EOTB: "Joy To The Grid" - Winter Wonderland, Linden Snowball Fight, And Other Christmas Happenings

 

December is here, which means the winter and Christmas seasons. On Friday December 3, Linden Lab posted about several themed places and events, including some of their own.

December has begun and we have lots in store for you this holiday season, including our annual snowball fight, exclusive premium gift, swag for all, the magic of Winter Wonderland, SL Christmas Expo, and more! 

Linden Lab's winter area, the Winter Wonderland, is back.

Winter Wonderland is back in all its beautiful glory with interactive fun that you won’t want to miss! Start your adventure in the Village of Lights, then make your way to snowboarding, snowmobiling, ice-skating, and of course, the snowball fight arena. These activities are more fun with friends - so grab your besties and plan to spend a few hours catching everything that Winter Wonderland has to offer. If you’re in the mood for something a bit quieter after all that running around, take a breathtaking trip on the Ferris Wheel and catch incredible views of the twinkling lights and shimmery snow. 

A Linden and Resident Snowball Fight is being planned, for Friday Dec 17.

Get your warm clothes and throwing arms ready - it’s time for a Lindens and Residents snowball fight! This snowball showdown means you're free to pelt your fellow Second Life Residents and Lindens with a bevy of sparkling snowballs - launched fresh from the snow-arsenal available at the arena.

The battles take place on Friday, December 17th from 10am to 11am PT and then again from  2pm to 3pm PT. Spots are limited, so be sure to get there early to grab your free snow launching weaponry from the vendors around the arena.  

 There's another "Winter Swaginator" hunt.

‘Tis the season to be jolly - and what could be more jolly than new gifts? From now through the end of December, Second Life will be giving away 4 exclusive Linden Bears for everyone! Pick up your HUD at the Meauxle Bureaux and make sure to complete the gift hunt in order by following the clues in the HUD and local chat. Happy hunting!

The hunt starts in Meauxle Bureaux (157/123/30). 

There was a mention of the Relay for Life's Christmas Expo.

This year’s SL Christmas Expo is bursting with bright and merry delights - all for supporting the American Cancer Society and the fight against childhood cancer. From December 3rd through the 14th enjoy many holiday activities at the expo and donate for a good cause! 

Linden Lab has also joined in on the fun! Watch out for these Linden-themed activities at the expo:

• Vote (by donation to a special ACS Christmas Expo Kiosk) for your favorite decorated Linden Home at the annual Lights of Hope Home Decorating Contest. 
• Pose with Santa Patch and his Molelves! A very special opportunity to pose for a picture with our VP of Product Operations, Patch Linden, and his team of Molelves - on Friday, December 10th from 12pm to 3pm PT, in the main SL Christmas Expo region!
• New theme of Linden Homes will be revealed on Monday, December 6th! Watch this space - to be published on Monday!
• A new Limited Edition Christmas Item -> Patch on a shelf, available here. 

 The Lab reminded residents of the Winter Attractions on the Destination Guide. 

If you’re looking for even more winter activities, there’s already close to 100 wintery themed locations in the Winter Attractions category on the Destination Guide. We’re adding new regions daily, so if you have a spot you’d like to invite other Residents to explore, make sure to check out the submission guidelines and submit yours today!

 There are some new Winter Premium gifts available. 

Premium members - we have something special for you - a limited and exclusive Premium-Only gift that’s sure to delight and add a little extra holiday charm to your inworld adventures. Drop by one of the Premium Gift kiosks and take it for a whirl!

Included, you’ll find a Premium Member Token and Premium Member Token HUD, which are the keys to Premium Only snowball weapons at the Snowball Fight arena in Winter Wonderland. The HUD will give you access to some upgraded snow arsenal. Remember to attach your HUD at the arena to access and rez your snow-slinging artillery. 

And they mentioned their upcoming Christmas "Shop and Hop" event.

The Holiday Shop & Hop returns on December 8th with over 200 participating Merchants. Watch this blog for all the details about Shop & Hop early next week!

To read the blog post in full, Click Here.
 

