Lab Gives Residents "The Avatar Welcome Pack"

 

On Thursday April 24, Linden Lab announced they had given all residents a package of items, "The Avatar Welcome Pack."

We are delighted to announce the Avatar Welcome Pack, a starter wardrobe that will give any new resident a strong beginning in the often intricate process of creating an avatar. A number of Second Life creators have generously donated items, some of them crafted exclusively for the pack ...New residents using this pack will have an easier time because of some simplifications. HUDs are a particular challenge for new users, so none of the body parts or clothing require them. All clothing items come with alpha layers, so new users will not need to manually hide body parts. Third, the heads and bodies look great out of the box with no adjustments needed.

It's notable this was announced just one day after Linden Lab stated it was looking for content creators to partner with to make Avatar Welcome Packs. So presumably this is the first of them. 

To get the Avatar Welcome Pack, well, if you're a Second Life resident, you already have it. Just check in your Inventory, and look under the "Library" section. Opening the welcome pack, there are four more folders: Female Bodies and Looks, Female Items, Male Bodies and Looks, and Male Items. Each of those for has several packages, They contain various complete mesh avatars, plus clothing and accessories such as wings. There's also a notecard on how to use the contents. 

According to Ryan Schultz, the Pack was delivered by accident almost two weeks ago, which allowed those who found out a chance to walk around in the appearances and outfits for a few hours until the Lab took them down again until Tuesday April 22. Ryan would suggest that one reason for the bodies in the Avatar Welcome Package was that the Senra starter avatars introduced by Linden Lab a year and a half ago "were a bit of a failure ... They were a bit odd-looking (particularly the heads), and they stuck out like a sore thumb on the grid," and few content creators bothered making clothes for them, "So Linden Lab went back to the drawing board, and this time around, they reached out to established and well-known Second Life content creators to partner with."

For more information, Click Here for the Linden blog post.

 

Source: Ryan Schultz

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Ryan Schultz to Stop Blogging

 

A few days ago, Ryan Schultz, a noted blogger about Second Life and other virtual worlds and VR technology, announced there would be no more posts on his blog. 

I’ve had a good run, but it’s time for me to close this blog after a little over seven years and three months. It’s time.

Please know that it has been an honour, a joy, and a privilege to write about a subject that I loved: virtual worlds, social VR, and the metaverse, plus virtual and augmented reality in general. This blog has opened many doors for me, and I am truly grateful for the experiences I have had.

Thank you for your comments, suggestions, encouragement, and feedback throughout the years. I have made many friends and acquaintances in many virtual worlds, and I hope that our paths cross again soon, either via the metaverse or in real life.

I will be offline for a while, but I hope to be back soon. I doubt it will be a blog, though. Perhaps something different; I don’t know what yet.

Be well. Keep each other warm in a cold world. I love you all.

In his post before, he stated was staking an indefinite break, saying he was too busy with the demands of real-life. In the post before that, he had stated his job at a university has undergone quite a bit in recent months. His last post about technology was on October 1, with two posts in August. On July 4, he announced there would be fewer posts "for the forseeable future" due to his job.  

Ryan Schultz was a blogger about Second Life, often posting about mesh avatar accessories and outfits. But he didn't limit himself to Second Life, starting off as a blogger about Sansar when it was owned by Linden Lab, calling it the "Sansar Newsblog" at the time. But in January 2018, he briefly suspended writing following a dispute with Linden Lab about a story he did on one of Sansar's locations, later renaming it the Ryan Schultz blog as part of Linden Lab's complaint was about the blog's name. He would also write about VRChat and other virtual worlds, as well as VR Gear. 

Ryan Schultz did hint he would be back in some form. But it looks like he won't be with the blog he made a name for himself in Second Life media.

To check out Ryan Schultz's blog: https://ryanschultz.com/

Bixyl Shuftan

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

Sansar Mistakenly Declared Dead After Being Knocked Offline

 
Those who read DrFran's article from earlier this month may remember she described Sansar as "on life support" with "all of the employees have been furloughed, and many have gone on to other jobs," and it's license for Umbra, which helps it's graphics to run better, had expired. So last week on December 22 when noted blogger Ryan Schultz couldn't get on, he assumed the virtual world had died. New World Notes would also report it was offline. But the next day, people were able to get back on the virtual world. Inara Pey would say, "services came back on something of a rolling basis, with all avatar services being about the last."

Exactly why the virtual world was knocked offline for a day is still unknown. While one can easily pin it on the lack of technical support, it's notable at the time there was an outage with Amazon Web Servers which is known to have affected the Epic Games Store, Imgur, and other places online. So that may have has something to do with the outage. While Second Life uses Amazon Cloud servers, it is unknown what effect if any the outages had on the larger virtual world.

