SL Mobile Viewer Now in Private Alpha, Available For Premium Plus Residents

 

 Some news for those who have been waiting for the Second Life Mobile Viewer to be available. Linden Lab just announced it's in a "private alpha" release, but a very limited one in which only Premium Plus members can apply for. And some who do may not get a chance to try it out yet.

 

 

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The Second Life app brings the richness of the Second Life virtual world to your Android or iOS mobile device...and Second Life Premium Plus members are among the first to get access. 

 

With the new Second Life Mobile, you can experience a new level of convenience and engagement in your Second Life adventures, whether you’re at home or on the go. 

 

 The mobile viewer is described as allowing residents to see their avatars and "edit through changing outfits" (but apparently not through Inventory), go about virtual reality "with a limited series of movements," being able to teleport or accept teleport offers, pan around to some extent (but doesn't say how far), use local and group chat as well as see group announcements, create and log in a new account, "and more in future releases."

The Lab stated that while all Premium Plus residents are eligible to apply to get access to this alpha version of the mobile viewer, "we’ll be adding users in small groups over time. There is a server registration limit and we’ll be adding participants on a first come first served basis." So assuming demand for the mobile viewer is strong, some people will have to wait. 

And of course, being an alpha version, the Lab reminded people that the mobile viewer will almost certainly be glitchy as heck. "please remember, this is still early Alpha! That means it’s buggy, and it’s missing functionality. It also means we’re looking for your help in making it better. "

 

Presumably the beta version will be available some months from now well into 2024. But this is speculation, and much can go wrong, or right.

 

Source: Linden Blog

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Cartoon of The Day: Practicing For Horizons

 

Taken at VWEC Eduverse. Those weren't Elli Pinion's exact words, but when someone pointed out her lack of legs, she did joke about a certain virtual world in which players are half the person they were. 

By Bixyl Shuftan
 

Press Release: Astral Sector Alpha Art Fair June 25-July 3

Astral Sector Alpha is holding an art fair June 25th to July 3rd.

Astral Sector Alpha, also known as ASA or the Astrids, is a community of artists of different stripes that originated in Second Life, although not all of the members are within Second Life. They also have a Discord presence and do live readings every other Saturday over Discord (as not everyone can successfully use SL voice reliably) starting at 6 PM SLT and gather in world for camaraderie during the reads. ASA's goal is to nurture each other's creativity and to provide a good grounding for artists, writers, and other creators to grow within and draw encouragement from. Members are encouraged to start their own projects.

ASA has worked with several small libraries in the past to provide reading exchanges and art/writing contests, including with the Trotsdale library. Amehana Ishtari's past writing workshops and a Haiku anthology between cooperating Second Life libraries, available for free on Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/542449 are examples of the sort of projects that members launch.

Art of several types is on display at the current art fair, things represented are visual art in the form of drawings and photograpy, jewelery, images created in blender, textual offering to be read either by the author or by volunteers, and "glitch photography" which is a new art form developed by Danielderv Resident, which has even had an article published about it in a university level publication. The building itself was created for the art fair.

For inworld readings of the content in the fair, readings will happen from the 30th to the 3rd at 5 PM SLT to ensure that all that was submitted has a chance to be shared.

This art fair is also intended to kick off a weekly magazine format. For more details about that particular endeavor talk to Danielderv Resident.

Calm Ocean (69, 196, 3821)

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

What’s Happening In High Fidelity?

Besides Second Life, DrFran has also been checking out the virtual world Philip Rosedale has been working on lately: High Fidelity. While SL 2.0, or Sansar, remains very much an unknown to those outside Linden Lab, High Fidelity has been in open alpha for anyone wanting to go in and try things out. While the avatars aren't always "pretty," Rosedale has been focusing on problems that have been constant banes for Second Life users.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

High Fidelity Alpha

After Philip Rosedale, the former Philip Linden, left Linden Lab, he continued his work in virtual reality. Eventually, he came up with a new project: High Fidelity. A new kind of virtual world, he build it with his experiences in Second Life. DFran Babcock was approved as a tester for the alpha, and will be writing about her experiences.

Read DrFran's article in Other Grids and MMOs.

Developing RPG "Antilia" in Kickstarter

Although residents in Second Life have also been having fun with World of Warcraft, Star Wars The Old Republic, and other games, that doesn't mean they're not on the lookout for more. One game in development that caught the attention of some in Sunweaver group chats is "Antilia," a Fantasy MMO that's been in limited release alpha since 2011. Recently, Right Brain Games, the team behind the game, announced a Kickstarter to raise funds to get the game into a beta release with servers able to allow the players to access it continuously.

"Antilia is an online fantasy game built upon a lush, detailed world simulation," Jeff Leigh, the head of the development explains in the video included with the Kickstarter, "Antilia is set on the majestic planet of Forra, a world filled with elements familiar and unreal. Races and civilizations have come and gone, leaving ruins and mysteries to solve, scattered across the landscape."




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In its current form, players can play characters from one of the bloodlines of the Taipii, the catlike Felo, the wolflike Lupine, the Kisan which resemble kangaroos, the deerlike Koro, and the foxlike Vulan. There are a number of options available at character creation, such as fur color. While combat is an element in the game, there's also an emphasis on crafting and making things.

So far, the Kickstarter has only raised $30,625 of it's $120,000 goal, with 257 backers. Three of the backers donated $1000, and one donated $1500. As of now, there are two weeks left to reach the goal.

For more information, check out the game's website at http://antilia-game.com . The kickstarter can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffleigh/antilia-a-majestic-3d-mmo . The game also has a Facebook page.

Additional sources: Wikifur, MMO Hunter 

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