The Best Places No One Visits

Apparently Real Life is a game ("You'll Win Christmas with this gift!" or "I'm now the Mayor of Farduck's Coffee!" or the like) so it is no wonder there is almost constant talk about Second Life being a game or that it needs to be a game or there needs to be more game-like elements. What many of these people miss as they lag the Welcome Areas, however, is seeing the whole forest while complaining about the lack of trees.

The Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) provides a near limitless variety of entertainments for us Residents ... it's called Landscaping! If people would leave the Free Sex areas and the (not so) Safe Hubs and stop simply teleporting from party to party, they might notice that places like the Coastal Waterway exist. This series of sea-themed regions connect to form a whole-cloth of knit-together stories yet are just some of "The Best Places No One Visits" in Second Life.

A delightful sculpture garden can be found in Leximus (SLurl). Explore as a scuba diver and be amused at the inside jokes or visit with friends and create a story of adventure! It is OUR world, folks. Use some imagination. This is just one of many undersea attractions you won't see if you spend your time simply bumping high-speed boats against sim crossings.

Just under the Imona Rezz Zone (SLurl) is a plethora of sea life, some of which has been domesticated, like Giganticus Mare Equis, commonly known as That Seahorse You Can Ride. The LDPW moles are a clever lot with wicked senses of humor – They saddled a seahorse. You can also try riding some of the other animals (and taking copies for your own waterscapes), but be careful as some will eat you alive. Done "horsing around"? Then rez your boat topside and visit another site.

Maybe the Perugia Rezz Zone (SLurl), home to one of many, many sea power generation projects in Second Life and a great example of how the LDPW is weaving a life story in Our World. If you coordinate such places on the world map you'll see that they supply power to various facilities such as the Prim Drilling Rig in ANWR (SLurl). It is there that all the prims you rezz in-world are found (there's an abandoned prim mine that Zyx reported about on this blog here). The Lab is providing everything Residents need to get out and PLAY but so few folks do it. I especially love the explorers that do and I give special hat tips to Kennylex Luckless and Hexapoda Resident for joyfully sharing their adventures on the MySL feeds.

I was exploring a few areas I saw on Hexa's feed when I investigated a strange green glow in the waters of Gaigano (SLurl). The cove seemed to have been very unnaturally formed (work with me here ... I know all these places are totally fictional, but this is how I have fun in SL) so I dove in and found –

What appears to be a crashed alien space ship worthy of Area 51 and mutated jellyfish!!

The craft is huge. If you risk going into the interior you'll see that nothing on this planet could have made it. I suspect alien moles. Big alien moles.

The propulsion source is totally baffling but still seems to have an active power source. I worry about radiation and excessive particle exposure (particles, BTW, don't lag a sim, rather they lag your viewer and make it seem like the whole sim is slowing).

LIke any crash, though, I can't look away. The long skid path from where it slid along the sea floor shows tremendous energies were let loose as the sands were fused into glass and rock. I bet if I followed the path's apparent trajectory I'd find more damage on the seabed. This must be one of the most Best Places No One Visits or the LDPW is amazing at keeping secrets (well, they are ... since it was confirmed they know where Magellan Linden is but aren''t talking).

See what I mean? I spent a good hour exploring around and seeing things I'd never come across before despite the extensive amount of time I've previously spent in the Coastal Waterway. And I know there is more. I've popped from place to place with only enough time to make landmarks so I could have more relaxed visits later. I can't wait to get to a "tiny" island and try the adventure the moles have set up.

Just another example of how Mainland rocks, really. Each continent and themed community (such as Nautilus, the sailing sims, Bay City, and more) all have an infrastructure and a back story that makes exploring them a ton of fun. Taken as a whole they have a history worthy of a whole planet. Yet people sit in Welcome Areas and complain that SL needs to be more like a game. Maybe I should be glad they don't explore. Then I can keep this little mermaid house all to myself.

No, I'm not telling you where this is, but I will say "start at the alien spaceship wreck and look about for it and a snazzy sea lab structure that is also near by ... watch the wildlife, though and always look for Magellan Linden.

This is not a blog post

Busy stuff in Real Life, the Firestorm viewer continually crashing and never showing my correct L$ balance, and trying to catch up with Webcomics means I'm not blogging today. Nope. You don't see this at all. Move along (and maybe check out my MySL photo stream as I explored a bit in Nautilus today). I'll just be here in my hot tub.

