Caledon Downsizing A Few Sims

 

Last week, it was announced that the Caledon community would be giving up a few of it's sims soon. So why is the place getting smaller? Yours truly asked it's leader Desmond Shang a few questions, and he had a few answers as to what's going on and why.

 

Read the story in Places. 

 

Noted Avatar Store “Grendel’s Children” Turns Five, Cuts Four-Sim Area to Two

One of the more noted avatar stores in Second Life is “Grendel’s Children. The venue is well known for it’s selection of avatars and other goods at cheaper than usual prices. Some of the items have been discounted to near-free or freebies. One can come here and get a number of avies. Quoting Tateru Nino’s article in Massively:


There are things on sale here from Thrulls and Liches to Medusae and genetic horrors - and things I don't even know enough about to name. ... There are dragons, gryphons, drakes, spiders, scorpions, birds (legendary, mundane, gigantic, or plush), necromancers, shadow-mancers, plague monks, incubi, succubi, assorted demons and devils, trolls, fae, angels, imps (elemental, and paralegal), treants (all seasons), dryads, myconids, chelonians, molluscs, a certain famous yellow submarine, mermaids, goldfish, therapods, dinosaurs and mammoths, aliens, and Lord only knows what else. Lots and lots of what else.


The store was just part of the fun in the region. Below Grendel’s were four sims: Avaria, Avaria Tor (directly under the store), Avaria Kro, and Avaria Sav. There, residents could engage in roleplay (including some dinosaur RP that I witnessed). They could play games such as “Grungeboarding,” and a resource-gathering game Xymbers Slade showed me that the HUD would take materials gathered and would make them in to various processed goods and clothing. And of course they could explore the various caves and other hiding places.

Grendel’s has been around since 2006, and has its fifth anniversary today. Sept 1, 2006 was the date of the store’s founding. But unfortunately, Grendel’s fans have less to celebrate. The region is half what it used to be.

Prim Perfect reported on August 29th that two of the sims, Avaria Kro and Avaria Sav were sold. A look at the map shows them still there, but offline. Inworld, they are nowhere to be seen.Grendel’s made more than enough for the $14,400 they paid Linden Lab every year. Unfortunately, according to Grendels’ team, the Lab hasn’t been providing the technical support they paid for.


“I can get spam from Cafe Press, but no answers from Linden Lab,” says Flea Bussy, the leader janitor of Grendel’s (and owner of the Avarian sims) wearily. There is no response to his tickets, and having been told “we’ll call you back” by concierge, there are no replies. “They don’t care.” After years of patience with Linden Lab, Flea is disappointed in the failure of the Lab to support what is a thriving business in one of the most important areas of the grid – the development of amazing content. “We took this problem all the way to the CEO,” says Toady, “and it was fixed for 3 days. Then it broke again. We can’t keep going to the top for routine things like ‘we cannot move in our sim’.”


Saddia Widdershins quoted Philip Linden, meeting with Second Life content creators, as saying, “As goes Grendel’s, so goes the Grid.” Of half of Grendel’s now sold because of lack of support from Linden Lab, “what does that say about the Grid?”

At a time when a number of sims have been up for sale or vanishing, it’s a question that more residents are likely to be asking.

The Grendel's website is at http://grendelschildren.net/

Sources: Prim Perfect, New World Notes, Tateru Nino

Bixyl Shuftan

“Restructuring” of Linden Labs to Result in 30% Layoffs

In the Linden Blog, M Linden announced there would be “the undertaking of a significant restructuring of Linden Lab.”

Though the company remains in a solid financial position, it has become clear that we need to make some hard decisions in order to bring current and future Residents the kind of product and experience we feel they deserve. After three years of intensive hiring, we've come to a place where it's important that we reorganize our teams and find a renewed level of discipline and momentum as we move forward.

The press release linked to the blog mentioned “the company aims to create a browser-based virtual world experience, eliminating the need to download software.” And “Linden Lab will look to extend the Second Life experience into popular social networks.” Then there was this ominous statement: “The software development teams will be consolidated in North America and customer support will be reconfigured to provide more scalable services. As a result, Linden Lab anticipates staff reductions of approximately 30 percent.”

Almost a third of Linden Labs’ staff will be gone.

In the Linden Blog Discussion threads was “Bidding Farewell to Many Lindens, “ some of the Linden team being let go were disclosed and discussed. The popular Blue Linden was apparently on the list, as residents were unable to find him in search. People expressed sadness for the Lindens let go. As people usually complain about Linden doings, seeing people shedding tears for a group of Lindens was an unusual sight. More than one commented along the lines of “the nice ones were let go.” One resident apologized for her criticism of Pink Linden for not answering her as she was apparently among those let go.

Another posted the following:


I've been physically sick to my stomach all day. I've had the benefit of meeting a great many Lindens inworld - and in First Life - over the last four years. It started back in 2007, just trying to get a straight answer on some of the kid policies, and eventually turned into a number of friendships.

The three losses that hurt me the most are Blue, Mia, and Teagan.

Mia was the first I ever met, in RL. Always a sweetheart to me. She'd give me Linden Bears hot off the press. She worked with the mentors and volunteers, and would put together fun inworld events for the holidays. If you did the egg hunt, the valentines heart hunt in 2009, the halloween event, or some of the others - that was Mia.

Blue sent me and a handful of others to the cornfield once, for fun. Always listened, always cared. Did a mean pole dance in Rouge one night, which was one of the more hilarious things you'd ever want to see (consider the avatar he wore). Always was with us Residents, in many cases literally. He was the sort of guy who would attend Resident events.

Teagan took me to jail in RL one day, sightseeing in SF. In the wake of all the drama over child avatars at SL5B, she showed up as in a chibi kid avvie at SL5B *and* over at Kids5B. "Hired" me to shoot her pics for SL6B, and wore a shirt I created ("Philip Linden Has a Posse") as part of her usual inworld uniform.

All of them respected me as a Resident, and looked beyond the avatar choice.

It's a sad day. I'm not going to say "this is the end of SL," but it's certainly the end of the SL I've known.


How M Linden’s “restructuring” will affect the confidence of the general resident population, and their willingness to put their real-life money into the Metaverse, remains to be seen.

Sources: Second Life Blogs, PR Newswire,

Bixyl Shuftan