Over the past few weeks, we’ve been spinning up the Snowstorm Team. As I outlined in my original post, our team is committed to enabling the rapid deployment of new features and functionality in the Second Life Viewer.

The Snowstorm Team is working in the open – this includes meetings, documentation, code, and design discussions. We’re planning to use this blog as a place to explain our point of view, kick off design discussions, share progress, successes, failures, and challenges.

In my office hour the other day we had a lively discussion about Viewer preferences and customization. Q felt he wanted to expand on and clarify that discussion so you’ll see a post quickly following this one that does just that.

Expect more posts in this vein and please participate in the discussion with comments afterward.

In the Snowstorm Product Backlog Office Hour Tuesday, I commented that “I think options are bad for users and bad for code quality”. If you read that whole transcript, you can probably see that it was interpreted badly. The most extreme variant, reported by someone who was watching in-world chat afterward, held that Linden Lab wanted to remove all options from the Viewer. Let me start by saying that is not the case and never would be, nor is it something that I or anyone at Linden Lab has ever seriously contemplated.

However, I still stand by my original comment — options are problematic for lots of reasons.

Let’s see why:

First, every option has to have a way to control it. In many cases, you have to have multiple ways to control it. From a user interface design point of view, that means creating option interfaces. For the SL Viewer, those are a) the preferences dialog, b) the debug settings, c) checkable menu items, and d) options within dialogs that control other features.

You’d normally like to put options with the things they affect, but screen space is always at a premium and many options are only changed infrequently. So instead, we group options together in a preferences dialog. But there are enough of them that it becomes necessary to create some means of organizing prefs into a hierarchical structure, such as tabs.

But as soon as you do that, you find that you have trouble because not everyone agrees on what the hierarchy should be. What tabs should you have? Where does each option go? When you get too many options for one tab, how should you split them up?

There’s no one answer and there’s rarely a right answer.

And then, once you have a place to put them, you have to decide what to call each option and what the default is. And if those decisions were easy there wouldn’t be a need for an option!

Second, options add complexity to the interface. Every time you add an option, you add a decision for the user to make. In many cases, someone might not even know what the option controls or whether it’s important. Too many options might leave someone feeling that the product is too complex to use.

Third, options add complexity to the code. Every option requires code to support all of the branches of the decision tree. If there are multiple options affecting the same feature, all of the combinations must be supported, and tested. Option code is often one of the biggest sources of bugs in a product. The number of options in the Second Life Viewer renderer, which interact not only with each other but with device drivers and different computers, make it literally impossible for us to exhaustively test the renderer. We have to do a probability-based sampling test.

You could say that it’s our problem to deal with that complexity, and you’d be right, but every additional bit of complexity slows down development and testing and makes it harder for us to deliver meaningful functionality.

Fourth, options that are 50-50 probably do need to exist. Options that are 90-10 are addressing an advanced (and possibly important) use case. Having them in the preferences interface promotes them to a primacy they probably don’t deserve.

Finally, adding options has a snowball effect. Having a small number of options is good, but having too many options is definitely bad for the product and for the customers trying to use it. Sure, advanced uses need advanced features, but we don’t have to make everyone confront all of the complexity.

Add all of this up, and I think it becomes clearer why I said I didn’t like options and would prefer to find alternatives.

So why have options at all, then? Because different people legitimately have different needs. Advanced users vs novices, or landowners vs shoppers. We get it. But it’s also often an indication of a design that needs work.

There are alternatives to putting more checkboxes on the preferences screen:

a) Allow entire user interfaces to be “plugged in”. This requires a major architectural change to the software. Although we’ve talked about it, it’s going to be a while yet before we get there.
b) Allow options to be controlled close to the point of use. As I said above, this can clutter the interface but can be effective.
c) Make an interface that covers all use cases. This is the hardest of all, requiring real understanding and design, but is usually the right answer.

In short, I often consider adding a preference to the prefs panel to be the wrong answer to a real question. It’s not that we don’t consider different use cases, it’s that we’re trying to cover them in a better way.

So this has been my attempt to explain the thinking behind a statement like “options bad”. I hope it’s helped — has it? Tell me in the comments.

