Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Things about SL
Another article about Second Life appeared in, of all place, the Leavenworth Times…
See: This company was 13 years early to virtual reality — and it’s getting ready to try again
Matt Weinberger wrote the article and did a decent job of it. Matt is focusing on the business possibilities the new VR revolution is offering.
From the Second Life™ Third Party Developers User Group meeting we have some news this week. Mostly update stuff.
Brooke Linen says testing is going well and performance is good. There is a persistent problem with viewer, sim, marketplace communication. They are working on that. Brooke is thinking a couple of weeks to solve the problem.
Jessica Lyon is deciding whether to try an include VMM or release FS without it. Being pressed Brooke pointed out they need to get two server updates through testing and rolled to the grid. Then they will start pushing the viewer. So, the road to VVM could be a couple of months long.
These fixes are coming next week. Vivox has new fixes and the Lab will be adding those into Second Life.
Oz says changes are, “there are assorted things about loading of empty lists at login, person to person calls avoid some not working messaging channel, a microphone test that lets you hear yourself when testing, microphone volume, fixes for device hot swapping, voice dot stops disappearing, and code clean up.”
All these Vivox changes are to be on the viewer side. So, I expect an RC Viewer.
There are individual volume controls on each avatar. Hover the cursor over an avatar with voice enabled and left-click the ‘I’ that comes up. You’ll see a slider so you can adjust volume.
Ed Merryman pointed out that on TP voice can be left behind. Your voice remains behind in the region you left. People in that region continue to hear you and you them. People around you in the destination region cannot hear you or you them. A relog is required to fix the problem. Oz says they fixed that in a recent viewer release. (STORM-2109) I haven’t figured out if it is one of the RC’s or has made it to the main viewer.
The release date is getting pushed back… again… So, they are looking at a beta release then quickly (?) followed by a main release. So, we will probably see a beta viewer released in April. When will the main release appear? No one knows. I am guessing May…
While the FS Viewer has caught up with the SL Viewer code-wise, they can’t release the viewer yet as they are still fighting problems. Some FS testers are finding many more problems with the internal FS QA release than with the SL Viewer. The basic complaints are slow rez, some objects never rez, and there are more attachments dropped on teleport problems.
Jessica and Oz were discussing the blog article Jessica put up: ‘Restore to Last Position’ Needs You’, in the third party developers meeting, Friday (3/28). There are now 389 comments (as I write) by people explaining how they use the feature and why they need it.
Oz Linden is making his way through the comments and is about half way. He promises to read them all.
His take is that there are definite use-cases that need to be handled. He remains unconvinced that RTLP is the best solution. You will find the discussion at TM: 22:00±.
Hopefully you know that each week and almost every day Fab Free publishes a list of what they think is the grids top ten hunts. See: Today’s Top Ten Hunts in Second Life. I’m not sure how Fab and Hunt SL hook up… but, they are the people to follow if you like hunts.
I love a couple of the names; 50 Shades Of Lust and Slap Yo Mama, Easter Is Comin… J
Skip Oceanlane posted an update on the saga of getting Linden Lab’s attorney to approve the Capital Exchange game or not. At this point Skip is saying they are on their last attempt.