Archive for October, 2008
Void numbers, poetry and thoughts
October 31, 2008 1:00 pmOpenspace numbers
Linden Lab can afford to lose some 40% of the currently online Openspace and still break even. - our grid: 26605 private estates & 5082 mainland - In June 2008 46% of all private estates were voids. Tyche Shepherd estimates that now 50% of all private regions are openspaces! - Thus, 13000 openspaces. - End result: at the 66% price rise, 5200 voids may disappear before Linden Lab will notice even a single drop in revenue. Oh, and they would save out on 1300 servers. But will loose about 20% of their landmass. No idea what I a ‘void’ or ‘openspace’ is? Start reading here. You have a lot of catching up to do!
Or want more numbers? More than 3500 votes on JIRA issue MISC-1776 Re: Openspace prices. - And 3000+ comments on the corresponding topic on the Second Life forums. I guess this shows your ‘active user base’ cares, Lindens?
From the Openspace frontlines
(Hey, if AP photographers may use posing & photoshop to report news, so may Vint! ;))
Openspace poetry
Some people bought Open Space Sims
Thinking they’d live there with prims.
But the land must be devoid
Or Lindens get annoyed
And they’ll increase the price at mere whims.
By Tymmery Thorne
(which you should not disturb if she’s in her happy place!)
Openspace thoughts
The Raymond Voids
Jack Linden at his office hour: ‘Onto the Linden Mos Ainsley region. This was and has always been on a full CPU, it was however originally built by the DPW moles on some Voids which had the lower prim setting. So when we moved them, that 3750 limit was still there, but they were full regions, not openspaces. So that caused some raised eyebrows, which I can understand. But it was just a config booboo. They were not openspaces.‘
If this is true, this is still only a ‘half’ reply to my question If Linden Lab is gaming us with their new openspace policy. No answer to this part: ‘Linden Lab was planning 4 openspace builds which would be sold along with new void sim orders. Builds which go into thousands of prims. That proves that they never intended Openspaces to be just empty land, like they’re saying at the moment, basically.‘
M Linden speaks void
In a statement provided by his publicist, Kingdon told Mr Hamlet Au, ‘We understand that this price adjustment will affect businesses and other projects of some our Second Life Residents,’ and emphasized the cost increases were only directed at select landowners, who have until January 2009 to adjust themselves to the new rates. ‘To be clear,’ Kingdon continued, ‘this price adjustment affects only a portion of land in Second Life; it does not apply to private islands or regular mainland property. We made this change to ensure an optimal Second Life experience for all Residents.’
Errr, Mr. M, if the above numbers are (even close to) correct, your ’select landowers’ is quite a few and your ‘only a portion of land’ is almost 40% of Second Life’s. Please take that into account, and then state again this change in the openspace pricing policy won’t influence the rest of the grid!
The Void Sim Creativity Tax Act of 2008
Writted by Zoe Connolly, “Avoid the Voids” - The Void Sim Creativity Tax Act of 2008 contains some very - painful - but fascinating thoughts:
I opened Google Reader and read Tateru Nino’s article on Massively. She highlights Jack Lindens response to the Openspace sims furor:
Jack implies that the type of usage is a more important factor in the pricing changes than the actual cost of usage, though to be fair, it’s an ambiguous pair of sentences, ‘We are saying that the use has changed, and continues to do so as people find more creative ways to use them. So the revised pricing is about recognising that change of use and the additional costs and value associated with it.’
The Void Sim Creativity Tax Act of 2008
So….no mention of some people abusing the original intent of the Void Sims.
Now LL recognizes your creative use of them…and taxes it.
See? It’s all good!
The greatest BDSM Master/Mistress roleplayers in SL are the folks at LL, and we’re merely their submissives.
