The Beta Contributor Wall

 

 

 

I recently talked to Xavier Thiebaud, the interview to be published soon (when I am not interrupted by power outages). But he took me to a few places, some not commonly known. One was the Beta Contributor Wall, which had a list of over 1500 names of those who were in Second Life in it's Beta days, before it's official opening in June 2003. 

 

The 1500+ names here recognize the most active residents who made Second Life Beta a tremendous success. Whether you are still part of the journey, or someone we hope will one day return, you are all part of this community. 

A big thank you from all the Lindens and a promise of much more excitement to come.

 

The wall, located in the Plum sim, thanked them for helping make Second Life a tremendous success, and being a part of it's journey.

 http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Plum/132/52/33

 

Mobile Viewer Now Avaiable to Premium, Premium-Plus Residents, In "Early Beta"

 

 

A couple days ago on the evening of Tuesday June 25, Linden Lab announced it was making it's mobile viewer open to all Premium and Premium-Plus accounts of Second Life. The Lab would say the viewer is in "early beta."

 

We’re excited to announce the next important milestone in the availability of the all-new official Second Life Mobile app. Effective today, we’re now opening up early beta access to all active Premium and Premium Plus members!

The Second Life app brings all the richness and beauty of the virtual world to both mobile phones and tablets. Now you can stay connected and socialize with your friends and communities – anytime, anywhere. Explore a diverse universe of places while on the go and even style your avatar – all from the palm of your hand.

The mobile app can be downloaded through this here, which will take you to the App Store: https://www.secondlife.com/mobile

 

As of the writing of this article, there are 15 reviews, mostly very good or very poor, which even out to a rating of 3.3 out of 5. Of the poor ratings, the majority stated they couldn't log in. 

The Lab would go on to say that a number of communities and other public places would be launching launch parties for the mobile viewer. This includes Caledon, Bay City, the Bellisserian Bureau of Bureaucracy, the Nature Collective, Virtual Ability, and others. The Lab is still open to more holding events, those interested invited to fill out the form (here).

SL Video: "Second Life Mobile - June 2023 - SL20B Update"

 

 

 (Click here if the video does not play)

From Linden Lab, a five minute video with Grumpity, Mojo, and Patch Linden about the Lab's progress on the Second Life Mobile Viewer. It's looking like it's release won't be until 2024 as Grumpity was saying, "More features are coming in the next couple quarters as we work towards a beta." Grumpity was saying some of the latest work was about getting the viewer to unload old objects so new ones could be loaded as people move to different areas.

 

Team Firestorm Announces EEP Firestorm Viewer Available In Beta

In April, Linden Lab announced that the Environmental Enhancement Project, or "EEP," was part of the official viewer. But for the most widely used viewer, Firestorm, the skies in sims making use of the feature just looked odd. So that would limit the use of EEP. Team Firestorm has been working on the issue. And while they're not ready to make EEP part of their finished viewers yet, a few days ago they announced they had a beta viewer available that makes use of the feature.

As many of you know, Linden Lab’s Environmental Enhancement Project has been in the works for a long time and reached the grid in 2019. While the official SL viewer has had EEP for a few months, Firestorm has been working to eliminate bugs in our own implementation and streamline/improve the interface. While we don’t feel that EEP is ready for full release—in fact, it has not passed our QA yet—Linden Lab wants all SL users to have access to it, and many of you have been clamoring to use it.

Before you ask, this is NOT a required update. It is a beta viewer and will not count against Firestorm’s 3-available-versions rule. You do NOT have to uninstall your current Firestorm, and in fact we suggest that you keep it. The beta viewer will install alongside your existing Firestorm on a separate channel (on Windows).

Since it's a beta viewer, and not a finished one, there are still bugs in the system, "As an entirely new environmental system, EEP still has bugs to be worked out. You may see strange lighting glitches. Some have experienced reduced FPS." On the other hand, there are some fixes for bugs in the existing finished viewer.

For more information, and to download the EEP beta viewer, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Facebook Announces Upcoming Virtual World "Horizons"

 By Bixyl Shuftan

Today, Facebook announced it was in the process of making it's own virtual world: Horizons.

Today at OC6, we unveiled Facebook Horizon, a new social VR world coming to Oculus Quest and the Rift Platform in 2020. A culmination of what we’ve learned so far about virtual spaces and communities, Horizon is the first step into an ever-expanding world of connection and exploration where anything becomes possible.

