Tag Archives: Second Life

Content Creators Wanted: Experience Keys Beta

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Linden Lab is looking for creators to beta test a new way of interacting with items in Second LIfe without having to constantly give permissions.

The Tools and Technology blog posted about this early in July, so if you’re a creator and you want to get in on the beta testing of Experience Keys, sign up right away!

This is taken directly from the Tools and Technology Blog:

“We’re ready to start a limited beta test of an exciting new tool for creators: Experience Keys. These are new LSL functions and calls that make it possible to bypass the multiple permissions dialogs that you encounter with scripted objects today. Experience Keys will make it possible for users to create more immersive experiences inworld, because those interacting with the experience will be able to grant all the permissions necessary to participate just once, instead of having the experience interrupted by multiple permissions requests. To learn more, check out this brief video.

(Ed. note: I always enjoy Torley vids!)

“We used this technology when creating the Linden Realms game, and we’re now ready to start putting this tool in the talented hands of creators in the Second Life community. Experience Keys is a powerful tool, and we need to be sure we test and roll out the feature carefully, so the first step will be a limited beta, then the viewer and server releases shortly after.

“If you’d like to participate, send an email to slexp_beta@lindenlab.com with “Experience Key Beta” as the subject along with:

• Your experience name.

• What genre does it fit in?

• Give us a brief description of your experience.

• How would your customers benefit from Experience Keys?”

From the end user perspective, it looks like a fabulous way to improve user experiences without all the clicking, but also has the potential to be harmful if someone uses those permissions to do evil things. I hope that our awesome content creators use this opportunity to make Experience Keys into an amazing tool!

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

A Brave New World!

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“I feel like we’re in a very good place,” Altberg says. “We are the most experienced when it comes to this stuff. We’re bullish; we’re investing; and all the things that are happening around us with Oculus and the market getting excited about these things again [are] great for us. It’ll make it easier for us to attract talent.”

Now that the big news has broken, and some of the hubbub has died down a bit, more information is beginning to be leaked about the new virtual world platform that Linden Labs is developing.

Based on the information in the interview with Oz Linden and Pete Linden last week, Second Life is not going away. Indeed, Linden Labs is working on a new virtual world, but it will be a additional virtual world focused more on virtual reality, not a replacement to Second Life. They reassured anxious residents that Linden Labs is still putting time and effort into the continued development of Second Life, and that even though the team working on SL is smaller, it is no less focused on fixing what isn’t working and developing and improving the current platform.

According to an article appearing on the website Engadget, the new platform will be more focused on virtual reality in a social networking platform. Basically, this new platform will be Second Life on steroids.

According to the article on Engadget, Linden Labs’s CEO Ebbe Altberg’s vision for this new platform includes making it compatible with just about every device its users could possibly own. “How do people interact with the world from their phone, from their pad, from their PC and from their Oculus? All of that we’re solving from the ground up with this new code base,” Altberg says. “Multi-device from day one.”

Engadget states: “Altberg wants this new platform to be a virtual world that embodies everything Linden Lab got right with Second life, but bigger and more accessible. He also thinks of it as a development platform for new games and virtual reality experiences.”

” ‘It’s a platform,’ Altberg says. ‘In some ways, you could compare it to Unity.’ Altberg wants developers to see both Second Life and its eventual successor as game engines they can build their content on. He tries to paint…a picture: ‘I’m going to build an experience that has virtual capabilities,’ he states. ‘Do I use Second Life? Do I use Unity? Do I use Unreal Engine? Well, if you want to use those [latter two], your technical ability needs to be a lot higher and you have to have a team. In Second Life, you just come in and start building.’ If Linden Lab’s follow-up to Second Life has a good Oculus Rift implementation, he explains, then every experience on that platform can be an Oculus experience. ‘So, the bar of entry for anyone to be able to create an Oculus experience … it’s almost like we have the lowest bar possible,’ he says.” Reference: Engadget

The Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset has been forefront in the news lately, and indeed Second Life has already developed a beta viewer that will accommodate the VR headset. However, users often experience simulator sickness (a form of motion sickness) while using it, which can leave users feeling nauseous, disoriented and uncomfortable. An entire publication on VR Best Practices has been published, and in it are some guidelines for minimum framerates, graphics aliasing and response times, but most of it focuses on creating an experience that feels natural to the user.

