Category: Second Life

2018 viewer release summaries, week #35

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates for the week ending Sunday, September 2nd

This summary is generally published on every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release version 5.1.8.518593, dated August 14th, promoted August 20th. Formerly the SL Voice RC viewer – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Rakomelo Maintenance RC , version 5.1.9.519162, released on  August 31st.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • MetaChat updated to version 1.2.703 on August 29th – now only supports iOS 11 onwards.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Through the Gates of Oria in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Gates of Oria

Now open through until the end of the year is Tah’s (Tahiti Rae’s) latest full region installation, Gates of Oria.  Tahiti has a reputation of building immersive, often deeply expressive installations in Second Life. I first visited one of her installations, 4077 MASH, a homage to the television series and a commentary on war, in 2014 (read here for more), and then was totally captivated by her Love, Henry installation from 2015 (read here for more) and by EVRE in 2016 (read here), her evocative, complex examination of consciousness, connectedness and time.

Gates of Oria does, in many ways, share the same roots as both Love, Henry and EVRE. As with both of those installations, it is very much a journey; one that, like Love, Henry, is intended to stir the emotions, tripping them into play by engaging our imaginations. At the same time, and like EVRE, it takes us on a physical journey through numerous worlds, the very triggers for engaging our imaginations and teasing our emotions, which vary in their themes from light to dark, reflecting the fact that fantasies come in many shades.

Gates of Oria

They say it takes 300 years for an oak tree to grow; 300 years for it to live; And 300 years for it to die. Perhaps our fantasy love took 300 years to grow; An eternity to live; And never dies. Maybe .. it’s real.

– Tahiti Rae, Gates of Oria

This is an installation designed to visually, aurally and musically connect with visitors, as is explained at the landing point. Along with the viewer’s Advanced Lighting Model, enabling local sounds and the music stream for the installation is strongly recommended. I’d also suggest setting draw distance to around 300 metres, so the fullness of the larger spaces can be more easily seen without interruption. As the landing point also notes, proportions can be a little off in places, so when travelling a little playing with ALT-click camera movement and the use of the mouse wheel (or using the CTRL-8 / CTRL-9 / CTRL-0 combinations) can be required, particularly in the spaces where the backdrops appear intended to blend with the build.

Gates of Oria

Exploring the installation can be achieved in one of two ways: by teleporting to the ground and then travelling to the Gates themselves (additional telelport points within statues), and returning to the ground after each visit to make the next. Or, for those short on time, a note card listing the landmarks for all ten worlds can be used to hope directly from one to the next. The former of these approaches again echoes EVRE, except here there is no need to seek out the teleport points, they are found within groupings of statues. As such, and while the statues offer text to set the scene for the world to which that connect, there is no reason the note card LMs cannot be used to move between the different worlds once an initial visit to ground level has taken place.

Fantasy … can be such a risk; such a deep mystery; and profoundly the strongest certainty ever known.

– Tahiti Rae, Gates of Oria

I’m not going to run through all of the worlds; they are for you to experience for yourself. Suffice it to say all are very individual in tone and design, although some motifs can be found in more than one. Some openly demand exploration and can be extensive – such as Labrinto, which is perhaps the set piece of the installation; others are not quite as straightforward as might first appear to be the case, requiring equally considered exploration as there can be many details so easily missed in a quick walk / cam through. Deathless, for example, holds a certain Game of Thrones echo awaiting discovery. Still others are more open in nature, settings designed to allow the imagination to simply take flight – as with 4 Suns.

Gates of Oria

Within several of the worlds, art by CybeleMoon (Hanna Hoobinoo) can be found. Always fantastic in scope, these images give further flight to the imagination. Emotions are also stirred by the audio stream which, although occasionally interrupted by the briefest of adverts, offers music Tah states she has selected specifically for the installation.  Drawing heavily from the world of film (and where else, given the installation is about fantasy and imagination?), the music does add further depth to Gates of Oria – although I admit that I’m perhaps a little biased here in my response, as the stream features pieces by some of my own preferred composers  / arrangers, from the likes of M83, Taro Iwashiro, Bear McCreary, and the amazing Ramin Djawadi, through to several of the established greats of cinematic soundtracks: Morricone, Williams, Horner, Eidelman, Arnold, and more.

