EOTB: SL22B Exhibitor Showcase

 

The Second Life Birthday has many areas, the stages, the Tapestry of Time by the Lindens to show their version of Second Life history. But the biggest part are the exhibits. On Wednesday June18, Linden Lab would post about them in their blog. 

 

At the heart of Second Life's momentous 22nd birthday celebration lies a treasure trove of creativity: over 500 exhibitors showcasing 244 mesmerizing exhibits across 19 regions. These exhibits tell the stories of the heroes, myths, and legends created by our talented Residents, all blossoming from the boundless imagination of our community.

This year’s SL22B theme, Myths and Legends, celebrates the adventures we craft in Second Life. Just like the tales we weave inworld, this exhibitor’s showcase is a tribute to the characters and stories that make us all the heroes of our own journeys.

The blog post had a list of all 224 Exhibits, categorizing them by what sim they were in, with the Adult-rated ones listed last. The Lab also stated they will be in the Destinations Guide, though at the time of the writing of this article, the entry was blank. Presumably it will be finished in time for the event. 

 

Linden Lab would also point out the Second Life Birthday Flickr page, inviting people to post pictures there.  

 

The exhibits open at 11 AM SL time tomorrow, with the opening of the sims.

 

For more information, read the blog post in full here.  

 

New SSP Sims On The Map

 

On the Second Life map, I stumbled across some new SSP sims. For those who don't know, SSP is a temporary name to a sim in development by the Lindens and Moles.

 

 They were in four groups that when the map was panned back so they could all be seen, the names were too small. 

Most of the sims were moderate, listed as SSP5*** to SSP6***. But one group was rated adult, listed as SSPR*** and SPRC***.

 

 Currently the sims are grouped at the high end up the map. What the Lab plans for these sims is currently unknown. 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

 

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."

Breaking News: SL20B Extended

 

For those who wanted a few more days to look around the SL20B area, good news. It was just announced in the Second Life Birthday group that the sims for the event will be staying up until Sunday July 16.

Patch has generously said that the SL20B regions and the Shop and Hop will stay open thru Sunday, July 16. that means there are still seven more days to enjoy SL20B experience! Have fun! And yes parties at the exhibits are allowed!

The news was delivered by Missy Mole (Mischievous Mole), who would add, "I know rumors were floating around since the Meet the Moles talk but I wanted to make sure it was confirmed before we made an announcement."

 

The news was greeted with cheers in the Birthday group, one person musing the "Shop and Hop" being extended would be bad news to her bank account.

 

Once again, the Second Life Birthday sims, including those for the Shop and Hop, will be up until Sunday July 16.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

EOTB: Linden Lab Lowering Price of Event Regions, Offering Two Levels, Sim Rollbacks Now Cost $25 USD

 

On May 2, Linden Lab announced they were making special Event Regions available for residents. While they boasted higher performance, such as a capacity of up to 175 avatars and up to 30,000 land impact, they were expensive. Following the introductory period, they would require "a set-up fee of US$999 (includes first month), and a rate of $899/month after the first 30 days." Compared to private sims having a monthly charge of $229 USD and a setup fee of $349 USD, expensive.

Last Thursday, Linden Lab announced they were lowering the price, and offering two levels of Event Regions. The lower priced one was called "Event Region Pro." It cost $449 USD a month "with no additional setup fee." They have the 175 avatar limit, more than 20% improvement in script performance, and upon request extended chat range. Three more options were available for fees. An increase to 30,000 Land Impact would cost an extra $30 USD a month. An Instancing Service, or cloning of an Event Region, was $50 USD per request. And rollback services, done within 48 hours, were $25 USD each.

The more expensive level is "Event Regions Elite." Besides having the features of Pro, the Land Impact is raised to 30,000 with no fee. Niether are there fees for rollbacks or cloning of event regions, and "White-glove concierge service." The price is "$599 per month with no setup fee."