Linden Lab recently welcomed a new addition to its executive ranks: Kim Salzer, who became our Vice President of Marketing, at the beginning of August. Kim (known as Kim Linden inworld) joins us from Activision Blizzard, where she was Vice President of Global Brand Management for properties like Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 2, among others. Kim brings a deep background in gaming (including experience at Electronic Arts working on massively multiplayer online games and hit sports franchises), and in online learning, and we’re excited to have her as part of the team. As an introduction to Residents, I asked Kim to tell us a bit about herself in her own words:

Q: What’s the one thing you bring from the gaming world that will be most useful to you in your position at Linden Lab?

A: Working in gaming taught me a lot about just how creative and  passionate that audience can be, and I think the same is true for the  Residents of Second Life. And SL provides so many great tools to enhance  and bring out that creativity, I’m really looking forward to helping foster that as we move into the next phase of the platform’s growth. I  want to see if we can make the range of what’s possible in Second Life  even broader.

Q: What are your goals for your new position as VP Marketing at Linden Lab?

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life. When I was working on games, I  always tried to choose a single idea to focus on and bring out, an X  Factor that helped people get into the game and helped them discover all  the rest of the possibilities there. If I can help bring that kind of  focus to Second Life, I’ll be happy about how I’m doing my job.

Q: What excites you most about working on a product like Second Life?

A: I’m excited about the prospect of helping to build a product that  really empowers people to express what they’re about, and that can make a real difference in their lives. I think we’ve only just started to see  what can be done here, and I can’t wait to see where we and our  Residents can take things from here.

Linden Lab recently welcomed a new addition to its executive ranks: Kim Salzer, who became our Vice President of Marketing, at the beginning of August. Kim (known as Kim Linden inworld) joins us from Activision Blizzard, where she was Vice President of Global Brand Management for properties like Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 2, among others. Kim brings a deep background in gaming (including experience at Electronic Arts working on massively multiplayer online games and hit sports franchises), and in online learning, and we’re excited to have her as part of the team. As an introduction to Residents, I asked Kim to tell us a bit about herself in her own words:

Q: What’s the one thing you bring from the gaming world that will be most useful to you in your position at Linden Lab?

A: Working in gaming taught me a lot about just how creative and  passionate that audience can be, and I think the same is true for the  Residents of Second Life. And SL provides so many great tools to enhance  and bring out that creativity, I’m really looking forward to helping foster that as we move into the next phase of the platform’s growth. I  want to see if we can make the range of what’s possible in Second Life  even broader.

Q: What are your goals for your new position as VP Marketing at Linden Lab?

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life. When I was working on games, I  always tried to choose a single idea to focus on and bring out, an X  Factor that helped people get into the game and helped them discover all  the rest of the possibilities there. If I can help bring that kind of  focus to Second Life, I’ll be happy about how I’m doing my job.

Q: What excites you most about working on a product like Second Life?

A: I’m excited about the prospect of helping to build a product that  really empowers people to express what they’re about, and that can make a real difference in their lives. I think we’ve only just started to see  what can be done here, and I can’t wait to see where we and our  Residents can take things from here.

I’m regularly in the blogs.secondlife.com forums, not just helping where I have knowledge, but staying in touch with our culture and encouraging you HOW to share info easier.

I keep seeing “OMG HELP ME!” questions where the original poster seems at a loss for how to describe something in words, and there’s a big gap between what they saw and how they’re struggling to explain it. Also consider language barriers: instead of trying to tell, simply SHOW!

Well, that’s where we need to go beyond words: whether techy terminology confuses you or you wanna be a more effective, vivid communicator, consider adding pictures and videos to your posts to make it clear what you mean!

It takes a little bit of patience to get started, but hey, so did learning how to read, how to use a computer, and Second Life itself. I have faith in your smartosity!

I’ve attached multimedia thousands of times, and have seen what a positive difference it makes to have this skill, whether you’re asking or answering on SL Answers, reporting a bug, giving a product demo for the Marketplace, and so on! SUPER-USEFUL.

I highly recommend watching this video tutorial, which shows how to take a snapshot in Second Life and put it into a forum post. It’s terribly easy.

For further details with tips and tools,

see the “Visual communication” help page

which you can add to. (Please do.)

I’m continuing to be out and about in the forums, promoting these opportunities so you can help others help you. (Clichéd but true, hehe.)

Feel free to ask in the comments if you have process/workflow questions about spicing up your text with pics and vids.

With the upcoming closure of the XStreet Exchange, we will also retire XStreet’s cash-out system, which provides Residents an alternative to selling their Linden dollars for US dollars via the LindeX. Undoubtedly one of XStreet’s strengths has been the predictability and speed of its cash-out process, and it is understood that our merchants, who are an integral part of the Second Life economy, expect the new process to be equally efficient and predictable.

