Alongside of the announced shift in emphasis with Sansar, there have been rumours of multiple lay-offs among the Sansar team. Ryan Schultz has led with the story, stating 30 have gone, although the rumour mill has been bouncing between 20 and 30.
Exactly how many have departed is difficult to judge, simply because LL does not comment on departures or cuts, but there are some limited ways in which we can stick a finger in the air and test things. My own knowledge of the Sansar team is limited to around 16 names, but it would appear from my rudimentary yardstick, that four of those names are no longer at the Lab.
My yardstick for this measurement is simple, but has been known to be effective in the past. All Lab staff have a Linden account in Second Life. With most of the Sansar team, that account name tends to marry up with their Sansar name (e.g. Ebbe Linden marries up to Ebbe in Sansar; Boho Linden marries up with Boho in Sansar, etc.). So by checking to see which accounts are inactive, it is possible to hazard a guess that the individual is no longer at Linden Lab.
In this respect, my findings tend to concur that of the three very specific names that have been mentioned in reference to the Sansar lay-offs do indeed appear to have departed Linden Lab. However, it also appears (up to the time of writing, at least) that a third high-profile name – that of the Lab’s Chief Product Officer, Landon MacDowell – still appears to be with the Lab, as his SL account is still active.
Granted, this is not a genuinely scientific means of making a judgement. However, it amounts to 1/4 of the names I know in the Sansar team, and if I recall correctly (I confess that in digging back through my notes, I’ve been unable to pin down the specific quote) during a meeting in either Sansar or Second Life, Ebbe Altberg indicated the Sansar team is around the 100+ mark. So, my finger-in-the-air figure would tend to concur with the idea of 20 to 30 people being laid off / transitioned.
In this latter regard, I took time to try to dig around a little further and concluded that it seems likely that at least two of the Sansar team who originally moved to that project from Second Life may have transitioned back to working on SL (in addition to Harley Linden also transitioning from Sansar to SL).
Precisely what this means for Sansar development in the future remains to be seen. I’ve already commented on the move to focus efforts on trying to make Sansar a venue for “live” virtual events (see Sansar changes emphasis: of live events and audience, and it’s something I intend to circle back to in the near future as it seems some of that piece may have been misinterpreted. For now, all I will say in regards to the lay-offs, is that whenever and wherever they happen, no matter how big or how small, they are never pleasant – least of all for those being laid off. So I genuinely hope any who have been let go by the Lab are successful in finding new positions sooner rather than later.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, November 3rd
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
Current Release version 6.3.3.531811, formerly the Voice RC viewer, dated October 18, promoted October 31 – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
EEP RC viewer updated to version 6.4.0.532314 on November 1st.
Love Me Render RC viewer updated to version 6.3.4.532273 on October 31st.
Project viewers:
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer updated to version 6.4.0.531949 on October 28th.
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.
Monday, November 4th 19:00: Variable Star
Gyro Muggins reads Spider Robinson’s 2006 completion of an eight-page novel outline from 1955 by Robert Heinlein.
When aspiring composer and musician Joel Johnston first met Jinny Hamilton, it seems like a dream come true. And when she finally agrees to marry him, he feels like the luckiest man in the universe.
There’s just one small problem. He is broke. His only goal in life was to become a composer, and he knows it will take years before he’d be earning enough to support a family. But Jinny isn’t willing to wait; she wants Joel with her in marriage now.
Unsettled by her conviction that money wouldn’t be a problem for them, Joel presses Jinny for an explanation. Her response stuns him: ‘Hamilton’ is not her last name – it is ‘Conrad’, and her grandfather is the wealthiest man in the solar system: Robert Conrad; she had been using subterfuge to ensure whoever she fell in love with really loved her for who she was, not for her grandfather’s money. With that truth revealed, she also informs Joel of her family’s broader plans for her and her husband-to-be.
Perhaps most men in Joel’s shoes, faced with the facts that Jinny really did love him and was offering a life of wealth, might have forgiven her for hiding her identity and plans. But not Joel. So it was that he found himself trying to get as far from her and her family as possible: aboard a colony ship heading deep into space. And then came the cosmic cataclysm that would visit so much calamity on humanity as a whole.
Tuesday, November 5th 19:00: What’s Cookin’?
A favourite food stories and recipe exchange with Caledonia Skytower and friends. Tonight they share favourite food stories, and everyone is invited to bring some of their favourite recipes (on note cards) to share.