... Starting with a bustling town square where people will meet and mingle, the Horizon experience then expands to an interconnected world where people can explore new places, play games, build communities, and even create their own new experiences.

With the announcement there was a youtube of a spokes-avatar showing off the place.



"Beyond our world, there's another world. And it's right here, on my face!"

"Horizon's filled with possibilities. We can play stuff, make stuff, fly stuff. ... Horizons isn't about rules or limits ... It's about getting out there and trying new things, making your mark, making friends ... And you can even build a world of your own. In Horizon, the world is your lobster. ... So come join us, a never-ending, ever-changing world beyond your world."

Horizons will be playable with Facebook's Oculus VR headset and controllers. It was not specifically stated that the virtual world would be playable without a VR rig.

Judging from the pictures, while there's things to do, including able to build things, and places to go, the Horizons is still very much in beta. The most obvious example of this is the legs for the avatars haven't been designed yet, so they just float over the ground instead of walking.

As part of their announcement, Facebook announced they would be closing Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms in one month, October 25.

The announcement stated Horizon would be open to play, in beta, "early next year" in 2020. There was a link for people to sign up for access to the currently closed beta.

Hat tip and image credit: Ryan Schultz

Bixyl Shuftan

Sansar: First Impressions

Yesterday July 31 was when Linden Lab finally opened Sansar to the general public. So yours truly signed up for an account and got in. So what's my initial impression? To sum it up in one sentence, "It's a start."

You have only a limited choice of avatars to choose from, but you can customize them some.

Sansat differs from Second Life as there are no contiguous sims. but each area is separate from everywhere else. The Sansar Atlas provides a list of them. A few we have seen in Linden Lab's previews. I noticed there was one called "Luskwood" by Tengu Yamabushi, and decided to check it out.

 There was no "Big Tree" it turned out, but a dry and hilly savanna area. I didn't notice any lag, but getting about, there was no option to run. And you couldn't interact with anything. I didn't see any names on the other avatars, but I did notice someone was wearing a spacesuit. That was an item one could buy in the Sansar store.

Bryn Oh had an area, one that had a few lit-up decorated scenes. After this it was time to head back.

Right now, Sansar looks good, and I didn't see much of any lag. But all one can do is explore around. There is no object interaction. Even when Second Life first came out, you were able to run. But Sanasat is still in an "open beta" state. No doubt there will be improvements as time goes on. But for now, as has been written earlier, while an interesting place to visit, you can't really "live" there like Second Life. Further improvements are necessary.

I'll explore a little more in the next few days to show what more it has.

Bixyl Shuftan

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

Linden Labs Annouces "Place Pages" in Beta

By Bixyl Shuftan

One of the problems residents have, especially those new to Second Life, is about finding interesting places to go to. There is the "Search" function while inworld, but while better than nothing it doesn't always find what you want. Then there's the Destination Guide on the Linden website, though it offers just a short description. In the Linden Blog on Wednesday, the Lab announced they have been working on a few feature that is now available in a beta viewer: "Place Pages."

Place Pages are a new feature aimed at making the huge variety of awesome places in Second Life easier to find by creating web pages for each inworld location that opts to show in search.

Today, we’re starting a beta for this feature. All regions and parcels that have elected to Show In Search now have an automatically generated Place Page that’s visible on the web, you can check them out and share them today! Places rated General will be visible to anyone, and those rated Mature or Adult will be subject to the usual Maturity controls.

Several of these Place Pages are already up. On the entry in the Knowledge Base (and Daniel Voyager's Blog), were links to the following: Innsmouth, Fogs End, Crestwick Island, and Inslico (which was rescued from closing several days ago). In the forums, a fifth place was mentioned, the Linden-run Winter Wonderland.

Inara Pey called the announcement, "frankly – vague. Whilst explaining the purpose of Places, and the fact it is beta, the blog post itself doesn’t actually provide information on where to find detailed information on the new pages – such as how to get started or even how to view the new pages." Hamlet Au stated that he had been told six years ago this feature was in development, but obviously work on it had never gotten far until now. He went on to say the feature had much to be improved, notably one problem that made it next to useless for anyone not a user of Second Life.

