Sansar Update: A New Direction, Torley, And Account Issues

For years, Linden Lab had been trying to make it's "next generation virtual world" of Sansar a success. But it only attracted a tiny number of regular users. So earlier this year they sold it to Wookey Productions. So how is the world doing? It's still around, with a few from Linden Lab still there such as Torley. And it's found a new path, with an emphasis on being a place for live events. But as one former Newser writer discovered, there are still some customer service issues.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

"A Message from our CEO: Coronavirus and Second Life Operations"

With the Coronovirus continuing to spread and make news, Ebbe Altberg/Ebbe Linden issued a statement yesterday on the issue. It was to state that measures were being taken to ensure the crisis would not disrupt service, and asking them to show patience, and welcome, to new and returning residents.

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As concerns about the current coronavirus outbreak continue, we want to assure the community that we have taken steps to ensure that the Second Life operations stay steady while also helping our employees stay safe through this public health crisis. Our hearts and thoughts go out to those who have been affected by this unprecedented event. 

Second Life will continue to be available without interruption as we get through this tough time together. Due to our previous crisis contingency planning and the flexible nature of our distributed workforce, we are not expecting any changes to response times for support inquiries and payment processing. 

We know that Second Life serves a great purpose for our community as people seek ways to stay in touch with their friends and co-workers, as they grapple with new social distancing protocols, mandated remote work requirements, and other precautionary measures. 

With the closure of many universities and displaced conferences and events, Second Life also continues to be an option for disrupted organizations looking for new remote work, classroom or event solutions. To help, we recently implemented a reduction in pricing to a flat $99/month per region for qualified education and nonprofit organizations.

We are seeing an increase in new registrations and returning residents during this outbreak. Please be kind and welcoming to those who may just need a friendly conversation to escape from this crazy world for a moment or more. If you have a friend or colleague who is looking for a safe place to socialize online during these tough times, we encourage you to help them discover how Second Life can enable them to feel less isolated by connecting them to your favorite communities or experiences.

Like many companies across the globe, we’ve put into action new remote work policies for our employees to ensure that they can take care of themselves and their families while continuing to work from home. Prior to this incident, a large percentage of our company was already working from the “Moonlab” (that’s what we call remote employees’ locations), so we have been able to transition quickly and efficiently to a fully remote setup. 

For the past 17 years, Second Life has been a special place that brings people across the world together -- and we appreciate your trust and support as we get through this rough time together.

Ebbe and all the Lindens

The Sim The Lab Wouldn't Close

Lately it seems a number of sims have been on the chopping block, sometimes threatened due to a bureaucratic glitch despite years of steady payments. So one would think if someone actually wanted their sim closed, Linden Lab would have it done quickly. In the case of MIC Island, that wasn't the case. Despite the owner telling them to take it down as she couldn't keep up the payments, the lab kept up the sim, and continued to bill her.

Read more in Extra.

Grendel's Children Saved From Shutdown

This week, Grendel's Children, a well-known avatar and accessory store, came close to being shut down due to Paypal, and then Linden Lab, bureaucratic stubornness over technical details.

When I asked Toady Nakamura, one of the co-owners of the place, about the problem, she answered, "we seemed to have fixed it. Some snafu in the billing caused the Lindens to lock Flea (Bussy) out right after the holiday weekend, and it took a few days to sort it out. ... today (at) 9:35 am, they let Flea back in.  It was kinda Miracle on Avaria Street, all our old friends and customers came out of the woodwork and between the good energy and their shopping energy, they helped us get around the PayPal/Linden snafu. So (it) was very scary for a while, because they really weren't listening. And even today 'when the fix was in,' it still took 3 calls to get thru to someone down there who had read the memo."

Toady went on, "Ah yes, Paypal (not known to us) decided that all accounts must be VERIFIED. That means something like cellphone or chargecard. Well, (Flea) doesn't have cellphone and the chargecard had rolled over with new expiration date. And kaboom, no good says Paypal, (and the) Lindens go 'no good' and lock him out. So he couldn't get to his linden balance to pay. (It) was annoying, catch 22 and a half,  subsection (really annoying 1.34.c)."