While XStreet’s turnaround time remains the target for the LindeX, our current policies with respect to LindeX turnaround times will remain in  place for the time being, and decisions will be rendered in up to five days. Historically, LindeX turnarounds have run at close to three business days, rather than five.

We’re working through a backlog of system improvements intended to speed up this process and expect to maintain at least our current levels of performance throughout the transition.

Migration of Listings and Images
The Commerce Team is extending the data migration of products and images until Wednesday September 1, 6PM PST.  This Migration will apply to all listings – but only listings  that are active will be visible to the public. You can change your  migration preference by going to the “My Inventory page” on Xstreet. If  you find migration bugs, you can file bugs using the public JIRA, also  known as the Issue Tracker. File them as Project: “3. Second Life Website – WEB” and Component: “Marketplace”. More info on how to do that. Here is an example.

Sincerely,

The Commerce Team

Quick Links:
SL Marketplace Help Pages

Deutsch

Français

日本語

Português

If  you’ve been following the commerce blogs over the last few months, you  know that we’ve been working on a new online shopping experience for  Second Life Residents, the Second Life Marketplace Beta, which in a short time will replace XStreet SL.

Here are a few of the features we’re excited about:

• An updated look and feel:  The Commerce Team drew from the leading retail web sites to create a  professional shopping site with visual appeal and a smooth path to  purchasing. New touches include larger product photos on listing pages  and new ways to view search listings.
• Streamlined shopper experience:  A new search engine means shoppers can more quickly and easily find  what they’re looking for. Shoppers are able to fill their shopping carts  with multiple items, and give gifts to their loved ones and friends, as  well as create wishlists for the things they want. Coming soon: two  click purchasing! For more information, check out the  SL Marketplace Wiki.
• Better  tools for merchants: Free storefronts with easy access to all merchant  items as well as profile and policy information, the ability to offer  coupons to customers, the ability to list demo items at no charge, and  the ability to edit multiple listings. Coming soon: color variations on  items, bulk listing upload and editing, the ability to apply a listing’s  details to another listing, and links to additional images.

Stay tuned for more features
We  are very excited about the SL Marketpalce as a new platform for virtual  goods and will continue to refine it and add new features. The SL  Marketplace you see today is only the tip of the virtual goods iceberg.

We’ve  been working closely with Resident merchants to create the best online  shopping experience for everyone. We are now just weeks away from launch  and want to fill you in on some of the logistical details. Over the  next few weeks you will notice changes on the SecondLife.com site as we  begin to retire XStreetSL links and rename and redirect the shopping  links to the SL Marketplace.  Also, we will be making informational  announcements about the changes that will occur to the XStreetSL Linden  dollar exchange and the XStreetSL Real Estate listings.

As  with all the projects at the Lab, we couldn’t do it without the help  and guidance of our Residents, and we would like to thank the SL  merchant community for their ongoing support. 

Sincerely,
The Commerce Team

Quick Links:
SL Marketplace Help Pages
Deutsch
Français
日本語
Português

After the flood of comments that greeted our announcement of the upcoming Display Names feature, we’re happy to announce that we are now releasing a Project Viewer to help us further test performance and let Residents get a sense for how Display Names would work should they go into production.

Once you download the Project Viewer, you’ll be able to freely change your Display Name via the Profile Pane of the right-hand sidebar. Once in production, Residents will be able change their Display Names no more than once per week, in order to cut down on the risk of impersonation. In the Project Viewer, however, there are no limits to how often your Display Name can change.

The Project Viewer will also let you see how names generally can be configured through your Preferences pane, where you can elect to see usernames as well as Display Names, or have your Second Life friends’ names show as a different color from other Residents. The release is hardwired to connect to a test grid, so that any changes you make there will have no impact on your main grid account.

As mentioned, reducing the risk of impersonation is one of our chief concerns as we roll out Display Names. Our original announcement had over a thousand comments, with myself and the team reading all of your feedback. Many of those comments touched on the danger of impersonation. We’re currently discussing the great ideas and constructive feedback you gave and we want to stress that we certainly recognise and share the concerns over impersonation. We’ll be talking more with you about those issues soon and if there are changes needed we will talk about what we are thinking.

