Lab Gab turns its attention back towards resident guests on Friday, March 13th, with episode 17 announced as featuring lucagrabacr, who has been involved in Second Life for almost eight years.
Luca is a content creator, although she is probably best known for her SL videos, many of which seek to positively promote Second Life to the world at large. Her interview comes on the heels of a forum discussion she initiated about SL Marketing which was mentioned in the Lab Gab segment featuring the Second Life Marketing team.
Luca is also the co-founder of the Virtual Existence Society, a non-profit group of like-minded individuals who find value in the practice of virtual embodiment and the philosophy of virtual existentialism who and want to preserve, and promote those things. As a part of this, the VES recognises those who contribute to the practice of virtual embodiment and the cause of virtual existentialism, and in 2019, I was honoured by VES bestowing me with an Amicus award. You can find out more about VES, including its structure on the Virtual Existence Society website, and visitors are welcome at the society’s in-world headquarters.
As this is a resident interview, there is no process for submitting questions, but do be sure to tune in via the usual channels: YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, or Periscope, at 10:00am SLT (that’s 5:00pm UK and 6:00pm Europe, due to the US having moved to summer time) on Friday 13th March 2020.
Sunday, March 8th marks International Women’s Day, 2020, a global opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements while calling for greater equality.
Held on March 8th each year, IWD is over 100 years old, the first official event being held in 1911, IWD is a focal point in the movement for women’s rights, and is marked in multiple ways around the world, and in many countries is now a recognised holiday or holiday for women.
The theme for this year’s IWD is #EachForEqual, a call for gender equality, and the the day will be marked in Second Life at Celebrating International Women’s Day in SL, a series of events throughout the day organised and hosted by the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS). The these will comprise music, dance, live performances and interactive activities.
The core entertainment comprises (all times SLT):
09:45 – opening with MC DJ QT, who will be playing a range of music from the blues through to contemporary songs and music between Debauche sets.
From 10:00 – Debauche Dancers: Debauche combines outstanding choreography, creative stage settings, gorgeous costuming to present artistic entertainment that has been pleasing audiences across Second Life since its first performances. Whilst having a core rooted in burlesque, Debauche also incorporates many other dance styles in order to present a memorable theatrical experience for its audiences.
14:00: Aleykat: Aleylia Resident is a highly regarded singer in SL who takes listeners on a musical journey, her range including upbeat pop, classical renditions and timeless material.
Celebrating International Women’s Day in SL
In addition visitors to CDS are invited to:
Visit the Making Wave Exhibit: over the last 300+ years, women made enormous strides in establishing for themselves a place of their own in the world, achieving legal and political equality throughout much of the globe. A great deal of this success has derived from the power and insight lent by the rise and ongoing evolution of Feminism. Making Waves chronicles the historical contributions of Feminism to the continuing struggle for social justice, acknowledging the past while looking ahead to the future of the women’s movement.
The sharing Wall: a wall of posters for YOU to participate in! Bring your favourite poster or images and you’ll be able to set them up for display on our Sharing Wall! It’s free, fun, and can be thought-provoking.
The Doodle Board: a chalk board for visitors to play on.
About the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS)
Currently comprising six regions, the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) is the oldest, continuously-running democratic estate in Second Life.Loose themed on Germanic, Alpine, Tuscan, or Mediterranean styles, the regions present an all-encompassing government based on citizen participation, with elections to the Representative Assembly held each six months, and the work of the Representative Assembly supported in its work by a Scientific Council. This governing structure is not role play, as might appear to be the case: it is more a residents co-op, not unlike the way apartment buildings are managed in real life, where every landowner is a “citizen” and is granted the right to vote and be elected to manage the overall space.
Among the goals for this project are: to enable ownership of high-quality public, private, and open-space land; create a themed yet expressive community of public and private builds; and implement novel democratic forms of self-government within Second Life.
The 16th edition of Lab Gab was live streamed on Friday, March 6th, featuring three members of the Second Life Marketing team: Brett Linden, the Lab’s Senior Director of Marketing, Darcy Linden, Performance Marketing Manager and Strawberry Linden, who was also acting in her role as the show’s host.
The official video of the segment is available via You Tube, and the following is a summary of the key topics discussed and responses to questions. Note that this is not a full transcript or summary; I’ve tried to keep this summary to the core discussions on the Marketing Team’s work, so be sure to refer to the video as well. Also, items provided below may not all reflect the chronological order in which they were discussed, but have been grouped together where appropriate. Time stamps are provided for those wishing to jump to a specific point in the video, which is also embedded at the end of this summary.
