The Firestorm Gateway provides new users with essential orientation in using the viewer and the opportunity to learn about a range of SL activities, such as aviation – but it needs marketing and promotional support
The Firestorm team have announced they are seeking a volunteer to handle marketing and promoting Second Life to potential new SL users through the Firestorm Community Gateway and website.
The Firestorm Gateway is a part of a forthcoming trail programme being implemented by the Lab which will see up to 20 community-lead gateways active within Second Life and geared towards helping incoming new users get to grips with the platform more positively, and hopefully improving the chances that they’ll “stick”.
However, in order to attract new users into Second Life, the Gateway – and particularly its associated website – needs to be actively promoted to audiences beyond SL – hence Firestorm’s call for a marketing volunteer.
The marketing volunteer will be responsible for presenting and promoting the Gateway and – particularly the Gateway website – to potential audiences and target across the Internet, to encourage people
The Firestorm team is specifically looking for someone who is an existing user in Second Life with a solid grasp on what Second Life is and means to its residents, and who has extensive experience with internet marketing, including the use of social media tools.
The full list of requirements and the benefits offered in return are listed in the official Firestorm announcement, and those interested in applying are asked to send a note card with their information, experience and ideas to Jessica Lyon in-world, or via e-mail to jessica.lyon-at-phoenixviewer.com.
This summary is 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.
Project Azumarill (HTTP updates) RC viewer updated to version 3.8.7.306796 on November 2 – provides improved performance and stability. Impacts include: asset uploads, AISv3 inventory manipulation, VMM, Experience management, LSL compilation, Simhost event polling, etc. (download and release notes).
Project viewers:
Vivox Project viewer,version 3.8.7.307189, released on November 6 – correcting a number of Voice quality and connection issues on both Windows and the Mac (download and release notes).
This summary is 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.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version: 3.8.6.305981, October 26 – formerly the Notifications RC viewer download page, release notes
Restrained Love Viewer updated to version 2.9.15 on October 27th – core update: parity with the Lab’s 3.8.5 code base; RLV updates and fixes – release notes
UKanDo updated to version 3.8.6.28161 on October 27th – core updates: parity with the Lab’s 3.8.5 code base and RLV 2.9.14 – release notes
The Firestorm Gateway: partnering with MadPea Games
I recently covered the soon-to-be-launched Lab trail progamme which will see a new set of community gateways active within Second life and geared towards helping incoming new users get to grips with the platform more positively, and help them to start to engage in activities, thus hopefully improving the chances that they’ll “stick”.
The Firestorm team are one of the groups invited by the Lab to be a part of this new trial programme, and as I reported earlier in October, they will be launching their Gateway on Saturday, October 31st with a special party followed by a month-long Spooky Nights hunt which will take place across the five core regions of the Firestorm Gateway.
What I couldn’t reveal in that article, but am able to now, is that MadPea Games have agreed to partner with Firestorm to help get new users engaged in Second life.
A number of MadPea games will be available in the Firestorm Gateway regions
In a press release on October 28th, MadPea confirm they are providing Firestorm with a number of their vintage games which income new users will be invited to play free-of-charge, in order to present them with even more opportunities to learn about and engage in Second life.
Commenting on the partnership, Kiana Writer, CEO and Queen Pea of MadPea Games says, “We are all very excited about the opportunity of working with Jessica and her team and waving the flag for what is achievable for user-created content on the grid. There’s a huge learning curve when you enter SL for the first time and we believe Firestorm, along with their partners, are best placed to help guide new users through that arc.”
Jessica Lyon, speaking for the Firestorm team, said: “We are super excited to announce that we’ve formed a mutually beneficial partnership with MadPea Productions! Essentially MadPea will install some of their older games as free play in our environments, and in exchange new residents will learn about MadPea Games to become potential new customers. MadPea will also then be able to send their new users to our installations to learn how to play MadPea games.”
The Firestorm Halloween Party stage area
The Firestorm Halloween Party will kick-off at 13:00 SLT with a series of live performances running through until 16:00, when things will switch over the DJs, and the Spooky Nights Halloween Hunt will launch.