It would then have this to say about region rollbacks:

In addition to these new product offerings, we are pleased to announce region rollbacks as a service. This service is now available to all private region owners. If you make a mistake with region content, or want to restore a previous build, you can now request to roll the region back to a specific time. Please note that rollbacks will still be at Linden Lab’s discretion and are not guaranteed. Rollback services are available at $25 per request.

A rollback of a sim was once done without a fee, but at the discretion of Linden Lab, which cautioned to treat them as "a safety mechanism to be used only when something goes very badly wrong," and one could only roll back a few days.

For more information, check the page on the Linden blog.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

EOTB : Linden Lab Announces New Private Sims Available "In Limited Quantity"

 

In May, Linden Lab announced that it could no longer guarantee that anyone whom was interested in getting a new sim would be able to. This was due to the increased demand for them while they were in the middle of the transition of their data to cloud servers. On Tuesday November 3, there was an announcement from the Lab that with their progress on the cloud move, they were "ready to begin offering new private region purchases," though still in "limited quantities."

In light of more regions being moved to the cloud, we are pleased to announce that we are ready to begin offering new private region purchases in limited quantities. As we continue to uplift more of the grid, more regions will become available over time, eventually leading to the Land Store being reopened.  

Those wanting a sim are asked to send a ticket through the Lab's Support Portal, "The ticket can be submitted under the Land & Region > Order Private Region category." After the ticket is sent, it will either be handled or added to a waiting list "which will be handled in the order the submission is received." The Lab reminded the sim's name had to conform to naming guidelines, new sims are charged setup fees, and those wanting sims where "skill gaming" could be run would be paying much more.

For more information, check the Linden blog entry here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Announces "Limited Availability" of New Private Sims

With Second Life's userbase increasing in recent months, most certainly mainly due to the Coronavirus quarantines, it was probably expected that there would be an increased demand for sims by the residents. On May 10, someone posted in the Virtualverse forums that the number of private sims had increased by 361 since March 30. Tyche Shepherd seems to be on hiatus, so we don't have his reports to go by.

With numbers like this when the number of private sims usually goes up or down by less than a tenth that, perhaps it should be no surprise to hear the latest announcement by the Lab. Yesterday on Thursday May 14, Linden Lab announced that it could no longer guarantee a new full private sim to someone who wanted one.

Due to the ongoing public health crisis, we’ve experienced an unprecedented surge in demand for new Second Life regions. While we are thrilled by the heightened interest, the increased demand has consumed our available inventory of full regions (there are still many parcels available on existing regions, both on the mainland and from private estates).  

We are committed to maintaining (and improving) the stability and performance of Second Life. So while we are very gratified that we can be of help to people in these trying times, unfortunately, our current server systems cannot accommodate unlimited growth without adversely impacting that stability and performance. This means that region inventory in Second Life will be extremely limited and may not be readily available until early fall.

The Lab stated that one reason for the inability to handle the increased load was their transitioning from their current servers to cloud ones, which hasn't been finished yet, "As a result, we are in the unfortunate position of hitting the maximum capacity of our “old” servers until the “new” cloud servers are fully operational."

While the Lab stated new sims will be made available as old ones are closed, this limited availability will continue until the new cloud servers are fully operational, which they guess will be "early fall." In the meantime, Linden Lab suggested alternatives to full private sims, such as land on the mainland, or renting from an estate owner.

So far, as of the writing of this article, there have been just a few reactions in the official blog and Virtualverse. But they have been positive ones.

Will the demand for new sims continue to outpace supply, or as the US and other nations relax restrictions imposed due to the Coronavirus, will demand drop? Time will tell.

Sources: Linden blog, Virtualverse, BBC

Bixyl Shuftan

My Morning On The SL15B Regions..

The Second Life Birthday has many events going on. But there's also plenty of exhibits to see. Gemma Cleanslate went around the SL15B sims one morning. While there was too much to write about in one article, she could mention a few she felt stood out. Among them were Fran Gustav's, Marianne McCann's, and more.

Read Gemma's article in Places.