Wednesday, November 6th 19:00 Stories from Home
With Thanksgiving in the United States now approaching, the Seanchai Library staff sit down to celebrate this time of year by sharing local tales from the various regions of the corporeal world where they live, or have lived: the American South-west, the Klondike, the Puget Sound, and more. You are invited to recommend stories from your home as well.
Thursday, November 7th 19:00 Julius Caesar – A Novelisation
With Shandon Loring. Also in Kitely – find teleport from the main Seanchai World grid.kitely.com:8002:SEANCHAI.
Seanchai Listening Rooms
Following the success of Seanchai’s Pirate Story Listening Room at this year’s Pirate Cove event, the library now offers two special listening rooms that are now available for your 24/7 story pleasure.
The Raven’s Chamber focuses specifically on Edgar Allen Poe’s 1845 narrative poem The Raven. Inspired in part by a talking Raven in the historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens, Poe’s famous alliterative poem uses musicality stylized language with its own internal rhythm as it relates a talking raven’s mysterious visit to young man – the poem’s narrator – lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore, as he slowly descends into madness. Both “traditional” and “alternate” readings of the poem can be heard in the room on stream, along with other interpretive content.
The Ghost Listening Room takes a broader scope, offering haunting tales in comfortably spooky atmosphere.
Both listening rooms can be reached via the direct SLurls above, or by visiting Seanchai Library and using the teleport boards (shown below) located on the back wall of the library’s Story Floor (main floor). Each board will offer both an information note card about the room, and open your world map for teleporting to either room.
Seanchai Library now operates two seasonal reading rooms
SpaceX have the aspirational aim of landing Starship on the Moon in 2022, and using it to deliver cargo to the Moon in support of human operations there, by 2024. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell has shed a little more light on the company’s plans for this Starship space vehicle.
Two prototypes of the vehicle are currently being developed for test flights at the company’s facilities in Boca Chica, Texas and in Florida, with the company hoping to fly one of them – most likely Starship Mk 1, being readied at Boca Chica – to an altitude of 20 km before the end of the year.
Beyond this, Starship is designed to be lifted to orbit atop the company’s new Super Heavy reusable booster and undertake missions to the surface of the Moon and then to Mars – and possibly beyond. Speaking at the 2019 International Astronautical Congress, Shotwell specifically addressed the company’s nearer-term aspirations, marking 2022 as the year they’d like to put Starship on the Moon for the first time:
We want to get Starship to orbit within a year. We definitely want to land it on the Moon before 2022. We want to […] stage cargo there to make sure that there are resources for the folks that ultimately land on the Moon by 2024, if things go well, so that’s the aspirational time frame.
Such a flight to the Moon won’t be made by either Starship Mk 1 or Mk 2 – these are intended purely for atmospheric flight tests – descent handling, landing capabilities, etc., and to define any changes that need to be made prior to the company committing to building at least two orbital test vehicles – Starships Mk 3 and Mk 4, before they progress to trying for the Moon.
This makes the time frame for the lunar missions as given by Shotwell very aggressive. They are dependent on the company quickly completing atmospheric tests of the vehicle, then moving to being able to undertake orbital missions and integrated with the Super Heavy in order to undertake the lunar flights – particularly the cargo delivery missions -, hence why Shotwell emphasised the “aspirational” nature of the time frame.
Starship Mk 1 filmed during the September 28th, 2019 livestream event. Credit: SpaceX
While the time frame is in keeping with Elon Musk’s own aggressive approach to such matters (and he would appear to love the sound of them whistling past, as next to none of his stated target dates for SpaceX, Tesla or any of his other ventures have ever been met), it is next to impossible to see how a 2022 goal can ever be met; there is simply too much to be achieved between now and then – such as actually flying a starship vehicle for the first time, or getting it and the Super Heavy booster to a point where they can be tested together, leave alone making any attempt to land a 50-odd metres tall cylinder on the rough and uneven surface of the Moon without it either breaking itsself on landing – or just toppling over.
Beyond the 2024 target for cargo missions, Musk has also stated that he’d like to have a lunar base established by 2028 – although Shotwell didn’t directly reference this, probably quite wisely.
