A very controversial and hot topic at the moment is the Linden Lab acquisition of Xstreet SL and OnRez. Arguably I think that this manoeuvre by the owners of Second Life could prove to either be on of the best (or worst) things they have done.

Apotheus Silverman the owner of Xstreet SL, along with 8 members of his staff, will be employed directly by Linden Lab to integrate the Xstreet platform into Second Life. On February 11th trading on OnRez (originally developed and maintained by The Electric Sheep Company) will cease and the site will close. All OnRez only merchants are urged to create Xstreet accounts asap to make the changeover as easy as possible.

With approximately 120,000 avatars registered on Xstreet SL (formerly SL Exchange) and an undisclosed (yet considered smaller) number of OnRez users this move affects the majority of Second Life merchants and web shoppers.

All of the preceding information is fact. From here on in, the facts are mixed with my opinion, as a Second Life/ Xstreet SL/ OnRez shopper.

One of the most common complaints about this development is the stronghold monopoly situation that LL now appears to have. I don’t personally subscribe to this opinion, as Linden Lab did not have (until now) any web based merchant system in place. Encompassing the largest sites under their wing is a sound move by Linden Lab, to offer web based shopping (which we know as a popular alternative method to teleporting and visiting shops). Indication stands that OnRez would be closing in February as The Electric Sheep company continues to withdraw it’s prescence in Second Life, therefore for the purposes of the monopoly analysis, OnRez should be therefore discounted. Alternatives are in place for those who don’t want to use the integrated machine that Linden Lab will no doubt build. On the shopping side, smaller popular sites like apez.biz should be able to capitalise on being a truly independent site. Predicting a new ‘all worlds’ merchant site isn’t too far fetched either, considering XStreet SL themselves investigated coverage of other worlds, and one would certainly think if there was a ‘good’ time to launch it, that time would be now. Lastly, the forums on Xstreet have quite an avid following, I would expect them to become a casualty of this buyout since their independence is lost, however sites like SLUniverse should bear witness to a rejuvenation of their forums.

Speculation surrounding Xstreet SL of late has been that the site was troubled. With falling sales and commissions the site was deemed, by many, to be in trouble. Perhaps these rumours had more weight than many of us thought. If Xstreet SL had collapsed it would have caused a cataclysmic wave in the economy of Second Life. If this conjecture is true, Linden Lab may have stepped in to stop this from happening.

Xstreet SL, and OnRez were well known and respected institutions in-world, with good coverage on many sims with terminals, and box hosting sites popping up left, right and centre. One institution with more coverage than these two companies put together has to be of course Linden Lab. Once the initial furore has calmed, providing Linden Lab put the necessary resources behind Xstreet SL, this site with the in-world backup could increase users, items and ease of use immensely.

Talking about ease of use, I perceive the biggest advantage of this development as being the potential to streamline the systems. One problem many ‘high users’ had with this site was the time it took to list items online. With a Linden Lab incorporated Xstreet SL, merchants, may, find selling their items get easier. Currently deliveries depend on the blackbox/dropbox systems, which of course rely on the hosting sims of these boxes being online and responsive. With the potential for streamlining and direct inventory transfers the future of these sales is an interesting and greatly anticipated one. It’s also been cited on the SL Blog, that the potential for sharable wish lists and, I’m sure popular, scheduled deliveries are amongst some of the possibilities for future innovation.

It would be business suicide for merchants listed on these sites to leave, therefore without a mass exodus; everyone will sit back and watch the developments unfold with great interest. One of the biggest areas to watch will be the future of Xstreet’s own Linden Currency Exchange, although Linden Lab promised nothing will happen to this until they watch the intricacies of this system in the coming months, I suspect this will be the biggest casualty of this buyout.

This of course is my personal opinion about this matter, it is based from facts, but the opinions formed are mine. In a world where we all see different angles and perspectives I have invited Peter Stindberg, owner of Babel Translations (Second Life’s premier translation company), co-owner of GREENE Concept sculpt furniture and also the business analyst for ~flirt~ fine jewellery, to give us his take on these events. (A merchant's view: SLX, OnRez and the alternatives)

Undoubtedly one of the most common complaints on the Second Life JIRA is the ability to have a separate body art/ tattoo layer. Of course this is not the only JIRA request regarding clothing layers on avatars. However, recently at Nyx Linden’s office hour, information was released that could dramatically change the way we wear our clothes.

Currently the clothes we wear are baked together and uploaded as six textures (head, eyes, hair, upper body, lower body, and skirt) to the servers, from where our friends and fellow residents download them to render our appearance. As well as this being done, a fail-safe has been in place, which also downloads from the server the separate layers, in case a baked texture is not available (this is why editing appearance can help you bake for other residents). Obviously downloading the unbaked layer textures, which are rarely used, is a demanding resource hog. However Nyx and BigPapi Linden are implementing changes to address this. In the future, hoped for release in RC 1.23, when you change your outfit, your client will bake one complete version of that entire outfit (including skin) which viewers will download only instead of that and the individual layers, as it does now.

