Two new Project Sansar pictures

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sansar

Today Linden Lab gave their website an update and on the Project Sansar page they use two pictures as a background.
These pictures are similar to the video footage we’ve already seen so I think it is safe to assume one or both of them are actual Project Sansar screenshots.

And as there isn’t much news to share on Project Sansar and most of us are very, very curious, I decided to share them here.

The Project Sansar page ends their intro with;

“In the coming months, Linden Lab will welcome additional creators and content partners to Project Sansar as new features are added to the platform and testing expands.”

Well Linden Labbers, my suitcase are packed!
Let me in already 😉

Click to enlarge these picture below.

Copyright Linden Lab

Copyright Linden Lab

First video footage of Project Sansar revealed

Tags

ebbe altberg, ebbe linden, sansar

Today I was informed by Second Life user Digit Gears, that at the end of Ebbe Altberg’s presentation at Web Summit in Ireland, he showed a few seconds of Sansar footage.

It is pre-alpha material and filmed by a member in the audience, but what we can see looks pretty good.

However the material is not clear enough to get really excited about.
I asked Linden Lab if they would put the video online somewhere, but alas;

@1920sberlin sorry, but no, we're not planning to publish that video. You will see a couple of screenshots soon though…

— Linden Lab (@LindenLab) November 4, 2015

For now we’ll have to do with this video on twitter, if the video does not work below, follow this link to see it on Twitter itself.

Coming next year #ProjectSansar from #lindenlabs pic.twitter.com/jH9xOKdmAJ

— Janne Juntunen (@jannejunt) November 4, 2015

On the website Fortune.com a short article was published announcing Sansar to be ‘live’ in the first quarter of 2016.
I assume they mean public alpha testing, not ready, so I checked with Linden Lab;

@1920sberlin we're following up with the author to clarify, but launch will be later than that

— Linden Lab (@LindenLab) November 4, 2015

They do have a new Sansar picture;

http://fortune.com/2015/11/04/how-second-life-developer-hopes-to-deliver-the-youtube-for-vr/

Talk with Danger & Troy Linden reveals a few new details about Sansar

Tags

"second life", Lindens, sansar, sl12b

During todays ‘Meet a Linden’ with Troy and Danger Linden a few little details about Sansar were reveiled that may be news to many of us.

I won’t go into detail much as I’m way too busy running the daily Happy Hour at our 1920s Berlin display in SL12B and I am sure some of the other bloggers will post a detailed report.

So here are just my tweets that I posted while the chat was happening;

Lindens say; http://t.co/ITdJDIBZ1G is not going to be "developed further", for now. Shame, needs improving! I'll blog about this.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

(I’ll be writing a blog about this soon)

Danger Linden; in Sansar everyone gets certain amount of land for free with basic accounts, even without creating full account.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

The idea being that you don’t have to create a full account just to be able to own some land and start building, which I think is a great idea.

Danger Linden: you will be able to own and rent out land in Sansar

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is very important of course, as rent is essential to keep communities going, besides having to pay tier money coming in is also important to keep improving the place but also to justify the amount of time the managers and builders put into it.
Of course with free land being available and tier (hopefully) going down for us as well, rent in may places may go down a little bit, making SL cheaper without lots of people suddenly losing lots of income.
But those of us in SL who rent out small parcels to people who need a skybox or just a little place to build a small home may need to reconsider their business model.

Danger Linden; in Sansar the idea is that different avatars you own will be able to share inventory.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is fantastic, many, probably most hard core users of Second Life have a few alts and we have to buy new stuff and clothes for all of them, not to mention the complicated hassle of passing things from one to the other with the wrong permissions, etc, etc.
If I understood correctly, you will have one main account and you can add other secondary accounts to this main account and they all share the same inventory while being different avatars to the outside world.

Danger Linden; we will have voice AND text chat in Sansar.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is also rather nice, many people don’t want to use their RL voice in virtual reality for one of many reasons and giving us both voice and text chat is a great option.

Danger Linden; Sansar will not be open source but will allow third party add-ons

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

This is interesting, as a huge fan of Firestorm, I’d be most upset if at least some of the options I can’t do without (such as contact sets, super radar, etc) won’t be in Sansar.
But I also sort of get why open source is a bit of a pain for LL, especially with something new.
This way they can keep their viewer to themselves and make sure everyone uses the same viewer but they still give us (and hopefully the Firestorm team) plenty to tinker with.

