Ryan Schultz – Page 54 – News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse, plus Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI's Impact on the Metaverse
This is just a brief blogpost to remind you that the 15th Annual Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) Conference is taking place in Second Life from March 31st to April 2nd, 2022. SL blogger Inara Pey writes:
The 2022 Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) conference will be taking place between March 31st and April 2nd inclusive, and both a call for proposals and a call for volunteers to help run things has been issued…
VWBPE is a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments which attracts over 2,000 educational professionals from around the world each year, who participate in 150-200 online presentations including theoretical research, application of best practices, virtual world tours, hands-on workshops, discussion panels, machinima presentations, and poster exhibits.
In the context of the conference, a “virtual world” is an on-line community through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. As such, typical examples include Second Life, OpenSimulator, Unity, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and so on, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest or any virtual environments characterized by an open social presence and in which the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifest in the community.
In addition to shopping at Ukrainian-owned SL businesses, there are a number of fundraising events which are taking place across the grid, with some or all of the proceeds going to support various legitimate Ukrainian charities. One such event is Love to Ukraine, running from March 5th to 19th, 2022 with all proceeds going to NBU (the National Bank of the Ukraine), Voices of Children, and the Ukrainian Red Cross. Another is run by Two Moons Gardens, which is donating the proceeds of their Inspiration Garden event to the International Red Cross for use in their care of refugees and victims of acts of war.
If you don’t have a lot of Linden dollars to spend, you can still show your support by picking up freebie and dollarbie outfits and accessories from various in-world stores, as well as on the Second Life Marketplace (I compiled a first list in this blogpost; this post is an update, with new items I have found since the first blogpost was published).
I decided to load up my main Second Life avatar, Vanity Fair, to model some of these fabulous fashion freebies. Let’s start off with this free cardigan, top, and long skirt set from Marvelous (it’s all one piece). Check out the daring slit on the skirt!
And there’s much, much more! In fact, there are over 170 free items supporting Ukraine on the Second Life Marketplace; just click here to see them all.
Finally, if you teleport to WENICE Meadows and Beaches sim (SLURL), you will automatically receive a folder with some protest signs with Bento hand holding poses which should work well with your AO, as well as some small and large Ukrainian flags, plus a few other items:
UPDATE March 18th, 2022: Salt & Pepper has just released a new, free gift, this beautiful peace choker, which comes with a HUD to change the metal to one of 6 textures, and the three inlays of the peace sign to any combination of 10 different colours, By default, when you unpack it, the inlays are set with the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag:
UPDATE March 20th, 2022: I have another lovely free gift to share with you, this women’s top, decorated with a blue-and-yellow hearts and many sunflowers (Ukraine’s official flower). You can pick it up at the MOZ mainstore (exact SLURL):
I will be following up today’s blogpost about Russia with another one talking about the experience of the Ukrainian users of Second Life, an update to the post I linked to above. Stay tuned! Slava Ukraini!
Although Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, is headquartered in San Francisco, the 18-year-old virtual world is truly international, having players all over the world—including Russia, a country which is now the target of economic sanctions after Vladimir Putin and his army invaded Ukraine two weeks ago.
I have been glued to the news, following the endless updates and discussions on the r/WorldNews community on Reddit. I have been saddened, depressed and enraged by the footage that has been captured and shared with the world. But I also feel for those civilians who, through no fault of their own, have been caught up in this conflict and its consequences—among them, the everyday Ukrainian and Russian people who use virtual worlds like Second Life, and whom in many cases make a living from creating and selling virtual goods such as avatar clothing. (If you wish to support the many Ukrainian-owned businesses in Second Life, check out this list of 28 Ukrainian-owned stores in Second Life.)
My contacts with Russia are negligible, but I do have one link. Every day, I connect to Second Life – FREE (this is a little-known-about Russian-language group on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, which often lists items I don’t see on other freebie blogs). It’s part of my early morning scouting of Second Life steals, deals, and freebies, content which has proven to be quite popular on this blog!
Yesterday, I noticed that access to this site was much, much slower than usual, and there was the following announcement pinned at the top of the VKontakte group (I used the handy Google Translate app on my iPhone to translate the red sign, which says IMPORTANT INFORMATION!):
The English translation of the Russian text in the message (courtesy of DeepL):
Today, many chats and chat rooms are full of panicked fears that SL has started banning Russian users. This is NOT the case! Many of you know that as of 00:00 on March 14th, Facebook, Instagram and Meta are banned in Russia and blocked. There is a direct time correlation between midnight in different time zones (starting from Siberia) and problems logging into SL. ⚠ The blocking of Meta, FB, and Instagram has affected SL! ⚠ We believe that SL’s game servers coincided with Meta’s and therefore got blocked by the Russian Federation. I repeat, SL has NOT blocked anyone! This is a login problem on the Russian side! ‼Updated: Many people already have login without VPN‼
Wagner James Au, of the long-running Second Life blog New World Notes, wrote on March 10th:
Though Linden Lab has not yet announced any plans to ban payments from Russian users on its virtual world platform of Second Life, the US and EU banking sanctions have already taken their toll on SL content creators in Russia — especially those who depend on Second Life for their livelihood:
“After the blocking of PayPal,” as reader “Alex” explains in a recent comment, “all Russian creators were deprived of the opportunity to receive money from sales in SL. For many of them, working in SL is their main and only job.”