Topping the bill for the party are:
13:00 SLT – Mankind Tracer
14:00 SLT – Nance Brody
15:00 SLT – The Changhigh Trinity Sisters Fireshow
14:00 SLT onwards – DJ Quad
Over 150 well-known Second Life merchants have contributed to the hunt, and you can read a list of participating creators on the Firestorm post on the party, and also catch photos of some of the prizes on offer.
Four landing points will be in operation for the party, as follows:
For further information on the party and the Firestorm Gateway, please refer to the Firestorm blog post, or to find out more on the Gateway and the new Gateway programme, please refer to the articles in this blog.
On Sunday, October 25th, the Alchemy team announced the release of version 3.8.5.36974 of their viewer. This is an update which primarily focuses on a lot of under-the-hood updates and fixes which may not always be obvious to users, but which are intended to further improve viewer stability and improvements. However, it also includes some interesting tweaks as well, of which more below.
As always with any viewer release, please refer to the release notes for details on updates, improvements and fixes, as provided by the development team.
The first noticeable change with this release lies with the version number, which leaps from 3.8.2 from the last release to 3.8.5 – the result of Alchemy (alongside UKanDo and Kokua) pacing the Lab’s version numbers for viewer updates. The idea with this is to make it easier to quickly identify which of the recent releases from the Lab has been merged into a release from any TPV with a matching version number. So in this case, Alchemy is merged-up to the Lab’s 3.8.5 code and the October Maintenance release viewer.
The other major visual change to the viewer with this release is a new skinning option. This allows users to choose the look of the viewer UI skin, and to create their own skins, which they can use on their own or share with others, marking alchemy as the latest viewer to offer support for custom skins.
The option can be found under Preferences > Skinning, and as the release notes indicate, the viewer currently includes just two options at present, in order to keep the install size down: Alchemy’s own dark skin (default) and the Lab’s classic V3 viewer skin. However, the release notes appear to suggest that further skins may be added to the viewer – or perhaps made available for download through the alchemy website – in due course. There will also apparently be a guide produced, offering users instructions on making their own skins.
The Skinning option, new with Alchemy 3.8.5 allows the use of custom UI skins with the viewer
Using a skin simply requires selecting it from the list of available options, clicking the Apply button and then confirming your selection by clicking on Yes in the follow-up dialogue box. Restarting the viewer will then apply the selected skin.
Other Updates
The Alchemy 3.8.5 refresh option allows you to refresh textures / meshes worn by yourself or other avatars
As well as the above, the 3.8.5 release of Alchemy includes:
libcurl 7.45.0, boost 1.59, the replacement of C++11 with C++14
ALCH-312 – a Refresh option has been added to assist with loading avatar mesh and textures
ALCH-278 – the Group list (CTRL-SHIFT-G) now includes an “eye” icon to show if the group can be viewed in your Profile (icon shown) or is hidden (icon not shown) – groups are hidden through the Group Profile floater, as usual
ALCH-270 – a message logger and builder for packet and message inspection for debugging and fixing OpenSim. This feature will be locked to developer builds
ALCH-297 – the Fast Timers legend is now scrollable by the scroll wheel
ALCH-290 – the Destination Guide now updates when teleporting between OpenSim grids
Numerous bug fixes and many under-the-hood changes.
There is still no RLV support for Alchemy with this release, which may disappoint some. However, what is there makes for a useful update, and ensures Alchemy stays on par with the Lab’s continuing run of updates and additions to the official viewer.
This summary is 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.
Quick Graphics RC viewer updated to version 3.8.6.305942 on October 19 – provides the new Avatar Complexity options and the new graphics preset capabilities for setting, saving and restoring graphic settings for use in difference environments / circumstances (download and release notes)
Alchemy updated to version 3.8.5.36974 on October 25th – core updates: parity with LL 3.8.5 code base, new skinning capability, libcurl 7.45.0, boost 1.59 – release notes
V1-style
Cool VL Viewer updated on October 24: stable version 1.26.14.11; experimental version: 1.26.15.10 – release notes.
