At 3pm SLT Linden Lab announced the Rolling restarts of all Second Life sims, it had been rumoured for a while that these restarts would be the moment when the entire grid would have their prim limits raised, as mentioned in my blog before that you can ready by clicking here.
I can now confirm that this is indeed the case!
If you own a region or homestead, you can restart it and check if your Region Capacity has gone up.
An official announcement is expected later today and the restarts are happening as we speak, so give it some time.
A reminder;
New allowances:
Mainland;
Full region -22500 (was 15000)
Homesteads – 5000 (was 3750)
Openspace – 1000 (was 750)
Private estates (Islands);
Full region – 20000 (was 15000)
Homesteads – 5000 (was 3750)
Openspace – 1000 (was 750)
Thank you Father Primsmas but of course also all little Linden Elves who worked on this.
Recently Ebbe Altberg (CEO of Linden Lab) gave a Sansar demonstration at WebSummit together with Bjorn Laurin (VP of product at LL).
A big screen in a brightly lit room was used so it is rather difficult to get an idea of how good (or not) everything really looked.
On top of that this was all filmed by a member of the audience, so far from ideal.
Nevertheless there were some interesting things to see.
It is also incomplete but till another (official) comes out, this and twitter pictures is all we’ve got.
Also something went wrong it seems, thank you windows…
The “Scottish Highlands” (the most wonderful place in the rl world) was a scene I had not yet seen before.
They also demonstrated the Video dome, something I think will appeal to a lot of people as it is quite a novel way of watching 360 videos, especially if you have a headset of course.
Also new was a view of a window called ‘Atlas’, which appears to be the new ‘search’ or ‘destination guide’.
On the screen we see several destinations that we already know;
WSJD conference stage
Egyptian tomb
Mars outpost Alpha
Origin Cinema
Toppleton Toy Town
Can’t see, probably the bridge.
Another WSJD stage
The video dome
The Highlands
One I can’t read.
Loading of a scene is real fast, of course they use a top of the line computer and don’t have to share a sim with a bunch of laggy avatars and I can only compare it to my MacBook which sometimes takes a little time to load textures and so on.
But if Sansar loads this quickly on regular computers and with other people in the same sim, it is quite an improvement.
The Mars sim we’ve seen before, but now we see Toppleton Toy Town “live” and it looks like fun.
Everything is set to physical (to speak in SL terms) and by bumping into it you destroy the place.
Now this looks nice but is not that earth shattering to us in SL, we can already do something like this.
Although probably not so detailed as it is quite tricky to build something with prims set to physical and are a bit jumpy.
However something that is interesting is the Zeppelin.
No I do not just say that because I’m obsessed with these majestic airships, but because it appears to be hanging from a string and reacts realistically to being bumped into.
I may be mistaken, it may just be a prim set to float and be physical at the same time without falling, but the movement makes it seem like it is hanging.
The next stop, Origin Cinema, takes a little longer to load.
Ebbe is about to explain that perhaps this place wasn’t loaded into the cache yet when it loads.
Ebbe explains they use teleporting by pointing and clicking, which is something that is used a lot in VR at the moment as we don’t really have a good walking simulator device in RL yet.
I wonder/hope that they’ll add a walk to option in stead of teleporting.
Even with a headset I can imagine that teleporting all those little steps can be a bit peculiar but for others it can perhaps ruin the illusion/immersion if you’re trying a realistic roleplaying scene and people just vanish and then appear again further down the road.
One of the unspoken etiquette rules of (RP) SL is that you don’t teleport away in sight, but go around a corner first.
For Sansar I’d like to see an option where your avatar physically walks/runs to the spot you click in stead of teleporting.
Sounds like more fun but also more realistic for people near you.
Watching a video in VR is nothing new to us in SL of course, but for outsiders who have forgotten about our virtual world, it might be impressive.