We’d like as many of you as possible to try out the feature as it stands today and let us know how it feels. We’ll continue to gather feedback throughout, both in the comments thread below, and on a specific pjira VWR-21053.

After the flood of comments that greeted our announcement of the upcoming Display Names feature, we’re happy to announce that we are now releasing a Project Viewer to help us further test performance and let Residents get a sense for how Display Names would work should they go into production.

Once you download the Project Viewer, you’ll be able to freely change your Display Name via the Profile Pane of the right-hand sidebar. Once in production, Residents will be able change their Display Names no more than once per week, in order to cut down on the risk of impersonation. In the Project Viewer, however, there are no limits to how often your Display Name can change.

The Project Viewer will also let you see how names generally can be configured through your Preferences pane, where you can elect to see usernames as well as Display Names, or have your Second Life friends’ names show as a different color from other Residents. The release is hardwired to connect to a test grid, so that any changes you make there will have no impact on your main grid account.

As mentioned, reducing the risk of impersonation is one of our chief concerns as we roll out Display Names. Our original announcement had over a thousand comments, with myself and the team reading all of your feedback. Many of those comments touched on the danger of impersonation. We’re currently discussing the great ideas and constructive feedback you gave and we want to stress that we certainly recognise and share the concerns over impersonation. We’ll be talking more with you about those issues soon and if there are changes needed we will talk about what we are thinking.

We’d like as many of you as possible to try out the feature as it stands today and let us know how it feels. We’ll continue to gather feedback throughout, both in the comments thread below, and on a specific pjira VWR-21053.

We  are rapidly approaching the launch of the SL Marketplace! We will continue to make weekly announcements to keep everyone informed as this  happens.

Today, we posted to the Community blog letting everyone know that changes are  coming. We know that this transition greatly affects you, and we’ll do our best to keep you informed on what the next few weeks will bring.

Transition Plans
Here is a quick overview of what to expect in the next few months while we  move toward retiring XStreetSL and launching SL Marketplace. Dates are supplied where available.

• XStreetSL Feature Enhancements suspended – Tomorrow, September 1st, will be the  last day to purchase either homepage or category feature enhancements on  XStreetSL  Please check out the offerings on the SL Marketplace site, As there are even more options for feature enhancement. Feature  enhancements on XstreetSL will not be migrated to the new marketplace.
  
  
• XStreetSL banner ad sales retired – Soon, you will no longer be able to purchase banner ad subscriptions on XStreetSL.
  
  
• In October: XStreetSL Linden dollar exchange trading suspended. – All market trades that are not filled will be closed and the funds returned.
  
  
• XStreetSL new listing creation closed – As of 9/5/2010, XstreetSL will no longer allow for new listings to be  created, and the Commerce Team will focus on migrating all remaining  content to the new marketplace.
  
  
• XStreetSL will have links added for customer to choose if they want to buy the item on the new marketplace.
  
  
• XStreetSL Items will no longer be available for purchases on October 6th 2010. -  If there are links to Xstreet SL detail pages on blogs or articles  those links will automatically refresh to the linked product on the new  marketplace.
  
  
• XStreetSL sales history, account history will no longer be available after December 1st 2010.
  
  
• XStreetSL RSS feeds will be replaced by Marketplace feeds
  
  
• XStreetSL links in SecondLife.com changed to Marketplace – The links in the Second Life web site will be updated so they point to the SL Marketplace.
  
• SL Marketplace is out of beta!
  
  

Temporary Real Estate Listing Solution
The  Commerce Team is working on a free temporary solution for the Merchants  who are currently using the XstreetSL real estate listings. The current  listings will not be migrated to the new Marketplace, but there will be  a home in the category tree for Resident to resident real estate  listings until a long term solution is created.

Designing a place for animated GIF Images
In  the next two weeks we will update the product detail pages and include a  place for Merchants to include an animated GIF image to help illustrate  how products like gestures appear inworld.

More to come.
The Commerce Team

Quick Links:
SL Marketplace Help Pages
Deutsch
Français
日本語
Português

Setting up shop in Second Life has many nuances: some best practices are universal and adopted from the real world, such as delightful customer service, while others are specific to the inworld experience — brick-and-mortar stores are concerned with navigation, yes, but fly-friendly layout and teleporter placement go beyond. For example, this pic by way of Rhonda Huntress shows Argrace’s simple and clean map:

Alas, the tough thing is: where do you go to learn these best store practices early on? There’s scattered info I’m compiling, with your guidance, into the Marketplace Seller’s Guide that can expand over time (as has been useful for many other topics, to name a few).

