SL Video: "2023 SL Fandom Region Tour"

 

 

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 From the Relay for Life in Second Life, "SL Fandom Con supporting the RFL of SL Some Stories Stay With Us Forever In celebration of all our Fandoms and in defiance of cancer we gather together, as proof of what virtual worlds and pixel people can do to help make real change. Through the years of amazing RFL events in SL we have witnessed real world changes in testing and treatments and outcomes, lives have been and will be saved because as a united people of Planet Earth we have decided to do something about it together… Until there is a cure, We Relay! We are proud to be part of our shared commitment to eradicate cancer, and to be in the community of courage and caring in Second Life."

SL Video: "One Last Look at Mario2 Helstein’s M2D Region"

 

 

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 From Erik Mondrian on December 28, 2022, "Renowned for his particle effects and dynamic digital sculptures, Mario2 Helstein [@m2dchannel249] is an extraordinary visual artist who since 2010 has been building 3D art installations and performing virtual light shows [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKXX...], starting in Second Life and later in Sansar as well [https://www.virtuality.blog/m2d-proje...]. He has also sold many of his creations through his M2D brand (Mario2 Design). 

 

"Sadly, Mario recently announced his retirement, closing his SL store and saying that he would no longer be producing new work or performing (at least not for now). On December 11, 2022, as part of his M2D Light Week event (a “Light & Sound Experience”), he gave the last of several very well-attended farewell shows [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv5CN...], which were beautifully captured by @AkikoKinoshi. 

 

"The flythrough video here is one that I shot at the M2D region on December 23, the day before everything was erased. My deepest appreciation to Mario for re-opening the region for me so that I could make this video—and I wish him the best in wherever life takes him next!"

Linden Lab Announces Improvements on Sim Crossings

One of the pet peeves a number of residents have is sim crossings, or "region crossings" as Linden Lab calls them. Sometimes there's a short pause. Occasionally there's a longer pause. And sometimes there's the "walk of lag" that results in you going walking on and on until you either "rubberband" back to the sim crossing, or the viewer crashes and you get knocked offline.

Last year, crashing after teleporting and sim crossing was getting to be worse of a problem. Though after a while, things began to improve. So how are things now? Yesterday on the "Tools and Technology" Linden blog, April Linden, announced that the programing on how sim crossings/teleports was changed and the results were that they were easier and less glitchy than ever.

The process of crossing from one region to another when you’re riding in a vehicle is pretty involved. The region you’re leaving needs to be able to tell the region where you’re arriving  everything it knows about the vehicle, and has to do it really quickly. That includes all of the scripts in the vehicle, everything that’s attached to it, the direction and how fast it’s going, and lots of other stuff. 

To make this happen quickly, early on in Second Life’s history we made some assumptions about our network, including things like how big a packet can be. Those assumptions generally worked okay on our own network, but not outside it. 

When you crossed from one region to another, the regions were putting a lot of information into large packets and sending them across our network. This was usually okay because our network was purposefully built to run Second Life. Then, as soon we tried to do this on someone else’s network (in the cloud), things didn’t work quite right. The problem was most noticeable when crossing from a region in our data center to one in the cloud. 

The first thing our engineering teams tried was breaking those large packets up into smaller ones, but that actually made the problem worse. Rather than send one big packet and wait for the other side to say it received the data, with smaller packets, it had to repeat that bunch of times for each packet. (Send, get an acknowledgement, send another piece, get an acknowledgement, etc.) It was still mostly okay across our network, but way worse when a region in our network was talking to one in the cloud. We now knew this code would never work well, so we needed a different approach. 

Next, our engineering team decided to use another way to send the data across the network, using the same protocol and method we use for other types of data. Most importantly, it is faster and more reliable. That did the trick! We’re still collecting statistics on the impact this change has, but things are looking very positive. 

Once this new code was written, the performance when going  from region to region got a lot better, and it worked between our data center and the cloud! The improvement was so dramatic that we decided to not make our Residents wait for uplifted simulators, and rolled the changes out right away. That code is what rolled out to the grid this week.