After all, virtual cinemas are still being described as something new and none (as far as I know) of those allow you to actually (re) design that cinema or watch movies there together with friends from all over the world who all have their own individual avatar and can dress up for the occasion.
Next Bjorn takes us to the editor, this is where the “building” happens.
We get a quick short look at the screen but then we move on to the next location.
Which is a shame because of course the editing is most interesting for most of us.
So far all we have is still just moving stuff around build outside of Sansar.
Next a visit to the Tomb, great example but nothing new for those of us who’ve been following Sansar news for a while.
Anyway, what we see looks pretty good but, on this screen, without headsets, there doesn’t seem to be much there that we can’t also replicate in Second Life today.
It is difficult to judge how different Sansar is or isn’t without actually having had a chance yet to try it myself.
Today at 2pm SLT the “(Second) Life changing news” was finally officially revealed after days of speculations.
In a ‘Designing Worlds’ special Patch Linden confirmed that the prim allowances are going up across Second Life.
New allowances:
Mainland;
Full region -22500 (was 15000)
Homesteads – 5000 (was 3750)
Openspace – 1000 (was 750)
Private estates (Islands);
Full region – 20000 (was 15000)
Homesteads – 5000 (was 3750)
Openspace – 1000 (was 750)
Patch could not yet confirm when this limit is going to be handed out grid-wide but hopefully within a few months, as long as everything is working properly on the mainland first.
In group chat he said he hoped it could all be done before Thanksgiving.
Of course it is not very nice that us islanders do not get as many prims as mainlanders.
Patch explained this by saying that LL feels that mainland owners deserved extra benefit as we estate owners already had the tier reduction option a few months ago and generally people who own private estates get many other benefits as well.
This is of course true but that also means that we had to spend a lot of money on decreasing our tier and although living on the mainland of course has many “challenges”, we estate owners have plenty as well.
But on top of that estate owners are given an extra option;
Islanders (private estate owners) will be given the ability is to increase their prim allowance on a private region with another 10.000 prims to 30.000 but the fee to change this tier allowance will cost $30 and then a following $30 extra tier per month for this.
This is indeed huge news, effectively we estate owners can double our land impact for an, I think, very reasonable fee.
For more information check out the Designing Worlds website by clicking here.
Also check out Inara Pey’s blog who (as always) has the technical details and also more information from the horse’s mouth, click here to read.
And here it is, the official LL announcement regarding the prim allowance going up;
New Perk! Prim Limit Increase
Premium members are entitled to a Linden Home and can own parcels on the Mainland. Now, we’re raising the limit on the number of prims you can use in those spaces. This means you will have more prims and creative flexibility to decorate and customize your own space. Land impact (object) capacity on Mainland Regions will go from 15,000 to 22,500 – that’s a lot more building capacity!
In addition to this, we will further carry the prim limit increases to the private estate regions shortly. Keep your eye on our blogs for more information!
An episode of Designing Worlds comes out later this afternoon which talks more in-depth about this new perk. We’ll update this blog once it’s available.
I left out the other stuff about extras you get for becoming a premium member, make sure to read the full announcement by clicking here.
I can’t help thinking that by linking this news to the special premium member deal some people may wonder if the prim allowance will only go up for premium members.
Either way, this explains why you, poor islanders, living far away from the mothermainland, might still not have seen a change in your prim allowance.
Anyway, we’ll know soon.
Today at 2pm there shall be a special Designing Worlds broadcast possibly followed by another post by Linden Lab and Inara Pey blog.
Little bird has told me that there will be more interesting news there.
You can also try and be live at the Designing Worlds broadcast with Patch Linden, more about that can be read by clicking here.
I wanted to wait till this news was official but everybody inworld and on social media has been talking about this for days now so I thought I’d post what I know ahead of time.
Make sure to check back Thursday when Linden Lab makes their announcement.
Recently people have been noticing changes in the land in the prim capacity of their regions, some mainland regions suddenly had a region capacity of 22500 in stead of the regular 15000.