Openspace vs. Immersive Workspace
On the Raymond Voids blogpost, Gally Young commented: ‘I’m surprised that nobody speak about the Immersive Workspace solution recently launched by Linden Lab for the enterprises… . Hmm. Guess that’s because we don’t think they are that impressive, and so no real use and are just more or less ignoring them? ‘I won’t be surprised to learn that the real reason of all this stuff about Openspace was to avoid to see Openspace competing with their Immersive Workpace (whose the prices will be probably higher than full sim and on which LL put a lot of hopes for increasing their profitability…). But I’m maybe paranoiac :)‘ Yes, Gally, maybe you are. But you would become that for less than a 66% price rise because of vague reasoning that keeps being changed.
Re: the openspaces vs immersive workspaces, the Immersive Workspace sims are “sims in a box” - meaning they’re not even connected to the main Grid. For more on this, keep an eye (or feedreader) on Dusan Writer’s blog.
Sarah Palin for Miss Virtual World
October 30, 2008 12:00 pmRaymond Conspiracy Theory - Is LL gaming us?
October 29, 2008 11:03 pmNormally I’m not pretty fond of conspiracy theories, but in this case, the word emails come from somebody I - virtually - trust. Would I hand over my RL bank account access to him/her? No, probably not. But will I take that person’s word for it when he says Linden Lab is err.. gaming us? Yes. At least enough to check this out and hear with the broader community what they think. And so the story goes… err, you want pictures first? Ok, here they come:
A while ago Linden Lab - through Jack Linden - hired virtual world content developers to employ at ‘The Linden Department of Public Works’. They build roads and such on Linden Lab demand. One of the things they were asked to build was a space station, a business environment and pretty harbour on Linden Lab owned void sims Raymond-1, Raymond-2, Raymond-3 and Raymond-4 which is still under development.
Why? ‘Linden Lab was planning 4 openspace builds which would be sold along with new void sim orders. Builds which go into thousands of prims. That proves that they never intended Openspaces to be just empty land, like they’re saying at the moment, basically.‘ I also understand ‘that the script count is much higher than Jack Linden is telling residents it should be.‘
If this is true, Linden Lab’s reasoning on why they are almost doubling openspace tier rates is a blatant lie, as they envisioned ‘heavy use’ for voids themselves. This would also explain them ‘upping’ the prim count to 3750. Oh, did you notice the table has enough chairs to seat 20 avatars? The ‘Raymond Conspiracy Theory’ gives us every right to protest Linden Lab’s new pricing policy on openspace sims?
To finish this off, a quote from Jack Linden: ‘We believe in Openspaces as a product, but the pricing just wasn’t in line with how they are now being used. Just to be clear, this isn’t a small minority of Openspaces either, as a general rule they are much more heavily loaded than, for example, the equivalent Linden voids.‘
Linden Lab has it’s business model ass backwards
October 28, 2008 6:04 pmWhere to start? About a year ago Linden Labs started selling ‘openspaces’, which are also known as ‘void sims / voids’ or ‘baby sims’. As 4 voids are hosted on 1 server, you get less prims, less script/computing capacity and a cheaper price & tier - the monthly maintenance fee - rate. Lindens never really specified what those sims should serve for, only that they should not be heavily stressed. Of course, give people ‘land’, a prim allotment and scripting functionality, and they will start creating things. Be it residential areas, oceans sights, yacht harbours, shops, … . The sales of these void sims were responsible for the major ‘land mass growth’ in Second Life we witnessed the last few months, and that Linden Labs liked to boast about, a lot.
Openspaces? We haz underestimated!
But now? Jack Linden announced on the Second Life Blog that ‘… sadly there is a twist. Unfortunately most of the Openspaces are being used for much more than light use. Openspaces are being used about twice as much as we expected, in other words being loaded with double the content/avatar load than we’d expect for a region that is supposed to be light use. Because they were never intended for that level of load this is causing problems. For some people this has meant a less than great experience with performance fluctuations. The overuse of Openspaces has also put additional strain on some of our network and database infrastructure at a much higher ratio than is reflected in the current pricing.‘
The results? A ‘pricing change’ for voids effective January 1st. Lindens will increase the monthly maintenance fee from USD$75 to USD$125 per month. That’s a 66% increase! Purchasing an Openspace will become more expansive too and ‘educational use’ discounts will be no longer available for Openspaces.
