Second Life and Virtual Worlds
If you are following this blog you know KirstenLee is updating her viewer faster than I can keep up with. She has also written about what a hassle it is working with some of the new 2.0 viewer code. I have no doubt the Modular people working on Emerald have several challenges adapting all their features to the new 2.0 style viewer.
I’m not plugged into Modular’s developers’ channel so things seem pretty quite to me. I have great hopes for Modular’s next release of Emerald.
For those that want the new features of Second Life Viewer 2.0 without the drastic user interface changes, consider Kirsten’s viewer. Those making machinima certainly want to check out the version S20 build 15 and newer ones. The current build is 16. — As of 4/12 version S20 (17) –– As of April 15 version s20 (18) – As of April 24 version s20 (19) – As of April 26 version s20 (20)…
Kirsten is making changes faster than I can keep up. Work projects have me working more than playing just now. Kirsten’s viewer is progressing quickly.
Kirsten has made a new site. You can check it out here: http://www.kirstensviewer.com/ Update your bookmarks.
This morning Linden Lab released Viewer 2.0 and opened the new resident Help Island. New World Notes gives you a glimpse of the new user experience. We old residents can’t visit there. It is supposed to be better and should help retain more new users. We’ll see.
The new Second Life viewer is very much like the Beta 2.0 viewer. The Lindens say lots has been fixed and changed. Other than the side panel not messing up my HUD’s I didn’t see much in about 30 minutes of use.
In announcing the new Second Life 2.0 T. Linden tells us what Linden Lab has learned from their research and what they are focusing on. See: Unveiling An Improved New Resident Experience
KirstenLee has released another update on her S20 viewer now version (12). It has the new MOAP (Media On A Prim) feature. Her user interface makes more sense for existing residents. I still get those slow motion freezes where the Frames per Second (FPS) drop to 1 or 2 and ping goes to 50,000ms… If I get the region IP address I can ping it from out side the viwer and get a good ping, 80ms to 200ms. So, I doubt it is my connection. The previous version of Emerald and Snowglobe were doing the same thing.
She has fixed the chat and IM’s so they are more usable. In general it’s a nice viewer… and of course it does shadows.
A researcher working in the game THERE has written a thoughtful article about her findings. For those of us interested in what makes a game tick and succeed or fail it is a great read.
For those of from the Myst-Uru community it has special interest as Celia studied the community of Myst-Uru that fled into THERE when Uru closed. The result was a book: Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds
I am a Myst fan and a fan of worlds like the Myst worlds created by Cyan Worlds, inc.
Today I am excited to see that Svarga is back!!! I loved the place. It is like a beautiful painting. It has high graphics qualities. It should be amazing in KirstenLee’s Shadow viewer. The ecosystem in Svarga is beyond anything we had/have in Myst’s Uru Live. But that is apples and oranges. See the article at New World Notes (NWN) for the story: Svarga, Artificial Ecosystem Island, Is Back in Second Life! (Updated: It Was Purchased From Creator By Linden Lab)
Also a new region opens today. NWN wrote about it too. See: Nemo Rises: Awe-Inspiring Underwater Steampunk City Inspired By Jules Verne Opens Today! This looks fun. The steampunk style looks a bit like Myst.
New World Notes posted about this on a tip from Daniel Voyager. The chart is a Google Spreadsheet. If you are looking for a viewer with specific abilities, this chart is just what you need.