Note that further information on the Lab’s Marketing work for Second Life can also be found in the official blog post, TheHeart & Science of Second Life Marketing, which is mentioned on several occasions during the video.
Brett Linden (l) and Darcy Linden (r) joined fellow Marketing team member Strawberry Linden for the March 6th edition of Lab Gab
Continue the drive for greater user acquisition (sign-up and conversions to retained users) and grow the active user base.
The retention focus is also on existing users – helping to keep them engaged and feeling a part of SL’s very broad “community”.
Helping the Second Life economy – highlighting and encouraging creativity in Second Life and the potential the platform offers in terms of creativity and potential income generation.
To re-energise the Second Life brand. The platform is 17 years old – no mean feat for any technology product / platform – but that longevity and history means that it’s important to keep SL relevant in pop culture, the media, etc., so the fact that it is still thriving is not forgotten.
General Marketing
[6:44-7:43] One of the major aspects of marketing material production has been SL related videos (e.g. in-house tutorials and videos exploring different regions in SL, plus the Made in SL series).
These have seen a dramatic increase in the volume of available videos for people to see through various channels and many of them have been localised into other languages for ease of digestion.
They also feed into market segmentation and efforts by the Lab to probe what resonates with users (potential, new and established) and generate greater interest / awareness in the platform.
[9:05-10:22] What is the target demographic LL looks at for SL?
LL has done analyses of audience segmentation, communities, themes, etc., and a lot of demographic data has been gathered in respect of this.
There is a lot of interest in the platform from the 18-24 year age bracket.
Conversely, with users who have spent 1,000 hours or more in SL, the age range is much broader (18 through to 60+).
Given the latter point, and that as a virtual world, SL allows people to do pretty much anything they want and be whomever they wish, the Lab focuses more on breaking age barriers, and focuses on the richness of opportunities and experiences available within the platform, rather than on specific age groups, and helping communities active within SL to grow, regardless of age, race, gender, etc.
[46:35-47:22] That said, campaigns that are targeted for older users are being developed.
[24:32-25:49] Where to SL ads go, and how are channels selected?
Ads go to all suitable channels across the web – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc., and more recently Twitter and other social media.
Videos go to You Tube and Facebook.
LL always willing to experiment with new channels – social media, for example, has given “very mixed results”.
All advertising is subject to analysis and time has been put into enhancing the tools available for doing to and which will allow LL to extend their reach even further.
Part of this drive also involves identifying active communities in SL that can be used as a focus for ad campaigns.
[27:23-28:52] and [37:50-39:48] Is SL marketing work being localised for languages other than English? Yes. The new user video tutorial series, for example, has been translated into around 8 languages. The same is also being done with SL ads.
The fact the active SL users rarely / never see on-line adverts for SL is testament to the targeted nature of the campaigns and that they are reaching the intended audience – people who are not active in SL.
Advertising specific to existing users (e.g. promoting events, etc), goes via different mechanisms.
Investment is being made in technologies and capabilities to extend SL’s reach via marketing and potential user acquisition.
Most tech-literate people have heard about SL, so a portion of the work is focused on piquing their curiosity to the point where they go from reading / hearing about it to actively taking a look.
Some of this has been geared towards encouraging former users to log-in once more.
Work is also focused on audiences who may not be aware of SL.
[32:22-35:23] What is happening with regards to more organic marketing?
LL wants to to curate, create or assist the SL community in strong word-of-mouth marketing, including high-quality social media content.
Also looking at possibly using non-paid product placement opportunities with established TV programmes and media channels to more directly pitch SL.
An example of this that unfortunately didn’t go ahead, was the potential for Second Life to be placed / referenced within the British-made Black Mirror anthology series.
Two core questions were asked on the subject of adult content.
Is there any work being done to promote adult content in Second Life, including LL working with adult content creators, bloggers, etc, plus placing ads on other adult platforms?
Yes, LL are cautiously looking at how to incorporate SL’s adult content into messaging. But there are major business implications / issues associated with trying to do so.
For example, industry “best practices” as defined by Google, Facebook, et al, tend to be conservative / limiting in what they will allow with advertising, which can impact both how LL can promote adult content and how effective any campaign might be given the restrictions other platforms have in place vis. adult content.
