Tag: SL Go

The Drax Files Radio Hour: Second Life is Go!

Posted on by Inara Pey

radio-hourThe ninth podcast in the The Drax Files Radio Hour unsurprisingly focuses on the launch of the SL Go service (Beta) by OnLive (review here).

As most people are now surely aware, SL Go is a means of accessing the full richness of Second Life on a tablet (or mobile device with a large enough screen) via OnLive’s streaming service, with the options of also accessing it via a computer or via a television (additional hardware required in the case of the latter). The mobile offering is initially Android only, but an iOS version is also promised.

SL Go is was launched as a part of the overall re-emergence of OnLive from an 18-month, self-imposed silence following the original company getting into difficulties prior to being bought out by Gary Lauder, who was an early investor in the original OnLive through his company, Lauder Partners.

As well as releasing the SL Go Beta on Wednesday March 5th, OnLive also launched their new CloudLift games subscription service ($14.99 a month) and their OnLive Go service (of which SL Go forms a part), which is specifically aimed at getting people up-and-running with MMOs and virtual worlds.

The SL Go website
The SL Go website

A key sticking point with SL Go where SL users are concerned has been that of pricing, with the pay-per-minute (or pay-as-you-go, depending on your preference in referring to it) plan receiving a broadly negative response. During the podcast, Draxtor interviews Nate Barsetti, Senior Manager of Customer Relations at OnLive, and Dennis Harper, the Senior Product Manager for OnLive, and the subject of pricing and potential future options is raised, as I’ve commented upon in a post on the SL Go pricing model.

Nate Barsetti is very much the voice of SL Go, having appeared on both Designing Worlds during a special programme about the new service and a follow-up Q&A session, as well as spending around an hour talking to Drax about the service, much of which appears in this podcast. Again, as I’ve previously mentioned, Nate is actually in a good position to discuss both SL Go and Second Life; he is both an ex-Lab employee (Scout Linden) and a long-time and very active resident, leading a Star Wars role-play community.  As such, he offers some interesting insight into the various decisions taken vis-a-vis SL Go.

Dennis Harper’s interview is equally interesting. Not only does it echo the potential for OnLive to revisit things like pricing models (this is only a beta, after all), but also because he talks about his own exposure to Second Life, which seems to amount to being given a copy of Wagner James (Hamlet) Au’s book and being told to get on with it! Dennis also offer-up and interesting view as to how OnLive themselves might at some point get more involved in Second Life, possibly helping those new to the SL environment. He also points-out that SL Go support is actually made-up of SL residents. Also interviewed about SL Go is none other thanStrawberry Singh, who offers a balanced view of using the service.

Away from this, The Drax Files Radio Hour gained a new sponsor in the week ahead of the podcast in the form of Leap Motion. To mark this, the show is giving away two Leap Motion devices, one each in two separate competitions. For this podcast, the competition is open to those who use Facebook,  while next week a second Leap Motion device will be given away in a competition exclusively for SL users who don’t use Facebook.

Draxtor has been involved in working with the Leap Motion controller with Second Life for a while, and produced a video on his attempts. More recently, Leap Motion reached out to Linden Lab about integrating the controller with the viewer, and members of the Firestorm team are now working with Leap Motion to make this happen.

Elsewhere in the show, SL advertising is touched upon, as is more unfolding news surrounding Bitcoin, and the re-opening of the SL JIRA gets a mention.

Even if you’ve read all there is to read on SL Go, the show is worth a listen-to. Both Nate Barsetti and Dennis Harper are pretty open and honest in their comments,  and the conversations with them really do help put aspects of SL Go into perspective.

SL Go: of pricing and models and some thoughts from OnLive

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL go logoImportant note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.

Update: On April 3rd, 2014, OnLive announced a revised pricing structure for SL Go.

While only launched on Wednesday March 5th, OnLive’s new SL Go offering for accessing Second Life from Android devices, low-end computers and TVs (additional hardware required) has already received a lot of kick-back due to its initial pricing model.

