Linden Lab has issued a number of blog posts concerning Second Life account security recently. All of them should be read with care and heeded. Most relate to external issues – so-call viewer wrappers, or links to website Phishing scams.
On Friday, September 22nd, the issued a further warning, again about a phishing scam, but which is being circulated in-world and which appear to be a pseudo-notification pop-up claiming that a user’s account has been compromised.
In the interests of clarity of reading and understanding, I’m including the full text of the post below. Please read it through in full, be aware of the scam and do not be fooled by it – and the blog post states. Linden Lab and / or their support agents would not attempt to contact users on account security in the manner described.
It has come to our attention that some Residents are sending messages – which may appear as pop-up windows in some viewers – informing other Residents that their accounts have been compromised and encouraging them to contact Support, using a phone number that is not associated with Linden Lab.
These messages are phishing attempts to gain access to your Second Life account. Neither Linden Lab, nor Second Life Customer Support, would attempt to contact you in this manner. You can always find Linden Lab’s official customer support contact methods within the following links:
As always, please be wary of suspicious messages and contact from other users. If you believe your account has been compromised, please contact us via support case at https://support.secondlife.com/
Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glyches – bonus region portals
On Monday, September 18th, 2017, Linden Lab announced the launch of their latest Experience Key based game for Second Life users to enjoy. Entitled Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches, it is something of a departure from previous games such as Linden Realms, PaleoQuest and the Horizons adventure. Not only is it grid-wide in nature (the first time Second Life experiences have been used on a grid-wide basis), it will in time also allow parcel holders to host the game on their land if they so wish – possibly attracting traffic to their locations.
I was able to see and try the game ahead of its launch, and thought I’d offer an overview and some feedback, as well as take the opportunity to ask a few questions of Dee and Patch Linden about the game and the reasoning behind it.
Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches is a combination hunt, capture game and first-person shooter. It builds on elements seen in previous games from the Lab, but is far broader in scope. There are two basic aims of the game:
Capture mischievous Glytches as they wander SL and perhaps gain gems from them, and / or an immediate prize of a Glytch – which might be a shoulder / head pet, held pet, or follower (all of which can be traded between users) or even complete avatars.
Collect coloured gems – which can be redeemed for weapons upgrades, and/ or access into the game’s bonus regions and / or prizes
A video outlines the game’s back story. I’m not going to say much on this other than, “alas, poor Magellan, I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite drinking ability and most assured desire for food…” – or something (with apologies to W. Shakespeare, Esq).
Hartyshire
Game-play Essentials
There are several aspects to playing the game, which are covered in another video; but for those who prefer to read things, I’ve outlined them below.
Hartyshire
Hartyshire is the heart of the game. Reached via the Portal Park, it is the place where people can learn more through the aforementioned videos, and where players obtain their Glytch Starter Kit, can upgrade their weapons, claim prizes or – gem and weapons upgrades allowing – access the special bonus regions. There is also a range of free gifts for visitors, whether or not they join the game. There are three important areas in Hartyshire:
The Gem Apothecary is where players can:
Obtain a game Starter Kit: with everything needed to start playing: a note card of instructions, the game HUD (see below) and a jar – your first Glytch catching weapon. The kit is delivered as a folder to your Inventory.
Upgrade their Glytch catching weapon: use gems given by Glytches to upgrade from jar through swatter and net to gun. Each weapon improves the chances of catching Glytches. Replacement weapons can also be obtained here.
Claim Gem Lottery Prizes: contains prizes from the Lab’s previous games, split into three groups – Common, Rare and Epic, corresponding to the three gem colours – Green, Pink and Blue. Prizes in each category can be obtained by redeeming the required gems of each colour.
Inside the Gem Apothecary – start kit, weapons upgrades and “captured” Glytches
The Gift Shop is where visitors to Hartyshire can collect game-related free gifts and hatch their SL14B gift egg to gain their first Glytch.
The Bonus Region teleport portals – of which, more below.
