Second Life & Sansar: What did we learn?

A Lab Chat meeting with Ebbe Altberg, Linden Lab CEO, was yesterdays (1/21) big event. We learned new things about Second Life™ and Project Sansar. We are starting to see reaction from a few to the new information.

Lab Chat - 2016-01-21
Lab Chat – 2016-01-21

I am paraphrasing what I heard on the audio and I’ve shortened it. For some questions the answers were repeating what was said earlier. So, I’ve included time marks to you can easily find the actual statements in the audio stream. I have also expanded on what Ebbe says from what I believe is implied. Take that with however much salt you feel is appropriate. 

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Second Life in the News Week 3

Annie Gaus, a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times has written In virtual reality, Second Life prepares for its second act. Annie interviews Ebbe Altberg. Starting with Second Life as a virtual world and moving into talk about Project Sansar. Nothing new here to those following Sansar in the SL Blogosphere. But, it is … Read more

Sansar to use Unity3D?

SL Press has an article up about the rumor that Project Sansar will be built using the Unity3D game engine. See: Project Sansar to run on Unity3d. The title makes it sound like a fact. While they give good reasons for saying it is Unity3D, it is still a ways from a conclusive confirmation. It also is a bit misleading to my way of thinking.

PS: 9:50 AM PST: Note Pete Linden’s comment at the end.

Unity3D
Unity3D – June 28, 2010

The latest information I can find where Ebbe Altberg says anything about voxels is to say they are experimenting with them. Early on there was more talk about using voxels. Voxels were a big thing for High Fidelity too. But, recently we haven’t heard much about voxels from either project. 

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Asking about Project Sansar

Hamlet pointed us toward the Lab Chat thread: Lab Chat Returns January 21st, 2016 with Linden Lab CEO – Ebbe Altberg. The thread is about 5 pages long as I write this, if you use the linear layout. (The setting for that is in My Settings->Preferences->Display.) There are the repeated questions everyone asks over and over, the totally uninformed ones (What is Sansar?), and some interesting new ones. I’ll look at some of the ones I find interesting.

Arctic Leopard
Arctic Leopard

Several people are wanting more information on what basic beginner building tools will be like. I suspect these questions will continue until they can experience the process. Painting a word picture is likely to be too imprecise to satisfy most people. 

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Hamet’s Questions about Sansar

Hamlet has a post published where he frames questions about Project Sansar® he would like to see asked at the next Lab chat. See: Top Project Sansar Questions I’d Love to Hear Answered on the Next Lab Chat. If you have questions you would like to have answered, post them here: Lab Chat Returns January 21st, 2016 with Linden Lab CEO – Ebbe Altberg – you’ll supposedly find it in the Second Life Forum in the Events section every month.

~Retrato~
~Retrato~

Hamlet thinks there is a ‘massive’ controversy about whether Sansar will cannibalize Second Life. I suppose there is some controversy. I suspect nearly everyone has an opinion. I do hear people voice the fear. But, I’m not seeing the clouds of doom or marching protesters.

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Project Sansar: Market Prices

A thread in the Second Life™ forum starts with the OP asking what prices will be for goods in the new Project Sansar world. That is something we would all like to know. I’ll collect and expand on some of the thoughts from that thread.

Breaking bad💵💵💵💵
Breaking bad💵💵💵💵

I think many have decided we can’t know what prices will be charged until we know the cost of land and the transaction tax rate. We know the transaction tax rate in RL (sales tax) tends to be 10% and less. People often shop online or outside their state of residence to avoid sales tax. So, we have good experience to tell us the Sansar tax rate can be expected to influence sales volume, prices, and user retention.

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