February 2014 – Daniel Voyager

Guide to SL and OpenSim events happening in March 2014

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

As February 2014 ends it’s time to look forward to Second Life and OpenSim events happening in March 2014. Spring is almost here and Easter is just around the corner. Here are the event listings for the month ahead below.

Big Second Life events to look forward to during March 2014

Big OpenSim events to look forward to during March 2014

OSGrid events in March 2014
Kitely events in March 2014
Avination events in March 2014
InWorldz events in March 2014
Metropolis events in March 2014 & Events
InWorldz 5th birthday celebrations open on 16th March 2014
Island Oasis grid turns 3 on 1st March 2014

My next events post will be published in the first week of April 2014. If you know of any other big events happening either in SL or OpenSim please comment. Thanks and enjoy! 🙂

Seraph City closing down in mid-March 2014

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

The well-known Seraph City region in Second Life will be closing down in mid-March 2014 and the predicted date is 16th March 2014. There have been reports on Plurk and Twitter about the closure however it’s not known why its actually closing down. If the region goes offline it will be a big loss for the grid and a real shame. Seraph City is a beautiful place to visit and a great place to explore in Second Life.

The theme of the city is based around retro-futurism called Deiselpunk and primarily art deco. Seraph City has shops, theatres, cafes, libraries, trains, old vehicles and much more. It’s a very quiet region these days and sometimes it feels like a ghost city.

Come visit the best dieselpunk city of yesterday’s future!
-Enjoy an era of Art Deco and prohibition!
-Take a stroll down our streets and find your home, land for rent parcels to build on residential and commerical dieselpunk, pulp, noir, 20s

As many know already Seraph City has been featured on The Blackened Mirror series during the past few years. I decided to spend a few hours exploring the city and take snapshots.

Seraph City Map

More snapshots of Seraph City can be found on my SL Flickr stream. Have you visited Seraph City before ? and what do you think about Seraph City closing down next month ?. Hopefully the region will be saved but its unclear at this stage. More updates soon!

Brooke (Saiman) Denimore has passed away

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

Nikki Mathieson shared some very sad news today in the Relay For Life Volunteers group in Second Life that Brooke (Saiman) Denimore has sadly passed away. After 2 weeks of being diagnosed with stage 4 of breast cancer, she lost her battle on Saturday 15th February 2014.

Brooke was on the Pure Heart team in Second Life and relayed for Relay For Life of Second Life for a long time. She also became a DJ in Second Life over the years. Brooke will be missed deeply by the relay for life community in Second Life. She will never be forgotten.

See group notice below…

Group Notice Sent by: Nikki Mathieson
News about one of our family
Hello Relay family, I need to let you know that I got word last night that Brooke (Saiman) Denimore, 2 wks after being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, lost her battle on Feb 15th. Brooke relayed with us for a long time and was on the Pure Heart team, as many of you know. She loved Relay and her friends, in SL, knew to look for our group to let us know.
Our hearts go out to her partner Zach and all her friends and Relay family. We’ll remember her throughout the season and fight back even harder.

Very sad news 😦

Private Estates in Second Life grew by 15 regions

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

Good news that private estates in Second Life grew by 15 regions (net growth) during the past week. This marks the first growth of 2014 for private estates and this is the first time the grid has grown week on week since 31st March 2013 according to Tyche Shepherd.

Private Estates growth history

+30 regions on 24th June 2012
+13 regions on 31st March 2013
+15 regions on 23rd February 2014

Here is the latest grid stats as of 23rd February 2014.

The grid actually grew this week by 14 regions , Private Estates had net growth of 15 while Linden Owned dropped by 1

Total number of Main Grid regions is now 26145 ( 19163 private estates & 6982 Linden owned)
60 new regions were added and 17 returned to the grid, with 63 regions removed (20 were renamed and 0 came and went since last report)

A modest growth this week , the first time the Grid has grown week on week since 31st March 2013 . The growth was distributed across a range of estates – no particular estate exhibiting a significant change in size due to new regions.

Adult rated regions were also up this week by 29 to 4526 (17.3% of the grid) while General rate also grew by 9 to 3540 (13.5%)

This is a very positive sign and shows that there is interest again for private regions in Second Life. I hope that there will be more growth in the months ahead. The latest stats can be found on the Second Life Grid Survey.

AviWorlds hypergrid closes, new social network and future grid developments

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

In the past week there have been a number of new updates posted on AviWorlds Google+ page mentioning closure of the hypergrid enabled regions, a new social network coming soon and future grid developments. This is the very latest news from the AviWorlds grid on OpenSim.

AviWorlds is a 3D virtual reality world with an intent to create its own community. So far we have been successful and growing. Anyone can participate.

HG closes

It’s big news to hear that AviWorlds will no longer offer hypergrid enabled regions which is sad and shocking news. The big issue at the moment for the AviWorlds team is instability which has been a problem due to too many people jumping, The grid owners have said that they may reconsider it in future. In the meantime AviWorlds will remain a closed commercial grid.

AviWorlds will no longer offer HG enabled regions or allow HG at the moment. We will continue to observe future improvements and will consider opening HG in the future when its more stable. We will also stop offering self hosting regions due to safety for our creators and also to value our paid regions.

New social network

Soon AviWorlds will launch it’s own social network which sounds exciting and apparently all virtual worlds will be able to socialize all in one place. Many great things are being developed and I’ll look forward to hearing more about this.

AviWorlds soon to launch its own social network where all virtual worlds will be able interact, create blogs, articles,videos,photos,groups,live chat and video chats, vote, create stores,classifieds, share texts and files and more! A powerful tool that will suck traffic all in one place for the whole metaverse!

Future developments

AviWorlds have posted a small update about some of the new future developments that are in the pipeline from vehicle development to ferraris estates. Yay!

Soon in AviWorlds; Vehicle Development for ODE by AviWorlds, DCS game types, zingo machines, universal camping and Ferraris Estates for all your land needs in AviWorlds and SL!

Follow the latest updates below visit the links below…

AviWorlds – Twitter
AviWorlds – Google+

Charity Celebrity Auction Press Release

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

MadPea Productions Hosts and Sponsors Charity Celebrity Auction for Feed A Smile.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAD CITY, SECOND LIFE MadPea Productions, creators of innovative gaming, shopping and interactive art experiences in the virtual world Second Life, are pleased and proud to welcome the public to their star-studded Charity Celebrity Auction in aid of Feed A Smile, a project that aims to deliver food and education to children in some of Kenya’s most deprived communities.

Hosted at their flagship sim, Mad City, the auction runs from today, February 15th 2014 right the way through to February 23rd, where it culminates in a series of live appearances from some of Second Life’s most famous artists, creators, musicians and bloggers, all of whom will be available for anyone and everyone to bid on. There’ll also be entertainment and music provided by popular singers and MC’s, with KatRose Serendipity, Shannon Oherilhy, Noma Falta, Marky Helstein and Kess Crystal being just a few of over a dozen performers scheduled to appear throughout the day!

Each auctionee has personally put together a special selection of treats for their winning bidder that amount to an experience that is truly Once in a Second Lifetime. With big names like Bryn Oh, Bernhard Drax, Queen Pea Kiana Writer and Jaimy Hancroft all going on the block, MadPea hopes to raise over 1,200,000L for Feed A Smile’s projects, ultimately feeding over 400 children for an entire month!

For more information on this amazing event, or to offer yourself up for auction, please contact Kiana Writer, Bobbi Bashir or Fugazi Rubanis in-world. Requests for comment for print or publication from any MadPea staff should be sent to Fugazi Rubanis.

ATTACHED: MadPea Auction for Feed A Smile via YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8ajvSit8o4)

Listen to show 7 of The Drax Files Radio Hour

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

The weekly Drax Files radio hour continues this week with show 7 featuring Ebbe Linden the new CEO of Linden Lab and a look back at the most popular news stories from Linden Lab during the past week. It’s another great show hosted by Drax and Jo full of great coverage. I really enjoy listening to the show each week and please spread the word about this fantastic radio show.

Listen to show 7

Topics this week include…

New starter avatars
Voice of Ebbe Linden from the first SL press meeting
Closure of Dio, Creatorverse and Versu
VR headsets
Special guest harvey crabsticks
And much more!

Contact the show broadcasters via skype draxfiles, avatar draxfiles or email radio@draxfiles.com if you would to take part in the weekly friday radio show in Second Life.

New Kitely events calendar

Posted on February 21, 2014February 21, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

Selby Evans posted new details about a new Kitely events calendar this week which is a project of the Kitely community meeting held on a weekly basis. This new Kitely events calendar is running using Google software and this is a great way to promote events going on the Kitely grid.

To get your event authorized on the Kitely events calendar, please contact Handy Low. Please spread the word and let’s get this calendar full of enjoyable events.

Hopefully more event listings will be added very soon. On the Kitely Forums there is an events section worth checking out called Events and Activities for current and upcoming events.

Who can post to the event calendar ?

Performers
Venue managers
Event managers
Merchants who run genuine specials

Where can I see the event calendar ?

Welcome areas
Merchant districts (service to customers)
Entertainment venues (promote Kitely for entertainment)

Tips on event posting

Don’t assume the location field will work for a virtual place
Put location links in the description.
Include the web address for the Kitely world
Be sure visitors can find the venue from their arrival point
Don’t spam or post fake sales.
Use the description to tell people why they want to come to your event.
Know your target market. Talking to everybody is talking to nobody.
Start with what your target people are interested in.
Use language that interests your target people.

The Kitely community meetings take place at the Kitely Welcome Center at 1pm PDT on Wednesdays to work on plans for improving the grid and promoting Kitely.

Linden Lab decides to cease development and support for Dio, Versu, and Creatorverse

Posted on February 19, 2014February 19, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

It’s now official that Linden Lab have decided to cease development and support for Dio, Versu, and Creatorverse. Peter Gray confirmed this via email today and gave me the link to the official press release shown below. The three axed products have been removed from the Linden Lab products page.

Linden Lab Refocuses Product Offering

2014-02-19

After careful consideration, Linden Lab has decided to cease development and support for dio, Versu, and Creatorverse. We’re grateful for those who took the time to experiment with these products in their early days, but ultimately we have determined that due to a number of factors, we and our customers will be best served by focusing our efforts on continuing to provide exceptional service and compelling new experiences for the users of our other products.

Official Press Release

BURN2 2014 builders and artists have been selected

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Daniel Voyager

The application process has now closed this year’s BURN2 2014 Burnal Equinox which will take place on 28th March until 30th March 2014 in Second Life. The names were randomly drawn from a ranger hat and here are the winning builders/artists for the Burnal Equinox 2014 – Hotter than Air event 2014.

I would like to say congratulations to all the winners selected below and good luck to all of you. I really hope the event is a success and everyone will come along to enjoy it.

The winners are…