The Glytch catching weapon upgrades. Credit: Linden Lab
The HUD
To play the game, players must wear the game HUD. Removing this at any time stops all game-play, saving the player’s current status (e.g. gems taken, current weapon upgrade, etc). Players can re-join the game at any time simply by wearing the HUD once more; there is no need to return to Hartyshire in order to do so. The Glytch catching weapon can also be worn, although the game will also function without it.
The main game HUD
With the HUD worn, players click the Next Loc(ation) button to teleport to a location where they can hunt Glytches. On arrival, the Map can be opened to see where the Glytches are. A maximum of five Glytches can be caught per location, after which players should use Next Loc to move to another location to continue the hunt.
At the moment, Glytches can only be found on assorted Linden / LDPW regions and parcels. In the future, residents will be able to apply for their land to be added to the game – of which more anon.
Glytches
A Glytch in the wild – is worth more in your cage
Glytches can be hunted in either first- or third-person view, but must be captured in first-person (Mouselook) view by clicking on them with the left mouse button. Note the range at which a Glytch can be caught varies with the weapon being used, and not all captures will be successful.
A failure to catch a Glytch can result in it casting a spell on the hunter. They’ll also use spells if startled or to protect one another. Spells vary from silly dances to anvils dropping on heads, but they will allow the Glytch to escape by de-rezzing (another will rez nearby).
A successful capture will result in a cage appearing around the Glytch and a message displayed on the game HUD. The Glytch may also offer you a reward. This might be gems or it might be a Glytch prize – or both.
Note that when a glitch prize is given, players must switch to third-person view (ESC) and Accept the Glytch via the notification displayed in the top right of the viewer window. Failure to do so may result in the prize being lost. If the notification collapses before it is clicked on, it can be re-opened via the Notifications tray.
To help keep the game fresh, new Glytches will be added over time A wiki-based Glytchopedia will also be published in due course, listing all the Glytches.
Ever since Sansar was announced in 2014, many have seen it as a sign that it is intended to be a “replacement” for Second Life – or if not, that the Lab is diverting all of its resources into Sansar at SL’s expense.
Neither assessment is accurate – asthe Lab has repeatedly tried to state. In fact, over the last three years, the Lab has continued to invest in Second Life, both in terms of features and improvements and in an overhaul of the Second Life infrastructure: hardware, network and so on.
On Tuesday, August 29th, Ebbe Altberg, CEO at linden Lab and the Second Life team outlined the future for the platform. Hopefully, it will further help further quell the doubts surround the Lab’s intentions for Second Life.
It’s been an exciting summer at Linden Lab. Second Life celebrated its 14th anniversary, and shortly thereafter we also opened Sansar’s creator beta to the world. In addition, we are thrilled to announce a set of investments into Second Life and its communities that will include enhancements to our engineering support, customer support, billing systems and upgrades, and customer acquisition outreach. In all, we’ve budgeted many millions (USD, not L$…) in the coming year to make SL even better, and we’ll keep everyone up to date on improvements as they roll out (or sooner).
The post then goes on to bullet-point some to the core aspects of these investments, some of which – such at animated objects / mesh (“Animesh”) and the Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) to extend SL’s Windlight capabilities, I’ve been covering in the pages of this blog (see my Content Creation User Group meeting notes and my initial write-up on EEP).
The blog post also notes forthcoming new Premium account benefits will be announced soon. Hhowever, the two biggest aspects of the news are infrastructure updates and a new grid-wide Experience.
The infrastructure work has been on-going for some time – most recently the Lab has deployed a new simulator build using a more recent version of Linux, and a further operating system update will also be forthcoming. However, what is interesting about this blog post is that it confirms something first mentioned publicly by Landon Linden at SL14B – the infrastructure updates include moving Second Life to the cloud.
This work will not be short-term, but if successful, the Lab hopes for a number of benefits, including:
Making Second Life more performant for Residents across the world from us.
Possibly allowing the Lab to introduce new products with more flexible pricing.
The new Experience may not appeal to everyone, but it will see a new capability added to Second Life: grid-way experiences. This will initially be in the form of a new grid-wide game developed by the Lab; whether or not it will – in time – allow interested region / parcel owners participate in grid-wide Experiences of their own making remains to be seen.
