As of April 13, 2020, we have last names… again. The Name Change feature has gone live. The Lindens say it is WAY more popular then even the most optimistic Lindens expected. At US$39.99 per change, I am surprised. But there is ten years of demand stacked up. So, I probably shouldn’t be.
The interesting bit of news in this regard is from the Third-Party Devs’ user group meeting. It was suggested that a Premium Member be allowed to change their alt’s name via their Premium account. It would be a PITA to have to take an alt to Premium, change the name, then revert to basic… and expensive.
The Lab is starting a blogger network. The idea is they will promote blogs that are about Second Life™. They have posted an article introducing the network and a follow-up article with FAQs.
You agree to their terms and conditions when you join the network. So, you sort of agree to comply with the SL community standards and basic SL ToS. No nudity. Basically, any article that appears in their network has to conform to the standards, whether your blog does or not is a separate issue. The Lab is the final arbiter of compliance with these various terms of use.
Just Beyond The Gate
They say their initiative is not to influence the blogger’s editorial content. But they get to pick what does and doesn’t appear on their pages. You have no guarantee your articles will appear. It is the Lab’s choice. While that is not explicit or forced influence, they will influence bloggers.
The SL web properties are privately owned, so it is their right to choose what they include. I suspect it won’t take long until the Lab’s San Francisco liberal bias shows through and bloggers learn what is and isn’t acceptable. I doubt we will see any articles critical of the Lab. I also doubt we will see any articles appear that promote Christian or conservative values or anything actually controversial.
Inara Pey is covering the Bloggers’ Network too. She has been involved in helping them get it going. She points out that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. The idea is they will follow all the blogs submitted and pick the articles they like. Currently, there are 100+ bloggers signed up. that seems like a lot of blogs to follow. Technology makes that a minor task. I follow 125+ blogs in my morning reading. It takes about an hour to cover the headlines and check out the fashion pictures.
But I suspect Inara’s point is the reality. That is a lot for the Lab to handle. The result is likely the Lindens will look for a way to improve efficiency and reduce the workload. That usually means they find the sources of rich material they like and stick with those. It is how liberals and conservatives in a world of fake news come up with so many bizarre ideas distanced from reality.
Then there is the matter of how many people read the SL Blog and Forum. I suspect it is only a couple of thousand. Threads commonly have 300 to 600 views. Way popular threads hit 600,000 views, but that is over 2 or more years and most of the views are from a small number of people. ‘How does your avatar look today?’ is a good example.
Monday Slink began releasing their BoM items. People were getting messages/notecards about how to update some of the Slink stuff they owned. People were posting in the Slink Classy Gear group with questions about the notice they got and others were like ‘whaaa?’ me being one…
So, I asked if they were releasing their BoM updates and was told yes but not yet official. Since I am kinda known at Slink as a blogger that likes Slink Stuff and have bought a bunch and use the Dev-Kit for some stuff I make… I quickly got three update packages.
How can you say…
I strongly suggest you NOT delete ANY of your existing Slink stuff. There is some of the animation stuff that is not included in this new package and maybe some other stuff. I think it is the animation HUD for hands that I did not see in the new stuff.
As of Tuesday, Slink put up a Slink Redux FAQ page on their Slink Style web page. This should answer most of your questions.
This update is labeled Redux v4.0.0. The first bundle in the pack is the Slink Physique Original Bundle. When unpacked it drops 9 folders into your inventory. One is titled Slink – Physique Classic Mesh Body Original. In it is a notecard saying,
“To access the previous versions of the Slink Physique Body parts, wear and unpack the “Slink Physique Hourglass Bundle (Classic)” unpacker HUD in this folder.”
Translated, here Siddean Munro is using “classic” in a way I suspect will be confusing. I would write it Classic Physique… But you get the idea Siddean means the current onion skin Physique body v3.0.8. To continue…
You will receive a number of properly named folders with the items inside.
These body parts use appliers exclusively, and will not be updated to Bakes on Mesh.
They will be available until the 1st of September, 2020, in this unpacker to allow you plenty of time to make the transition to Bakes on Mesh.
We recommend updating your outfits and folders to use the REDUX version as soon as possible.”
There is an RC level viewer for BoM here, which you can use now. Presumably, that RC Viewer will promote to the main default SL Viewer.
There mostly aren’t any BoM products to play with. But, you can jump to the Knowledgebase article on Bakes On Mesh and learn how to use BoM. There is also a step-by-step for making BoM stuff. For users, the use of BoM will be almost identical to how we use the classic avatar and system clothes.
I know Slink is ready to release their BoM compatible Slink bodies. We should see those quickly. Presumably, other major designers have BoM products waiting in the wings. So I expect BoM to quickly be adopted by a significant number of SL residents.
The hope is this feature will reduce ACI and improve SL performance. BoM should affect bodies, clothes, feet, heads, and hands. But, it will NOT affect existing mesh bodies and clothes. Those will all continue to work as they do today. Only new BoM capable stuff will use the new feature.
Server Deploy Posts – They are back… Last week speaking to Caleb Linden at the Beta Sever UG meeting I learned there was a problem and it would get resolved. It apparently has as there is a deploys posts this week.
Caleb posted the announcement Monday about noon SLT/PST. Yay!
June 24 – This is the date Premium Membership Rates increase. Until then you can renew for one more billing cycle at the current rate, US$72 per year, which is a deal. I just renewed. I am good until 2021.
Someday Soon
With Premium, one gets a L$1,000 signing bonus (down the road) and L$300 per week. At the average exchange rate of L$250 to the US$1 that is L$16,600 or US$66.40. Net cost is $5.60. With a jump up to US$99 the net cost goes to US$32.60. That seems like a huge rise until one considers the cost of some other games.
Star Citizen with ships costing US$400 to $2,500 and EVE Online at US$15/month are particularly expensive. Other monthly games are often US$10 per month or US$120 per year.
RL has me bouncing from client to client. Not much time to play. But, I did make it to Thursday’s CCUG meeting. This meeting was status reporting, questions about what is being worked on, and what may be considered in the future.
