GranddadGotMojo has just released what I believe to be the first line of playable musical instruments in Sansar. He has listed them all for sale in his store, GotMojo Interactive Music:
There’s a steel pan drum, a regular drum set, a Hammond organ, a grand piano, a Moog synthesizer, a drum machine—even a boombox with 40 jam tracks! And he has also put working models of all his instruments in his new Sansar experience, called GotMojo Interactive Musical Instruments:
To try them out, stand on the red pad in front of each musical instrument. Give it a few seconds to load, and then use your keyboard to play musical notes! Granddad explains:
The Stand Alone Instruments are played using the PC Keyboard. The top row of numbers 1 to 0, the keypad numbers 0 – 9, the Shift Key plus the top row numbers 1 to 0 and the Shift Key plus the keypad numbers 0 to 9. This means that you can play up to 40 notes using the PC keyboard.
For example, here is a chart on the wall showing you what keys control various sounds on the drum kit:
You can buy and install these playable musical instruments in your own Sansar experience, following the step-by-step instructions GraddadGotMojo has prepared. There’s a fair bit of setup involved, but Granddad walks you through it all.
Wuhao, a Chinese user on the official Sansar Discord channel, has shared some information about the current state of VR gaming and social VR in China. He said:
I have feedback from Chinese market. At present several thousands of young Chinese are playing VRChat because of the advertising effect from bilibili, a video sharing website popular with young Chinese. VRChat Chinese community have became the largest virtual world community over Second Life Chinese community based on a view to active QQ Groups (Chinese Discord). The movie Ready Player One is also very popular with young Chinese. But Chinese still have common unstable network problem causing slow loading or uploading in Sansar, and even can’t download the client.
He posted an image of a problem that many Chinese seem to face when trying to use Sansar:
He also said, in answer to a question as to whether or not VRChat is easier to access:
VRChat should be easier to access in China because it’s a game in Steam.
(I wonder when Linden Lab will release Sansar on Steam?) He added:
VR players are still not mainstream gamers. But more and more Chinese VR [gamers] are buying HTC Vive which has better support than Oculus Rift in China. For me, I only use Steam VR and [the] Oculus Store.
In response to my question about how he is able to run and use Sansar in China, he said:
I use [a] VPN. So I don’t have problem to enjoy Sansar. But many of my Chinese friends and even some Creators in SL who want to develop Sansar really have a common network problem for Sansar.
When asked if he has any information on how common Windows Mixed Reality headsets are in China, he commented:
Not sure. Based on my life in China, I haven’t seen a real AR/Mixed Reality headset product yet and also haven’t experienced one. But it’s no problem to experience VR here even in a small city.
Thank you for sharing your perspective with us, Wuhao!
Wagner James Au of the long-running blog New World Notes has been following the development of an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) called Worlds Adrift, which he calls “the single-shard, open world sandbox MMO with physics, a working ecosystem, and user-generated content — i.e., a virtual world worthy of the term — running on the well-funded backbone of Improbable“.
They refer to themselves as “the world’s first community-crafted MMO”, so they may tempt a few virtual worlds creators to join their early-access program. (Wagner reports that some Second Life users have become Worlds Adrift fans.) It certainly looks interesting! Here’s another video showcasing some of the worlds that people have already created:
Once again, Strawberry Singh is right on top of Second Life events with a very timely blogpost on a matter of concern to all Second Life users, especially the fashionistas! She is to be commended for providing such a crucial service to the SL community.
The issue? E2V, one of the popular vendor systems used in many in-world stores in Second Life, has announced that they are retiring their product at the end of May. (I first heard the news this morning from Sansar/Second Life creator Debi Baskerville.) You might think that this will not affect you, but if you have bought products from any of the following well-known Second Life brands/stores, you are affected:
Maitreya
Belleza
Slink
Catwa
7 Deadly S{k}ins
The Skinnery
Glam Affair
Tableau Vivant
Cynful
Just BECAUSE
Dead Dollz
Tres Blah
ISON
Kaithleen’s
EMPIRE
Exile
Apple May Designs
Ingenue
etc., etc…
What to do? First, don’t panic; vendors have several weeks to make an orderly switchover to a new in-world vendor system. Strawberry has the following excellent advice for consumers:
Check Credit – Go to those stores and check if you have any leftover credit before May 31st. You might want to then also use that credit or contact the creator and ask if they are planning to transfer the credit to any new vendor system.
Redeem Gift Cards – If you have any left over gift cards in your inventory from any of these stores and you haven’t redeemed them yet, make sure to do so before May 31st.
Get Redeliveries – Redeliver anything that you may need.
The part about getting redeliveries is important, especially if you have a mesh head from Catwa or a mesh body from one of the “Big Three”: Maitreya, Belleza or Slink.
Also, since so many of you have Catwa brand Bento mesh heads, there is news that Catwa has a self-hosted E2V server and will not be impacted by this change. They say:
Regarding the sad news about E2V vending system that they will be retiring. Maybe some of you are wondering what will happen to his CATWA redelivery history and credits balance. We have good news. Since CATWA has a Self-hosted system. It will not be effected. Our redelivery and credits system will keep going. If there will be any other changes I will let you know.
However, since E2V is ending all support for the product after the end of May, eventually they, too, will have figure out a way to move all their customers to another vendor system.