However, the continued investment in Second Life infrastructure which perhaps stands as the greatest demonstration of the Lab’s commitment to Second Life, and I hope to be able to follow the work through these pages as the Lab provides updates and news.
On Friday, July 28th, the Lab blogged about some changes to some purchase notifications. The blog post making the announcement reads in full:
As you may notice, to fulfil legal obligations, we have added a notification in some places when making purchases that clarifies which legal entity you are transacting with, depending on the country associated with your payment method. Tilia Inc. and Tilia Branch UK Ltd are wholly owned subsidiaries of Linden Research, Inc, and this does not affect how you contact or receive support.
We wanted to clarify this to hopefully help those who may have encountered this and were wondering why they saw some updated notifications.
The Marketplace is one of the areas where these changes are visible. When paying the Second Life Cashier (cashier page), a notification is displayed at the foot of the invoice column:
New purchase notification on the Marketplace Cashier page
This change also matches recent updates to the Linden Lab Terms of Service which now reference Tilia Inc and Tilia Branch, as which come into effect on Monday, July 31st (and you may already have been asked to accept the new ToS when logging into Second Life or one of the Lab’s web properties).
The new Rhiannon avatar from the Lab standing and with optional Bento horse
First hinted at during Patch and Dee’s Meet the Lindens session at SL14B, the new set of Second Life avatars from Linden Lab appeared on Wednesday, July 5th, and were announced via an official blog post.
There are eight avatars in the new range, referred to as the “Renaissance” set – a term more akin to the capabilities provided with the avatars than the actual historical period, perhaps. They are paired into four sets of male and female avatars which might be described as: angel, demon, warrior and (as the Lab calls them) “mystic heroes”.
Three of the pairs – angel, demon and warrior – are “Bento equipped”, meaning they make use of the Bento skeleton for their wings (angels / demons) or horse (warriors). Note this does not mean the avatars themselves are Bento; they are system avatars, but are supplied with fitted mesh clothing and mesh accessories.
The new avatars are best accessed via Me (/Avatar > Choose an Avatar)
To make use of any of the new avatars, display the Choose an Avatar picker, scroll to the one you wish to try, and click on it. Your avatar will wear the outfit, which is also transferred to your Clothing system folder under the avatar’s name, one of:
Anna or Marcus for the angels
Elleria or Sauin for the demons,
Kara or Feng for the “mystic heroes”
Rhiannon or Thomas for the horse riders.
There can be some short-lived oddities when wearing the Bento equipped avatars using Replace Current Outfit. For example, as the riding animation for Rhiannon and Thomas is an attachment, depending on how things load, it can briefly look as if you are standing “in” the horse, rather than sitting in the saddle.
Also, as the horses use the wing bones for their forelegs, swapping to a winged avatar after using one of the horse-related avatars at any time in a session, can lead to your wings appearing in front of you at thigh level to you and those around you. Walking forward should fix this in all views (if not, right clicking on your avatar and using the Reset Skeleton option may be required – if other still see your wings oddly placed, advise them to do the same with your avatar).
The Kara “Mystic Hero (and non-Bento equipped) avatar (l) and the Elleria avatar with Bento wings
You can obviously mix’n’match the avatar elements should you wish. For example, want to have the (nominally) “non-Bento” Kara avatar to ride a horse? Just copy the horse mesh and riding AO from Rhiannon’s folder to Kara’s folder. Detach Kara’s default AO and then attach the riding AO and horse. and attach.
Be aware that a little care is required if you wish to use a horse with one of the winged avatars. As the horse forelegs use the wing bones, you will need to remove the wings before attaching a horse (and vice-versa), or a conflict will occur. Note, as well, that you can rez the two horses in-world as static objects, should you wish. They have an LI of 26 (male horse) and 31 (Female horse).
As system avatars with editable shapes, you can obviously apply skin, tattoo and clothing layers to them if you wish and change their shape (the fitted mesh clothing should all follow shape changes within reason). All of which makes each of them a nice little package if you’re looking for something different for an alt or something.
