SLGo To Be Gone May 1, Free Until April 30

By Bixyl Shuftan

Some sad news for users of SL Go, the program that allowed users of tablets to use Second Life, in addition to improving the performance on older computers. The service was not truly a product by Linden Lab, but done by OnLive in cooperation with the Lab. Unfortunetly, this product's days are numbered. Yesterday on April 2, OnLive announced they had been bought by Sony, and SL Go and other services of theirs would soon be coming to an end.

After five years of uninterrupted service, the OnLive Game Service will be coming to an end. Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and their plans don’t include a continuation of the game service in its current form. Your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to play all of your games until that date.

As the first-ever game streaming service of its kind, everyone who has ever played a game using OnLive has contributed to the technology and its evolution in some way. We’re immensely proud of what’s been achieved and extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for being a part of the OnLive Game Service.

Onlive had their own message for users of SLGo, saying they would continue the service until April 30, and they would no longer charge for their services, "no further subscription fees will be charged."

In our year of SL Go service, we have become quite close to the Second Life® community. Thanks to your patronage and constructive feedback, SL Go became one of OnLive’s most successful services. We know how important SL Go is for many of you, and it saddens us to bring the service to a close. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for being a part of “SL Go by OnLive” and wish you all the best.


So why did OnLive fail as a company? Kyle Orland, the senior gaming editor of Ars Technica, wrote, "Looking back, it seems OnLive was just a little bit too far ahead of the curve, both in terms of market readiness and the Internet infrastructure necessary for streaming games. As low-latency bandwidth continues to become cheaper and more accessible around the world, it seems likely someone will nail the correct combination of business model, game selection, and easy-to-use interface to become the industry's answer to Netflix. That company will owe a debt to OnLive for getting the ball rolling and proving that streaming gaming was something that was worth trying in the first place."

Of SL Go closing down, Inara Pey wrote, "This is and unfortunate end, not just for SL Go, but also for everyone at OnLive, a company which had come through a lot to provide a unique on-line gaming service and which has tried to enter a very unique environment with SL Go, and has done so by providing a very successful approach to providing Second Life to people while on the move through their delivery to Android and iPad devices, and to those using older, lower-specification hardware.


"I’ve been fortunate enough to be somewhat closely involved in SL Go, initially being offered the opportunity to help beta the product, and then in helping to report on and promote the service, and (hopefully) provide OnLive, through Dennis and his team with useful feedback, support and advice.
As such, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer Dennis, Jeff, Shae, Jersey, Robby and everyone else at OnLive involved in SL Go – including Jane Anderson in the US and Mark Bevan here in the UK,  my thanks and my heartfelt best wishes for the future. I do, however hope that we’ll continue to able to see one another in-world, at the very least."

Hamlet Au commented, " I once consulted for OnLive, and SL Go was a media partner, but now that the company is ceasing operations, I can say without even having to make a full disclosure that SL Go was just about the best thing to happen to Second Life in a long time, and I'm sorry to see it go." He did suggest there was a possibility that Sony might enable Playstation owners to stream Second Life from their consoles.

So after a year, the platform that brought Second Life to tablets is being put to pasture. But there may be a last chance for it. Fans of SL Go started a petition on change.org , calling on Sony to continue it. For those interested: Click here to sign the petition.


Sources: Onlive, Modem World, New World Notes, arstechnica,


Bixyl Shuftan

SL Go Expands Free Trial Period To Seven Days

SL Go, the application that allows Second Life users to access the virtual world via a tablet, had been offering users a trial period to allow residents to use it for free to see if they liked it. But at 20 minutes, people complained it was far too short. Beginning on June 3, residents would have much more time to figure it out. The trial period had been expanded to seven days.

Onlive, the company that cooperated with Linden Lab in making and running SL Go, made a statement through it's senior product manager Dennis Harper, "Onlive will now be offering new SL Go users a 7-Day Fre Trial with sign up for an 'unlimited access subscription package. A valuable piece of feedback from the Second Life community has been that the 20 minute free trial is not sufficient to get a true experience of SL Go. Now new users can try SL Go free for an entire week, experiencing Second Life on their Androis tablets or seeing how SL Go can render ultra-high graphics even on a lower powered laptop computer. Impressions of SL Go from the Second Life community have been brilliant so far, and this new 7-day Free Trial will hopefully encourage even more players to check it out."