MySL: What I've Been Doing

While I work on a big blog post for (hopefully) tomorrow, let's take a look at some of the snaps that have recently appeared on my feed on MySL, the underdeveloped but still popular microblog.

Spent a fair bit of time on my boat with my wife. An updated version was delivered about the time the Holidays hit so it took me a while to get around to personalizing the upgrade. Also, about this time or shortly thereafter I was made an Assistant Junior Harbormaster at the New Port Yacht Club. Bay City Residents can contact Alx Zeiler or me to ask about moorings and slips. (Original Post Here)

With the help of others on MySL, I was able to continue my quest to find Magellan Linden (as blogged about here). I moored my boat at the launch site of a tunnel boring machine that the Great Explorer used near Nautilus (SLurl). It was too late when I moored at sunset to dive for the tunnel, but I got a start the next morning only to find the hole had collapsed. (Orignal Posts Here and Here)

This is the control room for Magellan's boring machine. You can climb inside, too, as it is just sitting out in Mysehi (SLurl). It was clearly built by the Moles as were many artifacts related to Magellan. (Original Post Here)

My search for Magellan has taken me so many places in so short a time, including the Wilderness (SLurl), where I checked out a surprisingly seaworthy craft he used. Notice the LDPW logo? The Moles are certainly helping him. Check out this conversation I had with Silent Mole about just this topic. (Original Post Here)

MySL posts haven't been all about Magellan, though quite a few have been about my boat. It was a great place to test a "binocular" HUD ... just a simple graphic I could use to fake pictures as if they were taken through a pair of binoculars. (Original Post Here)

I find so many nice places from other people's MySL feeds. Sadly, the beach pictured above is gone. It was one of the most beautiful beaches in all Second Life. When I went back the next day, it was gone. One of the owners told me that they were changing just for the sake of changing. (Original Post Here)

I probably post 3-6 pictures a day to MySL so this is just a quick look at what I've been doing recently (Unicorns and cats and ducks! oh! My!). Check them all out here and then ask yourself "Why aren't I having fun with the Community via this unique resource?"

Vick's Wish List

Too often end-of-the-year retrospectives are planned and published well before the end of the year. For example, I was watching a television news piece about celebrities and notables who died in 2012 when news hit that another famous person died just that day. And then each subsequent day saw a notable death. Why can't reviews created when the year is over? Instead, I like previews and wish lists and resolutions. Quite a few bloggers from Second Life have published these but the wish list from Vick Forcella stuck out (see the original here). Here's my annotated look at what Vick would like to see in 2013:

This spot needed a pic and has
nothing to do with the post.

80 people in a mainland sim
No. Sorry, Vick, but avatars cause lag. I don't want to see more avatars on Mainland, especially in areas with roads. Someone who needs to have a high avatar account should consider owning parcels on sim lines and spreading the content/avatar load like they do for big official Linden events. Long ago when my brother and I owned about 3/4 of Nangrim a Brazillian casino opened on much of the remaining land and kept the "agent limit" maxed most of the time. On the rare instances when we could enter our property, the lag was so bad from well across the region, we could barely function. Raising the limit may have seemed like a good idea, but from a functionality standpoint, it would not have worked.

Distribution quota so that each parcel (>255sqm >2) on the mainland is always accessible.
This would work, especially for the situation mentioned above. There is a club in part of Bay City that often uses the full agent limit of the region but they have only 1024 sqm of land. That is an abuse of region resources, but it not a ToS offense (many have tried filing and failed).

Tier reduction
This might work. The Lab certainly has quite a bit of unused land laying about in unsold and abandoned spaces so I see that if tier fees are reduced, folks might buy up more land.

my.secondlife.com moderation tools
Yes,  please. A lawyer would be needed, though, to decide if this would be legal or not. An abusive comment is free speech, at least to a point. MySL is public to view, like comments on news/blog posts and can be moderated by the thread originator by deleting comments (again, just like other public forums). MySL might have to be taken private to enable a more expansive tool selection.

my.secondlife.com moderation based on TOS
Again ... Yes, please! I further suggest that MySL users be required to take a mini-tutorial and comprehension quiz to be able to access the microblogging service. Come to think of it, the same should be true for access to any part of Second Life. Violators should be required to retake the course after a to-be-determined number of offenses, too.

Linden Lab unmuted
No idea what Vick means here. Really, Vick? Did the whole Lab mute you?