As it stands, OnLive, in something of a departure from their normal pricing models, are initially presenting the service on a pay-as-you-go offering starting at $3.00 for an hour in SL (with an initial 20-minute free trial period for new sign-ups), through $8.00 for up to three hours access, to $25.00 for up to ten hours. This is being seen as prohibitively expensive for using Second Life.

But is that really the case? Ultimately, the answer to this is both yes and no.

SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet - but the pricing model is upsetting to many
SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet – but the pricing model is upsetting to many

On the one hand, SL Go is being presented as an adjunct – not a replacement – to people’s “normal” means of accessing Second Life; something to be used to get in-world when access via home computer and local viewer isn’t an option. This was very much underlined by Nate Barsetti,  the Senior Manager of Customer Relations at OnLive, and Don Laabs, Linden Lab’s Senior Director of Product with overall responsibility for Second Life, emphasised when both appeared on a Designing Worlds special presentation shown a few hours after the launch of the service.

In such instances, a pay-as-you-go option is actually valid, as it potentially offers a better means of managing costs than something like a subscription payment system, such as OnLive’s new $14.99-a-month CloudLift subscription service, which was also launched on March 5th alongside their new OnLive Go service (of which SL Go is actually a part)..

For example, someone who find they need to access SL for, say, 4 hours a month when they are away from their home PC and viewer would have to pay a maximum of $31.00 a quarter in order to do so. But if SL Go were pitched at the same price as CloudLift, then their cost for the same 3-month period would be $44.97.

Of course, how far the pay-as-you-go payment plan remains attractive is on something of a sliding scale, and a tipping-point can easily be reached. There’s also the fact that were SL to be “rolled into” something like CloudLift, then it becomes more attractive on a subscription service as users gain access to it and other titles provided by CloudLift should they wish to make use of them. But that doesn’t negate the fact that there are genuine use-cases where pay-as-you go is potentially far more cost-effective, and therefore attractive, than a flat subscription rate.

On the other hand, however, SL Go has been presented as a means of accessing the full richness of SL on computers otherwise incapable of doing so. This suggests that SL Go could be used as a more general means of using SL than those on such low-end machines can currently enjoy – and as such, it is where the pay-as-you-go option falls flat on its face, and an alternative means of paying for the service to be used in this way is required, such as a subscription model. And OnLive aren’t actually blind to this fact.

Continue reading “SL Go: of pricing and models and some thoughts from OnLive” →

SL Go: Second Life on a tablet, on the move and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL go logoImportant note: The SL Go service is to be shut down on April 30th, 2015. For more information, please read this report.

Update: On April 3rd, 2014, OnLive announced a revised pricing structure for SL Go, and on June 3rd, 2014, they  announced the extension of the free trial period to 7 days.

On Wednesday March 5th, Linden Lab and OnLive, the streaming / cloud gaming company announced the launch of the SL Go by OnLive (SL Go) public beta (available to UK, US and Canadian residents at the moment).

SL Go is a service which streams the SL viewer and  SL content directly to the user’s computer or tablet device (during the beta period, only Android is supported for tablets). As a streamed service, it allows, subject to network connectivity, the full richness and depth of Second Life to be displayed and used on tablets and low-end computer systems and laptops. The public beta is intended to broaden the use of the service, and to obtain further feedback in order to further enhance and refine it.

As a part of the preparations for the launch, I was one of a number of journalists and bloggers given preview access to the new service in order to try it out and provide initial reviews for readers. However, if you’re rather just skip ahead to the review part of this article, you can follow this link – but if you do, be warned, you’ll be missing out! 🙂 .

News that Linden Lab were involved in developing a mobile means of accessing Second Life first surfaced in October 2013, when selected users received an e-mail inviting them to sign-up for a closed beta for a new mobile service. Shortly after that, rumours began circulating that the work was linked with OnLive. Given the viewer’s complexity and  the dynamic nature of SL content, using a streaming service is perhaps the only way in which to bring the full richness and depth of the SL experience provided by the viewer to devices such as tablets.  Interestingly, however, the idea for using OnLive didn’t actually come from the Lab.

