The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, August 4th, 2021.
These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article, and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.
Web Properties Updates
Back-end work is still on-going and has taken up a lot of time through July. This work includes a lot of system upgrades intended to improve things like the deployment of updates and features to the various web properties and improve the performance (speed of returns, etc.), in processes like Search.
The Land page has seen some general clean-up.
Improvements have been made to the flow of the sign-up page.
The investigative work on how and where Search might be improved is still also on-going.
Marketplace improvements:
The difficulty users with two-letter names were experiencing during authentication has been fixed.
Bulk redelivery (on the part of creators to their customers) has been implemented. This is via a button in the product page visible to the creator.
Mobile Update
There is a new beta that is ready to go for testing via Apple’s Test Flight software, which should be available for those helping to test in the near future. This includes a “few more features” that LL wanted to get to Apple before trying to make the app more generally available via the Apple Store – however, the updates are still very much focused on communications, and are not rendering, inventory, etc. related.
The Android version remains somewhat behind the iOS version and won’t be appearing in the short-term.
In Brief
Legacy (in-viewer) Profiles are still being worked on. There had been a delay due to some back-end work being required, but things will be moving forward. However, as the viewer is still currently a Project viewer, it will still be a while before any updates reach release status.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is still a work-in-progress.
The ability for users to offer grid-wide experiences is on hold.
It’s been asked if creators on the MP would find the following useful:
Having the UUID of customers recorded in any extracted .CSV file.
Having a “go to” page for their list of products, so they can jump directly to a page and select a listing for editing.
The responses to both questions (both raised as a result of feature requests) was yes.
Binemust: The Platform, August 2021 – Click and image for full size
Biné Rodenberger has once again been busy with her home region of Binemust, building a new space for people to explore. Whilst the ground level retains the layout based on the Bungenäs region of Gotland, Sweden’s largest island – and which I visited last September – the winter sky platform that was present at the end of 2020 (see here for more) has been replaced by a setting that offers a mix of of dystopia, sci-fi and fantasy, all sitting with a landscape that has a touch of an alien feel to it.
A strange and barren place where no plant can grow, but where people of all shapes and sizes can enjoy art, culture and good take-away.
Biné Rodenberger, describing her new Binemust sky platform
Binemust: The Platform, August 2021
Enclosed within a mountainous surround that in places blends with the region to give an almost Grand Canyon-ish feel, the setting can be divided into a number of areas that are both separate to one another and flow together as a complete scene. The largest two of these is the ruins of a town perched on the edge of the canyon’s wall to the south of the setting. Beyond this to the north lies a raised table of rock encrusted with black crystal-like rocks that form an uneven blanket.
Casting a shadow over part of the latter is the strangest of structures: a large platform that appears to be resting on the plateau courtesy of a massive column-like foot. “Appears” because multiple motors arrayed along its underside turn four-bladed propellers look like they are giving the platform stability and actually supporting some of its mass. Perhaps they might be intended to even lift it up into the air…
Binemust: The Platform, August 2021
The landing point for the setting sits between the crystal field and the slope that drops down to the ruined township, a set of open gates set into the long wall that divides town from plateau inviting arrivals to descend the slope and explore what lays beyond the wall. Similarly, a narrow path free of crystals runs along the top of the slope to reach the foot of the strange platform.
Looking like it has been cobbled together over time, the platform offers a conglomeration of living space, commercial area, and what might be working spaces. A chain of floating crystals surround it in three sides, rising step-like around it. A bright arc of energy passes from one to the next to reach one floating directly over the platform’s highest roof, as if it is drawing power from the plain of dark crystals below. A buggy and wreck of a car sit on a deck to one side of the platform, with no discernible way of being removed, whilst on another deck sits a literal flying boat.
Binemust: The Platform, August 2021
Below the platform, the remnants of the city clearly point to it have suffered some kind of apocalypse, but whether this is natural or the result of something like a war is impossible to tell. The wall that divides it from the rest of the landscape looks to be somewhat more recent that parts of the town, suggesting it is a more recent and possibly defensive addition.
Similarly, the relationship between the platform and the city is unclear, although the commonality of languages (English and Japanese) visible in both suggests they might be related. Perhaps the platform has been built by the inhabitants of the town; but if so, what is its ultimate purpose? If not, is it a wandering visitor, here to replenish supplies and gather energy? The story behind both is left entirely up to visitors to write.
Binemust: The Platform, August 2021
Beyond both of these locations to the north of the crystal field is another modern structure in the form of what looks to be communications centre that like the town has weathered hard times, Also to the north is an ancient henge that gives a further fantasy twist to the setting. Oval in shape, the latter is dominated by the living skeleton of a great dragon. Possibly becalmed by a ghostly voice that sings quietly, the dragon sits within the stone arches like Viserion raised by the Night King, but with his flesh and sinews, organs and muscles, all long lost to the passage of time to leave only his great bones as he flexes his wings and periodically rises from his haunches to survey the landscape around him.