Including…

Recently, I was very grateful to hear — and see — what a number of Residents feel is vital in

this forum thread

Especially pictures and SLurls to help you effectively understand “as-it-is”. I was both curious to learn how far things had evolved from the early SL days, and shared that thread with some of our Experience Design gurus because WE NEED TO KNOW. The whole process of “finding an item -> using it” is in our sights.

Shortly thereafter, Suella Ember — who you may recognize as a very helpful face on the forums, cheese is to her what watermelon is to me — sent me an exceptionally lucid letter containing many annotated pictures. I encouraged her to post it on her blog, and here it is:

DeliciouSLy Delightful Shopping Experiences! (15 Tips for Merchants!)

One of my fave parts (friendly greetings back atcha, Suella) is “make your decor interesting and relevant”. Time and time again, I’ve seen adding personality and character distinguish a store from “the rest” by making it a memorable visit, even giving visiting friends something to talk about. Infact, it’s a cultural funnysadtrue joke that while boxes can be a pain to open, a few go the extra distance of making boxes look amazing, like these from NOTsoBAD:

Bottom line: if you sell stuff in Second Life, please give the Seller’s Guide and Suella’s post a read. Then, in the comments, share what’s worked well from your firsthand experiences — that other sellers should know. What do your customers repeatedly laud you for? And if you already have a blog post out there I and your fellow Residents should learn from, promote yourself!

(I realize that this info can be hard to come by since competitive forces hoard secrets and many practices are passed from one trusted friend to another, but if you’re like me and believe that there are lots of “commerce tropes” that can be shared for the greater community benefit of buyers and sellers alike, I’d <3 to hear from you. Don’t hold back.)

This afternoon, we’ll be blocking logins for the 2.0.1 version of Viewer 2. All users still running a 2.0.1 Viewer will be prompted to upgrade to 2.1.1. Our developers have made numerous stability and performance improvements that make the 2.1.1 release a much more reliable Viewer.

One of the notable changes in 2.1.1 is that we’ve defaulted HTTP Textures to ON for all users. HTTP Textures is a feature that allows us to transmit textures from SL over HTTP instead of UDP. This should make textures load much faster.

In the event you have any issues with HTTP Textures, you can turn it back off by enabling the Develop menu in your Viewer (CTRL-ALT-Q), then clicking Develop > ‘HTTP Textures’ to deselect it.

For a more detailed look at what’s in the 2.1.1 release, check out the release notes.

And, let us know what you think on Twitter using #slviewer2.

Are you a winter sports fan? Do you like fast-paced, competitive action? Do you enjoy being part of a big friendly community? Welcome to Second  Life’s fantastic new winter sports area, Chamonix City! This winter wonderland is a group of Regions connected to Braggiani and is opening   Saturday August 28th. It is the result of a collaboration between Linden Lab and one of our inworld partnership groups, Global Online Hockey Association (GOHA). If you have a similar, winter sports themed community that is free and open for all to enjoy, please let me know! I would love to stop by and have a look.

Chamonix City is modeled on the French town where the first winter Olympics were held in 1924. The area is nestled in the French Alps and offers  incredible opportunities for sports fans everywhere.

Here in Second Life, Chamonix City opens with fantastic community offerings for both new and old Residents. Global Online Hockey Association (GOHA), a longstanding active community, has constructed ice hockey  rinks, skating ponds, a replica of Chamonix, and many exciting areas for  events and Resident assistance. You can join the community, get  involved, and find a plethora of new friends and activities. Play hockey  or cheer on the teams! Check out the 2011 game schedule HERE! Grab a snowboard and explore or try out the ice skating rink with your friends. There’s plenty to do and see!

Highlights include:

Neutral Zone: Find the quaint village of Chamonix. Head over to the Post Office to contact GOHA staff for assistance or help if you are a new Resident. GOHA hockey hall of fame is centrally located right next door. There are shops containing free merchandise for new and old Residents alike. Check out the community area which features information on how to get involved and make new friends. Events planned here include live music and meet & greets.

Offsides: A beautifully constructed bridge leads you to more winter wonderlands of the Sansara mainland.