“Seemingly simple things, like a player’s walking speed or limitations in camera control, can have a major impact on how uncomfortable a player can feel in a virtual space. The user’s awareness of their own presence in VR is also pretty important. ‘Looking down and having no body is disconcerting,’ the document reads. ‘A full character avatar can do a lot to ground the user in the virtual environment.’ The guide has health warnings too, suggesting that users take 10 to 15 minute breaks for every hour spent in the Oculus Rift and declaring its 3D technology potentially unsafe for children.[credit: Oculus’ Best Practices Explained]

Clearly, Ebbe Alberg’s vision for this new VR world includes attracting as many users as possible — he was talking about Facebook-type numbers — and yet not “dumbing down” the experience and keeping it complex enough so that developers will emigrate away from traditional game-development platforms like Unity and Unreal Engine. He wants the complexity to attract high-end game developers and the gamers that play them, yet make it user friendly enough to attract huge numbers of end users. A bit of hyperbole, perhaps? Since the development of this new platform is in its infancy, it remains to be seen.

At this time, Linden Labs’ stance is that the new virtual reality platform is not going to eclipse Second Life; but rather will be another bright star in the galaxy of Linden Labs’ universe.

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZI Social Media Manager

Interview with Linden Labs: Keep Calm and Carry On!

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I was unable to attend the live interview that Jessica Lyon held with Linden Lab staffers Oz Linden and Pete Linden this morning, but the video of their interview has already been released. I was excited to listen to what they had to say.

Jessica’s opening salvo was awesome. She doesn’t pull any punches, opening with the question of the day, which she directed to Pete Linden, Linden Labs’ Director of Communications:

Jessica asks: “Does Linden Lab have plans, either near or far, to shut down Second Life? Has Linden Labs discussed, planned, strategized on how they are going to shut down Second Life? Or even if there is any intention of shutting down Second Life? Does Linden Labs intend to shut down Second Life?”

Pete resounded with a resounding, “No! Absolutely not.”

Pete went on to say that there are plans to continue to improve it, there is not any plan to shut it down, that it is not going away. There are plans to continue to make Second Life better and better.

Jessica made a point of pointing out that Pete’s credibility is on the line as Communications Director, and that he would basically be committing career suicide if he was prevaricating.  It is fair to say that Pete is not lying. He reassured everyone that he understands this, and that he is not being deceptive.

Pete’s message to the community is that Oz and he wanted to come this morning to reiterate what Linden Labs been trying to put out there in emails and in the forums that not only is SL not going away, but they have big plans to continue to improve it,  and that it has a long life ahead of it. There is no intention of ending this amazing platform. What it boils down to, he said, is this: “It is not going away. More improvements are coming.”

You can listen to the interview in its entirety here:

Keep Calm and Carry On! is the message that Linden Labs is giving us. Second Life will continue to exist and improve.

I remain respectfully yours,

~ Suzanne Piers

Social Media Manager

The Future of Second Life

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On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 at 7:00 a.m. SLT, Jessica Lyon, project developer for Firestorm Viewer, is hosting a Q&A session with Oz Linden, Technical Director of Second Life, and possibly Pete Linden, Director of Communications at Second Life.

The topic to be discussed at this session is strictly the future of the current Second Life platform. At no time will they be discussing the new “Second Life 2” platform. This discussion is strictly about Second Life, it’s future and the direction that Linden Labs is planning for this platform. There is plenty of time for discussion of the new platform another time.

If you cannot attend in world, the event will be recorded and posted on the Firestorm website, as well as transcribed and summarized by Inara Pey.

The event will also be livestreamed at http://www.livestream.com/metaworld2

If you wish to attend in-world, arrive early.  If you have questions you wish to have answered, please visit this post on the Firestorm Viewer website and drop a comment. Please keep your questions to the topic of the current Second Life platform and not the new platform.

The slurl to attend in-world is here: 

I remain respectfully yours,

~ Suzanne Piers

ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

 

Save Second Life!!!

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The most important thing is…. Nobody Panic! The last thing we want to do is crash the SL economy!!

As a companion piece to the blog post I just did about the new Second Life 2 planned for 2016, I am reposting, in it’s entirety (cut and paste) a wonderful blog post by Jessica Lyon, Firestorm Viewer’s Project Manager. Please click on the link here to see the post in its original form.

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(I will do my best to keep my opinions out of this post while promising I will voice it sometime soon in some other more appropriate venue. For this I will stick to the facts. JL)

SECOND LIFE NEEDS YOU!!

New Second Life platform to come from Linden Lab

Many of you have heard by now that Ebbe Linden (CEO @ LL) slipped news at Friday’s Third Party Viewer Meeting that LL is moving resources to developing a new platform, a next-generation platform built “in the spirit of Second Life.” I will provide links to related media and articles at the bottom of this post, and I highly encourage you to read them to form your own opinions. But for now, here are a few facts as we know them.

