WQNC, December 2024 – click any image for full size
The last time I wrote about Maasya’s Wo Qui Non Coin (or WQNC for short) was nigh-on a year ago, when Maasya presented a Japanese shrine caught in the midst of winter (see: Visiting a Japanese shrine for Christmas in Second Life). As WQNC has had a habit of vanishing from Second Life from time-to-time (indeed, the time I wrote about it prior to December 2023 was in January of that year – and it vanished practically right after I’d published my little write-up!), I lost track as to what might have happened with it.
However, WQNC is currently back in Second Life, and appears to have been so since around the start of November. At the time of my December visit, it once more offers a Japanese winter and temple scene as it did back in December ’23 – but this time on a much grander scale, Maasya once more having upsized to a Full region – and one leveraging the Land Capacity bonus. As such, this iteration of WQNC is able to offer a lot to take in, from the streets and alleys of a small town through to summit-topping temples and winding paths of cut stone, to a hidden place in which to hide from the world.
WQNC, December 2024
And cats. Lots of cats (which suits me just fine, as I’m currently the human for 2.5 cats (the half being a semi-feral stray I’ve been trying to gently win over for the last 5-6 months, but we’re still at the point where he will come in for food – as long as he doesn’t have to travel further into the house than the dining room – and will only suffer my presence within 3-4 feet of him when I have a food bowl in my hand!
However, as it took 18 months to fully gain the trust of an abandoned cat living in the rough the last time I did this, I’m confident we’ll get there this time around as well – eventually!
WQNC, December 2024
But back to WQNC. Surrounded by an off-region mountain range, the setting might be considered as has having two distinct but fully intertwined elements to its design. To the east, there is the low-lying townscape, with also extends westwards along the southern edge of the region; to the north there are the highlands forming a wall of rock against which the town in part huddles, and which extends a broad, stepped plateau southwards along the western side of the region, offering a further shoulder of rock to protect the town.
The Landing Point sit below this mountain, on the south side of the region where the local rail line reaches the town’s little single-platform station. Slightly elevated, the station appears to be the line’s terminus, the two-car commuter train perhaps about to set off eastwards once more and dive into the tunnel burrowing through a rocky shoulder sitting in the south-eastern corner of the region. Whilst nowhere near as high as the northern-western summit, these rocks do extend a flat finger north, on which has been built two small apartment blocks.
WQNC, December 2024
The latter seem to hint at one of the region’s little secrets: that seem to be the residences of local tenants. Whether they are for rent or have simply been decorated by friends of Maasya, I’ve no idea; but the multiplicity of owners for the furnishing within the caused me not to pry further so as not to invade privacy. The same appeared to be the case with some of the small houses within the town itself (notably those directly below and across the street from the apartment buildings), so again, some care might be required when wandering through the town.
Not that wandering shouldn’t be done; there is a richness of detail within the little streets and alleys deserving of discovery, indoors and out – including one or two little SL stores selling their wares tucked away here and there among the bars and eateries and other establishments. So do take your time exploring.
WQNC, December 2024
It is also through the town that on can reach some of the ways up into the snowy northern uplands. One of these makes its way up to the Neko shrine devoted to cats, and where some of the local felines might be found enjoying the warmth of an oil heater. Another makes it way up and long the foot of the flat-topped summit before climbing over the northern hills and plunging down to where the aforementioned hideaway can be found.
To reach the summit, however, one must take the steps opposite the entrance to the train station. These wind their way upwards, guarded by lanterns, stone cats and saplings, first reaching an outthrust shoulder of a plateau. With a stream flowing swiftly by to one side and what looks like a natural hot spring on the other, this area is home to the Mishima Jinja – although the spirits it hosts are not exactly of the deity kind!
WQNC, December 2024
The path upwards continues on the far side of a bridge spanning the stream, arriving at another terrace from which the final ascent to the top of the mountain might be made via the imposing straight stairway that rises as if to the heavens. At the top and at last, visitors come to the temple and shrines. The last time I saw the temple, back in December 2023, it was home to a dragon. Now surrounded by the waters of a large man-made pool, it houses an impressive carving of three snakes.
From this lofty vantage point, one is afforded views down over the town below. There is also a further stairway down to another plateau. This is home to the waters of a large circular pool, which one might meditate before on a padded bench (and perhaps give the legs a bit of a rest before challenging them with the walk all the way back down to the lowlands once more!).
