Linden Lab Stops Development and Support of Three Non-Second Life Products

Linden Lab is trimming it's product line. In a statement made yesterday, they announced that they would no longer be developing or supporting three less successful goods, Versu, Dio, and Creatorverse.

After careful consideration, Linden Lab has decided to cease development and support for dio, Versu, and Creatorverse. We’re grateful for those who took the time to experiment with these products in their early days, but ultimately we have determined that due to a number of factors, we and our customers will be best served by focusing our efforts on continuing to provide exceptional service and compelling new experiences for the users of our other products.

Creatorverse was an iPad application launched in Sept 18, 2012 that drew comparisons to another app, "Crayon Physics Deluxe," which was made several years ago. Dio was announced in January 27, 2013 as a "creative and social experience" in which people could "create places by adding text, photos, videos, and interactive objects into interconnected 'rooms' " that people compared to a MUD or MUSH with pictures. Versu, released on February 14, 2013, was an interactive fiction (aka choose-your-own-adventure) product that gave the reader options on how the story would proceed. While some thought it was a good application, it was noted there were already a number of interactive readers with established markets that Linden Lab would have to spend effort and money to break into.

The end of these applications leaves Linden Lab with just three products other than Second Life. These are "Patterns," which has gotten comparisons to Minecraft, "Blocksworld," a child-friendly application where players can build things with blocks, and "Desura," a digital distribution service much like Steam, but with an emphasis on smaller, independent games. Of these, only Patterns was developed by Linden Lab. The other two were acquired.

(edited later) When Hamlet Au interviewed Ebbe Altberg, he stated “We’ll do some clean-up, there’s some things that are not as aligned." So this seems to be Ebbe's first major decision as Linden Lab's new boss.

Bixyl Shuftan

Direct Messages for Second Life Web Profiles Disabled

In October 2011, Linden Lab added a feature to residents' profiles on the Internet on https://my.secondlife.com . Already able to make public posts on them, they could then also send private "Direct Messages." This feature allowed users to privately communicate with one another without logging on. At least they could until December 2013, when residents began noticing this option was disabled. This was traced to some profile maintenance on December 12.

Inara Pey managed to get in contact with Linden Lab's communications director, Pete Linden. Pete told her that indeed the feature was no longer available.

On this inquiry, I can confirm that yes, as a result of a rise in abuse of the system, we have turned off the direct message function on My.SecondLife.com profiles.

This isn't the first time Linden Lab has given misuse of a feature as a reason for discontinuing it. Some third-party viewers had the ability to tell their users what viewer everyone else was using. But in February 2012, Linden Lab ordered that this feature be removed. Team Firestorm leader Jessica Lyon stated that the Lab had been asking her for several months about removing this feature saying there were reports of "bullying" because of it. It was a reason some residents found hard to believe was the Lab's main concern.

Checking my own profile, there were a couple spam messages. Not everyone on my feed had these, however, "Um, I don't see any ads."

While a few people seem to be in favor of the Lab's decision to remove direct messaged, "Yay! I found them annoying." The majority are not, "It's ridiculous for it to be shut off just because some people can't be bothered to use the tools already there to manage their privacy; it's not that hard to avoid getting spam or any PMs at all if one doesn't like the feature. Typical overkill to take it away from all of us who *did* use and enjoy it!" Loki Eliot joked, "OK so its not a good idea to tell Linden Lab of any bugs that can lead to service abuse in case LL can't fix it and decide to remove the service."

So it seems the feature is gone because of some spammers, "one rotten apple does spoil the bunch."

Sources: Daniel Voyager, Inara Pey, Ciaran Laval

Bixyl Shuftan

Megaprims Accidentaly Removed by Linden Lab, Lab Says Problem Solved

Last night, I was contacted by Jasmine Dawn, whom pointed out to me a thread in the SL Universe Forums. It stated Linden Labs had “blacklisted” someone and their actions in dealing with him had the side effect of removing megaprims with his name on them. There was a link to a JIRA filed about the problem, which had been written down:


Just a few moments ago most megaprims contained in the SALT collection were blacklisted. These megaprims are part of a collection used by most creators across the grid. Any items created with these prims are no longer rezzable. This includes components of a product I work on as well as possibly thousands others. It is not even possible to remove these prims from builds as the items containing them are not rezzable.


This was a potentially big mess, as a numble of builds I knew made use of megaprims such as Tuna Oddfellow’s Odd Ball and Club Zero Gravity. but stopping by the club, it was intact, and Tuna Oddfellow held an impromptu event that night without trouble. I never heard from any of my friends having a build taken down that night.

A couple posters on the SLU Forum thread checked and found of about a dozen makers of megaprims, it was one whose creations were blocked. Looking further, a couple posters mentioned having items taken down, and another those of his customers.

Later on, there was a Grid Status Report about the issue. Apparently, Linden Lab had fixed the problem, and while the affected megaprims weren’t back up, theye were no longer blocked, so those whom had them returned to inventory could rebuild. Those whose builds had disappeared were asked to contact Linden Lab, with a shortcut for Premium members.


[POSTED 10:35AM PDT, 20 October 2011] Due to a change we recently made to address a griefing problem, some megaprims were removed from the grid, which has affected users’ creations containing these megaprims. The issue has been resolved, and the megaprim objects can be re-rezzed from your inventories at this time. If you do not have a copy of the affected build, please go to your support portal immediately and file a case. If you are Premium member or above, you can use these case types: “Technical Questions” > “Objects (Rezzed) Issues. If you have a free membership and your group owned land was affected, please use “Land & Region” > Report an Offline Region”. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and are reviewing our processes to try to avoid repeating this situation in the future.


There was also a post in the official forums, though with no new information.

So hopefully the mess is resolved. But this on top of the mass of sim restarts earlier this week, one wonders what next?

Sources: SL Universe Forums, Grid Status Report

Bixyl Shuftan