All this happens as Second Life users around the world create pro-Ukraine/anti-Russian images and the Second Life island of Moscow has been inundated by so many anti-invasion protesters, the owners resorted to posting a massive billboard in virtual Red Square, imploring visitors to refrain from activism (above).
In group chats, Second Life content creators based in Russia are now privately discussing their options, but are reluctant to air them with the Second Life community at large:
“[O]ut of sympathy and compassion for what is happening in Ukraine,” as Alex puts it, “Russian creators do not bring their problems into public discussion… Many [Russian SL] creators and their families are already left without a livelihood.”
Alex believes that some creators in the short term will continue creating in Second Life, even without a cash-out option, but “we will not be able to do this for a long time and will not be able to support our customers in the game as we have always done.”
The large billboard on the Moscow Island sim in Second Life, asking users to refrain from political activism
I end this blogpost with a reminder that you should always treat the other avatars you meet in any virtual world with respect. You have no idea about what’s going on with the person behind that avatar. Please be respectful, even if you do happen to disagree. It’s possible to hate the Ukraine war and still be friends with Russian people you meet in Second Life, who probably have nothing to do with this war.
UPDATE March 16th, 2022: The Second Life – FREE group on VKontakte has posted the following updated announcement (this English translation is once again via the excellent DeepL translator):
Is SL not working for you, too? ❓❓❓
This phrase recently appears regularly in our chat, every new person flies into the chat with this question and we are tired. So in a nutshell the situation: We don’t get banned by LL, we get unintentionally blocked by our own)
👉🏻 First: Linden Labs do NOT block Russians, there is no official information or at least their voiced anywhere position on the topic of possible blocking of SL residents from the RF {Russian Federation]. If you can go to your personal account on the official website and on the marketplace, then your account is not blocked.
👉🏻 Second: Roskomnadzor started blocking Instagram, and global crashes started for many uninvolved – so “broke” Wildberries and partly Votsap, glitches our entire Internet. Naturally, the servers of Second Life are also affected. That is why we are seeing SL failures, and not all users at the same time, but chaotically. You can log in, then fail, then after a while you are allowed in. Sometimes only Siberia suffers. Some users can log in with a VPN (many), but some can’t log in with any VPN, no matter what I’ve tried. It’s hard to say what is guaranteed to help.
👉🏻 Third: on Tuesdays and partly Wednesdays in SL technical work and login to SL always fails on these days. And the servers take turns rebooting, so some sims may be rebooted at the same time and others may work. Consequently, some will be able to get into SL, and some will not.
No need to panic. Losing access to your favorite Second Life is very disturbing, sad and some “break” without the usual virtual leisure time, but let’s keep calm and not turn chats into mass hysteria.
Almost a month ago, I reported that my Valve Index broke. Since then, I have had a first-hand experience with the horror show that is Steam Support. I had previously read numerous complaints online about how bad it is, but it’s only when you encounter it yourself that you realize that Steam Support for the Valve Index ranks among the worst customer support experiences out there.
First, my Valve Index broke two months after the one-year warranty had expired. I opened a support ticket with Steam Support, and after trying various things to see if I could troubleshoot the problem myself at home (all of which failed), I received the following message:
On further investigation it appears as though your purchase is no longer covered by the Valve Hardware Warranty. That said, we’ll be happy to provide a refurbished replacement as a one time customer service gesture. Refurbished units are provided as-is and without additional warranty coverage. You can let us know if you have any problems, but we may decline to provide additional replacements based on availability and other factors.
Steam will email you a shipping document which includes one pre-paid shipping label, three commercial invoices, two air waybill copies, and one set of FedEx return instructions. You can also access them from the Help Site. It is important that you include all provided shipping documents and RMA instructions with your return in order to receive a replacement. Please review the Index Return Packaging Instructions to ensure no damage occurs while your package is in transit.
Please use the list below to prepare your shipping box:
1. Print the shipping label and place on the exterior of the box.
2. Include the following items inside the box: • RMA instruction sheet, bar code up. • Valve Index HMD. • HMD cable. • HMD three=way connector (USB/DP/Power) with power adapter.