Second Life Website's Community Platform To Be Moved To New Server, Forums To Be "Read Only" During Move

A few days ago, Linden Lab announced there would be some changes to the Community Platform on the official Second Life website. The new looks comes live on Monday February 27. But before that, the Lab will be moving the data from the server the platform is now to the new one. And this will take several days. So starting Tuesday February 21, and going onto part of February 27, the official Second Life forums will be set to "Read Only." So no new entries can be made at this time, but existing ones should be available to be read as before.

Exports require that the forums be put into “read-only” mode during the export process.  What that means for you is that during that time you’ll be able to read the forums, but not publish new posts until the export job is complete. Our hope is that by doing this we will avoid any gaps in the content as we import it into its new home.
The current timeline is as follows:

February 21st through February 27th -  The forums will go into read-only mode. Our hope is to have the new site live sooner than the 27th, but we want to be sure things go smoothly.

February 27th - The new platform goes live and the forums are taken out of read-only and full posting functionality is brought back online.


To read the Linden blog post in full: Click Here.

Linden Lab introduces New "Fantasy" Starting Avatars

Last week on the official Second Life blog, Linden Lab announced there was a new set of starter avatars available for newcomer residents to choose from when first signing up.

We're proud to introduce the all-new "Fantasy" starter avatars, covering a diverse range of "genre" styles including steampunk, vampires, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic… and beyond! There are 10 fresh starter avatars available right now, and you can use them as a basis for further customization — explore the Second Life Marketplace and personalize to your liking. These new avatars have normal "system" bodies with mesh wearables, which makes it easy to change their hair, clothes, accessories, and more!

The ten avatars are in five categories, one male and female each: magic, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, steampunk, and vampire. Each of the avatars also comes with a pet, drones in the case of the sci-fi avatars, and mechanical pets with the steampunk. With it's owl pet, and distinctive black robe and crooked wand, the male magic avatar is clearly meant to appeal to "Harry Potter" fans. Inara Pey commented on her blog that the female post-apocalyptic "Petrol Sue" was worn by Grumpity Linden in Third-Party Viewer Development meetings. Linden Lab also included a video to help promote the new avatars. It's notable that the announcer says to the male magician, "Where did you study? No wait, don't tell me. Ha-ha! I'd be lawsuited ..."



(Click here if the video fails to play)

Earlier in Second Life's history, there was a choice of ten avatars, five different ones with a choice of male or female, which included a "Furry" or a starter ringtail made by Luskwood and contributed to Linden Lab. But some time around 2008 or 2009, the Furry avatar was dropped and the selection became all human. In 2011, the choice of starting avatars was revamped to include thirty-six nonhuman avatars, twelve vehicle avatars, twelve robots, and twelve "animals." The "animal" series was created by Damien Fate, whom had earlier made a brand of Tiny avatars called "Loco Poco." In 2014, Linden Lab changed the starter avatars once again to a choice of twenty-four mesh avatars, twelve "People" human avatars and twelve "Vampire," the latter a collection of vampires, other monsters, and a monster hunter, and twelve "Classic" non-mesh avatars, all human. But there were complaints that the mesh avatars were static and unchangeable. So a year later, Linden Lab replaced them with more "efficient" versions.

Linden Lab's moving away (although not completely giving up) from nonhunan avatars, vampires aside, as starter ones has raised a few questions among some residents. But it could be argued with the sheer diversity of avatars available, tinies, micros, pixies, mers, taurs, ferals, furries, elves, ponies, and more, Linden Lab may simply have decided making a fair selection of nonhuman beginner avatars was just too difficult. Two opposing points of view made a year ago are just as relevant today. Hamlet Au saying, "These avatars feel less like Second Life, and more like, well, 'The Sims Online.' Which might be a good move, market-wise, but it does distinctly change new users' perception of what Second Life could (and frankly should) be." and Fuzzball Ortega, "I did think 'The Sims' when I saw the picture of the avatars, but nothing wrong with that. They start out with those avatars, then, once in world and after a bit of exploring, they create themselves. Buying different clothing, different skins, etc."

To read the blog post in full: (click here).