A series of events are planned throughout Gates of Oria’s run, details of which can be received by subscribing to Tah’s group at the landing point.

Gates of Oria

There are some minor niggles we encountered – falling through apparent solid objects in a couple of places, while the Eagles in Labrinto steadfastly refused to work for me (I simply right-clicked them for the guide description in the build floater); some of the guidance given was also a little confusing (“Exit far right corner” rather than “Exit to your right”). However, Gates of Oria is nevertheless evocative, imaginative, fully deserving of the time needed to explore and appreciate it.

SLurl Details

Hell hounds, drug elites, wish trees and road trips

Posted on by Inara Pey
Seanchai Library

It’s time to highlight another week of storytelling in Voice by the staff and volunteers at the Seanchai Library. As always, all times SLT, and events are held at the Library’s home at Holly Kai Park, unless otherwise indicated.

Sunday, September 2nd:

13:30: Tea-time at Baker Street

The third full-length novel written about Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles is likely to be the one Holmesian story which – at least in outline – known to most, whether or not they have actually read any of Holmes’ adventures.

But how many of us know the story as it was originally written? Over the decades it has been adapted for film and television more than 20 times, starting as early as 1914/15 with the 4-part series, Der Hund von Baskerville, and continuing on through to Paul McGuigan’s The Hounds of Baskerville, featured in the BBC’s brilliant Sherlock series.

All of these adaptations have offered their own take on the tale. Some – such as McGuigan’s, have simply taken the title of the story and used it to weave a unique tale of their own; others have stayed true to the basics of the story whilst also adding their own twists and turns quite outside of Conan Doyle’s plot in order to keep their offering fresh and exciting to an audience.

So why not join Cale, David, Corwyn and Kayden as they read from the 1902 original, and discover just how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle unfolded this apparently supernatural tale of giant hounds and murder, and the pivotal role played by John Watson himself?

Monday, September 3rd 19:00: The R-Master

In the 21st century utopia has arrived in the form of a repressive but seemingly benevolent, if omnipresent, bureaucracy. Their perfectly ordered world, seemingly run for the benefit of all, is actually ruled with an iron fist. In claiming to have people’s best interest at heart, those in power keep the population occupied and docile with menial tasks and the promise of advancement with the aid of the strictly controlled drug, R-47.

For the vast majority, R-47 actually does nothing.But for a special few, observed and selected by the ruling Council, it can massively enhance their intellect, elevating them to the status of “R-Masters” allowing them to solve problems, see advancements, and help ensure – wittingly or not – the Council’s control over the world, cosseted and pampered well away from the drudgery of ordinary life.

However, there is a darker side to R-47: just as it can elevate the intellect of some of those chosen to receive it, so to can it reduce them to imbeciles – and there is no way of knowing who the outcome might be in advance. Wally Ho is one selected to receive R-47 – and suffers the latter fate.

Determining it will raise his problem-solving abilities and restore his brother, Etter Ho obtains R-47 and takes it. But, once elevated to the privileged ranks of the R-Masters and witness the truth behind the Council’s rule, Etter determines the established status quo cannot allowed to continue, and Big Brother must be brought to heel.

Join Gyro Muggins as he reads Gordon R. Dickson’s 1973 novel about life in what is now our times!

Tuesday, September 4th 28th 19:00: Wishtree

Trees can’t tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .

Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighbourhood “wishtree”—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red’s branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red’s hollows, this “wishtree” watches over the neighbourhood.

You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red’s experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.

A contemporary tale for the times we are witnessing, told with sensitivity and humour. The protagonist (and in may ways the victim of prejudice as unsought as that received by the family in question) may well be a tree, but she has a lesson to teach all of us about tolerance and understanding and a need to heal.