Crosscheck: Hold on to your seats! Two beautiful rinks (one indoor, one outdoor) await you. Grab a hot chocolate and a bench and get ready to watch some fast-paced professional level ice hockey action. The game schedule is busy, and you can catch practices and special events in action. When  a game is not in play, you can get some free sticks and try it out  yourself. League members are available to assist you.

This area also features a free ice skating pond (a great spot for a romantic night or a group night out with friends) and free snowboarding equipment.

Empty Net and Blueliner: These Regions host professional quality hockey rinks where free equipment, uniforms and other goodies are available. GOHA features an active schedule of games and is in its 11th season. You can get involved in active regulation league play by checking out  the kiosks located in various spots all over Chamomix City.

Breakaway: Stroll over the high mountain bridge and look down: This area features a highly detailed Training Area where you can practice your burgeoning hockey skills independently or as a group. On the south side, check out the Pond Hockey area.  Hockey players are often firing up an exciting, no-holds-barred game of  outdoor hockey action in this area, and anyone is welcome to join in  these games.

Migration of Listings and Images
The Commerce Team will be doing a data migration of products and images next Monday and Tuesday. This Migration will run for Monday, August 30, at 9AM PST to 6PM Tuesday, August 31, and will apply to all listings – but only listings that are active will be visible to the public. You can change your migration preference by going to the “My Inventory page” on Xstreet. If you find migration bugs, you can file bugs using the public JIRA, also known as the Issue Tracker. File them as Project: “3. Second Life Website – WEB” and Component: “Marketplace”. More info on how to do that. Here is an example.

New Reporting on Top selling products and Listing enhancements
There is now reporting on the Top Selling Products, and the amount of views that listing has received. You will also find reports on Listing enhancements that provide data on impressions for the last day, week, month as well as how many click throughs have been reported for the last day, week & month. (Since we just started collecting data for click throughs, the number will be lower than the number for impressions.) We will be adding start/end dates as well as export to CSV over the next 5 to 10 days.

You can now edit multiple lsitings at once!
On the Beta Marketplace “Manage inventory” page you can now select multiple items and edit them together. You can update, feature descriptions, listing enhancements, prices and more.

Sincerely,
The Commerce Team

Quick Links:
SL Marketplace Help Pages

Deutsch

Français

日本語

Português

As you know, there have been a lot of changes recently at Linden Lab and the Lab is rallying around the principles of  “Fast, Easy, and Fun” that you have heard about from Philip and BK.  These concepts also apply to Customer Support. We want to make sure  that your Support experience–whether it be direct interaction with our  Customer Service team or with our online self-help tools–is as  effective and helpful as possible.

The  day after our reorganization announcement, we quietly launched brand new case reporting and live chat systems. Both systems are easier for  you to use and will provide us with better data and insights to more  proactively address and resolve your support issues.

Updated Self-Service Offerings

We  are also investing in technology and the development of self-service  tools to enhance the support portal, including our public wiki and knowledge base. And we’re looking for more opportunities to put basic account administration tools directly into your hands, informed by the metrics we’re gathering in the new systems.

In  addition to new metrics, we also asked for your input on how we can  provide a more effective self-service offering. Based on the results of the self-service tools survey,  we are in the process of developing new and better self-service capabilities that can help you resolve basic issues quickly. Big thanks  to all of those that completed the survey! And, you can expect to see  the results of our efforts soon.

Customer Support Changes

As  we strengthen our self-service offering, we’ll be making some changes to Customer Support. You may have noticed a few of them already.

• Concierge support hours are now available at our high-traffic hours which are 8am – Midnight (PST), M-F, and 8am to 8pm (PST) on Saturday and Sunday. 
• We will also be reducing our non-English language support to German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. 
• Finally, we’ll be examining all of our support channels and simplifying the  support contact types and issue types we allow for our various account  levels.  We’ve not taken the impact of these changes lightly and want to provide a higher quality support experience balanced with the costs of  deliver those services.

New Abuse Appeals Process

One  thing that we updated already, as part of our new case and chat platform, is the Abuse Appeals process.  As you will notice if you peruse the case submission form, you will see that the abuse appeals option has disappeared.  Our new approach is directly targeted at those affected by disciplinary action.  If your account is suspended or  banned, then secondlife.com will allow you to log in on the affected account and will take you to a  form designed specifically for creating an appeals case.

