Copperfield Heights Linden Home Area Adds More Sims

 

 The Copperfield Heights homes that first became available to the residents a week ago and had more available a few days later, have continued to grow in numbers. They have gone from 27 sims to 44. Many have amusing names such as Spit Take and Trollbridge. The Winter look the first ones had is now gone, the snow melted and replaced with greenery. 

 

Demand for the homes seems to have been outstripping supply, at least early in the week. On Tuesday evening when I dropped by, I noticed several sins on the west were empty of people and people were gathered at the edge on the other side of the boundary. Going over, I found those sims were closed to regular residents. In Bellisseria chat, a Linden stated they wouldn't be open until later. And this left the residents grumbling a little, the ones near me frustrated with unoccupied new Linden Homes so tantalizingly close, but out of reach until presumably some unknown time tomorrow, with no guarantee by the time they logged on any would be available. 

 

With this kind of demand, there will likely be more Copperfield Heights sims later on. There is plenty of room to the west for further expansion.  How soon is not known.

 

Stay tuned for details.

 

Bixyl Shufan

 

SL Video (Science Circle) : "Rob Knop - Discrepancies in the Measured Expansion Rate of the Universe "

 

 (click here if the video does not play)

 

 From the Science Circle on Feb 2018, "Rob Knop presents 'Discrepancies in the Measured Expansion Rate of the Universe'"

 

 

EOTB: Community Exhibition Update

 

 Earlier this week, Linden Lab announced there had been an expansion in the number of communities listed at the Community Exhibition at the WelcomeHub sim. Ten more have been added, doubling the number featured.

On May 1st we expanded the SLCE with the addition of 10 new exhibits, bringing more diversity and creativity to the showcase. This second phase not only enriches our current offerings but also introduces five larger parcels, designed to provide more space and opportunities for immersive experiences.

The new communities, and groups, are Baunatal German Community, Islands of New England, The Nature Collective, FOCUS Art Magazine and Gallerie, The Teegle Equestrian Communit, Leeward Cruising Club, Premier Wrestling, The Lighthouse: Support & Meeting, Virtual Worlds Education Consortium, and American Cancer Societ. 

 

The Community Exhibition was added in January 30 as a way for different communities in Second Life to describe themselves to newcomers at the WelcomeHub sim, and possibly get them to join.

 

For the blog post in full, Click Here. 

 

Expansion of Mediterranean Linden Home Area In Bellisseria

 

 

 In December, Linden Lab unveiled it's next line of Linden Homes for Premium-Plus accounts: the Mediterranean. With this announcement, some land with the homes was opened just offshore north of the  Bellisseria landmass just west of the Sakura homes. This month, the area of sims has been expanded. This included two connections, one of which was linked by a bridge. 

The bridge is in the Goodge Reef sim (no sign of anyone named Charlie Brown). One could walk or drive across the bridge. But there's also a cannon at both ends. One can get in, and with a press of the button, fly into the air, and go splat onto the beach at the other side. 

Premium-Plus residents are no doubt happy to hear about the new homes available to move in, as well as fans of Bellisseria who are pleased to have more land to explore. 

 

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

 

Linden Lab Hiring Senior Product Manager, Says Job Will Impact "Millions of Customers' Lives"

 

 Linden Lab currently has several job openings, including one of which one sentence has sparked a little speculation on the company's future plans.

Among the current positions the Lab is looking to fill is Senior Product Manager. This is a position in which one can work remotely from one of fifteen US states. 

Role Overview

We’re looking for a Senior Product Manager (remote) to elevate multiple facets of our Second Life product. This person would also enable growth and scale by shipping features that improve our customer experience. This role reports to the VP, Product. You will have a direct impact on solutions that help us attract users, enhance engagement and drive retention. This is a great opportunity for a thought leader with strong technical acumen, exceptional communication skills, and thoughtful execution.

 

What We’ll Offer You

The stability of an established company with new startup momentum. An unparalleled opportunity to create  relationships, systems, strategies, and culture. An environment where your voice will be heard and your impact deeply felt. A sense of belonging where your work is appreciated and rewarded. 

As a Senior Product Manager, you’ll utilize in-depth product knowledge to successfully drive key projects on Second Life. You’ll work alongside a supportive team of people across engineering, design, QA, and other cross-functional teams to build products and new experiences and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the original metaverse. And finally, the pleasure of seeing your solutions ship, scale, and make a measurable impact on millions of customers' lives across the globe.

