Planned Second Life Updates

The Linens have announced some new things coming to Second Life™. Some are good, some are a pain.

In the pain department first, there is an increase in the fee to buy Linden dollars (L$). It is going from US$0.60 to $0.99 per transaction. This goes into effect today, Nov 2, 2017. Dang. I need Lindens…

Also, when cashing out the fee goes from 1.5% per transaction, with a $3 (USD) minimum and a $25 (USD) maximum to 2.5% per transaction, with a $3 (USD) minimum, and no maximum. This happens January 3, 2018.

- to The Mist -

– to The Mist –

Why? Thank criminals and government regulators. The cost to remain compliant with regulations is going up.

In the goodies department, money is being budgeted for; new features, engineering support, customer support, billing systems and upgrades, and customer acquisition outreach. These are all good things. I like new features. Animesh is the exciting one. The improved server-side baking for 1024 rez and adaption for use with mesh bodies and other mesh attachments is intertwined with animesh phase I & II. But, it has great potential to reduce avatar induced lag.  Continue reading

Second Life: How are User Groups Doing?

There is a page in the Second Life™ Wiki listing the official user groups. Currently there are four weekly meetings;

The Bento Development group has changed to the Content Creation group. There was another Content Creation/Mesh Import group that stopped meeting in 2014. The meeting transcripts for that old group are still available. They are not the same groups but, similar.

Imagination

Imagination

This week and next there are no Content Creation group meetings. The next meeting is February 17.

Currently the Content Creation group meeting in Hippotropolis is the most interesting. They are dealing with the challenges of creating Bento Content. As problems come up the Lindens look at ways to make fixes or changes and users work to figure out work-arounds and better methods for creation. Various Lindens attend the meetings.  Continue reading

Second Life Group Lists

You probably don’t know that Second Life group member lists do not fully load for groups with over 5,000 members, unless you manage a large group. And now the Lab will soon be having the servers NOT send the full list to the viewer. This change is a work-around for a problem impacting group chat.

Paint Us like a Group of Your French Girls.

Paint Us like a Group of Your French Girls. by VOIDAR // Ashley Carter, on Flickr

This coming change is NOT related to the new 60-groups limit. That is having no measurable impact on group chat. But, downloading LARGE member lists is creating a problem, apparently whether 1 or 60.  Continue reading

Second Life User Groups

Nyx Linden is going to fold his UG meeting into the Server/Scripting UG. So, the Content & Mesh UG closes with today being its last meeting.

Nyx Linden told us today, “This will be the last regular meeting for this user group. I’m moving on to other projects and haven’t been able to keep up with the details of content creation tasks as well as I used to be able to.”

World of Particles - 2014

World of Particles – 2014

Whirly Fizzle and others asked the obvious question, “Are you being reassigned to the new world stuff Nyx?” I found the answer a bit ambiguous when Nyx answered, “I’ll still be in world from time to time, and will be helping Oz whenever any avatar issues come up or with any other pieces where I can assist of course.” So, I find that a bit fuzzy. But, I’ll take that as a yes.

Oz Linden told us, “Topics that otherwise would have come here can be brought to either the simulator UG or one of my open development meetings.” And continued by saying, “I don’t know what the new platform team will be doing to engage with users, or when.” I take this to mean no one knows for sure what they will be doing or when they will be doing it. Things are changing for the Lindens and while Ebbe can make off-hand comments I suspect the Lindens (staff) are still limited in what they can talk about.  Continue reading