While Sansar may still be around, it's still a virtual world in trouble. So while the reports of it's demise might have been mistaken, unless things change for the better for the place, it could soon go permanently offline for real.

Sansar was created by Linden Lab, officially going online on July 2017, as a next-generation virtual world. But it's numbers remained small, so Linden Lab would eventually sell it to Wookey Technologies in 2020. 

Update: DrFran reported a response from Wookey management on December 26:

 hi there. this is steve from the wookey management - sansar team. i thought i'd pop in to let you know we are actively looking to resolve the issues on the platform. we value our community big time, and hoping we can get things running smoothly soon. ... we appreciate your patience and understanding... happy holidays from the wookey team!!!

Sources: The Verge,

Image Credit: Inara Pey

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Announcement: Virtual Ability's 2021 Mental Health Symposium, Friday, April 16

 

Virtual Ability's 2021 Mental Health Symposium, Friday, April 16
The theme is "Mental Health in Trying Times."

All times are given in SLT, Pacific time.

7-8am    Clara González Sanguino from Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) will present "The impact of Covid-19 on our mental health. A longitudinal study from the beginning of the pandemic to the return to the new normality in Spain."

8:30-9:30am   Laura Ritchie (University of Chichester Conservatoire, UK) and Daniel P Cervone (University of Illinois) will share their research project "Projects pursued and abandoned: Pandemic reactions of care & coping."

10-11am    Catherine Ettman from the Boston University School of Medicine will discuss the prevalence of depression symptoms in US adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.  
       
11:30am-12:30pm    Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine, and two students (Evan Conaway and Sandy Wenger) will talk about their research on the impact of Second Life and Animal Crossing during the COVID pandemic.
    
1-2pm    Ryan Schultz, Sciences and Technology Library, University of Manitoba (Canada) will share "Acedia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A 5th-Century Term for a 21st-Century Problem."

2:30-3:30pm    Mark Czeisler (Monash University, Australia) will present "Mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic—disproportionately affected populations."

Additional information is available on our website:
https://virtualability.org/mental-health-symposia/mental-health-symposium-2021/

More Sansar Layoffs, Kona Linden Among Those Cut

For the second time in three months, Linden Lab is laying off a number of Sansar's already small staff. Following a report by Ryan Schultz on his blog, CEO Ebbe Altberg would confirm on the Sansar Discord channel that some of the virtual world's staff were dismissed.


Yes, there were layoffs today. A truly wonderful group of people. But as you can see, Sansar is up and running. We are still in discussion about next steps. Including with the wonderful group of people. More to come. Don't give up yet. Go create and have fun. Not much point in speculating until we can tell you more.


Schultz had originally written that "a very reliable source" had told him "there were over 40 people laid off, and a small number of software developers were moved from Sansar to Second Life." The source had also told him that further development of Sansar had been shut down, though not the virtual world itself. This number of those laid off, as well as the claimed state of development have not been confirmed by other sources. What has been confirmed is one name among those dismissed. Kona Linden (Kona Gurion in real life), would contact Hamlet Au and inform him he was among those laid off. Hamlet would call Kona's layoff particularly sad, "With his layoff, Linden Lab loses its last known link to Second Life during its founding, and glory days of 2006-2008."

Sansar was already reportedly operating under a "skeleton crew" following the previous round of layoffs. Inara Pey would state that Sansar will still be running events in March. But with this latest round of dismissals, the long term future of Linden Lab's next-generation virtual world has become more uncertain than ever.

Sources: Ryan Schultz, New World Notes, Modem World

Bixyl Shuftan

Sansar Now Available On Steam

About a month ago, Linden Lab announced that it's next-generation virtual world, Sansar, would soon be available on Steam. Yesterday, it was announced that Sansar was up and available there.

As of today, December 5th, we are officially live on Steam!

We wanted to give a huge thank you to our current community who have been so supportive, and to extend a warm “Welcome” to all our new community members joining us from Steam!

You can find us on Steam as an Early Access Game, where we’re free to download. Even better, you’ll get to enjoy all the benefits of Steam as a social platform for gamers including full access to our Steam Community Hub!

Sansar is one out of two products by Linden Lab available on Steam, the other being Blocksworld, which has been there since September 2017. Both are listed as "early access" platforms, "We plan on staying in Early Access until Sansar is the very best it can be." So far, there are a handful of reviews, which are mostly positive.