Not only will this improve the speed at which you download clothing textures, as layers won’t be downloaded as well, it will also open the door for major future developments. You will be in control of how your avatar looks and in the future you will potentially be able to wear anything you want in a tiered manner. At the moment, if you wear tattoo’s on your ‘under’ layers you can’t wear actual underwear. Once the baking developments have been implemented and completed with a rollover period for older clients, you should be able to wear clothes anywhere, even if you wish, wear your underwear outside your pants.

Nyx also announced that as part of these changes, Linden Lab will also look at having a 4th channel in the baked textures, allowing for alpha masking (also another common JIRA request), meaning parts of your avatar will be able to be hidden. This development will hopefully stop transparency issues on many attachments, for instance sculpt shoes and prim avatars, providing you can remove the invisi-prims they currently use.

Content theft is one of the biggest problems facing Second Life. With the current system, all layers being downloaded as well, it opens the doors to special clients built to steal textures. Once these changes have been implemented single layer textures of other avatars will not be sent to the viewer, therefore clothing content theft will be made harder.

In an environment where Linden Lab are often brought into question over the grids stability and ongoing improvements, these developments (which should start rolling into place soon) will effectively kill two birds with one stone.

I first walked the SecondLife grid a little over 2 years ago. Introduced by a friend I was almost instantly hooked. Like many I lapped up the SecondLife experience. Did all the right things and even the 'in' things. Now almost 2 years later, I'm seriously considering leaving.

I started in the virtual world by working in a fairly successful club. At this place I found many of the very good friends I have now. When this club moved to it's own sim I was able to have my first taste of a virtual home. I, at the time played SL with my RL partner. We were in a position were RL living together was impossible and for a moment, we could capture the ability to live together in sl, it perhaps isn't RL but it was the closest we had. I spent 5 happy months 'working' in my friendly 'pub up the road' and living in my beautifully manicured home with my partner. I progressed with her to a rented 1/4 sim where we grew our home.

Suddenly my partner passed away, and in the very tricky, and complex real live situation I was able to find sanctuary in my secondlife. A small number of friends knew about our relationship, and as the shocking news spread of her death, more and more were told. I was unable to lean on many people in RL because of the complexity of this relationship, however unquestioningly our SecondLife friends offered a support network that was unimaginable. I can genuinely say that without this unconditional support, I wouldn't have been where I am now, RL or SL.

In order to fill my days with things I began to write for a well known news site. I also began to estate manage a friends sim. During this time I was re-introducted to someone I'd known at the old club - Aimee Trescothick. Aimee helped with the rental sim and we found and grew our friendship. Using the medium of SecondLife we both realised that we fitted together. We explored together, did work together, had fun together, spent time with friends together. Ultimately we moved in together in SL and met in RL.

The love you imagine, the kind that sells millions of dollars worth of tickets at the box offices around the world, I was exceptionally lucky to find. We discovered we fitted together in RL also. I owe SecondLife an awful lot; the support network, the confidence building and of course the love of a woman.

I learned in SecondLife how to write. I know that sounds rather strange, but writing is something I'd never tried before. SecondLife gave me the confidence to try, I found it was something that gave me enjoyment. From the news site I founded Rez Magazine with Voodoo. Rez is a passion of mine, a truly independent medium for us to write about many things in SL. It gives me the freedom to 'be my own boss' and to cover the things I want too in the way I want too. I opened my Rez Office on the 1/4 sim in a building made by Aimee. Together it was a culmination of lots of work.

From the 1/4 sim, we moved to a rented OpenSpace Sim. The main purpose of this sim would be our home. It might be pixels held on a server in San Francisco but hitting the 'go home' button actually means something. To climb into bed and virtually cuddle, means something. Spending time perfecting the look of home, means something. It is called Your World, Your Imagination, and the ability to create your 'dream home' here, for me at least, is exceptionally appealing and fundamentally needed. We would create our home, but we would firstly create our dream wedding setting. Having complete control on this island, we would take time to create the area that we wanted to marry in. To virtually stand up there and in-front of the collected friends speak of our love for each other. Sounds perfectly twee doesn't, but after-all isn't that the beauty of secondlife?

Aimee and I spent 6 months creating what WE wanted. Arranging the finer details, and asking the relevant people if they would do us the honor of being our bridesmaids, reverend, best man, or the guy who gives (a) bride away. The invites were beautifully crafted and sent out, the flickr group created, even a windlight recommended preset has been made. Two weeks before our 'I Dos' Linden Lab announce the changes in Open Space pricing.