"It’s really exciting that the cloud migration is helping us find really old bugs and make Second Life better as we go," the "gridbun" would conclude.



Luca decided to test things out for herself. This video she did shows her testing several vehicles. Although some took longer than others, she concluded all showed some improvement, a few making the crossing in less than a second.

Have you found sim crossing and teleports easier? What about vehicle crossings? Please leave comments below.

Source: Linden blog, Luca 
Hat tip: Cynthia Farshore, Liffento 

Bixyl Shuftan

Chouchou Sims To Be Preserved By Linden Lab

Good news for fans of the Chouchou sims. In May, the owners Juliet Heberle and Arabesque Choche had announced they would soon be closing down. Fans protested in the forums, and Patch Linden responded by asking the owners to contact him about preserving the sims in cooperation with Linden Lab. Recently in the sims' fan group, and their Facebook page, there was a post announcing that the sims would be preserved through the Second Life Region Preservation Society, joining already preserved areas such as Svarga and the SS Galaxy. A third sim of theirs, Chouchou XVI, also known as "The Babel," which was closed in 2013 would also be brought back.

Regarding the closure of the region Chouchou (Chouchou sim, Chouchou V sim) in Second Life, we'd like to report some progress. As a result of our discussion with Linden Lab, we made a decision to maintain our region by joining The Second Life Region Preservation Society provided by Linden Lab. And it is also decided that one of our sims, Chouchou XVI - The Babel - which was closed in 2013 will be back in Second Life thanks to Linden Lab's kind arrangements. 10223 Resident (Tofu), the staff of our team will continue to take charge of the management of all our sims. Please enjoy our region that will remain unchanged including the music and video effects.

Right now, we’re in the middle of exchanging contracts with Linden Lab, and it's taking time for the contract procedures. We’re very sorry for the late announcement.

At first, we were not going to change our plan for the closure of the region Chouchou because of a variety of issues that the region is encountering, but as we received many messages hoping for the survival of our sims, we came to a decision to maintain our region as it is and to continue to work to resolve these issues. However, there is a limit to what we can do. Please respect others with morals and help us to make the place better and comfortable for many people visiting there.



For a video of The Babel, Click Here.


That the owners would still be among those managing the sims would be something new for areas preserved under Linden Lab's preservation program. Areas such as the SS Galaxy essentially became static museum areas in which change had stopped. Talking to Hamlet Au, the owners stated

"We will manage our sims just like before we participated in [Linden Lab's preservation program] ... We will stream music and videos to the sims, do the maintenance if needed and handle troubles if there's a griefer or harassment. ... "[w]e always add new music some time after its release, but only if the songs match the atmosphere of the sims."

In real life, the two owners are a musical duo, vocalist Juliet Heberle and composer Arabesque Choche, who had met in Second Life, performed a number of events there, eventually met in real life, and got married. While they continued to expand their audience over the Internet, their performances in the virtual world declined. That led to their original decision to close the sim. But thankfully both they and Linden Lab listened to their fans, and these artistically well done sims will be preserved.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Birthday Sims Update

With the Second Life Birthday less than a month away, the sims have appeared on the map and are taking shape. There are some interesting details such as the heart-shaped lake in the middle, and the piers in SL16B Stunning in the southeast corner.

When the sims will be open to exhibitors has yet to be announced, though people have been given until Friday May 31 to apply to be one. The SL16B is scheduled to last from June 20 to July 8.

Chouchou Sim May Be Saved

The news about Chouchou about to close down drew quite a reaction among a number of residents. This included an appeal by Kira Balestra on the Second Life forums for Linden Lab to save the place. As it turned out, they were listening. Yesterday on May 22, Patch Linden posted the following on the forum thread:

Your calls have been heard! 
 
I need the region owner to contact me directly (via email or through support) to start the process of entering the region into the Second Life Region Preservation Society.  I have not seen contact from them so far.
So it seems the sim can be saved, but it will mean owners Juliet Heberle and Arabesque Choche contacting Linden Lab to do so. While the Lab had brought back the Lost Gardens of Apollo apparently without contacting it's owner, it took five years. Hopefully Linden Lab can get in touch with the musicians for a smooth handover.

