Reminder: Linden Town Hall Today

 

 Just a reminder, Linden Lab is hosting a Town Hall today, Monday April 20, "To answer questions and hear your feedback" concerning the planned closing of the Gaeta 1 Mainland continent, announced last week.  

 

The event is planned to go from 11 AM to 12 Noon SL time.  

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island1/241/15/29

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island2/8/23/29

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Town%20Hall%20Island3/234/246/29 

 

(old picture as the area is currently off limits to residents) 

Miss Suzanne Super Sweet Speaks About Burn2

 

 

Burn2 has been a part of Second Life almost since it's beginning, and remains it's largest annual art and music festival with spinoff events and many fans and volunteers. As with most large groups, there are inevitably some disputes. But this year there has been trouble behind the scenes with people leaving. Miss Suzanne Super Sweet (SuperSuz Resident) recently got with the Newser and offered an explanation of what's been going on. 

Read more in People.

 

 

"Additional FAQs" For Gacha Ban Announcement

 
On Thursday August 5, Linden Lab expanded their list of Frequently Asked Questions added at the end of their announcement on Monday that Gacha machines were to be banned. The FAQ was first added on Tuesday August 3.

*  *  *  *  *
 
Q:  Should any newly developed sales mechanism or newly created items be called “gacha” going forward?

A:  No, as we would like to eliminate any confusion with the usage of the term going forward.

Q:  Is a game that requires skill to win the prize you want permitted going forward?  For example, you throw a dart and you must hit a certain number to get the prize corresponding to that number.

A:  This would need to go through the Skilled Game review process and be presented in a Skilled Gaming region, if approved.

Q:  I am selling an item that is known, paid for and delivered to a purchaser, and for each purchaser they are entered into a prize drawing where randomly selected people who bought the item may receive a rare item as a result of the drawing, is this permitted?

A:  You must also provide a free, concise and easy way for anyone to enter into the random drawing with an equal chance to win.

Q:  Can I sell an item, and also then include an unknown random item attached as a bonus? For example, Like a buy one, get one free (BOGO), but the free item is the random/unknown item.

A:  No

Q:  Could a “conveyor belt” system work?  

Example:  The vendor board selects an item at random and displays it for purchase.  That item remains on display and available for purchase until a buyer touches the vendor which locks it to them for purchase.  This allowed the buyer to purchase the item and deliver it.  The vendor unlocks and then selects another item at random and displays it for purchase and the cycle repeats.

Example image here and credit to Nadi Vemo for the approved vendor design.

A:  Yes, as long as the item currently being purchased is known. Note however that you should discontinue the use of the “gacha” term for these sales.

Q:  But what about breedables (again)?

A:  If you buy a brown cat, and a blue cat (as examples), as long as you knew you were getting a brown cat and a blue cat at the time of sale, this is acceptable at the present including the various unknown traits they may come with or develop.  Secondarily, when those cats make little kittens with unknown outcomes, this is also acceptable.  Lastly, the resale of any breedables will require at the time of purchase that the purchaser knows what they are purchasing at the root level (for example, it is a blue cat).  

Q:  What about my specific idea, you didn’t cover it here?

A:  We wish we could cover all the great ideas we’ve seen proposed to date. Sadly we can’t address them all and if there are any questions or proposed ideas that would suggest any other permutations on the policy, we recommend a simple and thoughtful approach to stay within the boundaries of the policy.  Failing that, please feel free to contact customer support.
 
*  *  *  *  *

Stay tuned for further developments
 

Linden Lab Develops FAQ Addition to Gacha Ban Announcement

 
As anticipated, Linden Lab has come up with a "Frequently Asked Questions" in regards to their gacha machine ban. It has been added to their announcement, appearing below it.

Q:  Is it possible to extend the policy deadline?

A:  We are sorry that we are not able to further extend the policy deadline.  However, we have been able to extend the enforcement of the policy change an additional 30 days.  To be clear, starting on September 1 we expect gacha as a sales mechanism to cease. However we will start with warnings, and any enforcement of the policy as it would be applied on an account will not begin until after September 30.

Q:  How are breedables impacted by this policy change?

A:  This current policy change and deadline does not apply to breedables or other life simulation products.  At the present we are working with external counsel on the subject of breedables.  If any action is required we will make a separate announcement and have a separate timeline associated with it.

Q:  Will popular games like 7seas be impacted by this policy change?

A:  No, because the purchase of bait to go “fishing” is a purchase being made of a known item, and also the fish you catch while playing the game are non-transferable.  To be clear, if they are not currently, they must be going forward.

Q: How are subscription boxes affected?

A: Subscription boxes are not affected as long as all subscribers are getting the same content box. Different items being sent to different subscribers on a chance basis is not allowed.

Q:  How are Linden Homes affected?