Residents infuriated over new openspace pricing policy
It’s no surprise that Second Life residents are enraged about this news: the same Linden that only weeks ago encouraged them to stock up on voids, saying how lovely those are, now increase the maintenance fee for exactly those voids with 66%. Although there’s still some debate if Linden Lab did this intentionally - lure residents to buy and only then raise the ‘upkeep’ fee - or was blatantly stupid, underestimating the effects of voids on their network and database infrastructure to begin with. Regardless, all agree, that Linden Lab’s move is ‘not done’.
As Jeanricard Broek writes in the comments of Linden Lab betrays consumer market: ‘The latest announcement by linden Lab will create another killing blow to the Second Life Real Estate (e)Economy, the whole business economy and impact all residents directly or indirectly. Again Linden Lab is screwing it’s customers (the users/the residents), for sake of short term profit and change over sustained growth. I am getting angry now….. At a time when Linden Labs should be increasing performance, lowering prices and growing, it instead shows it cannot support growth, its customers or a secondary market/economy. In the past year servers have become cheaper and faster, technology across the internet has reduced costs of business, look at your phone bill, email & Amazon cloud storage costs. Folks this is going to be a hard year, and not a time to raise prices or devastate a user base. Linden Labs has its business model ASS BACKWARDS and it’s management is incompetent, lets be frank about it.‘
Resident Protest
As this effects mostly the ‘middle class’ Second Life Residents, there are a lot of ‘active players’ hit by this new policy, which clearly shows from the - negative - response and blog coverage on the announced pricing for openspace tier, as well as by the amount of ‘protest initiatives’ already present and in the make:
Protest Initiatives
- update: JIRA issue MISC-1776 ‘OpenSpace Sim Prices SHOULD NOT Be Going Up! VOTE To Stop This ridiculous increase!’ (Hmm, the title could have been a bit more less serious, imho, but that’s just me.) Go vote there! (If you don’t know how, here’s a short explanation). This JIRA now holds over 2000 unique resident votes!
- The Flickr ‘Openspace / Void’ Group call out to add photos of opensims you love. Tagline: This group is for snapshots from Openspace/void sims to show Linden Lab what they may be losing when they price these builds and residents out of ownership.
- Homeless.inworld.sl, a group blog for those rendered without homes by Linden’s new pricing policy.
- File for a position as ‘Billing Support Representative’, Lindens will need help now they are charging more money, as suggested by Crap Mariner.
- The Official SL Forums - Not really a ‘protest’, but
+800+1000 comments should tell the Lindens something! - Revolutionary Beret by GaZov Designs on Onrez.
‘Real Life’ press
- The Silicon Alley Insider reports on Real Estate Crashes In Second Life, Too: Linden Lab’s Bailout Plan: For Linden Lab to survive, it can’t keep raising usage fees, and it can’t try to con business users into teleconferencing in Second Life when the product is so poorly suited to enterprise use. In the end, Linden needs to pull off an image overhaul and make Second Life once again a hip place to be, with a growing population and a steady influx of new land-owners (read: paying customers). If Linden can do that, it prospers. If it can’t, it’s doomed..
- The Guardian on their technology blog: A sign of the times: Second Life’s property hike, Land prices are rising inside the virtual world, but can punters afford the jump?
- Broken Toys - the adventures in modern MMO production - ends with: ‘So - signs point to continued OMGZDRAMA and eventually everyone will revert to complaining about crashes due to overloaded server infrastructure.‘
Residents blogs
Update: Other blogpost from me regarding this ‘issue’: Raymond Conspiracy Theory - Is Linden Lab gaming us? ‘Linden Lab was planning 4 openspace builds which would be sold along with new void sim orders. Builds which go into thousands of prims. That proves that they never intended Openspaces to be just empty land, like they’re saying at the moment, basically.‘ and Void numbers, poetry and thoughts which contains some maths on exactly how much openspaces may disappear before LL stops making profit on this move.
- Avoid the Voids - Lessons in Lindenomics by Zoe Connolly. She also touches upon the possible influence on the future of SL Aviation and gives us Lindenomics Part II. Make sure to also read the Void Sim Creativity Tax Act by Zoe!
