I forget the details but the gist is, someone is killed or their avatar is killed or possibly both, so the CSI team has to chase through the world of Second Life to track down the killer.

I went poking around for clips from it after a discussion with a friend in world today and came across this wonderful illustration of exactly how the Second Life experience works.

I’ve been to a lot of places in Second Life though I’ll admit that I haven’t ever been to any combat themed sims.  I have played around with quite a few weapons in SL however.  I have never seen anything even remotely on the level demonstrated here.

And what’s with the huge stand up projection screen in that server room looking area?  What the heck is he using for a controller?  A wireless number pad?  Really?  I realize that this is more or less a complete marketing grab for SL but how many people are going to come in world for the CSI experience only to end up severely disappointed.  Did the creators of this episode play SL at ALL?  I mean like, even just for 5 minutes?

Also, the stands are filled with avatars cheering for the match.  Like hundreds of them.  I can’t say I’ve ever found more than 50 avatars in any one place ever and those times are few and far between,

There I am, sitting by a campfire trying to keep warm.  Hiding from ‘The Man”.  I’ve effectively become homeless again.  Occasionally I rent but recently I’ve been hanging around with a great bunch of creative guys known in the Second life world as Woodbury University.   Supposedly they are some sort of huge organized mafia style group of griefers.  I’ve not seen it.  The guy who randomly cage guns me when I’m building in Sandbox Cordova, that guys’ a griefer (though i don’t really care that he does it).  These guys have some kooky ways of doing things and generally the group has been nothing but great. 

I’ve been shacking up in one of their “dorms”. for a good while now.  In fact, I was on when Tizzy Teardrop announced they were opening.  “First come first serve”.  i hadn’t been a member long but I figured that if anyone had a problem with me jumping in, they’d just kick me out.  I don’t need many prims anyway.  So I got a free room and up to “around 100 prims”.   Also occasionally there’ some well made fun free stuff tossed around the group or the area.  I admit, I was never really in the community like many of these guys but I did, ironically, donate more for my free room than I’ve ever paid in rent for a single apartment.  Hey, people give to me, I feel like giving back. 

I guess I’m nice like that.

So today, I’m online, and i get an odd notice that the Woodbury sim is offline.  I didn’t think it was a huge deal, sims go down for many reasons all the time.  Well, apparently the sim(s) had been offline for a good long while.  Also, there was starting to be some panic in the group chat.  A few Woodbury folk had gathered on the small parcel held by the group in Ravenglass.

This is more or less when everything when totally nuts.  As I’m standing on the parcel, it is reverted to Governor Linden’s control.  Linden Lab, has basically, kicked the Woodbury group out of Second Life.  Many key members have already been banned.

I still have my account, thankfully.  It took a bit of thought, but I finally simply left the group.  I haven’t lost anything either, all of the stuff in my dorm was made by me and is stuff I have copies of.

I guess at this point it’s just good to lay low and go back to the public sandbox.  It’s kind of sad that this group that used Communism as a theme mostly out of a joke was shut down by what can only be described as pure Fascism.

This is similar to the old “First Land” program, however it’s also outfitted with several mechanisms to help avoid the pitfalls of First Land.  Pitfalls listed in the article linked such as, Land Barons hoarding up land that was supposed to be for new players and people making their land a cluttered ugly mess.  Though technically “ugly mess” is subjective.

Quite honestly, I’m really surprised they haven’t implemented something similar to this in the past.  I would have expected more of an “apartment” style setting, but basically, the idea that if you have a paid account, in addition to Tier free land, or possibly in place if, you get a free place to live.

I’ve been back and forth on the issue of “should I go paid”, at this point I’m in the camp of “no”.  I’ve found a decent apartment I’m staying at now, for 100L per week, which isn’t terrible and I’m not locked into it if I get bored in a few months.  What I’m wondering though, which isn’t clear in the article, does the included home count as part of the prims on the First Land?  I realize the only limits were based on hardware capability but surely by now they’ve managed to increase this or made some level of upgrade to the infrastructure of the sims.  I may be wrong on that one.  Anyway, if the house doesn’t count, this could be enough to really entice some people since you get a decent looking home PLUS 117 Prims is a pretty decent deal.  Though, relating back tot he Xstreet Issue, an additional good incentive would be that “Paid Accounts don’t pay these new lame fees”.

For the uninformed, Xstreet is the online marketplace where residents can list their items for sale.  You pay a small percentage currently for items whent hey sell but it’s free to list as much as you want.