In my two year existence as Trinity Dechou I have been in the middle of drama on a few occasions. VAT price changes, club related drama, estate drama, recently IP theft (unfounded) allegations and now this. I love SecondLife, I love the people in SecondLife. I love the beauty of SecondLife. I love the creation in SecondLife. However, all this drama, all this stress.... isn't this supposed to be fun? It is no longer fun.

In the last two years I remember LL increasing the private estate tier rates, introducing VAT and now this. You will never own your land, you might think you do, but the power belongs to the self appointed Linden Gods. We fight for what we love, we fight for what we believe in; there is only so much fight in us all and I think I've run out of fight.

At this moment there is hysteria and panic. Many people are 'homeless'. Linden Lab did that, no one else. I see no benefit of their action other than making many residents homeless and even questioning their life here. The powers that be have effectively killed off many of their residents and murdered the land market with one fell swoop.

I do consider leaving, strongly. However a few things hold me here at the moment. Rez Magazine is one, but how long before LL govern the freedom of speech, surely it's within their mandate (somewhere). Friends of course being another. I owe so much to these people, my developed relationships, the people who have touched my heart, and hopefully the hearts I have touched. It would be with a VERY heavy heart I pressed logout for that last time, believe me. Thankfully Aimee and I are more than SL, and we don't need it. It would change our relationship, as it is still heavily used as a way to spend time together in the evenings but it's not essential.

In a nutshell, LL have sucked the enjoyment out of SecondLife over the past two years. The harsh reality that these people can do as they please with no way for us lowly residents to shape the change.

IF I stay it will be for my friends, not Linden Lab.


This is my story, as the change in Linden policy is not just a matter of prices and budgets, but people and their lives. If you would like to share your story, please leave a comment

People tend to talk about Second Life as a game. I would argue that as an assessment, there are some fairly major flaws in Second Life's game-like qualities. When you look at games, and more specifically computer games, they all have several things in common, which SL tends to lack. There are rules (which even though the occasional law is made, there are not strictly in SL) and directions. There are challenges (whereas the big challenge in SL is not ripping your hair out when the lag takes home) and objectives, and if anyone inworld thinks there is an objective to the "game" they are likely to wildly differ (everything from being a celebrity, to making money, or just getting laid). There are tasks to undertake, and items to collect. However, I must stop on this point, as there are items that you can collect in SL. There are items that many residents thirst for, whether they be furry, gorean, businessman, escort, builder, performer or even just a casual wanderer. An item that you can only get by speaking to one of our Linden parliament, and asking them really nicely. The Linden Bear.



Recently I attended Djai Skellerup's superb 2 hour set at the SL5B sims, and whilst there, who should turn up but Kate and Tofu Linden. As everyone, Djai included, was getting excited about such celebrities in our midst, I thought it would be a good idea to shout out, "Everyone! Get bears!". Two minutes later, and without any further word from me, Kate Linden dropped a bear into my inventory. I was so chuffed that I kept going on about it until my significant other asked Tofu very politely for his, and kindly received it, I think partly to show that it's not that tough to get a Linden bear, and shut me up. However, it was only when we got these bears home and rezzed them, that I noticed something a little strange....

You see, the point of the Linden Bear is that it is a piece of individual expression, encapsulating the spirit of that particular Linden, in bear form. The thing that was weird about both of our bears, was that both of them had not been built by the Linden who gave them to us. Kate's hadn't even been built by a Linden at all! With this in mind, I decided to check out if this was a widespread phenomenon. So I headed over to the Linden Bear Museum

Upon arrival, I started to right hand click all the bears on display, and check who was listed as creator. I am sorry to report, that while Torley, Spike, Plexus, Niko, Cogsworth, Trinity, Ekim, Mia, Nicole, Catherine, Ethan, Michael, Teagan, Colton, Dee, Rowan, Garry, Alexa and Dusty Linden all made their own bears; Kate, Tofu, Twilight. Data, Everett, Robin, Lexie, Colton, Amber, Lawrence, Wilder, Kona, George, Sally, Sabin, Babbage, Cyan, Benjamin, Lotte, Izzy, Zee, Belinda, Zero, Bunny, Liana, BigPapi, Jeska, Echo, Jeremy, Jello, Jack, Prospero, Bub, Charlie, Governor, Philip, Pathfinder, Coco, Aric, Sidewinder, JP, Cupid, Kosmo, Liana and Glen are not listed as the creators of their own bears. This means that out of the bears checked, only 30% of them appear to be made by the Linden who's name they bear, and that number can go down a little more, since Teagan appears to have gotten someone else to make her new 2008 bear for her. I also hear on the grapevine that even the enigmatic M Linden is having someone else make his bear for him. It should also be noted that quite a few of the bears were created by either Nicolle or Mia Linden, which at first gave me the image of these two having "Linden Bear Maker" somewhere in their job description. It was then suggested to me by my lovely voice of reason that maybe Nicolle and Mia make a basic bear, and then give it to the other Lindens to customise, and maybe I am being a little unfair about how many of them might not put the effort in to make their own. Which is a fair point, except for one minor detail... WHY? What is so hard about making a bear from scratch???