Source: Modem World

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: New Classic Avatars

A few days ago on their blog, Linden Lab announced a new set of starter mesh avatars was available for newcomers to Second Life. Linden Lab explained these were improvements over the set that was introduced last year, which some complained had problems such as with changing clothes.

Introducing the latest offering from our Starter Avatar Modernization project… 16 New Classic Avatars!

These new avatars are built combining mesh attachments with the original “system” process. Not only are compatibility issues being addressed, but the avatars are more performant and they look great! They can also be tweaked with the system sliders and easily dressed. 

Last year, you may remember, we launched a number of new mesh avatars. They included both vampires and everyday people avatars that were built completely using mesh. While they looked good, they made outfit changes difficult and some of our internal tools were incompatible with the assets. 

The new great-looking and efficient avatars will be available through the carousel during registration. Existing Residents can also access them through the “Me > Choose an Avatar” menu in the Viewer.

Comments on the thread about the new avatars on the official forums have been overall positive. On the thread in the SL Universe forums, there was more of a mixed reception, one complaint that they were too tall. Hamlet Au complained that this was less of a variety of options than a few years ago, "These avatars feel less like Second Life, and more like, well, The Sims Online. Which might be a good move, market-wise, but it does distinctly change new users' perception of what Second Life could (and frankly should) be." Fuzzball Ortega wasn't inclined to share his criticism, "I did think 'The Sims' when I saw the picture of the avatars, but nothing wrong with that. They start out with those avatars, then, once in world and after a bit of exploring, they create themselves. Buying different clothing, different skins, etc."

Do you the readers have any comments? Please add them below.

For the full post on the Linden Blog: Click here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: "Second Life Improvements"

On October 20 on the official Second Life blog, Linden Lab announced some details about some upcoming planned changes to the grid, as well as one current change to it's website, "There’s a lot going on with Second Life these days, and we wanted to talk about a few of the projects that are either out or in the works!"

The first thing on their list was "Project Valhalla," which replaces the old Internet viewing framework with one that supports more recent technologies.

A new age of modern HTML5 content is upon us, and we're overhauling the way shared media (aka "media on a prim") works so that you can enjoy all kinds of modern web content within Second Life. Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is coming to replace the aging QTWebkit framework. What you can now see in a Project Viewer is the latest released version of Chrome - so it will render all modern web technologies - like HTML5, CSS3, WebGL; has the latest security patches; and will be easy to keep updated to a recent version. What does this mean for your Flash content? What about Quicktime? They may still work, but because both can only be viewed if the user has correctly installed a 3rd party plugin, we can't  promise support and you shouldn’t expect that it will work for everyone. Standard HTML5 is the way of the future and this Viewer will enable it for anyone. There are still bugs to squash, and we’re iterating quickly to bring you a smooth inworld media and browsing experience.

On the official forums, Linden Lab invited residents to leave comments on a thread on the topic. Among those posting was AI Austin, "An initial test of the Project Valhalla viewer on my Windows 10 setup did have the media texture screens showing a quicktime server .sdp stream and a looping MPEG-4 video on the screens (as shown in the image above), but I am not sure if that is because of other elements I already have installed or if its included by default in the Valhalla viewer."

One can read more about, and download, the Valhalla Viewer Here.

 Next was an "Avatar Rendering Complexity" feature.

A new *Avatar Maximum Complexity* control lets you prevent expensive-to-render avatars from lagging you; any avatar over the limit is displayed as a solid color rather than rendering in full detail. A default limit is set based on the rendering performance of your system. You'll also get a notice when your own rendering complexity changes, and an indication when you're over the limit of too many of the avatars around you. Bundled together in this Viewer is a change that allows you to create and quickly change presets of your graphics settings, so as you go from a club to an art gallery, to the beach, or to your home, you can quickly adjust your settings to fit the scene.

Apparently if an avatar goes over the limit you set, it's displayed as a simple, single color, mannequin-like shape.