Join Faerie Maven-Pralou as she reads Newbery Award winner Katherine Applegate’s 2017 story.

Wednesday, September 5th, 19:00: The Voyages of Sinbad Part 2

With Caledonia Skytower.

Thursday, September 6th, 19:00: Don’t Make Me Pull Over!

In the days before cheap air travel, families in America didn’t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay  hundreds – perhaps thousands of miles of road, and dozens of annoyances.

During his childhood, Richard Ratay experienced all of them; from being crowded into the back seat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didn’t believe in bathroom breaks.

Now, decades later, Ratay offers a paean to what was lost, showing how family togetherness in America was eventually sacrificed to electronic distractions and the urge to “get there now.” Through his words he paints large what once made Great American Family Road Trip so great, from twenty-foot “land yachts” to oasis-like Holiday Inn “Holidomes” and Smokey-spotting Fuzzbusters to the thrill of finding a “good buddy” on the CB radio …

 

Please check with the Seanchai Library’s blog for updates and for additions or changes to the week’s schedule.

The current charity is Feed a Smile.

 

SL UG updates #35/3: viewer and Marketplace

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grumpity and Alexa Linden host the Web User Group meetings monthly Alexa’s barn.

A brief update, as it was pointed out to me that I missed the Web User Group on August 22nd, and the updates to the Marketplace that were reported in the forums by Grumpity Linden at around the same time.

SL Viewer

A new Maintenance RC viewer was issued on Friday, August 31st. The Rakomelo Maintenance RC, version 5.1.9.519162, offers some 29 fixes and updates, including two for receiving Friend requests and Group notices when off-line via the new HTTP capabilities, and which had not been working correctly following the initial deployment of the capability. These update should match recent server-side updates to the caps, and prevent group notices and Friend requests received whilst off-line failing to be delivered when next logging-in.

There are a number of other useful fixes with this release  – please refer to the release notes / download page linked to above for details.

Marketplace

I didn’t actually make the August 22nd Web User Group meeting, hence the lack of an update in week #34.

However, as has been pointed out to me, Grumpity Linden posted to  the forums concerning a number of Marketplace updates, which I’m simply going to list here for completeness:

  • Gift email was missing if the gift message was blank.  Everyone should get a gift email!
  • Residents with the last name Resident couldn’t leave product reviews.  That was bad, and is fixed.
  • Character count of product description included newlines and so was obviously wrong.  Righted that wrong.
  • Favourites which are no longer available are now marked as such, and can all be removed with a single click
  • Email changes on SL now propagate to the Marketplace.
  • Allow merchants to choose to list multiple “Custom Avatar Brand Names”
  • Retain “Sort By” preferences between pages and sessions.  Makes sense.
  • You can now remove items from the Related Items pop-up.
  • It’s “Land Impact” not “Prim Count”.
  • The Mesh Quiz is a thing of the past.  It will stay in the past, but will surely live on in our memories.

Grumpity also notes that some much-requested updates are “coming soon”: wish lists, favourite sellers, and an auto-complete for brand names.

She also indicated a fix for BUG-225309 “Marketplace: ‘Best selling products’ no longer sorts by best-selling” is in the works, as is a fix for BUG-225307, “Editing Marketplace Listings does not show inactive items to add as related or demo” – although this has apparently been closed as “working as intended”, which is slightly different to providing an actual “fix”! 🙂 .

The next Web User Group meeting (which is open to discussion of all of the Lab’s web properties, not just the Marketplace, is scheduled for Wednesday, September 26th, 2018 at 14:00 SLT. I’ll try to drum this into my head so as not to miss it, as I have done for the last couple!

Eclectica: A New Dawn in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn – click any image for full size

Update: [Eclectica] A New Dawn has closed. SLurl details have therefore been removed from this article.