I am not an expert builder. My personal constructions have perhaps most kindly been described as "Old School". And yet, even someone with my basic abilities can manage to make a bear, entirely from fresh prims, and a few choice textures found in my overfull inventory. Like so:

Notice if you will, that my little Voodoo Bear is similarly bespectacled with a pair of funky goggles, has a similarly omnipresent cigarette in it's mouth, and I even managed to make little recreations of the tentacles that I so often wear. To add a little bit more Voodoo to the Voodoo Bear, I even stuck some bloody pins into his tummy. So, there you go. One Voodoo Bear, made entirely by me, personalised, and all complete in under an hour. So, not that hard then.

Which brings me to my challenge, dear readers! Let's show them that making a unique, and interesting bear is achievable by anyone. When you have a spare few minutes, put together your very own bear, and send me, Voodoo Buwan, a copy inworld. In exchange, I will send you a Voodoo Bear of your very own, and if we get enough, we will showcase some of the best in this very magazine. Who knows, I may even bestow a prize for the best resident bear I receive. So come on, bring on the bears!

I complain about them, along with a great deal of people on the grid, however I will also say I wouldn’t want any Linden job. Within any organisation, when something mal-functions it has a knock on wave for other departments and working in that environment is a tough one.

I watched the blog with reports on double billing recently and thought jeez ops. Well turns out upon checking my bank account and email I was affected in this double charge. Never fear though Linden would sort it and I would be refunded. Going along the lines of ‘well mistakes happen’ as long as its rectified to my satisfaction it will be fine, I closed the email and waited for a nice reimbursement of my over charged tier fees.

Few days later I got an email from Linden to say that the current months tier hadn’t been paid and that if that wasn’t rectified within a week my account would be suspended. So of course upon getting this email I double checked the banks end, nothing wrong absolutely fine.

I checked the linden lab site and subsequently the support portal where I raised a ticket about the matter. Finally I got a reply from someone who said he would look into things, would I mind checking with my bank that I could use my card and that linden labs were not blocked from them etc. He also asked me at this point to re-enter my details.

Off I went back to the site, re entered my details and got the update awaiting message. The message states if it still says that after an hour to try again. An hour later it said the same and I tried again. Waited a further hour..... same. I commented back to the original ticket. Stating that the card I was using was the same one I have used for over 18 months now, the account they double charged etc and that my banking provider did not suddenly randomly block Linden Labs.

/me sighs. I must say I find the whole process of the support portal rather tedious. Very much like call centres in the real world I find myself going round in an ever decreasing circle until I am about to disappear up my own ass. Like these call centres with “press option 1” for x,y,z the support portal offers about as many choices. Call me an old fashioned lass if you like, but I actually like being able to talk to someone. Either on the phone or in IM, real time replies make the whole process simpler and rectified quickly.

My helper replies to say the account needs to be manually reset and then my details entered again. He will organise this and contact me when to re-enter my details. Ok, so I’m not overly happy that its taken now 5 days to get an email that says Linden have messed up need to manually override their own system to allow me to input my details (again). I know to de stress I will log in and do some random Trin type things in world. GAH. They suspended me!!!!!! *Air goes blue for a few moments*

I go directly to sl.com and attempt to get into my account. Of course I get a message to say my accounts inactive. I heard towards the portal, which turns out I can’t get into because my accounts suspended! Oh ffs! I trawl through the web and find a phone number. Now being in the UK I now need to dig out the international dial code for the US, since I don’t tend to phone US.

I must say considering it was 4am for Linden telephone support, they did answer remarkably quickly, must have sensed the increasingly pissed off Scottish woman. Quite amusing when you get asked to verify who you are with RL details and the call continues with them calling me Trinity. The gentleman on the end of the phone, fighting off an occasional yawn, tells me that there is a department assigned to my account, however he will lift the suspension so I can at least get in world and into the portal etc. Not often I say this but nice man.

I comment again on the support ticket with the update and notice a worrying thing on my account. I am a premium member, I have been a premium member now for over a year. I pay annually and I paid my annual subscription in September of this year, hence its not due again until September 2008, however according to my account page its due in December 2007!

As things stand at the moment, I am awaiting a reply from the department dealing with my account. I have my suspension lifted temporarily. So who knows, I might be suspended again tomorrow.

While I still can I’ll take this opportunity to rant a little! I wouldn’t want your jobs lindens but sort your archaic systems and allow good paying customers a chance to have a relatively stress free experience. Between the constant lag and asset server problems the last thing ANY of us need are account issues.