*  *  *  *  *

 

"Millions of customers' lives." That's quite a comment, considering it's active userbase even if counting those who log on just once every month is just a bit more than half a million. Perhaps it's boasting. But in New World Notes, Hamlet Au suggested the words might reflect the Lab's hopes of how the upcoming Second Life mobile app will expand the virtual world's userbase. He stated that IMVU and Roblox experienced huge growth after they came up with mobile apps that allowed users to access their platforms from smaller devices and not just computers, in the case of IMVU expanding to seven million who log on at least once a month. Roblox tripled it's userbase from 14 to 43 million. While a place mostly for kids, two-thirds of it's userbase under 16, still numbers not to ignore.

With these numbers in mind, the Lab has reasons for optimism that when the mobile app is finally out, Second Life's numbers will experience similar growth. Time will tell.

For a list of Linden Lab's current job openings, some remote, some at it's San Francisco office, Click Here.

Source: New World Notes, backlinko.com

Bixyl Shuftan,

Bellisseria Newbrooke Area Expansion

 

With attention on the latest brand of Linden Homes, the Sakura, the Lindens haven't stopped work on the previous ones, the Newbrooke. We last wrote about them a couple months ago when they opened. Taking a look at the map, the area has been expanded (area circled in red on the map).

When work started on most of these homes is unknown, but looking around the majority in the completed areas have yet to be occupied. Some in a belt extending to the west are still marked SSP and still under construction. I found some in the middle still being worked on. I found Abnor Mole, and other Moles, busy at work, laying roads and foundations. 

Of the belt of SSP sims, most had one thing in common: railroad tracks.  From SSP Queeg in the east, tracks went from the developed sim of Lavon to the south to SSPPierless, then west , passing a rail station in SSPDrama Llama (bad omen for the rail workers), going all the way to SSPThimble Shoal Farms to the west. The tracks came to a stop only past the edge of the sims, a hint there's expansion to the west planned for the future.

Linking the roads and rail lines in these new sims to that of the Chalet Linden Home sims to the south, I found a couple bridge tunnels. Both start in the Lost Creek sim and are somewhat close to one another. The rail tunnel goes to the track in Lavon. The road tunnel goes to a lane in Muhavara. There may be more tunnels sometime in the future. 

With the Second Life Birthday just a month away, it's fair to say the Moles will be quite busy in the month ahead. In the meantime, feel free to drop by and explore.

(Addition, I goofed on the map a little, and moved the red line to cover more sims that weren't around in March)

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Of Facebook The Corporation Changing It's Name

 
On October 28, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook the corporation, announced it was changing it's name to "Meta."

"We're now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments, one for our family of apps, and one for our work on future platforms. And as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do, to reflect who we are and what we hope to build."

Besides having several social medias under it, including What'sApp, Instagram, and Facebook, Zuckerberg has plans to build the "Metaverse." This would be a huge virtual world, “We believe the metaverse will be the successor of the mobile internet. We’ll be able to feel present – like we’re right there with people no matter how far apart we actually are.”

The move comes after the company has faced a string of bad publicity from it's platforms going down for hours twice in one week to accusations it ignored findings that it's products were not good for the mental health of teenagers and that it wasn't doing enough to stop the spread of disinformation. So naturally there are criticisms that the move is to distract people from the incidents. There were also charges that the company planed to expand to the point of hiring tens of thousands of workers while ignoring it's problems "just goes to show how out of touch Facebook is with real people.” And of course came concerns that Facebook had it's sights on new territory to monopolize and become even more powerful.

Besides criticism, the move was also mocked on social media. "I meta girl in high school," joked one man. In Israel there were snickers as the term "meta" means "dead" in Hebrew.  One Reuters writer reminded that a few years ago Google's corporation changed it's name to Alphabet, but people still call both the search engine and it's company Google.

Finally there was one detail pointed out by Daniel Voyager. The term "Second Life" was trending on Twitter searches "Probably for the first time." He reasoned that Zuckerberg's move was drawing comparisons to the virtual world that was already around, and expressed hope that the extra attention would result in a few more people becoming residents.