On the Linden-created forum thread on the topic, one resident expressed concern, calling it "giving avatar makers just another migraine to now deal with." Another felt it would encourage them to be more efficient. In New World Notes, Hamlet Au commented, "If it's implemented well, this could be an important feature to improve overall performance. At the same time, the very fact that it's necessary makes me sadly smile, because it reflects a paradox with user creativity in Second Life that's existed from the beginning: By making Second Life as open a creative platform as possible, Linden Lab unleashed incredible amounts of inventiveness that continues to be impressive (if overwhelming). At the same time, because it is so open, there's also abundant opportunities for creativity which is overly complex and laggy."

For now, one can try out the feature on the Release Candidate Viewer.

A few other details were briefly mentioned. Sorting notifications into categories, removing Flash from the secondlife.com website due to security concerns, a change that "now prevents loss of no-copy items due to a failed rez," and continuing the HTTP Project for improved texture loading.

For the blog post in full: Click Here. Besides Hamlet Au, Inara Pey and Daniel Voyager also wrote on the topic.

Eye on the Blog: "Fab-BOO-lous Snapshot Contest"

A few days ago, the Linden blog announced a Halloween-themed screenshot contest: the "Fab-BOO-lous Snapshot Contest," which offers Linden dollar prizes for the best pictures.

All over the grid, regions decorate, put together trick-or-treat style hunts, blast some chilling tunes for your move your avatar bones to, and generally run amok in the undeniable excitement of Halloween. We couldn’t be left out of the spooky shenanigans, so there’s a few official events you won’t want to miss out on.

Along with this year’s upcoming Creepy Crawl, there’s a chance you could win one of four amazing prizes for your Halloween-themed snapshots! That’s right, take pics - enter the contest, and potentially win Linden dollars! The 2015 Second Life Fa-BOO-lous Snapshot Contest starts today! Head over to the contest category of the forums to read the rules and start sharing your ghoulish, glam, gorgeous, and ghastly snaps.

The contest goes on from now to Thursday November 12. There are four cash prizes, 1000L for fourth place, 3000L for third, 5000L for second, and 10,000 Linden dollars (about $40 USD) for first place.

To read the rules, Click Here.

Image from Maia Athena.

Second Life Featured on Dr. Phil

Second Life isn't featured in mainstream media as much as it used to be. So when it is, it's news. And when The virtual world was going to be mentioned on the "Dr. Phil" talk show, Linden Lab mentioned in on their blog.

Mark your calendars and set your DVRs: an upcoming episode of the popular daytime talk show, Dr. Phil will feature Second Life and some comments from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg (Ebbe Linden in SL). The episode is slated to air on Tuesday, July 14, and you can find your local listings through the Dr. Phil website. Be sure to catch the very beginning of the show - you won’t want to miss Dr. Phil controlling his avatar live on what’s very likely the largest monitor Second Life has ever run on (40 feet wide!).

And in the first few minutes of the show, Dr. Phil used "the very popular Second Life" as an example of how far computer entertainment has gone from the early days of Pong and Pac Man, "I can literally create an entire world for myself and meet other people, or at least their avatars." The audience chuckled as they saw his avatar somersault in the air and fly, "Let me see you do *that*!" He showed clips of his avatar flying around, with and without a plane, riding a "Tron" lightcycle, walking the streets of 1920s Berlin, and shop in a virtual store.

But the show wasn't mainly about Second Life, but rather, the story about one 23 year old young man whom had a severe gaming addiction.

The episode is focused on helping a young man who is sadly struggling with a number of problems, including an addiction to playing an online game. He’s not a Second Life user, nor is Second Life presented on the show as a negative experience. Instead, it’s shown as an example of how far digital experiences have come from the days of Pac-Man and Pong, and Ebbe briefly speaks with Dr. Phil about some of the incredibly positive ways Second Life is being used by people around the world - from education to entrepreneurship, creative self-expression, and more.

In addition to a number of Lindens who helped make it possible for Second Life to be included in the program, we’d like to give special thanks to Naughty Mole, Abnor Mole, Ancient Mole, Bat Mole, and Draxtor Despres for their help in creating Dr. Phil’s avatar and filming some inworld footage showing his explorations of Second Life.

