Oz Linden & Mazidox Linden Appearing On Lab Gab This Friday Talking About Uplift

At 10am SLT on Friday 6th November Oz Linden (VP of Engineering) and Mazidox Linden (Lead QA Engineer) will be live on Lab Gab talking about the latest news on Uplift which is moving Second Life to the cloud (AWS).

Hopefully we will hear more about how things are going and what’s left to do. 2020 is almost over and time is running out. From what I’m hearing the lab is still making good progress in moving more regions into the cloud. 

The blog post reads this…

Lab Gab is a live-streamed variety show that showcases events, destinations, and different talents across Second Life. 

Join our host, Strawberry Linden, as she speaks with the VP of Engineering, Oz Linden, and Lead QA Engineer, Mazidox Linden. Oz and Mazidox are on the uplift team, which is moving Second Life to the cloud. They will be discussing all aspects of uplift and giving us an update on it.      

Do you have any questions for the uplift team that you’d like Strawberry to ask them on your behalf? Fill out the Google Form and submit your question today, and it may be selected!

Tune in on Friday, November 6th at 10am PT/SLT. Watch us live on YouTube, Facebook, or Periscope!

Please spread the word. 

Linden Lab Announces Private Regions Are Now Available

After months of waiting Linden Lab have today announced that private regions are now available in limited quantity. Over time more regions will become available which is good news to hear. 

The lab is making good progress running more and more regions on AWS simulators. More are being added every day. 

As Oz recently discussed in a post, we are hard at work on uplifting Second Life to the cloud. It’s an incredibly exciting time, and we’re already seeing some significant improvements to Second Life as a service from this process. 

Additionally, many regions on the grid are now running on AWS simulators, with more being added every day!

In light of more regions being moved to the cloud, we are pleased to announce that we are ready to begin offering new private region purchases in limited quantities. As we continue to uplift more of the grid, more regions will become available over time, eventually leading to the Land Store being reopened.

The second half of the blog post talks about how to purchase a private region along with the costs. 

If you wish to purchase a private region, please submit a support ticket through our Support Portal. The ticket can be submitted under the Land & Region > Order Private Region category. Please include the region name, which must conform to region naming guidelines. Following your ticket submission, we will either process the region purchase, or add your request to a wait list, which will be handled in the order the submission is received. In the event that your request is put on the waiting list, we will not charge your account until the point when the region is delivered.

Private regions are charged an initial setup fee upon delivery, which also covers the first 30 days. Each month afterwards, private regions bill at their recurring monthly fee. 

Type	Setup Fee	Maintenance Fee (monthly)
Full Region	$349	$229
Skill Gaming Region	$600	$345
Homestead Region	$149	$109

Please spread the word. 

Update from Patch Linden on Linden Homes, Halloween Events and Uplift Progress

On 1st October Patch Linden posted a update on this thread on the Second Life Forums about the latest news on the uplift efforts, Halloween events and the progress of the upcoming Linden Home themes. I’m glad Patch posted this update because it’s been a while since we heard anything from the lab since the 17th Second Life birthday back in June 2020. 

Main Highlights

• The Uplift efforts are “proceeding very well” which is good news to hear. The Uplift is expected to be done before the end of 2020 which is less than three months away. 
• Linden Lab have been busy working on large scale events like Titmouse, Swagginator, the Millbank surprise and they have been preparing the Halloween Haunted Tour. 
• The Stilt homes “can’t be released yet due to uplift and simulator availability constraints”. The theme after Stilts is in the “end stages of content production completion” It’s set soon to be positioned for release. 
• The theme after that is “ready to follow it pretty quickly”.
• Soon Patch will be starting a “regular town hall type meeting for Bellisseria”.

Here is the full update from Patch Linden…

In general, everything is still running full steam ahead.  There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes, and not just for my team, but across the Lab. The uplift efforts are proceeding very well and you’ll see even more about that soon I’m sure.   

As for me and the LDPW team, I took a real vacation with a bit of a daring trip to the house of mouse.  Prior to that the we’d been super busy working on several large scale events, such as Titmouse and all the fun stuff we’re just releasing around Halloween like the huge shopping event, Swagginator, all our gift and Halloween content, the Millbank surprise, readying the Halloween Haunted Tour and it’s modifications for the year and so on.  The stilt homes can’t be released yet due to uplift and simulator availability constraints.   The theme following Stilts is in the end stages of content production completion and will also soon™ be positioned for release.  The theme after is entering content production now, and the theme following is ready to follow it pretty quickly.

To that end, and as gently as I try to remind everyone, the Linden Homes model of home ownership is positioned as a constricted value proposition type of new user or starter home.  I have said before that at some point you probably would or should naturally want to “grow” out of the Linden Home ownership model and want bigger, better, more control, etc.  That is totally ok and by design, but some people are also perfectly happy with staying put in a Linden Home, also ok.   There are many other amazing land ownership options out there from Mainland to Private Estates.   No matter where you end up ultimately, we were glad you were part of something really special, we still equally love everyone and the community that continues to be a huge part of Bellisseria’s continuing success.

At some point in the near future, I’m going to start a regular town hall type meeting for Bellisseria.  Who knows what tidbits of information could potentially drop from that.  😉

Sounds like good progress is being made at the lab and once the Uplift is done then I’m sure the Stilts will be released soon after that. With three months left of 2020 hopefully the lab will be able to complete everything that needs to be done (see above). 

I do like the sound of regular town hall meetings for all things Bellisseria and I’m sure it will be very popular indeed. For now for the latest updates please keep checking the Linden Homes section on the Second Life Forums. I will be posting updates on my blog when new developments happen. 