- Josue Habana writes Linden Labs make another f*ck up on pixelscoop.net.
- … I am Jack’s overloaded infrastructure. I break. The grid dies. as written by Crap Mariner.
- Ravishal blames Lindens for destroying Sailing and Aeronautical interest in SL
- Tateru over at gives us a ‘neutral’ report as we are used to - and so much appreciate, btw! ;) Another blogpost from ‘her pen’ is an analysis of M Linden’s - short - statement on the price increase.
- Linden Lab instigate price rises: backlash plus is the title run by the Metaverse Journal. They also note this increase is more heavy on Australians, cause to exchange ranges. You mean, you’re _lower_ than the USD?!!
- Linden Lab Screws Estate Owners, Again kinda sums it up all.
- For the better is what Nexeus Fatale thinks.
- Lillie Yifu talks about this in the larger picture of SL changes, but ends with saying her goodbye’s to SL.
- Thanks LL (no extra charge for irony) is what Ali K thinks about the price change.
- Sarah Nerd feels screwed over by ‘Linden Lands’, a thing we can’t blame her for.
- ‘Is this a sign that more price increases are on it’s way?’ is what Melanie Kidd ponders about over at Grid Expectations.
- That-what-shall-not-be-named (except for now) has some Good suggestions on ways for Linden to solve this, and remarks that they should either get the grid stable, or their pricing, but preferably both.
- Radar Masukami summarises Openspace in your face.
- The fear that Much Beauty will be lost forever is what Wildstar Beaumont is writing about.
- Famous SL photographer & content creator Prad Prathivi: ‘that an early casualty of the new pricing will be my Scorpio sim.‘ That and more. He now also added ‘Wrong‘, a midnight attempt at grasping Linden Lab’s flawed logic.
- Erbo Evans writes ‘Drop Dead, Part Deux: Openspace Sim Owners, BOHICA.’ and kindly explains ‘In case you don’t know, that last word is an acronym for “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.‘
- Eladrienne writes WTF LL of the Day: Openspace Sim Smackdown and reports on this being a serious blow for Caledon. More news on the Caledon emergency meeting by Hotspur O’Tool.
- “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Oh, and btw, Openspace is falling by Elle Maxim.
- Also having his doubts - and a huge *sigh* is Bailey Longcloth.
- The Podmafia mentions an Openspace Catastrophe.
- Raul Crimson calls this another Linden mistake and has the cutest lolcat ever seen!
- New World Note’s Hamlet Au quotes and writes about Lost In The Void: Unexpected Virtual Land Price Hike Leads To Anti-Linden Protest, Self-Immolation. I need to look up what ‘immolation’ means. On GigaOm he writes Protest Threatens Linden Lab’s Profitability.
- Over at ‘An Engine Fit For My Proceeding’, Ordinal Malaprop is Shouting into the Void. Definitely worth a read! From her pen also: This reason is not reasonable, wherein she questions if the stated reasons - by LL - can be the real ones for this price increase.
- NPIRL’s Bettina Tizzy says that Linden Lab giveth and taketh away, and it’s now all about developing an exit strategy. She offers an email address to stay in touch, and channels a discussion about which place best to go. Also according to Miss Bettina, M. Linden should come down from his ivory tower and listen to ‘his’ residents. She also suggest LL should refund her $950US + a reimbursement for her time.
- Linden Lab, meet John Sutter is written by Grace McDunnough: ‘Linden Lab will in fact run themselves out of business because they have not, or can not, tap into the richness of their standing army of residents.‘
- Cheyenne Palisades offers us some more explanation on what was going on in Linden’s minds, let’s say The Subtext of a Bad Decision. Both scenarios are incredibly saddening as well as hilarious. A must read.
- Do not panic, but your house is on fire! is the advice given by CodeBastard Redgrave.
- Trinity Dechou’s editorial in Rezmagazine: ‘IF I stay it will be for my friends, not Linden Lab.‘
- A not so typical post from Zippora who thinks everybody should be aware of the issue.