Linden Lab finding a single platform for communicating with residents
Excellent suggestion. Several different blogs, status report pages, Dashboards, and in-world announcements that lag (I'll change viewers, for example, and see notifications in the second viewer that never showed in the first one).

Pro-active griefer reduction by Linden Lab, policing
This would require more tools or better tools in the hands of the Residents because even with GOD powers, the Lindens can't be everywhere at all times. And when you do see a Linden, they are often "back office" staff that may not be as familiar with Governance as we'd think they would be.

What should be implemented is a form of limited access for "free" accounts, the types that are often used by griefers. For example, limited resource sandboxes or tiered-rights to resources as an account "ages" –– this assumes that many griefers are just noobs that don't understand now things work but also rewards learning and loyalty.

A Jira that gathers errors instead of covering them up
My opinion of the JIRA is well known. I almost believe it should be suspended until it can actually become useful. C'mon, now ... why should ANY Resident be able to close my JIRA without Lab review just because they think they are smarter than me? And JIRAs can go years without being looked at ... ask my brother.

A Jira that welcomes improvement suggestions
Not gonna happen. JIRA is too broken.

A new policy for the Linden Memorial Park and re-opening
Hear, hear. I whole-heartedly agree. What the LMP needs is a caretaker. Make it a fee to place a memorial if you have to, but please open the LMP.

Clean up of micro parcels
This would require a complete rethink of how land is marketed and sold. Then thousands of parcels would need to be claimed under Eminent Domain for redistribution.

Clean up of abandoned parcels
I agree, but The Lab doesn't see an economic issue here otherwise they would have done it by now. If a Resident wants to buy an abandoned parcel, there are tools available here.

Clean up of parcels owned by inactive residents, plenty of oceans
Same as above ... not seen as an economic imperative.

De-activation of new (*) accounts that do not enter world in two days
Yes and no. If The Lab wasn't trying as half-hard as it was to be a social network, I can see this being viable. As it is, people are encouraged to have accounts whether they come in-world or not because they can still use MySL.

From the game Lili, available for iOS devices here.

Noob micro learning continent where noobs are forced to remain for one week 
The current new Resident experience is bloody awful. I had more of a tutorial from an iPad game I downloaded the other day than new Residents get now. The tutorial in Lili (see a a review here) is not only more intensive, but it is brilliantly implemented. The lessons are progressive in that they "pop up" as a skill is needed. If The Lab wants Second Life to be a gaming platform, it could create a day-long game each new Resident would be required to complete before accessing the full world and during which they would learn all the skills and conventions of Second Life.

A forum that is no longer Béta
What? The forums are still relevant? Any time I look the are filled with trolls and 'experts' that never seem to be in-world. Rather they seem to enjoy being big fish in the little pond of forum-life.

my.secondlife.com that is out of Béta 
My Second Life (MySL) is a wonderful tool that has been officially abandoned. I've been told that except for basic maintenance, no more development will be done.

Webcontent more tablet friendly 
Amen. Flash is dead but some of the world just doesn't know it. Heck, my iPad has a faster, more powerful processor and more RAM than did the first computer I used to access the Web on "back in the day." There is NO reason Second Life itself couldn't run on a tablet or even a more mobile device. Scalability is the key. Oh, and effort. And caring.

Scalable sims: Optional more/less residents/prims = higher/lower price
But this would require work on the part of someone. The Lab no longer has a focus on developing the Second Life infrastructure.

Linden Lab Gaming Viewer (LLGV)
Huh? Sounds like it would be a second world. Third Life?

Resident created games for LLGV
The Moles are very clever and have a ton of game/experience content in Second Life even as I write this but it isn't promoted. Let's get people using the world they have before luring them away to yet another world.

Second Life doesn't need to be a game. It is a way to have a life that isn't possible in Meatspace. No way in heck you'd catch me dressing like this iRL and laying on a boat. Not that I haven't, but you wouldn't see it. You should see what I've done on boats.

Linden Lab Communicator Client (IM/Voice/Groups without in-world avatar)
Sooooo .... like MySL? They could just buy Plurk and be done with it.

Pro-active copybot policing (used client, use of proxies)
I don't think that The Lab sees any economic advantage to this. At least none to them.

UDP(*) type implemented for SL (i.e. SLDP, blocking of SL ISP side)
Sound like a good idea, but I don't know enough about it to make a cogent observation.

