Laura X Is Out

 

After months in development, Laura X has been released.

 

It was August in which it was announced that Maitreya announced they were coming up with a new mesh body, the Laura X. Several days ago, there was an announcement in the group they were "coming ever closer to release," and that already clothing for the new body was out "we work with the creator community to make this release the best it can be for everyone." 

 

Finally on late Monday night, there was talk in a few groups about the body finally being available. On Tuesday, Gemma Cleanslate would confirm it was finally available at the Maitreya store. She managed to get to the sim, also named Maitreya, which was packed, "prepare for lag." Someone would comment, "It's not an update, which is why I'm being careful to not say update .. it's redeliver your purchase which now contains a new body as well. ... You don't buy if you already own, just get your previous purchase redelivered."

Ryan Schultz would message the Newser, "Everybody who has Lara can just click on the Redeliver button (under the Misc tab) on the HUD to get a redelivery, which includes both LaraX and Lara 5.3. ... I'd say that the biggest differences are in the shoulder, armpit, and upper arm area, and the hips and thighs. A lot of mid-sleeve and short-sleeve items are not going to work with LaraX, as well as bathing suits, panties or any other skimpy clothing. Full sleeve length or sleeveless outfits should work, though. Full-length pants and non-skintight skirts of any length should also work, as you can still alpha out what pokes through relatively easily." He stated the body included some underwear, and felt about half of one's outfits wouldn't work well with it, "And they finally fixed the too-high armpits."

 

So Maitreya fans now have their new body just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Bixyl Shuftan and Gemma Cleanslate

Laura X Release Date Not Announced Yet

 

 Checking in on Bellisseria chat, one question that occasionally came up was about when the new Maitreya avatars were coming out. It was soon brought up by Gemma Cleanslate that there had been no release date given, posting a notice from the Maitreya group about it.

 

The most common question all day every day is about a release date for Lara X.   We do not post projected release dates. When something is ready, we release it. This means that we do not sit waiting for the date to arrive. When it's done you get it. This also means that we never have to deal with the drama of delaying a release. And we don't have to rush anything to get it good enough for release. This is how we have always done it. Nobody knows a release date.

 

Gemma would say the notice was sent by Gryphon Ronas, "first notice I have ever gotten in that group."

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at Club Cutlass. So what would it be like for a human to date a furry, in this case a wah/red panda? Well, it's best not to assume certain things.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Group Notices Date And Time Glitch Finally Fixed

Some good news for those whom have struggled with group notice glitches  that gave each notice the same date and time down to the second. Yesterday, Linden Lab finally fixed the problem.

The issue has now been resolved. Thank you for your patience!

Posted May 26, 2020 - 13:08 PDT 

It was about fifteen days ago that the Lab recognized the problem and announced they were working on it. With each notice in groups given exactly the same time, they didn't appear in chronological order. So for a time, residents would struggle to try and find past notices, especially in larger groups such as the Relay for Life which get many each day. One partial solution was for posters to place the date on notices to make them easier to find. But locating them could still take a while.

It is unclear why it took the Lab two weeks to fix the problem. But finally it is solved.

Bixyl Shuftan

Glitch in Group Notices Still Around

It was a little more than a week ago when the Newser reported that there was a glitch in group notices that gave every one the same day and time down to the second. As of the writing of this article, the issue is still unresolved, which has making keeping track of what's going on in some larger and more active groups more difficult.

Why Linden Lab hasn't fixed this problem yet is unclear. As to how various groups are getting around the glitch, they seem to vary from more use of group instant-messages or chat programs such as Discord. Still, the glitch has complicated things when it comes to keeping tract of some events (and for the Newser, potential stories).

Hopefully the issue will be fixed soon.

Group Notices Date And Time Glitch

If there's something funny with your group notices, you're not alone. After a friend messaged me saying she couldn't find a post made the night before, taking a look I saw they were all of the same time down to the second. Other people were telling me the same. Checking an alt, the issue was on that account as well.

Taking a look at the Second Life Status Report, the Lab acknowledged something was wrong.

We are aware of an issue with Group Notice timestamps showing the wrong date on some viewers. We've identified the issue and are working on a fix. Ref: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-228562

Posted  May 12, 2020 - 17:16 PDT

Taking a look at the JIRA, the person who filed was saying the issue wasn't on all server channels. As of the writing of this article, the issue is still unresolved.