WQNC, December 2024
One of the things I really like about this iteration of WQNC is the use of muted colour. From sky through rocks to buildings, muted tones are used within the expanse of grey sky and rock and off-white clouds and snow. Reds and greens and blues are, for the most part, pushed towards the darker, more faded / aged end of the spectrum. As a result, where a fuller, rich colour is used – be it on a shop sign, the leaves of a tree, the paper of a lantern, even the sides of a drinks vendor or child’s toy – it literally pops out at you with a sense of warmth to offset the the surrounding winter coldness. Marvellous!
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, December 8th, 2024
This summary is generally published 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 for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version 7.1.10.10800445603, formerly the DeltaFPS RC, dated September 11, promoted September 17 – NO CHANGE.
Release Candidate: ExtraFPS RC, version 7.1.11.12150664210, December 5 – New.
Monocle Man Gallery: Vanessa Jane – The Fading Year
Now open at the main gallery at Monocle Man, is an exhibition of Second Life landscape photographic art by Vanessa Jane (VanessaJane66). While Vanessa does not limit her photography SL landscapes, it is this aspect of her work that I particularly admire, so I appreciate any opportunity to view and potentially review her exhibitions.
Entitled The Fading Year, the exhibition at The Monocle Man features images of the latter half of the year, with the autumn months located in the lobby area of the gallery and continuing up the stairs to the smaller of the two exhibition rooms, while the main galleried hall is devoted to regions caught in the midst of winter.
Monocle Man Gallery: Vanessa Jane – The Fading Year
Thus we have fields of fall’s gold (to play slightly on words), streets where leaves skitter in the breeze across cobbles or are pinned to the surfaces of roads by the rain, and crops await their harvesting; all separated by a short step from foggy winter mornings, trails blankets by snow, trees dusted by frost and lodges overlooking frozen lakes.
Presented in a large format and available for sale, these are pieces perfectly capturing autumn and winter and all that might be considered romantic about them. Each piece is cropped and framed to near-perfection (with some simply sublime in their framing – like The Horse through the Trees), and very much suitable for hanging in any Second Life home. Some of the regions in which they were taken will likely be familiar to Second Life travellers, other perhaps less so; however, whether the location itself is recognised or not doesn’t really matter; just enjoy the beauty of each piece.
Monocle Man Gallery: Vanessa Jane – The Fading Year
Goblin’s Knob, December 2024 – click any image for full size
I first wrote about Goblins Knob, a Homestead region designed by Tolla Crisp and her frequent region design partner, Dandy Warhlol (terry Fotherington), back in August 2024, not long after it had opened and a further element of Tolia’s Frogmore family of regions in Second Life (see: Wandering Goblins Knob in Second Life).
At that time, the setting was described by Tolla and Terry as being somewhat inspired by London’s infamous Pudding Lane (before the fire) mixed with elements of the Harry Potter and the Spiderwick Chronicles series. As I noted back then, whilst familiar with the latter, I’ve never read the former (nor even watched any of the films in full; I’ve simply never been a fan of the franchise or its author), and so required a degree of education on matters (thank you, again, Wilhelmina!) but thoroughly enjoyed my explorations.
Goblin’s Knob, December 2024
With the end of the year fast approaching, Goblin’s Knob has been redressed for winter and, whilst maintaining elements tying it back to the likes of Diagon Alley, it has also been redressed in places to better fit with the season. In doing so, it has the sense of becoming a more independent setting, unburdened by the former references, as reflected in the change to the region’s description since my August 2024 visit:
Welcome to the tiny village of Goblins Knob, a Frogmore Region, where the windows glow with a warm welcome and hearts are filled with the spirit of Christmas.
– Goblin Knob’s Destination Guide description
Goblin’s Knob, December 2024
For those who may have visited the August iteration of the region, the central canal remains, bordered on either side with houses and places of businesses. However, the eastern end of the canal now closed off, rather than passing under bridge and walkway to reach more open waters. This more easily links the two banks of the canal for exploration, although the large calibre cannon maintains a watch along the length of the canal from a rooftop above the cobbles now connecting the two sides of the waterway.
Also gone for this iteration are the balloons and dirigible that had been floating overhead, and the boats chugged the narrow, deep canal (and the waiting water monster!), leaving the latter as an uncluttered body of water.
Goblin’s Knob, December 2024
All of this, together with changes along the north side of the canal (and particularly to the north-eastern corner of the region) allow the setting – as noted above – to come more into its own as a singular location, rather than blending together various ideas (including for me at least what felt like a faint echo of Lovecraftian mystery). Meanwhile, the snow it blanketing rooftops, drifting along cobble paths and embracing open spaces as it falls silently from the sky, brings a new magic and delight to Goblin’s Knob.