- Sered suggests and alternative billing method for openspace tier: pay per prim. What do you think?
- In Save our openspace! The Second Life Herald reports on how the protests packed & closed the Nautilus sims.
- Miss Tateru reports on the protests too, naming it a ‘Second Life’s Second Revolution’. Dead on target: ‘If you’ve heard Mark Kingdon or John Zdanowski (Linden Lab’s CEO and CFO respectively) talking at conferences and to the press about the boom in land area in Second Life lately, that seems to be a direct product of the Void/Openspace simulator market. The announced price-rise seems to shoot all of that PR in the foot.‘
- Linden Research Inc. Sleight of Hand titles Otenth Paderborn. Has some good ideas on what LL should do if ’stress’ on the voids was really the problem and cause for the change of the monthly tier charges.
- Botgirl Questi asks if we have the guts - or logistics? - to put our mesh where our words are… In a question for protesters with the courage of their convictions she notes the only real leverage we have is the power of the purse: ‘are you willing to make a pledge to cancel paid status and abandon your Second Life property if they don’t relent?‘
- Isadora Graves on Izzyisms calls this the Great Openspace Controversy.
- It’s a sad thing when even ‘The Blog for Romance in Second Life’ feels the need to Call out for War.
- Dear Governor Linden, I think we need to talk… is what Mitsy writes with more ‘incriminating’ evidence of the ‘Raymond Voids’.
- Some short machinima’s of the protests by rocker faerie. Best one - imho - got deleted though. :(
- Long - and interesting - discussion over at the Elf Clan Social Network on Ning. Subject? OPEN SPACE BAIT AND SWITCH — LINDEN LAB DOES IT AGAIN
- I am shocked, shocked to find that building is going on here! is written by Saffia Widdershins on Prim Perfect. She follows up by doing ‘case studies’ open openspaces, what are the different uses of voids, and how will those people be effected, starting with the home owner, the estate owner and the store owner. Saffia Widdershins also reports on the ‘crash and burn’ of the Ebbets Field, anticipating the new pricing policy.
- Petros Miklos goes on strike!. No ‘logging in’ from him - or the alts - until november 2.
- Miss Harper Ganesvoort - who has been off this list for to long, my apologies! - wrote an first analysis on the official announcement followed by polling ‘the crowds’. Of course, a follow up after Jack Linden’s second blogpost appeared, could not be left out.
- Not ‘real’ blogpost, but a picture that says a lot: ‘Guess who got an Openspace a few days before “The Announcement” ?’ by Connie Sec. She gives some information with the photo, for people who wish to contact the California Attorney General, re: openspaces pricing.
- GoSpeed Racer wrote Weighing in on voids, ‘Voids have been around since early 2006. They came about when the SL sailing community wanted a cheaper alternative to a full sim.’
- The Openspace Dilemma written by Hypatia Callisto.
- Wide open spaces by Feline Slade is where she confesses to be an openspace simulator tenant! ;)
- At common/sensible we find a comments on M Linden’s comment on the openspace controversy.
- Miss Nightflower writes this is a crisis mislabeled: The real crisis we face in the virtual world is a crisis of leadership.
- Inary Pey wonders about LL’s vision for SL. The “immersive spaces” launching at the same time the openspaces get more expensive.. no coincidence? And why would LL like to see residents leave?
- On the Rezzable Blog, RightasRain Rimbaud wonders if the price increase is going to hit full sims next and announces a quick death for Cannery & Dump sims.
- Dusan Writer on the immersive spaces, and concludes that except for the lousy timing there is no direct connection with the open spaces price increase. Of course, LL needs to choose directions: business, ‘commons’ or both?
- Over at the SL Left Unity they are convinced that SL residents have a legitimate right and need for more affordable and aesthetically appealing land. Legitimate non-profits and private efforts that substantialy benefit SL residents should be eligible for very cheap or free subsidized resources. Sure Prok will have a blast with these guys! ;)
- Over at your2ndplace, Ciaran Laval shouts out: ‘Will someone at Linden Lab please tell M the truth about openspaces!’
