It’s that time of year again, the closure of 12 months of ups and downs, ins and outs and numerous other goings-on in the so-called metaverse and the galaxy therein with call Second Life. As with previous years, that means it’s time for me to take a look back over the last 12 months as seen through the pages of this blog.

You can read Part 1: January through June, here.

July

• July kicked-off with initial news on the main Relay for Life SL weekend starting to emerge
• I gave a personal look back on SL9B
• Crap Mariner announced the 100 Word Story Challenge for RFL SL
• Following more silliness on Twitter, I offered-up the lyrics for “One Night in SL” (With apologies to Murray Head!)
• LL got cheeky and asked for feedback on SL9B
• Lumiya added OpenSim support
• my.secondlife.com went borky
• AvaCon announced they would not be organising SLCC 2012 after agreement could not be reached with LL
• Rocky Constantine caught sight of another Lab-related faux-pas when the name of another new product popped up unexpectedly
• The Lab moved to further simplify age verification for SL
• With two possible mesh clothing deformation systems out there, I looked at the options
• Mid-month, RFL-SL kicked off the main weekend
• Pathfinding roll-out on the Magnum RC channel, and the advanced creation tools were redeployed to an RC channel after the June issues
• I looked in more detail at the Shining Project, the HTTP library project viewer for which arrived at the end of the month
• It looked like a fix for the snapshot tiling issue was on the way
• Away from SL, I popped back into Cloud Party as land rentals started; Kitely restructured their
•  payment system; Sally Ride passed away

August

• LL confirmed the arrival of the “first set” of advanced creation tools grid-wide
• Former CFO and interim CEO Bob Komin departed LL after speculation about his future, when Tateru Nino confirmed he had left the hallowed halls of Battery Street

• I caught up with the state of the Marketplace and the fact that Direct Delivery migration had been pushed back from August to October
• Birdland, the premier nightclub  / lounge in SL made a triumphant return
• I previewed the forthcoming arrival of the Mars Science Laboratory on Mars, and the actual EDL phase of the mission at the start of a new ongoing series of reports

• Toysoldier Thor proposed a radical and innovative solution to the age-old headaches of state / outdated Landmarks with his Virtual Landmarks idea
• In lieu of (then) cohesive documentation from LL, I provided a detailed look at pathfinding, including available resources and a little later in the month, had a little play with pathfinding inside buildings
• After much confusion concerning the impact of pathfinding on region performance, Lorca Linden spoke up on the matter
• After a long wait, Exodus updated; and a little later in the month, Lumiya got a facelift
• The first major details of Burn2 appeared
• After efforts elsewhere, I contemplated the idea of a better build floater
• It was confirmed that, following a proposal by members of the Exodus viewer team, normal and specular maps would be coming to SL, and would work with mesh, sculpts and prims – but not with the avatar mesh or system layer clothing, as I explained in an in-depth look later in the month
• After some TPV developers poked into the viewer code, Linden Lab confirmed that the viewer will be made available via the Steam service for games; shortly after this, some of the changes necessary for the Steam link-up appeared in the SL development viewer; later in the month I speculated on the Steam link-up, which was getting some negative responses from the SL community
• Dolphin viewer became the first TPV to announce it would be ceasing OpenSim support once a sub-licence arrangement has been reached with LL for accessing the Havok libraries; Firestorm had already confirmed OpenSim support will continue in a fork of the viewer
• I hit 1,000 posts with WordPress …
• The Phoenix / Firestorm team launched their own Support / SL orientation island
• I offered some thoughts on Premium membership of SL for those considering the jump
• LL sought to improve support for users on TPVs
• I closed the month with a look at two of the HTTP library projects: texture fetch and Group Services
• Away from SL: Kitely announced support for “big worlds”; and Neil Armstrong passed away.

It’s that time of year again, the closure of 12 months of ups and downs, ins and outs and numerous other goings-on in the so-called metaverse and the galaxy therein with call Second Life. As with previous years, that means it’s time for me to take a look back over the last 12 months as seen through the pages of this blog.

First up: January through June. For those interested in July through to December, Part 2 of this review can be found here.