SL Go can be downloaded at https://slgo.onlive.com/.

Source: Daniel Voyager

Eye On The Blog: SL Go Drops Price To $9.95 a Month

Last month, Linden Lab and Onlive announced the launch of "SL Go," its new application which allows Second Life to be played on tablets, as well as enabling fast rezzing on older computers. Those trying it out liked it, but there was one problem: the price. At $3 US dollars an hour, most were saying they wouldn't use it if they had to pay that much, or do so only for emergencies.

A few days ago, Linden Lab announced the price was going down, a lot.

Since launching the beta of SL Go about a month ago, OnLive reports they’ve seen a very positive response to the Second Life® Viewer for Android™ that allows users to access Second Life over wifi or 4G LTE4G LTE on tablets and laptops. Today, OnLive has updated the SL Go beta with new pricing ...

Users had the choice of paying 1 US dollar an hour, or paying $9.95 a month for unlimited use. The 20 minute free trial remains. SL Go is also available in more countries, much more of Europe, plus Canada, Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, and Israel.

For the Linden blog post: Click Here

For the announcement by Onlive: Click Here

Jo Yardley also had a few things to say about the price cut ( link). There was also this thread in the official forums (link). The SL Universe forum thread began discussing the price drop here (link).

More on SL Go

By Bixyl Shuftan

It was Wednesday March 5th that Linden Labs announced the release of SL Go, it's new application which allows users to access Second Life via a tablet. Since then, a number of people have tried the product. Some like it, some have reservations.

Inara Pey gave a little history of the app on her blog. She stated the idea first came not from Linden Lab or then CEO Rod Humble, but cloud computing and gaming company Onlive and it's chairman Gary Lauder, "Lauder made his approach because third-person adventure games have been particularly successful for OnLive. As such, Second Life was seen as a logical choice for extending OnLive’s reach into more immersive environments  while at the same time potentially offering Linden Lab with a solution for providing SL to tablet devices and to low-end desktop and laptop systems." Among those working on it's development were Nick Barsetti, whom was "a former Linden Lab employee (Scout Linden) and a long-time Second Life resident who has been actively engaged ... for seven years, notably as a community leader in a Star Wars role-play group." The SL Go service is "provided entirely by OnLive," Inara felt this may have been one of the reasons for Linden Lab's controversial change in it's terms of service in regards to content creation. 

 For now, SL Go is designed to run on tablets powered by Android, though plans are in the works to include the iPad. Of the display, "for convenience, the log-in fields are displayed at the top of the viewer’s splash screen. Tapping the Username field will display the tablet’s on-screen keyboard (note you can also use a suitable bluetooth keyboard as well), allowing you to enter your avatar name. Tap the Password field to enter your avatar’s account password, then tap Log In to log-in to SL. The Tablet overlay provides a means of carrying out routine interactions with the viewer – walking, turning, flying, jumping, camera movement and zoom, closing floaters, and so on."

"According to the supplied reviewer notes, double-tapping the avatar icon in the middle of the movement keys is supposed to enter flight mode; however, this consistently didn’t work for me, and I found flight could be enabled much as when using the viewer on a computer – tap and hold the Jump icon. Movement can be achieved either by using just the movement controls in the overlay (think arrow keys / WASD on a keyboard), or through a combination of using the 'up' key to walk forward and the joystick control to adjust your direction of travel. This takes a little getting used to, but isn’t that hard to grasp."

"Tapping the camera icon shifts the overlay to the camera options, All of the menus and toolbar buttons are accessible via tapping the tablet’s screen, although keyboard shortcuts are not enabled (even when using a separate keyboard). To assist with using the buttons and menus, pinch-zoom motions are fully supported, as is the ability to 'drag' the viewer across the tablet’s screen using a two finger gesture when zoomed-in. To help prevent the overlay getting in the way of things, you can tap the “Power” icon to collapse the overlay into a single icon; a second tap will expand it again."

Inara had some doubts about the app seeing widespread use, "I do wonder as to the potential impact SL Go will have on established users. From Nate Barsetti’s comments, the service appears to be aimed towards a niche set of uses (thus helping justify the cost). Frankly, for many users, there are alternatives when presented with most of those niche uses."