- Socially Mundane praises Mark Kingdon for his ’spinning’ powers.
- On apoetsblues.com someone who considers himself rather ‘new’ to SL gives his thoughts.
- YOU? ;)
Post in the comments if I forgot about anyone. I’m sure more blogpost - and actions - are ‘draft’ and ‘pending’ at the moment. And me? I just hope cute kittens will fix this for us. Feel free to use this to get your own message across. =>
Rosie B wants to make sure we all know about the existence of the Federal Trade Commission, the Bureau of Consumer Protection. No idea what you would base your claim on, though, as Lindens are giving you a 2 months advance notice… . Crap Mariner published the transcript of an in-world emergency meeting with Jack Linden, discussing the new pricing policy on void sims.
If Linden Lab ran… Real Life
October 27, 2008 2:00 pmSegregation Issues
12:38 amIs it just me, or is my Facebook suffering from serious segregation issues? I suspected this to be the case already, but confirmed by the ‘TouchGraph’ facebook app:
Full size via Flickr
Segregation according to Encarta: The practice of keeping ethnic, racial, religious, or gender groups separate especially by enforcing the use of separate schools, transportation, housing, and other facilities, and usually discriminating against a minority group. Guess humans - or at least non-Second Life related contacts - are the suppressed minority here? Where as the SL residents can TP, the humans must make do with normal transportation? ;)
Login 2 Life - Where real life meets virtual
October 25, 2008 1:28 pmWhen Peter - Stindberg, that is - plurked the trailer for ‘Login2Life’ I was going argh… yet.. another… virtual…world…using..the word… life…. But I must admit I was wrong on both accounts: It’s not ‘yet another’, and neither is is a promo for the next upcoming Virtual World. Login 2 Life is a documentary, that takes into account not the murders over virtual swords, but the everyday benefits a virtual world can offer humans, especially if those humans have disabilities that prevent them from - fully - enjoying what we refer to as ‘First Life’. Opposed to past documentaries - those who shall not be named - they do not seem to be looking for ‘broken relationship’, ‘pr0n stories’ or shortly put ‘how virtual life can f*ck up first’. Where I get that idea from? Their absolutely lovely site header:
Directed by Daniel Moshel for for Eidolon Entertainment, the project is designated for theatrical release during the 2009/10 season. Want to be a part of it? They are still looking for the ‘protagonist’ of the story: ‘What, or rather who are we looking for? A female or male person, who is physically handicapped or otherwise challenged and feels as much at home in a MMORPG as he/she does in Second Life - please be aware, the dual residence is a must! You should have no problem being in front of a camera and have some time available during 2009, when principal photography is scheduled.‘
Now, to satisfy your curiosity, the trailer… does it not look promising? This already would make great ‘Second Life’ promo on itself, no? Oh, and who’s the lovely lady & avatar performing? Miss Grace? And the courageous lady human saying she loves Life in general, regardless?
More at Login2Life.net.
Second Life Bloggers Mix’n Match #1
October 24, 2008 9:38 amAssignments now available!
Second Life Bloggers Mix’n Match: The Overview
What’s this all about? Well, ArminasX came to me with the idea of ’swapping blogs’ for a few posts. The idea quickly grew into something bigger, and we would like to invite the entire SLogosphere to participate. In this Mix’n Match game, more players means more interaction which means all the more fun.
Why would you participate?
A few good reasons why you would participate in the SL Bloggers Mix’n Match game:
- You hate to be left out.
- You’re looking forward to broaden your virtual horizons, and with this I do not mean maxing your draw distance! ;) Admit it, we all have our ‘hot issues’ we regularely blog about. Would it not be a good thing to look beyond that, to go & write further that we’re used to, and research some new virtual stuff?
- You want to make new friends in the SLogosphere. Because you can never have enough friends or linklove?
- You’re currently suffering from blogblock. You’re desperate for a good story!
- You appreciate a challenge. Demonstrate you can write something that makes some - or absolutely none at all - sense, regardless how comfortable you are with the topic.
- You like the unexpected. Because who knows who will be writing for your blog!