Second image credit: Willow Wilder

Bixyl Shuftan

Google Plus to Close Down On April 2

On October 8 2018, Google announced it would be shutting down Google Plus, it's social network program, some time in the future. On January 30, it gave a date for the close: April 2.

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.

The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.

The announcement went on to say ''As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events." As mentioned, Google Plus account owners acn download and save content such as photographs and videos. Google Plus community owners and moderators can also download and save content.

There is a Frequently Asked Questions page for answers to the most common questions about the shutdown.


Source: Google.com

Bixyl Shuftan

Gaming News in Brief

Antilia Releases Character Creator Demo: Antilia, the Fantasy game that's been in development for about a decade, recently released a game character creation demo. Besides species, and appearances, players can chose what kind of background the character had, such as location, occupations of the parents, education, etc. (youtube) But don't expect the game to be available to play anytime soon. The game "is still in early to mid development," and no beta release has been set yet.

Wildstar Closure Announced: Carbine Studios, the makers of the Wildstar MMO which was recently slated for shutdown due to Carbine's owners, NCSoft, announcing the closing of the studio, announced the date of the game's shutdown: November 28. Some seasonal in-game events have been placed on an accelerated schedule, and Carbine invited all players on the last day to "Join us in-game for the final few hours as we have some fun. More details to come!"

PC Magazine, MassivelyOp , 

Maple Story 2 : There's an upcoming MMO that will be launched later this week that's gotten a little talk among people I know: Maple Story 2. A prequel to the original game, there's much more content here than the previous game, such as player housing. One review I listened to cautioned that the game comes from a company, Nexon, "that loves to monetize their games" and that it had the potential to go "very pay to win very fast."

MMOByte, MassivelyOp  

 Image credit: Nydia Tungsten, MMOByte

News and Commentary: Linden Lab Changing From Open Beta to Open Alpha Release

When Linden Labs first gave an estimate in September 2016 of when their next-generation virtual world Sansar would be in open beta, the date given was January 2017. In early Janurary, the date was described as "after March." Later in January, the date given was sometime in "the first half of 2017," meaning as late as June 2017. But when the Irish Times wrote about an interview they did of CEO Ebbe Altberg, they reported that Sansar would be in an "open alpha" release sometime this summer 2017. At what point it would go into beta was unexplained.

What this suggests is not only is Sansar currently at "an early stage of development," as Hamlet Au commented, but that they are having more difficulties and delays than anticipated. When Linden Lab placed an ad for Linkedin for a software engineer to help them develop a voxel-based terrain editor, Hamlet was initially quite impressed. But with these delays, he feels they should "have hired someone to build that maybe two years ago." This is on top of existing doubts about Sansar, it beginning to remind him of the old "Blue Mars" virtual world of several years ago, which was fading into obscurity after less than two.

So when will Sansat be complete? Hamlet was thinking that might not be until sometime in 2018. How will users react to an unstable open alpha Sansar that crashes more than Second Life? Probably not very well.

Source: New World Notes , The Irish Times

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

From Club Cutlass. Sometimes being unpopular with the ladies can be a good thing ... if you're a predatory insect.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Project Sansar to Go Public in January 2017, Ebbe Linden States In Interview

More than two years since it's development was first announced, Ebbe Linden is confident enough about Project Sansar's development that he announced a date for when it will be fully available for the general public: January 2017.

Ebbe gave the date in an interview with Donnie SC Lygonis. He stated a few months ago in testing, Sansar had a high "discomfort rating." But since then, it's improved. Ebbe also repeated that the Lab plans to invite in an additional number of testers, by invitation only, later this August.

So it seems after about two and a half years, people will finally be able to set foot in the virtual world.

For the Podcast with the interview: Click here .

*Addition* Listening to the video, Ebbe Linden described the decision to start work on a new virtual world as their response to Second Life's slowly declining user base. They had been trying to do something about it for a while, and after Ebbe came in they concluded the best thing to do was to work on something entirely new.