Unfortunately, a secondlife.com authentication bug has temporarily disabled this function.  While our  web team works on that issue, we’ve established a temporary process.  If  you need to file an abuse appeal, please log in to secondlife.com with an alt account.  Then, file a new ticket from http://secondlife.com/support, selecting “Account Issues” and then “Second Life Web Login Issue.”  Be  certain to include any information you believe is relevant to our re-evaluation of your case. As soon as the new Abuse Appeals process is  reinstated, then we will let you know.

More Enhancements to Come

You’ll  be hearing and seeing more from us over the coming weeks as we make some additional changes to improve the customer support experience.  While contacting us with service-related issues may not always be  ‘fun,’ the changes you’ll see from us will certainly enable a fast, easy customer support experience that we believe will ultimately exceed the  high expectations you’ve come to count on from the Lab.

In the meantime, please pardon our dust.  Change is always a resource-intensive process and we are putting a lot of effort into  building our new Support structure and infrastructure.

A sandbox is a place for creativity and, on occasion, chaos. It’s a place to play, a space in which to build, and also a place to break down then build anew. In the context of virtual worlds, a sandbox can also be an open place to roam and create freely without limits to your imagination.

If you’re looking for intellectually stimulating games that combine strong storytelling elements with clever puzzles, cool graphics and unexpected surprises…then look no further than MadPea’s creations in Second Life. This immersive gaming environment is the result of MadPea Productions, a global collaboration between Kiana Writer, Colin Nilsson, SweetDevil Magic and Madcow Cosmos. Together, they’ve created several of the most challenging and fun games inside Second Life including Devil’s Labyrinth, The Kaaos Effect and Reaction.

We recently spoke with MadPea’s founder and director Kiana Writer about the projects. To see a walk-through of the island, watch the video below.

We’ve also included the full text of the interview below.

KW: It all starts from a tiny idea that usually just grows into being an amazing experience. We create the storyline first and plan the puzzles. We don’t try to import any existing games into SL, instead we create new original adventures that work on the platform. After the initial plan is ready we begin the building process followed by texturing. Scripting and sounds come next and then all kinds of after effects to make sure the game experience is smooth. We always betatest before opening a new game.

We have been creating games for two years now and it all began with a small hunt. You can see a lot of improvement and new features in our newer games, each big game is always more complex than the previous one. It will be really exciting to release our new games in the next couple of months and truly surprise people again to show what is actually possible to do inside Second Life.

KW: The HUD design was based around the logo for the game itself. The shape of the HUD is actually the Greek symbol for the labyrinth, which stands for an elaborate structure built to hold in the forces of evil.  Combining that shape with the different symbols that you collect throughout the maze was the main design concept. The four items you have to find in Path 1 of the Devil’s Labyrinth are also Greek symbols that have a background storyline behind their use and intertwined with the story of the individual demons you will battle in later paths. We wanted to try to make a role playing HUD that offered the players an easy to use interface. We tried to use symbols for each of the buttons on the HUD to make the players understand right off the bat what they are used for but at the same time leave some mystery to be found out as you go. The use of magical items and other objects found throughout your journey helps you complete different tasks necessary to complete the path.

For the more experienced roleplayers the use of both mana, health and gold in the gameplay allows an instant familiarity of the goals of the game.

The center devil’s head button serves as a multipurpose button allowing you to revive your character and return to your last save point or even allows you to return to the sim from anywhere in SL through the use of the map features.  You can return back to the game from wherever you left off in your game progress depending on your last save point.

In our next version of the Devil’s Labyrinth we are incorporating the players’ ability to upgrade items, purchase new items through the gold and or our MadPoints system and the ability to customize their characters.

DG: One unique feature we’ve noticed is the loading screen that appears when traveling between areas. How did that come about?

KW: The screen was originally created for The Kaaos Effect to ‘hide’ things…  Not so many people realize that in Kaaos the player doesn’t actually move after the initial pull by the HUD. The whole game is played on holodecks and once a puzzle has been successfully completed, the HUD effect covers your whole screen to hide the fact that the whole room is pulled apart underneath your feet and a new one is rezzed immediately.

KW: Because Kaaos is played on holodecks, the game is meant to be a solo-experience. Only one player can interact with one holodeck at a time. This was the best solution to keep people from disturbing each other’s game experience. We created armbands for sim-wide communication, so that all the players could still chat with each other, even while they were playing different parts of the game.

KW: Play the game to find out.. You should always pay attention to the smallest of details, we like to add hints to those.. In Kaaos for example, there is an underlying story behind the main one that you get if you find some extra items in the rooms. Also, as a bonus you get so see something hilarious in the end after finding all the clocks. Make sure always to click and try out different things in the games, you never know what happens!