Danger Linden; Sansar will be anonymous but giving more info will give you more options, thus trying to make things harder for grievers.

— Jo Yardley (@1920sberlin) June 25, 2015

I like this as well.
The idea being that the barrier to get started in SL is very low, you won’t need to share any or much information to get started and go explore.
Very handy if you want to show Sansar to your friends.
But the more information you give, the more freedom and options you’ll have.
For starters of course it will be needed to buy and sell money, and perhaps the more LL knows about you, the faster they can transfer your cash to Paypal, etc.
And if you own a region, you can decide that perhaps you only want to allow people who have proven their age.
One of the great things this could help with is fighting grievers.

The Future of VR Is User-Created, Ebbe Altberg’s presentation at SVVR

Tags

ebbe altberg, svvr

Missed Ebbe’s presentation at SVVR (Silicon Valley Virtual Reality) Conference & Expo or just want to watch it again?

The video is now online, courtesy of Ruthalas Menovich.

Besides a sneak peak of an artist’s impression of ‘Project Sansar’ (the next generation Second Life made by Linden Lab), there wasn’t a lot of news or things to make us excited.
Still, worth a watch, especially if you, like me, enjoy Ebbe talking of one of his favourite sims…

First look at Project Sansar, the next virtual world Linden Lab is working on

Tags

"second life", ebbe altberg, sansar

During his speech at the SVVR (Silicon Valley Virtual Reality) Conference & Expo Ebbe talked a bit about Second Life, mentioning again some interesting (but not new to most of us) facts and figures, spoke of how The 1920s Berlin project was one of his favourite sims (hurrah!) and again had to tell everyone there that I am such a cry baby.

I never cry but when I explored my sim with the Oculus Rift for the first time and saw the Zeppelin fly over, something I’ve been dreaming about ever since I was a little girl, I did shed a little tear 😉

Most interesting to us was of course his talk of Project Sansar (working title), the next virtual world Linden lab is working on.
And Ebbe showed the first image related to Sansar.
Even though this was just a picture, not a screenshot or anything, it is still the first image we’ve seen, as far as I know.

I know Sansar is already running on some Lab’s screens but they haven’t shown us that yet.

So here it is, the first Sansar publicity picture;

Leaked video shows footage of Second Life successor called ‘Digital World’

Tags

april fools, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, SL2, sorry I couldn't resist

A Linden Lab employee who wants to remain anonymous today send me this video that is top secret and shows what Second Life Next Generation will look like, it also seems to suggest it will be called ‘Digital World’.

The video is apparently some sort of introduction video.

I for one am very excited and think it looks stunning although I am a bit worried about the Sesamestreet-ish style.

For more information on this leaked video, click here.

What should SL2 be called?

It is way to early for Linden Lab to announce or even start thinking about what SL2, the ‘sequel’ to Second Life shall be called.

Its name will be very important, the name of Second Life has been cause for the funniest and most original commenters of all time to say hysterical things like ‘I don’t need a Second Life, because I have a real life’ or ‘People in Second Life don’t have a first life’.
Quite witty, I’m sure you’ll agree.
And even though I generally say something like ‘One life may be enough for you, I want more’, the name still did not give our world a very exciting and flash reputation.

Full version.

Anyway, what should we call this new virtual online world?
Finding the right name that makes people curious, tells the real world that this will be the most interesting and cutting edge virtual online world since the dawn if mankind and is not just a place full of weirdos who only care about shopping and hanky panky, will be very important.

Or should they just call it Third Life?

Or Jo’s private little universe?

Or Pixelworld?

Or ‘That is another fine Mesh you got us into world’?

Let me know what you think it should be called!

Remember, Lindens read this blog so who knows, we may give them the right idea.

Ebbe interview with Engadget

A rather nice interview with Ebbe Altberg was just published on the Engadget website.

I am sorry about sharing links to articles and interviews here on my blog in stead of just articles I write myself, but I think that some of these things are rather interesting and not everyone who follows my blog also follows me on twitter and I still want to share what I find on the web.

And of course, here on my blog I can add a few comments of my own.

First thing I notice is that they used some up to date screenshots, with reporters today it is quite a miracle if they don’t use images from 2007 to illustrate Second Life…

Ebbe says a few things that stand out, I’ll quote them and a few other bits below and then leave you the link so you can read the whole article on the Engadget website.