Dr. Phil emphasized early on he wasn't slamming computer gaming in general, "I think they can be very good." But that it was the abuse of them that he was concerned about. Later in the show, he invited Ebbe Altberg (known inworld as Ebbe Linden), Linden Lab's CEO, whom was in the TV audience, a few moments to explain.

In her blog, Jo Yardley mentioned she had met the Dr. Phil avatar, concluding it was either him or someone from his TV show team. With the show not yet having been played, she had mixed feelings about Second Life being mentioned on his show, "I soon learned that Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden, CEO of Linden Lab) was also interviewed by Dr. Phil and Ebbe knows how to handle himself when talking to the media. ... And with its several million users, it could be a nice bit of PR for SL.The first videos the Dr. Phil show has put online so far seem to share with the world that not all games are bad and Second Life seems to get some positive attention, being described as the good side of gaming. Still, I can’t help but be a little worried about how our virtual world is going to be portrayed to the media, will we be part of the problem, or part of the solution?"

Strawberry Singh described in her own blog about how she, Draxtor Despress, and Marianne McCann helped out Dr, Phil in his flying. She would later watch the episode in question, an update her entry

I watched the show and live plurked it all at this link. Dr. Phil didn’t say anything negative about gaming, virtual worlds or Second Life. He just said that it’s the ‘abuse’ not the ‘use’ of gaming that is dangerous. He also had some other gamers on, after Ebbe, that talked about how they have full, successful real lives but still balance a healthy gaming lifestyle along with their real lives.

So it appears Second Life's portrayal was short but positive. Hopefully there will be more and longer exposures in the larger media soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: Group Limit Extended to Sixty for Premium Accounts

Late last week on May 28, Linden Lab announced they were expanding the number of groups for premium accounts. The new limit for these has gone from 42, which remains the limit for normal accounts, to sixty.

Today we’re thrilled to be rolling out another perk for Premium members: now you can be a member of 60 groups! Groups have been a consistently popular feature among the Residents of Second Life. It may not be obvious, but group membership can have an impact on the performance of a number of systems. That's why in Second Life's early days, Residents could only join a maximum of 10 groups. Over the years, we've made improvements that enabled us to raise the group limit to a maximum of 42, but we know that for some power users, even that isn't quite enough, and today we're happy to raise the bar for Premium subscribers.

The Lab stated while they would like to raise the limit further, "We must make sure that the recent gains in group performance are not jeopardized." The group limit raise took place immediately. The Lab went on to say "Downgrading from Premium membership will not remove you from any of your groups, but it will mean that you cannot join any new groups until you remove yourself from enough groups to get below the Basic account limit, which remains at 42."

Daniel Voyager wrote on his blog that over the years, the group limit has gone up over time from Second Life's beginnings. When the Grid officially opened, residents were limited to just ten groups. Compared to today, some of today's residents would consider this a ridiculously small number as there's all kinds of groups, for music and dance clubs, combat roleplay squads and platoons, estate community announcements, breedable pet fans, political discussion clubs, stores, even for Second Life families and circles of friends. Jo Yardley commented in the official blog that she thought "I think we have almost 20 just for our sim alone."

But over time, the limit would go up. In 2004, it was raised to 15. In 2006, it was raised to 25. In 2011, it was raised to the limit it was for all accounts until recently, 42.

Linden Lab has tried a number of ways over the years to encourage residents with basic free accounts, which were introduced in 2006. This has included offering them free gifts, sims only residents with premium accounts could access, discounts for the first month when signing up, and more. Some residents have commented these perks have seemed a bit small. But for some whose group limit keeps maxing out, raising it to 60 may be a very welcome convenience they're willing to pay more for.

For the comments in the Linden forums, Click Here.

Valentines Day Event at the Isle of View

Today in Second Life at the Isle of View sim, Linden Lab is promising some Valentines Day fun a day early.