KW: VMD will truly show what is possible to do in SL. We have created a breath-taking experience that is also educational together with a real life surgeon Cha Klaar. In the game the player becomes a doctor of the future and will cure patients from inside of their bodies. The game making project has been long, since it’s by far the most complicated thing we have ever designed. You will be shrunk down with your ship to enter the body in the funniest ways and see the most bizarre things. One of the greatest things about this game is that you will learn medicine in a fun way. The game will be playable in six different languages. Coming soon!

KW: At first we used to do very dark games and mysteries and people seemed to think we were only enjoying one style. We definitely don’t want to be categorized, since we are interested in all kinds of genres. We believe Second Life is a great environment for learning and when Sigma-Aldrich approached us about Reaction, it was great fun to create something that had an educational value and yet still being exciting, interactive and immersive.

KW: Let’s just say that we have several stories written for adventures that are just waiting to get built one day. I think our main disappointment was with Within 2, we had an amazing build ready, story and puzzles all planned. In the sequel to a popular Secret organization where the players became assassins, they were actually supposed to hunt down extremely intelligent aliens to create a virus. The aliens were the main part of the game and were designed by a big real life company who sadly left Second Life and we never had a chance to release the game. Hopefully one day we can do that still.

KW: Make sure to come back and check on us, we are currently working on four big projects at the same time and once those are released within the next couple of months, all the anxious waiting will certainly be rewarded!

Looking for more cool places to explore? Check out our Destination Guide or submit your own!

At Linden Lab, we’re on an ongoing mission to provide a delightful out-of-the-box experience from the first time you sign up for a Second Life account to the inworld experience itself. In addition to news we’ve been sharing on the blogs, one of my particular interests happens to be “the rightest default Preferences” — broadly useful settings that most people don’t need to tweak, so after they install the Viewer, they can hit the ground running (and then go flying as all avatars can, haha).

I install many viewers — in addition to the official “main” Viewer, I also use a variety of internal test and 3rd-party ones. (For you techy geeks, yes, sometimes I clone my user settings, but often, conditions require I start from scratch.) In the main Viewer at least, here are some prefs I always change in the PREFERENCES window and WHY I do it, to help you understand my intentions:

• In General tab, I always change My effects to bright pink (#FF0080) so it’s easier for me to see my selections. Bet you saw that coming! And yes, I’m a fan of the fancier shapes (all manner of Lucky Charms-looking symbols) I’ve seen in alternate viewers.
• In General tab, I also change Away timeout to never so I don’t get logged out when I’m away from the computer.

• In Graphics tab, I choose Ultra, but usually disable water reflections because it can be a big performance hit. I also click Hardware and enable Antialiasing so ‘dem jaggies get smoothed. Everyone on a decent system who’s ever asked me why their Second Life photographs have rough edges needs to do this!
• In Sound & Media tab, I click the little speaker next to Ambient to disable it. Why? Because all it is are the system wind and footstep sounds (which have long annoyed me — they’re quieter in 2.1 but I prefer scripted shoes for those tones).
• In Chat tab, I choose to Show IMs in Tabs. That’s the pre-2.0 style and I find it saves me window clutter, even if I’m not so ardent about IM conversations as I once was.
• In Notifications tab, I uncheck Tell me: When my friends log in or out because I find those too frequent and disruptive.
• In Setup tab, I set Maximum bandwidth to 10,000 kbps. I’ve never seen Second Life actually sustain that much traffic (due to network protocol overhead) but it’s a definite speed increase over the puny default of 500 kbps. A non-scientific speed test I did awhile ago showed reasonably complex scenes loaded 20-30 seconds faster for me with the higher setting. If you’re on a robust broadband connection yet feel textures and stuff loads too slow for you, try this out — I think it’s a default I’ve advocated to be changed, considering average broadband speeds.
• In Advanced tab, I uncheck Sidebar because it makes me dizzy to watch that thing slide back and forth. Yeah, I know some of ya can relate!

How about you? Which Preferences (1) do you specifically customize for your unique needs and (2) which do you wish were automatically set for everyone?

Wait, what about Advanced and Develop menu settings? While they’re under-the-hood and officially unsupported, there’s plenty of use within… and

there’s a thriving forum thread about “What’s your fave debug setting?” you can join in