The privately held firm wouldn’t say exactly how much that adds up to on its own ledgers, but maintains its annual revenue is in the same ballpark as the $75 million figure given to SFGate last year.

“I wouldn’t necessarily want to send an incredible mass of people to come to Second Life today,” he explains further. “Many of them would have the same opinion they had a year ago … It’s very easy for someone who would be an ideal user for our product to come in and end [up] in the wrong place and get a negative experience.”

“We’re going to spend a ton of energy in the coming years on a next-gen platform,” Altberg says. “That’s a big project that we’ve kicked off since I came on board.”

“How do people interact with the world from their phone, from their pad, from their PC and from their Oculus? All of that we’re solving from the ground up with this new code base,”

“We’re building the next-generation platform for hundreds of millions of people; not for millions of people,”

“Would you rather have a really deep and broad product that enables a ton of stuff, and it can only attract 50 million people,” he asks, “or do you want a really dumb product that can attract 800 million people? Or a billion people? You have to choose, sort of.”

“I feel like we’re in a very good place,” Altberg says. “We are the most experienced when it comes to this stuff. We’re bullish; we’re investing; and all the things that are happening around us with Oculus and the market getting excited about these things again [are] great for us. It’ll make it easier for us to attract talent.”

You can read the interview here:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/27/second-life-social-network-for-virtual-reality/

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Ebbe interview on Re/code website

Re/code has just published a nice but short interview with Ebbe Altberg.

I’m not going to pick it apart because there isn’t enough there, but I thought I’d just share the link.

One bit I do want to share is;

“One creator went into her virtual world in Oculus for first time and was crying,” Altberg said. “It’s very powerful stuff.”

Jeez.
I wonder who this crybaby is, silly woman! 😉

Ebbe also mentioned that he has talked about incorporate facial tracking for Second Life, I hope they do.

You can read the full article by clicking HERE.

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Ebbe talks a little more on the forums

Ebbe Altberg sure doesn’t shy away from the Second Life forums and I thought it might be interesting for you to read his comments without having to read the entire discussion.

Thank you Carl Metropolitan for telling me about these posts and lining them up in your blog.

In this thread Ebbe said the following things;

I pretty much only said these things:
We are embarking on a huge project to build a better virtual world from the ground up.
We are not going to constrain how good it can be by forcing some levels of backwards compatability (Sine then I’ve added some detail that identity and social connections and Lindens$ will come across and quite a bit of content as well, but with content we need more time to figure out exactly what will be backwards compatible, people will have plenty of time to see how this plays out and get a chance to try the new while still also hanging out in SL)
We will continue to invest in SL and keep improving and have no plans for any shutdown.
The rest is all speculation that has since then popped up.

You asked:
1 – What type of assets are more likelly to be transferable to SL2 and what probably not? (meshes, animations, sculpts, scripts, textures, builds made of normal prims, system clothing ?)
We don’t have all the answers to this one yet, but several areas will have radical improvements and thus not possible to be fully backwards compatible.
Mesh is ok (but with better lighting and other tech you may want to make tweaks)
Animations will change (major mprovements as we don’t currently do it the way it should be done)
Sculpts (TBD, but not as is, but maybe converted to Mesh?)
Scripts (major improvement, so will change)
Textures ok
Prims (TBD, but probably not as is)
Avatars will be radically improved as well so a lot TBD
Again, we will have years to sort this all out together…
2 – Is SL2 to be considerd “another grid” in which case the TOS of most full permission creators would prohibit the transfer to that grid? If that is the case, could LL speak a word of power and decide that for full permission items that CAN be transfered, the new SL should be considered as the “same grid” ?
ToS will not be an issue.
3 – Will at least the L$ currency remain the same and will available balances be usable in both worlds?
Yes
4 – Will the 2 worlds be connected in any way and will an avatar be able to move from one to another with the same name and profile and groups and friends? And .. some of its inventory..
Identity and friends will be preserved. Inventory depends on above decisions under #1 but we clearly want as much of existing work to be possible to leverage as long as it will not impact how good the new platform can be.

