Pixel Scoop

Well, I’m sure it isn’t uncommon for people to run off from their real life partners to be with someone they me in SL™. But for some reason this particular case made one of the top stories on Sky New today! You can read about it here.

What basically happened is that guy meets girl in chat room. 6 months later girls moves from London to Cornwall to be with him and marries him. Some time later she finds him getting down and dirty in Second Life with an escort and he tells her he no longer loves her. The end. Now what I found particularly interesting about this case is that the people involved have given their avatar names to Sky News. So of course I went off and profile whored them. I won’t give the names out here but siffice to say that by clicking on that link above you can find them out for yourselves! But in her profile under her real life tab she has, ” Do not dare to ask ^^” Ummm…. well if you’re not keen on sharing details about your real life, giving your story to Sky News, along with your avatar name and real life picture, probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, was it?

Anyway, he’s engaged to someone else, she’s been with someone she met on WoW for quite some time…just in case you were wondering.

And now I feel like a gossiping old woman. Oh well. I just thought I’d share since it caught my attention this morning!

Ok so the “We have listened to you,” post appeared on the Second Life™ blog yesterday, posted by the big M Linden himself. And what an announcement. At first glance it seems like a real genuine confession of, “Shit, we fucked up guys. Sorry about that.” And in a way it is.

To summarise, they will be automatically converting all Openspaces into ‘Homesteads’ as of January 5th 2009. Homesteads are basically what openspaces are now, but will have a 20 person limit and, in the longer term, some scripting limits too. Additionally, the January 2009 price raise won’t be quite so dramatic and will now make the monthly cost of a Homestead $95. However, this will raise, as planned, to $125 in July 2009. If you genuinely do use your openspace for openspace purposes, you can contact concierge to have it kept as an openspace, as opposed to being a Homestead. Openspaces from January will have a massive prim drop from 3750 down to 750, something that wasn’t on the blog post but instead on the Knowledge Base listing it linked to. Though their price will remain $75 with no plans for an increase. There will be no classifieds or events listings allowed on these though and an avatar limit of ten.

So basically, your options, if we put it out there as is are that you can have a 66% price increase or an 80% prim drop. Nice options. It’s a bit like, “Ok, so either we will poke you in the eyes with this shitty stick, or we won’t but you will have to pay us not to.” Well, sort of anyway. I guess. Maybe. Anyhow…

What is interesting to point out is that this ‘Letter to Residents’ that was on the blog yesterday is actually pretty much a confession, as far as I see it, that they screwed up. And it’s refreshing for someone to come out and admit that. Let me quote M Linden:-

“One thing I learned and others were reminded about in this process is that we have a very connected, passionate Resident base and we need to bring you into the dialog earlier, before putting forward these decisions. The input we received after Jack’s announcement was prolific and by-and-large very, very constructive. Second Life is at a size where 1:1 conversations are difficult and the forums are inadequate for full dialog. Office hours come up short, too. We have some thoughts on how to bring Residents into the dialog earlier which we will cover in a future blog post and Forum discussion.”

Now, while it’s great that he acknowledged that, what absolutely astounds me is the way he makes it sound like he has only just realised that actually discussing planned 66% price hikes with a customer base before just going ahead and doing it, is a good idea. And there was me thinking that would just have been common sense.

He ended on a note that, in my opinion, was designed to deflect a little attention away from this by reporting increased stability lately. Although that is good news, it’s kind of like saying to people, “Ok, so we’re going to beat the crap out of you all…. but the good news is it’s sunny outside.”

Anyhow, they made a decision, everyone ranted, they made a post basically saying they’re still going ahead with the decision but in a slightly different way and now slightly fewer people are ranting. And the story ends… until of course they announce that full prim sims are going to be $1 million a month and will only have 11 prims.

So, Linden Labs just announced that they will be raising tier on all openspace regions from January 2009. There will be no Grandfathering and all openspaces will be subject to a huge 66% increase from $75 per month too $125.

Now, let me get this right. First of all they cut full prim sims by 40% in purchase price, devaluing EVERYONE’S assets by that amount and even moreso if you consider the market saturation this led to. They then cut openspaces down to a very affordable $250 a month and doubled the prims on those to 3750. So of course thousands of people rush out and add plenty of openspaces to their estate. There are lots of companies out there now who depend upon openspace sims. And then once Linden Labs get themselves into the happy position of having this many people owning openspaces, the dollar signs in their eyes get bigger and they decide to hike their income from those by 66%!

Their excuse? The fact that they are not being used for openspace use anymore, people renting on them etc etc. So apparently, hiking the purchase price to $ 325 and the tier to $ 125 per month is going to fix this???

Bullshit.

And just when it was going so well they pull another crock of shit out of their arses.

For me personally, the effect will be minimal. Fortunately the company I manage does not rely on open spaces at all. We have a few, but they’re primarily to connect continents. And for companies like this, the forthcoming decline in openspace regions will probably mean an increase in people purchasing standard full prim parcels.

However, in terms of a business decision, I cannot help but think it is just greed combined with stupidy.

