SL Speculation

The Next Ten in Second Life

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Some bloggers have become frustrated with Second Life™. I hear them talking out the frustration by writing about how bad SL is, how dumb the Lab is, how SL is dying, it is all over… yadda, yadda, yaddda… Then there are the bloggers that write as if they know what the Lab should do. Of course none of those writers are making US$45+ million per year. So, lets take a look at some possibilities.

Another look at Concurrency - 2012
Another look at Concurrency – 2012

Hamlet has written several articles, I take as mostly objective, about what is wrong and right with SL. So, lets start with those.

Many feel SL is losing users, land, and popularity. I tend to agree with that thinking about losing users. But, that is sort of like saying a 600 mph (965 kph) car has been nerfed to death when it only runs 500 mph. It is still way faster than most people’s car.

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Experience Tools 2013-24

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Do you remember the Experience Tools? Officially they were called Advanced Experience Tools, I suppose they still are. We have been hearing a rumor or two here and there. We have gotten a clue or two from Lindens in the User Group meetings.

The video below is an old one…

[youtube mGPiywc6Hh0]

Don’t try to join the group mentioned in the video. We have no idea whether this group will come back to life or not.

Back in March 2012 the Lindens released the above video on the tools (see: #SL Video of Linden Realms Tools). We know that a server change for experience tools was rolled to the main grid some time ago (in RC May 2013 week 19).

Today Oz Linden updated the wiki with new information on viewer repositories. One of the beta viewer projects is an Experience Tools viewer. So, we are getting closer to seeing what the tools are. (See: Linden Lab Official: Viewer Source Repositories. Unfortunately the repository is still set to private. So, we cannot see the viewer code or get a running copy of the viewer. But, I take posting of the repository as a step toward public release.

Drax Files – World Makers Episode 7: Rod Humble

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Drax put his latest episode of the World Makers out today. This is a fun interview with Rod Humble. It runs 5 minutes and there are some interesting bits of information.

[youtube kwNCU3RGruE]

If you have listened to Rod’s 2011 speech at UC Santa Cruz’s meeting Inventing  the Future of Games, you may not be able to pick up on some of the context included in the video. See Rod Humble Speech Released for a brief summary and links to that video.

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AvaCon Abandons SLCC 2012

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AvaCon is the group that arranged the Second Life™ Community Conventions. They provided the service to Linden Lab™ via a paid contractual arrangement. This year the contract terms were unacceptable to AvaCon. They are not saying what the deal buster was. Of course I haven’t heard anything out of Linden Lab either way.

Whether the Lab will retain another company, arrange the event in-house, or just forget it, we don’t know. But, it doesn’t look good. Someone will have to be hustling to arrange the convention.

Daniel Voyager apparently noticed the post on AvaCon’s blog. He has an article about it: SLCC 2012 Cancelled, which seems a bit overly pessimistic to me, but he may be right.

I am sure someone has a call into a contact within the Lab to see if they can get a statement. I don’t have those kinds of contacts within the Lab. I won’t give up all hope until I her something from a Lab spokesperson. I also won’t be betting against Daniel’s conclusion.

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#SL Damage Control

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I heard someone talking about MetaReality having new information from Qarl on the Mesh Deformer Project. So, off I go to listen to it, an hour and 20 minute audio. This one is titled Damage Control, which inspired my title… just in case… never mind.

Well… there is new discussion about the Deformer Drama… but not much on the actual Deformer, nothing that I haven’t already covered. Since I have my notes from the listen I’ll publish them.

Again the time marks are approximate. The descriptions are my take away from the listen. Any resemblance to what is actually in the audio is more than coincidental. Any actual quoting is improbable. But, I did try to convey the ideas expressed in the audio tape.

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What’s Next Second Life?

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Several things are coming together. First is my slow FPS rate. I’m looking for a solution. I can’t find my processing bottle neck. The research is taking me far outside Second Life ®. Complaints about slow or poor performance in OpenGL based games are not limited to Second Life. So, I’m not accepting it is solely poor programming on the Lab’s part.

New Tech - Image by sidduz - Flickr

As one moves through the technology world in such a search it is obvious that we are becoming highly dependent on computer technology. OMG! At my favorite bar they did a BBQ event and brought in a company to do the BBQ food. Patrons pay the caterer direct for the food. The cash register was an iPad with an app.

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