There are also serious consequences LL have to consider if they promote adult content through other platforms in the wrong way – such as losing complete access to a mainstream channel for advertising SL as a whole.
[58:15-59:24] The reason SL does not have a Twitch presence is because Twitch will not countenance any risk of adult content appearing on their platform. This is something the Lab is attempting to redress via discussions with Twitch.
Nevertheless, LL is testing more “provocative” messaging in some of their romance related campaigns – on of the more successful of their promotional campaigns in terms of click-through and possible audience capture.
Will adult content be promoted alongside / as a part of major SL events such as the SL Birthday, or promoting those adult regions that are thematically landscaped, or offering adult bloggers blog roll support?
For those logged-in to SL, either in-world or places like the Marketplace, it is possible to opt-in to seeing information related to Adult products, places, etc. via search, through the Maturity ratings.
There is also a Destination Guide category for adult content, allowing for the rules on image types, etc.
In terms of SLB and adult content, Marketing cannot speak for the Product Operations team, but how adult content might be handled vis-a-vis SL17B is something that is on Patch Linden’s radar (see also: Lab Gab #15 summary: the Moles, Patch SL17B and more).
A good part of the marketing work is not just running campaigns and hoping they will draw users, but actively monitoring campaigns – how well / poorly they perform – and carrying out a range of testing (from simple A/B testing through more complex multivariate testing) to provide direct feedback on campaigns allowing them to be constantly refined and improved.
Testing also encompasses all aspects of the user sign-up process, landing pages, etc., that sit behind ad campaigns (collectively the join flow that carries an interested party from an ad through the sign-up process and (hopefully) in-world).
This has resulted in upticks in both sign-ups and users arriving in-world.
Testing initiatives also extends into the active user base (e.g. the rez day e-mail campaign) to see how the Lab can more positively engage with its existing users.
In terms of further plans / activities related to user retention, TheHeart & Science of Second Life Marketing provides more information on what the Marketing team is and will be doing.
In terms of how existing users can help SL grow, the easiest, most effective way to it tell others about the platform, what you do, invite them to give it a go and be there to help them and help get them involved.
[25:50-27:22] Most SL ads focus on a specific genre / theme – so why don’t users following those ads go to a related sign-up process with suitable default avatars and arrive in-world at locations that reflect the theme of the ad?
Lab has run several experiments with community matching between ads and sign-in / arrival in-world.
However they are dependent on a wide range of factors (time taken to create the relevant avatar type, work with communities in-world to ensure incoming users get the support they need on arrival, resources available at the Lab to make them happen, etc.), and so they do take time to implement.
Currently, much of the focus at the Lab with SL is towards other areas / requirements, so such tests are currently on hold, to be picked up in the near future.
The aim is very much on having people to traverse a sign-up experience and arrive at an in-world location that meets their expectations based on the ad.
Additional Discussions
[5:17-9:04] Lucagrabcr initiated a forum thread on SL Marketing which is mentioned in the segment, with Brett specifically picking up on the idea of “spinning off” communities into their worn worlds (“Tiny World”, for example). In particular, while making it clear this is not on LL’s roadmap, the idea does resonate with SL possibly having the potential to offer white label services (e.g. “Tiny World, brought to you by XYZ, powered by Second Life”).
Offering the platform as a white label service is actually something I thought Sansar would have been ideally suited – and early in the platform’s history, Ebbe Altberg did point in that direction. Whether it was actually promoted that way, I’ve no idea. If not, then it might stand as a missed opportunity for that platform.
[16:02-18:55] and [30:30-32:21] Second Life has had something of a negative stigma in the media over the years. What is being done to reverse this?
Negative press must be responded to on many fronts. Much of what is being put out through social media, performance advertising campaigns, the video promotions, etc., will all combine to shift such negative perceptions where they occur.
The community plays a role in this through positive videos that are organically created by users, blogs and other resources that help present SL’s richness, etc. user generated videos are seen as particularly effective in countering trolling videos.
Lab is aware that more can be done to challenge perceptions and preconceptions, and again, they see telling the stories of those engaged in the platform as a means of doing this.
[59:28-1:00:22] Is physical world merchandise being considered as a means of helping to promote SL? Yes, but nothing to announce at this point in time, but a review of potential merchandise, vendors, etc., has been carried out.
