Tag: SL News

Linden lab have made alterations to the Mainland Abandoned Land Policy as of January 15th, 2013. The changes see the policy largely rationalised to improve readability, particularly the sections relating to purchasing Abandoned Land, claiming Abandoned Land and triggering an auction.

However, what may cause concern are the changes made to land abandoned in error.

Previously, this was handled as follows (Abandoned Land Policy, June 2011):

When a mainland parcel is abandoned, there is a short period (from one hour to 24 hours) during which an owner can reclaim the land if he/she abandoned it in error. After that period, objects on the land are returned to the original owner, the name of the parcel changes to “Abandoned Land – For Sale,” and ownership transfers to Governor Linden. The land can then be purchased by anyone with a premium account.

The revised policy now states:

When a mainland parcel is abandoned, the ownership of the parcel changes to Governor Linden.  There is no Linden dollar (L$) grant related to abandoned land.  Once abandoned, the parcel settings are amended to reflect the abandoned status and auto-return settings are enabled after one week.

I abandoned my land by mistake!

You should never expect to be able to reclaim abandoned land.  Please use care to make sure that any abandonment action is intentional.  However, if you do make a mistake, please submit a support case as soon as possible.  Include the parcel location and explain that you would like to reclaim a parcel you abandoned by mistake.  We can attempt to make a one-time courtesy effort to recover the land for you.

This effectively means that the automated buy-back of abandoned land is being eliminated. The new code is alrweady live on the Magnum RC. Concerns were raised at the Server Beta User Group meeting that this could make obtaining mainland harder, as use cases exist whereby the short-term abandonment of land can assist with land purchases (such as obtaining a section of abandoned land to increase land holdings without actually trigger a tier rise).  While Maestro Linden himself was in no position to comment on the policy change, he did offer to feed concerns back to the Land Team.

Note this policy relates to Mainland only, and does not apply to private regions.

Related Links

• Mainland Abandoned Land Policy  – SL Knowledge Base

Update, January 5th, 2012: The “limited offer Vehicle Starter Pack” has been withdrawn ahead of the stated end of the promotional period. This is apparently because no-one thought to ensure the offer could in fact be limited to “one per customer”.

In something of a surprise move Linden Lab announced on the 4th January, 2013, that Second Life is now on Amazon.

But only (perhaps only for the time being) if you are a US resident.

The announcement reads in full:

The long-running dispute between Gala Phoenix, proprietor of Curio Skins and Hush Darkrose / Verikai Vargas, proprietor of Hush Skins, has reached an out-of-court settlement, it has been announced.

The dispute, in which each party accuses the other of IP infringements, first hit the headlines early in 2012, and was, through part of the year a major topic of conversation and heated debate.

The joint statement relating to the settlement reads in full:

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

Hush Darkrose /Verikai Vargas, owner and operator of Hush Skins, and Gala Phoenix,
owner and operator of Curio Skins, announce a mutually amicable settlement to the
dispute between them regarding the ownership of their skins.

In March 2012, Gala Phoenix filed a DMCA takedown notice against Hush Darkrose for
alleged infringement of her Curio skins. In May 2012, Hush Darkrose responded by filing
a DMCA takedown notice with Linden Research, Inc. and filed a Notice of Civil Claim
against Gala Phoenix for alleged infringement of her Hush skins.

Hush Darkrose would like to clarify that she did not “obtain” an injunction against Gala
Phoenix, but rather only sought an injunction against Gala Phoenix in a Notice of Civil
Claim, which was then filed with Linden Research, Inc. and resulted in the takedown of
certain Curio skins.

Since that time, Hush Darkrose and Gala Phoenix have been in legal discussions regarding the skins in question. The parties have agreed that each store was created separately and individually.

Wishing to avoid the expense of litigation, Hush Darkrose and Gala Phoenix have
reached a private and amicable agreement, and are content with the results. Neither Hush Darkrose nor Gala Phoenix admits liability, and both parties wish to put the dispute behind them and move forward.

Both Hush Darkrose and Gala Phoenix would like to thank the public for their support
and patience during this time, and hope that the public will continue to offer their support
to both designers and the incredible and unique skins that they each offer.

Thank you,
Hush Darkrose, Hush Skins
and
Gala Phoenix, Curio Skins.