Linden Lab Launches Horizons Residential Regions

Last month, a number of new sims under development by Linden Lab were spotted, but no one but the Lindens and the Department of Public Works knew at the time what purpose they would serve. yesterday in the Linden blog, the Lab finally revealed the purpose of these sims and a name: Horizons. For those who guessed these were going to be new Linden Homes, you were partially right. 36 of the sims have been designated the Horizons Residential Regions.



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Unlike a Linden Home which has a static look, the owners of these plots can alter the style of house with a selection of several possible furutistic-looking choices. The house itself is described as having zero land impact. The land itself cannot be terraformed.

The homes are apparently not a bonus for Premium accounts. The Linden blog states they  will be auctioned off to buyers on Friday November 18.

Besides the Horizon Residential Regions, there are a few "Community and Info Hubs" among them, "The first of the two, the community hubs, are designed for Residents to use for their community groups, meetings, and events. These beautiful hubs feature a nice, serene environment to be social and enjoy alongside all your favorite fellow Residents. The second of these two areas are the info hubs. These hubs feature land information, as well as an easy access portal that takes you directly to the mainland experience itself. There are also links to the wiki available which provide access to helpful knowledge regarding the housing system. A mailbox demo and building demos are set up to show you the controls featured in the new housing system. Residents will also find any update information here regarding the housing and mailbox system!"

Daniel Voyager wrote that the new sims were located just north of the adult continent of Zyndra, visible from Shell Beach . But as it turns out, the sims can be accessed by both flying in from the sim and teleporting over. The area had a general futuristic feel to it, with some variations in the terrain and occasional decorative structures in between. So feel free to explore these new areas.

In the middle of the Horizons Residential Regions, there were six sims for a "Horizons Experience" game by Linden Lab. This will be discussed in another article.

Bixyl Shuftan

Commentary: Second Life Could Use A Historical Preservation Process

It's been spoken that change is the only constant. In real-life people make the news and either die or fade away into obscurity, land gets built-on and the buildings are either bulldozed and replaced or rust away. Well, it's not always the case with the latter. Occasionally a battlefield or a building deemed of historic value may be preserved by law as a public resource.

In Second Life, most places quietly go up, exist for a short time, and fade away without much attention. But some become well-known and popular. While popularity can sometimes help a location stay afloat, such as donations or sales if the place has some means of making money, it does not always help. Sim owners finances can sour, or their real lives can otherwise get in the way. And so people are saddened as a favorite spot of theirs closes down, sometimes after having been up for years.

Over time, a number of well-designed places have faded away. Many of these are memorials, such as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,  the dAlliez Land Headquarters September 11 Memorial, and the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Others are reproductions of real life historic areas such as the picturesque Mont Saint Michel, the cleverly-built "Crooked House" (which was up as late as July 2012 but does not appear in recent searches), Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and others. Sometimes a favorite location is saved, such as the International Space Museum. There has been one case of a vanished place being brought back: The Lost Gardens of Apollo. But so many times an owner looking for help to maintain his/her location cannot find it.

Only twice has Linden Lab stepped forward to save a location. The first time was with Svarga, an artificial working ecosystem that was considered one of the virtual world's seven wonders. The more recent time was with the SS Galaxy, which announced it's closing following a blunder by Linden Lab, but the Lab would soon step in to preserve it.

But will this be it? Will these be the only two places that Linden Lab will intervene to save?

One thing Linden Lab could do is start a process of preserving the most noted sims. Perhaps every year or every six months, it could ask the residents on it's blog "Which area should be preserved?" There could also be an option for residents to write-in a location to be brought back (or perhaps rebuilt by volunteers) should no noteable location popular with the residents. Depending on how Linden Lab stores sim data, this could take some time.

Could there be another kind of process? Possibly, though without listening to the public it would be a tricky business. One complication for any process is for places like Insilico and Steelhead, part of what made them great was the people. Having them around as preserved museum pieces would be of mixed news to their fans as they would no longer be "alive" as active roleplay and community areas.

But in any event, Second Life could use a way that allows some sims that help make Second Life great from fading away when their owners are no longer able to keep them up.

Bixyl Shuftan