Rant over

I just read this article which tells us about a training programme based in SL™ for London paramedics. Now, I am forever banging on about the potential of Second Life and other virtual worlds as learning environments. But this is something, erm, new. The article reports that,

“The Second Life training system uses online avatars of patients in Second Life, in a series of different scenarios, to teach future paramedics how to respond to different situations. Students work in groups of three or four to treat the virtual patient.”

Now, call me cynical here, but would it not be better for them to train in real life situations or even real life re-enactments. It’s all a bit, well, pixelated in game! They’d be able to fix an avie up with one or two clicks and a relog!! Real human bodies though (so I hear) are somewhat more complex.

Each week the trainee paramedics receive a SLURL by email and once they arrive are greeted with a virtual emergency. They can ‘treat’ their ‘patient’ using their virtual kit, which contains the equipment you would typically find in an ambulance (albeit slightly more functional when it isn’t pixel stuff), including oxygen masks and those electro-whatsit doo-dah things they try and get dead people’s hearts beating again with. Apologies for my lack of eloquence. I have very little knowledge about medical equipment. Once they get the patient to ‘hospital’ they submit notes.

One of the students is quoted in the article as saying,

“It’s a really useful tool. It’s much better to be able to actually perform treatments rather than just talk about it. Everyone is online at the same time so you can bounce ideas off each other and make an informed decision.”

Now forgive me for sounding a little condescending here but if she thinks she is ‘actually performing treatments’ by clicking a pixel person, then God help the real patients she is sent to assist. Can you imagine it? Some poor old dear lying on the floor unable to breathe and the paramedic comes in screaming, “Quick, check her lag meter!!!! Excuse me, my dear, can you hear me? I think you need to relog! You’re all missing image!!”

Now, I reiterate that I really am all for using virtual worlds as a learning tool, but someone is actually funding a programme to train paramedics in Second Life and I cannot help but think that this money would be better spent in re-enacting real life scenarios. But who am I to judge. I just thought I’d share that little snippet I read, as it is certainly a more novel use of SL.

WARNING:- This post may contain whingeing, bitching, moaning and complaining that some readers may find monotonous. If you are so sickeningly happy and so smug with your wonderful life that nothing ever makes you want to complain, then this probably won’t suit your happy ass.

Anyway, I read the LONG list of fixes for the new client yesterday and I was impressed. Very impressed!! And it is true to say that this is the only new client I have updated to and NOT gone back to the older one within hours. This could just be though that I have a small mind and am too easily impressed with the default open chat coming up in blue when it’s yours. As I said, small mind. Don’t worry about me.

However, I am left with a small question. Working in real estate, the new additions to the Region and Estate tools were of particular interest to me and a large reason I updated my client before being forced to. Admitedly, there are somegreat improvements to these tools but this isn’t a techincal blog and I have neither the ability nor desire to delve into those. What the fix list included however, was a fix for the previous non-working ‘Abuse Report Email Address.’ Since this feature was added whenever you enter an email address in estate tools to receive the Abuse Reports, as soon as you close the window the address is cleared. So I was pleased to see a fix for it. And yes, it was described as a fix. However it seems that what they mean by ‘fix’ is not quite what my understanding was.

Apparently a new addition for the Linden Dictionary is as follows,
FIX: To half heartedly sort of maybe take something away but not actually go to the effort of completely removing it. From the Latin ‘WecannotbeArsedus.’

I read the note they added on this to the full release notes which says it will be re-enabled when they can support it, but why have it there in the first place and why have the audacity to refer to it as a fix? It’s like going to hospital with a broken leg and them saying to you, ‘Well we’ll just cut it off from the knee down. That ought to do it.’

Anyway… rant over.

Side note, apart from that the new viewer really is impressive.

Pixel Scoop has an in game publication! The first issue has just been released and is, well… probably fairly offensive. It’s pretty dry, kinda crude, not always so politically correct. But it does look pretty, thanks to the image work of Jenee Marten!

As well as an interview with the creator of ::Grim Babies:: this issue contains a little pixel poetry, an exclusive ‘PRIM BABY MURDER’ scoop and an incredibly informative guide on how (not) to get a job in game.

Just for convenience, I’ve also made this downloadable here in PDF format! Pixel Scoop Issue One!

If you prefer your version in world, are incredibly offended by PDFs, allergic to downloading or simply like the sound that those in game versions make when you turn the page, you can pick up Pixel Scoop in game from here!

Ok, I’ve just had a three hour and somewhat exhausting battle with PDFs so I think I’ll go moan and complain some place. Have fun!

Pixel Scoop can exclusively reveal today, to the extreme surprise of a large number of female avatars in game, that pixel pregnancies do NOT result in real babies. The news is shocking an in anticipation of the traumatic effect this will have on so many Second Life™ residents, Pixel Scoop volunteers are offering counselling by email. If you are in need of therapy after finding out that your one prim pregnancy attachment is not going to provide you with a real baby, please contact:

omfgthereisnobabyinsideyouravie@youhavetohavesextogetpregnant.com

Our therapists would love to assist.