The new Policy effectively is designed to push anyone giving away merchandise off of the site.  It will cost 99L$ PER ITEM, PER MONTH.  So in order to give something away on Xstreet, it’ll now cost you 99 Lindens which is roughly 30-45 US Cents.  PER ITEM.  PER MONTH.  Ok, so that’s easily remedied, start selling the items for 1L each.  You’ll get charged a minimum commission of 3L$ per sale on this 1L$ item.  So each one will lose 2L$ from your personal money.  You would be doing a much greater service by simply handing your item out for free in world in addition to handing out 2L$ to each person getting the item.  At least that way some other resident gets the money.

The excuse used is that “People only use Freebies as promotional items”.  This is completely bogus. Many people simply do not care about making a profit.  Depending on my mood I’ll list everything I’ve made for nothing or 1L$ sometimes and even though I was recently working on developing a real store front, I’ll pretty much give away my merchandise to anyone who asks nicely.  In the 3-4 years I’ve been in Second Life I’ve probably made 200L through selling anything.  There just isn’t any motivation for monetary profit in it for me, I’d much rather just make friends and be a nice person ^_^.

So anyway, there’s been a growing gathering of commotion over this issue including protests and talks.  Here’s an online survey that, if it’s accurate at all, certainly shows how people feel about this.

Several of us from the Trilegy Group popped in to check her out.  We then decided to have a bit of fun.

This is Kimmark Karillion, th poor Ghosted Avatar.  Sadly, because she was on Linden Land, our plan to put her in a quarantine pin wouldn’t work since we can’t build there.  Thankfully, Claire’s store was very close by.  Se we decided to push her into the store so Claire could kick her.

Things ended up getting a little kooky after that.  As near as I can figure it has something to do with the SIM Crossing.  Basically, at some point she began bouncing repeatedly across he ground.  She made very slow progress but started bouncing off through Claire’s house and presumable off to regions unknown like some sort of crazy Avatar Weather Balloon or possibly a human Tumbleweed.

I snagged this group shot before she bounced away.

Claireschen Hesten, Ghostie, dushyant Nandahar, Cronic Pooley and Myself.

So if you see her on her bouncing travels, drop her a freebie or some lindens or something to help promote her journey.

]]> http://allaroundthegrid.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/ghostly-avatar/feed/ 1 RamenJedburgh Ghost01 ghostgroups http://allaroundthegrid.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/linden-labs-behind-the-firewall-product/ http://allaroundthegrid.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/linden-labs-behind-the-firewall-product/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:10:55 +0000 ramenjedburgh http://allaroundthegrid.wordpress.com/?p=28 ]]> Occasionally I like to discuss some more serious subjects around here, this is one of those time.

I’ve been taking an increasing interest in what Linden Labs has been up to and their “Official Blog.  I will admit that this has been somewhat linked to their improved Web Dashboard, which I’m almost embarrassed to admit, I have been using quite a bit.

Here’s a recent post about thie new/upcomming “Behind the Firewall” Project.

It’s being pushed as a stand alone Second Life solution for enterprise.  I find this kind of odd on several levels and it raises some questions.  One, does it interact with the LL Asset database.  That is, can I take my virtual stuff to the stand alone server?

If no, then my next question would be, what is the benefit of this over using OpenSim?  OpenSim is free aside from Hardware, and it’ll run on some pretty old (cheap) hardware.  I’ve set up 3 OpenSim “grids” for personal use in the last year using this guide.  Granted there has never been more than one user connected to these sims at any given time, but none have been on any level of high end hardware.  They all used leftover relics that were intended for the dumpster from my employer.  My current go sits on my Laptop, which is something like a 1 Ghz Pentium 4 with 512 mB of RAM.  I run the Sim server and the Second Life Client on the same machine.

The OpenSim experience is certainly nothing like the real SL experience and my use of it is limited to testing out building techniques and textures.  However, in the interest of money savings, if you’re not getting your Second Life clothing and shapes, why not just deploy an OpenSim server in your company?  You’ll have to build everything from the ground up anyway.

I mention this mostly because this system can’t possibly be cheap.  It’s my understanding that one Second Life Region is the equivalent of one physical Real Life Server (Excluding OpenSpace Etc).  They charge $1000 USD to set up a Region then some ridiculous hundreds of dollars a month upkeep.  To deploy a system that will effectively eliminate part of what they consider a core customer base (Though it’s questionable if they actually are), that brings in these high constant cash streams, doesn’t seem like an economical idea unless they are over charging to make up for it.

On theother hand, I’m sure there are benefits and factors I’m not aware of that someone who knows better could explain.

I received a random IM from one of my groups stating “Hey, Party at the Cornfield”.  I had just finished up meeting with a friend and decided that since I wasn’t busy doing anything else I’d drop on by.  The SIM quickly filled up.  There was a “party” but it was mostly people just standing around.  No dancing going on.  There were, interestingly, 4-5 Lindens there as well, skulking about.

Then I happened across this tablet.

