Nalates' Things & Stuff

Second Life’s The Wastelands

2018/04/03 by Nalates Urriah

So, what is The Wastelands? It is a game within Second Life™. It is a bit different. It uses a somewhat typical post-apocalyptic setting. The 10 regions making up the game area are all Moderate rated. Full nudity is prohibited and no sex… O.O

Also, the game has been around since 2006. Making it definitely an SL classic.

This video was taken as I begin to explorer The Wastelands. I happened to be there when the monthly meeting was announced and The War Zone game started. Luck. I don’t plan to video the meetings. This is a one-off type thing.

I clipped out parts of the video and sped up parts I left in. So, reading the chat as it scrolls by won’t get you a transcript of the meeting. So, I have a transcript below.

The War Zone game as I understand it is a control the flag game. I have seen it played and heard the rules explained once. The flag is radio-active. So, carrying it will kill you. As you run with the flag the other team is trying to kill you. You are going to die. But, games have the ability to resurrect you. At the end of the game whichever team controlled the flag the ‘most time’ wins. And… you have to stay in the region.

There is a fans’ mobile ‘bleachers’ that follows the flag. You sit on it to follow the moving game. That is kinda neat. It is jerky. So, that is what you see in the jerky parts of the video. It isn’t my computer stuttering.

Second Life Third-Party Dev Meeting

2018/03/31 by Nalates Urriah

This week was a <15-minute meeting. So, not much news.

On the viewer front, there are no imminent updates. So, we likely won’t see any RC or Project viewers changing status this coming week.

The new server-side capabilities were deployed. The viewers haven’t been released. They are still being tweaked. The Abuse Report category change from built into the viewer to delivered by the servers hickuped. The Lindens left out the ‘localization’. Oops. English only. That is being fixed.

Bakes-On Project Viewer passed QA, Oz was unsure of when it was being released (ta-da: released 3/30). See the release notes.

BUG-215951 – Option to allow nearest neighbor on textured faces. The feature request was rejected. So, this is an example of what a definite Linden ‘no’ looks like.

I take it that some core functionality in the render engine would have to change and the Lindens don’t see an acceptable benefit ratio.

The Lindens are aware of an HTTPS problem for those scripting HTTPS data transfer. They plan to fix it, they just haven’t gotten there yet.

That is about it for the meeting. This link to the video leads to a very quiet meeting this week.

Myst-Uru 2018 Status

2018/03/30 by Nalates Urriah

The official name Myst Online: Uru Live™ is a game that started about the time of Second Life™, 2004±. Both are multi-player, persistent games. By 2007-8 Second Life was peaking and Uru Live was closing. Those that played Uru were enchanted by the game. For many playing it was a parent and child time of bonding.

Fans saved the game by paying for the servers to run it and the original authors, Cyan Worlds, Inc., accepted and have kept a playable version online. The game moderators that kept the game safe for children are no longer around. So, it isn’t the kid-friendly game it was.

Uru has been called the game that ‘would not die’. Many have predicted its demise. If you click here in CATEGORIES (in the right-hand column), Myst-Uru, you can see my writing about the game over the years. The game has lots of history and exo-drama, drama outside the game. But, while it has survived the drama, it has taken a toll.

SL and Other News Bits

2018/03/29 by Nalates Urriah

Star Citizen now has 2 million user sign ups as it nears Alpha version 3.1. At US$45 per sign up, that is $90 million…

Save Our Lives, sad… as other news sources dig into the recent march the mainstream media story is falling apart. Many, like myself, wondered how high school kids could organize such a march and handle the logistics of contacting participants, moving them, providing for them, and acquiring a meeting place in D.C. Much less pay for everything.

A deep look shows the actual numbers are more in the 200,000± range not 800,000 and 90% of the 200k were adults >=40-years old. So, not really a student movement as is being reported.

Detective Novels – You may not know but one of the Second Life™ residents writes novels using their SL name as a pseudonym. Caitlin Tobias has written a review of the PUBLISHED novels, Huckleberry Hax – AFK, all of it. The book is out in hardcover, paperback, and digital. Awesome.

Second Life Forum Cover Photos

2018/03/28 by Nalates Urriah

I spend time helping people in the SL Forum, mostly in Answers. A question came in about making a Cover Photo… a what?

When logged into the forum open your profile. There are a couple of ways to do that. Up in the upper right click your name and select Profile. Or on any forum page where you have posted click your profile image.

Second Life News 2018 w13

2018/03/28 by Nalates Urriah

Servers

It is Tuesday (well, would have been if I had remembered to post this…) and the main channel was updated to version #18.03.14.513292. The changes are the ever-occurring Internal fixes then logging to help diagnose an issue with in-world HTTP servers returning HTTP 503 (BUG-214702), adding a new capability to request IMs that were delivered to the requesting agent while the agent was offline, and adding a new capability to request the most up to date list of abuse report categories.

Until we have a viewer update that can use the new caps, we can’t see or use the new additions.

Wednesday, the Blue Steel channel will be updated with version #18.03.17.513365, ‘internal changes’.

Le Tigre and Magnum may get an update. The Lindens had not decided on a version as I write this. The entry for these channels is a little confusing as they show the #18.03.14.513292 version, which I suspect many will assume is an update going to these channels. But it went to the main channel and may remain in these RC channels.