Month: February 2020

UPDATED! Linden Lab Lays Off Over 40 Staff, and Shuts Down Development on the Sansar Project—But Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg States Sansar Has NOT Shut Down, Despite the Layoffs

This is the blogpost that I hoped that I would never have to write.

I have been informed, by a very reliable source whom I shall keep confidential, that today was the day that Linden Lab shut down Sansar development. I was told that there were over 40 people laid off, and a small number of software developers were moved from Sansar to Second Life.

Having learned my lesson from past mistakes, I will not be reporting on or confirming any names of staff involved in today’s layoffs here (although I have received a list, and it is quite a long one, of people let go).

It would appear that Linden Lab will be keeping the Sansar servers running for some previously scheduled events. What happens after that is anybody’s guess.

I’m still in a state of shock since I received the news early this evening. So I think it would be best if I simply reported the news today, and left any speculation or editorializing for another day.

As many of you know, Sansar was the whole reason that I started this blog in the first place, and I am truly heartbroken.

UPDATE 10:51 p.m.: Just a few minutes ago I received a direct message via Discord from Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, who told me that Sansar is not being shut down:

As you can see Sansar is up and running so please don’t say it’s been shut down. Thanks.

Ebbe also posted a message in the official Sansar Discord server:

So, I’m only going to say this tonight as it’s late. We can pick up the conversation in the following days. Yes, there were layoffs today. A truly wonderful group of people. But as you can see Sansar is up and running. We are still in discussion about next steps. Including with the wonderful group of people. More to come. Don’t give up yet. Go create and have fun. Not much point in speculating until we can tell you more.

So it would appear that, perhaps, this is not the end for Sansar after all. I must confess that I am confused, as this new information does not match up at all with what my well-placed source has told me. Between the October layoffs and today’s layoffs, who’s left to keep Sansar running?

UPDATE Feb. 12th: Once again, I am getting a certain amount of criticism from various quarters about how I presented this news. At least one person wants me permabanned from Sansar and Second Life for breaking this story. To which I say: don’t shoot the messenger if you don’t like the bad news. Take out your frustrations on the company, not on me.

One thing that I am guilty of is not getting a quote from Linden Lab before writing my blogpost. However, given that Linden Lab has traditionally not bothered to address any staff layoffs in the past, I decided to go ahead anyways. I will be surprised if LL makes any sort of formal announcement about what happened yesterday.

But please don’t hold me to the same standards as a professional journalist because I, very clearly, am not. I’m a hobbyist blogger who had a passion for Sansar, which is the reason I started my blog in the first place. And I am heartbroken by this recent turn of events.

I repeat here what I first said when I broke the story of the October layoffs:

This is news, I am not under a gag order from Linden Lab, and it directly impacts the Sansar community. How could I not report on something so major? Ebbe Altberg, the board of directors and upper management at Linden Lab have already made their decisions and acted on them, and the news would have eventually gotten out anyway.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Free Bento Mesh Head for Male Avatars from Altamura in the Menstuff Hunt

I wanted to alert all you Second Life freebie fashionistas who read this blog that there is a free, fully-adjustable, Bakes-on-Mesh and Omega compatible, Bento male mesh head available as a hunt prize in the Menstuff hunt, which runs from Feb. 1st-28th, 2020. The head is called Akakor, and the free prize is hidden away somewhere in the Altamura store (you do not need to join any group to claim this gift). However, I do have some caveats about this freebie, as you will see.

Here is what the head looks like, wearing the included default shape without any adjustments to the sliders:

Note that there is a tattoo on both sides of the neck on the default skin that comes with the Akakor head, which is fully adjustable. (I’ll be getting back to those tattoos in a moment.)

Remember that all the freebie Altamura bodies do not allow you remove the head to replace it with this new free head. However, if you were lucky enough to pick up the fully-functional Romeo group gift from Altamura last Valentine’s Day, then you will be able to remove the head on that particular male mesh body, and use the Akakor head with it.

For more information on free or inexpensive mesh bodies for male avatars, please click here (the freebie/dollarbie Bakes on Mesh avatars from **SD** and Heavy Industries at the end of that rather long blogpost might be absolutely perfect to pair with this head).

There is a Bakes on Mesh Omega applier included, as well as a HUD with some default facial animations, but there is no included HUD to add or remove the hair base, eyebrows, tattoos, or any other features on this head.

Even more perplexing, I encountered a couple of problems. First, one of my alts was unable to obtain the hunt prize, giving me the error message that I didn’t have enough money in my account (the head is priced at L$0). It wouldn’t work until I transferred L$20 to that particular avatar’s account, even though the head was free, and I was not charged for it at all! Something weird is going on.

Second, what the exceedingly poor documentation included with this gift head fails to tell you is that you must purchase and apply the Altamura Omega system kit (available for L$99 at this exact SLURL), in order to apply either Omega skins or Bakes on Mesh skins to this free head.