January

• Deformer reached “alpha” release:  Yes, this project really has been going on for nigh-on a year-and-a-half. Qarl’s metareality podcast-led news that the code was “finally” in an alpha state and ready to be played with was met with excitement. The initial release was followed by an update later in the month

• Direct Delivery reached beta and marked the start of what was to be another controversial year with the SL Marketplace
• The Lab rejected Qarl’s prim alignment tool, which caused a little confusion when some thought the deformer had been rejected
• The Lab introduced visual auto-mute, and I speculated on the end of ARC/ADW upsets
• Timmy Allen and his team opened-up Dranopia, the first of their SL-based games for 2012
• On the personal front: I took some heat for an admittedly non-forensic (but user-focused) test of viewers using my hardware; I continued my love affair with Ample Clarity’s remarkable 1-prim furniture (and other) builds; I wished Rodvik a happy first anniversary at the start of a year which brought the honeymoon period between the Lab’s CEO and many SL users well-and-truly to an end; and I looked at the magic of convex hull and of sculpts.

February

• The month kicked-off with an update from Rodvik relating to the possible return of last names to SL
• The Imprudence / Kokua team announced they’d be moving ahead with Kokua, then issued a small update for the viewer later in the month
• I got an early 2012 start to roasting my old chestnut of the Lab and communications, after the Lab attempted to cede ongoing coverage of their platform to bloggers, but only on the Lab’s terms
• We had the first mutterings that the flight ceiling of around 170 metres, above which flight assistance systems were required by avatars, would be done away with (it eventually vanished in April)

• The International Spaceflight Museum hit the headlines after miscommunications saw it vanish from SL, although it did return later in the month
• I pondered on the future of Linden Homes after the Lab issued a survey on the subject
• After a year without press releases, the Lab broke silence with an announcement of the acquisition of LittleText People, starting a raft of speculation
• I got to preview Battlebeast Breedables, which launched in March
• Pathfinding got set to arrive on the beta (Aditi) grid
• The Lab slipped out the Received Items folder / Inventory update as the next step in paving the way for Direct Delivery, and I provided some feedback
• The Lab updated its TPV Policy, which brought very mixed reactions, prompting Oz to comment on a forum thread and reassure people on the JIRA, while Tateru Nino sought further clarification from the Lab on matters
• On the personal front: I started driving people batty with my obsession with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, something which continued throughout the month; I launched my Viewer round-up page
• Non-SL news: Avination gained vehicle crossing abilities with a slightly contentious claim of being the “first” grid outside of SL to do so.

March

• The month got off to a rocky start with Rodvik announcing “no return of last names” and then shutting the door very firmly on future open “round robin” discussions, something I gave thought to at length, pointing out why the Lab fails to help itself
• Given the concerns with Received Items, the Lab put out a call for feedback, and later followed-up with feedback of its own
• Esbee and Charlar Linden – two people I aways got on very well with at LL – departed
• The first rumblings of inventory issues on Aditi were heard
• The first details of the advanced creation tools appeared
• Jessica Lyon sat down with Oz Linden to discuss the TPV Policy changes
• Oz Linden pointed me to Alina Lyvette’s remarkable Lumiya client for SL (and now OpenSim)
• I looked at the revised Destination Islands for new SL users, about which I later raised some questions
• Rod Humble and Emily Short started talking new products from LL
• Timmy Allen and his team followed-up Dranopia from earlier in the year with a sequel game

• LL announced the Premium Wildnerness Experience, which most Premium members weren’t wildly captivated with, even if it did include pathfinding features
• Direct Delivery launched, and I kept an eye on it, although it wasn’t long before problems started
• The Lab opened sign-ups for Beta Testers for their new products via their corporate website
• Issues with the Marketplace continued to rise and were not helped by the Commerce Team keeping mum on the matter
• In fairness to the Lab, I took a look at the flip side of communications, noting that problems aren’t always the Lab’s fault
• Pathfinding landed on the main (Agni) grid at the start of a beta
• Non-SL news: Kitely opened its doors to Twitter users, allowing me to sign-up and take a look around; offered expanded services including world-to-world teleports and more support for viewers.

