Day: March 21, 2018

Updating My Victorian/Steampunk Avatar in Second Life

I decided to treat my longstanding Victorian/steampunk roleplay avatar in Second Life, who has traditionally been an old woman, to a new LAQ Vivien Bento mesh head (designed for an older woman) and a Maitreya Lara mesh body. This is my first LAQ head and I’m impressed by all the options that come with it, including very lifelike mocap animations for the face. I’m very pleased with the look I was able to get. The wrinkles you see can be turned on and off using the included HUD. (Don’t you wish you could do that in real life?)

Rose Queen 3 14 Mar 2018_001.png

So I’ve taken my newly updated avatar out for a stroll around the steampunk city of New Babbage, which has all kinds of nooks and crannies to explore:

Rose Queen Exploring New Babbage 14 Mar 2018_001.png

Rose Queen in New Babbage 21 Mar 2018_001.png

Rose Queen in New Babbage 4 21 Mar 2018_001

My avatar is wearing:

  • Isabella hair in silver by ChiChickie (in the top two pictures; no longer available)
  • Shirley-Anne hair in white by Alli & Ali (in the bottom two pictures)
  • Flat Isabel outfit in black by Bare Rose (in the topmost picture; includes hat)
  • Gwendolin outfit in ivory by Cog & Fleur (in the bottom three pictures; the outfit includes boots, earrings, and hat)
  • Vivien Bento mesh head by LAQ (included skin)
  • Maitreya Lara mesh body
  • Southern Belle & Woman in Ballgown Bento AO by Tuty

New Feature: You Can Now Create Your Own Events in Sansar

One of the new features of the latest Sansar software release is the ability for users to create their own events, which will appear in the Upcoming Events listings, both on the website and in the client software. (Up until now, Linden Lab had to take your event information and post it themselves.)

To start, click on the new Events icon in the Sansar client:

Sansar Create Event 3 21 Mar 2018.png

You will see a list of upcoming events in Sansar. Click the red Create An Event button in the upper right-hand corner to create your own event:

Sansar Create Event 21 Mar 2018.png

You can only post events for experiences you have created (this might become a problem if the experience creator wants someone else to promote their event). Select your experience from the drop-down menu under Location and fill in the rest of the fields.

Sansar Create Event 2 21 Mar 2018.png

When you’re ready, click the red Save & Publish button. That’s it!

Second Life 15th Anniversary Announcements

Second Life 15th AnniversaryToday a special announcement was posted to the official Second Life community forums, which included a list of 15 new features and improvements to SL. A few of these caught my eye, and I wanted to share them with you.

First, and as Jo Yardley already reported, last names are finally coming back after a seven-year absence! The actual text of the announcement says:

You’ve asked for it (a lot!), so we will provide a way to customize your last name in Second Life! More details will be available later this year.

How this will work is anybody’s guess. But people have been asking for Linden Lab to bring back avatar last names for years, and it looks like they are finally going to listen. So if you’re tired of having the last name Resident, it looks like you’ll be able to change it sometime this year. Good news!

Second, it looks as though Linden Lab wants to make some adjustments to the way they collect money, depending less on the cost of virtual land and more on other fees:

Currently, Land costs can be quite high, and make up a lopsided portion of our Second Life revenues. To improve this imbalance, we plan to increase revenues in other ways so that we can lower land costs further. In order to avoid shocks to the in-world economy and to take care that we keep the business healthy, we plan to make these changes in a measured way, taking time to assess the impacts of each change as we go.

Last week, we announced that we have lowered the cost of Mainland by over 10 percent and doubled the Mainland tier allocation for Premium members. In the coming months some other fees may increase, including Marketplace commissions, Linden Dollar exchange fees, and cashout fees.

I’d better go buy a whack of Linden dollars before they raise the exchange fees! And I’m sure that some vendors will not be pleased with the news of increased commissions.

Finally, they said that they were considering having various premium subscription levels, instead of just one level like they currently do:

In addition, we will soon announce new tiered Premium membership offerings that allow Residents to choose the membership level that provides the benefits most important to them.

This sounds interesting, and similar to what Linden Lab is already offering with the various Sansar creator subscription levels.

I’m looking forward to the 15th anniversary celebrations that will happen this year, and to all the new developments that are taking place in Second Life!