- Your blog’s name & location.
- Your name
- A title and subject for a (Second Life related) blogpost.
- A valid email address.
- Blog: vintfalken.com at www.vintfalken.com
- Blogger: Vint Falken
- Subject: The evolution of SLex
- Email: moc.elbazzer@tniv (<- reverse)
Mixing and matching, how will we do it?
You let us know you want to play by leaving a comment - including a valid email address - either here or on ArminasX’ announcement. You have until Friday the 31th of October to decide if you want to participate in one of the kewlest Second Life blog games ever. That comment will include:
On November 1st, a innocent hand - I suggest that’s mine, no offence meant, Mr ArminasX Saiman :d - draws the ‘winning’ combinations and those will appear on vintfalken.com and secondeffects.com. Participating SL bloggers will also be notified by email. An example of how the list will look like:
| BloggerA | BloggerB | BloggerC |
| SubjectB | Subject | SubjectA |
| BlogC | BlogA | SubjectB |
This means that BloggerA will write about a subject suggested by bloggerB on the bloggerC’s blog.
Once you got your ‘blogging mission’ you will start writing on your assigned subject. When your story is finished - and between 500 & 1000 words - you hand it over together with at least one snapshot to illustrate your story to the owner of the blog that will publish it. Deadline to do so is Sunday November 9th. All stories will be published on Wednesday November 12th. The format for that is:
Blogpost & pictures. Style at will.
Author name (+ link to his/her blog)
Person who suggested the subject (+ link to his/her blog)
Link to the blog where your blogpost will appear (optional)
Link to the person who will blog the subject you suggested (optional)
Who is game?
I’ll start with signing myself & vintfalken.com up:
Second Life is having Halloween Issues
October 23, 2008 8:44 pm
As reported by Mimika Oh, Jira Issue MISC-1728 describes how many prims - mysteriously - change into pumpkins ever since the latest client update. Severely documented with snapshots and textures, and already assigned to WorkingOnIt Linden, this bug occurs independent from a certain platform or video card drivers. It’s worth mentioning that this bug already occurred last year - it seems to be seasonal - but did get worse now it somehow got through to the sculpties rendering system. How to reproduce this bug as described by Logan Bauer:
- Create a Prim
- Turn it into a sculpted prim
- Put “JackOLantern Sculpt” in as the sculpt map
- Apply “JackOLantern Texture” as the surface texture
Notice that the prim will still be named “Object” but it is no longer a cube and now affected by this bug and rendered as previously described. Megaprims appear to be affected too. I’ve tried relogging and clearing my cache but it still looks the same.
Lindens don’t seem to worried about this issue, and assume it will fix automatically with the next client release, when it will probably be replaced by another bug: ‘You will find at the start of November that the carved pumpkins will likely disappear and be replaced with trees decorated with twinkle lights or baubles.‘ Luckily some Lindens take this more serious. Listen to Vector Linden: ‘If your content is becoming small, orange and rounded, and ESPECIALLY if a face appears on it, please drop a copy of it on my profile so that I can figure out what is happening. If we don’t squash this bug soon, I’ll go out of my gourd. At the very least, we can look for good pie recipes.‘
Luckily, G2 Proto has discovered a temporary hack to get rid of the pumpkins. Although it’s rather time consuming, it does seem to work: ‘I fixed the issue by right clicking over each pumpkin and selecting “pumpkin smash” from the menu. This hurls the pumpkin in such a way that it actually leaves the Second Life grid and smashes all over a random user on There. This is a slow process for sure but should bring you joy knowing the pumpkins are going to good use.‘ As usual, those who found a way to take abuse of this bug, are already protesting patching it: ‘I have a friend of a friend whose cousin uses this functionality, and if you “patch” this you would destroy their entire business model!!! Why can’t we instead just have a client>rendering>hide pumpkins option like people have been asking for since beta?!???!!‘
If you feel strongly about getting rid of the pumpkins, please go vote (<- how do I do that?) for JIRA ISSUE MISC-1728 Many prims have turned into pumpkins!
Hat tip to Miss Nock Forager