Love is in the air and Valentine’s Day is just a few days away! Pink and red dominate, chocolate sales sky-rocket, and we're reminded that the true hallmark of love is in the quality of time we spend with our loved ones. Come to the Isle of View on February 13th for some Pre-Valentine’s Day fun. Meet up with other Residents and enjoy all the romance that Isle of View has to offer - boat rides, fireworks, kissing booths - a treasure trove of memorable moments just waiting to be made with someone special. Why February 13th? Because we believe in love, and there is still time to find a special someone for the big day. If you’ve got a Valentine - bring them to the Isle of View. If you’re currently looking for a Valentine - come to the Isle of View. If you have several Valentines - well lucky you - bring them all to the Isle of View!

The Isle of View sim appeared last month onto the Grid. For years in the past, it was the scene of the "Kiss a Linden" Event, appearing just on Valentines Day, though 2011 would be the last time the event in which residents got to pucker up with a Linden took place. In 2012 and 2013, the island did not appear on the Grid. In 2014, the sim finally appeared on the grid, and stayed up and online for several days. Appearing earlier this month, there was one addition to the sim, kissing booths.

With those and the line from the email Linden Lab has been sending residents, "You never know who'll you'll meet, friends, Lindens, or even a date for the big day," could it be that "Kiss a Linden" will finally be coming back?  Or maybe it's something similar that involves residents interacting with Lindens. Time will tell.

To view Linden Lab's blog post about the Isle of View, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Isle of View/124/97/44/

Bixyl Shuftan

More on the SL10B

There's more going on about the SL10B than we have time to write about. Fortunately others have been.

Daniel Voyager has made quite a few posts on his blog about the Grid's anniversary celebrations. From Press Day, to Opening Day, the Cake Stage, the History Walk, Maps of previous Second Life Birthdays, Bear Island and the Cornfield, the Pod Tours, and the Clanis Telihub. He's also taken quite a few screenshots on his Flickr, with one set for SL10B photos.

Mona Eberhardt has also written a review of the SL10B. Not everything was fine and dandy about the event, she felt. She noted a number of exhibits that were little more than advertisements and how a number of builds were just copies of what was built the last year. But there's no shortage of great and unique builds, such as Qwark Allen's telescope (left).

Crap Mariner also came out with his "Brutally Honest SL10B Sim Tour."

The Linden blog had a few announcements. The Linden Lab Destinations Guide now has a SL10B section. This can help you pick and choose individual exhibits.

Linden Lab has also made a game just for Premium members, The Magellian's Grid Scavenger Hunt.

Magellan Linden has uncovered an evil scheme by mad Doctor Talpa, to build some form of mind-control machines and take over the world. Magellan is busy building a machine to counter this scheme, but in the meantime YOU are needed to gather materials and components -- and to destroy any of Talpa's machines you can find.

Linden Lab also release an infographic about some impressive statistics about Second Life. Among them, stating more than three billion dollars worth of transactions have taken place over the past decade. The claim that 36 million people signed up, though, isn't quite the complete story as not everyone stayed. They did state one interesting bit of trivia, "the most purchased items are womens hairstyles."

Longtime residents may remember when companies left and right were making a presence in Second Life. While most of them have left, there are still businesses who see money to be made here. Alienware is doing a cross-promotion with Linden Lab with a contest, with a computer as the prize.

To help celebrate Second Life’s tenth birthday, we’re running a co-promotion with Alienware , the pioneer in specialty high-performance PC gaming systems! From now until July 17, 2013, Second Life users can enter to win a brand new Alienware 14 laptop!

The events at the SL10B go on until Sunday, and the sims will stay up for another week. So enjoy them while they last.

Image Credit: Daniel Voyager, Mona Eberhardt, Linden Lab, Alienware

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: "Sneak Peek at Pathfinding"

In the Official Second Life Blog earlier this week, Linden Labs offered a "sneak peek" of their experiments with "Pathfinding."


Pathfinding is a new set of LSL calls and Viewer tools that allow for smoother and smarter movement for non-player characters and objects in Second Life. These new tools will allow Residents to create objects that move around corners, climb inclines and cross region boundaries. Newly created functions such as “pursue,” “patrol,” “wander,” “evade,” and go to a specified point — all of which are particularly useful for pet, NPC and enemy behavior — will allow for non player movements and behaviors never before possible in Second Life.

