Tag: SLB Archives (2012-)

Second Life’s eleventh anniversary is a fast approaching – as if you needed any reminding! And in keeping with last year, Linden Lab have entered into the spirit of things by giving away another celebratory avatar.

SL10B saw the Lab offer a large, materials-enabled bear to residents. This year, it’s a robot, and it comes as a rigged mesh avatar supporting fitted mesh. Also in keeping with 2013, it appears to be the first in a series of surprises coming from the Lab during June.

The blog post announcing the offering reads in part:

This robot is sleek and ready to explore the landscapes of Second Life. Made with Fitted Mesh, you can put your own stamp on this android by playing with some of the shape sliders. Just make sure you’re upgraded to a Viewer with Fitted Mesh enabled. There are two ways to get your robot – pick it up inworld at Hairy Hippo Fun Land in Bay City or just visit the Marketplace.

I have to say the little fellow (he is around the same height as the female mesh avatars supplied by the Lab) is rather cute and, in difference to the original release of the mesh avatars (which were updated today!), he does have a modifiable base shape, so can the height and shape can be adjusted using the supported shape sliders.

While it’s always controversial, given that AOs are very much a user creation and a part of general commerce within SL, I still can’t help but feel the Lab could also provide a very basic AO system with items like this – not everyone is liable to have robot-specific AOs in their inventory, so providing one with a basic “robot-y” walk and standing pose wouldn’t go amiss. It might even encourage people to wear the avatar more and go out and purchase additional walks and poses to add to it. But that’s just a very minor point. As I said, the little fellow is rather cute.

Elsewhere in the blog post, the Lab again references the SL11B Community Celebration, and give a reminder to all who are planning SL11B celebrations of their own to make sure they  submit it for inclusion in the special SL11B category of the Destination Guide (use the “Misc” category when submitting the form and indicate the event is for SL11B in the description). For those who prefer, they can send their entries for the Destination Guide via e-mail to: editor@lindenlab.com, and using “SL11B” in the subject line on the email.

We talk a lot about community in Second Life. It’s a concept that touches on many areas, be it the locations and people where we opt to establish a virtual home, the role-play or other groups where we spend much of our in-world time and a part of what keeps us logging-in.

Community touches on many different aspects of discussion about SL, from how the platform is promoted to the world at large, through new user sign-ups  and user retention through to possible directions the platform and Linden Lab should take to achieve and maintain real growth for SL.

Now Prim Perfect wants to hear from you about the topic and concept of community in Second Life, with a view to exploring feedback as a part of the Prim Perfect interactive installation at the SL11B Community Celebration.

Whether you have views on how SL should be advertised or on matters of user retention, the training which might be given to new users – or both of these together, Prim Perfect would like to hear from you.

Most of all, they’d like to  explore what “community” means to you: what is important about SL? What keeps you logging-in? What type of community would you like to live in? What do think a community in Second Life needs to remain vibrant?

If you’d like you views to for a part of the installation, please complete the form below, reproduced here on behalf of Prim Perfect (note you are not limited to the size of the text boxes when responding to the questions).

 

The days are counting down to the to opening of the SL11B Community Celebration, and the start of a week’s worth of festivities to mark the eleventh anniversary of Second Life throwing wide its doors to the world at large.

The sims have been laid out, and across all of them, people are busily putting together their exhibits. Across the rest of Second Life, entertainers are readying themselves to participate in a 24/7 round of entertainment which will run throughout the celebrations.

While the gates officially open to the public at noon, SLT on Sunday, June 22nd, bloggers and members of the SL press can get to see all of the builds across the 11 regions of the celebrations ahead of the rush.

The SL11B Community Celebration Press Day will be held on Saturday, June 21st. The regions will open at noon, and those attending are welcome to take snapshots, videos and blog about the regions, the exhibits and the attractions. Press packs will be provided to all those attending, containing lots of additional information, as well as goodies donated by exhibitors.

There will also be a series of press tours taking place during the day, all of which will commence at the Welcome Area and will be open to anyone attending the Press Day. Tours will start at 14:00, 16:00 and 18:00 SLT, and will visit all the main attractions.

If you are a blogger or member of the SL press, and would like the opportunity to preview the SL11BCC regions, please complete and submit the follow below (posted on behalf of the SL11BCC team) before  noon SLT on Wednesday June 18th:

 

Related Links

• SL11B Community Celebration blog
• SL11BCC on Twitter
• SL11BCC on Facebook
• SL11BCC on Flickr
• My SL10BCC coverage (2013)
• All SLB coverage in this blog

 

On Thursday May 29th, the SL11B Community Celebration team announced that all exhibitor application notifications have been sent out.

If you applied for exhibition space at SL11BCC, but haven’t seen / believe you may not have received the e-mail, please:

• Check the same account as the e-mail you provided in your application
• Check your spam folder.