In the meantime, and aside from these goals, SpaceX has already been contracted by Intuitive Machines and ispace. Both companies working with NASA to deliver payloads to the Moon ahead of the agency’s 2024 Artemis programme human Moon landing. However, this contractor are for the use of the company’s proven Falcon launch system, not the behemoth.
NASA Developing Lunar Rover
In preparing for, and as a part of, humans returning to the Moon, there will be a range of automated landing and rover missions. I recently wrote about one of these missions, intended to deliver a series of payloads to the lunar surface, including innovative mini-rovers from the UK and Japan (see Moles, rovers, and spacewalks). Now NASA has confirmed it is developing an automated rover of its own.
The rover, called VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), is due for delivery to the lunar surface in December 2022. Its mission is to gather data that will help inform future missions about the South Pole-Aitken Basin and the eventual construction of a base there. One of its specific goals is to locate water ice, characterise it as it lies under the lunar regolith and then drill down to the ice to determine how it sits within with regolith and then analyse the samples.
An artist’s impression of VIPER on the Moon’s surface. Credit: NASA
There is strong evidence for extensive sub-surface water ice within the Moon’s South Polar region, including in the bottoms of craters that never see sunlight, and characterising / accessing this water ice is seen as critical to NASA’s lunar ambitions, as it could be utilised in a number of ways, including providing oxygen for breathing or as propellant.
Roughly the size of a golf buggy (around 1.4 m × 1.4 m × 2 m), VIPER is being designed to travel multiple kilometres over a primary mission period of 100 days, carrying a suite of instruments comprising:
The Neutron Spectrometer System – designed to detect sub-surface hydrogen (potentially water) from a distance, suggesting prime sites for drilling. It measures the energy released by hydrogen atoms when struck by neutrons.
The Near InfraRed Volatiles Spectrometer System – designed to analyse mineral and volatile composition; determine if the hydrogen it encounters belong to water molecules (H2O) or to hydroxyl (OH–).
The Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations – designed to analyse mineral and volatile composition by measuring the mass-to-charge ratio of ions to elucidate the chemical elements contained in the sample.
The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain – capable of drilling up to 1 m (3 ft) into the lunar regolith to gather ice samples.
A VIPER prototype being tested at the Johnson Space Centre. Credit NASA/JSC
As well as gathering and quantifying ice and water samples, the hope is that VIPER will gather data that can be used to create the first detailed water resource maps of the Moon that will be used to further inform decisions regarding human mission to the lunar surface.
The key to living on the Moon is water – the same as here on Earth. Since the confirmation of lunar water-ice ten years ago, the question now is if the Moon could really contain the amount of resources we need to live off-world. This rover will help us answer the many questions we have about where the water is, and how much there is for us to use.
– Daniel Andrews, VIPER mission project manager
No landing site has been determined for the rover at present, but it will be delivered to the Moon under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, using a lander vehicle developed by Astrobotic and launched via a United Launch Alliance booster. VIPER itself is being developed by NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, Texas, with the science package provided by Kennedy Space Centre, NASA Ames Research Centre and Honeybee Robotics, with the entire programme being managed by NASA Ames.
It’s incredibly exciting to have a rover going to the new and unique environment of the South Pole to discover where exactly we can harvest that water. VIPER will tell us which locations have the highest concentrations and how deep below the surface to go to get access to water.
Linden Lab is shifting its development emphasis towards hosting more “live” virtual events to help build an audience
On Friday, November 1st, the Sansar Team held their weekly Product Meeting, which provided to be an event of two parts: an overview of the next Sansar release, which I’ve covered in my usual Sansar Product Meeting summary format, and confirmation that Sansar’s development is undergoing a change in emphasis in a drive to try to establish a much broader audience.
In short, and as noted by Sansar’s Community Manager, Galileo, and the Lab’s Vice President of Business Development and Marketing, Sheri Bryant (aka CowboyNinja in Sansar), who now takes up the role of Sansar’s General Manager¹, the Lab plans to focus a lot more on building-out Sansar’s ability to run “live” events within virtual spaces.
The decision has in part been sparked by the rise in popularity of “live” virtual events in a number of platforms (most notably the Fortnite / Marshmello event and the 11 million attendees it garnered) and the more modest – but significant – successes Sansar has had in hosting electronic dance music (EDM) events through partnerships with Monstercat and Spinnin’ Records.