The 16th edition of Lab Gab will be live streamed on Friday, March 6th at 11:00 SLT (19:00 UK; 20:00 CET). For those who have not seen the official blog post about it, the segment will feature members of the Second Life Marketing team, which is led by Brett Linden.
The Marketing team is responsible for a range of activities related to Second Life, including, but not limited to:
Running advertising campaigns to attract interest in the platform, which in turn includes aspect such as:
The Second Life Landing Pages where people may get their first look at SL.
Involvement in the on-boarding process, and monitoring the flow of incoming users.
Producing promotional material about SL, such as the infographics that are sometimes released around SL Birthday events, videos related to Second Life, etc.
Producing information specifically for SL users – such as blog posts, curating the Destination Guide, etc.
Managing the Second Life social media presence – Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, You Tube.
Brett Linden is the Lab’s Senior Director of Marketing, and has been with Linden Lab for 10 years, making him probably the longest-serving member of the marketing department. He is based out of the Lab’s Seattle, Washington, office, and prior to joining the Lab he worked at a number of music and technical publications – including Billboard Magazine in the case of the former. It was in this capacity he got to interview Philip Rosedale (then still at Real Networks), and as a result, joined that company before joining Linden Lab.
As well as working for the Lab, Brett also teaches as a local university in Washington State, covering journalism, social media persuasion, etc., and while he has never specifically presented courses on virtual worlds, he has included Second Life in some of his teaching. He particularly enjoys the creativity surrounding Second Life, and is very sensitive to the misconception that Linden Lab “doesn’t understand” Second Life or how to promote it, or that the marketing team “doesn’t spend time in-world”, pointing out that (like many Linden staffers), he is in-world both on his official and personal accounts, the latter allowing him to be engaged within the community without being identified as a Linden.
Brett Linden (l) and Darcy Linden (r) will be joining fellow Marketing team member Strawberry Linden for the March 6th edition of Lab Gab
Brett will be joined by Strawberry Linden (also Strawberry Singh), one of the Lab’s newer recruits, but a long-time and high-profile SL user famous for her blog, photography and videos. Also joining them will be Senior Marketing Manager Darcy Linden, whom I’m afraid I don’t know, and cannot provide information about here, so my apologies to Darcy.
Together they will be answering questions about the 2020 Roadmap for Marketing Second Life. So, if you have a marketing-related question you’d like to put to the team, fill out the Google Form and submit your question today, and it may be selected!
The programme will be streamed via YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, or Periscope, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll have a summary of the video (and the video itself) available soon after the the broadcast, for those unable to watch live.
On Saturday, February 29th, 2020 the Phoenix Arts Collaboration, in association with The White Mask Project, will be hosting a special concert event in support of WIRES – Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service, located in New South Wales, Australia, and which is currently particularly focused on rescuing and caring for animals displaced or injured by the wildfires in Australia.
This very special event will comprise a concert by violinist F L Y and her guests. The event will open at 08:45 SLT, with a short opening ceremony, with the concert proper running for two hours from 09:00 through until 11:00 SLT.
F L Y (FlyQueen) is a professional violinist who has been performing in the physical world since 2007. Based in Istanbul, Turkey, start has performed with rocks bands and jazz groups at concerts and events, and has appeared at events in Washington State, USA, performing American rock, jazz and blues music on stage at events in Redmond, Kirkland, West Seattle and Portland.
She joined Second Life in July of 2015, and has been streaming her music into Second Life as a performer since June 2019. The White Mask project was started in January 2020 as a means for F L Y to use her talent as a professional musician to provide a realistic concert type atmosphere to listeners in Second Life, in support of causes close to her heart. Her repertoire is broad, covering jazz, rock and pop from different periods, as well as more classical music and film themes. You can find out more about her – and hear a sample of her playing the violin – on her website.
Joining F L Y for this special event will be her guests Mimi Carpenter, Zachh Cale and Maximillion Kleenem who will be playing with her in dual-stream, after her solo presentation.
Please note that this is a formal concert with seating, not a dance event. However, having heard F L Y play, I can vouch that it is an event that is not to be missed, and donations to WIRES can be made via the Koala bears located in front of the stage.