In general, it takes a few days to evaluate and process the return shipment, but failure to follow these instructions can cause severe processing delays and you may be required to pay additional shipping costs to send any missing items.
Let us know if you don’t see the shipment notification email after waiting a few business days from the time your return package is delivered. We’ll be happy to investigate the shipment status for you then.
(By the way, the link to the “Help Site” in this message wasn’t a link. I have no idea what this “Help Site” was supposed to be, and no way to find it on the Steam website.)
This was a week before I returned to my office, so I waited a week before printing off the pre-paid shipping label, three commercial invoices, two air waybill copies, and one set of FedEx return instructions. This is when my nightmare really started.
I could not locate what was referred to as the “RMA instruction sheet”, with the barcode, and when I went back to my original support ticket, I found that Steam has unilaterally closed it, without any option for me to reopen it.
So I opened a second support ticket with Steam Support, which thus far has been ignored, despite my persistent attempts to get an answer to the question: where is this RMA instruction sheet that I need to enclose in the package I ship back to Steam via FedEx? After four days with no response, I finally begged for help on the r/ValveIndex subReddit community on Reddit, where another user shared with me the following:
It should be included in the same mail as shipping label. It looks like this .I blurred out rma#, barcode and serial#.
Edit: The mail looked like this. If instruction sheet isn’t included in the mail as an attachement, you should be able to download it via link in the red box.
So, after ZERO response from Steam Support, I can now confirm that I did **NOT RECEIVE*** the RMA instruction sheet with the bar code, which I am supposed to include in the package that I ship back to Steam, It wasn’t part of the email I received with he pre-paid shipping label, the three commercial invoices, the two air waybill copies, and one set of FedEx return instructions. I didn’t receive it as a separate email. And I most certainly did NOT get a “Hello” message from Steam Support, with a link to download the RMA instructions!
I am ready to tear my hair out at the utter lack of customer support from Steam Support. But wait; it gets even worse.
After several days with zero response from Steam Support to my second support ticket (which referred to my first support ticket), today I tried opening a third support ticket, citing the serial number on my Valve Index headset. When I tried to send it, I got the following error message back:
Finally, in desperation, I searched Google for a Steam customer support telephone number, called it, and followed the menu prompts—to get a recorded message informing me that they do not accept phone calls about problems with Valve products, at which point I was disconnected.
So I am told to “contact Steam Support” and Steam won’t let me reopen the original support ticket that THEY UNILATERALLY CLOSED ON ME, they won’t respond to my second support ticket, they won’t let me create a new support ticket for my problem, and furthermore, they don’t give me the option to speak to an actual human being to report my problem and get a response. How the FUCK am I supposed to contact Steam Support if you cut off any possible way for me to contact them?
I immediately called back and selected the operator option, where I was finally able to leave a voicemail complaint expressing my dissatisfaction, along with my original Steam Support ticket number and my telephone number. I have no idea if I will get any response. THIS IS NO WAY TO RUN A COMPANY TO WHICH I PAID OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS TO FOR A HIGH-END VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSET.
I’m now at the point where, despite how happy I had been with my Valve Index VR headset in the short time I used it, I honestly can no longer recommend the product, due to its abysmal levels of customer support, in case something goes wrong. I shouldn’t have to resort to begging for answers from the r/ValveIndex subReddit community that I should be able to get from the company. I shouldn’t have my support ticket closed on me without warning or recourse to reopen it. I should be able to talk on the telephone with a real live human being instead of dealing with the absolute shitshow of online Steam Support.
My options at this point are:
1. Wait and see if I get a response to my second support ticket (which refers to my first support ticket which Steam closed on me);
2. Buy a second Valve Index for parts (some people have reported doing this out of desperation, but given this experience, I don’t feel like I should spend any more money on Valve hardware);
3. Give up, and go shopping for a new PCVR headset like an HTC Vive Pro or a Vive Pro Eye. (There is absolutely no way in hell I am going back to The Meta line of products. That is a hill I am willing to die on.)
Ironically, I still have a working an Oculus Rift headset on my computer at work at the university, so I am not completely cut off from being able to access VR experiences. I can come in during the evenings and on weekends, close my office door, and continue with events and projects on various social VR platforms, such as filming episodes for Season 2 of the Metaverse Newscast with my co-producer, Carlos Austin. I am grateful that I still have that as an option. (This Rift was set up with an Oculus account well before Meta changed the rules so that you had to set up a Facebook account, and I intend to keep it that way. I am DONE with Facebook’s toxic social network!)
I still have to upgrade my desktop PC, which is getting a little long in the tooth, so I might shop around for my next headset, pick one a like, then shop for a new PC using the recommended specs for the potential new headset as a baseline while shopping for the computer. My next headset will not be a Valve Index.