Pathfinding is efficient because it allows creators to place a much larger number of moving objects in a particular area without affecting server performance. Because the algorithmic complexity is on the server side, Residents can easily script with short and intuitive LSL functions that make creating a pet that follows you around as simple as rezzing a box.

As part of the pathfinding project, Linden Lab will also introduce new Viewer-side tools that will allow Residents to more efficiently create, visualize, test and debug Pathfinding-enabled characters. These tools are not required to create pathfinding behaviors but are particularly useful to builders and experience creators in second life.

Additional pathfinding tools, and the ability to generate your own pathing data, will be put in Beta in the coming weeks. Linden Lab will begin releasing these tools to all Residents in the next several months. You can try out the new LSL functionality in select regions for which we have prepared pathfinding data.

Sneak Preview: Pathfinding in Second Life .

A video done by Lorca and Stinson Linden showed some details of Pathfinding. In the film, Lorca razzed a cube, inserted a bit of pathfinding code, and the prim proceeded to follow him around. That is until he put an obstacle between it and himself on a path up in the air. The Pathfinding-enabled cube promptly changed course and took an alternate route to get to him. Stinson Linden talked some about how Pathfinding works. Which routes a Pathfinding-enabled object travels depends on the "navigation mesh." How wide or the size of steps in a stairway alters the mesh, and determines whether or not Pathfinding takes that route to get to someone or an object, or not. Controls can put "holes" in the navigation mesh, making areas inaccessible to Pathfinder objects, or mark some objects as "dynamic obstacles."

Among the comments after the video was one referencing the changing path after the obstacle was placed in the Pathfinding object's way, "this is a gaming technique not even the most popular MMORPGs seem to know how to get right, and you guys managed to pull it off flawlessly. In games like WoW if you shoot a mob from a rooftop, it walks up the wall after you, rather then trying to find a logical path."

To check the Linden Blog entry, Click Here.

For more on Pathfinding in the Second Life Wiki, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Rod Humble’s 2012 Outlook: Better NPCs for the Grid, Linden Labs to Launch “Products Next Year Not Related to Second Life”

In the latest Linden Blog post, Rod Humble looked back at what he considered Linden Labs best accomplishments for 2011, and had some announcements for what lay ahead in 2012.

Most of what Humble had to say was about noted accomplishments of Linden Lab. Considering his roots in the gaming industry, it was perhaps no surprise the first he mentioned was the making and launching of “Linden Realms, the Lab's first-ever game prototype.” For new residents, it was a chance to earn a few Lindens. For the Lab, Humble called it a way for the Lab to “learn more about what tools Residents could use to develop richer experiences in Second Life — and boy, did we learn a lot!” Humble states Linden Realms would continue to be worked on, with new tools released. There would be one catch: “to prevent abuse of these tools,” only “verified members” would have access to them.

Rod Humble also mentioned the development of Mesh, which he claimed had “more than a 16 percent adoption rate.” He stated he expected for it to continue at a strong pace (though many residents would probably be highly skeptical of this claim). He also talked about new versions of the official Viewer, which included features for newcomers, and the increase in Premium account benefits, notably Linden Homes. He told readers to expect additional “features and content” for Premium members.

For 2012, Humble stated “the primary engineering focus of” the first quarter “will be server side performance and fixing bugs. In fact, you may have noticed one upgrade deployed this week which should reduce the number of restarts and increase performance for all regions.” My observation for the latter is that it hasn’t. He also promised that land tiers would not increase in 2012. He went on to state, “For creators our first new feature for 2012 will be pathfinding,” what the Lab calls it’s new artificial intelligence programs for “artificial life and artificial people,” one example being NPCs for game areas.

The last thing Rod Humble stated was especially interesting: “we will be launching some completely different products next year not related to Second Life.” In short, Linden Labs will no longer have Second Life as it’s only product. This is not unexpected as Second Life is currently Linden Lab’s sole source of income, and open-ended virtual worlds haven’t really caught on with the public.

