Massively^™

Linden Lab has announced that script-limitations for the new Homesteads/Openspaces products will not be going ahead in Q1 2009 as originally expected, and will be delayed until Q3 2009. Script limitations were announced to be an integral part of the revised product specification for void simulators, and the details of those limitations were expected to be announced before they went on sale at Noon on Monday, 5 January.

Instead, Q1 will see the rollout of internal data-collection systems to monitor scripting loads in all simulators on the Second Life grid followed by determination of what limits should be put into place. Q2 will see the deployment of tools in the viewer for users to better assess script workloads. Q3 is scheduled for of those script limits, but Linden Lab is leaving a little wiggle-room, and Q3 may yet slip.

Judging based on past Linden Lab project timelines, we'd expect Q3 to slip to Q1 2010.

Reduction in the usage of void simulators as a result of the new pricing and specifications led to a net reduction in simulator usage of 1997 simulators in November 2008 and an additional 2007 simulators in December 2008. An additional 83 have been decommissioned so far this month.

---

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

There has been plenty of speculation on PlayStation Home and how it compares and contrasts with Second Life as a virtual world. Heck, the creative director spoke about it months ago stating that Second Life players would probably not find much of interest in PS Home. Well, Kotaku has stepped in to explore just that subject.

For those not wanting to get too down and dirty with the full tale, Second Life has much more personal customization. Everything from outfits to dance moves to land masses can be user-generated and added to the world. On the other hand, PlayStation Home allows for minimal add-ons, focusing on creating rich, stable environments - even if that means sacrificing little things like avatar diversity. But with much more content promised, PS Home may well become a better contender for virtual world time.

Google's Lively presents us with an interesting scenario. It was literally a checklist of what critics have been saying that virtual environments such as Linden Lab's Second Life absolutely must have in order to make it.

A simplified user-interface, embedded in the Web-browser, content designed by professionals rather than (mostly) amateurs, a 'room' (or contained space) model rather than a widespread world. While it was touted as having no requirement for a separate downloadable client, that wasn't actually true -- it did actually have one, though it was relatively painless to download and install.

In short, it was the perceived holy grail of virtual environment 'must-haves' for success, as so frequently touted in media articles which lauded its simplicity and accessibility. Also, in short, Lively was a failure -- a spectacular one. Spectacular, but not without educational value.

Over on the Second Life viewer development mailing list, there's a spirited discussion in progress about the suggestion of a notification list for viewer security vulnerabilities. The principle idea is that distributors of third-party viewers would get slightly earlier notification of vulnerabilities and exploits in the viewer code so that they could have secured versions of their Second Life viewers available to the general public at approximately the same time as secured versions of the first-party viewer become available.

Linden Lab has invited debate on what sorts of people it would be reasonable to disclose the information to (for example, perhaps only those who had signed a non-disclosure agreement). The topic has, naturally enough, brought out considerable debate as to whether such a group is necessary or even desirable.

With the new higher-priced, lower-specification Second Life void simulator packages coming up in the first week of January, we've been expecting a sudden decline in simulator numbers as customers shed their virtual land holdings. From the first of December to midnight on 22 December, we saw a net reduction of only 1,535 which was far from the sorts of numbers we were expecting so late in the month.

The figures for Tuesday, 23 December are far, far different. Linden Lab has decommissioned more than 23,000 simulators in the space of 24 hours. Almost 1,000 per hour. That's a stunning figure -- it quite literally took our breath away there for a few moments. That's a net reduction of over one-and-a-half billion square metres in one single day.

We're expecting further reductions by the end of the month, but we're not willing to speculate on the scale of reductions on subsequent days at this stage.

UPDATE: It's been pointed out to us that this may be due to an error in Linden Lab's statistical system. We've done some more investigation and, yes indeed, the published figure is bunk. Digging back to the source feeds the correct net loss up to Christmas Eve seems to be about 1,630.

---

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

The new front page for the Second Life Web-site has been somewhat contentious among some users of the service, even though they don't actually normally see it themselves. The bulk of the traditional style Web-page has been replaced with a black, sort of iPhoneish Flash-based series of capsule images that pop out when clicked on to reveal a short marketing blurb.

It all rather flies in the face of what we all know works well in good Web design -- or at least what we think we know. Often there's a huge gulf between theory and practice, and it's hard to tell when that gulf actually exists and where it might be.

Well, out of the boost that various third-party opensim grids appear to have had since Linden Lab's announced Second Life void simulator pricing and specification changes, you'd expect them all to be doing well. Not apparently so with Litesim, a UK-based grid that launched earlier this year.