In the meantime, I have my packed-up Valve Index headset and cables sitting in its box in the middle of my living room floor, with all the shipping labels, waybills, FedEx instructions, and a printed-out copy of all the back-and-forth with my Steam Support ticket sitting in a neat pile on top. I can’t ship it back because I don’t have the RMA instruction sheet to include with it, and I cannot get a response from Steam as to access it, so the box sits there. Every time I see it in the middle of my living room carpet, I feel a surge of anger.
Here is my final response to the second Steam Support ticket:
As a virtual reality infliencer who writes a popular blog about social VR, virtual worlds, and the metaverse, who has been unable to receive any acceptable level of customer support for my problem, I have written the following blogpost:
Given the complete and utter lack of any customer support (including the automatic blocking of me being able to submit another support ticket to get a response, plus ZERO telephone support for Valve hardware), I will no longer recommend the Valve Index to my readers, and I will never purchase another Valve hardware product from Steam ever again.
At this point, I am enraged at this shitshow with Valve and Steam Support. They have lost a formerly loyal customer forever. If you are shopping for a new PCVR headset, and are thinking about the Valve Index, heed my warning: DON’T. If something should happen to it, their customer support is horrible, and you need to factor that into your final purchase decision.
UPDATE March 13th, 2022: I have had a number of people on the various Discord servers I belong to agree with my assessment of Steam Support, and others who have reported good customer service experiences in dealing with RMAs and Steam Support. While I am happy to hear that some people have had no problems in dealing with Steam Support in getting replacements for Valve Index hardware, I am still very angry at the poor support I have received to date, notably the inability to get answers to my questions, since Steam Support has severely restricted the means of communication between customer and the support team, as I have outlined at length in my blogpost above. I should be able to get a simple answer to my simple question, and the fact that Steam Support is structured in such a way as to actively hinder that communication is unacceptable.
It has now been fours days since I posted my request for an answer to my question, and I have received no repsonse.
Steam Support had unilaterally closed my original support ticket and I cannot reopen it.
This second support ticket, has remained unanswered. I finally begged for help on the r/ValveIndex subReddit community on Reddit, where someone finally helped me confirm that I DID NOT RECEIVE AN RMA INSTRUCTION SHEET WITH A BARCODE, which I understand I have to include in the box ehn I ship back my broken Vale Index headset and cables via FedEx.
After several days with zero response from Steam Support to my second support ticket (which referred to my first support ticket), today I tried opening a third support ticket, citing the serial number on my Valve Index headset. When I tried to send it, I got the following error message back (please see attached).
Finally, in desperation, I searched Google for a Steam customer support telephone number, called it, and followed the menu prompts—to get a recorded message informing me that they do not accept phone calls about problems with Valve products, at which point I was disconnected.
So I am told to “contact Steam Support” and Steam won’t let me reopen the original support ticket that THEY UNILATERALLY CLOSED ON ME, they won’t respond to my second support ticket, they won’t let me create a new support ticket for my problem, and furthermore, they don’t give me the option to speak to an actual human being to report my problem and get a response. How the hell am I supposed to contact Steam Support if you cut off any possible way for me to contact you?
I am still very angry at the poor support I have received to date, notably the inability to get answers to my questions, since Steam Support has severely restricted the means of communication between customer and the support team, as I have outlined at length in my blogpost above. I should be able to get a simple answer to my simple question, and the fact that Steam Support is structured in such a way as to actively hinder that communication is unacceptable.
I look forward to your reply.
This is not over. I will post updates as they happen.
UPDATE 11:30 p.m. March 13th, 2022: Eight minutes after my last post, I received the following reply from Steam Support:
Hello,
I apologize for the delay. I’m sorry to hear about the bad experience you’ve had so far. We’re currently experiencing higher volume of tickets than usual.
Looks like it was a humane [sic] mistake from our side. We’re following a different process in this case, since we made a customer service gesture for your expired device. You only need to print the label and send your device to our warehouse.
We apologize for the mistake.
Once your return is received and processed at our warehouse, which may take a few business days after it arrives, we will ship a replacement and email you the tracking information.
Steam Support [name withheld]
So today I will be heading down to my local FedEx to send back my Valve Index and cables. Wish me luck!
UPDATE 12:29 p.m. March 13th, 2022: Box sent! Now I wait.
UPDATE March 15th, 2022: I have been informed that support requests close automatically after 14 days of inactivity. So it would appear that that is what happened to my first support ticket, since I had to wait a little over a week to print off the mailing labels, etc., to discover that the RMA instructions were not among the printout. In other words, nobody closed my support ticket; it just “died”.
I really wish that this sort of information was placed somewhere on the Steam Support website. (If it was there, I certainly couldn’t find it.)
UPDATE March 27th, 2022: I have received an email from Steam, and my replacement Valve Index headset and cables should be delivered via FedEx tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