"So finally this morning it all got straightened out, but only after SEVERAL people had run it all up the flag pole and back down. ... We were a couple hours from losing the sims. It was a bit of an overreaction. We wouldn't have raised holy hell without it being so close. It's always around holidays that their billing department goes kukaburra. They did similar to me around Memorial Day 2014. My credit card did same thing, rolled over, new expiration date. And they wouldn't take my premium membership and the letter I got was all full of threats. ... Which was amazing stupid cuz not one week before they'd told me to send in copy of my drivers license and utility bills (which I did) for 'personal verification' and during that time they also threatened to close my account if I didn't comply. So two times in less than 30 days. Their problem solving department was apparently trained by 500-lb canaries."

"The Lab wouldn't listen to you?" I asked. Today answered, "I sent in all my stuff initially, but it wasn't good enough, driver's license and utility bill showing HOME address. They wanted (a) cellphone.  I don't have one. So I was being threatened for verification of something I don't have. And no they didn't listen very well. Ifilled out ticket after ticket and finally one of them was read well enough for comprehension to trickle down. I told them I'd be delighted to get cellphone, but they'd have to pay for it. Then I'd be so happy to give them the # for their files. They stopped being so demanding."

"This time, the Lab listened to a LOT of people freaking out all at one time.  I don't know if they'd have listened to us individually, but I would hope they would have."

"So what happens now?" I asked. Toady answered, "We have to straighten out the Paypal problem. But we have some time now... Hopefully Lindens take look at system that makes 9 year paying customers feel like they went in and out of SingSing. Not nice. But I can't tell them what to do, I can only hold up my end and wish they'd play nicer." She commented of Linden Lab's behavior, " 'plays well with others,' D- this week. 'Takes care of pets and toys,' F. 'Runs with scissors in stairways' (PLEASE!!)."

Toady called the effort by others to prove their worth to Linden Lab a "miracle," "Our customers and old friends, and people we never met before got enough $L in our accounts by buying things to render the PayPal snafu moot for now.  That's miraculous, and MUCHLY appreciated. A total wonderful flock of angels descended on our store and literally saved us. And PS, I never got so much $L in so short a time, even in the old days when sales were wonderful."

Toady had been one of the volunteers at the Second Life Birthday celebration, the builder of their live music stage, and was in the process of dismantling it as the cash flow came in, "I was taking down the birthday sim, prim by prim, set by set. And almost as I was taking prims, the balance of $ was going up up up, inverse, was utterly amazing."

Toady added, "And you could also thank the Lindens who were contacted. I don't know their names, but I know some of the people that heard about this contacted them. One twittered the CEO, others got strings pulled somehow so he didn't have to go thru the 'outsourced billing department' but got bounced 'up into Linden billing,' whatever that difference is. Again I don't know, but those were things we were told to tell him ... when he calls, insist to be transferred to 'Linden billing.' It's just a paperwork/computer problem that got really way too big, and way too out of hand."

Toady stated, "And if I had one wish in all this, is the Lindens would have some sort of algorithm for their customers. Anyone paying for one or two sims for 9 years is not your enemy. They don't deserve to be treated badly. So like have some account history for these poor people in billing. 'Oh gee, 9 years, at least two sims, maybe I should take that into account and skip the threats,' ... yanno really, they should just skip the threats, no matter how long someone been (a) customer. In truth, today's 1 month old sim owner who is late for snafu is just as important as 9 year old member, yanno?"