For those of you sitting there, staring in disbelief at your pregnancy attachment and asking how it is that this can be, allow Pixel Scoop to clarify something for you. The gurgling and weird sounds that come from that attachment you wear are scripted. Those are just sounds. Not a baby. The green text that screams out to the entire population of the club you are in that your baby just moved or whatever, it is lies. Compulsive lies. Once again, this is caused by a script.

The news comes following funding into research on Pixel Pregnany by academic institutions worldwide. Verification can be obtained by speaking to your Doctor, who will gladly be able to explain how it is you might produce a real baby.

[2.45pm - Crescent Cove] Unexpected server errors forced frustration upon hundreds of residents this afternoon as ‘unexpected difficulties’ prevented profiles loading, texture uploads and other functions in game. However, more than the loss of functions, questions were raised about the definition of ‘unexpected’. Wordsmiths, lexicographers and vocabularly snobs from all over the globe reached for their references to double check the definition and all found the following:-

UNEXPECTED: not expected, foreseen or anticipated.

Confusion as to this definition arose owing to recent server performance, particularly on weekend days. This was all cleared up, however, when Linden Labs released the following excerpt from their own dictionary.

UNEXPECTED: An event that happens frequently. This adjective is used to describe perfectly anticipated events in such a way that allows the deflection of the true extent of technological issues being suffered by a company.

As well as the excerpt from their dictionary, a small statement was released. “Get over it. Pay up.”

We’ll keep you informed.

In case you don’t know or haven’t heard of it, ‘Second Skin’ is a documentary (due to be released in cinemas in September) which followed the lives of 16 people who spend a LOT of time in virtual worlds such as Second Life™. My understanding is that its focal point is indeed SL and there are a number of relevant themes brought to light - falling in love with someone in game, disabled people finding themselves doing in virtual worlds what they cannot in real life as well as real lives being completely torn apart by virtual world addiction! For more information about Second Skin, click here.

The documentary has been reviewed as being completely unbiassed, which will be refreshing if this is the case. Time will tell, however.

My issue with documentaries and the likes about such gaming habits were summed up in a recent BBC documentary, ‘Wonderland’ which dealt with couple who had met in Second Life. In particular it picked up on a woman living in the US (unhappily) married with three children. She met a guy from the UK in game and as a result her children became somewhat ‘non-priority’. She neglected her home and eventually went off to visit the guy in the UK. I won’t ruin the whole thing in case any of you care to look it up! I hear there are copies of this floating around certain unnamed video hosting sites

It just seems that, although fascinating, when people decide to cover virtual world gaming, they always pick the extreme people! Obviously, this makes good TV! But just because one woman somewhere decided that she no longer particularly cared to cook and clean for, or even speak to her husband and children, doesn’t mean that every single female who plays is  a heartless, evil bitch! Nor does it mean that every single guy who logs on sleeps with his head on his computer for fear of missing a single second of virtual action. But such is TV, I guess. I hope to see Second Skin, for interest’s sake. And I also hope it isn’t as sentationalist as previous attempts at documenting SL have been.

Linden Labs announced on their blog the other day that they are seeking out talented in world animators to come up with a new default walk to get rid of that newbie duck walk. This comes shortly after they released umpteen new, less newbie looking avatars too. So it’sclear for all to see that Linden Labs are finally taking note of the number of avatars set up, used just once and forgotten about for the rest of eternity. The thousands upon thousands of empty ‘old’ avie profiles will be solved, they think (in part at least) by allowing new residents to already look half decent and to be able to walk without it looking as though they just consumed the vodka supply of Russia.

Now, call me controversial here, but I would think their usage statistics might increase if people were able to log on when they tried, were able to teleport between places successfully, buy things, sell things (without transactions errors and list of people who need items resending) and generally perform the basic, essential functions of the game. If you’d just signed up, would you be more concerned by the fact your avatar’s skin is just a beige coloured sheet… or by the fact you can’t seem to login on your second attempt? Once again, allow me to make a suggestions for the Linden Labs PR team:-

“Dear Residents,

We would like to make you aware of our intentions to invest a suitable amount of time and effort into the creation and marketing of our new ‘newbie’ avatars and pending new default walk. Under the current circumstances, where transaction failures and those pesky in world service issues are fairly common, we thought we would like to disguise our shortcomings to the new avatars by making them real pretty with a nice walk. We figure that if it’s easier for them to look good and mingle with older avatars, at least for the few occasions on which they can actually login, they will feel a little better. Of course this goes no way to resolving the transaction errors, the asset server issues and all that good stuff. But please be consoled in regards to the recent poor performance by the knowledge that the sky is so pretty now and, oooooh, look at those water ripples. If that does’t go enough way to consoling you, then perhaps the charitable element of your avatar’s soul will enjoy the fact that YOUR money really is making a REAL difference. In fact, we were able to send 12 moderately wealthy directors off with bonuses substantial enough to ensure they’re now incredibly wealthy. Think of their children’s faces when Daddy unveils a Ferrari for their 17th birthdays or a pony for Christmas.

Anyway, folks, we just thought we’d let you know where we’re currently wasting, umm, I mean using our resources. Have a nice day.”

I still want a PR job there.