Second Life and the Future 

I have been in Second Life for a long time now, at least in avatar years. I have been fortunate to find many, many bright people and despite its problems that is the single most important reason I have stayed and still do despite a growing wave of virtual worlds that will soon hit the Net. Whether or not Bleys Chevalier and I release MicroPepper and RegionTracker is still under consideration given stability issues.

It is these same issues that prompt this blog. MicroPepper and Region Tracker are designed to let sellers (or universities) scale their micro-vending operations, reporting, and affiliate force with a low-cost flat rate fee- in our opinion it is the best, but that is our opinion. Right now if a delivery fails on initial delivery, we make at least ten more re-attempts to deliver. Starting to get the drift of the pain digital crafters are feeling? You must be able to allow content creators the ability to SCALE and that means reducing customer service overhead.

(Note: If you want to beta test MicroPepper or Region Tracker contact Bleys Chevalier or Corwin Chevalier in-world or message me at Twitter . Currently with only a handful of beta testers the system processes about 500,000 Lindens per month and you can also track your SLEX sales, visitors, frame rates, etc, etc.)

My Timeless Mentor

At any rate one person stands out who has been a great mentor, Timeless Prototype often known for his Multi Gadget, Mookah (Sheesha, Hookah), Radio Controlled Planes, Walk and Talk and a certain couch that I spent hours writing copy for *cough*. I doubt there are few people in Second Life who do not possess a Multi Gadget. I give them out as welcome gifts. There are many knock-offs, but the Multi Gadget does it all. (O.K. It cannot protect you from Prokofy Neva, who is my second favorite person in Second Life.)

Tracking Timeless

As the lore goes, I tracked him down to his underground club, Timeless Underground, where we discussed ancient philosophy over a game of chess, but this is Second Life and nothing is out of the question- like playing chess in a club that looks like an Elder God from the Cthulu mythos was sawed into pieces and scattered about while people are experimenting with trance dance moves from the Matrix.

We, even today, continue our philosophical discussions and he was integral if not essential in collaborating with me on the Primula Rasa  (here for more photos), and the Monolith 8 campaigns, and I was happy to donate island use for the 4th Annual Satellite Exhibition (4ASE) (Click to See Video). You should also catch his famous London Eye and he is also known for helping out with Relay For Life. Warning- his idea of fun is hanging out in sand boxes while dodging LOLCube attacks…in his own words:

I “grew up” in the sandboxes, and it’s always good to remember where you come from in life, even in Second Life, and show your respects. - Timeless Prototype

Time Stands Still?

At any rate Second Life has had its share of issues- as any platform does, but as of late developers are getting waspish. While I parlay with Time on a daily basis I was concerned when I saw this on a scripting list:

 ”…object to object e-mails failing, replying to offline IMs via e-mail
failing, and I’m srsly DONE asking

daily issues

enough!

I’ve taken the Multi Gadget vendor offline, tiered down, waiting for
island parcel rental to expire. I will treat SL as a beta game and/or
chat room until general stability returns.”

Seemed like a good time to get a few answers straight from Time. 

Interview with Timeless Prototype (a.k.a. Time)

Wayne) OK Time, for the uninitiated how long have you been in Second Life?

Time) Since 2004.

Wayne) That is a long time as avatars go. So I take it you do you enjoy the platform?

Time) Yes, it appeals to me on artistic, technical and social levels. No other virtual world comes close to this.

Wayne) I can identify with that. So why pull your vendors offline as I noted in a scripters list ?

Time) If people buy stuff that won’t deliver and I can’t reply via offline IMs because I’m not always at my computer, then I’m going to get unhappy customers…customer satisfaction is incredibly important.

Wayne) What are the top three upsides to Second Life? 

Time) Top three positives: Creativity outlet, shared experiences with friends and micropayment capital of the Internet.

Wayne) How about the top three negatives?

Time) Top three negatives: insufficient business and collaboration tools, intermittent stability and no shiny alpha and shadow casting (immersion is very important, anything that breaks the immersion is a big failure IMHO)

Wayne) As a long-standing and well known veteran where do you think Linden Labs should marshall their resources?

Time) Linden Labs should focus on stability, even if that is to be interpretted as adding new features such as Kelly Linden’s work to make it possible to send HTTP requests to scripts in world so that we won’t need to rely on e-mail protocols for sending data into SL. Hopefully this could also be used for messaging between scripts in world too, being careful about security implications of course.

There is currently also a glitch with rendering updated objects such that the most recent change to the objects does not get applied visually until it is either selected or further updated. It impacts the immersion factor at the end of the day, you bring your mind out of the world by one level to recognize that it’s a glitch.

Wayne) When can we expect your vendors to go back online?

Time) There is currently no planned date for bringing them back online. I guess I need my faith to be restored in the Second Life platform before I commit more time to it, at least from a serious content creation perspective.

Wayne) Any parting words of advice?

Time) Hope can be a very powerful driver. If we lose hope, we’ve lost everything.

That’s all folks…let’s hope Linden Lab get things sorted out. Next topic- Security in Second Life…oxymoron or…

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