This is place where the warmth of wintertime shines, despite the coldness of the setting. Light blazes from windows and doorways, carrying the promise of warm hearths and bright flames awaiting cold toes that might be wriggled before them, whilst partially-numb fingers might curl themselves around the gentle heat of a mug of hot chocolate supped from the comfort of a familiar armchair. Outside, sprinklings of seasonal decorations, the presence of snowmen, stalls selling hot roasted chestnuts and a slightly faded carousel guarded by colourful nutcracker soldiers, all exude a time-of-year warmth of their own to counter while might otherwise be air cold enough to fog breath and chill one’s insides.
Goblin’s Knob, December 2024
Close by the Landing Point, a musical clock plays Someone To Watch Over Me in a tinkling tinkling greeting to further turn thoughts of the cold to one side, the music occasionally accompanied by the happy trilling of a bird or two, as a brazier’s fire hisses and crackles in the background. The latter casts its glow over the chairs ranged next to it and the local wishing well, ideal for those wanting to take photos at the latter without feeling too cold.
Finding your way to all the locations in the setting can be a little confusing, but this makes exploring more fun. To get to the south-western end of the village where the old carousel resides, for example, it’s probably best to cross to the north bank of the canal and head for the stone bridge at its western extent and then cross back from there. Although that said, you could slither / slide down snowy rocks near the wind / watermill and that ascend stone steps and reach the same point, if you’re feeling adventurous.
Goblin’s Knob, December 2024
Getting to the skating rink is also perhaps easiest if you go through the wrought iron gate behind the Landing Point and make a right turn through a gap in the iron fence to follow a sort-of snowy trail back around and behind the houses to where the rink is tucked away. Whilst small and without a skates giver of its own, those with skates in their inventory might find it useable!
Throughout all of this are plenty of opportunities for photography, and I would suggest using the local environment when doing so, as it suits the overall ambience of the setting perfectly. Those wishing to rez props for photos can do so be joining the Frogmore group; as Auto Return appears to be turned off, however, do please remember to pick up your bits afterwards.
Now open through until December 13th, 2024 is the Winter Showcase in support of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), through Team Diabetes of Second Life, ADA’s official and authorised in-world fund-raising team. As with previous years, the event includes live performers, DJs, dancing, ice skating, and the Winter Showcase for shopping and a seasonal hunt.
As is traditional for the event, it occupies one half of a region, with the Showcase shops for merchants bracketing the central events and activities area. The merchants participating in this years event are:
Merchants are each offering at least one item among their displays with 100% of proceeds from sales going directly to Team Diabetes of Second Life. The full shopping guide can be found on the Team Diabetes of Second Life website.
Team Diabetes of SL Winter Showcase 2024
Event Schedule
Sunday, December 8th, 2024
10:00 – Samuel James
11:00 – Mimi Carpenter
12:00 Noon – Mapoo Little
The Reindeer Hunt features prize-giving reindeer. Find them, pay L$10 and claim the prizes. All proceeds go to ADA. A list of prizes is available on the Team Diabetes of Second Life website.
About the American Diabetes Association and Team Diabetes of Second Life
Established in 1940, the American Diabetes Association is working to both prevent and cure diabetes in all it forms, and to help improve the lives of all those affected by diabetes. It does this by providing objective and credible information and resources about diabetes to communities, and funding research into ways and means of both managing and curing the illness. In addition, the Association gives voice to those denied their rights as a consequence of being affected by diabetes.
Team Diabetes of Second Life is an official and authorised fund-raiser for the American Diabetes Association in Second Life. Established with the aim of raising funds in support of diabetes treatment and to raise awareness of the disease in SL, Team Diabetes of Second Life was founded by Jessi2009 Warrhol and John (Johannes1977 Resident).
Angelic Bay, December 2024
Angelic Bay Winter Celebration Photo Competition
As noted, the Winter Showcase occupies one half of Kultivate Magazine’s Angelic Bay, a Full Region intended for photography. Currently dressed for winter, the second half of the region is open to visitors, and is currently hosting a photo competition offering a total prize pool of L$30,000 to be split between four winners.
Angelic Bay, December 2024
Details on the competition can be obtained from the main Landing Point, but in brief:
Images entered into the competition:
Must have been taken within the half-region setting.
On Friday 6th, December, 2024, Linden Lab hosted the second of its Zoom-base “Blogger Town Hall” calls with invited bloggers to discuss Second Life in a session. The topics discussed were wide-ranging, covering Mobile, marketing, the desktop viewer, support and other issues.
