truly revolutionary with it isn’t that easy. Instead, what we’ve had is a continuation of approach started prior to Ebbe’s arrival at the Lab – and quite rightly, too.

Far better to allow projects of proven likely benefit to continue to their conclusion and then build on them, than to suddenly try to jump tracks and do something else entirely, even if it does promise lots of new shiny in the process. As it is, the improvements this work has brought to the vast majority of users are undeniable. What’s more the approach has meant the thorns long ignored, such as group chat issues (another pressing problem put to Ebbe when he arrived) are also getting attention.

The Engadget Expand NY panel for Back to Reality: VR Beyond Gaming. For left to right: Ebbe Altberg, Matt Bell, Marte Roel and host Ben Gilbert
Ebbe Altberg also worked to put Linden Lab and Second Life front-and-centre of the debate on the future of the metaverse through opportunities such as SVVR’s Creating the VR Metaverse panel, and in discussions about the future of VR outside of games through opportunities such as at Engadget Expand NY in November 2014  (above)  where he joined Matt Bell, Marte Roel and host Ben Gilbert.

Where things have perhaps been radical have been outside of Second Life, such as the dropping of almost all of the products that marked the company’s attempts to diversify its portfolio and potentially generate additional revenue. Again, this was actually something started before Ebbe’s arrival, but which he supported – hence the axing of Creatorverse, dio and Versu, to be followed later in the year by the closure of Patterns development and the sale of Desura.

In truth, when first announced, the idea of the Lab looking to diversify its revenue stream through a broader product base was a good one; the problem was the follow-through never really matched expectation and became too much of a grand experiment.

Of all the products the Lab developed or acquired, only Blocksworld has demonstrated it has real legs, while Creatorverse and dio, always appeared to be far too limited in appeal to ever gain deep and lasting traction, so trimming them was a sensible move. It was also hard to see how the acquisition of Desura could offer the Lab practical revenue growth outside of meeting its own needs, or without on-going investment and development which would in turn offset the value of revenue gained. Even so, Patterns and Versu, did appear to offer potential. Versu has certainly since gone on under its own steam (full kudos to the Lab for allowing it to do so), while Patterns, even though still under development, built up a small but loyal following on both Steam and Desura, and the announcement of its passing did give rise to upset.

The little "Dorito man" headed off into the sunset in October, as Patterns followed Creatorverse, dio and Versu in being axed from the Lab's nascent product portfolio. It was followed in November by news that Desura had been sold.
The little “Dorito man” headed off into the sunset in October, as Patterns followed Creatorverse, dio and Versu in being axed from the Lab’s nascent product portfolio. It was followed in November by news that Desura had been sold.

Continue reading “One year on: Ebbe’s Linden Lab” →