Top Stories of the 2010s: Linden Lab's "Shared Creative Spaces"

In recent days, Linden Lab made the decision to turn to "Plan B" for Sansar, meaning either selling it or finding a partner to keep it going. So why did Linden Lab put energy in something else other than Second Life? Actually, it's been doing so since 2011, when the decision was made to develop or buy other products as well. They hoped that they would bring in some extra money and one or more would be a big hit. But for all the Lab's effort, only one of these "shared creative spaces" would remain after a few years.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Mysterious Circles Appear on Montecito Bay's Streets

In October Montecito Bay dealt with a slime and maw monster scare. But while Halloween has ended, the weirdness in the community hasn't. Recently, there's been a rash of patterns appearing on the sim's city streets. While most are dismissing them as someone's prank, there have been some strange coincidences that have locals scratching their heads.

Read the story in Extra.

Linden Labs Ceases Development of "Patterns"

On a press release yesterday, Linden Lab announced that it was stopping all work on it's sandbox game "Patterns." There will be no further development and the game will no longer be for sale. Linden Lab will no longer be keeping multiplayer functions operating, though those who bought the game will still be able to play it in single player mode okay.

Recently, Linden Lab announced that we are working on an ambitious project to create the next-generation virtual world, while we continue to improve Second Life and grow Blocksworld. As we focus on these priorities, we have ceased development for Patterns, and we will be no longer offering the game for sale.

We at Linden Lab are extremely grateful for the adventurous early players who explored the Patterns genesis release. Those who purchased the Patterns genesis release will still be able to play their copies of the game, but features relying on server connections, such as world-sharing, will not be functional.

Patterns had early promise, and while Linden Lab focuses our efforts on our other offerings, we are still evaluating the future of the Patterns technology. Interested parties are welcome to contact us with proposals.

Patterns was announced by Linden Lab in September 2012. People quickly noticed it's strong similarity to "Minecraft," though gravity played a role in the game. Linden Lab was appealing to gamers with this product in their strategy at the time to diversify it's product line. But it failed to generate much of a following or an income for Second Life.

The cancellation of Patterns by Linden Lab leaves just three operational products in it's line,"Blocksworld," "Desura," and of course Second Life.

Source: Linden Lab 

Bixyl Shuftan

A Look at Linden Lab's "Patterns"

Last week, Linden Lab revealed two of the projects they were working on, "Creatorverse" and "Patterns." Seeing the pictures and description of Patterns, some dismissed it as the Lab trying to rip off Minecraft without coming up with anything original. Just after the announcement, gaming Internet magazine IGN published an article by Anthony Gallegos in which he looked at the game and had a few words with Rod Humble about it. His observation was that it was "dramatically different" from the familiar sandbox game.

Rod Humble admitted Minecraft was an influence, "So the notion was you take a very simple 3D Creation tool you take that lovely elegance of the resources that's in Minecraft, and them make the whole thing have physics from the ground up." In both, one has an avatar in a world gathering up resources. But in Minecraft the avatar builds tools which it can use. It doesn't in Patterns. Nor are there monsters and hot lava to make survival a question. The world itself is different, alien looking compared to the familiar grass, trees, and hills. And instead of cubes, the world is made up of triangular tiles, as is the avatar.

What can one do with the triangular tiles? They can be used to create three dimensional blocks. And these blocks can be used to build larger structures. The tiles can come from a variety of materials, wood, stone, clay, etc. And the hardness and weight of the cubes can have an effect on what one can build. Physics and gravity matter here much more than Minecraft. If one keeps extending a horizontal column of blocks, it will eventually break and fall. And a mostly stone column with a clay base will break sooner than a clay column with a stone one.

When working with the world, sometimes the physics acted in ways that surprised the Linden team. The Lindens are hoping to get users on board to continue to see what can be done with the place, as Humble stated in the video trailer from Linden Lab, he wanted "creators in from the earliest possible moment." A few days after the  IGN article was published, Linden Lab began taking pre-orders for the game's "Genesis version" for $9.95. The page stated those buying would be "entitled to have your name featured in the credits of the game in version 1.0."

Hamlet Au commented that  in giving an advance peek to IGN, it looked like Linden Lab was aiming at gamers rather than users of Second Life as more likely to give Patterns a try. He also states he managed to get in touch with Minecraft's creator Markus Persson. Of Patterns, he thought, "Looks great."





Once again, Patterns Genesis can be pre-ordered at: http://buildpatterns.com/buy/.

Sources: IGN, New World Notes  

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Reveals Two New Products Outside Second Life, Website Changes to Reflect Scaled-Back Mission

Yesterday on September 18th, Linden Lab announced two of the four projects outside of Second Life they've been working on. The one that was described with the most detail was "Creatorverse," an application for the iPad.

Become an inventor as you design unique creations and then set them in motion. You’ll never know what to expect as you watch your creations bounce, roll, tilt -- or even accelerate on the screen. Let your creations come to life as you play with different joints, forces, motors, and teleporters and then watch what happens next. From the simplest bouncing ball to an elaborate pinball machine, the possibilities for tinkering are endless on Creatorverse.

In their press release, Linden Lab stated it should be available from the Apple App store in a few weeks. There's also a video narrated by Rod Humble (see below), "Here at Linden Lab, we make shared creative spaces." He touted the ability to upload creations for others to use, and edit into something different.

The second thing Linden Lab announced was a 3-D environment named "Patterns."

Imagine a 3D Universe of creativity ...

Explore caverns and valleys, while you harvest substances with real world densities. Build large scale structures that reach the sky or bridges that traverse chasms. Challenge real-world physics to see which creations will tumble -- or withstand -- the power of gravity.  It's your universe to shape.

"Patterns" bears a resemblance to Minecraft, though there is the promise of gravity having an affect on what's built. Creatorverse drew some comparisons to a program called "Crayon Physics Deluxe," with it's brightly colored shapes. Prim Perfect called it "very firmly targeted at the tablet market."

Reaction to these products seems mixed. The thread in the official forums is short with a few posts expressing cautious optimism.  The SL Universe thread did as well. Those commenting in response to Prim Perfect and Hamlet Au in their articles were less cheerful. Crap Mariner commented until Linden Lab found a way to make money off the, "your SL tax dollars are paying for others to play Gummy Minecraft and Crayonland." Shockwave Yareach commented of the two, "One is a clone of Crayon Physics Deluxe, which was sold more than half a decade ago. And the other is a clone of Minecraft."

The same day these new products were released, Hamlet Au noted something interesting on Linden Lab's website at http://lindenlab.com/. There were the words Rod Humble used in the earlier video used as a slogan, "Linden Lab, maker of shared creative spaces." He noted how different it was from the old mission statement, "It is our mission to connect us all to an online world that advances the human condition," saying they had become much more modest in this respect.

Hamlet Au called this "A second life for Linden Lab" No longer do they have the idea that they should be "building the metaverse," he felt. Instead, they would be in multiple projects while not loosing sight of Second Life, making products that would allow users to express their creativity. How successful they'll be with these first two products remains to be seen.

Image source: Linden Lab

Sources: Prim Perfect, Linden Lab, New World Notes 

Bixyl Shuftan