It's hard to say how successful Facebook's effort into virtual reality will be. Two years ago, they announced their upcoming virtual world "Horizons," and the platform has yet to fully open. It was also joked about as the avatars were legless, people going about as floating in the air with nothing showing below the waist.

Sources, BBC, CNN, Reuters, ZDnet, The Guardian, Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan
 

More Landmass Next to Bellisseria

When we last checked on Bellisseria about two weeks ago, over a dozen sims had been added to the north of the 21 added in February. In the past few days however, a few more scattered sims were added to the east, which yesterday became a huge land area worthy of being called another continent.

The huge new area is currently inaccessible. But the sims just off Bellisseria are continuing to be developed, with Victorian style Linden Homes, streets, and special places such as designated "Party Area"s.

What the new land mass will contain, we can only speculate. But it's looking like Bellisseria may soon no longer be called the "new continent."

Bixyl Shuftan

Bellisseria Update

The new continent of Bellisseria recently saw another expansion of it's land size. Over a dozen more sims were recently added to the area west of it's midsection, or what in development was called the "boot" by the Moles.

In the southernmost sims of the new land, already new Linden Homes are being set up, though not yet ready for use.

Of some of the nearby sims, names such as "Fraid Not," "Effing Parade," and "Oh Cay" seem to be examples of the humor of whomever is naming the sims.

In the meantime, more activities are occurring on the new continent. Stay tuned for an article on another of one of it's events.

Bellisseria Expansion Continues

 On December 27, the Newser reported that the originally planned area for Bellisseria had been completed, plus some additional land to the south. But a look at the map shows the continent is still expanding in size. There was a small island about nine sims in size just under the front of the "boot," plus a twenty-one sim section of land that will still be growing to the north, east, and south. So there will soon be more Linden Homes available for Premium residents.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

Bellisseria Land Expansion To South

It's been a few months since we last talked about new areas in the Bellisseria continent. When I last dropped by in very early December, I hadn't noticed any major changes. But it seems since then, the Moles have been very busy.

The land that was originally planned for the south has finally been filled in. But the terraforming didn't stop there. The Moles made a huge extension to the south, dividing it from the north and central lands with a river. When the first land of the new continent was placed, while it was enabled to sail from the continent of Jeogeot to the south to it, it took a lot of ocean. Now just a couple sims separate the two continents.

Besides the continental expansion, a number of islands have also been placed. Some of these are for houseboats, including another "pickle" island. And there are various smaller islands which were placed for scenery.

Looking around, the new land not only had houses and houseboats, but some already had people inside. Looks like at least some of this new area has already been open for Premium residents to grab.

So what's next for Bellisseria? Hard to say. The Lab could easily make a new continent and/or houseboat islands to it's east. But the area has already attracted a number of residents whom have been banding together into a community. The new continent has been Linden Lab's biggest success this year. What they'll try for 2020, it'll be interesting to see.

Bixyl Shuftan

The "Happy Vixen" Beach Club Expands It's Hours

Good news for Europeans in the Sunweaver and Angel communities, and friends of. The Happy Vixen Beach club is expanding it's times to include two events during the week in the morning, as well as having it's Sunday party on a regular basis.

DJ Chemic was interested in DJing at the club, and talking to owner Nydia Tungsten, she explained she was available at certain times early in the day. Nydia had been thinking of expanding the club's hours, but needed a DJ for the job. DJ Chemic turned out to be that DJ.

The club will now be having events on Wednesdays and Fridays, from 10AM to Noon SL time. Also, the Sunday beach party from Noon to 2PM SL time, once an occasional event, will become a weekly one.

The Happy Vixen is at Purrfection Estates (236, 219, 24)  

World of Warcraft's Next Expansion Announced As Subscriptions Drop to Nine Year Low

The latest expansion of the most popular of Massive Multiplayer Online games was announced late last week. World of Warcraft's next chapter will be called "Legion," the name coming from the return of one of Azeroth's enemies: The Burning Legion. With details such as a new hero class, the Demon Hunter, the game is getting some discussion among WoW fans. But the announcement came soon after some disappointing news about it's subscription numbers.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

Blizzard Apologizes For "Warlords of Draenor" Launch Problems, Gives Free Time to Subscribers

By Bixyl Shuftan

When Blizzard released "World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor,"the latest expansion for the worlds most popular Multiplayer Online RolePlaying game, about a week ago on Thursday November 13, they ran into trouble. Besides so many players trying to get on at once, they were hit with a huge Denial of Service attack. The result was players often having to wait in long queues to play.