Sources: Daniel Voyager, Jo Yardley

Bixyl Shuftan

Relay for Life Wrap Up Date Announced

Daniel Voyager wrote on his blog that the Relay for Life in Second Life "Wrap-Up" event will be on Sunday August 16. Although the Relay Weekend last month was the climax of the Relay season, it's the Wrap-Up that marks the official end. On the RFL of SL website, people are asked to submit nominations for the Spirit of Relay awards, for both team and individual, and other awards. The deadline for nominations is Sunday August 9, a week before the wrap-up.

http://relayforlifeofsecondlife.org/

Dinner Dating in Second Life

Second Life Newser welcomes a new reporter: Leona Kitty. In her first article, she talks about one place to go on a date within Second Life: a dinner. It seems a bit odd to some, as avatars don't need to eat. But there's more to a date involved than just food.

Read Leona's article in People.

Club Simple Paradise

Second Life has a number of clubs. But how many offer you a swim to cool off or a romantic dining experience for a date?

Isabella (vortice41) recently opened up Club Simple Paradise. "My club is a place where the people can relax," she told me, "have a lovely dinner, or having fun." She first showed me one of the dinner booths, that were on the edge of the club grounds. They had a table with seating for two, with two seats and dishes, with flowers and a champagne bottle, along with a couple paintings on the wall "here a couple can eat in private spaces, talk and dance together." Pointing to the plate, "touching the dish a guy/girl (will) find three menus." Clicking on them gave options of soup, a meal, or dessert. There was also the option of just sitting there, as if having dinner conversation, or an eating animation.

"I wanted something different from the other spaces in Second Life," Isabella told me, "a place where a person can relax, have a lovely date." She told me the club was new, just a few weeks old. But already word was starting to get around, "Some people come here in the morning, when there isn't a party, for a moment of peace." She told me the name of the club comes partly from what the people dropping by have been calling it, "The people told me that the place is simple, and nice." She then took me to the pool area. It wasn't a simple basin and water, but had a small bar set up in the middle of it, "for a coffee," and presumably a few other drinks. She told me she was still looking for a swimming HUD giver, but should be able to find one soon. Besides the deck chairs alongside the pool one could relax in, there were small tables nearly where one could have a little breakfast.

For now, the club has only music and dance events one day a week, at 10 AM and 12PM SL time.  She tells me she'll have more days once she has more staff, "My idea is to do a theme a day," for instance Latin one day, 80s music the next. for now, she has two DJs, "Robina Ewing and T-DJ Milena, "They spin Wednesday, 10AM to 12 Milena with deep house, and after 12-2pm Robina with house, and trance." If anyone had a request for a tune, that usually wouldn't be a problem. One could also rent the club out for a private party.

So for a club with a dining experience and a place to swim, head over to Club Simple Paradise.

Your Place for dance with our Djs.
Your Place for have a dinner with your love.
Your place for relaxing in our pool with bar and lovely table for breakfast.
Enjoy us.


Club Simple Paradise, Surreal Gold (237, 44, 21)

Bixyl Shuftan

SLife and Times: Fake or Cheating

Tiddily Winks recently thought about a certain issue. If someone's married in real life and engages in virtual intimacy online, isn't it cheating? She had heard some agree, though may make an allowance if the spouse knows what's going on. Others felt it's just another form of pornography. She expressed a few thoughts on the matter.

Read more in People.

SL Video: "Date My Avatar"

Here's Nydia Tungsten's video rendition of "Date My Avatar." The swimsuits were a little ... daring. And while a furry's tail usually covers up a behind, the video might not be safe for some workplaces, although the bikinis were legal in all 50 states.

(Click here to see the video)

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

SL Youtube: "Vic and the Pink Dalek"

And now for some Relay for Life fun involving Vic Mornington (Victor1st Mornington) of the Relay for Life "Team Dr. Who Fans in SL" and a pink-plated Dalek.

"Victor1st Mornington and a pink Dalek enjoying a lovely date together.

"We won time with Victor1st following a Relay For Life Auction. So what better than him being reunited with the pink Dalek once again!

"Please support Relay for Life, together we can help find a cure. Please goto -
http://www.cancer.org/Involved/Participate/RelayForLife/second-life

"With Thanks to Michelle Leckrone for filming & Editing this.

"The name Dalek and Doctor Who are solely owned by the BBC, I own nothing!"

For those not familiar with "Dr Who," the Daleks are killer robots normally hostile to everything other than themselves. The classic ones are stainless steel, but more recent seasons of the show have these newer models that have inspired a few "Power Ranger" jokes from some Whovians.

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan