I was able to make it to the auditorium Tuesday for the talk at 2:00. The Lindens present were Patch Linden, Senior Director of Product Operations, and Keira Linden, part of that team. Saffia Widdershins was the interviewer and talked with the Lindens asking questions and discussing. Both talked about their very early days in Second Life and their present position with the Lab. The audience was approximately 75 through out the attached sims.
Some interesting information they gave us explained the collaboration between the resident leads of the SL15B and the lab this year since it is 15 years . They both felt it was a special year of celebration not only for the residents but for themselves. They looked back on the changes that have taken place in the past years and both look forward to the next 15 promising that more changes we will like are coming soon. They are “baking” !
Kiera‘s job is working specifically with Second Life.
Patch works with Second Life and also with Sansar.
One thing that they discussed that is interesting that I did not know was that certain regions that you can use for big events, The Galaxy is one, Svarga another .Patch says last names are coming back soon! He also explained who the Moles are.
If you have specific questions on becoming a Mole or other specific information you can im him or e-mail him too, or put a ticket to his attention.
The interview was interesting and went well over time with questions. Saffia always does a wonderful job talking to the Lindens and has a good knowledge of what is going on at the Lab. Please link here to see and hear all the discussion and the many questions that came from the audience that you might have been wondering about.
I watched a video of this interview, because I was working
in First Life when it took place in the Dreamitarium auditorium. The
auditorium, one of my favorite builds at the birthday, was built by ADudeNamed
Anthony. A tip of the hat to this Bay City regular on a creation that is form
and function excellence. The quiet colors of the interior stage provide the
perfect backdrop for the interviews being conducted.
Whom is Being
Interviewed; Whom is Interviewing?
This interview was part of the Meet the Lindens series for
SL12B. Saffia Widdershins was to be conducting these talks, but if you watch
this video, or were there, and didn’t know this, you would most likely not
identify her as the lead in the event.
The video I watched showed many technical difficulties, that
the team there, headed by Uccie Poultry worked diligently to correct, but to
this day it is difficult to amass large numbers of residents.
The oversized Draxtor Depres was on the stage from the
start, and I was surprised to see him. I adore Drax, subscribe to his podcast,
and watch all of his videos. However, that didn’t stop me from being unhappy
with his performance here. If he was supposed to be there, then I am sorry, but
I was not sure, and it was never stated during the video I watched. Is he a
Linden now, but I don’t know it?
On to the Main Event
Danger Linden is the Senior Director of Product – Virtual Worlds
and Troy Linden is a Senior Producer. Both worked many years in the game and tech
industries, and they began working at Linden Lab within a few months of each
other in 2007. Both have prior experience with EA and the Sims.
At present, neither of them are working on Project Sansar,
but Danger was part of the original team.
Draxtor tended to ask very important questions, but instead
of asking them directly he would give a long treatise on his own opinions and
end with his question. He asked Danger and Troy how they juggled work on SL2.0
and SL. He asked it after he spoke for a while about how he manages this task,
and went on and on.
I am not sure why his behavior irritated me so much, but I
am sure it had something to do with the fact that it was Saffia’s interview,
and I know her to be too much of a lady to get into a sparring match with
Draxtor.
Danger was a reasoned responder who was able to speak from
his experience and avoided speaking for others. He explained that he could
manage many tasks because he is now solely working on SL. He gave kudos to Oz,
who has put together a dedicated and experienced team to focus on SL.
Draxtor then asked about the onboarding process for new LL
employees, and found that there was a Boot Camp. This is a specific program run
by Char Linden. Danger stated that LL’s onboarding is the best he has seen in a
new corporation.
There were many questions from the audience: “How many women
work in SL?” Danger handled it deftly: “We have more than two genders here; it’s
San Francisco, after all.” Draxtor added that the staff at LL seemed the most
diverse he had ever encountered.
Finally, Saffia got a question in, and asked Troy about the
experience tools in SL. Troy then lost his voice, and we waited for him to come
back while Saffia listened to him in Skype. While waiting for Troy Saffia still
spoke with Troy, but we could only hear her assenting with him, and nothing he
said. The experience tools are still in beta, but users can try them out.
Individuals like Loki Elliot, and groups such as MadPea have been using them to
their advantage. Draxtor asked if it was OK to make them so difficult, and Danger
gave the correct answer, which is that not everyone in a world wants to use
these tools, the experience is different for everyone, and not everyone wants
to create and build.
When asked about what were the most enjoyable projects Danger
spoke about how he loves the breaking down of silos so that SL is one place from the Welcome to the
different sims. He looks at it as a system rather than disparate parts.
Troy mentioned the SL share project, and efforts to
incorporate social media into SL. These are the tools that allow users to share
from SL on FaceBook and Twitter and Flickr right from in world.
Of course this brought on a discussion about how much first
life do people want in their second life, and how Facebook makes that
difficult. Identity is a big topic in SL, and Saffia shared how she has solved
this problem by creating a Saffia page in Facebook. This is not always
possible.
There was an audience question about My.Second.Life, and
Danger revealed that it was not going to be developed further.
Another question was about Oculus and Sansar. Danger said SL
can barely support
It, because it is twelve year old legacy code, but Sansar is
being built with the new tools in mind.
Sansar
This is what everyone wants to hear about, and I think that
some of what was revealed on other blogs has been inaccurate.
Danger and Drax spoke about the burgeoning virtual reality
awareness, and that it is a hot space right now. Danger wants to do it right. Here
are some of the things that were said:
Terrain will be Voxel-based. There will be a system to allow
non-registered guests to create without paying, lowering the entry bar. Many
people (not the Lindens) talked about Cloud Party and how you could get land
once you demonstrated that you could build). I did not really hear a Linden say
there would be free land, but that has been touted about the grid since this interview.
Danger did state that SL will still be viable in five years,
and will not die when Sansar opens its doors. He added that a long life is
ahead for SL, and many will use both.
Saffia asked audience questions.How will animations work in Sansar? The
animation system in Sansar will be a full professional system with avatars and
objects, Havok plus.
Will people be able to own land? Yes. You will be able to
own lands and rent land.
The first invitees will be Maya users, although all tools
will eventually work in Sansar. It will be invitation-only.
Draxtor: To what extent will it be possible to build in
world?
Danger: that is the goal, to build collaboratively and in
world.
Saffia joked about everyone getting two acres and a cow, and
Marianne McCann quipped: “1024 and a hippo. “
A member of the audience asked if hypergridding is being
considered, and Danger said not at this time.
Saffia and others wanted to know if there will be last
names?Danger said he couldn’t answer
now. The main login will be your email, but you will be able to have many
accounts under that address, and you should be able to share inventories
amongst the accounts. There
will be text and voice chat, but probably not a build for Linux.
Will Sansar be anonymous? The current vision for this is to
have a hierarchy of permissions in Sansar, that relate to how much information
you share with Linden Lab. The more they know you as a person, the more
abilities you will have. Danger said this is to combat griefing. Trust will
build user rights.
To close Danger revealed that the first invitees were being
spoken to at this time. I guess all will be answered once Project Sansar opens
its doors to alpha.
So, thanks to the Lindens for this improved transparency
under Ebbe’s leadership, and thanks to Saffia for remaining level-headed, and
thanks even to Draxtor Depres, who asked the right questions, but should have
done it on his show.
All the interviews with Lindens at the SL12B at the Dreamatorium have been
so enjoyable this week. Each has brought a wonderful perspective to the
thoughts and aspirations for the continued improvement and continued progress in
Second Life . I am very encouraged that SL is not going anywhere. Saffia
Widdershins with different co-hosts every day did done a remarkable job of
interviewing each day and keeping everyone on topic and actually digging into
their thoughts. She also took some questions from the audience.
Friday
was the pinnacle moment as Astound and Enchantment regions filled up to the max
to hear Ebbe Linden. Some who wanted to come in lingered on the edges of
Wonderous and cammed in to watch and listen. The crowd was so overwhelming that
it took a while to get the voices and cameras synced. As they started, Ebbe was
happy to let us know he feels a better comeraderie among the lab and the
residents and is happy about that. He spoke of continuing improvements in Second Life.
They are working on several new projects besides Sansar: some virtual world
games for children, a focus on cashing out Lindens, and making it safer and
easier for residents.
Ebbe enjoys traveling around sl meeting people and talking
with them as himself . Virtual Reality is going to be around a long time
and is still being invented in so many ways that Sansar is taking time to be
ready to last many years. Second Life has been around 12 years and has a future.
Sansar will be approached to last as many years and longer and is more than a
year before it is ready for prime time.
The Lab is working on how to make
land less expensive and packages and products for Second Life and other ways to
raise revenue. There are so many things going on at the Lab . Ebbe Linden has
impressed me as a real leader who is keeping it all going. I hope you will
take the time to watch all the interviews of this past week. All the Lindens who
visited at the Dreamatorium had lots to say. Try to watch all the videos . I
have heard so many comments that when Sansar arrives the Second Life will become
a has been. I have been so encouraged to hear over and over this week that
Second Life is not going anywhere. It will continue to develop and be
developed. It sounds like Ebbe is willing to do more questions and answers with
the residents and committed that to Saffia. Watch and see!
Wednesday 24th June – Xiola Linden, Lead Community Manager, and Pete
Linden, Senior Director, Global Communications at Linden Lab. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf3HN9wywbc
On Monday at 1PM SL time, Oz Linden spoke to an audience at the SL12B Auditorium about his experiences in Second Life. He was interviewed by Saffia Widdershins of "Designing Worlds," and Jessica Lyon, the head of Team Firestorm, Saffia asking most of the questions.
When asked bout what he did before Second Life, Oz answered that he did a number of jobs related to communications and the Internet, hs last job doing "voice-overs" for IP Phone systems. which he called educational, but not as much fun as Second Life. When asked if it was less challenging, Oz remarked "that depends" as with the voice-over, he could just do things with a phone call while with Second Life, not always, "Here I get to do things, people get to create all kinds of crazy ... unpredictable things."