Please use the page numbers below to continue reading this article

Continued from Part 1

September

• LL announced Premium Memberships were getting an overhaul & then offered them at a conditional discount for a weekend; support items were added to the SL search, and they also issued a “casting call” for a new ad campaign which eventually lead to a so-so video

• Both Imprudence and Phoenix celebrated birthdays while Metabolt and Radegast issued updates – the latter featuring its remarkable 3D scene renderer; Firestorm, Dolphin and Catznip all gained mesh rendering
• With mesh in general, changes to the official Viewer started to appear, I interviewed the remarkable Claudia222 Jewell and looked at using the Beta grid in mesh content creation while LL downgraded the JIRA for a parametric deformer

• A new V3-based Viewer arrived in the form of Exodus, which also incorporated combat functionality
• There was sad news from Kirsten’s Viewer, followed by a ray of hope and positive feedback from the team
• September saw quite a build-up for BURN2, with announcements on the invited artists, land rushes & the main schedule while I managed to preview the sims at the end of the month; at the same time, LEA announced their participants in the Full Sim Art Series
• LL caused upset and consternation with not one, but two code breakages in the month, as well as upsetting merchants – all through potentially avoidable errors
• There was a fascinating presentation from the US Army on their use of OpenSim for non-military research
• We saw a lot of people get their pants in a paddy over region losses in SL
• After a light-hearted round of bantering on Twitter involving a number of people, I became an early recipient of Rodvik’s Pwnie
• Away from SL The Blu was launched as a Beta, and I dived in; while InWorldz hosted a major homes and residences exhibition

October

• Rod Humble shared a few tidbits on the official blog, prompting me to reply with some thoughts of my own; little did we know then just how close changes were – or how radical
• OpenSim beat SL to the line with NPCs as they and mesh rendering together with other goodies “officially” launched with the release of server version 0.7.2
• Thanks to an almost throwaway comment by Qarl Fizz (nee: Linden, if I may use that term, otherwise known as Karl Stiefvater) on Hamlet Au’s blog, Maxwell Graf put together a project to try to resolve the issue of getting mesh clothing to fit avatars, rather than vice-versa. This resulted in $5400+ being raised in 20 days, allowing the project to formally commence, and I took time out to talk to Max about it
• Also on the mesh front, Land Impact became official, and the V1-based Singularity Viewer gained mesh rendering
• The inaugural installation in the LEA’s Full Sim Art series saw Second Life literally go to hell as Rebeca Bashly’s stunning Inferno opened, as did LEA’s The Path, the first of four three-month exhibitions; LEA also announced a 20-sim deal with LL; at the same time, the absolutely stunning Through the Lens of Dreams opened at Art Screamer; I visited Postcards Home at Originialia and also attended Shenchai’s Library’s Halloween presentations of The War of the Worlds

• Code relating to Direct Delivery started arriving on the Main Grid and Direct Messaging came to Web Profiles and we had some reasonably good economic metrics for Q3; things then went somewhat awry with another grid-wide megaprim removal
• The Lab somewhat surprisingly launched a private region sale which, while not stopping the weekly losses of sims from the grid, actually did much to reverse losses to date; unsurprisingly, those who had made a big song and dance about revenue losses in September failed to comment on this reversal of their doomometers…
• The Adult Gateway situation continued to boil when a notecard circulated in-world revealing the winning bid while LL kept quiet in meetings; meanwhile, and in contrast to predictions that LL were trying to “kill” Adult content, the Adult Forum “went public“, joining a number of other moves through the year to make Adult content more visible & accessible
• Following on from September, Lee Quick announced a Crowdfunder project to try to secure the survival of Kirsten’s Viewer
• The marvellous Login2Life had its premier at long last, followed by a week-long free streaming on German TV channel ZDF’s website
• It emerged Will Wright had joined LL’s Board sometime in late summer