It’s a decision that was actually presaged in October, when IQ ran an article in which Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg and Sheri Bryant were interviewed about the Lab’s intentions with “live” events in Sansar. As such, I wasn’t actually overly surprised to hear about the shift in emphasis, although others may have missed that piece. Certainly, the announcement has received a negative reaction from some, and has been – wrongly, I would suggest – characterised as akin to High Fidelity’s abrupt change of direction that occurred earlier this year – see: High Fidelity changes direction: the reality of VR worlds today (& tomorrow?) and High Fidelity changes direction (2).
I say “wrongly”, because while this is a change in emphasis, it is not in any way a shuttering / move any from anything within Sansar in the way High Fidelity’s change of direction was. As was noted in the meeting:
The intention is to make Sansar the “best possible” destination for virtual events, with an emphasis on both “larger” marquee-style events involving commercial partners and other brands / organisations and on the more creator-driven events we see in Sansar today.
Hence why the next release of Sansar – R37, due to be deployed in week #45 (commencing Monday, November 4th, 2019) will incorporate changes to the events system creators have been specifically requesting – including linking events directly to the world used to host them and allowing that originating world to gain the traffic figures of people attending the event version.
It will see Linden Lab endeavour to “integrate” user-developed events with major marquee events, so that audiences attending the latter will be made more aware of the former, and encouraged to explore more of Sansar beyond the current event they are attending.
So the hope is that if done correctly, provisioning bigger and more frequent “live” events, the Lab can not only achieve spikes in Sansar’s user base, but actually start to convert some of those visiting audiences into engaged users.
In this respect, work will be carried out to further improve the overall new user experience to make it more “unforgettable”, and to expand Sansar’s socialisation and communication capabilities to help encourage greater user/user interactions.
It also does not mean that other improvements for the platform are in any way being closed or abandoned – although it does mean that some are being re-prioritised and are seeing their possible deployment time-frames pushed back.
This latter point is likely why there has been some negativity around the announcement: for much of 2019 the emphasis has been on developing Sansar’s gaming / questing capabilities, and these have reached a point where they are being actively and imaginatively being leveraged. Given that push to develop them and get creators excited by them, to apparently make a sudden track switch is bound to leave some feeling a little, “wait – what?”
Similarly, there has been a push to give the Sansar avatar a complete overhaul, with more being promised – particularly full body deformation and custom skin textures. It had been suggested these might appear before the end of 2019 – but they are now timetabled for delivery “in 2020”. So this again is likely to be grating on people. But that said, it is true that, insofar as encouraging people into Sansar to attend events, Avatar 2.0 doesn’t appear to have been any kind of barrier – and it might be argued that it is more important for Sansar to gain a broader and deeper user base than it is to keep iterating on new features and capabilities within the avatar system – particularly if there are relatively few people around to use it.
Even with the emphasis on “live” events in Sansar, the lab intends to keep working on the overall new user experience, including use of things like the Nexus (above) and the Codex
Obviously, there are risks involved in shifting the emphasis towards “live” virtual events as a means to generate an audience from which retained users might be gained. On the one hand, there is that aforementioned Marshmello / Fortnite event and its almost 11 million virtual attendees. However, it’s equally important to remember that Fortnite already had an estimated user base of some 200 million world-wide to draw on to attend that event – they weren’t using it to try to generate new users for the platform.
In this, Sansar has a long way to go to establish itself – and there is absolutely no guarantee that however things are developed or engineered, people attracted to the platform to attend an event by their favourite EDM DJ or comedian or talk show host or whoever aren’t really going to be interested in doing anything else other than attending an event. But again, to flip this over, it is certainly true that certain types of event that could allow audiences to have very unique experiences whilst attending such events. This is something Ebbe Altberg notes in reference to EDM events when talking to IQ:
It’s easier to hook up EDM artists to the system because DJs basically have an electronic output. So they stand there in their VR gear and we give them all kinds of in-game tools – fireballs, lasers, the ability to change the gravity so everyone can jump really high…
There’s also the fact that virtual shows and events do greatly increase the potential audience reach for artists and performers – and present the potential for physical world merchandising (assuming LL put such a capability in place – and they’d perhaps be stupid not to), something I touched on in Sansar: music entertainment with some sundry thoughts. This is something that performers and brands might well find appealing.