"The first problem is right in the announcement itself: 'Places rated General will be visible to anyone, and those rated Mature or Adult will be subject to the usual Maturity controls.' Trouble is, most great Second Life locations are rated Mature or Adult. So in other words, hardly anyone including and especially non-users will be able to even see these web pages.
Seriously. Imagine you're a fan of HP Lovecraft who wants to show another Lovecraft fan the Page of Innsmouth, a great Second Life sim devoted to the horror author's work. If they're not already a user, (they get a page just marked "Mature Content"). 99% of non-users will give up at this point. On Linden Lab's scale, 'Mature' is equivalent to an R rating from the MPAA, but they're currently treating M places like porn. So hopefully Linden's web devs realize what a fail this is."

Other suggestions by Hamlet include, "a button for sharing pages on Plurk" and "an option to embed pages on blogs and other websites."

On the official forums, there was a general feeling of approval, "Love, love, love this idea!! Thank you SL!" "Something like this has been needed for quite a while." Though some felt it still needed much improvement, "We really need a way to let outsiders see these pages though, without them needing an account first.Use these pages to lure non-sl people in. Perhaps a little disclaimer about possible maturity issues or something, but these pages should be viewable for everyone." Loki Eliot felt this feature had a great deal of potential, but at the moment the description had "less space than on the destination guide. What was the thought behind limiting to 250 characters?"

Troy Linden on the forums admitted that most pages not viewable to non-users of Second Life was a problem, "We're working on a better solution to gate content based on the visitors and hope to have a better solution soon." So it seems there should be changes in this feature in the near future.

Sources: Modem World, New World Notes, Daniel Voyager's Blog, Linden Lab

Bixyl Shuftan

Game Review: Wildstar's Open Beta

Earlier this month, the Wildstar MMO by NCSoft was up in Open Beta and free to play for anyone whom downloaded the game. Among those giving the game a try was Nydia Tungsten. So how did she like it? She had a few things to say about this sci-fi multiplayer game.

Read Nydia's story 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."




(click here if the video fails to load)

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

Linden Lab Launches Dio, "Creative and Social Experience"

Just a few days after announcing it's purchase of Blocksworld, Linden Labs unveiled it's latest product: "dio."

In the video Linden released in time for dio, it was branded as a "creative and social experience that allows anyone to make and explore places based on anything." The press release stated users could "create places by adding text, photos, videos, and interactive objects into interconnected 'rooms' that give spatial context to the content you share. You can keep your places private, share them with friends and family, or allow everyone to explore and enjoy them." It also states there was an online chat feature with other users, and in the future one would be able to make money off the places they created.



Rod Humble was quoted as saying, "dio is a new shared creative space on the web. Based around the concept of linked spaces, dio makes it easy and fun to create  or visit experiences of all kinds." He described dio as still being in development, in beta, "but so far our testers have created a vast range of spaces." He also brought up the future ability to make money by mentioning what Second Life's content creators have done, "One of the things that's made Second Life successful is that users were able to monetize their own creativity by selling their creations. Second Life's economy was extremely robots with over $500 million worth of user to user transactions last year." He hoped that by sharing ad revenue with dio space crators and allowing them to sell their spaces, "this will encourage the kid of incredible dedication and creativity we've seen in Second Life."

Forbes writer Carol Pinchefsky wrote about someone from the Linden Lab staff showing some of what dio had to offer, saying it could be used for personal pages, games , and more. He suggested the same features that could be used for a game could be used to make an advertisement for a hotel's page. Of the plans to allow dio users to make money, Pinchefsky called it a welcome contrast to the Instagram service changing it's fine print to sell the pictures uploaded by it's users without permission or giving them a dime, "Linden Lab will be giving rather than taking. It's a great concept, one that I can't wait to see implemented."

Hamlet Au expressed similar optimism about dio. He also noted that in the terms of agreement, transactions would be done in Linden dollars, and mentioned the LindeX exchange. He felt this was a sign there would be some future interaction between Second Life and dio "at least through commerce." Hamlet reported on a dio space created by SL blogger Inara Pey, "it seems to be the most detailed and interactive by far, though there seems to be no sign of it now.

Not everyone has been impressed with dio. Iris Ophelia commented that the hype made it look like "possibly the latest and greatest thing." But sitting down to take a look at it, her impression changed. She described the video as misinforming, feeling it suggested moving a character around. She, and a number of other readers, felt "dio is more like a MUCK/MUD/MUSH with pictures than anything else." The idea of using dio to make a store for Second Life merchants she thought "would be one of the least effective uses of the platform," contrasting the "dynamic social experience" of the Bare Rose store to the "comparatively static spaces of dio." She felt dio was easy to use and had much potential, "but it's not the only option, nor is it the best tool for the job."