A: Linden Homes are not impacted by this policy change.  Linden Lab owns the homes and they are not transferable.   

Linden Lab stated this list of questions will likely be updated as time goes on.
 

Linden Lab at the VWBPE Conference

 

At the Virtual Worlds Best Practices for Education conference last week, there were three discussions in which there was at least one member of Linden Lab taking part, one per day of the three day event. At the first one on Thursday, Patch Linden was the sole person from the Lab. Of the three people leading the investment group that bought Linden Lab last year, Randy Waterfield, Brad Oberwager, and Raj Date, Patch stated he mostly worked with Oberwager and was optimistic about his intentions for the virtual world. "He has one mission: to be the best and biggest virtual world there can be. He wants to grow and invest in Second Life. He genuinely loves the product." All three were very interested in making Tilia, the virtual currency exchange service under Linden Lab, "grow and prosper," but as it had a "symbiotic relationship" with Second Life, the virtual world would grow as well. Patch stated Oberwager had the goal of increasing Second Life's userbase, "we want to double the resident population over the next 3-5 years." The team itself wanted to finish work on Amazon Web Services, and there were plans to work on the "onboarding experience for newcomers, "We've learned through the Pandemic. We've listened to users. It's given us stuff to latch on to, to make improvements that will help everyone."

At the Roundtable discussion on Friday, Patch, Brett (Marketing), Grumpity (VP of Product), Madori (Land Operations) were before an audience of residents. Grumpity expressed excitement about the Cloud Server project, "that will allow us to use cloud technology in ways to improve user experience." Brett talked about the Adult Swim event and the NFL Alumni Experience (that took place around the Superbowl). When asked about the possibility of the return of the Teen Grid, which was taken offline on Jan 01 2011, Grumpity stated they had "frequently talked about Teen Grid internally." When asked about the Zoom video communication service, Grumpity stated, "Being in Second Life creates a sense of presence that's not present on Zoom, and also they don't have to turn their camera on here, like in Zoom." When asked about the upcoming Android client, Grumpity answered, "We hear you, we're working on figuring out a solution to that. We're excited about possibilities that will allow us to bring SL to mobile devices."

On Saturday, Grumpity and Brett Lindens were the ones appearing before the audience. Among the subjects discussed were trouble with griefers. They also discussed accessibility for residents whom English was a second language. They also talked about the Community Gateway Program, Grumpity commenting, "Nothing beats someone showing you the ropes." Grumpity stated there were new starter avatars in development by Linden Lab. Of when the Education discount was discontinued in 2010 and not brought back for three years, Grumpity would call it, "dark times ... I won't blame anyone, but it was wrong."

The Linden events and others can be seen in the VWBPE Youtube channel.

Bixyl Shuftan

More on Tilia

With Linden Lab's announcement on Monday that Second Life residents would have to be signed up for accounts on their new Tilia service, there has been no shortage of discussion among the virtual world's residents. The "Tilia Takes Over" thread on the forums has reached 21 pages as of the writing of this article. Seeing the confusion, the Lab responded with a "Official Tilia Q and A Forum Thread." Among the answers to some questions heard:

There are no additional fees for having to use Tilia, aside from the Inactivity Fee.

The Inactivity Fee applies only to those whom have a US dollar balance in their account that remains inactive for 12 months or longer.

The changes for personal information requirements apply only to those who cash out Linden dollars for real world currency.

For those whom use Linden dollars only for Second Life, there is no change.

Tilia is not needed to buy Linden dollars with real world money.

Tilia will not replace Paypal, though the Lab is working on enabling it to work directly with banks in the future.

Of the reason why the Lab needs the additional personal information, they cited, "The ID verification requirement is necessary for compliance with U.S. money transmitter laws and regulations, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the Prepaid Access Rule."

As residents continued to ask questions, the number on the FAQ has been growing. It probably will continue to do so for at least another day or two.

More on M and M's Sales Cancelation, Lindens Taken, by Linden Lab

A week ago, we wrote about Marcthur Goosson and his "M and M Creations" having two sales worth a toral of 42,000 Linden dollars being canceled by Linden Lab and the money taken. When he asked Linden Lab for an explanation, they didn't say very much other than the sales, made through M and M's Marketplace page were "done with Lindens acquired from another source." So he turned to us, and our readers, for answers.

Marxus Lefevre was the one person who answered through the Newser's article comment section, saying:

It does happen a lot actually... when I was working for an estate, which shall remain unnamed, LL would take regularly L$ from the estate owners account with above explanations. Due to close contacts with the support we eventually figured, that there were rental payments done with money acquired, i.e. from stolen credit cards etc., often from Russian or Arabian accounts. If the money was stolen from another account, which happens to often sadly too, LL would return the money to the person it was stolen from, independent of the purchases made through the offenders. I always thought it was the right thing to do though, but I understand, that it comes disturbing to Marcthur or anyone who's not aware of these things.