There is so much wrong here, speculation, suggesting things I said that I never said, or somehow suggesting that I, or the great people here are responsible for what happened five or ten years ago….but here we go, I’ll respond to some of this stuff, but I’ll skip all the stuff about problems in the past…that was the past…and by the way, all that “crazy” stuff has given us the best virtual world there has even been and still is. So somehow people here managed to do something right over the years…
Then you say:
Now, How could SL 1.0 be future-proofed?
Get the Lindens back inworld – I remember the Linden Village area, inworld meetings, Lindens just hanging around just talking to passers by.  I haven’t seen a Linden since M was CEO and their inworld presence got cut back.  It was reassuring to have staff inworld…proof they used the product they created.
Ebbe says: I removed the restriction that was in place for Lindens to be inworld. I’m not going to force people in there, but nothing is stopping them now. I go in as much as I can to hang out and chat with people.
Ditch the TPV’s – Figure out the best features of the various TPV’s and implement them in YOUR client and OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE.  There is no reason residents shound need a TPV to get MORE features, higher FPS AND less crashes than the official client.   Third party software should not hold back releases so they can implement features.   If you really feel you need TPV’s, release new code even if it breaks their browsers and let them catch up.  I use firestorm, but losing it would be a small price to pay for faster releases (not that we have to worry about that, SL1.0 being in maintenance mode and all).
Ebbe says: I don’t think doing that would be a meaningful difference in the success of SL.
Incremental Graphics and Infrastructure Upgrades – To use MMO’s for an example as they are the closest thing to SL, you could redo the graphics and optimize to fix the dated looks..  You could optimize the back end for current standards on a regular basis.   Instead you decided to build a product to compete with your flagship product.   This did NOT fill me with any degree of confidence or any great desire to remain a premium or use the Lindex.
Ebbe says: We have. SL is a lot better today than it was a couple of years ago. But there is a limit to how much better we can make it…and how much effort it takes to move forward incrementally.
If you did all the above, ESPECIALLY the Incremental upgrade of graphics and infrastructure, with gradual depreciation of things that just cannot be carried forward, I see no need for a 2.0 SL.   We could get there by evolution rather than revolution.
Ebbe says: That is your opinion. But I know that the more distant future will have to go way beyond what incrementally can be done to SL. And it’s either us or someone else…
> We are going to do our best to make it  smooth, but if we have to make a crappy product with crazy complexity and poor user experience to preserve some very specific content compatability we don’t want to cause those problems.
Make it smooth, I really doubt you can, based on past rollouts of new features.   If you need to depreciate various pieces of older content, do it and explain why.   Don’t depreciate the entire world, which is what you are doing.   Rewrite what you have to current standards.    I’d rather lose a fraction of my inventory rather than 9+ years of collecting, outfits, and memories…and possibly my AV name.
Ebbe says: Again, your speculating a lot. You won’t lose your name. A lot of content will work fine. Some won’t. And that would be true regardless if we improved SL incrementally or started from scratch to get modern tech and capabiliteis done right.
> A lot of what you have will be possible to move across and more specifics will come through over time.
You should not have announced this until you have specifics.    First it was no compatibility, maybe, now its a lot of compatibility.   Make up your minds.     It appears you announced early, shooting for some kind of PR boost, but all the vagueness and ‘we can’t answer that now’ has just destabilized things for many.
Ebbe says: I never said “no compatability”. Where did you get that from? I said that we will not sacrifice how good a next generation virtual world can be due to backwards compatability (something you say is ok to do).
Quite frankly, and this is strictly me speaking for me, I will be staying with SL 1.0 until you pull the plug, then I will find another home that does not involve giving money to LL.  I have NO desire to have to rebuild my VR life and possessions in a ‘like SL, only better’ SL 2.0, not with LL’s track record.”
Ebbe says: Let’s see what you think when you see it. And sticking
with SL is fine, it will be around for a very long time ;P

You will be able to use your L$ in both SL and the next platform as you wish.
And SL will be around for a very long time.

You will certainly be able keep your identity, social network and L$ and you can hop back and forth and decide for yourself where it makes sense to spend your time and energy.

Again, I have not said there’s any end coming. We have made no plans for any SL shutdown. None.
We are simply working to make an even better product from the ground up. You will have plenty of time to evaluate it and decide.
Your identity and L$ will be the same for both so it will be easy to hop back and forth.

We have no plans to disallow anything that’s going on in SL and is legal. We’re proud of the freedom we offer.

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