Toady did say that she wasn't bitter toward the Lab, "I am really grateful that the Lindens did listen, cuz the alternative would be watching 1600 of Flea's avatars disappear totally, plus all his other zany stuff. ... Just today one linden said they remember getting our 'new Linden gift pack' in 2007(?) or 6, and still having all the contents. You know Flea has two avatars in your library? (The) Box Bot (which the Lindens use in their premium adverts), and Fae Dragon ... You have Library > Clothing > Box bot, 'cardboard box bot' and 'dragonlet.' "

Today went on, "Back in the ooooold days, they flew Flea out to San Francisco to receive a Linden award, in 2006, and Philip said 'As goes Grendel's so goes the grid.' I then brought up a few years ago the quote had been used when Grendel's had some trouble. "We had four sims," Toady answered, "two of them went utterly wonky and we couldn't get customer service at all. So Flea sold them. THEN we got customer service for a while. Apparently there was a LOT of press."

Toady would then show me around Grendel's hidden areas, in addition to the roleplay area beneath the store. It was a reminder a lot more would have been lost than just a store had this bureaucratic snafu not been broken.

Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: The SS Galaxy's Closing

By Bixyl Shuftan

For nearly eight years, the SS Galaxy stood as an example of what could be done with Second Life. Spanning three sims, it was a full scale replica of a cruise ship with shops, pools, dancing hall, etc. and with a staff on board, it provided a cruise ship experience for those who rented a cabin. Now after all those years, it's gone.

It's been a while since a location with this kind of stature closed down. One place dear to a number of longtime residents was Greenies. Built by the group Rezzable, it gave residents a mouse-sized perspective of a huge family room and kitchen, alongside tiny green aliens. Rezzable would build a number of other sims, including Greenies spinoffs, but their giant rooms, called Greenies Home, remained the most popular. But in 2009, they announced they would be withdrawing most of their sims from Second Life, and soon only Greenies Home was left. Then in June 2010, it was announced their classic build would be leaving Second Life as well. A few people wondered if Rezzible didn't know how to budget money, keeping fewer sims up for a longer time. But the timing of the annoucement just days after Linden Lab laid off a third of it's staff sounded less like a coincidence to some and more like a lack of confidence in Linden Lab.

There was the Globe Theater which held a number of plays by Shakespeare. The reason this place closed was partially due to the discontinuing of the nonprofit discount for tiers. While one Linden was willing to talk about preserving the location, the Lab dismissed her, and the Globe's owner couldn't work with her replacement. And so she announced that the place would soon be closing. And so the Globe, along with a number of other nonprofit sims would be closed before Linden Lab finally reversed it's decision to end tier discounts for them. A number of residents grumbled they could only see greed as the reason the Lab had for ending it to begin with.

In the case of the SS Galaxy, they never had a nonprofit discount. And Director DBDigital Epsilon stated finances weren't a factor in the ship's closing, so apparenly their money situation has remained solid over time. So apparently they continued on smoothly, until hit with a series of severe griefing attacks. At least one of the attacks involved actual dammage to the structure. Exactly how they were able to manipulate the prims is unknown, possibly some kind of hacking. But for whatever reason, Linden Lab told them they would be getting one rollback and no more, and could not guarantee the attacks would stop.

Over a year ago, the Newser reported on the plight of the Junkyard Blues Club, which was hit by "sim crasher" attacks again and again, the griefers telling them they would keep on until paid off with money. The Lab wasn't much help. It resorted crashed sims, but that was all, the same avatars whom they filed reports against back within hours. Faced with the barrage, Junkyard Blues chose to limit access to group members, aside from a small area that anyone could go to and request a group tag from volunteers after being checked. It cut back on traffic, and revenue, but with the Lab's limited help they decided it was the only thing they could do if they wanted to keep off the griefers and keep the sims up, at least until they felt the heat was off.

Could the SS Galaxy have tried a similar "hunker down" stragegy, limiting access to those not in the group to the dock the ship was next to? What options the ship's owner considered is unknown, but in the end it was decided the ship could no longer provide the experience it had to the public. And so, on May 3 it was closed and offlined the following day. Second Life's largest build was gone.

One person I talked to felt the Galaxy could have done better. Ultimately it's the sim owner's responsibility to look after his/her sim, she told me, and making it accessible to the public means having to prepare for what could happen. But most of the blame fell on Linden Lab. How could they just let such a grand build of such a longtime customer fade away? Some residents commented that they didn't think the Lab even cared, perhaps not caring enough about it's product to know the ship existed.