It was yesterday November 18 in which Executive Producer Allen Brack offered an official statement about the troubles.

I know how much everyone was looking forward to this expansion ... all the comments I've seen indicate that this is one of our best yet. But the quality of the content does not excuse the subpar launch experience we delivered, and I apologize for that. The first two days of the expansion were not a great experience, with many of you facing high queues or significant gameplay problems. We worked around the clock to tackle the demand issues and technical challenges, and fortunately things started looking better on Saturday. While millions of you were able to get in and play over the weekend ... others still ran into very lengthy queues, particularly on the highest-population realms.

Brack stated Blizzard was expanding server capacity, "which should greatly reduce queue times for most realms if not eliminate queues altogether." They were also giving it's players some additional time free of charge.

In recognition of the difficulties so many of you ran into when trying to play over the first few days, we're adding five days’ worth of extra time to every subscription in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe that was active as of Friday, November 14.

Brack also offered his thanks to the devoted core of Warcraft fans whom have stuck with the game.

I also hope you'll accept my apology and keep your faith in us. The support voiced by many of you as we worked through the challenges was immensely appreciated. We're extremely grateful to be part of such a passionate community. We love World of Warcraft, and we're very proud of this expansion, so stumbling out of the gates like this was very disappointing for all of us.

Over fifty pages of replies followed the announcement in the thread, the peaks at a random few showing some players not having received their free time yet, but mostly people saying "Thank you."

Sources: battle.net, PC Gamer 

Bixyl Shuftan

Next "World of Warcraft" Expansion to be Released November 13

Blizzard recently announced the date for when the latest expansion for "World of Warcraft" is set to hit the store shelves, a few months from now in November. As the day "Warlords of Draenor" will be made available to WoW fans approaches, details about what the update offers have been revealed. The champion of the MMOs has also made news in other ways, sponsoring a real-life motorcycle building contest, and honoring a late entertainer whom was among it's players.

Read more in Other Grids and MMOs.

Podex Expanding to Inworldz

After some negotiations with it's support team, the Podex Exchange, known for it's longtime service in selling Lindens in Second Life, is expanding to InWorldz.

Jacek announced the news on the InWorldz forums, "Hello InWorldz avatars! I am really proud to introduce Podex entering InWorldz with our currency exchange and other financial product, like prepaid VISA cards. Some of you could possibly (have) heard about Podex in Second Life, some hear about us for the first time, so let me drop a few words of explanation. Podex Exchange started as third party exchange of linden dollars in Second Life, but we soon developed our business offer. We are listed on the official list of resellers by Linden Lab, we also run our business in Avination, Virtual Highway and now we are happy to start in InWorldz."

Elenia Llewellyn confirmed the announcement later in the forum thread, "This has been in the works for quite some time now between InWorldz and Podex. InBiz has also been offered this same ability, just to clear that up right away. Podex has met with us and has voluntarily decided to follow FinCEN guidelines in regards to transactions for cashouts, which is a big deal for us. They are also willing to accept all fraud liability that results from their system, and they are very aware of what to look for in transactions to alert to fraud."

Podex cal sell InWorldz currency, known as I'zs (or Izzies), for the following: the US dollar, the Euro, the Polish Zloty, the British Pound, the Swedish Crona, the Czech Koruna, the Japanese Yen, and the Bitcoin. InWorldz does not yet have the authority to purchase I'zs, but is negotiating to be able to do so.

"Transactions effected by us are rendered secure by Dotpay, Transferuj.pl, Western Union or PayPal payment systems. All information exchanged to process the payment is encrypted using the SSL protocol. These data cannot be detected, intercepted or used by third parties, and are not kept on our computer systems either, what makes Podex one of the safest services of currency exchange in virtual worlds."

For more information, check out the Podex of InWorldz page at: http://www.inworldz.podex.info/, or head to Podex's location in the Inworldz sim of Vulcan (218/212/23)



The Podex Exchange is a sponsor of Second Life Newser.

Bixyl Shuftan

World of Warcraft's Upcoming Expansion: "Warlords of Draenor"

With "Mists of Pandaria" having been out for over a year, and the "Seige of Ogrimmar" taking place, it was about time for Blizzard to announce their new and fifth expansion. And at "Blizzcon," they announced it: "Warlords of Draenor."