  • The current plan is that the new platform will not be open source at least initially. (This means there will be no Third Party Viewer alternatives at least initially, and there will be a new viewer built by LL.) This could change over the course of time.
  • LL intends to continue maintaining and developing Second Life while they develop the new platform and will operate them in parallel even after the new platform is launched. SL will remain as long as it is profitable for LL to continue operating it.
  • The new platform will be built “in the spirit of Second Life” and will put focus on content creators as the primary customer. LL wants to make it so good SL users will want to migrate to it.
  • Assets (inventory) from Second Life will “likely” not be transferable because they do not want to constrain what is possible by maintaing backwards compatibility. This wasn’t said with complete certainty, though, which suggests some content may be permitted.
  • Second Life will continue to be improved, albeit on a smaller scale. Oz Linden is now Technical Director and in charge of a small team who will keep development in SL going.
  • This new platform is still in very early stages, and it is unlikely even a beta will be seen before next year.

Reaction

For some, this will be very exciting news and for others it will come as very scary news. For most it will create a level of uncertainty toward the future of our current virtual world. I’ve read and heard some people stating they will now stop buying content, stop building, sell their land, etc., wondering what’s the point. Please don’t do this! Whether you are on the side of keeping SL alive and well or not, this type of action/reaction is the worst you can do for all of us.

Personally, while I would love to see a new platform succeed I would also like to see Second Life thrive well into the future, but it is going to need a boost! Here is where you come in!

Where you come in!

Your opinion matters more than ever! Think of one thing, whether a feature, fix, improvement or whatever, that you feel will achieve the following goals best and drop it in a comment on this post.

  1. What will add the greatest value to existing users?
  2. What will attract new users to Second Life?
  3. What will improve profit margins for LL by encouraging spending among all its users? This can include anything from Premium signups to land sales to user-generated content sales.
  4. What can do these things without breaking existing content and without requiring changes in LL policies?
  5. THINK BIG

We are looking for a magic silver bullet to give Oz that can be introduced to SL to make it bigger and better than ever before!
Lets hope you have it! Good luck, and in the meantime keep doing as you always do! Also, don’t panic!

 

Related media and informational links:

 

Sincerely,
Jessica Lyon
Project Manager
The Phoenix Firestorm Project, Inc

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Let’s follow Jessica’s lead and do everything we can to save Second Life!!

I remain respectfully yours,

~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media Manager

Breaking News! Second Life 2 in 2016??

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Ebbe Alberg RLWe interrupt your regularly scheduled perusal of our website to bring you the some breaking news.

The interwebs are abuzz with the latest news leaked from the headquarters of Linden Labs. After cagily sidestepping any questions about the future of SL, and stating staunchly that he is 100% behind growing SL, the grid has exploded with rumors of a “Second Life 2” that is set to be launched in 2016.

Rumors? or Fact? Or a giant marketing scheme?!? You make the call.

According to Jo Yardley’s blog, she says, “In an interview with ‘The Next Web,‘ Ebbe Altberg (CEO of Linden Lab) says that a beta of ‘Second Life 2′ (no official new name yet) is expected to be launched in 2015 while the final version should be ready in 2016.”

Cue the record needle scratching across the vinyl.

You can see the entire interview here.

“A new version of Second Life is being built from the ground up, with a little help from the Oculus Rift” screams the headline, in giant red letters.

With help from Oculus Rift, Linden Labs plans to create a whole new world in an attempt to go mainstream. Linden Labs CEO Ebbe Altberg says that Second Life has plateaued.

“It’s a massive project to do a new virtual world. To start from the ground up we’re hiring 40-50 more people,” Altberg told TNW.

“With technology, market interest, hardware and software available, now is the time to give it another big shot. We have the experience to do it more than anyone else,” says Altberg. The new Second Life will offer more robust tools for creators. Games, designs, goods, all the things that make the current incarnation of Second Life the go-to place for current users will be part of the new world. When asked why not just update the current world Altberg said, “We’re not going to constrain ourselves with backwards compatibility.”

The new version of Second Life is still a ways off though. A beta is expected to be launched in 2015 with the final version expected in 2016. In the meantime, Linden Lab has already told its users that a new version is coming, according to the TNW website.

There are two virtual reality frontrunners — Oculus Rift and Sony’s Project Morpheus, meaning that virtual reality is finally hitting the mainstream. The reasoning behind the change is that SL must change with the mainstream, and the original grid is not built for it.

While I can certainly understand the need to create an entirely new grid based on the latest technology, I have to wonder what this means for the countless residents and content creators who have tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of RL dollars tied up in inventory and real estate. What happens to landowners whose investment in their real estate is suddenly valueless? The thought of having to start over in a new virtual world and not being able to sell their old real estate because it is no longer of any value in the abandoned world, may not be palatable or even do-able for many.

While this cutting edge technology is exciting, and possibly necessary, there has to be a way that Linden Labs will make this right by business owners, content creators and landowners in the current SL platform.

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager