User
17
Aug
Dear guests,
on the 12th of August 2010 this website was down for several hours due to a server outage on our provider. Unfortunately, the issue was so severe that the server had to be changed, and the backups only partly restored the site. As of yet, only the pictures and articles are up, and I’m working on getting all the files and downloads up again as well as I post this. Due to several other issues that required our attention, we couldn’t adress this earlier. However, I’m confident to return the website to its former state in all totality.
Still, there are currently many many other things going on in our lives, including a move and a lot of work to do, so we possibly won’t be able to post as often in the coming weeks as usual. (Personally, I’m already weeks behind on my rexxed-schedule.) I just wanted to give everyone a notice that we’re still there and are, and have been, working on new stuff and new things to tell, but right now can’t get down to finish them.
So, for now we’re trying to get the website back to its former state and at least get the old contents back up before we might be cut off the internet for a (hopefully) short time during the move. (On the upside: Being confined to your local standalone is great for working on new stuff without getting distracted.)
Again, I apologize for the outage, and the time it took to adress this. We’re working on it.
[EDIT: All the missing files should be back up again. If you encounter any problem downloading a file, please leave a short note in the comments. Thank you.]
7
Aug
The Grey Inn is a hypergrid meeting place. To access it, set your home to a hypergrid enabled region and teleport from there, using either this link, or typing tgib.sytes.net:9023 in map search.
The Inn doesn’t have any proprietor and anyone can make themselves home there any time. It will be used for random events and objects all over the sim can be copied.
Music: Oi Da Ne Vecher by Lena Selyanina
Source: The Grey Inn Between
13
Jul
Today, I sent out an email to several dozen grid operators of the OpenSim grid list (and other sources), containing a set of 13 questions about their grid. The purpose of this is to give an overview of the current opensim grids out there and their differences. I already received several answers, but many are still unanswered, so to be fair to all, I will not post any of them yet. However, you can expect to have each grid that answered being covered in its own posting and I’m also working on a reference spreadsheet that will show some data about the grids and offers a quick comparison. I intent to write a small article, portraying each grid and may probably get back to some operators with individual questions, so it might take about a week until the first Grid Portrait will be posted. All of them will be featured in the Missing Image category1 , which is the place to highlight interesting places in the Metaverse.
But, for your information, here’s the email I sent out with the questions asked and a short comment:
Hello there,
I’m V of tgib.co.uk, where I plan on giving our readers an overview of all major opensim grids. Therefor, I’d like to ask you some questions about <insert grid here>:
1. What audience is your grid aimed at?
This should give a general impression about the grid and its targets / intentions.
2. Do you have any guidelines regarding PG or adult oriented content?
This question is kinda similar to the following. It’s supposed to give an overview on which audiences the grid is appropriate for.
3. Is there an age limit for joining your grid?
I made this question separate from the previous one as there are grids that aim to be PG rated, but still target an adult audience.
4. Is there a theme to your grid? If yes, how do you introduce new members to it?
Themed grids are probably one of the advantages of OpenSim, as they don’t need to follow the ‘one size fits all’ doctrine of Second Life and end up with drastically disparate user groups with conflicting interests. They might, however, limit your audience drastically.
5. Is your grid hypergrid enabled? If not, do you plan on incorporating hypergrid in the future?
As I wrote earlier, the hypergrid technology is most important to the future of the metaverse. For now, it gives people the ability to make a short visit to the grid without having to register an account there.
6. Is it possible for users to connect their own regions to your grid?
Operating a grid is separate from operating regions. Basically, grids store the assets of the avatar inventories, while regions can run independently and also be hosted by the users themselves, or third parties.
7. Can users rent land from you? If yes, at which rates?
Many grid operators offer regions for rent, some exclusively so. This aims to give an overview on the rates they charge.
8. Is there a currency system built into your grid? If not, do you plan on having one in the future?
Currencies are the backbone of economy. At the moment, there are many different currency systems available for Open Simulator, ranging from using paypal to developing a customized system that only works on the grid in question.
9. What kind of resources are there to get more information about your grid?
This is both for myself and interested readers to get some more background information about the grid and its community.
10. How can users participate in how the grid is managed and built?
Of course, a grid stands and falls with its community, so this aims to give some impression about its involvement into the grid evolution and management.
11. How are disputes handled between users or between the grid management and users?
Running a grid faces the operators with some governmental issues as well, so this aims to learn about how they are handled.
12. Do you hold events? If yes, how are they announced? Also, can members hold their own events?
Again, this is part of community management, and may be an additional incentive for a grid.
13. Can we make this interview with your answers public on tgib.co.uk under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Without a yes to this question, I obviously couldn’t post the interview here.
Thank you for your contribution. I look forward to hear from you.
V
http://tgib.co.uk/
Stay tuned.
- which is sadly underdeveloped as of yet; I just don’t get around much at the moment [↩]
5
May
Okay, this is a short post, but since nobody follows my Plurks, but at least some people keep following this blog, it’s the only way for me to get the word out about this really really cool thing. Until next tuesday, March 11th, wolfire.com is running the “Humble Indie Bumble“, where you can get five indie games, DRM free, for all platforms (well, not all, but Windows, Mac and Linux) for any price you want!
Can it get any better? Heck, it can! Because what you pay does not only support the developers, but also the EFF and Child’s Play, and you get to chose how to divide your payment among these. I’ve never felt so good about buying games, ever. And looking back at more than 20 years of gaming, that goes some way.
10
Mar
From March 26th to 28th will be the Spring Fling Afterburn Festival in Second Life, where I am regularly scheduled to perform on
March 26th, 23:00 UST (3:00 PM PST)
March 27th, 08:00 UST (12:00 AM PST) and
March 28th, 08:00 UST (12:00 AM PST)
I’d like to use this opportunity to give my first cross-grid peformance, streaming and playing at the same time on both OSGrid and Second Life. Thus, the performance will take place in Second Life on one of the Burning Life Sims (location not published yet, but probably on the stage on Guru) and in OSGrid on Ever 011 .
Performance on 26th will last 1 hour, on 27th and 28th 2 hours, yet I will probably play somewhat longer on Ever 01, as we don’t have a schedule to adhere to there. So, you are all welcome to join me on one (or ALL) of the above dates and have a great time.
- Please click the link when being logged into OSGrid to bring up the correct landmark. Alternatively, look for Ever 01 on the map and teleport to coordinates 128, 128, and you should be very close to where you’re supposed to be [↩]
23
Feb
Linden Labs announced the new Viewer 2 today, along with (finally) clarifying its Third Party Viewer Policy. Now call me biased, but we’ve got this exciting new technology here, which focuses more on creativity and human interaction than anything else, and the release of the new viewer is (supposedly) monumental enough to give it a new version number, and the big news is – what? A web browser experience?
Wow.
Well, for the record, I do not know what the regular second life citizen does most of their online times. But from the focus of viewer 2, it seems that they don’t like anything more than teleporting, given the attention the management of teleports got.
There are some exciting new features, which I have to admit: New clothing layers, and the ability to apply an alpha mask on them. But… are these features groundbreaking enough to warrant a whole new version? Personally, for viewer 2 I had expected nothing less than a completely new rendering engine, the implementation of meshes and the ability to create sculpties inworld. So I’m sligtly underwhelmed.
With viewer 2 falling short of the mark, the bigger news for me was the third party viewer policy. While most of the requirements included in that document were to be foreseen and are somewhat rational, there are two things that stand out to me:
On the up side, there’s the fact that some of the most strange (and suspicious) announced policies didn’t make it to the final document. There is no requirement to “not facilitate the export of an entire Second Life inventory; and preserve the Second Life ‘creator’ name and information that the content was originally created in the Second Life virtual world”, as those features didn’t serve any purpose other than secure corporate superiority (and even in a really blunt way).
On the downside, there’s this really really, I mean really strange paragraph which I just would like to quote here in its entirety:
“[1.h.] Central to Second Life is the principle of shared experience. The services we provide through our viewers, for example, our Land Store, the LindeX exchange, and the Xstreet SL marketplace, are designed to enhance Residents’ shared experience. We may ask you to make changes to your Third-Party Viewer if it disables certain of our services, or if we believe it is inconsistent with the principle of shared experience or otherwise negatively affects the Second Life user experience. If we do, you agree to make the changes we request.”
Is there anyone around who could explain me what they mean with ‘shared experience’ here? Other than that really charming way of explaining what they mean when they use the term ‘ask’ (obviously ‘ask’ = request = force someone to do something), I just can’t get my head around how the ‘principle of shared experience’ (whatever it might be) would be connected to the Land Store, for example. (Again, obviously, ‘sharing’ here isn’t really ‘sharing’, i.e. giving something or a part of something to others for free in order to enjoy it together.) I really can’t say I understand that paragraph, but it certainly reads like ‘if your viewer disables some of the services we use to make money of, we’ll force you to either re-enable them or gtfo‘.
Actually, right now I’m wondering what anyone at Linden Labs did the past year or so.
Ever since the SL Blog (and the forum and comment system along with it) changed to its current state in August 2008, it has been a nightmare to find anything on it, that wasn’t featured on the start page anymore. The search function of the blog returns not only blog postings, but forum postings and comments as well, in no particular order. The blog itself has been divided into several ‘channels’, which surprisingly don’t just contain blog postings, but also Forums (such as the Commerce Forums). So, it is neither possible to browse through ALL blog postings as it was with the old blog, nor to search for a specific posting, which makes finding anything you read a few weeks ago frustrating.
Now, if you were Linden Labs, how would you adress this problem? Improve the search function? Show a listing of all blog posts? Maybe make an index or listing site? Or push responsibility away from yourself and point to someone else?
Crikey, you’re right.
17
Jan
I have to admit, I had a great time at yesterday’s party. To be perfectly honest, I had more fun at that than I had on any party I had within SL, ever. Not just because there were lots of very nice people coming over who really enjoyed themselves, not just because we managed to crash the sim. Twice. (Not counting another badly needed restart at the end of it all.) No, mainly because it is simply wonderful to see people enjoying things I have made for them to enjoy, and to have a good time with them.
I have come to some realizations during that event, some things I figured out for myself, but these call for a different post. For now, I just want to share some pictures of the event, and say thank you.
Thank you,
V
To close the opening sale of =V=, Ever 01, the OSGrid home of TGIB, =V= and The Architects of Sleep will be hosting a live performance of myself on
30 th January 2010, 20:00 UTC (12:00 PM PST) on Ever 011
I’ll play a few hours of acoustic guitar songs, both my own and some classic ones. Everyone’s invited to come over, listen, have a nice time, dance, and enjoy the evening with us. Yes, there will be gifts.
Hope to see you,
V
- Please click the link when being logged into OSGrid to bring up the correct landmark. Alternatively, look for Ever 01 on the map and teleport to coordinates 128, 128, and you should be very close to where you’re supposed to be [↩]
6
Jan
Ever 01, the OSGrid home of TGIB, =V= and The Architects of Sleep has opened on 1st January 2010. To celebrate this, I invite everyone over to meet, dance, chat and have a good time on
16 th January 2010, 20:00 UTC (12:00 PM PST) on Ever 011
Please bring your dancing shoes as I will be DJing this event with some fine handcrafted prim records of anything between hard rock, darkwave and indie that befits the scene. And yes, there will be gifts.
Hope to see you,
V
- Please click the link when being logged into OSGrid to bring up the correct landmark. Alternatively, look for Ever 01 on the map and teleport to coordinates 128, 128, and you should be very close to where you’re supposed to be [↩]