Ciaran Laval has an article up that covers the history of Second Life™ groups and his suggestion that things change to break a pattern present in SL since it started. See: Second Life Group System Still Needs An Overhaul.
SL users always want more groups. We are limited to 42 now. Originally it was 10, before my time. I started with the 25 limit.
MOLiCHiNO – Fifty Linden Friday
A major part of groups is chat. Adding more groups increases the server load exponentially. Chat lag and not being able to post to a group are common problems we all deal with now as we use groups. I have no idea how many times I have had to send an IM to someone in the group because I could not get a comment into a group chat, connection fail…
Ciaran is suggesting that we shift from the chat we have now to something web based. I suppose something more like IRC, but with more persistence.
This past week the SL blogosphere has been talking about OnLive’s announcement that they now offer a 7 DAY trial period of their SL GO product. If you don’t know what SL Go is, OMG! Well, see #SecondLife Gets a Mobile App (early March 2014). Prior to this the trial period was far too short for anyone to get an idea of whether this was a useful service. This longer trail should allow one to use SL Go long enough to learn the basics and actually use it to gain a sense of what it is like.
OnLive 2014-10 Games Page
The last few days I have been experimenting a bit with viewers, something I used to do frequently in my quest for the best viewer. Those were the days when viewers were each very different and had very different feature sets. To some extent that is still true, but I think much less so than in the past.
What I have found is that where FS and SL Viewer get 6 to 20 FPS in a crowd of avatars SL Go runs a pretty steady 40 to 50 FPS on the desktop and my S4 in the same crowds. Impressive.
There is a new RC Viewer out: MemShine Viewer version 3.7.9.290582. This viewer is a combination of versions; MemPlugs Viewer version 3.7.9.290405 and Sunshine Viewer version 3.7.9.290131, I have been writing about for 3 weeks or so. I think this version has new fixes for each of the parent versions.
Firestorm LogoSL Viewer
This combining of RC versions appears to be an attempt to speed up the release of changes made to the viewer. It seems once again viewer release speed is holding things up. Limiting viewer releases to two per month is a basic guideline the Lab adopted to avoid annoying users with too frequent updates. It would seem the result is things are backing up.
Simon Linden is working a problem to fix a problem that leaves attachments appearing to still be attached. The problem is especially noticeable when a script removes an attachment after a region crossing. See SVC-7626 – Script object detachment doesn’t appear to remove worn object in the viewer. This is an older JIRA of a related problem. Apparently the actual JIRA being worked on got MOVED into the Linden’s private MAINT channel rather than cloned.
Server/Scripting UG 2014-23
The apparent problem is some timing issue in how the servers send messages to viewers. Simon describes the problem as:
This new feature is now running in the main grid in RC channel: Le Tigre. Many people have been looking forward to this feature coming out. If all goes well we could see it move to the entire grid next week.
Any group owner or manager with proper permissions can use the feature. You need to visit a region in the Le Tigre channel to use the feature. Also you need to be using the Group Ban Project Viewer. Unfortunately the viewer is not showing on the RC/Project Viewers page. But, you can get the viewer here: Download: Windows, Mac, Linux.
You can find details on using the project feature here: Group Ban FAQ.
Be warned, the bans made in Le Tigre may not stick, meaning a banned person may be able to re-join from regions outside the Le Tigre channel. So, while the ban is server side older regions don’t know to check for a ban before allowing a join. But, the person will be in the ban list.
Once the project goes grid wide you may have to re-ban or eject the banned people one last time.
The server side code is at RC level, meaning it is working as planned and is expected to be the finished product. The viewer is just reaching ‘project viewer’ status, which we might consider the old beta version status.
Expect some changes to the viewer before it rolls out as the main viewer. When the server side code goes grid wide one can then use the Group Ban Viewer and ban people. Since the ban is enforced server-side and all the servers will then be running it, it won’t matter which viewer a banned person uses, they won’t be able to get in the group.
This should make life in group chat much better.
Servers
There was no roll to the main channel this morning. There was maintenance to the servers and logins were down for a time this morning.
Dxax announced in this show that this is the last live show of the first season. Shows will continue each Friday but, they will apparently be pre-recorded and are cued for the summer. Live shows will return mid August. We’ll have to see if they sound much different. I suspect the real difference will be a looser tie to current events.
Also, Drax and Jo are looking for funding. We can subscribe to the show for L$100/month (US$0.41 or about $0.10/show). The plan is a bit trick. To subscribe IM Drax and request a ‘subscription device’, in this case an on-air sign and microphone. They will apparently work like a land, house, or shop rental box. You pay the box. The on-air sign lights up. A month later it turns off and sends you a couple of notices presumably reminding you to pay the monthly support. The money raised will go toward supporting the show.
