My.secondlife.com Outage

Currently my.secondlife.com has been unavailable for some days now and the lab are working to bring the service back online very soon. My.secondlife.com is a social network for Second Life residents to share updates and upload snapshots too.

FIXED > It’s back online again – 10am SLT – 1st May 2019

(30th April – 6.10am SLT) – my.secondlife.com still unavailable

• Second Life Status Page 

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Latest update as of 04.23 PDT – 29th April 2019

Investigating – My.secondlife.com is currently unavailable. While we work to bring this service back online, both my.secondlife.com and in-world profiles will be inaccessible.

We will update this blog when this web service has been restored.
Apr 29, 04:23 PDT

Hopefully it will be back online very soon.

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Linden Lab responds to Second Life user reader questions

This week the Linden Lab communications team responded back to Second Life user reader questions on Second Life viewer revamping, engine moving, EEP failures, return of last names, max avatars per region and much more. This is a follow-up from the recent interview that Hamlet Au had with the current CEO of Linden Lab Ebbe Altberg.

There are a few things worth pointing out from this latest Q&A follow up. First there are no plans currently for a complete overhaul of the Second Life viewer and there are no plans to move Second Life over to a different engine.

Secondly the lab are aware of the issues with teleports and region crossings. They are working to fix these issues ASAP and there will be blog updates soon. The lab is looking at ways to expand how many avatars can be in each region.

Thirdly on Last Names there are some more back-end changes to Second Life which need to happen before Last Names can make a return. The lab are working on it still and they hope it will be ready later in 2019. Most likely sometime in the Q4 of 2019 if things go according to plan.

It’s always good to see the lab responding to questions from the Second Life community.

See the full Q&A update below…

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Will SL be moving to a new engine like Unreal or Unity, and if so, will our scripting etc still work? If not, why not?

There are no current plans to move over Second Life to a different engine. We’d rather focus our engineering efforts on continuing to improve our existing engine to ensure that there is no interruption to ongoing compatibility for our millions of Residents.

EEP has ruined teleports and region crossings for a lot of people. As well as TP crashing, crashing and unseating has increased by many time since EEP was put into the server code in March. When will that be fixed?

We are aware that some Residents have had an increase in disconnects during a teleport. These occur when an avatar attempts to teleport to a new Region (or cross a Region boundary, which is handled similarly internally) and the teleport or Region crossing takes longer than usual. We’re working quickly to fix the issue. Incidentally, while the wide deployment of the bug that we believe is behind the TP disconnects did coincide with EEP server deployment, it’s actually unrelated to the EEP features. Readers can check out our Tools & Technology blog for updates as we continue to roll out any fixes.

Any plans for redoing the Viewer?

We are constantly revising, updating, and fixing the Viewer as with the rest of Second Life. There are no plans currently for a complete overhaul of the Viewer.

Second Life’s limitations when it comes to max avatars per sim were mentioned, which got me thinking about instancing and events. Has Linden Lab ever considered some form of sim instancing?

We are always looking at ways to reliably expand how many avatars can be in each region.

Will we get SL name change options?

There are some more back-end changes to SL which need to be made before Last Names can make a return (actually, it’s really name changes that are the hard part), but we are working on it and hope to have it ready later in 2019.

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New airstrip, boat rez zones and car rez zones added on Bellisseria continent

Brand New Areas Now Open

One of the early morning landings today

The Moles have been pretty busy over at the new Bellisseria continent this week creating new rezzing zones for the community to enjoy. These new areas include a brand new airstrip tarmac runway suitable for light aircraft which comes with a rezzing zone.

There are new boat rezzing zones next to the lighthouses around the continent and new car rezzing zones dotted around. More is planned in the weeks ahead.

Here are the rezzing zone parcel locations which you may find very useful to keep.

New Airstrip & Rezzing Zone

• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Coral%20Waters/114/127/22

Looks fantastic

Boat Rezzing Zones 

• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Plafil Waters/14/138/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Baxby Gulf/253/64/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Norse Auk/149/110/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Springhurst Gulf/202/170/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Calm Waves/151/129/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Echo Cove/201/231/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Washburn/89/227/21
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE88/33/49/22

Very nice

Car Rezzing Zones 

• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE79/211/113/29
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE43/208/7/36
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE94/82/86/27
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE184/132/142/22
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE69/229/156/23
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE133/206/13/34
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE180/197/54/31
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE74/162/232/31
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE228/18/112/29
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE259/17/122/24
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE194/104/19/25
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE146/82/246/33
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE115/10/59/47
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE83/121/121/47
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE68/89/208/43
• http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE62/6/70/39

Yay car zones

For the latest updates check out the new Linden Homes section on the Second Life Forums as things are moving pretty quickly each week.

New Linden Home houseboats are coming soon

New Rez Zones – 23rd April Update 

New Rez Zones have been created on the new continent. Yay!

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It’s been a week since Linden Lab launched the new Linden Homes in Second Life and hundred’s of residents have already moved into the new Bellisseria continent. Patch Linden posted The New Linden Homes Update Post last Thursday saying that in less than 48 hours the new Traditional Homes and Houseboats have been claimed. The lab are very happy and overwhelmed at all the positive responses so far.

More houseboats will be coming very soon followed by additional Traditional homes and newer themes. The new houseboats are most likely to be opened on a brand new eastern island on the new part of Bellisseria continent which is due to open very soon.

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Currently the new Traditional Homes and Houseboats are out of stock as of 18th April 2019. There is no ETA on the next batch!

Current Inventory Status (18 April 2019 @ 7:30am SLT )

Traditional Homes:  Out of Stock
Houseboats:  Out of Stock

Check the update post above for the latest inventory status.

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New Developments

In the last week a new 48 region SSP development has came online just south of the original SSP development area which clearly shows new docking areas which will be used for new houseboats. It’s not clear if these regions will move somewhere else or stay where they are placed now.

On the top right side of the original SSP development area some new SSPXT regions have come online. These regions could be used for more houseboats or something else.

The eastern island of SSP = (SSP157) is where the extra houseboats are going to go it’s believed. The eastern island and the southern area has not joined up yet on the new Bellisseria continent.

New water regions added 

Eighteen new water sims have appeared (Blue Abyss) on the north-east coast of Jeogeot continent which links with the new continental sea channel up to the Bellisseria continent.

I will post more updates soon! 🙂

The return of Last Names – April 2019 Update

Daniel Voyager @danielvoyager

Should Linden Lab bring back Last Names on the Second Life sign up page ?

— Daniel Voyager (@danielvoyager) April 14, 2019

Poll Results

Last week I ran a poll for 24 hours on Twitter asking everyone if they would like to see Last Names back on the Second Life sign up page. The poll received 57 votes and 93% say YES they want to see Last Names return again.

I think there is high demand out there from the Second Life community and most have been waiting for ages for this to happen however progress has been slow. As many know already when new residents that join Second Life today they end up having “Resident” after the first name and not a second name from a drop down menu like before.

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April 2019 Update

Last Names was stopped around 8 years ago!

The lab promised this was going to happen last year at number 7 in the list via the fifteen reasons to celebrate Second Life 15th birthday blog post. Most of the list as of today has either been completed or near completion now.

7. The return of Last Names – You’ve asked for it (a lot!), so we will provide a way to customize your last name in Second Life! More details will be available later this year.

The last update I heard was back in September 2018 during a town hall gathering when Ebbe Altberg said that the return of last names to Second Life was still being implemented and work may not be completed before the end of 2018. It’s now April 2019 and still no announcements as such.

On 14th April 2019 I posted a photo of the new Second Life signup page via Twitter which is now live. Ebbe Altberg tweeted on 15th April saying “We definitely have higher priorities right now” so I’m thinking from this that Last Names probably won’t happen until 2020 or even later.

There should be a option to change the name after signing up to Second Life which could be a possible solution with a small fee. It’s probably going to work better as a premium benefit.

We definitely have higher priorities right now.

— Ebbe Altberg (@ebbealtberg) April 15, 2019

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Blog Poll

The Fantasy Faire 2019 Opens In Second Life

Fairelands Junction

The eleventh annual Fantasy Faire opened the gates on Thursday 18th April and will remain open until Sunday 5th May 2019. This year there are 16 incredible regions to explore along with astonishing environments to experience. Events run from now until 29th April.

Treat yourself to shopping, dance and theatre performances, DJ parties, auctions, questing, our Literary Festival, fantasy art, events and role-playing as thousands of Second Life residents and creators bring their own visions together to support the American Cancer Society’s vision of a world without cancer.

So far this year’s Fantasy Faire has relayed L$1, 670, 502 = USD: $7, 256, 52. Check out all the Fantasy Faire totals here.

Start your journey at the Fairelands Junction

Fairelands Junction

The Fantasy Faire 2019 Map

Stay updated on the latest news from the Fantasy Faire 2019 here

Heterocera, Sansara, Bellisseria and Jeogeot forms one super massive continent in Second Life

The super massive continent in Second Life

This week the lab added a number of water regions north and south of the new Bellisseria continent (new Linden Homes) in Second Life. You can now go straight from Heterocera to the Sansara continent (top) through the new Bellisseria continent (middle) then down to the Jeogeot continent (bottom) or the other way around. This means you can now fly, walk, boat or even walk between all four continents now.

• North Side: Grand Banks, Lobster Pot, Marianas Trench, Magellan Deep and Albatross Shoals

• South Side: Delby Depths and Harmonious Sea

Well done Linden Lab for making this possible! 🙂

Large crowd gathers at the Notre Dame in Second Life

Last night It was heartbreaking to see live coverage of the Notre Dame in real life on fire. The spire collapsed and the roof caved into the famous 850-year-old building. It took around 15 hours for the firefighters to fully extinguish the fire. The good news is that the main stone structure and the two towers survived. The cause of the fire is not yet clear but what is clear is that the cathedral will be fully rebuilt in the near future.

 

In Second Life last the virtual Paris 1900 region filled up pretty quickly with a large crowd gathering at the virtual Notre Dame. The region was full including the nearby regions.

Teleport to the virtual Notre Dame in Second Life

There is still a large crowd gathering right now inside the virtual Notre Dame as I write this blog post.

New Linden Homes have officially launched

All Hours

Today Linden Lab have officially announced the fresh new Linden Homes with new themes and larger options. The first of several planned Linden Home updates launches today exclusive to Premium members apparently.

The second generation of Linden Homes are now finally here. The new continent named Bellisseria has 384 regions currently and it’s to set to get much bigger soon. The old Linden Homes will be phased out over time but there’s no rush just yet.

There is a brand new Linden Homes wiki page full of useful information to get started from signing up to get a Linden Home, home themes, house controllers and much more.

There Goes the Neighborhood (Thankfully!)

One of the many benefits of becoming a Premium Second Life member is access to an automatic waiver of the monthly land fees for a Linden Home or 1024m² tier allotment for use towards a parcel on the Mainland. A pretty incredible perk, but it was time to make it even perkier.

Let’s be honest – those Linden Homes from 2010 were long overdue for some updates and improvements. It was clear a fresh coat of paint and some new landscaping were just not going to make the amount of curb appeal we were shooting for. In fact, it was time to return to the drawing board and start a better-built Linden Home experience, from the ground up – literally.

The first of several planned Linden Home updates launches today – with the introduction of New Linden Homes – exclusive to Premium members. Your new home may be in the mountains, along the shore, or in a rolling landscape of low hills and river valleys, but you’ll also be part of a large community experience, with navigable waterways, a network of roads, and community areas to socialize and have fun

There are two new themed styles in this release – Traditional and Houseboats – and some are twice as big as previous Linden Home offerings.

Depending on the theme chosen home parcels will be either 1024 sq m or 512 sq m apparently.

Unlike the first generation of Linden Homes, which offered themed areas on separate Regions, the New Linden Homes blend themes across the entire continent. Depending on the theme you choose to live in, your home’s parcel may be either 1024 or 512 sq m. Your house might overlook houseboats along the ocean or might be inland in a traditional suburban neighborhood. Wherever you live, you will be within range of recreational and shopping areas and will be able to travel around the continent by car or boat if you wish.

First preview of the new Bellisseria continent, new Linden Homes and new Houseboats.

Fourze 

Capitol Springs

Reeds Landing

Kuga

Sutherfield

The new Bellisseria continent opens. It’s expected the new south expansion will happen in the months ahead.

Taken at 1.40pm SLT

It’s going to be worth getting a new Linden Home for the incredible views and infrastructure that has been built. All brand new! 🙂

New Linden Homes sub forum section on the Second Life Forums goes live

After weeks of waiting Linden Lab has finally added a brand new Linden Homes sub forum section on the Second Life Forums. In recent months and weeks there many active SSP/Linden Homes threads all over the place but now it’s been all moved to one handy section.

Linden Homes appears under the Land Forum when you scroll down the page.

Here is the new Linden Homes section showing the latest threads relating to the new Linden Homes project/continent.

Please spread the word 🙂