In it's move to Steam, Linden Lab did away with the SandeX, which was where Sansar users could buy and sell the virtual world's currency. There's no threads in the official forums about Sansar now being on Steam, though there is one in Virtualverse. Second Life had been available on Steam in 2012, but wasn't there for very long.

Ryan Schultz stated in his blog that why he hoped Sansar's move to steam was successful, he wasn't sure it would be, noting that High Fidelity doing the same didn't change it's numbers much. He did worry about Steam users being "brutal" with their reviews, though as mentioned earlier they are mostly positive so far. But he did say that two games in Sansar that had been getting attention, Hoverderby and Combat Zone, had been closed by the developers. If so, fewer available activities could make it harder for the next-generation virtual world to retain users.

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

News in Brief

There has been quite a bit going on lately in Second Life and the Internet. Too much to go in-depth for all of them, and some have been around for a few days. So here's some of the stories, in brief.

Facebook Hacked: Last weekend, Facebook announced fifty million accounts had been exposed and vulnerable by a "security issue" due to a "vulnerability" in the social media app's code. Although Facebook's owner Mark Zuckerberg insisted the problem was fixed, others such as Virginia Senator Mark Warner called for increased regulation to protect the public's privacy and security.

BBC, Mashable, Mark Warner Twitter

Net Neutrality Lawsuit: The US Federal Government filed suit against California earlier this week over the state's Net Neutrality law. Despite 200 businesses and trade groups asking them not to do so, last December, the FCC voted to scrap Net Neutrality protections. Several states responded by setting up their own net neutrality protections, California's being among the toughest. In the lawsuit, the Justice Department charges California's actions are a violation of the Constitution. In response, one of the people who wrote California's protections charged that the state's law was written in response to the Federal Government abandoning it's obligation to help protect public access to the Internet.

Petition at Change.org , ars.technica, Washington Post , The Verge, 

Internet Throttling Has Begun:  Adding fuel to the fire behind the efforts of California and others trying to bring back Net Neutrality protections was a report written about last month that confirmed major Internet Service Providers were already throttling Internet traffic through Youtube, Netflix, and other places. Verizon is already in trouble for throttling the communications equipment used by California firefighters while they were working to stop wildfires.

The Humanist Report , Bloomberg , The Guardian

Leaving Behind One's Avatars In Their Will:  Blogger Ryan Schultz, who writes about Sansar and other virtual worlds, recently announced that he might have cancer. In response, he says he will be putting avatars he made in his will so they can still be used after he dies. While people interested can contact him inworld, he doesn't plan on leaving avatars that took a lot of time, sometimes money, to make to just anyone. (first update) (second update) (third update)

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

Star Trek RP Worries: A virtual recreation of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation was ordered taken down by lawyers from CBS, prompting worries from New World Notes' Hamlet Au that they might go after Star Trek roleplays in Second Life soon as well, despite an agreement several years ago.

Eurogamer, New World Notes, 

Second Life Sims Still Growing: In late August, the Newser noted that five of the past seven weeks then had seen an increase in the number of private sims. According to Tyche Shepard in Sept 23, the increases have been continuing "an additional 45 regions since 31st Dec 2017 , a 0.3% growth and overall the Total Grid has regrown to the the size it was in April last year." But a week later, he stated five sims had closed, bringing the growth back down to 40 sims and 0.2% .

Source: Virtualverse  Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Gossip/Slam Blog Owners Banned: New World Notes reported a couple weeks ago about the owners of a blog called "SL Secrets." The blog allowed anonymous users to make all kinds of claims about those they didn't like from copybotting to fat-shamming to catfishing to ageplay. From the point of view of content creators, it was a potential cause of lost revenue through charges of ripping off others in which the accuser would be completely unknown. The two co-owners were reported to have been banned by Linden Lab from Second Life citing violations for several sections, including 5.3 which Hamlet Au called "the nuclear option," stating, "We may terminate your Account if we determine in our discretion that such action is necessary or advisable to ... protect the rights or interests of Linden Lab, the Service community or any third party." More recently, the owners have decided to remake their blog to cover territory beyond Second Life, called "Virtual Secrets." The co-owners insist they're doing so to expand their coverage and not because of a lawsuit by Linden Lab to remove the "SL" part of their name.

Source: New World Notes

New Avatar Review Website. Some fans of furry avatars may remember "Second Life Avatar Review Files," or SLARF. It used to have a large database of reviews of furry avatars, but stopped updating in 2015, and is now accessible in the Internet Archive after being taken down from the net. Blau Rascon is now doing a new blog of avatar reviews: The "Second Life Avatar Index." Already, there are several reviews of recent furry and feral avatars.