So to me, the shift in emphasis perhaps isn’t as upsetting as it appears to have been to others – but then, I’m simply not as invested in Sansar as some, which also should be taken into account. Certainly, and as I’ve previously argued, I don’t think a push to establish a presence in the “virtual events market” given the capabilities Sansar does have is not a bad thing. And, as I’ve noted in Sansar: music entertainment with some sundry thoughts, even if it doesn’t massively drive up the platform’s concurrency on its own, it could nevertheless contribute to doing so; what’s more, it could open the platform up to broader “repeat” audiences from a range of potential sectors and so help the Lab generate revenue from those sectors through a variety of means.
It is not clear right now, but Sheri may have shifted to focusing solely on Sansar, as Hari Raghavan, formerly the Lab’s Senior Manager, Marketing Communications, was introduced at the meeting as the “new Director of Marketing”.
The following notes were taken from the Twitch stream recording of the November 1st (week #44) Sansar Product Meeting. This meeting focused on two aspects of Sansar:
The upcoming R37 release, covered in detail in these notes.
The shift in Sansar development focus, which will emphasize “live” events in Sansar for the foreseeable future. This is summarised below and looked at in more detail in a companion piece, Sansar changes emphasis: of live events and audience.
New faces
The Friday meeting featured some new (to the meeting) faces:
Coho – the Sansar release Manager.
Binah – user interface / user experience design.
Skylar – Manager of Engineering.
Julia Munck – VP of Product (Sansar).
Sheri Bryant – VP of Business Development and Marketing for Linden Lab and now the General Manager for Sansar (as CowboyNinja in-world).
Hari Raghavan – Director of Marketing (formerly the Senior Manager, Marketing Communications.
Product Team Changes
In addition to the meeting attendee notes above, there have been some changes to the Sansar team:
Lacie Linden is taking over more direct management of Sansar support.
Harley Linden has transitioned from Sansar to working back on Second Life.
Overall, the change in focus for the platform means the Sansar team is smaller. This has led to the suggestion that some members may have departed the Lab (although LL does not officially comment on those leaving the company). Names have been mentioned in this regard, although at this point in time I’ve been unable to corroborate such claims, and one of the three of the names I’ve seen mentioned has the appearance of still being at LL, at this point in time.
“Live” Events Focus
The decision has been taken to prioritise Sansar as a platform for hosting “live” virtual events.
This has in part been sparked by the rise in popularity of “live” virtual events in a number of platforms (most notably the Fortnite / Marshmello event and the 11 million attendees it garnered) and the more modest successes Sansar has had in hosting electronic dance music (EDM) events in Sansar.
The intention is to make Sansar the “best possible” destination for virtual events. However, the Lab see this as a two-pronged approach:
Enabling more partnership-style events such as those seen with the likes of Monstercat and Spinnin’ Records, and in have other “branded” events (if not outright partnerships)
Promoting more in the way of user-created events, hence the changes being made to the events system with R37 (see below) to help encourage creators to run events of their own.
It will mean a lot of attention will be placed on the Sansar events system going forward.
However, it does not mean work on other features / capabilities is being abandoned, although some will be re-prioritised and may be pushed back in terms of possible deployment time frames.
The work will be carried out alongside an expansion of Sansar’s socialisation and communication capabilities to help encourage greater user/user interactions.
Attempts will be made to “integrate” user-developed events with major marquee events, so that audiences attending the latter will be made more aware of the former, and encouraged to explore more of Sansar beyond the current event they are attending.
The new user experience will be further looked at / enhanced so that it can be a more “unforgettable” experience in order to encourage visitors to return and become active within the platform.
Sansar’s development is to be more focused on making the platform as a venue for “live” virtual events, such as those hosted by Monstercat at their Call of the Wild event space
R37 Release
The next Sansar release – R37 – is due to be deployed during the week commencing Monday, November 4th, and should include the following features / updates.
World and Editing Updates
Desktop aiming improvements (shooting, throwing, etc). Essentially a new grab point on objects – “aim at cursor” on objects to make the avatar use IK to aim at the target as pointed to with the cursor.
Pre-morph skeleton support.
Camera updates:
Freecam capability when editing an avatar through the Look Book.
Scripted camera positioning (so, for example, when a user enters a world, they can be taken on a video / cinematic flight through the world).
New Edit Mode capabilities:
Support for setting scripted spawn points within a world users can be delivered to when moving between worlds, rather than having to go via the main spawn point
Scene building snap to grid (move, rotation and planar), to allow better alignment of items in a scene, with the threshold defined by the creator.