Stay tuned for further details

Bixyl Shuftan

SSP/Bellisseria Update

The new landmass, the SSP land, or Bellisseria as the name has been recently been revealed to be, is starting to be placed. South of the Sansara continent, part of it appeared.

Many of the sims on the new land have been renamed.

Some of the sims on the southern part have yet to be placed.

From the continent of Jeogeot, there's a string of water sims. Currently one can almost but not quite fly or sail to the new land mass. It is still closed to the public.

At the Home and Garden Expo, it was revealed that the new continent will be where the new Linden Homes are.

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

SSP Region Update

The SSP sims, the new mystery continent, remain off-limits to regular residents. But there had been a few visible changes on the map in the past month. On the SSP2 QA Test sim to the northwest, there's an image of a mouse appearing. In the middle of the landmass, a build with orange rectangles has appeared. Then there's the whimsical message on the SSP124 sim. The land was sculpted to say when looked at from the map "OSSM takes time," with a smiley face in the corner.

Presumably, "OSSM" means "awesome," and the moles are saying it's going to be a while before the region is ready to go public.

No date has been given as to when the sims in the region will be ready and opened to the public. It is believed the sims are intended to be residential areas, though Linden Lab isn't saying what the "Super Secret Project," to use the name described what "SSP" stands for at one Town Hall meeting, are for.

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager.

SSP Region Update

Tyche Shepherd's first Grid Status Report of 2019 on January 6 had some things of note, such as an increase of 11 sims that week, seven private and four Linden-owned. But these four had the letters "SSP" as part of the title,ssp65X, SSP66X, SSP67X, and SSP92X, and along with nearby SSP2 QA are apparently part of Linden Lab's
mystery SSP region, which is just to the south. With these new sims, the total is now slightly larger, now 389 sims in total size, though almost all the sims are part of the main mass which has been around since August.

Since the Newser's last update on the area a few months ago, the amount of change has been more gradual. But some of the sims have slowly taken on more detailed looks. Many of them from above resemble streets and homes, which could be a sign the area will be a new area of Linden homes. While this has been suggested, the exact purpose for the region has never been officially confirmed.

In a Town Hall meeting, one Linden stated SSP stood for "Super Secret Project."

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Source: Virtualverse

Bixyl Shuftan

SSP Region Update

Since last week's update on the SSP sim region, which appeared in late August, there's been a few minor changes. A few sims such as SSP119 have been changed to look like something artificial in contrast to the island's natural features. What look like piers and jetties are being set up along the shoreline in places. SSP150 has what looks like a picture of a snake over the sim. There's also a new sim just north of the landmass: SSP2 QA Test.

Stay tuned for further updates.

SSP Region Update

It was a little more than two weeks ago since the new mystery landmass was spotted at the north of the Second Life map. A week ago, the area had been expended to 384 sims in size. This week, the southern part of the land which was undefined flat green land has become a lot more detailed. There are mountainous areas, rivers, inland seas, barrier islands, and more.

One other change was the sim with the smiley face last week: SSP124. It was altered to look surprised with an "Ooo! Moar!" quote.

There is still no word as to just what function these sims have. At least not yet.

Bixyl Shuftan

New SSP Landmass Expanded to Nearly 400 Sims

Remember the eighty-sim Linden-owned landmass that Tyche Shepherd discovered last week? The area is now considerably larger, or as Tyche put it, "SSP Got Bigggggger," having grown by over 300 sims. It is now 384 sims in size.

Less than half of the mass of land has been detailed into sea, mountains, rivers, and lakes. The majority still appears to be default green flat land. This is sure to change as time goes on. But among the new sims that was detailed was SSP124, which was made up of islands that looked like a smiley-face with the word "Hi!" and waving back at those looking at it from above. As Tyche put it, "Do they know I'm watching?" The answer seems to be yes.