Gary Lauder, OnLive Chairman, approached LL's former CEO, Rod Humble, about OnLive providing SL to users through their service (Image courtesy of LinkedIn)
Gary Lauder, OnLive’s Chairman, approached LL’s former CEO, Rod Humble, about OnLive providing SL to users through their service (Image courtesy of LinkedIn)

Instead, it actually came from Gary Lauder, OnLive’s Chairman and owner. His company, Lauder Partners, invested in the original OnLive Inc in 2009, and when that entity got into difficulties in 2012, then stepped-in and acquired OnLive in August 2012 and formed the current company using the name. Lauder has a working relationship with the Lab’s former CEO, Rod Humble, and being aware of Second Life, he approached Humble in early 2013 with the idea of forming a synergy between the two companies.

Lauder made his approach because third-person adventure games have been particularly successful for OnLive. As such, Second Life was seen as a logical choice for extending OnLive’s reach into more immersive environments  while at the same time potentially offering Linden Lab with a solution for providing SL to tablet devices and to low-end desktop and laptop systems.

The task of initially investigating whether SL could be successfully run through OnLive servers was passed to Nick Barsetti, the Senior Manager of Customer Relations at OnLive. “One of my staff members and I were able to get it up and running on the service … and my jaw just absolutely dropped,” he says while discussing the service with Draxtor Despres ahead of the launch. “I said, ‘I’ve never seen it run this fast!’ It was prior to the server-side rending release [server-side appearance, July / August 2013]. And as we know, that has speeded-up local viewers quite a bit … even with that, it was running 150+ fps, and we’ve even seen it run as high as 200 fps on a private island.”

With the proof-of-concept a success, OnLive started into the core development work, with Barsetti playing a key role, being both a former Linden Lab employee (Scout Linden) and a long-time Second Life resident who has been actively engaged in the platform for seven years, notably as a community leader in a Star Wars role-play group. As such, he is intimately aware of how the viewer and platform can be used and very familiar with users’ expectations and requirements when running Second Life, and this is very apparent in his conversation with Drax, which you’ll be able to hear in The Drax Files Radio Hour on Friday March 7th.

The SL Go website
The SL Go website (courtesy of OnLive)

SL Go is a service provided entirely by OnLive, which sits between the Lab’s servers and the user (and is, most likely, one of the contributing factors behind the August 2013 ToS changes). As such, it requires those wishing to use the service (including users with an existing OnLive account) to register at the SL Go website.  Those who don’t have an account with OnLive will obtain one as a part of their SL Go registration. People with existing OnLive accounts will need to register with the SL Go website prior to being able to see SL Go through their OnLive client (computer or tablet).

Once registered, users can then purchase time credits for the service, download the SL Go app for Android via Google Play or the OnLive client for PCs or Macs in order to access SL Go.

SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet
SL Go by OnLive: streaming Second Life to your tablet

New SL Go accounts receive a free trial period of 20 minutes 7 days (see the update at the top of this article,  so that they can try the service to see if it suits their needs and assess how well it runs on their home or mobile network. Once this initial 20-minute period has been used, additional time credits can be purchased at the following rates:

  • $3.00 for one hour
  • $8.00 for three hours (representing a 10% saving on the base cost)
  • $25.00 for ten hours (representing a 15% saving on the base cost).

As noted at the top of this article in the updates, OnLive now charge a flat monthly subscription of US 9.95 (UK £6.95) per month for unlimited access to Second Life. 

It is possible that some may balk at having to additionally pay for accessing Second Life. However, as Nate Barsetti explains, there is an underlying reason for charging for the service. “OnLive is another layer placed between you and the Linden Lab network. So in order to fund this and keep it going, there is a payment model associated with SL Go.” He also believes that the potential benefits in using SL Go will sufficiently offset reservations people have about paying for the service. Time will tell on this.