Main Grid Regions Drop Under The 25, 000 Mark

As of 26th July 2020 the total amount of main grid regions in Second Life has dropped under the 25, 000 mark according to the Second Life Grid Survey. Mainly through Private Estates and some Linden Owned regions have been showing signs of decline during the past month.

The total region count has actually been lower than this in previous years like back when there were 23, 298 regions back on 18th March 2018. At the moment there is no need to panic but if trends continue like they are then the decline will sadly get worse before the end of 2020.

The first six months of 2020 there have been signs of positive growth in Second Life and hopefully soon the grid growth will return. See below for the grid numbers counted for January, June and July.

Main Grid size as of 26th July 2020

• Total Main Grid Regions: 24, 947
• Private Estates: 16, 662
• Linden Owned: 8, 285

Main Grid size – 7th June 2020

• Total Main Grid Regions: 25, 160
• Private Estates: 16, 902
• Linden Owned: 8, 258

Main Grid size – 20th January 2020

• Total Main Grid Regions: 24, 147
• Private Estates: 16, 036
• Linden Owned: 8, 111

What To Expect Next ?

• Once the migration to the cloud has been completed in early Autumn then the region capacity will increase again. The lab have not released any dates yet. This will effect the private estate numbers.
• The Bellisseria continent will start to grow again after the cloud move is finished. This will increase the Linden Owned regions.
• Hopefully during 2021 Linden Lab may lower the land costs or do something to help the Second Life community.

How does OpenSim compare ?

If you put the OSgrid and Kitely regions combined together it will surpass Second Life regions by a huge margin. There are now over 1, 572 public accessible opensim grids now. The total OpenSim land area expanded by more than 800 regions. Is everyone switching to OpenSim now ?

There are now roughly 80, 000 regions on OpenSim which is a huge amount. Second Life has 24, 947 regions in total. From the looks of things OpenSim is still growing in terms of regions and active users.

See July 2020 report

Hypergrid Business Data – July 2020

I will blog about the grid numbers in October and then again at the end of 2020. Hopefully by then the grid numbers will be positive. If there is any big changes or announcements then I’ll share them on my blog.

Log Homes Expansion Map Comparison – March 2020 vs July 2020

Back in mid March 2020 I blogged about the new mass of regions added east of Bellisseria which turned into the log homes expansion. Since then the Moles have added thousands of new Linden homes along the new road networks, new relaxing areas, new waterways and a railway line that is still being worked on.

The log homes were released back in early April 2020 where Patch Linden announced that 4, 828 new Linden Homes were ready to claim. This was the biggest release to date spreading over 230 regions.

If you look at the comparison maps below you can hopefully see the differences between the both of them. The gaps are getting smaller and smaller it appears now. Hopefully in another three to six months the whole log homes continent will be completed.

Mid March 2020

24th July 2020

It’s actually been interesting to watch this log homes continent grow in size and see the development of it all since March. Four months later and work is still continuing around the log homes continent. Good progress is being made with loads of different project goals happening all at once.

First regions arrived back in mid March 2020

Going forward it’s going to be interesting where the new upcoming themes will be placed either to the north or down in the south. More regions are expected to arrive later this year when Second Life moves into the cloud. The lab have already started moving regions into the cloud (AWS).

I will post more updates very soon on the latest Bellisseria developments.

Blake Sea now in the Cloud

Blake Sea on AWS

Good news this week is that the well known Blake Sea on the Second Life Preview Grid (Aditi) is now in the cloud (AWS). Linden Lab are now expanding the number of regions running in the cloud in the weeks and months ahead. 

Preview Grid 

Just log into the preview grid, teleport to the Blake Sea regions and rez your boat or aircraft. Mazidox Linden posted this announcement on the Second Life forums on Monday 20th July 2020. 

Feedback 

If you have any issues or suggestions then leave feedback here. Check the Server section of the Second Life Forums for the latest developments. 

Latest News 

Hi there everyone!

As you may have noticed in my previous announcement, some of the regions we recently brought back online on Aditi are in the cloud! We’ve now expanded the number of regions we’re running in the cloud on Aditi to include the entirety of the Blake Sea mainland regions. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Blake Sea, you can use the following entry points to log in on Aditi and rez a vehicle to start exploring. If you’re not familiar with Aditi itself, you can learn more here.

Entry points:

Blake Sea – Japan (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Japan/207/248/22)
Blake Sea – Beagle (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Beagle/207/208/13)
Blake Sea – Mainbrace (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Mainbrace/211/241/16)
Blake Sea – Atlantic (secondlife://Aditi/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Atlantic/245/219/16)

Objectives:

Test region crossing code (particularly using vehicles) between cloud simulators on the same host, and cloud simulators on different hosts.

Known Issues:

• Some regions cause you to “bounce off an invisible wall” at the region border, even though you are able to see into them. Please report instances of this occurring in this thread, with the region you were in, the region you were trying to enter, the date, and the time.
• Some regions will not show up at the edge of your current region, even though they are adjacent. Please report instances of this occurring in this thread, with the region you were in, the region that failed to appear, the date, and the time.
• HTTP-out for LSL scripts is disabled on cloud-based regions. Please don’t report this, as it is currently working as intended.
• Sending email via LSL scripts is disabled on cloud-based regions. Please don’t report this, as it is currently working as intended.

Regions in the cloud as of 22nd July 2020

• Ahern – now in the cloud
• Morris – now in the cloud
• Blake Sea – now in the cloud 

More AWS updates soon.