The text reads…

The Cornfield is a region of mythological status where once naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done. “The Corn Field” is a vast star-lit field of corn and was cut off from communication with the rest of the world, a reference to the classic Twilight Zone peiose “It’s a Good Life”.

It’s Located at the North-West tip fo Orientation Island 1 and closed to the public.  For the first time, this Halloween Season 2009, Linden labs has opened The Corn Field to all residents of Second Life.

Let the Haunting… I mean Fun Begin.

The regions are also decked out with some Halloween decorations and ghosts which I doubt are standard fare for the banishment island.  Upon first reading the description it struck me as extremely gimmicky.  Like ti was just a story made up to make the place seem more spooky.

As it turns out, the story is true.  Who knew.

One thing I do occasionally buy is vehicles. I really enjoy traveling manually over point to point teleportation. I like to see the sites as it were. I sometimes wish this were a forced action (it used to be, sort of) as it would make the world feel “busier” but then it takes forever and I can see why they let you TP anywhere.

I recently purchased this Delorean vehicle from Back to the Future. Why a Delorean? Because I’m in general a huge 80s Junkie. My ideal SL experience would be cruising around in my Delorean dressed as Molly Ringwald with “Beat It” on the radio going to frathouse parties and getting into wild crazy antics. Ok, I’m not quite THAT much of an 80s junkie ^_^;;

It was a whopping 1250L. I’m not positive but this may be my most expensive purchase yet in all of my 3 or so years in Second Life. Sadly it was also generally disappointing.

The first and biggest disappointment is that instead of being a car that you rez then drive, you rez a frame then attach a bunch of car parts to your AV. When you sit on the frame, everything comes together to look like a car. I imagine that this is due to the high prim count. This thing is like 800 Prims and comes in like five pieces. I’ve built a few vehicles and there is some sort of odd engine mechanic that prevents vehicles from being larger than 30 prims plus the driver. On the other hand I’ve seen a few ships that are multiple pieces with high prim counts that are drivable so there is obviously SOME sort of work around to get by this. Maybe the work around doesn’t work on cars?

The least they could have done is is included a rezable “display model”. Still, 800 prims is a lot to dump on a sim and most places aren’t buildable anyway. Why is this really an issue though? For starters I tend to wear a lot of junk when traveling around. I have little Neko ears and a tail, I wear glasses, Sometimes I carry a skateboard, I wear hoodies and sweaters with prim parts, and I have a few AOs and a Twitter device that I carry. The point is, I don’t like to have to attach car parts because it messes with my regular outfitting. Also, when traveling by vehicle I’ll often stop and park my vehicle somewhere and wander around a SIM. It’s hard to find a place to re-rez the vehicle since everyone is afraid of griefers and newbie litter that I don’t like to pick it up when I park. If I know I’m not comming back I’ll take it (or delete it) but that’s not always the case.

With the Delorean, I have to stand up, then detach a bunch of car parts, then make sure my clothing has all of it’s parts reattached. It’s a pain.

My second Complaint, the advertisement suggested this vehicle has a “flight mode’. Half of the “neato kewl” factor of the BTTF Delorean is it’s ability to fly. The instructions don’t list how to accomplish this however. I tried contacting the creator to no avail. PgUp and PhDn don’t do anything since they control the gears.

Additionally, there’s supposed to be a ton of particle effects at 88mph but only the glow effects seem to actually work. I test this in a sandbox where I knew I could build and run scripts to no avail. Of course I also had trouble keeping the thing from flying off the map with region crossings and whatnot so it’s possible I simply didn’t get “up to speed”.

I guess what I’m saying is, at least until the bugs get worked out, avoid the Lithium Motors Delorean. I have it but I’ll be sticking to my Bispa Scooter or one of the freebie SEAT cars I’ve picked up or if I want to fly, one of several little crafts I’ve constructed myself.

Here’s a few more pictures of the Delorean, which does have the plus of looking impressively detailed, though some of the proportions are off and some of the effect could have been better accomplished via textures.

In the past you’d generally have to either find a dance board to join the “group dance” or you’d find a Poseball or two and sit on it to animate your Avatar.  You could also select from dances in your inventory and simply “Play In World”.

The last couple of clubs I’ve attended had something that seems relatively new.  It’s sort of a combination of the board and the poseball.  You click on a small nondescript object and it will spawn a pair of balls for you and your date/friend/so/etc to use.

You see, previous methods had a few draw backs.  The board wasn’t too bad though generally everyone would end up in sync with each other, which is kind of cheesy.  The poseballs, if unoccupied, are just plain ugly.  Notice in the shot there, you don’t see the ususal red and blue sphere floating all over the place.