The question is, what will this mean for Second Life? Hamlet Au wrote this was Linden Lab’s best chance to stay profitable, predicting land sales would eventually crash, and with it the Linden’s source of money. “... a successful second or third product besides Second Life would help keep SL alive, since it can then be cross-promoted to this large new audience, while new revenue sources can help finance whatever changes are needed to keep SL stable.”

Any1 Gynoid, however, had a more dismal prediction. This she felt was a sign Linden Labs was giving up on Second Life, and looking for greener pastures, planning to close it down once they found something more profitable. She advised people to head on to alternative virtual worlds like OpenSim.

My opinion is closer to Hamlet’s on this matter. Unlike him, I feel Second Life could easily survive as a niche product (as does Tateru Nino). Diversifying from a single product is good business sense, and doesn’t mean the doom of the original. Blizzard for instance is known for “World of Warcraft,” but continues to market It’s earlier games, Diablo and Starcraft. This might not be the best comparison as we have no idea how successful these other goods the Lab will offer may be. But it does illustrate just because someone’s new product hits the jackpot doesn’t mean they’ll abandon what was selling before.

My Second Life friends have expressed differing viewpoints about these alternative virtual worlds. A few have set up a place there, in one case a man wanting to set up a casino where it would be outside Linden Lab’s restriction. Others I’ve heard balk at the idea of moving there, saying the graphics there aren’t as good, the choice of appearances is poorer, and leaving friends behind.

On one last note, it’s been a year since Rod Humble became the CEO of Linden Lab. His appointment was greeted with cautious optimism then. A year later, although not all is well with the Grid, on the whole things are looking better than back them. His first year has been a success.

Sources: New World Notes, CNN

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: November Update

A little over a week ago, Linden Lab released their November Update. While talking some about imbox messaging when off the Grid, the blog entry was mainly about the new viewer: Viewer 3.2. They described it as offering a “customizable user interface for a more flexible workspace.” In it, the “Basic” and “Advanced” modes are gone. Instead, you have what is a single modifiable viewer, at least that’s what’s advertised.

The new viewer was advertised as offering “drag and drop” buttons on the toolbar to change ordering, an option for one to three toolbars, and a choice of either icons or labels. “The new Viewer also makes it easy for new Residents to find the essential basic functions, as well as access more advanced functionality as they grow in Second Life.” The “new user functionality” included a “How to Window” for “step by step instructions for common tasks,” A Destinations button, An avatars button to chose from various appearances, an inventory button, and a shop button to take residents to Second Life Marketplace. “By merging the Basic and Advanced modes, users no longer need to switch between modes, which improves usability – and ultimately enhances the Second Life inworld experience.”

A number of people seem to be impressed with the changes. In the official forums, a number of people called it a real improvement, though not a perfect one. “I have to say that V3.2 finally fixed enough of the V2 problems to allow me to uninstall V 1.23.5. With the death of the mandatory sidebar and the reintroduction of a text entry field that moves with the nearby chat floater, I can manage to work around most of the other flaws in V3.2 ...” Not everyone was impressed though. One problem mentioned repeatedly, a slower frame rate than previous viewers.

Among those not satisfied were blogger Tateru Nino. Among the problems she cited were getting booted off Second Life “pretty much every single time a teleport fails,” having to shut off basic graphics settings, and when “Click-to-Move” was enabled, steering by mouse becomes reversed. She had forty people commenting on her posts. There were a few complements, but the majority had complaints. Among those, “Those are your only complaints ...? My God, (Viewer 2.3) is like built to hate users who do stuff other than walk around.”

Inara Pey also had a review of Viewer 3.2, as a developmental viewer release in late October. Her review was, “for all the positives around it in terms of customization and button placement and cleaner look, I have to say there is not enough here to entice me away from Firestorm. I’m happy to remain with that Viewer and see how the team adapt to, and adopt, this new interface.”

And yours truly can’t use it, as Viewer 2 and Viewer 3 won’t work on my computer.

Sources: Linden Blog, Linden forums, Dwell on It, Living in a Modem World

Pictures from Linden forums

Bixyl Shuftan