Among the comments on Facebook was that of Luskwood founder Michi Lumin: "Linden Lab's biggest thing lately seems to be 'hands off' and no governance involvement. I've said for a long time that LL seems to, when presented with the blue pill or the red pill, somehow they seem to manage to find a third poison pill, and take that one instead. ... As far as the rollbacks go, LL has been trying to apparently 'cut customer service costs.' (Who would have known they had many.) - they basically don't want people requesting a rollback a day. 'One ever, zero tolerance' is the kind of overextreme ridiculousness that I'd expect from today's LL, unfortunately, though. They could just say 'well, rollbacks are hard for us to do, and we don't want to make them a common thing, so please be judicious when you ask for one' -- but they don't do that. I get their point, but they've again, between the good and bad way of handling something, found the *worst* way to handle it. I think it's ingrained in the culture, in the corporate cycle. I think some lindens 'on the ground' know this, (what few are left who interact with the community) ... but if you even look on glassdoor.com, the issue really seems to rely in the corporate vacuum of management, which probably doesn't even know what 'rez' means."

But it wasn't just Linden Lab that was the problem here. There were of course the griefers, "Griefing is a big problem," Michi went on, "not just in SL, but the uprise of 'active sociopathy for entertainment' on the Internet is becoming a larger issue. Especially in the last few years as it has gained its own sort of culture, justifications, and communities dedicated to it." She compared it to "swatting," in which someone makes a hoax call to the police to get them to raid someone's house, "a certain type of person will feel that it's OK to think that such things are hilarious. If this sort of 'lulz culture' was nipped in the bud years ago when it was starting in SL, we wouldn't have the sort of prevalence-without-acknowledgement that we have now."

In conversation, Relay for Life DJ Madonna Daehlie (madonna.milena) felt similar, "What in the hell is wrong with people? I'm not sure I've ever been to the Galaxy. I don't do the ritzier places much anymore. But that was years of people's work, and God knows how many thousands of dollars. And some people felt entitled to go and trash that. ... I have, throughout my life, encountered far too many people who just voluntarily turn off their brains. They clearly have brains. They work right. They just are more than happy to throw the transmission into neutral and not think. And, sadly, a growing number of them who think things like morals and compassion and decency are signs of  'weakness.' "

For the owners of locations of which public access is key, the downfall of the SS Galaxy is a clear warning, Linden Lab cannot be counted on to bail them out if they're ever in the crosshairs of a persistent griefer assault. So if the Lab won't help someone under assault by these virtual malcontents, what then? There is the option of calling a neighborhood watch group with access to anti-griefng tools, such as the Green Lanterns. There is the "hunker down" strategy, turning off public access until one is sure the griefers have given up. There is also the option of limiting what access the public has to a space, such as turning off scripts, though there is still the danger of hacking.

One side affect is some people will probably be more inclined to be wary of those they consider strange and unfamiliar. For instance one owner of a venue aimed at a Furry clientele was inclined to keep a careful watch on any normal human avatars entering the place unless they were with someone he knew. And for newcomers, already a few places won't allow a new avatar to enter. The number of such locations may grow, making the experience of a newcomer already frustrated by trying to learn how to go about life on the Grid even more frustrating. Not good news for Linden Lab, which has always been trying to get new people to get on Second Life.

And then there is how Linden Lab itself is regarded. Since Ebbe Linden came in as CEO, Linden Lab has regained much of the public's goodwill that it had lost over time. Now once again, the Lab is looking more like the incompetent, uncaring, beast residents branded it in the past. Their decision not to help the SS Galaxy will haunt them as people make the decision whether or not to get new sims, and take a chance with the upcoming Next Generation Grid, "You've already proven you don't give a rats patootie about people in one virtual world. What makes you think we'll believe you're any different in another?"

*Addition* One week after this was written, it was announced that Linden Lab was assuming ownership of the ship in prepatation to reopening it. But there were no plans for further events or cabin rentals.

Bixyl Shuftan