The e-mail will have come from “The SLB Team”, and should be easy to spot.

If you did not receive a positive notification, please note that your name has been added to a list. Should any parcels remain unclaimed after June 2nd, 2014, they will be offered to those on the list.

If you’re received a positive notification, please read the e-mail carefully, as it contains a lot of valuable information, which should answer most questions prior to the gates opening and exhibitors being allowed into the SL11BCC regions.

The regions will be opening to exhibitors at midday SLT on Friday May 30th.

Keep in mind that there is a set procedure for gaining access to your exhibit parcel, details of which are in your acceptance e-mail. However, key points to note are:

• You should be a member of The SLB Community group.
• After the regions have opened to exhibitors, send a request to the group asking for an Exhibitor Assistant (EA).
• When an EA is available, they will IM you  – please be patient; this may take a little while, as EAs deal with the initial rush
• As a part of your conversation with the EA, they will provide you with:
  • An invitation to join the SLB Exhibit and Performance group (so you will need two free groups slots – one for this and one for The SLB Community group, if you have not already joined that)
  • A teleport invitation to your parcel
• Make the SLB Exhibit and Performance group your active group (this should be your active group throughout all your building on the parcel) and claim your parcel by rezzing a prim on it
• Prior to building your exhibit, take a moment to re-acquaint yourself with the SLB Exhibitor Policies.

Given that there will be an inevitable rush to access the regions, why not leave it a while avoid the crowd? As long as you have claimed your parcel by Monday June 2nd, 2014, you’ll be fine.

Saffia Widdershins and Marianne McCann have produced a short video going over these points and a few more as well.

Once again, the important dates of note for SL11BCC are:

• Friday, May 30th, noon: Sims open for builders
• Wednesday, June 15th, noon: Sims close to builders
• Saturday, June 21st, noon: Press day
• Sunday, June 22nd, noon: SL11BCC opens!
• Monday, June 23rd: Second Life’s Official 11th Birthday!
  
• Sunday, June 29th: final day of celebrations
• Monday, June 30th to Saturday, July 5th: Sims will remain open for viewing. No performances.
• Sunday, July 6th to Tuesday, July 8th: Breakdown
• Wednesday, July 9th: Sims go offline

Related Links

• SL11B Community Celebration blog
• SL11BCC on Twitter
• SL11BCC on Facebook
• SL11BCC on Flickr
• My SL10BCC coverage (2013)
• All SLB coverage in this blog

Applications for the SL11B Community Celebration closed on Tuesday 20th May 2014 – and it seems that many of you are eager to hear back on you applications – which is great!

However, please, please bear in mind that in all, the organising team have received over 1,000 applications, including:

• 426 exhibitor applications
• 440 performer applications
• Over 300 volunteer applications.

Obviously, the volume of applications means that it is going to take time to sort through everything and, in particular, figure out how to get 426 exhibitors and 440 performers into 243 plots and 3 stages.

While priority is being given to exhibitor applications, do keep in mind that exhibition parcels don’t actually open for building until noon SLT on Friday May 30th, so please give the organising team a little more time to work through the applications, assess them, and get acceptances out. Someone will get back to you as soon as they are in a position to do so, and ahead of the start of the building window.

Once you do hear back on your application, again, please be patient! Read and follow the procedure in your acceptance email and please don’t IM the group before May 30 asking to be let in to the SL11B community Celebration regions; it won’t happen.

Also, the team would like to point out that water plots are extremely limited this year and so will be going to exhibitors that really need them. If all you need is shallow water or part water, then your needs may well be met through the use of a land plot. The team ask for your understanding with this, and offer their apologies in advance to anyone requesting a water plot but who does not get one.

If you’ve applied to be a volunteer or performer – don’t worry, you’ll not be forgotten, either. Replies just might take a little longer to organise, and the team will be posting dates on which  performers can expect to hear from them in a while.

In the mean time, here’s the updated timeline for the celebration:

• Friday, May 30th, noon: Sims open for builders
• Wednesday, June 15th, noon: Sims close to builders
• Saturday, June 21st, noon: Press day
• Sunday, June 22nd, noon SLT: SL11BCC opens!
• Monday, June 23rd: Second Life’s Official 11th Birthday!
  
• Sunday, June 29th: final day of celebrations
• Monday, June 30th to Saturday, July 5th: Sims will remain open for viewing. No performances.
• Sunday, July 6th to Tuesday, July 8th: Breakdown
• Wednesday, July 9th: Sims go offline

Related Links

• SL11B Community Celebration blog
• SL11BCC on Twitter
• SL11BCC on Facebook
• SL11BCC on Flickr
• My SL10BCC coverage (2013)
• All SLB coverage in this blog