November

• The new Linden Realms game unofficially launched for Premium members
• News came that built-in translation would continue to be available (but would not necessarily be free); the snapshot floater would receive a nice overhaul and two new avatar attachment points officially arrived
• The new UI itself rolled out as an official release and a number of JIRAs suggesting improvements popped up, although a spell checker is already on the cards; while Web Profiles moved more towards Twitter with a new Trending tab that suddenly appeared
• I took the plunge back into the world of Premium accounts and got myself a Linden Home and looked at Premium Sandboxes – although the re-tread of the conditional Premium discount offer had nothing to do with my decision
• I also discovered Able Clarity’s single-prim work and fell in love with it
• Linden Lab officially engaged with the parametric deformer project; some saw this as a cynical move, to me it seemed the common sense thing for the Lab to do
• The new Adult Gateway hubs came on-line, and I had a chat with Serjourn Daxter about them.
• On the art front, I attended Tyrehl Byk’s amazing Catharsis and his phenomenal Particle Phantasmagoria; UWA announced a Vote And Win competition for their art competitions
• Firestorm 3.2 came out, and I took a look at the Android Mobile Grid Client for SL
• Kimberley Salzer left LL, promoting a lot of commentary on LL’s communications and other aspects of the company’s management

December

• Saw Linden Realms open up to all, although not without a slight problem, and it included some new elements

• Migrating from Phoenix to Firestorm, applying Viewer preferences across multiple computers and using lighting projectors got the Pey treatment
• I celebrated five years in SL as Inara
• There was a push on a number of blogs (including mine) to try to get more to fund Kirsten’s Viewer; sadly, the target wasn’t met
• The next Premium membership gift from LL arrived in time for Christmas, and Rodvik offered another Xmas present with news that last names would be returning and Rodvik’s December blog post, although communications elsewhere raised concern again
• In the Viewer stakes, Phoenix gained mesh,  Niran’s Viewer reached Beta and then final release status; both Dolphin and Catznip went FUI, and Milkshake arrived
• Frank Ambrose (FJ Linden) departed the Lab, sadly
• Mesh gave rise to a couple of articles in December as well, one on the misplaced idea that LL is somehow malicious, the other on perceptions relating to the suitability of mesh and it’s take-up on the grid
• December 23rd marked the first year since Rod Humble was appointed LL’s CEO, and he marked the event with a blog post

Destinations

2011 also saw me resume my travels around SL, some of which I blogged about over the course of the year. On the high seas I visited Black Spot with its pirate theme, and the 3-sim wonder of the SS Galaxy. Architectural masterpieces such as Alpha and Omega Points, Al Andalus Alhambra  and Mont Saint-Michel were all on my itinerary, as were photographer’s dreams like The Looking Glass, World’s End Garden and !Lost World! I also relaxed in scenic sims such as Calas Galadhon, took time to visit living museums including the International Spaceflight Museum and historical sims like the Duché de Coeur as well as a number of SL historical sites.

A Personal Perspective

Despite code breakages, cock-ups on the Marketplace, the angst and drum-pounding over region losses (Rodvik, if you’re reading this – that’s your Moria Moment, not the new UI 😉 ) and the like, I personally feel that 2011 has for the most part been on the “good” side of the balance.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing, but Rodvik has done much during his tenure over the last 12 months that I believe has been to the good of SL as a whole, and that while there are going to bumps and bouncing to come, the future is actually brighter now than, say, 12 months ago. Certainly, the company continues to report strong revenues ($75 million), and are generating good profits.

Like it or loathe it, there is no denying mesh is something users have been demanding for years and has at last been delivered. While the initial uptake may well be slow, I’ve little doubt it will make its presence felt in 2012. We have new tools for creativity coming on-stream, and unlike some, I don’t have a problem with LL positioning SL as a platform upon which games can be developed. Let’s face it, games are a large part of the SL experience – from role-play through combat to board and table-top games. I also don’t I don’t begrudge LL rolling-out and promoting the tools via Linden Realms or with their statement that access to the tools will be gated – although I do caveat the latter in that we’ve yet to see what the gateway will be, but I doubt it will be as hideous or segregating as some are already predicting.

For 2012 we’ve been promised lots: more efforts on performance and stability, yet more tools, the arrival of Direct Delivery, and so on. However, one thing I really would like to see next year is a resumption of direct, informative and open communications between LL and its users. Communications this year seemed to dry up faster than a puddle of spilled water in the Atacama.

It’s going to be interesting to see exactly what LL are going to present to the world in terms of new products. Of course, the doomsayers have already used LL’s pending diversification as yet another hook on which to hang their end-of-the-world pronouncements. So, here’s my prediction for 2012: All predictions of SL’s forthcoming demise will be comprehensively proven wrong.

Again.

Happy 2012 to one and all!