There's still no word from Linden Lab on what the land is for, though that hasn't stopped speculation, one person commenting after Tyche's post that she thought it would be for both Linden homes and a new game. It's possible that the details will be revealed in the Town Hall with Ebbe Linden next month. In any case, stay tuned for more information.

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

Bixyl Shuftan

New 80 Sim Region Appears on Map, Overall Sim Growth Continues

In Tyche Shepjerd's latest Grid status report in the Second Life Universe forums, he found something interesting on the northern part of the map. There's a new area made up of eighty sims, named from SSP1 to SSP 80. The landscape appears to be a mix of sea, river, flat land, and hills. I couldn't get into them, so apparently they're closed to most. Most likely, these are run by Linden Lab, possibly as part of some upcoming project.

Tyche also noted the number of private sims went up by 18. Looking at past recent weeks, on August 12 he reported no change in the number over the past seven days. On August 5, there was an increase of 28 private sims (including 12 academic). July 29 saw an addition of one private sim. July 22 had a loss of 20, but if one leaves out the Relay for Life track sims, the number would have been an increase of eight private sims. For July 15, there were 35 more private sims than the week before. For the week before, it was 34. So five out of the past seven weeks have seen a small increase.in the number of private sims.

So it appears that Linden Lab's tier reduction that took effect July 1 may have halted the overall long slow decline in the number of private sims over the past several years. There could be other factors at work, such as increased interest in virtual worlds, new users of virtual worlds whom looked at Sansar or VR Chat first and moved on from them to Second Life, more Second Life residents with better confidence about the economy in real life, or perhaps some combination of these. We'll know more as the months go on, but for now there is reason for optimism.

As for the eighty SSP sim region, Linden Lab will probably have an announcement concerning it soon.

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

"Fade It To Black," Insilico Announces It's Sims Will Soon Close

For the second time this year, the Insilico cyberpunk region and roleplay community is facing the end. But this time, there may be no reprieve.

Insilico is not new, but has been around for over eight years. Last year, Second Life Newser did a review of the roleplay and area. But in March of this year, it's controversial owner Skills Hak was banned by Second Life by Linden Lab, and the sims offlined. Thanks to negotiations behind the scenes, the sims were transferred to administrator Abeus Madruga and had a new lease on virtual life.

Unfortunately, the damage was done, and the area which had been able to cover it's costs before began bleeding red ink, Abeus stating in the announcement, "a combination of losses that have slowly eroded away: Malls are drying up, Skills’ MP sales disappearing, fewer long term residential rentals, etc." While people in the roleplay were able to cover the deficits out of their pockets for a while, this month it was finally too great.

So, we had to make a decision. Either make a drastic reduction to just two sims (a full region and a homestead), or close InSilico as a whole while we are still in a position to do so on our own terms. After a lot of discussion and soul searching with the current staff and some players (and a lot of antacids), we’ve opted for the latter…to go out whole. 

This is a very hard choice for us, and not one that we’ve come to lightly. Even though it might be possible to survive as just two sims, the technical aspects of that were daunting. ... we just weren’t entirely confident ourselves that we could make it work in such a short amount of time. We also didn’t want to have to keep turning to the community for donations to keep us afloat during that process…but certainly the one thing we didn’t want was to go through all of this, and then find ourselves back in this same position 2, 3, 4 months down the line. We don't want to wither away, slowly or not.

Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times, the state of things in general, or our age and reputation that have brought us to this point. Maybe we should have dropped a couple regions from the start…Either, any, or…it doesn’t really matter now. We have chosen to come to a close with InSilico as it is now, intact and committed to our memories in the same way. It’s a sacrifice, but not one of compromise.

As I said in my previous (albeit premature) Goodbye/Love letter to InSilico during the lockout…We’ve had some good times, even some great times. 9 years’ worth of stories that will continue to transcend the sims on which they were told…I couldn’t ask for anything more than that as a legacy.

