Indigo Mertel caught an article titled: Second Life Creator Linden Lab Prepares To Test Parallel VR Universe. There are some new bits of information about Project Sansar, aka Second Life 2.0. A quick summary of the new information follows:
Linden Lab plans to have testers in Sansar starting the end of July, 2015.
Sansar runs at 75 frames per second (FPS) and will run at 90 FPS to meet the expected Oculus Rift requirements.
The Long Walk by Carthalis Rossini, on Flickr
First one into the new world will by handpicked, skilled creators.
Additional beta testers will be invited into Sansar the first half of 2016.
A Sansar version 1.0 will be ready by the end of 2016.
Second Life now hosts about 900,000 active users a month.
Second Life users earned US$60 million in 2014.
Linden Lab now employs 213 people and is still hiring as fast as it can.
Most new hires are for Project Sansar.
Moving from Second Life to Sansar will be as easy as possible.
Sansar will run under ‘somewhat’ different rules.
The Lab plans to have Sansar support larger events, meaning having more avatars attending events.
Enable content creators to earn more money.
The Lab will add the ability to sell experiences. The chemistry lab is an often used example.
The Lab is building tools to allow non-professional modelers to build good content.
The Lab is working to lower entry barriers for creators and entrepreneurs.
The Lab is changing its revenue model from renting land and plans to make Sansar land cheaper. Linden income will come in the form of taxes on users’ revenues from in-world businesses. With an interesting phrase tacked on, “once they’ve succeeded.”
My Thoughts
All of these things sound good to me. I am aware that most of us are in the premarital stages of lust and infatuation with Sansar. Often we think we love before we really know. At some point the stresses of the wedding must be endured and the honeymoon phase will pass. Then we will start to see the blemishes invisible in new romantic relationships. Only then will we know if the relationship is going to work.
But, let us look at some of the things we are hearing.
July Closed Alpha/Beta testing – how many will be invited? How will they be picked? I guess someone like Gaia Clary, the co-creator of AvaStar, would be an invitee. We know the Lab is using Maya for content creation. They have said they plan to have Blender support. For a fast start I think it would be a good idea to have Gaia working on the Blender tools people will need. Other tool makers are likely to be invited too.
Which creative’s will be invited? I would hope Penny Patton. She has been a long time advocate for good building practices and building to scale. I am willing to bet and give reasonable odds that Jo Yardley will be invited. I think Ebbe would want a 1920’s Berlin in Sansar.
Next page link below…
Overall i see some direct problems with something like Sansar. They need to keep it open to work with non VR or they will have a very small market among other things. There are some other points but this one is the largest since VR is still massively in it’s infancy banking purely on it would be utterly asinine and suicide of the product before it launches.
Ebbe has said the Sansar viewer will support VR and the 2D we are familiar with in SL…
It might appear, at least to me, that they can’t fix the .exe driven system that they have. Failures tend to lead to new projects, that with the same mindset, lead to continued failure. Virtual worlds is a prime example. Pull the pin on a grenade and it will go off, why bother?