White Mask: F L Y in concert, February 29th, 2020
About WIRES
WIRES was formed in 1985 with the mission to actively rehabilitate and preserve Australian wildlife and to inspire others to do the same. The organisation’s main activities are to respond to individual public reports of sick, injured or orphaned native wildlife. If necessary, trained WIRES volunteers will rescue, foster, provide and treatment and care for an animal and release it back into the wild once it is healthy. WIRES operates under an authority from the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (NSW), allowing it to rescue and rehabilitate native animals, a practice which is generally forbidden by law in Australia.
In addition to the rehabilitation of individual animals, WIRES aims to improve native animal welfare generally through:
Raising awareness in the community and government of threats to native wildlife.
Educating the public about habitat requirements, and encouraging preservation of the natural environment.
Encouraging and undertaking research relevant to the conservation of wildlife and habitat.
A statement from WIRES on the impact of the Australian wildfires:
In WIRES history we have never seen a concurrent series of emergencies events like those that began in November. Hundreds of fires over weeks have burnt over 5 million hectares of land in NSW alone. Many animals were already struggling with a lack of water and food due to the drought. With the fires destroying unprecedented amounts of habitat, food shortages have increased and lack of suitable habitat will be a significant long-term challenge for surviving wildlife.
It is impossible to know how many animals have perished and it will be many months before the impact on wild populations can be better understood but ecologists at Sydney University have estimated over 800 million animals have been affected in NSW and over 1 billion animals in Australia since September.
Summer is a frantically busy time for wildlife rescue and there are still burning in NSW. In January alone there were over 28,000 calls to WIRES … and volunteers accepted over 3,800 rescues.
The 15th edition of Lab Gab was live streamed on Friday, February 28th and featured as guests, Patch Linden, Vice President of Product Operations, and representatives of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW), aka the Moles – Notta Mole, Alotta Mole, Squeaky Mole and Mischievous Mole. Together they discussed the upcoming SL17B celebrations, the Linden Homes and Bellisseria, the work of the LDPW and more.
A call was put to Second Life users to submit questions that could be asked of the group, and the the following is a summary of the key topics raised and feedback given. Note that items may not all reflect the chronological order in which they were discussed, but have been grouped together where appropriate. Time stamps are provided for those wishing to jump to a specific point in the official video, and the complete video is embedded at the end of this article.
[0:37-3:15] Each of the guests offers a brief introduction to themselves, their time at / with Linden Lab, and some of what they do.
SL17B – The Second Life Birthday Celebration, 2020
Theme: Vacations and Road Trips. Further details to come.
There will be more exhibitor parcels available this year (still the standard 32m on a side.
Buildings in keeping with the theme are welcome, but exhibitors are not restricted to modelling after it, but are encouraged to show their Second Life activities and what SL means to them, etc., either as individuals or groups.
Applications will open in approximately 2 week from this date, and it is important for exhibitors to give as much detail as possible in their submission.
There will be an SL17B shopping event to run in parallel with the festivities, and applications will open Soon™
There will be more cross-promotion between the SL17B festivities and the shopping event than last year, to encourage people to attend both.
The plan is to have “at least eight” regions in the shopping event.
Application for the various aspects of the festivities (Music Fest, exhibitors, shopping event, etc.), will likely open over at two week intervals, starting the with Music Fest application. Notifications of applications opening will be provided via official Second Life blog posts and through the Second Life Birthday group in-world.
Might the Cake Stage and Stage Left from the community-organised SLB events ever reappear?
Stage Left is still there, but has been renamed Main Stage.
The Cake Stage may reappear in the future, depending on how well it sits with a given SLB theme.
Will there be an Adult section at SL17B, so Adult content creators can participate and enjoy equal visibility? LL have considered this, and it may happen. However, there are logistics to be worked out – e.g. how best to handle different rating of content (Adult and Moderate / General) in close proximity to one another in a public environment). As such, a firm “yes” or “no” is still pending.
The fifth Linden Home theme was revealed / previewed on Friday, February 28th. The new theme – Log Homes (or lodge homes, if you prefer), comprises 4 styles of rural house style set within open landscapes and dirt tracks – see Previewing the Linden Home Log theme in Second Life for more details.
[21:48-22:48] Modifications to this theme mean that the total number of style that are available in the future may increase to as many as eight, with the mailbox rezzers updated to reflect this. A similar approach may then be taken with the other house themes.
How are themes chosen? Are there particular motivations, inspirations?
Patch believes the team responsible for Linden Homes is in tune with, and listiening to users and what user might want.