As well as using SL Go on either an Android tablet or a computer system, it is also possible to use SL Go with the OnLive Games System (OGS)  to connect to a television and play games using a suitable USB or wireless keyboard and mouse and / or the included games controller (which can also be purchased separately).

The Online Games System with mini-console (left) and wireless game controller (right) can also be used to access SL using a television (keyboard also required)
The Online Games System with mini-console (left) and wireless game controller (right) can also be used to access SL using a television (keyboard also required)

As part of the preview, reviewers were supplied with a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 with the SL Go app pre-installed, together with the OGS and a wireless keyboard for trying SL Go on a television, and a pre-assigned OnLive account. Unfortunately, I have been unable to test using SL Go with a television as a result of not being able to connect the OGS with my home network. As such, what follows is an overview of SL Go running on a tablet and on a low-end computer system (in this case, a 2010 PC EEE 1201N with 4 GB RAM and windows 7 home Edition, 32-bit).

Continue reading “SL Go: Second Life on a tablet, on the move and more” →

Lab confirms “SL mobile” beta programme

Posted on by Inara Pey

secondlife

Update October 26th: As noted in the comments, it appears that the new client may be using the OnLive streaming service / application. This has been reported in a recent comment on the forum thread linked to in the article, and also in a further thread on the subject.

Linden Lab has been issuing an e-mail to a limited group of users inviting them to sign-up to be a part of a beta test for a Second Life client for mobile devices.

The e-mail, which has been popping-up in user’s in-boxes for the last day or so, reads:

We’re looking for enthusiastic beta testers to evaluate a version of Second Life designed for mobile devices.

Sound interesting? Then simply…

  1. Visit  [link removed] to create a FREE account with <link removed to be safe>, then
  2. Visit  [link removed] to complete a 5-minute questionnaire

You have to finish both steps to be considered for the beta.

We’ll email those selected when the program begins and check in periodically over the next couple of months to get their feedback. 

This is your opportunity to be among the first to try a new mobile version of Second Life, and we hope you’ll help us to make it a great product with your input.

Thank you for your consideration!

Linden Lab

Some concern had been raised on the SL forums as to whether the e-mail was genuine or not. While some were able to confirm it was indeed genuine. However, just to be clear, I contacted Peter Gray, the Lab’s Director of Global Communications, and to ask whether the Lab would be prepared to point to any specific platforms they’re looking at (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, etc). He replied saying:

The email you’re referencing did indeed come from Linden Lab. The originating address is related to the system used to send the messages out, and there was initially an unfortunate problem with links, which has since been resolved.

It’s too soon to share details about this service that would bring Second Life to mobile devices (as you can see, we’re beginning a limited beta test), but we’re hoping that with the help of some enthusiastic beta testers, things may progress to a point where we can share more information with the community at large soon.

Do note that the beta programme is via invitation only; there is no public sign-up page available – so don’t go looking for one! Also, not all of those responding to the e-mail will necessarily be selected to participate in the programme.

Lumiya for Android has been the ground-breaking mobile client for Second Life and OpenSim since its launch at the end of 2011
Lumiya for Android has been the ground-breaking mobile client for Second Life and OpenSim since its launch at the end of 2011

Getting SL onto a mobile device has been a much demanded option. As I reported in April 2012, Comverse had a stab at getting SL onto the iPhone back in 2008, complete with graphics. Back then, it required an intervening server in place and didn’t get too much further than an initial proof-of-concept.

However, mobile devices have come some way in terms of power and capbilities, although until now all moves in the mobile arena have been left to third-parties, with text-focused clients such as LittleSight and Mobile Grid Client on the Android platform, and Pocket Metaverse on iOS, and of course the incredible Lumiya for Android with its rich graphical capabilities and which I routinely cover in these pages.

It’ll be interesting to see exactly what the Lab have put together, and the code they’ve used – home-built, or perhaps using something like Unity3D? Time will tell!