If you want to check out dio for  yourself (and yes, it really is spelled with a lower case 'd'), go to https://www.dio.com. One of the spaces there is a new rendidtion of a classic computer game from the late 70s, "Adventure the Colossal Cave." There's also a list of tutorial videos Here.

Sources: Linden Lab, Forbes, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Roadside Attractions: The Diners of Second Life, Part 2

Late last month, DrFran Babcock took a look at a few of Second Life's diners. Today, she's back with the second part of the record of her travels to see these tributes to these eateries of the 50s. Some are fairly new, others go back to the early days of the Grid. Some are just one of the attractions of their sim, others are the main attraction. But each has something to offer the sim-hopping traveller.

Read DrFran's story in Places.

New SL Viewer with Optional Basic Mode Launches After Eleven Days as Beta, Now Default Viewer For New Users

This week after a short tryout peroid, the new beta Version 2 viewer with an optional simpler basic mode was not only made official, it was made the default download for new users.

Since the initial launch last week, we’ve also deployed an additional beta version with fewer bugs and more stability and performance improvements. ... we are releasing the SL Viewer into general availability and it is now the default download for new users. A few new features that are included are the destinations guide which allows rapid access to selected areas around SL for new users by interest, the ability to change avatars quickly and “click to walk.” Just click on a point ahead of you and your avatar will automatically start walking there. Additionally, we encourage you to fill in your “Interests” in the Edit Profile tab of your Profile page. Eventually, you’ll see that we are going to do some fun things with Interests once more people fill them in. Keep in mind, that we’re just at the beginning of developing the Basic experience for new customers and that we will continue to improve it, and add features, as time goes on.


To me, the new viewer seems to have a rather rapid approval process. And I wasn’t alone. Tateru Nino on her blog stated it went from beta to official in eleven days, “Mind you, only seven of those eleven days were working days.” From alpha to beta was even faster, one day. She questioned if the Lindens actually took the time to listen to residents, pointing out that the new viewer “does not actually work – at least not from where I’m sitting. It’s the only viewer that Linden Lab has put out in my memory that fell at the starting gate.” She later stated she was messaged by Rod Humble himself, saying they were working on the problem, and it would be fixed soon.

Hamlet Au’s article reminded readers of the basic viewer’s “point and click” movement and “instant avatar selection” from a number of newbie avs. His attention was also drawn to the “Profile Completeness” progress bar, “To reach 100% completion in your Second Life profile, you have to add some interesting details: Specially, your Real Life Biography.” Hamlet Au called this a “necessary nudge” to make Second Life more appealing to the mass market, feeling “avatar-only identities have made Second Life niche.” Personally I disagree for a number of reasons, but this is for another column.

Much to my surprise, Hamlet Au personally showed me he’d been having troubles too with the new viewer. During the fundraiser for the Japanese Red Cross at Madpea, I teleported in to see how it was going. I soon noticed an Asian schoolgirl av appear next to me with an anime “meatball” hairdo. Then I saw the name: “she” was Hamlet! After both of us recovered from our mutual surprise at seeing each other like this, Hamlet told me while checking out the basic viewer, he had gotten stuck in the girl avie, and couldn’t change out of this embarrassing gender-bender that got chuckles from both the Madpea audience and competing online newspaper editor alike. It was an "only in Second Life" moment that I'll be thinking of for a while.

Checking the feedback on the forum, comments were mixed, probably mostly negative. One wondered if this was an attempt to keep griefers from making alt accounts too quickly. One of the minority who approved thought a newcomer could learn the basics of Second Life in ten minutes.

And for myself, like other versions of Viewer 2 in recent months, this won’t work for me at all. This made looking to see what others found my only source of information besides the official Linden statements.

Sources: Linden Blog, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Latest SL Beta Viewer has Basic and Advanced Modes

In the Linden blog entry on March 18, Rodvik Linden talked about Linden Lab making efforts in customer service, lag, and usability. The latter was the main point of the post:

Many of you have noted that Second Life is difficult to use, both for yourself and when inviting friends inworld. This usability issue is more complex than the user interface as it not only includes finding people and places, but it is also is dependent on some of the items above. We want to make an experience that helps you overcome some of the big usability hurdles that you’ve shared with me.

Today, we’re launching a new version of Second Life Viewer Beta which introduces two modes that are available to everyone who downloads it--Basic and Advanced.