On the Friends of Second Life Facebook page, there were more comments. While there were accusations of "shady business practices," others confirmed Marxus' story. " This has been done for years and even on almost on daily basis. It relates to their procedure on how to handle stolen accounts. And perfectly legal. Credit card comp, banks etc all do the same by reverting payments when accounts stolen. ... This a normal buisness practice and nothing shady." "it's just a nice way of saying 'stolen lindens'."

So why didn't Linden Lab just up and say that they were returning stolen money to it's owner instead of giving vague and cryptic explanations? The only responses I got were from the Facebook chatter, "They just can't give more details than (they) did due to privacy right issues of account holder. ... by law they can't."

I don't know where to look to confirm this explanation. But if this is true, it seems this isn't simply Linden clumsiness at work, but also the law. Still, couldn't the Lab find some way to give a better explanation to a confused content creator trying to make a few dollars only to find his sales canceled and the money taken? There is also to consider that if dealing with stolen cash is a frequent problem, Linden Lab may be naturally reluctant to talk about it. In any event, this seems to be the best explanation there is for Marcthur's missing money.

Bixyl Shuftan

Questions and Answers With Ebbe Linden

Last week, Designing Worlds gave an early showing of their video of their interview of the CEO of Linden Lab, Ebbe Linden. To the surprise of the audience, Ebbe himself showed up as the video was coming to a close. He then offered the audience a chance to ask questions not covered in the interview, and for more than two hours we did.

Read Bixyl Shuftan's article in Extra.

Three of My Questions at Ebbe Linden's Q & A Session

Second Life Newser is still working on the full article of the Question and Answer session Ebbe Linden had following Saffia Widdershin's showing of the video of her interview with him. So while we're working on the article, here's a sneak peek.

I brought up a question that some, such as Hamlet Au of New World Notes and Ciaran Laval, wondered about, "Recently Blizzard Entertainment announced they were stopping work on their planned MMO 'Titan,' partly because the company felt it would just end up draining users from it's existing game, World of Warcraft, which while having fewer customers from it's prime is still doing good. Is it possible the development of SL 2.0 as it's called could be shelved for similar reasons?"

Ebbe's response was, "Bixyl, Blizzard stopped because they did not think it would be good enough, very brave call by them after so many years of hard work, so failure can and do happen and could happen to us. But I spend almost no time contemplating failure (grin)."

There was no mention about Linden Lab's "Minecraft" spinoff "Patterns," which was shelved a few days later.

Another thing I've heard time and time again was people expressing regret over popular sims vanishing, such as "The Wall," and the Sept. 11th memorial at "World Trade Center." So I asked, "Over time some noted sims have faded away, such as the Vietnam Memorial. In the past one popular sim was brought back by Linden Lab: Svarga. Might there be more sims, such as memorials, that could also be revived?"

Ebbe answered, "Bixyl, we can't run those experiences ourselves. So if the creator leaves then their creation ultimately (goes) unless someone takes over. Otherwise you're asking us to provide discounts to some in some way. (I'm) not sure how to do that in a scalable and proper way."

So then how were they able to bring back Svarga? And in the case of memorials would it not be a simple matter of talking to the creator to see if there was anything other then keeping them running as they were?

My third question was about Linden Lab rewriting the conditions third party Linden exchangers, such as Podex, could do business, "Last year, Linden Lab told third party Linden exchangers if they wanted to remain in business, they could no longer buy Lindens for real world currencies. When I interviewed one of the smaller 'land barons' he told me this has affected his desire to do business as he can no longer cash out instantly but has to wait for his money. One resident from France told me he has a pile of Lindens he wishes he could sell for Euros but can't. Is there any possibility that licensed exchangers can go back to being able to both sell and buy Linden dollars?" This question got some remarks from the audience along the lines of (yes, can they?)

Ebbe however told us no, Linden Lab would not change their terms to allow third party Linden exchangers to buy Lindens for real world currencies, but they would fix the official Linden dollar exchanger's problems, eventually, "Bixyl, I think there are compliance matters that made us change those exchange rules, and we're working to add other payment platforms that provide more geo/currency options."

But I'd found a question that resonated with several members, and they continued to talk about it for several more minutes. 

Stay tuned for the full article, coming soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

Ebbe Linden Speaks At The VWBPE Conference, Addresses ToS Issue

On Friday April 11 at 1PM SL time, Ebbe Linden (Ebbe Altberg) spoke at the VWPBE (Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education) conference. He spoke to a packed audience, whom had a number of questions.