It certainly helps with the mood.  something else I’ve noticed is that the animations themselves have gotten much better and much more elaborate.  At least at this club, Phat Cat’s Jazz Club.  They have some very romantic dances and a lot of variety.  The scenery is nice other than the billboard of some guy’s head (possibly the DJ or the Owner, I didn’t look too close).  It can be found here if you wish to visit it, it’s certainly a nice place for a date.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Phatland/167/103/22/

I’ve been using the same account in Second Life, off and on, for three years plus now.  The one main consistent problem with the whole Second Life world is “user retention”.  There was a period where Linden Labs was touting how many millions of users they have.  The problem is that at any given time the peak number of actual user accounts is maybe 100,000 – 200,000.  Basically, it’s a small fraction of the total number of registered accounts.  Also, which accounts are “active” fluctuates constantly.

And what counts as “active”?  If a person logs on once for an hour then never returns, technically that was an “active account” for that month.  And how much consideration had been put into alternate accounts?  That is, people with more than one account, or people with bot accounts that they use as store models?  I have I think 5 accounts total myself.  I’ve seen text only viewers designed mostly for store model bots so you can run 4 or 5 instances on one machine without the performance hit.

The point is, “newbies” tend to get frustrated or lost and never return.  The problem is, that there doesn’t really seem to be any good clear resources for new players, despite that there are a ton of resources out there.  I suppose the other problem is that there isn’t an easy explanation to “what do I do now”?

Second Life is different things to different people.  Some people use it solely as a glorified IRC chat.  Their AV may look ugly but they don’t need it to be pretty, they are just chatting via text.  Others like the visual social aspect and will want a pretty AV so they can “dance” at clubs or even just explore interesting regions with friends.  Others use ti for building and creating.  I’ve been to several SIMs that were beautifully crafted abstract works of art.  Not just parcels or objects but entire SIMs that don’t have any other real purpose than to be pretty.

Regardless of what you use Second Life for, one thing that almost every user needs is money.  Specifically Linden Dollars (L$).  There are two main ways to acquire money.  You can buy it directly using real world currency.  This is easy and likely the way you’re going to get any sort of useful initial amount.  You can also build and sell in world good or services.

This tends to present the largest hurdle.  Truth be told, I sometimes don’t understand why other than it’s possible that, despite the supposed age restrictions, most of SL’s population isn’t old enough o own a credit or debit card.  For $10 US dollars, you can get yourself 3000 – 4000 L$.  As long as you shop around and are smart with your money, this will take you a LONG way.  It’s an investment I probably make once a year.

However I do have some added benefits that others don’t get that skews my money perspective in world.  You see, Linden Labs used to GIVE basic accounts a weekly 50L stipend.  At one point, the use of alternate accounts to funnel these stipends into one account became somewhat rampant, so Linden Labs did away with the weekly stipend.  I imagine their long term goal of ramping up the popularity of the world also made this free money less cost effective.  When they did away with the stipend, any account created before was grandfathered in and still gets their money each week to this day (provided they log in once a week).  I still get a stipend on my main account.  It’s part of why I keep my main account despite that I occasionally wish I had a better name.  It “seemed like a good idea at the time”.

Anyway, I can see why they did away with the stipend.

One thing I do wish they would do though is either get rid of the upload cost, or give each account say, 5 free uploads per month.  This would encourage creativity among new players.  Right now it costs 10L to upload an image, animation, or whatever.  I also see why this is in place.  These uploads cost storage space for LL.  With no cost to upload, people would upload loads of junk willy nilly.  Making it cost money eliminates needless uploads.  On the other hand, 10L is a lot for one account who’s primary source of income is camping chairs.  Sure, you can build all you want for free, but you’re unlikely to sell anything without a decent texture or animation attached.

An alternative solution would be to incorporate a “preview upload” function into the normal viewer.  That is, it uploads, but only locally and only you can see the texture when applied to an object.  I’m pretty sure that there are alternative viewers that do this.  Basically, the idea is that you know your texture will look good.  I was building a car once and only after I uploaded all of my textures did I discover that the alpha was incorrect and the whole thing was covered in ugly purple borders.  Great, now I’m out a ton of L$ with useless textures.  I had a mess of shirts once that had a similar issue where they turned out to be translucent despite looking proper in Photoshop.  Thankfully I had previewed these on my OpenSIM server where I can upload for free all I want.

There’s also the issue of making sure logos and graphics on shirts look ok when applied to a curved Avatar shape.  Something not easily judged in Photoshop.  The point is, textures are an important part of selling, and getting them right on the first try is tricky.  Trial and Error can get expensive fast.

Anyway, allowing a limited number of “free uploads” each week would allow new players to explore the process of building and possibly allow them the ability to sell merchandise to make money.  Or even just allow them to make their own outfits as opposed to buying them.  If it’s “uploads” instead of “free L$” it discourages the creation of alt accounts specifically for money funneling.

I’ll go ahead and wrap up there though I have other idea and suggestions of what could make the experience better.  This post is getting rather long however.