Basic mode is an easier, simplified experience designed to introduce users to Second Life. It includes simple communication and navigation tools such as click to move and hold to move the camera, a choice of 24 pre-configured avatars, and an integrated Destination Guide to help you connect to friends and interesting places quickly and easily. Certain functionality, such as voice capability, building tools, and the ability to purchase virtual goods, is not available in Basic mode.

Advanced mode is for those already familiar with Second Life who use the full feature set of the SL Viewer.

There were numerous comments in the feedback forum. Among them was Shockwave Yareach, “Click to move comes right out of Blue Mars. I hated it then and I hate it now.” Opinion was mixed, some feeling it was useful for newcomers, others feeling it was flawed one way or another, or overall too stripped down.

Yours truly downloaded the beta viewer, but was unable to run it. Looking for reviews elsewhere, Daniel Voyager’s Blog had a Youtube of the Beta Viewer’s Basic Mode.



In “Dwell on It,” Tateru Nino wrote she liked it overall, though thought it was difficult to move around, “the click-to-move feature gets tangled up with the rest of the UI, causing a lot of unexpected frog-hopping, plus that feature’s tendency to jam the avatar through walls and other intervening obstacles.” Still, in her opinion it was good for someone coming to Second Life for the first time. But wrote that the idea that all that was needed to attract and retain newcomers was a better viewer was "dead wrong."

Hamlet Au in New World Notes commented on the feature in which one could change the avatar’s appearance in a single click, “This will likely change a new Second Life user's understanding of an SL avatar, making it seem less like a concrete persona that represents important aspects of your real life self or personality. (Which is how most long-term Second Life users see their avatar.)” He saw a resemblance to “The Sims,” which Rod Humble worked on before coming to Linden Lab, “So it's a very significant change. And, in my opinion, a good one: The Sims franchise is many times larger than Second Life ... But as The Sims begins to show its age, it's a safe bet than some Sims fans will look to a revived SL to take their imagination to another level.”

At the end, Hamlet joked one might expect to find new residents from “The Sims” to ask where the bathroom was.

Sources: Linden Blog, Daniel Voyager's Blog, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: the SL Web Viewer Beta

After being talked about for some time, Kim Linden announced Linden Labs had made a limited release of their web-based viewer.

Yesterday, we quietly launched a beta test of a new technology that opens up Second Life to new users like never before: Second Life on the Web! The SL Web Viewer allows new users to become Second Life “guests” through the Web and enjoy basic SL functionality while exploring exciting destinations in Second Life -- all without downloading a Viewer.

Linden Labs is asking residents to test their viewer. However, not everyone who tries will get the chance. Residents are asked to click on http://interest.secondlife.com/beta , where they sit through a video lasting a bit less than a minutes, and then are given either an “Explore Now” button, which means they can proceed, or a “Join now” button, which means they can’t. I myself tried several times with no luck. Those who are successful can create a temporary guest account to use the viewer.

Wallace Linden stated, “The test won't be available to everyone, based on a number of variables, including bandwidth, system setup details, and other factors. I don't think cookies or repeated logins will make a difference. I don't have more information that that at the moment, though.”

In the comments below, most residents, at least those who could get in, were pleased with the viewer. Inksky Jedburg has one of the more detailed comments, “The first thing I noted was how very simplified the viewer was, obviously not going to be a tool for builders and creators, but rather a tool for socializing (on a limited scale compared to the SL viewer), and exploring. I could not go into mouselook to look up and down from my POV, though camera controls were available as was ‘camming.’ The beta only allows you to go to a select few locations, less than 100 I believe, and I understand having it that way for the beta. Though textures were gray for a while, what struck me was how smooth movement was. As I thought of first time user experience, the dumbed down controls like sound on/off, pick from a palette of locations to visit, and a palette of available avatars, and a very basic help window describing around a dozen available functions, seemed to be very complimentary controls for someone visiting for the first time, or even coming in on business for the first time. Simple and stupid, and yet showing SL as it mostly is seen on the viewer (minus windlight!). “

Inksky was “favorably impressed” with the viewer, “I think it has potential to be much better, and I believe it could be a major win if developed with greater care than LL has given past developments. So please, proceed with caution LL and use some common sense to make this extremely useful development pay off.”

New World Notes also has an article on the Web Viewer Beta, which included a review by Alicia Chenaux, and a video from Metaverse TV.



Vryl Valkyrie also has a few pictures of her experiences of the Web Viewer in her Flicker account.