Pet, guardian or predator, the role of the dragon is also unclear, its story again left to visitors to tell for themselves. Perhaps it is simply part of the artistic element to the setting – more art (notably by Bryn Oh) can also be found at various points in the town. However, the presence of the henge in which it sits does nicely brackets the rest of the setting with a sense of history, being mirrored to the south and within the water of the canyon by another ancient element: the wreck of a Viking long ship, the familiar signature piece Biné always includes in her builds as a mark of her heritage.
Binemust: The Platform, August 2021
As always with Biné’s designs, the setting is rich in detail, the sound scape offer additional, at times almost haunting, depth, with numerous opportunities for photography waiting to be found.
Zenescope Metaverse – now open in Second Life (image unretouched)
I was one of many who received an invitation to preview the latest partnership activity Linden Lab has entered into as then seek to encourage new audiences into Second Life. Officially opened from 08:00 on Wednesday, August 4th, 2021, The Zenescope Metaverse is the second such experience to open within Second Life recently, the other having been the (relatively low-key) opening of Film Threat, details of which are available within the Destination Guide.
Zenescope Metaverse has been developed in partnership with Zenescope Entertainment Inc., a comic book and graphic novel publisher perhaps best known for series such as Grimm Fairy Tales and its off-shoots, which recount classic fairy tales and gives them a modern twist; the Wonderland series (off-shoots of Lewis Carroll’s books); novels focused on the likes of Van Helsing (which inspired the TV series of the same name), and others, and a range of comics / graphic novels spun-off from a range of film and TV series such as Final Destination, Se7en, Charmed, and Vikings, and more.
All of which would suggest there’s some potentially tasty meat in which fingers, claws, mandibles, etc., can be dug, to provide a tasty filling of fun and Second Life. Or so you’d think – but let’s come back to that in a moment.
As with the Film Threat experience, the requested way for people to get to the Zenescope Metaverse region(s – there are four at present, plus a fifth the appears reserved for “VIPs”) is via a dedicated Zenescope Portal (In fact the two portal areas are practically clones of one another). I’ve no idea if Zenescope themselves will be providing a gateway into Second Life from their own website (or at least to the dedicated SL Landing Page, but the portal area includes a couple of video stations that will play Strawberry Linden’s How to Get Started in Second Life video. These bracket the main experience portal, which visitors are invited to walk through to be delivered to one of the Metaverse Experience regions proper.
These regions are – as you would expect – all identical to one another. They are built around a central plaza space, which at the time of my visit was set out for what I assume might be some kind of opening event. Flanking this one two sides are Zenescope merchandise stores offering a mixed of clothing, character outfits, branded t-shirts, avatar accessories and décor items in a pair of shops (duplicated on either side of the square). Beyond the square, through an archway is a large mansion that appears to hold promise, but outside of “hiding” a quest token, is actually “for another time”.
The quest itself is HUD-based, with the Hub close to the landing point providing the basics and the HUD itself. The idea here is to gather token that will allow your to continue on through to “Chapter 2” of the experience – this region being “Chapter 1”. Around the rest of the region are locations apparently lifted from various Zenescope series – such as a ruined temple, Rockman’s Fast Food joint, an animated Jabberwocky, etc., which are included in the quest, together with a game of miniature golf and a trip through a maze.
Zenescope Metaverse: a not-so-subtle hint to touch the bunnehs!
There are also freebies to be had for those that mouse around – some obvious, some not so (e.g. the duck you “follow” through the maze, and which sits on the far side. There’s also at least one diversion to another setting, and a couple of points that – like the mansion – are apparently “for future use”, with the Zenescope folk promising “tons of new stuff over the next few months”. And it is with this that I had some problems.
A promise of things to come is always good – but it is the here and now that most people are concerned with; and in this regard, I have to say that exploring the environment as it currently is, left me entirely underwhelmed. OK, so I’m a long-term SL user, so something like this is bound to have a “been there, done that” feel to it. But even trying to put myself in the mindset of an incoming new user familiar with Zenescope and attracted by something “new” to the brand, what is presented here feels empty, and far from the promise of the promo video (embedded at the end of this piece).
Zenescope Metaverse: did I drink from the bottle, or slip into fee-fih-foh-fum land?
Zenescope clearly has a richness of narrative that could so easily be mined: Grimm, Van Helsing, et al. But outside of the merchandise and a handful of static places in the region, it’s not unfair to say next to none of this is present here. Even the quest comes over as a damp squib: gather you tokens, find the portal to “Chapter 2”, and then discover its promise is – wait for it – “Coming Soon”. Bleah.
And while there is a “reward” for gathering all the tokens, the fact that it is a folder of very mildly amusing signs an avatar can hold isn’t really that rewarding – or really related to anything Zenescope (although they could obviously find use elsewhere). But why not a Zenescope t-shirt or some other trinket of merchandise as well?