The new avatars on the SL sign-up page
That said, these avatars aren’t designed for the established user per se – although their low render cost is obviously a boon to those on lower-end systems. Really, these are more geared to new starters in SL, and as such, they have all taken their place on the sign-up page avatar carousel. In terms of their render costs, seven of the eight sit between 12K and 18K in their default look, and the most expensive in terms of rendering – Kara – is 30,059, which is still more than reasonable.
In terms of general looks, these avatars compare very well with updated Classic avatars released in 2015 and the last set of mesh avatars released by the Lab. However, a little more in the way of ethnic diversity might be nice (Asian, for example?).
My alt avatar using the new Elleria demoness avatar, sans wings (so as to avoid conflicts with the horse), the Rhiannon avatar AO, and the Bento horse from the Thomas avatar – note my avatar is also wearing my preferred system skin for her, applied to the Elleria shape
Overall, a decent set, which increases the range of starter avatars and which are pretty cost-effective. I certainly like the Elleria avatar enough to now use it as the default look (again, sans wings for now) for my alt avie. As she is simply a CTA (Crash Test Avie) when fiddling with viewers, and a stand-in for me when I’m busy in-world elsewhere and cannot always attend a meeting, I’ve never really invested in outfits for her. So I think she appreciates the occasion change of look like this 🙂 .
On Monday, June 26th, 2017 many Second Life users encountered issues when trying to purchase Linden Dollars or purchase goods via the SL Marketplace following a period of scheduled maintenance and updates to the billing system. These incidents were escalated to the Lab, resulting in a further period of unscheduled maintenance, during which time payment processing was suspended, which itself had some knock-on impact.
Some of these issues were still being felt on Wednesday, June 28th, 2017. However, Xiola Linden took time out to blog about what has been happening, in which she provides the following update on the situation:
After some intensive troubleshooting that – despite our best efforts – took longer than we’d have liked, the base cause of these failed transactions was resolved as of 3:51PM PDT on the same day. However, we still have the task of refunding the thousands of failed transactions to the impacted users ahead of us. A large number of Lindens across several departments have been coming in early and staying late between Monday and today to fulfil that responsibility to our users. Your patience is greatly appreciated, and we hope to complete the work as quickly as possible.
We’ll post an update to this blog as soon as we have more information to pass along. Our support agents on the phone lines and live chat do not have any additional information to provide at this time. Support cases which have already been submitted will be answered once this situation has been resolved.
Xiola goes on to note that as a result of the issues “Shrek ears” are being worn by Lab staff – a reference to April Linden’s May 10th blog post about a bit of a SNAFU with Place Pages, in which April explains:
We encourage people to take risks and push the limits of what we think is possible with technology and virtual worlds. It helps keep us flexible and innovative. However… sometimes things don’t work out the way they were planned, and things break. What we do for penance is what makes us unique.
Around the offices (and in-world!) we have sets of overly sized green ears. If a Linden breaks the grid, they may optionally, if they choose to, wear the Shrek Ears as a way of owning their mistake.
If we see a fellow Linden wearing the Shrek Ears, we all know they’ve fessed up, and they’re owning their mistake. Rather than tease them, we try to be supportive. They’re having a bad day as it is, and it’s a sign that someone could use a little bit of niceness in their life.
At the end of the day, the Linden takes off the Shrek Ears, and we move on. It’s now in the past, and it’s time to learn from our mistakes and focus on the future … If you see a Linden wearing them, please know that’s their way of saying sorry, and they’re really having a bad day.
Posts of this nature, explaining what went wrong and why (and, where possible steps being taken to try to ensure there are no – or at least few – repeats) are an important part of reassuring users and shining a light on just how complex a beast SL can be when things do go wrong.
In that vein, I’m still hoping we’ll get one of April’s informative blog posts on concerning the June 14th log-in issues (although I appreciate she and the Ops team likely have their hands full right now!). but in the meantime, the “Shrek ears” notes remind us that those who work at the Lab are no different from the rest of us – something we can at times lose sight of in our own frustrations when things go wrong.
Linden Lab has issued a number of blog posts concerning Second Life account security recently. All of them should be read with care and heeded. Most relate to external issues – so-call viewer wrappers, or links to website Phishing scams.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 