We still have the sims until the end of their respective tiers. Central and South will be dropped on the 28^th/1st, but East and South East will remain until November 17^th …after which they too will go their separate ways. The Ning will hang on for a while longer after that, but for how long I cannot say as we don’t have access to the creator account. In the meantime, continue RPing and taking in the sites. Enjoy it while you can. Take pictures, tell war stories, have a party. ICly the city isn’t going anywhere, even if the sims are. We aren’t blowing it up or tanking it…we’re just going to fade to black so it can continue to exist in your imaginations and stories.

There were a number of comments following the post, among them, "it was always nice knowing Insilco kept on. It’s been real, but even the best parties end…or get broken up by the police…or burn down when Mike accidentally sets the curtains on fire." "I dare say it was never perfect, and it had its bitter moments; but my time here won't ever be forgotten. I have memories here that I am truly truly fond of and are the prime reason cyberpunk has blossomed to become my favourite genre. For my first and most cherished experience with role-play and story-telling, for helping me discover cyberpunk, and for the friendship when perhaps I needed it the most, ..."  "The city will always represent something beautiful, like a distant memory that is not easy to part with. I've met a lot of amazing people here, as Cora stated as before me, and we built a very nice community that kept going for a while. It was my first SL RP and it helped me see a great many things. My experience here is unforgettable, unique in a way, every angle I was involved with was truly an inspiration, it helped me go deeper into my own development and I know it helped others to do the same. I'll miss it, for that memory it is, for that one time years ago that made me smile... And even to this day, continues to do so. ... Thank you for the memories."

And so, another noted region and the home of a equally noted roleplay, is facing the end.

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au 

Bixyl Shuftan

New Grouping of Linden Sims in Second Life Appears

Daniel Voyager reported on the appearance of a number of new sims on the map. The sims are currently under Linden control and closed to the public. Most are rated adult. He had gotten the information about this 60 sim area with a few nearby individual sims from Tyche Shephard. They are given the names HR Build, HC Build, and HIH Build followed by numbers or numbers and letters.

Daniel speculated that this region might be a new Linden Homes area, but the purpose of this new Linden region remains unknown, at least for now.

Official SL Video: "The Return of the Cornfield"

(Click here if the video fails to load)

From Linden Lab, "For many years, the Cornfield was a region of mythological status. A region where naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done. Rumor had it that the Cornfield was a vast starlit field, cut off from the rest of the world. It was thought to be a harmless tale told around moonlit campfires. 

Until now...

The Cornfield is exclusively available in Second Life. To learn more about the technology 'Experience Keys' that is used in The Cornfield, visit the Second Life blog at: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Check-Out-Experience-Keys-in-The-Cornfield/ba-p/2776400 "

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LR%20Portal%20Park1/69/185/24/

Eye On The Blog: "Clear Pricing" For Land Services And The New Communications Hub

In the Linden blog, there are two recent entries for April. The first deals with services for private regions.

If you have a private region in Second Life, there are several special services you might occasionally need, like region moves and name changes. The charges for these services depends on the number of private regions you have, and to make it easier for all of our customers to understand the fee structure, we now have laid it out in this chart in the Knowledge Base:

The second blog update deals with the new Communications Hub, or Communications Hub User Interface aka CHUI as the Lab calls it. In an update, it was made part of the main viewer. It rearranges some features, as well as adding a few new ones. Among the changes, "Busy" becomes "Do Not Disturb," and the user is notifed of all IMs made once it's turned off. Local chat could be put on the same window of one's list of IMs.



DrFran Babcock reviewed the CHUI while it was being tested on a beta viewer last month (article March 4). While she liked it, she noted the majority of other testers didn't like it as well as the old interface. Checking the official forums, there were several threads on the subject, the longest one Here. Once again, the complaints outnumber those who like it, one person saying they were switching to the Firestorm viewer because of it. Complaints that yours truly has heard of the most are of bugs that interfere with one's Second Life experience, including crashing just after starting, freezes and crashes when IMing someone,  or just more frequent freezes and crashes altogether. Fortunetly, I have the Cool VL viewer to use, which has been starting up faster than the official one.

Bixyl Shuftan