—-

With thanks to Venus Petrov.

So, 2012 is done, reviews are written and the New Year has arrived. Now it must be time to stop looking back, and look a little ahead.

The Platform

The Lab has given some indication of what to expect for 2013. Some items of note, together with some of the things not mentioned, are:

• We have the upcoming deployment of server-side avatar baking – which the Lab calls Project Sunshine – bringing with it the promise of no more avatar bake fail issues
• We should see the roll-out of initial improvements to interest lists and object caching
• Further work on platform performance and stability
• We’ll also see the deployment of what is hoped will be the “first phase” of normal and specular maps which, over time, could revolutionise the physical look of in-world objects be they made from prims, sculpts or mesh – but not for avatar skins or system layer clothing

• The viewer should also see enhancements such as:
  • The new Communications Hub User Interface (CHUI), currently available in a project viewer
  • The arrival of the new HTTP texture fetch capabilities (currently in the beta viewer), as well as further HTTP enhancements
  • The arrival of gamma correction, improved texture “Shiny” capabilities and in-world scene reflections on shiny surfaces
  • The viewer will finally be made available through Steam
  • Further work on a 64-bit official viewer, plus improvements to the Mac and Linux flavours
• Additional things which will hopefully see the light of day in 2013 will be:
  • The arrival of an updated permissions system as a “second part” of the advanced creation tools
  • The parametric deformer for mesh wearables
  • Threaded region crossings
  • Further enhancement and wider promotion of The Good Building Practices wiki guide.

Doubtless more will be announced during the course of the year.

For the Company

• LL’s new products, Dio and Versu will arrive
• The company will continue to develop their ideas for “new virtual worlds”  – and will hopefully share more information with users
• Patterns will progress towards a full release, currently scheduled for the end of the year, and will introduce several features requested by users

• It would appear likely the Lab will announce further new products.

For the Community

• 2013 marks SL’s “official” tenth anniversary, a such, and building on the success of SL9B, the community is doubtless going to come together with it own celebrations to mark SL10B whether or not LL try to involve themselves
• Bay City also marks its 5th birthday and will be hosting a wide range of events and activities
• RFL SL 2013 promises to continue a long and stunning tradition in which the community comes together to raise funds to help in the fight to eradicate cancer. The focal weekend for events will be the 13th / 14th July 2013
• BURN2 will again return.

What Would be Nice to See

I’m not that into making predictions for a New Year (as the old joke goes, I’m a peripheral visionary – I see into the future, but only way off to one side…). Instead, there are some of the things I’d like to see in 2013:

• The Lab finally make a concerted and persistent effort to use all the channels at their disposal to communicate with and inform their users
• The public JIRA closure amended so that everyone can at least see JIRA items (comments don’t have to be re-opened)
• Someone finally takes the Commerce Team firmly in hand and takes responsibility for:
  • Ensuring Marketplace issues are dealt with
  • Merchants are actually kept informed more fully on matters
  • Direct dialogue between the commerce team and merchants is resumed – such as through in-world user group meetings
• my.secondlife.com is better leveraged, both as a communications platform by the Lab and, more particularly, to enable better and more in-depth communications and interaction between users, such as suggested by Estelle Pienaar
• Rather than gearing the attractiveness of Premium accounts purely towards new users, LL seek to increase their appear for existing users. For example by:
  • Offering more flexible options (e.g. offer a larger stipend or a Linden Home stipend / free land tier; or offer a Linden Home or 1024 sq m land tier)
  • Allowing the tier allowance to be donated towards private estate holdings
•  Linden Lab re-engaging with the community as a who in a concerted and constructive attempt to address the core issue of new user retention- which still remains a major issue where growth within the platform is concerned.

What Is Likely to Remain a Concern

This can most probably be summarised in for words: tier and declining revenue. While it is not the sole issue facing SL (see matters such as user retention, for example), this has dominated conversations about SL’s future, fuelled most recently by the news that around 12% percent of private estates have been lost to the grid in 2012. However, calls for tier cuts need to be tempered by the fact that, like it or not, they are not so easy for the Lab to make.

Certainly, given that the current decline is unlikely to reverse itself in the medium term, this is liable to be a subject we’ll be returning to during 2013, and it would be nice to see the Lab give some comment / assurances on the matter.