News and Commentary: Sansar Newsblog on Hiatus After Dispute With Linden Lab

By Bixyl Shuftan

If Linden Lab has a theme song these days, it might be "Oops, I did it again."

In December, Linden Lab found itself in a public relations flap when Strawberry Singh was asked by them to remove or edit a video with Second Life's eye-in-hand logo. When the Lab later apologized and annouced their trademark policies would be revised to allow others to promote the virtual world, all seemed well. But recently there was a dispute involving a blog of Linden Lab's other virtual world: Sansar.

On January 8, Ryan Schultz posted in the Sansar Newsblog about the "Aech's Garage" location, a build of a place in the upcoming Steven Spielberg Movie "Ready Player One." Shortly afterwards, he was contacted by Linden Lab, and he was asked to take the pictures in the article down and apparently there was a problem with the blog's use of the word "exclusive." "Apparently, someone at one of the many companies mentioned in that blogpost is upset," he would later post in the comments of Inara Pey's article on the location, telling her, "you’d better be prepared for a request from Linden Lab to take down the pictures you posted to this blogpost." Besides Sansar Studios, the companies involved were Intel, HTC Vive, and Warner Brothers.

After some talks with more in Linden Lab, Schultz was able to repost the images without fear of trouble. But he was asked to take down the word "exclusive." And there seems to be some problem with the name "Sansar Newsblog." "I have asked Linden Lab for clear, yes-or-no answers," Schultz stated about the issue of the pictures and the name of his blog, and had only gotten one for the former. As a result, he is putting his blog on hold.

I don’t want to lose that tight focus on Sansar, on which I have worked so long and hard on with the Sansar Newsblog these past five months. ... I may not be a Warner-Brothers-size company, but my blog is important to me and, if I can believe the comments I have received in support, important to many others as well. Until I get clear, authoritative yes-or-no answers to BOTH of my two questions (Can I repost the pictures I took from Aech’s Garage? Can I keep the name Sansar Newsblog?), I’m not going to bother spending my time and money blogging for Sansar. Linden Lab can go find some other blogger to cover and promote their platform.

Right now, I have only a verbal okay from Ebbe Altberg at an in-world meetup months ago that the name Sansar Newsblog is acceptable to Linden Lab, but after this recent incident, now I want more. I want a clear “Yes” or “No” from someone official at Linden Lab that the company is not going to ask me to rename my blog.

Until I get clear “Yes” or “No” answers to BOTH these two questions, from someone at Linden Lab who is authorized to speak on behalf of the company, the Sansar Newsblog will remain on hiatus.

Schultz stated if he was told to change the name of his blog, he would stop his focus of Sansar and give more coverage to High Fidelity, VRChat, "and the other new VR-capable virtual worlds ... and the other new blockchain-based virtual worlds that are suddenly springing up."

He would later update his post. saying he had gotten an apology from Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab's CEO. "I do still have a lot of love and respect for Linden Lab. ...  However, I will wait for Linden Lab to issue new brand guidelines for Sansar before I start blogging again. I am really tired, and I need to take a break. ... perhaps two or three weeks at most. The blog will be back, either as the Sansar Newsblog, or under a new name with a new focus."

The incident has been starting to get attention from other blogs and newsletters. Nalates Urriah was reminded of the trouble with Strawberry Singh last month, " ... it looks like the Sansar team is going to have to go through the same learning curve. But, I had hopped the SL experience of the Linden support people, like accounting, legal, marketing…, would carry over. I suppose not, now that I see this second ‘take down’ call." Isabelle Cheren would write about it as well, "Be thoughtful to people who visit. Sansar needs the promotion and here you go and upset a person who promotes it daily, often a number of times a day?" Inara Pey, when asking the Sansar community team for answers, was told, "users are not discouraged from posting screenshots from any experience that is open to the public as long as there is no claim to exclusivity, early access, or other potentially misleading statements or claims that are untrue or could be construed as an official statement from Linden Lab or Sansar."

After Sansar was officially opened, it had gotten a lukewarm reception from most. I had gotten a number of comments asking for the Newser to focus on other subjects, notably when the Second Life Friends Facebook group told me any links to Sansar-related posts would be removed. With the Sansar Newsblog on hold, the next-generation virtual world is without a blog that promotes it with singular focus. It would seem once again, Linden Lab's heavy hand has backfired.

Sources: Sansar Newsblog, Modem World, Natle's Things, Isabelle Cheren  

Image Credit: Isabelle Cheren, Ryan Schultz

Bixyl Shuftan