It’s that time of the year when I look back at what happened in Second Life and again so much as happened this year in terms of Second Life. The expansion of the Bellisseria continent with new Linden home themes, the return of last names, EEP going live grid-wide, Second Life regions moving into the cloud and much more.
Here is what happened during the first seven months of 2020. See part 2 for August to December 2020.
January 2020
A rather quiet month for Second Life news. Most was small announcements and press releases.
February 2020
Linden Lab made operational and personnel changes after few rumours about changes at the lab. There were layoffs however many returned to Second Life to make it better.
Linden Lab stopped sponsoring Sansar financially and moved to plan B.
March 2020
Linden Lab expanded support and reduced prices for Education & Nonprofits. The pricing was a flat $99/month per region to qualified accredited non-profit and educational instillations.
Ebbe Altberg CEO of Linden Lab posted a message on the Second Life blog on the coronavirus situation and Second Life operations. Ebbe mentioned that “Second Life will continue to be available without interruption as we get through this tough time together”. The lab saw an increase in new registrations and returning residents in Second Life during the start of the outbreak.
A new mass of regions arrived on the grid east of the Bellisseria continent. Roughly 96 regions were added and they turned out to form the log homes continent.
Wookey Project Corp. acquired Sansar in late March 2020. Linden Lab main focus moved towards Second Life and Tilia. Operations at Second Life have not impacted at all.
April 2020
The log homes release saw over 4, 800 new Linden homes spreading over 230 regions. The release came with four styles of log homes, vast rural regions with stunning scenery and the railway.
Linden Lab announced the return of last names for the Second Life community. The last names option is for Second Life Premium members. The last names pool will be refreshed on a regular basis.
Mid April 2020 marked Bellisseria first anniversary in Second Life since the second generation of Linden Homes first opened to the public. A new batch of pink SSP regions (50 regions) arrived on the grid where new developments from the Moles were taking place.
Linden Lab released the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) grid wide in Second Life. All regions on the grid supports EEP. This included legacy Windlight environments and more customization.
May 2020
Bay City celebrated their twelve anniversary in Second Life which included the annual parade and live concert.
Linden Lab delayed the Second Life Premium Plus roll out to early 2021 at the earliest. The delay was due to the Uplift project.
Linden Lab limited the availability of new Second Life regions until the Autumn due to the ongoing public health crisis. Apparently the lab did have a “healthy supply of mainland” including entire mainland regions.
Linden Lab rolled out the new logo for Second Life which featured a more cleaner, bright and bolder font than the older logo.
June 2020
MC, Bellisseria & GOR joined together for 10 days of relay and raised $50, 610. The relay team said this “The 10 Days of Relay was an incredible event with so many people participating in so many different ways”.
The SL17B regions opened up to the public with a opening speech by Patch Linden. There was a high audience attendance in nearby regions and via the live online stream of it.
The new Stilt Linden Homes preview region at SL17B opened to the public.
July 2020
In early July Linden Lab signed an agreement to be acquired by an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager.
* “The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval by financial regulators in the U.S. related to Tilia Inc.’s status as a licensed money transmitter as well as other customary closing conditions”.S
* Since July the lab have kept quiet about the current situation. There may be further updates in the first part 2021.
Morris and Ahern become the first beta grid regions running on the AWS in “the cloud”.
Firestorm team released a EEP public beta version of the Firestorm Viewer (6.4.5.60799) which comes with support for the Environment Enhancement Project (EEP).
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See part 2 for August to December 2020.
Daniel Voyager 