World of Warcraft®: Warlords of Draenor™, the fifth expansion to Blizzard Entertainment’s acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, sends players to the world of Draenor at a pivotal moment in history to fight against and alongside legends from Warcraft’s brutal past.

Across Draenor's savage jungles and battle-scarred plains, Azeroth's heroes will engage in a mythic conflict involving mystical draenei champions and mighty orc clans, and cross axes with the likes of Grommash Hellscream, Blackhand, and Ner’zhul at the height of their primal power. Players will need to scour this unwelcoming land in search of allies to help build a desperate defense against the Iron Horde’s formidable engine of conquest—or else watch their own world’s bloody, war-torn history repeat itself. 

To those less than familiar with the lore of the game, Draenor was the home of the Orc and Draeani before it was wrecked and changed into what is known as "Outland." And so this expansion brings to World of Warcraft the world of Draenor "as it once existed, and adventure in all-new zones alongside characters central to Warcraft history." Players will also be able to establish their own garrison, which you can recruit NPC followers for, and have them carry out tasks while offline. One will be able to upgrade a character instantly to Level 90. Players will also be able to level up ten more times to 100. And there are updated character models and animations for the original WoW races.

In some ways, the game is a re-introduction to the first Warcraft games that came out in the 1990s, which many WoW players never saw. Exactly how the characters get to Draenor, that remains to be seen.

The makers of the game hope this expansion will help revive its declining player base. In July, it was announced their numbers had dropped to under eight million. Despite the decline, Blizzard stated they have no plans to make WoW a "free to play" game, saying there would have to be too many changes to the game. While still dropping, World of Warcraft still has numbers far more than other multiplayer online games.

“To forge a brighter future, sometimes you must confront the ghosts of the past.”

Blizzard "Warlords of Draeani" FAQ (Click Here)



Sources: Blizzard, Eurogamer, Gamespot,

Linden Lab Buys "Blocksworld" IPad Game

Last week on January 24, Linden Lab announced they had purchased the iPad game "Blocksworld." Described on it's own website as a "mix of Lego and Minecraft," the Linden press release described it as an iPad game in which players use cubes, wedges, rockets, wheels, motors, and more to easily create 3D models of anything they can imagine - from race cars to animals to robots and more. These models come alive with realistic physics simulation, and users can play, interact, or even explode their creations. As with Linden Lab's Creatorverse, Blocksworld allows users to share their creations with others to explore, play with, and remix to make their own.

CEO Rod Humble was quoted in the statement, "Blocksworld is a great fit with what we do at Linden Lab. It's a very user-friendly complement to our portfolio of shared creative spaces, We're happy to have the Blocksworld team join Linden Lab and are looking forward to bringing Blocksworld to the App Store worldwide soon!"
Boldai, the team behind the game, is based in Sweden. On the website, they stated Blocksworld was developed at the University of Linkoping.

It's notable that in their press release, Linden Lab called itself not just "the makers of Second Life," but "the makers of Second Life, Creatorverse, Patterns, and other shared creative spaces." Some established residents of the Grid, already feeling the Lindens are leaving them behind, might consider this statement further evidence that they are.



Hamlet Au in New World Notes suggested that the purchase was motivated by predictions of tablets outselling desktop computers within two years. Ciaran Laval on her blog felt Rod Humble was continuing to move Linden Lab forward, expanding it and making it known for more than just Second Life.

For the complete Linden Lab statement: Click Here. 



Hat tip: Xymbers Slade, images from blocksworld.com

Bixyl Shuftan

Review of World of Warcraft's "Mists of Pandaria," Part Two

Last week, we had the first half of our review of the latest expansion of World of Warcraft, "Mists of Pandaria," in which we described the new player race and continent. Today, we look at other features in the game, such as the new Pet Battle System. We also look at the response the expansion is getting and how well it's been doing for Blizzard in it's first few days.

Read the second part of the review in Extra.

Review of World of Warcraft's "Mists of Pandaria," Part One

It's been a couple weeks since the "Mists of Pandaria" expansion came out for World of Warcraft, the most popular multiplayer online game. Bixyl Shuftan had something of a late start due to technical difficulties, but eventually getting in and seeing what was new.

Read more in Extra.