Now, in fairness, the set-up could be the result of constraints placed on LL by Zenescope Entertainment. In which case, they are more the fools; because in trying to wear the hat of a Zenescope reader, I have to say that were I entering a 3D world that promises the chance to explore the places I’ve read about, experience becoming a character I love – then frankly, this experience really doesn’t cut it at present. Even the region’s EEP settings (apparently chosen so as not to over-tax incoming users’ machines) is, frankly, bland. Why not something just slightly darker or unusual?
Zenescope Metaverse: the (largely) “for another time” mansion
Of course, some of this may come with “Chapter 2” and beyond. Again, fair enough; but while hanging everything with comments that it is “for another time” and “Coming Soon” might well be a way for Zenescope to test the water, it also runs the risk of invoking a “meh” reaction in their readers and – equally importantly – if they want to attract established SL users to their brand, then that “meh” reaction risks being repeated – as a non-Zenescope reader, I admit I was hardly rushing to find out more about them. Which perhaps isn’t the best of results, either way.
This is made all the more unfortunate, because elsewhere LL have gone the extra mile: there is the dedicated Zenescope Second Life Landing Page mentioned earlier, supported by a dedicated Welcome to the Zenescope Metatverse Second Life community page that is clearly geared towards those coming into SL for the first time. All of which might come to be an under-utilised effort.
But that is just my view; and God knows, I’ve been wrong before! 🙂 . In the meantime, the Zenescope Metaverse is now open, so you can drop in and take a look for yourself, and I’ll just leave you with the promo video.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary.
Server Deployments
At the time of writing there was no server deployment thread, so please refer to the Server section of the forums for updates.
There was no deployment to the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, August 3rd.
Wednesday, August 4th should see a deployment to the RC channels. This includes:
A new simulator console command that will let estate managers change the default EEP settings across an entire estate. This also paves the way for implementing a new default Mainland EEP setting that will be coming in a future update.
A fix to llChar to reduce returns being translated as “?”. Some will still do so, but this will be addressed in the next maintenance simulator update.
SL Viewer
There have been no updates to the current batch of official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as follows:
Release viewer: version 6.4.21.561414, Fernet Maintenance RC dated July 14, promoted July 19 – NEW.
Grappa Maintenance RC, version 6.4.22.561850, issued July 29.
CEF91 RC viewer, version 6.4.22.561752, issued July 24.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.
In Brief
There have been numerous requests / feature requests for grater access to things like region performance states, etc. (e.g. BUG-10263, BUG-37717, and BUG-229172 – all of which which have been closed. Commenting on these and feature requests in general, Mazidox Linden commented:
We have to consider things like “How can this be abused” when we get feature requests like that, which is why even though I agree it’s better to have an API call than measure in a tight loop we might not want to make surfacing that data easier.
Rider Linden hopes to take a second pass at the way scripts are scheduled, with the support of Monty Linden. He hopes to be able to make the simulator “smarter” in how it schedules what script to run in what order and how frequently. However, given current workloads, it is unlikely this work will commence before the end of the year.
The simulator tools upgrade work has been “hanging fire” recently, but is due to resume.
In what is going to be seen as a highly unpopular move, Linden Lab has announced that the use of gacha machines within Second Life must be discontinued by content creators by the end of August, 2021.
To avoid and misrepresentation of the Lab’s decision, I’m reproducing the official announcement below:
Due to a changing regulatory climate, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to sunset a very popular sales mechanism for content in Second Life. It’s widely known as “gacha”, and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment.
We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31. After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life. Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab.
We will continue to allow any sales where a payment is given for a known item, which means that items that had been purchased as “gacha” will be allowed to be re-sold as long as the buyer knows in advance the item and quantity they will receive. We will, of course, still allow fatpacks, and any other currently-allowed distribution mechanisms.
We did not make this decision lightly and we understand that it will impact creators as well as event organizers and certainly the shoppers! We look forward to fun creative ways of engagement that will come instead.
While the decision is going up upset some content creators and disrupt certain sales events, the likely cause of this change is due to countries increasingly regarding the use of loot boxes (of which gacha machines are a form) as a means of gambling, and introducing regulation and legislation regarding their use. In the United States, a number of states have also introduced legislation on the use of loot boxes and similar over the last 2-3 years, and a proposed federal bill on the matter expired at the start of 2021 – which does not mean federal, as well further state-level legislation, will not be forthcoming.
Those with questions / concerns about the decision, can voice them via the official forum thread on the matter, which the Lab has indicated it will monitor and attempt to reply to questions raised.
Updated to add a missing “proposed” from the penultimate paragraph.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week ending Sunday, August 1st
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 6.4.21.561414, formerly the Fernet Maintenance RC, dated July 14th, promoted July 19th – No change.
Release channel cohorts:
Grappa Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.4.22.561850, issued July 29th.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 