However, you should know that applying an Omega skin does not automatically clear the tattoo on both sides of the neck. You will need to remove the default tattoos on this head using one of the free Omega makeup-removal HUDs available on the SL Marketplace (such as this free NEFA Clear All Layers Omega HUD).

Why Altamura didn’t think to include all this information in in the package is beyond me. It’s extremely irritating.

In short, after spending a very frustrating couple of hours tearing my hair out trying to get this head to work with various Bakes on Mesh and Omega skin appliers, I must warn you that there is a steep learning curve with this head. I’m really not sure it’s worth the hassle, especially for newbies that this freebie might especially appeal to.

Here is what the Delphinus Bakes on Mesh skin applier (included in the package) looks like on the Akakor head, after removing the neck tattoos using the NEFA HUD I mentioned above, and paired with the **SD** Raphael Bakes on Mesh body available here on the SL Marketplace for L$1:

So, if you still want to try it out for yourself, here is what you are looking for in the Altamura store (with a warning that the hunt item is rather small and tucked away in a corner):

The hunt hint given for Altamura is: “Confetti in this period is welcome”. Here is a link to all the hunt hints on the Menstuff website.

Good luck in your hunting! The Menstuff hunt runs until the end of February, so you have plenty of time to do some head-hunting! 😉

Sinespace is Hosting a Welcome, Orientation and Avatar Makeover Party on Sunday, February 9th—Come and Receive a Free Month of Premium Membership Worth 600 Gold!

The Assembly

If you’ve been curious about Sinespace, the new Unity-based virtual world, there’s an event this weekend that might interest you!

Tomorrow, Sunday, February 9th, at noon Pacific Time/3:00 p.m. Eastern time, there will be a party to welcome new users and creators! Sinespace staff will be providing orientations and assisting with avatar makeovers at this event, which will take place in The Assembly region (just click on the Explore button in your Sinespace client, and do a keyword search for “Assembly” to find it):

As an incentive, all attendees will receive a promotional code to redeem for one month of Premium subscription to Sinespace! Premium membership offers the following benefits:

  • Your home region size (and yes, everyone gets one for free) increases from 128 MB to 512 MB
  • The maximum number of concurrent users in your region increases from 10 to 25 (great for parties!)
  • You receive 150 Gold, Sinespace’s in-world currency, per week (worth a total of 600 Gold over the four weeks of your free Premium membership!)
  • You get priority support
  • You can create events for free (basic members are charged 10 Gold per event)

For the best experience, Sinespace recommends you download and install the latest preview version of their client, 2019.1b49-beta, from here: https://preview.sine.space/download/. The Sinespace client is already available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux users, with mobile (Android and iOS) and console versions coming soon!

Here are all the details from Sinespace’s event calendar. See you there!

This blogpost is sponsored by Sinespace, and was written in my new role as an embedded reporter for this virtual world (more details here).

The Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak Impacts the Manufacture and Delivery of New Oculus Quest VR Headsets: Facebook Announces That the Quest Is Now Unavailable In Most Countries

Thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus, the Oculus Quest is unavailable

For the past two weeks—since January 25th, 2020, when there were only 1,438 cases—I have been trying to balance my coverage of “social VR, virtual worlds, and metaverse” (as the tagline of my blog states) with coverage of the rapidly-evolving global health crisis that is the Wuhan coronavirus (more formally known as 2019-nCoV, at least until the authorities give it a proper name or acronym).

There have been many reports in the mainstream news media that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China will negatively impact the manufacture and delivery of everything from pharmaceutical ingredients to automotive parts. Yesterday, the Road to VR website published a news report that illustrates the growing impact that the 2019-nCoV situation is having on the manufacture of VR technology. (Yes, this story is about both virtual reality and the coronavirus. It was bound to happen eventually!)

Titled Facebook Expects Coronavirus Will Have “Additional Impact” on Oculus Quest Availability, the article says:

After being back-ordered by weeks in many regions, Oculus Quest is now “unavailable” from Oculus in 17 out of 23 regions where the unit is sold, including the United States, Canada, and much of Europe. Facebook says the Coronavirus outbreak is to blame.

Responding to a Road to VR inquiry about Oculus Quest becoming “unavailable” in many regions, a Facebook spokesperson shared the following statement:

“Oculus Quest has been selling out in some regions due to high demand. That said, like other companies we’re expecting some additional impact to our hardware production due to the Coronavirus. We’re taking precautions to ensure the safety of our employees, manufacturing partners and customers, and are monitoring the situation closely.”

At the time of writing, the Oculus Quest is now unavailable in the following 17 regions: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

Facebook gave no indication of when it expects the Oculus Quest to be once again available. Given the severe impact that the coronavirus is having on China’s economy, it seems unlikely that we will see any new stock of Oculus Quest VR headsets available anytime soon. How this might impact other Facebook plans for 2020—including the impending beta launch of their social VR platform, Horizon—remains to be seen. (But you can expect resellers on eBay and other places to take advantage of the situation and start selling Oculus Quests at a premium to those people still eager to get their hands on one.)