Draxtor Despress gave SL Go a try, his efforts recorded on video.



(Click Here if the link fails to load)

Draxtor was among those whom gave glowing reviews, "Seriously: the user-generated universe known as Second Life - beautifully rendered in the cloud - runs BETTER at times on an Android tablet than on my PC: I am thoroughly impressed ...  for SL professionals and enthusiastic residents this is a must IMHO: SL GO is not only running on 4G on the road but is instantly upgrading EVERY OLD machine in your household by using OnLive desktop app = pretty darn good!"

Hamlet Au also expressed enthusiasm, saying that he'd been using SL Go through being a tester was the reason he was reporting more about Second Life from in inworld perspective lately, "SL Go feels like a new era of Second Life ... here is the thing that makes all the difference for the world: SL Go works, and almost paradoxically, is the first platform to present Second Life as it really is. It eliminates almost all of the lag and load times most SL users have learned to accept, and presents to you a Second Life at its best, and purest form. If you couldn't see dynamic shadows, you can see them now; if your draw distance was small, it's now broadened to the sky. ... it's probably not ideal for new users (at least not in this early stage), but I do think it will bring many back to Second Life, to see the world as they've always wanted -- and as they've always wanted to share it with their friends -- but up to now, have never had the means."

Ciaran Laval thought the technology was good, but felt the high prices limited it's potential, "The pricing would get very expensive very quickly for anyone who used the service often, which means it’s unlikely to be used often by anyone. ... like tier, the SL Go pricing is a tad on the high side. Used infrequently there’s a lot of potential here but for a regular service, it’s a very expensive proposition."

Jo Yardley blogged that SL Go vastly improved the appearance of Second Life on her old Mac Laptop. But the high price bothered her, "Would you pay 3 bucks to go into SL for an hour? I would only consider doing that for emergencies, when I need to be inworld for a few minutes to fix something or kick a griefer in the unmentionables. Having said that, the OnLive experience is impressive, there is almost no lag, it loads a lot faster than most computers, it is mobile and it allows you to use your TV for SL. So although I am very impressed with SLGo, I fear that the costs may keep a lot of people from using it more than just occasionally."

For more comments, one can check the thread in the official general discussion forum: (Link). There's also a thread in the Second Life Universe forums: (link)

Pictures provided by Inara Pey , Hat tip to Daniel Voyager for blog links 

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Go: Second Life Now Accessible on Tablets, For a Price

Yesterday on March 5, Linden Lab announced a new application on the market, this one for Second Life users: SL Go. This product allows residents to run Second Life on tablets. It is currently in open beta.

OnLive, the leader in cloud gaming, today released an exciting new service for Second Life users. SL Go, now in open beta, is a mobile Second Life viewer for Android that delivers a fully immersive desktop-like experience on tablets.

(Click here if the video fails to load)

With SL Go, you can experience Second Life from anywhere you have Wi-Fi or 4G connectivity, with ultra high-quality graphics, full shaders, shadows, and the Advanced Lightning Model on Android devices. Not only can you get high-quality graphics on a low-powered device, but you also don’t have to sacrifice frame rate or draw distance for high fidelity inworld explorations. Thanks to super-fast gigabit connections with OnLive’s high-performance gaming servers, objects and textures rez quickly when logging in and teleporting. OnLive has clocked the SL Go viewer at upwards of 200 fps set to Ultra with Maximum Render Distance, allowing people to participate in events, engage in combat games, and generally enjoy immersion in Second Life at a level never before possible on a mobile device.

With SL Go, OnLive has brought touchscreen interaction to the Second Life experience, but if you prefer keyboard and mouse, you can opt to connect these devices and interact with your friends in the same way you always have. SL Go gives you access to edit menus, inventory, preference settings and chat management just like the Second Life Viewer on your home computer.

To use the application, one needs an account with Onlive. New users get a 20 minute free trial, after which residents need to pay to use it, from $3 an hour, to $8 for three hours, to $25 for ten hours. For now, it is limited to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.

This is clearly a major move for Linden Lab and Second Life, one in development for many months.

More information later on SL Go and what others are saying about it.