Maddy  (Nibby Riddler) has a eye for region design; she has shown this through at least two iterations of her region designs carrying the name of Eclectica (about which you can read more here and here). So it was with delight we received an invitation from her to visit the latest incarnation of her work: [Eclectica] A New Dawn – and we weren’t disappointed by all that we found.

For this iteration, Eclectica has returned to the ground, the last time we visited, it was a skyborne archipelago. It forms two large islands separated by a narrow ribbon of water splitting the land between east and west. Both islands are richly wooded, the trees giving rise to a lush landscape, within which are hidden Maddy’s trademark skills in presenting an environment that is rooted in both the natural and the fantastical, both intertwined to present a magical environment in which it is easy to relax and lose oneself.

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn

From the landing point on the southern tip of the eastern island, surrounded by the vibrant colours of summer, a grassy path leads forth through iron gates, then branches to the left as well as running northwards.

The former path leads to a waterside gazebo presenting a view out towards a marvellous vignette encompassing Maddy’s love of the fantastical: a giant hand reaching down from the sky, a carousel caught within long fingers, the cups of the ride falling into the waters below, surrounding the legs of a woman forced to dive from the ride as the carousel is swept upwards, as if snatched from the grassy shore. It’s a marvellous scene, unexpected, a scene capturing both fantasy and offering a nod and a wink of humour. It is also one of several vignettes scattered through the trees.

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn

The path north along the edge of the eastern sea is marked by pools of flowers floating mist-like above the grass. It leads the way to a gabled set of gates. Beyond these, a covered bridge reveals this eastern island is not one, but two: its northern “headland” in fact a small isle topped by an elven arched circle, a place to dance amidst the bloom of trees, flowers and vines.

Between the southern landing point and northern isle are numerous points that offer places to sit and enjoy time alone or with a friend / lover. these range from individual seats, hammocks and beds, through a fenced garden with little hints of Asia, a pool and folly, to a conservatory looking north over the waters – and more to be discovered beyond.

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn

The garden, surrounded by a ring of trees and shrubs, feels like it has been lifted from the comfort of a childhood story and set down within the middle of the island to offer a place of peace and sanctuary. This is a place where time can be passed in reflection. Not even the motorbike and side-car parked within it really look out-of-place, but more another echo of a memory.

The conservatory, meanwhile, looking north across the waters of a small bay, flowers clinging to rocks, has a more open, social feel to it. This is a place for sitting and chatting, relaxing and just being in the moment. Chairs and sofas can be found indoors and out, a deck extending out over the water offering a place to watch swans on the water, the little ice cream carriage adding a sense of easy relaxation to the setting.

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn

Beyond the conservatory familiar pools of flowers in the grass point to two paths. The more eastern runs to a little glade-like setting atop a shoulder of rock, a place with further touches of Asia mix with a little soupçon of fantasy in the glass-like flowers and gently floating spheres. The second path leads by way of trees arched as if to form a gate, to a Romany caravan hidden within its own encircling glade. With its gaily coloured tents pitched in the grassy clearing, benches and little beds of flowers, this has all the feeling of being a home, and place of warm safety, familiar in its bric-a-brac, where cares and worries can again be put aside.

To the west, the second island – reached by a single log bridge spanning the channel between them – is very much a place of two halves. More rugged in nature, it is initially a lush, temperate woodland , cut by a single path climbing west to where temperate gives way to tropical, the trunks of great palm trees rising skyward, while the grass gives way to sand, descending to the broad, shallow sweep of a beach.

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn

Dominating the view is a play on classical mythology: a great figure rises from the waters, supporting a great cup on his shoulders, the Moon lying within its bowl. While it may well be the Moon he holds aloft, rather than the celestial sphere, the allusion to the fate of Atlas could not be clearer – or more romantically phrased: just as Atlas was confined to the western extreme of Gaia, so to does this figure, rise from the western extremes of this world. It’s title meanwhile, I Will Bring You The Moon, offers its romantic touch.

It’s a most unusual sight to behold from the beach and yet, within this setting, does not remain in any way incongruous. Rather, it adds a sense of mystery to the beach, one perhaps coupled by the remnants of a submarine caught in the southern rocks. Facing this across the sweep of sand, a board walk points the way around the northern headland to where a beach hut guards the estuary of the region’s stream, perched on the back of a rocky islet: the perfect end-of-day location.

[Eclectica] A New Dawn; Inara Pey, August 2018, on Flickr[Eclectica] A New Dawn

With scrupulous attention to detail, rounded off with a matching sound scape and – for those who like music to accompany their explorations – a gentle audio stream, [Eclectica] A New Dawn is, simply, a delight.

SLurl Details

  • [Eclectica] A New Dawn (Kymor, rated: Moderate)

2018 SL UG updates #35/2: CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
EEP! The Sky! Alexa Linden toys with the upcoming Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) capabilities to produce some eye-twisting skies. Courtesy Alexa Linden

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting, held on  Thursday, August 30th, 2018 at 13:00 SLT.  These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, meeting SLurl, etc, are usually available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

The choppiness in some of the audio segments where Vir’s voice drops out is due to issues with SL Voice. Topics blow are not necessarily presented in the order in which they were discussed, I’ve attempted to group items by subject matter.

Animesh

Project Summary

The goal of this project is to provide a means of animating rigged mesh objects using the avatar skeleton, in whole or in part, to provide things like independently moveable pets / creatures, and animated scenery features via scripted animation. It involves both viewer and server-side changes.

Resources

Current Status

In support of the server end of Animesh being grid-wide, and the viewer being in RC status, Vir Linden posted an update to the Animesh discussion thread in the forums.  The post underlines the point that now is the best time for some final testing of the initial Animesh capability before it rolls forward to a formal release in the not-too-distant future, when it will be harder to make changes out of concern for breaking existing Animesh content.

In particular, the post makes mention of the fact that moving forward, Animesh will see a behavioural change:

We will be enforcing a size limit on Animesh objects. This will give more consistent behaviour with other types of prims, for which size limits are enforced. The exact details of how this will work is still to be determined, but you should assume that Animesh objects cannot become arbitrarily large.

The reasons for this is that there is no upper limit imposed on rigged mesh objects (whereas all other types of in-world objects have a limit), and there is a concern that if Animesh is not capped, then people could make very large objects that generate rendering issues for those viewing it (see BUG-225331 for more), or as a means simply to grief.

What the limit is and how it is to be enforced is still TBA, but at the CCUG meeting, Vir indicated that the real-time bounding box calculations may be leveraged.

One bug the Lab are trying to poke at is “stuttering” with some Animesh motion. The underlying cause of this has yet to be identified.

Animesh and Resetting the Skeleton

Vir asked the question on when should a skeletal reset occur on an Animesh objects. For example: an Animesh dog has accessories that can be attached / detached by adding / removing from the linkset via script. Should the skeleton for the dog be automatically reset from the removal of an attachment, or should it be a manual reset by the user? Most attachments may not require a reset, unless they were altering the dog’s shape; however, forcing a reset could also mean any animations running on the Animesh would also have to be reset, making things a little complicated. The consensus opinion swayed towards leave things as is, rather than force a reset, and allow creators determine how to handle things.

Bakes On Mesh

Project Summary

Extending the current avatar baking service to allow wearable textures (skins, tattoos, clothing) to be applied directly to mesh bodies as well as system avatars. This involves viewer and server-side changes, including updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures, and may in time lead to a reduction in the complexity of mesh avatar bodies and heads.

This work does not include normal or specular map support, as these are not part of the existing Bake  Service.

Resources

Current Status

Bakes on Mesh is still awaiting the main grid deployment of the AIS updates needed to support the new Bakes on Mesh (and EEP) asset types. As noted in my previous CCUG summary, Bakes on Mesh also requires updates to a number of back-end services (e.g. the Bake Service), and to the simulator itself, all of which have yet to be implemented. The viewer, meanwhile is more-or-less ready, but may see a further project status update.

Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements, including:

  • The ability for region / parcel owners to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) at the parcel level.
  • New environment asset types (Sky, Water, Days that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others.
    • Day assets can include four Sky “tracks” defined by height: ground level (which includes altitudes up to 1,000m) and (optionally) 1,000m and above; 2,000m and above and 3,000m and above, plus a Water “track”.
  • Experience-based environment functions
  • An extended day cycle (e.g a 24/7 cycle) and extended environmental parameters.
  • There are no EEP parameters for manipulating the SL wind.
  • EPP will also include some rendering enhancements  and new shaders as well (being developed by Graham Linden), which will allow for effects such as crepuscular rays (“God rays”)
    • These will be an atmospheric effect, not any kind of object or asset or XML handler.
  • The new LSL functions for finding the time of day according to the position of the windlight Sun or Moon have been completed,and are more accurate than the current options.
  • EEP will not include things like rain or snow.
  • It will still be possible to set windlight local to your own viewer.

Resources

Current Status

EEP is now described as being “very, very close” in terms of server-side support and a project viewer.

An issue with testing has been that a long-standing bug on Aditi (the beta grid) has meant that the Lab has been unable to set parcels them for sale, allowing users to purchase them (funds on Aditi are provided by the Lab – and are non-transferable to Agni! – so purchasing land there is effectively a zero-cost transaction to the user) and then carry out their own EEP testing. This issue has now been resolved by Rider and Ekim Linden, so parcels are now available on the beta grid for those wishing to test EEP once the EEP project viewer is available (as the necessary viewer-side update will initially be in that viewer), and assuming the server-side support hasn’t already been deployed to Agni to allow testing on the main grid.

Another EEP teaser from Alexa Linden

Other Items

Animations: Obtain by Name or UUID? A Case of Permissions

The middle of the meeting saw a discussion on whether calling animations by name or UUID is “more secure”. In short, calling by name requires the animation to be in an individual’s inventory, and thus seen by the Lab as more secure in preventing theft. Calling by UUID opens the potential to animations being physically obtained from the CDN should the UUID be unfairly obtained.

The question was prompted out of concern that is it possible to remove animations (and other items) from No Modify objects ad use them elsewhere – which (it seemed) one or two creators want to prevent. This comes down to more to how the permissions system works, more than anything else (No Modify means an object cannot be physically altered or added to; it does not mean its existing contents cannot be removed). Preventing the removal of an objects contents (whether animations or anything else) would require a significant overhaul of the permissions system.

Link / Unlink Permissions for Experiences

A request was made no adding the ability for experiences to be able to request permission to link / unlink objects without the need for individual requests to be made for each link / unlink operation – something which could be useful with Animesh. This has been discussed in the past, but is seen as being a larger project than something specific for Animesh, although it is seen as a useful capability (along with the means to offer mod keys for No Modify objects). Right now it is unclear what form such a project to provide capabilities like this would be, or where it would fit in the overall SL enhancement roadmap.

In Brief

  • Release Candidates and Project Viewers: generally speaking, if you are using either a Second Life release candidate viewer or a project viewer, you will not be automatically updated to an other viewer version, but you will be updated to the next available version of the RC or project viewer you are using, by the viewer update process. The exceptions to this are with RC viewers – such as the promotion of the viewer to release status (you will receive updates to later release promotions unless you opt to use another RC), or the RC is withdrawn (you will generally be updated to the current release viewer). Details on the release candidate viewer process can be found in my 2013 post: New viewer release process implemented.
  • Experience Keys: Oz confirmed that there is a plan to allow Premium users to have more than one experience key (allowing them to make multiple individual experiences, rather than having to use the same one for different purposes). The time frame for when this will be implemented is still TBD, as it requires a certain amount of back-end work.
  • Date of next meeting: Thursday, September 13th, 2018.