The new Log homes is seen as an example of this, being both something the team planned for, and something users requested.
Currently, the team has a “huge” list of potential themes, with the first eight either released or under construction and 2 more after those decided upon.
The new Linden Home Log / Lodge theme
Traditional Homes and Houseboats: Further releases of both being planned.
Campers and Trailers: it had been indicated that campers and trailer might be made available on 1024 sq m parcels as well as the current 512 sq m. Is this still being planned? Right now, the team hasn’t really found a way in which large 1024 sq m parcels and much smaller campers / trailers fit within the overall Bellisseria model.
Release schedule: while the schedule officially remains every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (holidays allowing), unofficially the team has started releasing one or more regions a day, depending on what is available.
Will there be more water regions around Bellisseria for sailing? There should be sufficient room for moderately-size vessels and sail boats to navigate between Joegeot and Sansara by way of Bellisseria. LL do not necessarily want to create large expanses of of water, but if there are issues, things might be revisited.
Is Bellisseria open for anyone to use, and are all avatar types welcome? Yes, the regions are open to everyone, only the homes require a Premium account. All avatar types are welcome, including child avatars, and subject to the normal community standards / terms of service.
Are there plans for a children’s playground in Bellisseria? Has not thus far been considered, but an excellent suggestion.
Will there be street names in Bellisseria? No. While it is a fun exercise to name the regions, all the names have to be checked for suitability, and trying to do the same for every street in Bellisseria would be too time consuming.
Region names come out of group meetings and idea pitching. Some of this may include names that are personal to the team.
Is there an opportunity for a city style of theme with apartments and commercial units?
This is been batted around by the team, but always tends to end up raising issues (how can you stack apartments in a parcel to ensure privacy and without having to constantly monitor LI use? What would the land layout look like with accommodation parcels vs. protected land to ensure the former have adequate LI? How can 1024×1024 parcels be arranged to allow town houses to sit literally side-by-side?
However, the idea is still being considered, with no promises.
How will Bellisseria expand given it now links to Sansara and Jeogeot? Options are open, including working with private estates to move with elsewhere within the grid, if this becomes necessary. Where new Linden Homes regions are placed may also related to the idea of linking continents together (see below).
Will LL provide rolling stock for the railway? Short answer: no, not for the foreseeable future.
How should Bellisseria covenant violations be dealt with? A) take the good neighbour approach and talk to the violator. B) if that fails, file an AR. It should be noted that if issues are noted directly by Lindens or the Moles, then will attempt to pro-actively resolve matters.
[39:45-40:50] What is it with the Back to the Future references that keep popping up? In short, a region on the Bellisseria continent is a partially-completed trestle bridge in homage to the bridge seen in the climax of Back to the Future 3. So, rail travellers beware! There is more to come around this and a storyline for it.
General Items
[18:01-18:35] With the Sansara-Bellisseria-Jeogeot link-up, are their plans to link all of the continents together? Maybe. There are more connections coming.
[21:07-21:45] Will Premium Plus offer larger land parcels than the 1024 sq m available to Premium members? There are plans to present a Linden Homes offering to Premium Plus members. This is not open for detailed discussion as yet.
[28:50-29:53] What is the 5-year plan for the LDPW? For the next three years: Linden Homes. Alongside of this are projects related to the new user process, Premium benefits, cyclical work such as the SL Birthday, a lot of marketing support work etc.
[31:27-32:19] When will the Second Life Rail Road (SLRR) get an overhaul? Maintenance of the Mainland SLRR system is constantly in progress. However, any larger-scale project depends on time being available & what is meant by “overhaul” – e.g. going through and updating the entire track layout would be a multi-year project, and so not currently on the cards. There are also some core differences in design with the Bellisseria system (e.g. tightness of the bends) that mean it is not 100% compatible with the SLRR.
[36:20-37:04] Will the old 512 sq m Linden Homes be refreshed? No. The intent remains that once a critical mass with the new Home take-up has been reached, the old Linden Homes mini-continents will start to be retired and removed.
[38:00-39:43] A discussion on what each of the moles would build if their had free reign to do so: pooled ideas were:
An amusement park – Moley World.
A water world / park.
[42:53-43:55] Are there plans to update the Mainland in general, e.g. high resolution terrain textures, improved landscaping, etc? Has been talked about; could be something that’s undertaken beyond the 3-year plan for Linden Homes.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 