Participating directly in the meeting from Linden Lab were: Executive Chairman, Brad Oberwager, CTO Philip Rosedale; VP of Product and Engineering Grumpity Linden, Pluto Linden (Mobile UX), with Brett Linden hosting the event.
As reiterated in this meeting, the Lab is experimenting with routes of engagement with the broad user base of Second Life – many of whom may not read the official blog posts on secondlife.com, but who may follow one or more bloggers. Further, these bloggers know how to communicate with their audience / have come to enjoy an audience because of they was they blog – written or video, etc., and so they offer a far-reaching channel of communications. Most particularly, the zoom meetings:
They allow for face-to-face interactions between users and those at the Lab, allowing the latter to be seen as they are.
The format allows LL to easily bring together different groups of bloggers relatively easily according to the core subjects the Lab would like to discuss and take feedback on.
Given this, these meetings are not replacing other forms of meeting / channels of communication – the Lab is experimenting with multiple ideas for improving their overall communications with users – and leveraging existing communicators / bloggers within the broader SL community is just one aspect of this work.
On The SL Mobile Roadmap
SL Mobile Credit: Linden Lab
Pluto Linden provided a presentation to highlight some of the upcoming features and capabilities that will be coming to SL Mobile in the coming months (approximately December 2024 through to Quarter 2, 2025), although as with everything, time frames for precise delivery on the following is subject to confirmation / change.
In doing so, Pluto emphasised the fact that all that has happened with the SL mobile product is foundational; “and now, a lot of the really exciting stuff is to come, and on the horizon for 2025”.
The presentation itself highlighted the following upcoming new features and capabilities:
2024 Plans
Ability to create accounts via Mobile, including creating an initial avatar and logging in using the existing new joiner workflow – also see below for more on this.
Extending the work on push notifications to include Group notices, including the ability to specify which of your Group from which you wish to receive notifications .
Persistent chat / IM conversations between log-ins.
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SL Mobile plans for late 2024
Quarter 1, 2025
Implement an Address Bar, making it possible to:
Search landmarks /create landmarks.
Share SLurls with people on other apps (Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp, etc.) via the native share cards found in Android and iOS.
Allow maps.secondlife.com work on the Mobile App.
Shipping the first version of a new feature called Lobby, intended to:
Reduce the time between launching the App and in-world interactions.
Provide information and a focus on communication within the App, allowing the user to see and respond to incoming messages; see who among their friends is on-line, even as the App is loading the world, .
Provide an ability for those on lower / mid-tier mobile devices to make use of the App as a communications tool.
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SL Mobile plans for Q1 2025
Quarter 2, 2025
Better and faster access to chat, avoiding multiple taps on the screen.
Better selection of, and interaction with, in-world objects.
Laying the groundwork for item-level avatar editing, which is seen as a springboard to offering other / further ways of interacting with Inventory, including the potential of eventually making Marketplace purchases through the App and being able to unpack and use them.
SL Mobile updates planned for Q2 2025
Mobile App – Audience and On-Boarding
As noted in Second Life Mobile: free to all users & Lab execs discuss the product and goals, SL Mobile is being broadly developed at the moment with two primary audiences in mind: existing users, as a means for them to enhance their SL experience through being able to engage with the platform whilst away from their desktop viewer access; and “Lapsed” users who have left SL, and who have stated a reason for them doing so is because SL doesn’t address their preference for using mobile to access the things they want to do.
This was reiterated by Brad Oberwager when discussing the fact that SL Mobile will have the ability to create new SL accounts in the very near future.
We built the Mobile App for current residents with the hope it brings lapsed residents back. But because we’re not putting any marketing dollars behind getting people into [Second Life] through the Mobile App, the join flow is really going to be getting an alt put together [so] while you can do all sorts of things through the join flow, this is really designed for current users.
We wanted to put the full experience on the Mobile App, because that would cool if VentureBeat was going to write something, and they want to come through, it would be cool to have that happen; but that’s not what we’re marketing towards.
-Brad Oberwager, December 6th, 2024
Measuring SL Mobile’s Success
In terms of measuring the overall success of SL mobile, the Lab is not focused on technical elements (features, crash rates, bug fixes etc.). The key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the App’s success are focused on usage, for example:
How many times a month is the App being used overall / how many times a month is an individual using the App.
How many times a day is the App being used overall / how many times a day does an individual log-in to SL using the App.
How long does an individual spend in-world when logged-in via the App.
How many people are downloading the App is considered a separate measure, as it both leads to the above three as meaningful measures, and is more a “ego statistic”.