Life membership reward if premium >5 years
This idea works for me and I can think of lots of rewards.

Tier-free 1024 sqm when Life Member
Like this one. This is a good idea. Or even double-prims on any land a Life Member owns.

LL attaches it’s hired developers with a life maintenance contract
Not sure I understand what this is. Could you explain more?

Easier ticket escalation towards Linden Lab
I've told you twice now .. JIRA IS DEAD. Take its wallet and walk away.

Return of the quarterly Linden Lab report, more in depth
Yes, please. Not gonna happen, but yes, please.

Linden Lab that treats it’s residents for what they are. Owners and creators
That is done, but selectively. Look around. There is a cadre of Residents that is regularly hired as "outside contractors" to do work for The Lab ... not to mention the beloved LDPW Moles.

Linden Lab that acts as a trusted provider
Again, I'm lost. Reason #9087 why folks just shouldn't listen to me at all.

A TOS that protects the residents
Ideally, the ToS does that now, but the way it is implemented is lacking.

World peace!
Still wraping my head around whirled peas. I'll have to get back to  you on this.

MORE RESIDENTS THAT STAY
Alas, therein lies the rub.

ETA: Flying over parcels that are Full
Allowance does need to be made for occupied vehicles to cross land that has reached its agent limit and its prim allotment. Too often I've crashed or had my vehicle returned or bot just because I'm travelling.

 * This is the Usenet Death Penalty (see here).

Interesting list, Vick. Thanks for sharing. I can't add anything, really, as I'm pretty happy with Second Life overall or I'm rather accepting of the status quo. If I had to pick one item, it would be Web/mobile access to Our World. It is possible and shouldn't be too much work. Maybe Google needs to buy The Lab. I've suggested it before.

Amazon & the Hoverboard

Today's news from The Lab (Web) that Second Life goods are available on the hugely popular shopping Web site Amazon (here) has so many ramifications and possibilities. Let's explore some:

You can sign up for a Second Life account via Amazon and download the client or you can use an existing account.

Residents who wish to take advantage of this partnership need to "link" their Second Life account to their Amazon account. What? You have one Amazon account for your household but several in your family with different Second Life accounts. Sorry, you'll have to have a separate Amazon account to take full advantage of the partnership. That could mean splitting your Kindle library, your AmazonCloud service, and so on.

Don't worry, folks outside the United States. This is not for you to worry about yet.

The free Vehicle Starter Pack (here) includes L$1000 dropped on your "linked" account and a hoverboard. With a new appearance, this is the same board you could have gotten at the Georgean Test Track (SLurl) before Halloween when the vendor was taken away. If you don't mind a the 2009 style, drop by CC's Pouloco Station (SLurl) and click the box under the snack bar for a free copy. You'll also get an LM for the Test Track, one of the best places to play with your board, on the track or off. Hopefully you'll buy a soda or frozen drink while you are there.

At this time, two other packages are available.

The Premium Vehicle Pack - Soar, Sail, and Drive for $24.95 USD (here) includes the same hoverboard, a sailboat that was the Premium account gift in December 2011, and the Dune Buggy that was the Premium account gift in September 2012.  How many $Lindens could that much RL currency buy? At the moment I write this, some L$6162 virtual cash. A "free" hoverboard and two vehicles you could otherwise buy very similar or better versions of elswhere in Our World.

The Deluxe Vehicle Pack has the hoverboard (again) and the sailboat, nothing else, here for $14.95 USD. Based on a peek at purchasing $Lindens at the moment I write this, that amount of Real Life currency is worth about L$3692 ... they value that boat rather darned highly. As good as it is, I don't think it is as nice as my MLCC Loonetta (see this blog post) or other boats from that maker.

No word about the Rail Handcar gift that you can still grab free in the Premium Rez Zone in Saminekim (SLurl) or the currently available airplane or even the first gift, some nice furniture (read about them all on my blog here.

And  lastly (for now), more questions: Will the other two Premium gifts be bundled into packages? Will future Premium gifts get bundled up? Will Lassie get help for little Timmy laying with a broken leg at the bottom of the well before it is too late or the episode ends?

Certainly, the value here can be questioned, but I think that The Lab is taking a positive step in growing Our World. Prices can always be adjusted and packages can always be jiggered for different content. That's retail for you. It is just nice to see that they haven't forgotten about their core constituency, Second Life Residents. I hope to see what they do next. Until then, check out Tateru Nino's opinion on this development (here).