On Wednesday 10 December, Litesim unexpectedly shuttered its operation. It is not presently known whether this is due to financial difficulties, to poor publicity associated with the infamous Lalinda Lovell (the focus of two Sky News 'Wonderland' artificial child sex scandals) who promoted Litesim in Second Life, or the result of unsubstantiated rumors of UK police investigations into activities on the Litesim grid.

Just prior to the shutdown Litesim's CEO Gareth Nelson hinted at a possible future relaunch, but has been otherwise unreachable for comment.

---

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Up until recently, because of the new pricing and terms on void simulator packages in Second Life, the USS (United Sailing Sims), a collection of sailing groups that hold a large amount of Second Life territory were planning to ... well ... "jump ship" as some of them put it, and move their operations out of Linden Lab's virtual world.

Linden Lab has now announced the creation of a set of ocean sims (called the Blake Sea), connected to the mainland, and cost-free relocation for the rather large number of USS simulators to connect to that. Several USS members (who declined to be named) made us aware of the impending announcement two weeks ago, telling us that Linden Lab were going to make these changes in order to prevent the combined groups from defecting to alternatives such as opensim.

Linden Lab has not responded to inquiries about the matter. A number of people consider it rank favoritism. Perhaps it is -- but is it important if it is or not?

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC4 is the fifth release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). Mostly this version seems to be about final polish.

This edition has two more crash fixes, assorted tune-ups to defective UI elements, a small bundle of localization fixes and some almost completely impenetrable alterations to the thread watchdog (however it does now default to being off). We're not expecting an RC5 before this goes live - unless something outstandingly broken crops up. Full release notes for this version are after the jump.

Just before we get started, it's probably worth mentioning that we're quite fond of Gore Verbinski's work to-date. This does not offset the creeping trepidation that we might feel about Verbinski and Universal having snagged the movie rights to a Wall Street Journal article about Second Life user Ric Hoogestraat.

No, not rights to Hoogestraat's story, or that of his wife, or of his virtual spouse. Movie rights to a newspaper article. It isn't even really a terribly interesting story, as the stories of Second Life users generally go.

It is with some regret that we note the passing of a notable, veteran Second Life user, the vivacious and witty Kendra Bancroft, better known in some circles as popular children's television and video-game English voice actress, Madeleine Blaustein.

Maddie joined Second Life in June 2004 and under the name Kendra Bancroft was a long time friend and compatriot of the well-known (if slightly infamous) Ulrika Zugzwang. She participated in Second Life politics, experimental democracy, protests, parties and virtual construction.

Maddie also gave unique voice to a variety of well-known cartoon, anime and video-game characters, such as Pokemon's Meowth, and Sartorius from Yi-Gi-Oh GX. She was, however, perhaps most notable for her building, vivacious wit, and her loyalty to her friends.

Maddie died in her sleep on 11 December, after a brief (but unspecified) illness at the age of 48.

---

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

If you spend a lot of time working for new corporations, you've probably been exposed to what office-workers often call the 'trio of doom', the Vision Statement, the Values Statement and the Mission Statement. These sometimes come with slightly different names. The Values statements (or company principles) during the late 1990's started to acquire names like The Dharma of [company name] or The Tao of [company name].

Linden Lab has maintained a corporate values statement called (unsurprisingly) The Tao of Linden. Values statements are actually often quite a bit more interesting than they appear to be -- the process by which they are formed is itself quite curious -- and the more so when they are changed. Linden Lab has just changed their own, leading to an immediate curiosity about the changes are, and what they might convey.

The Imprudence project has reached the end of the first release cycle for their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is now in official release, and will soon show the first of their 1.1 series of viewers, sporting sound and more extensive modifications.

As is proper, there's very little difference between the release version and the release candidate. Pretty much just a couple fixes for memory leaks, and some minor tweaking. OpenJPEG 1.3 removes issues with transparent skirts.

Aside from the temporary lack of audio, this seems to be the smoothest and most reliable viewer presently available based from the 1.21 code-base.

November metrics for Linden Lab's virtual environment, Second Life are available for examination. September and October were relatively poor months, and November's results don't look great at all.

In fact every one of Linden Lab's key metrics fell in November. Land size, user-hours, transactions, PMLF. The only gain is an infinitesimal increase in the Linden Dollar exchange rate of 0.3%.

Any person who "invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent," subject to the conditions and requirements of the law. So says the US Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO), citing the applicable statute.

There's a lot of slicing, dicing and hair splitting over nearly every part of that sentence, and some extraordinary debates and numerous calls for reform of the patent system. Nevertheless, today we're looking at two patents that the owners appear to be keen to enforce.

Between them, they appear to cover a few simple, and difficult-to-avoid systems that underpin pretty much every graphical virtual environment, and MMOG that you can think of, from World of Warcraft, to Second Life -- and perhaps most of the online multiplayer games since the era of Doom.