One can get a summary of Ebbe's speech from Daniel Voyager, a review by Jo Yardley, and a full transcript from Inara Pey. Or see a video by Mal Burns:



(Click here if the video fails to load)

Ebbe brought up a number of concerns, including the controversial Terms of Service issue.

I am working with my Legal Counsel to try to try to figure out how we can make it more obvious – or very obvious – that the creators of the content own the content, and we obviously have no intent of ever stealing your content or profiting off of your content independently of the creators in some fashion.

The current terms might indicate that we might somehow have some plan to steal people’s content and somehow profit from it for ourselves, without benefitting the creator, and that’s obviously not our intent at all. It would be very damaging to our business if we started to behave in that way because this whole platform is all about the content you all create. And if you can’t do that, and trust that it is yours, that’s obviously a problem. So I’m working on that, and I can ask you right now to trust us that we’re not going to do what the current clause might suggest we’re going to do, but we’re working on some simple tweaks to the language to make that more explicit.

We also have no interest in locking you in; any content that you create, we feel you should be able to export, and take and save and possibly if you want to move to another environment or OpenSim, that should be possible. So we’re not trying to lock you in either. Obviously, it’s very important to us to get content both in and out, so I just want to put that right out there. 

These words were much more of an answer than the vauge answers given to the United Content Creators of Second Life group when they pressed the Lab for answers. So it seems finally the Lab, or rather it's CEO, has answered.

Different residents had differing views. In a UCCSL group chat I observed, those who had heard the speech were overall pleased, but, "He didn't say a clear position." Talking to some residents of the Sunweaver area, the opinion seemed to be cautious optimism to neutral. One commented the Lab had made promises before and failed to follow through, so would wait for more actions before deciding whether or not Ebbe was any different.

Time will tell whether or not this was the start of Linden Lab regaining the trust lost in the Terms of Service controversy.

Image from Gemma Cleanslate

Bixyl Shuftan

Ebbe Linden (Ebbe Altberg) Sits Down With Second Life Bloggers

On Tuesday February 18, Linden Lab's new CEO Ebbe Altberg, also known inworld as Ebbe Linden, met inworld with several Second Life bloggers. Pete Linden was also at the meeting. The bloggers were from left to right Saffia Widdershins. Daniel Voyager, Mal Burns (known as Aeonix Aeon in the past), Draxtor Despres, Inara Pey, and Jo Yardley. The meeting was a little more than an hour from 9:40 AM to 10:55AM SL time. Ebbe showed up as the robot avatar available to newcomers just starting out.

Most of the bloggers have already made their comments, Daniel Voyager (link), Inara Pey (link), Jo Yardley (link), and Mal Burns (link). Presumably Draxtor Despres will make his comments on his radio program later today (link).

The meeting was a friendly one, with some minor disruptions reported due to some bugs. Jo Yardley wrote that Ebbe asked if this was normal. Questions (prepared ones) were asked, and Ebbe answered. Among the things discussed were the new user registration, of which Ebbe thought the one he went through was lacking and needed improvement. Of how it is now he stated he needed to know more before making a decision. He was interested in meeting up with the leaders of educational sims and communities. He also wanted to learn more about sports in Second Life. He felt Second Life was the beginning of something big, "I have a huge belief that Second Life is just the beginning of something that can be much, much, much bigger," and wanted it more accessible to users.

He stated people in Linden Lab were interested in bringing back the JIRA, and were looking for a way to do it. He had been a user of Second Life in its early days, as was his teenage son before he was booted due to his age and went to the Teen Grid. He understood that the mainstream media did not see Second Life like it used to, and Linden Lab had lost control of the image of itself it wanted to deliver to the masses.

The writers were overall impressed with Ebbe, and expressed cautious optimism about him. This included Mal Burns, whom has been quite critical of Linden Lab in the past, "... I do feel differently than I have about all other predecessors for a number of reasons. I get a different 'vibe' off of this guy. I’m almost willing to say that he 'gets it.' Almost ... " The biggest beef Mal had was the setup of the press meeting, eight writers each having been privately invited by the Lab. Mal thought this kind of arrangement was bad because it would encourage sucking-up among bloggers, and discourage asking hard questions and critical writing about problems about the Grid.

No one from Second Life Newser was at the meeting. Neither was Hamlet Au, Linden Lab's onetime imbedded reporter. 

Daniel Voyager has a transcript of the meeting available on request, as well as a number of pictures on his  (Flickr).

Bixyl Shuftan

"What is Second Life" Page for Newcomers

I've had a few friends and coworkers asking me about Second Life. Plus some have expressed their opinion that a Q & A page would be useful for answering questions for those new to the Grid. So we now have a "What is Second Life" page for those whom haven't heard of it and want to know a little about it, and for newcomers whom have some basic questions. These are questions of which I've been asked both in real-life, and suggestions by some resident friends.

I can see some trying to figure out which ones are which.