The islanders (owners of private regions far away from the mothermainland, adrift in the wild virtual seas) were getting worried because their capacity was not changing.
What was going on?
Designing Worlds also put this video teaser online;
News that will change your Second Life for ever…
What could this be?!
People everywhere were discussing the rumours and wondering what was going to happen.
On top of that Inara Pay posted a blog ahead of time by accident that seemed to confirm that indeed prim limits were going to rise all over the grid, not just mainland.
A forum post sharing screenshots of that blog has since been removed from the Second Life website.
Before you all get too excited, the information that was shared was not final yet.
As Inara explained;
PLEASE NOTE
The post referred to in this thread was a publishing error on my part, compounded by my failing to noticed that I’d hit PUBLISH rather than SAVE DRAFT,
To be clear: the article was being drafted with the intent to publish on Thursday, November 3rd, alongside an official post from Linden Lab. As such, all information within it was / is subject to change, and should not necessarily be taken as read.
The error in publishing was mine, and the article has been withdrawn whilst being completed / subject to final vetting from Linden Lab to ensure the information within it is correct.
My apologies for any inconvenience caused.
So, officially there is no confirmation yet and we probably won’t get one till Thursday.
Keep in mind that anything shared before that time may be subject to change, including this article.
Nevertheless, everything we’ve heard so far seems to suggest that indeed, prim limits are going up for everyone!
So, if, yes IF the stories are all true, the new prim limits will be as follows;
Full regions: Mainland: 22,500 Private: 20,000
Homesteads : 5,000
OpenSpaces: 1,000
This is huge news.
If this is the way things are indeed going to be, a lot of people are going to be extremely happy, including me!
For as long as I can remember we’ve had to deal with prim shortages, somehow there are never enough prims in the world to make my dreams come true the way I imagined them, and now I can at least get a little closer to how I envisioned things.
The streets of 1920s Berlin and Time Portal will become fuller with cars, rubbish on the streets, posters on the walls.
But if, yes again, IF, this story is true, I will also give all my tenants a few free prims.
The land impact increase probably has something to do with hard-and software improvements but perhaps also to get people interested in Mainland again and of course get more people to rent more land although I think this kind of improvement generally makes people happy who already have land and won’t be that tempting to people who don’t own land yet.
Because unless you own land the prim allowance is very difficult to imagine, 15000 seems like a lot, till you actually start rezzing stuff.
Anyway, go on, check your prim limit, if your region has already had its Tuesday rolling restart, your prim limit may have already changed.
Careful though, the amount is also calculated differently, I’ve heard that it now shows the capacity of the land owned in a region in stead of the overall region capacity.
If you don’t see a change, check again after the next wave of rolling restarts today and tomorrow.
Of course it is not nice for us Islanders to get a smaller increase than the mainlanders.
I’d love to know why this is.
After all, many of us left Mainland out of frustration with neighbours, lack of powers to deal with issues or the lag caused by the 324294 billion prims surrounding us.
I myself left because we had a griever we simply couldn’t get rid of and LL didn’t do much to help.
At the time LL support was much worse than it is today.
So I had to leave Mainland, it cost me a lot of money and work and recently we were given the chance to grandfather but this too cost a lot of money.
And now we get fewer extra prims than the mainlanders?
On the other hand, remembering the challenges of living there, I think the mainlanders deserve a little extra.
Nevertheless, I’m sure this difference will make a few people grumble.
For now I’m too happy with what I’ve been given to grumble myself, but I’m sure this topic will be revisited in due time.
Conclusion;
It looks like LL will announce Thursday that the prim allowances are going up everywhere.
But officially, till this announcement comes, everything you read and hear is speculation.
Remember, they may still find something that went wrong after the change on mainland and decide to postpone or alter the numbers.
Nevertheless, I’m putting virtual champagne on ice.
Jo Yardley's Second Life 