On Marketing Second Life and Top-Level Goals for the Platform
What our goal is as a company … as we start to gear-up marketing dollars and things like that, is to do two things. One is to bring folks back who have recently been engaged as residents [and] who have now stopped that engagement for whatever reason, to bring those folks back in to enrich the community; and to do outreach to bring in new residents. New residents that get excited about living in Second Life [and] they spend a lot of money because they’ve got to dress their avatars and get their houses and things like that.
So everything that we’re doing now is designed for those two things. So that means making Second Life easier – high priority; giving a better experience for current residents – high priority, because if you can satisfy that, then you can have those current residents bring-in lapsed residents. So everything that we’re thinking of goes in that lens … We’re spending our money towards the desktop, getting ne folks in through that channel so that they can spend more money on our creators, so our creators are reinvigorated and the community continues to be invigorated.
– Brad Oberwager, December 6th, 2024
He went on to confirm that with all the work that has thus far gone into Second Life and the Lab over the last few years, including the recent restructuring is to pave the way towards growing the platform and in Marketing it more and more clearly.
Everything we’re making [in SL}, we’re putting it back in. What I am going to do, is I’m gong to start to change where I’m putting that money. And I’m going to start putting that money into marketing dollars because I want to bring folks into the world. … I think that our product is relevant; I don’t think it is relevant for everybody … but I think there’s an imperative that [Second Life] continues and it’s extremely valuable for folks out there to learn about and come in. That costs money.
– Brad Oberwager, December 6th, 2024
This work as actually starting now, with money “dribbling out” with a focus on SL on the desktop and in bring people back to the platform, on getting existing users to log-in more, and on bringing-in the people who would likely find Second Life a great place in which to spend time. Some of this will be experimental, with the Lab continuing to analyse what works and what doesn’t over the next few months, and the marketing work will, interestingly, be synced with new product releases.
On SL Desktop’s Accessibility and Future
The focus with desktop viewer development over the last several months has been on making the platform more accessible to lower-specification computers (as reported in the likes of my CCUG meeting summaries). This work has most notably included significant performance improvement work on the viewer, and the purchasing of a lot of older hardware / graphics cards on which Second Life ca be tested and better determinations made as to how best to handle performance shortfalls / bottlenecks / enable SL to perform reasonably well on such hardware (affectionately referred toas the Potato Farm at LL).
We did identify various pain points for people on lower-end machines, and there’s been a lot of work our team has been doing to address them. They’re working quickly and they’re working together with Firestorm so that those changes [many in the ExtraFPS viewer, which at the time of writing was in Release Candidate status and close to being promoted to release status] are rolled out to everyone as quickly as possible once they’re ready.
There’s going to be changes to viewer settings that will improve performance and some controls people are able to have over choices that they make in terms of how good things look and how fast they run. And we’re also looking to put together some recommendations for [hardware] configurations where we know Second Life will run really well at different price-points.
– VP of Engineering and Product, Grumpity Linden
The overall goal of this work is “to meet you where you are, on the hardware you are [on], and we want you to have the best possible experience in Second Life.
In addition, Philip Rosedale noted that LL have a lot of “different tools in the hanger” which can help further improve the viewer when running on older hardware, including the Unity-based rendering engine developed for Mobile.
It is, as you know, not exactly the same by any stretch as other engines that are out there, but we have it as a tool. How we use it to, say, improve the desktop experience, we’re not sure yet. But we’re definitely happy that we’ve got a pretty good Second Life renderer running on Unity, we’re just not sure how we’re going to use it. But we are going to make Second Life more accessible on all machines.
– Philip Rosedale, December 6th, 2024
In this, it was also emphasised that the presumption at the Lab is that the primary mode for accessing and using Second Life will remain the desktop viewer (in some form), and that SL Mobile will be very much an adjunct / companion to that use.
We do not believe the the experience of Second Life at this point in time can be transitioned entirely to a a “black mirror” experience, as I like to say, because it is more the small size of the window that is the challenge here … Even if we could do anything technically we wanted to, we remain cautious – in fact sceptical – about the ability to do all the things one wants to do with Second Life on a mobile device.
– Philip Rosedale, December 6th, 2024
On Matters of Support
It was noted that in the recently company restructuring (which saw a number of layoffs and was geared toward a focus on customer success and trust and safety, the ball was dropped on matters of general user support for a time. This is not improving, and Brad Oberwager, whilst taking full responsibility for the slip, believes that by the years end, support responses will by “100% better and faster”.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld