Snickers' Doodles

New fantasy SIM tops for photos

2013-05-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

A friend passed along the landmark for a new SIM (Sandalphon) a friend of hers has built saying I had to take a look since it was so cool for pictures. Well, she's right. It is gorgeous! I put on my elf avatar just to stick with the fantasy theme and popped over to take a few photos. Now I'm sure there are some awesome things I could be doing in Windlight to make things even more interesting but I think what you see with the owner settings is very cool!

My only (small) criticisms are that some of the land features that look like you can walk over are phantom prims. Many spots that would be great for posing aren't because you disappear into them. Plus, there could be a few more physical mounds and hills. But, to be totally fair, the builder has done an amazing job on a single SIM. It really feels much bigger than it is. Anyway, enjoy! Click on any photo to see full size. LM at the end of the article.

So check out Sandalphon here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sandalphon/8/124/26

Let me know what you think!

P.S. This SIM is rated Adult so you must be age-verified. I didn't see anything that would warrant that setting (no naughty things) but I suspect it's because the owner wants it that way!

Burning down the house!

2013-05-09T22:47:00.004-07:00

It's hot in here!

So I just got an invite from a friend to Second Life house warming party and just had to show you a picture of it! Very clever. And yes he's the creator. Click it and the mini-house lights on fire and gives you a folder with the invite! Nice!

Wish I could show you the before (which is just the house by itself) but once you click it, there's no going back. :P

UPDATE: The creator says I can mention his name so I will. :) Yay for Ghosty Kips. Also since the item is copy, the original will still be in inventory after you drag it out.

Feeling jumpy? It's cute I swear it!

2013-05-07T22:57:00.002-07:00

Drew in Sand by Inga Wind

Just a quick hit & run article to show off a new completely cute mesh denim jumper from Inga Wind. Per her usual naming scheme, it's called "Drew in Sand" which means her idea of "sand" is my idea of charcoal. Oh well. The details are fabulous and it comes with shoooozzzz. Also available in blue, red and khaki. Price is $250L but for two days CURRENT group members can buy it for $125L.

SLURL to the store: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/173/191/409

My post in Second Life Forums gets deleted by mods

2013-04-16T18:57:00.001-07:00

So I made a short post in the Second Life Forums General Discussion section that linked to my blog article titled "Linden Lab losing focus?". Almost a week after I put it up, the topic was suddenly removed by a moderator along with some 20 replies. And the replies were as interesting and divergent as one could want including several pro-Linden Lab perspectives.

The reason I was given for the removal (in PM) was that I had linked to a third-party website (my blog) which was a violation of the Community Guidelines. Well feel free to read them yourself. I couldn't find a single thing mentioning third-party websites or otherwise -- only that one can't put up a link to something that promotes a product or service.

Now I have done this in the past -- put up a post with a few comments and a link to the full article on a topic. Sometimes it's my blog, sometimes it's someone else's or even a news article. Others do it too, often blatantly commercial. It's kinda like why in the hell bother with a URL feature in the Forums if you can't use it!

Plus, as most of you who follow me know, I don't even have this blog monetized for ads. It's strictly something I do for fun.

So hmmmm. I suspect it was more the fact that the TOPIC was negative about Linden Lab. OK, that's fine. I could actually somewhat respect that as the decision factor. But couching the topic deletion in non-existent Community Guidelines was, IMHO, lame.

So does anyone know what the moderator structure of the Forums is? I can't figure out who has mod rights and where you might appeal. I asked the moderator who pulled the post directly why it was a violation when there was nothing in the guidelines suggesting it was.

No reply so far.

Troobles. Ugly virtual pets from Linden Lab.

2013-04-12T12:56:00.003-07:00

As commented in the Second Life Forums, these have to be the saddest looking VPs out there. Seriously Linden Lab?? Someone spent time developing these? Mommy pig talks and Daddy pig can act as a security orb. Wowee!

Oh but they are free for a limited time on Amazon.com. I can't wait. Read all about them here. Or not.

Lottie -- summery, butterfly magic

2013-04-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

Lottie by Inga Wind

There's a story behind this outfit. When I first got it from Inga Wind, I absolutely loved the print (Inga has a thing for butterfles) and I loved the styling. Plus the wedgie sandals! OMG. They are freaking amazing!

Alpha gap

What was driving me crazy were the alphas! Now most mesh outfits require a certain amount of shape tweaking to get your curvy parts to fit the mesh. But in my case, no amount of tweaking to my boobs would hide some gaps between the alpha and the top.

You can see the little transparent spot above showing the gap. If I set my sliders so the gap would close, the tops of my boobs push through the top. Not a pretty picture (down guys, it looked stupid).

So I sent Ingathe photo evidence and voila, she turned around new alphas in about an hour that solved the problem perfectly! They were just a bit too large. Shrinking them to cover less skin area made a huge difference!

Lottie Sandals by Inga Wind

OK so what you get with Lottie is the dress as shown with sleeves, plus a very cute prim butterfly chest attachment and the sandals!

Now are these not the cutest things on the planet? Want want want for real life! Click them to see the detail close-up. I could have adjusted the skin tone via the included HUD to be a little darker to match my skin tone, but out of the box, it's pretty darn close. (Yes they are the feet included type.)

Lottie showing included hair wreath.

So all this cool stuff sells for $250L ($125L if you are a group member and buy it within 2 days of release). But wow, I'd pay $250L just for the sandals!

As usual, here's a SLURL to Inga's store: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/173/191/409

NOTE - OMG I forgot to wear the hair wreath for my photo. Here's Inga's package photo showing the wreath!

Linden Lab losing focus?

2013-04-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

I paid a visit to Linden Lab's website today (basically I was lost on the Second Life website looking for a link to the grid status page) and, to my surprise, I found four new projects sharing equal billing with Second Life: Patterns, Creatorverse, dio and Versu (Living Stories).

Call me stupid, but after reading through the descriptions of each of these, I had a very serious "what the hell are they thinking" moment. Then after playing with dio (was it named after Ronnie James Dio??) and looking at the others more in-depth, my feelings of doom, despair, defeat and dread only grew.

Dio, it seems to me, is nothing more than a do-it-yourself, point & click version of the old computer text game, Colossal Cave Adventure. I wasn't old enough at the time to know about or play Colossal Cave, but I've read enough references to it that I think I'm safe in saying that dio seems like much the same thing. Which begs the question, why? Why cobble up a full beta site for a game concept that's 40-years old? Why put resources into it? Where did this silly idea come from? And they're going to use ad revenue to drive it? Is the target audience 60-something bookworms?

Next up, Versu. OMG boring. I do a lot of writing for a living but the thought of doing interactive stories on an iPad totally underwhelms me. If I'm going to write something, I'm going to use something with a real keyboard. If I'm going to read something on a tablet, it's going to be a real book by a real author. Or I'm going to be browsing Coldwater Creek or Zappos. I can think of 100's of things to do on a tablet before I'd consider something like Versu. :P

Creatorverse - on multiple platforms no less. So you get to put cartoony, 2D shapes and things in motion and watch them do shit? Woohoo! Sign me up Rodvik! I guess it's kind of like Flash for the unskilled. Well the unskilled part fits me but exactly what am I supposed to do with something I create? Show my friends? "Hey Justin, check out this cool rocket I made on my iPhone! Can we get married now?" "Lookie here Flo! I made a happy pink poodle out of circles that runs in place. Isn't she cute?" I mean seriously Lindens? This creates revenue?

And finally Patterns. Make your own giant canyon or mountain that looks like a crazy quilt and walk or fly around it. Gosh, where do I sign up? Oh hmmm. Maybe at www.SecondLife.com where the mountains you make actually look real and not like something in a Torley Linden nightmare.

All this seems like a grasping at nonexistent straws if you ask me. (Well you didn't really ask so I'm telling you.) Maybe some of my blog readers can tell me the silver linings or paths forward in these ventures. Is this sort of creative direction coming from Rodvik Humble or further down the food chain? I welcome your comments!

Linden Lab releases alpha of Materials Project Viewer

2013-04-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

From the Linden Lab blog:

The Snowstorm project is happy to announce that we have a Materials Project Viewer available for alpha testing of support for Normal and Specular maps on Second Life objects! When generally available, this will enable content creators to make much richer looking materials with less geometric complexity.

Read the entire piece here:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Materials-Project-Viewer-Now-Available/ba-p/1962691

Total mesh cuteness from Inga Wind

2013-04-09T23:01:00.003-07:00

I give you Inga Wind's latest creation --- "Alison". It is amazingly cute. I've been wearing this off & on since I got it and it just looks fab. It even makes my (normally small) boobs look more, uh, boobalicious. Oh and the wedgie sandals!! OMG! I'd pay for these separately but they come with the outfit and match it perfectly. The skirt portion is a tiny bit meshie (ie. stiff) but that's not really an issue since it dances and walks very well.

Alison looks exactly like the package photo above.

Alison is $200L including 5 sizes from XXS to L, alphas for dress, dress & shoes and shoes, and belt. Includes mesh shoes with full feet and HUD for skin matching.

SLURL to Inga Wind Clothing: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/173/191/409

New freebies at Inga Wind!

2013-03-10T13:38:00.002-07:00

Woohoo!! Inga Wind just put some goodies out as freebies in her store! While I haven't personally tried any of these on, I've never seen anything of hers that doesn't look virtually the same as the photo on the package. So have it peeps! Get them while they're hot. As always, click on the photo to view in full size.

SLURL to Inga Wind Clothing: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/173/191/409

Magic Box retirement in Second Life

2013-03-04T15:48:00.001-08:00

Linden Lab just announced a date certain scheduled phase out of Magic Boxes starting April 3, 2013. For those that don't know, Magic Boxes are holdovers from XStreet SL / SL Exchange and used by merchants to deliver products in-world from off-world Second Life Marketplace purchases. Each Magic Box holds copies of the inventory items being sold and they must be rezzed somewhere in-world in order to work.

Most merchants have already converted to Direct Delivery which puts purchases directly into the buyer's Received Items folder without the need for a rezzed box. However, a lot have not. The new policy gradually removes Magic Box capability over a two week period ending on April 16. After that, anything relying on a Magic Box will be delisted from the Market Place.

For full details, read the official announcement: Magic Box Retirement

Blogger, Twitter, gadget & widget fails

2013-02-05T17:03:00.002-08:00

Just now I noticed that my Twitter stream was no longer showing up in this blog. At first I thought there was something wrong with the "gadget" (in Blogger-speak) I used to display it. After fooling around with no luck, I gave up and searched. Lo and behold, Twitter has disabled the use of all 3rd party Twitter streaming tools including my gadget. You have to use Twitter's widget.

OK fine, whatever. So I head to Blogger's add a Gadget thing. Guess what? It's broken. All you get is a pop-up that says "Oops, something is broken." with instructions to try refreshing, deleting cookies, clearing cache, etc. OK, tried all that. It's still broken.

And naturally, when I go to see if there's any way of plopping Twitter's widget into my page directly, I'm totally lost in a swamp of CSS, HTML, macros, etc. in the Blogger template I use. I tried pasting the official Twitter widget code into a likely looking spot but, naturally, it didn't work. Arrghh!

So thank you Google for not keeping Blogger working and not providing any easy way to report bugs.

UPDATE:

Thanks Ghosty & Peter for showing me how to do this using a pre-defined Gadget called HTML/Javascript. Pretty simple to do -- just paste the Twitter code into it. However, it's totally not obvious since you have that "Add your own gadget" link on the left that absolutely does not work.

CasperTech bans 26 users from vending system

2013-02-05T15:27:00.000-08:00

Casper Warden just sent out a notice in Second Life for CasperTech vending systems support group stating he has globally banned 26 users from the CasperTech network, including all vendors and rental units. The users, all related in some way, were found to be selling stolen content on the marketplace.

I IM'd Casper but he must be buried in messages after announcing this since he hasn't replied. And of course, due to SL Terms of Service and the possibility of getting into legal do-do, he's not going to disclose any names.

I find it interesting that he's doing on a small scale what Linden Lab often won't do period.

Nice rant by Tateru Nino

2013-01-04T18:21:00.004-08:00

Worth a read:

http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2013/01/04/thats-just-plain-embarrassing/

I see the clueless fingers of Rodvik Humble on this.

Corinne - winter wonderfulness from Inga Wind

2012-12-29T18:09:00.001-08:00

My fave Second Life clothing designer, Inga Wind, has done it again with a new totally cozy, cute mesh outfit she calls Corinne. I know. All those outfit person names. How does she keep them all straight? It would drive me crazy. (TIP: The first thing I do with most outfits is RENAME outfit folders to something meaningful like "*IW* Corinne in Blue MESH - Jeans, boots, crocheted butterfly shawl top". Often I'll tag them with an opinion like CUTE, SEXY, SEE-THRU, etc. Then I put them into a subfolder such as Casual Outfits under my Clothing folder.)

The textures are very realistic as are the shadows and wrinkles. This is just the sort of outfit one might wear for après snowsports or just hanging out in the lodge while you avoid the bears outside. :)

Shown are three of the colorways for Corinne (large is just Corinne, next are Corinne in Blue and Sand. Also available is red (not shown).

Corinne is $400L regularly and $200L for members of Inga's group. For what you get (everything shown), Corinne is a real bargain at $200L so be sure to join her group.

SLURL to Wind: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/180/230/344

Lalo Telling - Gone From Real Life

2012-12-24T18:38:00.005-08:00

December 5, 2007 – December 14, 2012

Today, on Christmas Eve of all days, I happened to take a few minutes away from family hubbub to read a few neglected RSS feeds when I stumbled across Daniel Voyager's blog post about Lalo Telling's passing in real life.

http://danielvoyager.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/lalo-telling-has-passed-away-in-real-life/

Snick & Lalo at SL Bloggers party

I am stunned and deeply saddened. Lalo was a very close friend of mine in Second Life, on Twitter and via his blog. He was one of the most interesting, deep and thoughtful persons about life and virtual worlds. While we often had differing political views, we always had fun whenever we were together in SL.

He introduced me to Soror Nishi's fantastic plant sculptures, the Second Life Bloggers group and a number of other things in SL that changed how I looked at our (often) silly virtual universe. He talked me into getting on InWorldz. We stayed up until 3:00 AM several times chatting. Prince Lalo Telling was also one of my direct subjects in the Second Life Tiny Empires game. I even started calling him "Professor" since he was so damned smart plus after he changed his avatar from a sort of neko hybrid (see photo) to a more human, mensch-like presence.

I honestly had no idea he was even ill. He never mentioned it to me or even hinted at it. He was one of those rare SL folks who, whenever I saw them pop-up online, I would always make a point of saying hi.

Sigh. Namaste and aloha Lalo Telling. You are missed.

Second Life bug reporting - major fail

2012-12-20T13:17:00.002-08:00

I posted the following in the Second Life forums (see Group Notice failures). We'll see how long it takes before a moderator removes it to maintain the illusion of a love fest between residents and Lindens.

I really don't know how to deal with this any more. Group notices (especially with attachments) are starting to fail at an alarming rate. I simply don't receive them. In checking the JIRA for the issue (JIRA SVC-1507), I see 409 votes for it with 300+ watching. Yet, Linden Lab has put the issue on "inactive" status which means that no more comments can be added and the issue cannot be edited. Instead, Maestro Linden demands "reproduceble steps" via opening a new issue. WTH?

I'm sorry Lindens but bugs are often a combination of things. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be trying to fix them or take additional info on them. Like maybe it only happens on certain sims? Or maybe it's just from certain groups that contain the letters "W" and "H". Who the heck knows? Or maybe it's just the time of day or general lag??

Closing off comments really shows me how little you value your own bug reporting process -- or us the customers.

What you really need is a "Here's what happened when the bug occured" type of reporting. For example, I was using XYZ viewer, time was 1:03PM SLT, at location ABC, Group Notice was supposed to come from DEF group sent by Avater Y. Then YOU guys can keep track of the commonalities rather than pushing "reproduceable steps" back on your customers. Which is just flat out a cop-out!

While my complaint was specific to receiving Group Notices (I often don't get them), it just seemed the whole JIRA process is now completely broken with comments being frozen, action items moving to inactive, demands for "reproducible" steps and no "easy" method for reporting a bug as noted in my last paragraph above. It's sad really. But alas, I think this is the New World Order as perceived by Maestro Linden.

Death of v1.x viewers in Second Life

2012-12-20T11:58:00.004-08:00

SL has been rife with rumors lately about upcoming changes to Second Life grid that will effectively deal v1.x viewers a death blow. Since I wondered how it would affect my personal favorite viewer, Cool VL Viewer, I asked it's developer, Henri Beauchamp about the status. Here's his reply from the CV Forums.

Old viewers (LL's v1.23.5 and older, Snowglobe v1 but also v2, old v2/3 viewers and actually, all current v3 viewers) will cease functioning properly (they will be unable to "bake" avatar textures and avatars will stay grey) after LL will turn off the legacy baking service on their grid, sometime next year. While the new baking service is anticipated to come into production sometime in February (if all its bugs have been fixed by this time), the old baking service will coexist with it for some time (probably at least a couple of months, perhaps more), meaning even old viewers will keep working for a little while.

Ultimately, however, all maintained viewers will migrate to the new baking system, and the Cool VL Viewer will be part of them. No worry.

So the sky doesn't exactly fall in January as some of the notes being passed around would have you believe. Yay! But it does get a little darker because a lot of people are going to be left behind on their favorite viewers that aren't being actively developed any more.

BTW, I would like to thank Henri for all his hard work on the Cool VL Viewer. It's so much faster than Phoenix or Firestorm for me it's not even close. Henri also seems to know more about what Linden Lab is doing than Linden Lab. :P

The question for a lot of people is what this means for viewers that support other grids like OpenSim? As far as Henri is concerned, he plans to maintain both baking methods in Cool VL Viewer to support other grids. Who knows what other devs will do?

The Hype Cycle / Hype Chart

2012-12-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Darien Caldwell in the Second Life Commerce group for alerting me to this. I thought it was interesting in light of my own negativity about where Second Life is headed. She nailed it. Virtual Worlds are in the Trough of Disillusionment. The chart comes from Gartner Group's annual analysis on where technology products are in their lifecycles.

See the full article here that triggered the discussion: http://educationstormfront.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/gartners-2012-technology-hype-cycle/

Now I wonder where social media fits into the curve. Twitter, Facebook, etc.

FREE*STYLE groups closing in Second Life.

2012-12-16T12:07:00.001-08:00

Two groups I joined in my first year in Second Life were the Free*Style announcement group and its sister chat group. Who doesn't like freebies? And that's what Free*Style was all about -- merchants letting Second Life residents know about their latest free offerings. I remember my best friend and I always rushing to grab the latest ones as they came in. Some were awful but many were very good and as a poor avatar, Free*Style, Yadni, Sarah Nerd, Free Dove and others helped fill my inventory with things other than bad system dresses and those ubiquitous "Flexified" Barbie-style outfits.

Eventually, when I started making and selling things, I used Free*Style to announce freebies too. So it was with a touch of sadness that I saw this notecard attached to a recent announcement:

This is Creamy, founder of Free*Style group.
I've decided, with a heavy heart, that it's time to close the original Free*Style group. I rarely play SL now, and can no longer monitor the group.
It's not the end of Free*Style though, it will live on with my friends who will start a new fresh group and store, They have kept the blog alive too, for which I'm so grateful.

So to keep up with the Free*Style news, check the blog
slfreestyle.blogspot.com

Much love to you all
and I hope you have happy holidays
Creamy x

Creamy is, of course, Creamy Cooljoke aka Creamzilla. I'm not sure why she didn't just turn over her 2800+ member group to a new owner. I've sent her an IM asking about it. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, I sigh and see yet another sign of the continued shrinking of Second Life.

Snickers Second Life in-world store closed

2012-12-12T17:24:00.000-08:00

All good things come to an end I suppose and having a Second Life in-world presence is one of them. For over 4 years I've always had a place where people could see and buy my goodies (clothes, evil talkers and silly things). But sadly, no longer. With 98% of my sales coming from the Second Life Marketplace, in-world sales no longer even cover the rent on my 130 prim shop. Even when losing a little bit of money, it was OK because people at least had a chance to get the "feel" for my work all at once. Plus there were always things in the store that for one reason or another, I didn't want on SLM.

But paying out way more than you're bringing in is st00pid. Three months of negative $L were enough for me. The two-edged sword of web-based shopping loses tier for my landlord, Linden Lab and if things continue like this, likely for a whole lot of others.

So the store is now closed. Oh well.

See me on the Second Life Marketplace at:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/17804

The newbie experience in Second Life sucks!

2012-11-27T19:16:00.001-08:00

I haven't made a new avatar in like forever but my recent post about retention and tier sparked a few comments that made me want to test the "new user" experience. Honestly Linden Lab, it's horrible. It's big time awful. As in really bad. Sucky.

You start by picking an avatar. I chose one that looked sort of like a biker chick. Then you download and install the viewer. That didn't go too well. First try gave me a download error. Had to retry 2x to get the damn thing to finally install. (Yes I had cleaned off remnants of previous SL viewers including doing a registry purge.)

OK finally a successful install. First thing that happens? I can't log in. It didn't accept my password (very carefully typed) or user name or something. Tried again. No luck. Waited a few minutes, tried again and success!! I guess the login to the world wasn't exactly synced to the website account creation.

Now what? I get dumped into the middle of a big circle with glowing things all around me (Destination Island 8 to be specific). Huh? No explanation as to what to do next. No tutorial. No nothing. I remember the old login where you had to accomplish a few simple things like find a sword, attach it, walk here, fly there, interact with x and y and z. There's absolutely NONE of that!

Oh and did I mention? I showed up as Girl Next Door, not biker chick. Not good.

How to

So what do I see after looking carefully at my viewer window? A little button called "How To". Ohhhhhkkkkayyyyy. I'll try that. The walk explanation is fine. Chat I think I can get that. Private chat (IM) slightly murky but still ok. Change your Profile? WTF? Doesn't even tell you what a profile is! Change your view. Click and drag on the world? Huh? "For more control, click on the View button at the bottom of the screen." WHUT? There is NO "View" button at the bottom of the screen. There's a Camera Controls and a Walk/run/fly but there's no "View" button. Oy.

Next up is "Find places to go". This is all before I even know why I would want to go anywhere. And STILL nothing to tell me what those swirly gateway looking things are that surround my little circular Romanesque Stonehenge starting point.

I won't go through all the rest of the silly tips they give you under How to other than to say they are woefully inadequate and afterthoughts rather than actual things that might help you figure out what you can do in Second Life.

Where to go

Another case of WTF. Again, what do those portals do? (Yes, they take you places even more obtuse and totally incomprehensible for a newbie.) And clicking Destinations brings up a whole bunch of random stuff that typical newbies would have no idea about what they can or can't do for you. Let's see, "Newcomer Friendly". What does that mean about the rest of SL? Anyway clicking it leads to some really bad, generic descriptions about this or that destination being a fun (safe) place to learn and hangout.

With all this nonsense, it's a wonder anyone stays past their first 30 minutes. Oh and even though there were about 5 others standing around, no one tried to start a chat with me and no one responded to me trying to start a chat with them (public). IM was no better.

For giggles, I decided to click on the "Art" portal looking thing. Woosh. Now I'm in a big huge dome with LEA on the floor, a few signs around the glass dome and absolutely NO clue what to do and no clue how to get back where I was.

So let's see maybe I can try Teleporting Home. Wouldn't that take me back to where I started? Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! Now I'm at Pooley Stage. For grins, I thought I'd ask in chat how to get back to where I started. No answer from any of the 5 avatars standing around Pooley Stage. (And yes, I know you can click the back button next to the browser address type window but how many newbies will realize that?)

Epic failure

I really feel sorry for anyone involved in the new user experience. I feel totally sorry for the newbie who will be clueless about what to do, how to do it or where to go. I feel sorry for the support groups like NCI, Caledon Oxbridge, White Tiger, The Shelter, etc. who will only be getting people because they happened to randomly click on a destination (not by design or intent). And most of all, I feel sorry for the rest of us in Second Life who understand that without more support for first time users, our world will continue on it's slow death spiral. (By the way, those links are all SLURLs that will take you to each of their main locations in Second Life.)

All this experience did was make me sad.

UPDATE - WELCOME ISLAND TUTORIAL FOUND

Well I don't know why SL decided to dump my newly made avatar into Destination Island but I finally found the Welcome Island Tutorial by trying to get back to Destination Island via the Back button. I got the cryptic message "To repeat the tutorial, go to Welcome Island Public". Now that's useful. Not. But being an experienced SL'er, I did find it via search (even though there are lots of them.)

And arrrrgggggghhhh! The tutorial is not even a tutorial. It's like walk, sit, fly, chat, now where do you want to go? Nothing about attachments. Changing looks. Driving a vehicle. Wearing a different top. Searching. It's so utterly lame compared to the old find the sword tutorial as to be insulting.

Ideas for improving Second Life land sales and retention

2012-11-25T19:06:00.002-08:00

A 4-month old article on Tateru Nino's blog about land pricing and tier got me to thinking. If you read her commentary, she concludes that changing tier prices (ie. lowering them) would have little or no effect on the Second Life economy and in fact would likely result in significant reductions in revenue for Linden Lab. While I agree in principle with her conclusions based on the rather simple premise, I think there are some things that could be done -- call it tinkering in the margins -- that might have a very positive effect.

Customer retention & new players

I'm no expert on this but I can tell you that for most people, the new user experience sucks. The official SL viewer is bloated and over-weight. New users get no help on arrival save some guided quest type stuff. And suggestions on what you should actually do in SL are pretty thin at best. So here are some ideas:

Release two viewers. One a grandly simplified, lightweight, FAST practice viewer. No inventory, no building, no anything except picking an avatar and moving and interacting. Concentrate on making SL as fast as possible. This viewer would expire after 14 days by which time, you'd have to move to anything BUT the practice one.
NCI does about the best job of encouraging new users as anyone. I'd forge a stronger with them for new users.
Want more premium accounts Linden Lab? Increase the free tier allowance to 1024. I'll bet you'd have a lot of alts suddenly become premium in addition to reducing the frustration that comes from only having 117 prims available in a 512.

A moh bettah tier

While Tateru argues that simply lowering tier won't increase land usage, one of the biggest complaints I hear about (myself included as a complainer) is that any small land purchase that kicks you into the next tier level forces you to pay the entire amount for that level.

For example, if I hold 4096 sq-m of land and want to buy another 512, it will cost me an extra $15/mo since the tier for up to 4096 is $25/mo while the tier for 4097 – 8192m is $40/mo. I think Linden Lab AND its customers might be better served charging $25/mo for the 4096 plus a percentage of that level for anything over. For example, buying another 512 sq-m would only cost an extra $2/mo (about 1/8 the price of the current tier) and not $15/mo. A good example of this is a small 300 sq-m parcel next door to me. I'd probably buy it today except it would kick me into the next tier level since I'm right at 1024.

In fact, I had to carve up my original land purchase to get myself DOWN to 1024 by selling a microparcel on the backside of mine to a land baron. I know a number of people who have simply carved off micro-parcels and abandoned them (hoping of course that no one puts anything silly on them). If one could hold land that was in-between the tier breaks without getting charged the full amount, I'd imagine less land breakups and more contiguous parcels across most of mainland.

Anyway, those a few of my random thoughts. Any others? I know, I know. Second Life may be a lost cause but I keep hoping it isn't. :P

Total cuteness from Inga Wind

2012-11-16T17:25:00.002-08:00

Mable in Sand

This is a new mesh release from Inga Wind called "Mabel in Sand" and honestly, I can't say enough about it. The details and shading are incredible to the point that, if it wasn't on an avatar, you'd swear it was a photo of real life outfit. I especially love the hanging string ties and the really deep pleats in the skirt and top.

The only thing I'd argue about is the color description. "Sand" it is not. More like dark pewter or titanium gray. But, who cares. It simply looks wonderful in-world.

Price is $400L but members of Inga's group can snag it for $200L. Includes everything shown -- boots, stockings, skirt, top and camisole.

Here's the SLURL to the shop: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/193/248/344

Three new, totally cute mesh outfits

2012-10-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

My friend Inga Wind has been busy again! She's just released three new mesh outfits including one that has become my new favorite sloppy casual. I'm just going to post Inga's own package photos of the outfits since they're as close to what you'll actually get as the real thing.

The top two outfits, Lia and Nia, are basically different texturings of the same design. Both include top, jeans and ballet flats in a full range of sizes to cover most avatar shapes. You may have to mod your avatar a little to keep the top under control but most tweaks will be minor. Lia and Nia sell for $350L retail while group members get them for $175L. (If you haven't joined Inga's group, you should. The discounts for members are huge! Just search for "Wind" or visit her store and let the inviter do the rest.)

Next up (and my new fave) is Siri. Soooo cute! Pretty much what I might wear in real life. The details in the hoodie sweater are amazing. Everything is included as shown including the awesomesauce kicks. 5 sizes are included along with alphas to cover any combination of this outfit that you'd wear including as separates. Siri is a little more pricey at $400L ($200L for group members) but she could become your all-around casual "go to" outfit for every day in Second Life.

Here's an SLURL to Inga Wind Clothing: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/195/247/375