Edit Mode Texture handling improvements:
Improved texture tracking capabilities in the object stats.
Ability to move the colour picker.
JPEG file import support and the removal of texture dimensions limitations.
Avatar texture log:
Essentially establishes a rendering budget for every avatar in a scene (possibly 100Mb).
When textures on an avatar exceed this budget, the system will switch to rendering them at lower MIP levels.
People’s own avatars are not exempt from this limit when in their own worlds.
The idea is to help raise the avatar limit for scenes / worlds, and to assist those trying to access Sansar on lower-specification systems.
The Sansar team will be looking for feedback on this budget threshold from world builders, and will be iterating on the approach in the future.
Scripting: a new simple script will be added to the library to support accessing a creator’s store in the client UI by clicking an in-world object.
Questing: the ability for users to abandon in-progress quests (so, if you start a quest, decide you don’t want to complete it, you can abandon it and have it removed from your Quest Journal, rather than seeing it hanging there every time the Journal is opened).
UI / UX Updates
The in-client store is being updated to:
Be a moveable / resizeable panel (similar to the Codex).
Provide improved search filtering.
Support creator stores searches / filtering.
Chat improved to support the sharing of links to stores and items in the Sansar Store.
Events Changes
Event creation updates:
With the next release, evens are created by selecting a published world (not a scene template).
This means that when someone attends an event, the link to the originating world is added to their Codex.
However, these links cannot be changed (so if a creator sets-up an event using a copy of their World A, and then decides they would actually like to run the event using their World B, the link is not updated – so users attending the event will still get World A added to their Codex, not World B).
It also means that while a copy of the world will be used to host the event, the original world will gain the “credit” of the traffic generated by the event.
Event notifications will be sent to the client to notify users when they can access an event they’ve marked as being interested in attending.
Events will support the new scripted spawn point capability mentioned above, so those arriving at an event can be delivered directly to the event area, rather than the world’s main spawn point, if required.
Persistent Storage
New scripted APIs to allow data to be saved from experiences. The data is defined as “anything you like” – so visitor stats, avatar progress through a world or a quest, etc.
Creators will have the ability to share “tables” of data between one another, to assist with collaborative projects.
Details were a little vague and offered with the promise that the documentation around this will explain things in full.
General Q&A
When will flying be added to avatar movement? Not actively being worked on.
However, LL are looking at making certain capabilities specific to events / event tickets (e.g. having a ticket price that including having your avatar’s gravity to be adjusted at the event so you can be set to float around, etc.)
How can people contact other Sansar users when they are not friends, e.g. to enquire after a product, report an issue with a product, etc, given people don’t like accepted random Friend requests? This is known to be an issue, and the only way to circumvent it at present is to try via Discord.
When will individual volume controls be introduced for avatars? Has been discussed numerous times and has bounced around the priorities list, but currently is not on the feature roadmap.
What is being done to improve world discovery?
As per the notes on live events, LL is looking at ways to broaden the awareness of those attending major live events that there is an entire platform of worlds to be explored.
Feedback is still being gathered on the effectiveness of the Nexus in encourage new users to explore Sansar.
Will Sansar offer an Animation Override capability of a similar nature to Second Life? No plans at present – but the animation system may be expanded.
What about the ability to sync animations between avatars (e.g. have everyone synced to the same dance)?
While it has been done, no plans as yet to make it a user-driven feature.
However, capabilities like this are compelling within the events environment (e.g. a group of avatars attending an event being able to sync-up for a dance), so the idea is not completely out of the question.
Does the shift in focus mean that avatar improvements are now on the back-burner?
The current avatar system is seen as “relatively robust” and suitable for things like attending events.
While the focus will be on the development of features around events / events management, avatars will remain central to Sansar’s development – they just won’t be a subject of focus in the immediate future.
Nothing is being taken away from the plans for future avatar development.
This does mean that full body deformation, that had been viewed as possibly being a Q4 2019 (October-December) release has been pushed back to a 2020 release, but no clear indication of when.
When will it be possible to update items without having to re-list them in the store? Currently, not on the roadmap.
Will “drivable” vehicles be available any time soon? With the change in focus to events, probably not any time soon.
When will creators have inventory folders? Not on the revised roadmap – keep asking for it.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 