He described his coming to Second Life as he was interested in a fun set of challenges and a fun environment to work in. Asking someone at the Lab if there was anything interesting going on, as it turned out, Linden Lab's Vice President of Engineering was trying to get someone in a certain position at the Lab, and he was hired. He described his role as having "evolved" from there, eventually ending up where he is now, "Mostly I manage what's going on."
When his job was compared to "herding cats," Oz laughed, saying he'd probably have more control over cats, "actually, I have a terrific team." He explained the engineers were there because they wanted to work in Second Life and found the work challenging, "It's a great team to work with."
Jessica commented it must be a challenge balancing new features that work across all platforms. Oz responded, "That's definatley an issue." He commented people sometimes give him ideas that they feel would work well, but it turns out they would only for about five percent of the residents and degrade the expereince for everyone else. When commented that everything done has an impact, Oz answered, "That's certainly true. Anything we do, we can count on some people liking it, many people being indiferent, and some people disliking it." Oz commented the number of complements and complaints was a motivation, "their level of intensity means they care about the product we're working on ... it's no fun to build something no one cares about." Oz was happy to be working on Second Life, and couldn't imagine working on anything else.
Oz mentioned that "We'll be bringing out some terrific nre features and changes that the users are really going to like." Jessica commented from her experiences earlier as a Third Party viewer developer that it could sometimes be hit or miss in what features would be popular for users. She asked Oz if the Lindens get discouraged when they come out with a new feature and the response is flat? Oz answered, "No, I don't think so." He did acknowledge that it could be a challenge for the residents to understand why the Lindens do what they do, "I don't think there have been any ... early in my tenure at he Lab that have been very unpopular, except for those that cause a performance problem."
It was about this point that Oz crashed, getting a few chuckles from the audience about the seemingly all powerful Lindens crashing like everyone else. But he soon came back. Oz remarked that this was one thing that he found very challenging, having come from a field "where if you only have 99.999 reliability, your product is junk." Whereas in Second Life, while people complained about the crashes, they were more or less accepted as part of the Second Life experience, "I've always worked in worlds where crashing 1% of the time is disastrous, and here I am in a world where the best crash rates are much higher. It's very challenging." The Lindens themselves, Oz explained, were not taking this acceptance as a reason not to improve the crash rate, "none of us thinks it's okay just because the viewers ... " Someone suggested that the tolerance was because many Second Life residents had memories of the dial-up days of the Internet in which getting on and getting anywhere could sometimes take a while. Oz commented, "That's an interesting theory."
Of the projects he's worked on, Oz felt one of his favorites were the Windlight settings. He commented in the official viewer, the default was to use region settings, "I've got quite a list of things that ought to be part of ... settings." When asked if they could get the light differently at different levels in a sim, such as sunrise on the ground and Midnight in the skybox, Oz didn't think they would be doing that, at least not anytime soon. He stated there were several reasons for that. When asked if the day and night cycle could be made into a 24 hour one instead of about every four hours, Oz answered "Maybe," but he couldn't say when, saying the cycles were currernly "bakes in." He did say it would make things easier for him in some ways, bringing up inworld meetings, "I would like it whenever I hold it to be daytime."
"I run the development team," Oz stated, "beneath and around us is the operations team. They're the ones who really keep it going. We're the ones who change it every now and then." The operations team had to take care of "thousands and thousands" of simulators, "they do an amazing job." He talked about "just the other day" when they were rolling in new software on a rack of servers when there was a "catastrophic failure. ... a whole rack of stuff went down, and Second Life users did not notice." Jessica commented things had changed a lot since the old days when the Grid had to be taken offline when there was an update.
When asked if he used a non-Linden avatar, Oz stated almost all the time he spent inworld was as Oz Linden. He went on to say that employees of Linden Lab besides the Linden avatar also get a premium one, but he had forgotten the password to it. But he did have an ordinary one from "a few years" before he joined the company, "I use that one for testing when I need another avatar." He commented when he started, he seemed to get more anxious responses from the residents than he does now. He wasn't sure if that meant a change in the population, or if residents were more relaxed. He had been going around "as Brad Pitt with a flak jacket," and these days people are generally excited to see him.
When asked about any hobbies, Oz Linden did say that he had tried the Linden Realms game. He had also tried some one the games that the residents had come up with, though didn't say which ones. He did say he didn't have any building skills, adding when he was setting up his account, he handled the appearance part of the process to his son, "make this somewhat like me."
When asked about if there was anything upcoming he was looking forward to, he commented, "I'm going to leave most of the leaking to Ebbe, he seems to enjoy it." He stated there would be some experiences handed out that people should enjoy, though it would take some time. There were also other projects, "genuinely new stuff for Second Life. ... I'm not giving any hints though, we are working with some residents."
When asked if he had anything to do with the new grid in development, Oz commented he has a tendency "to ignore what foes on Project Sansar ... unless it's an all hands company meeting," saying they generally have some announcement about it then.
When asked if he intended to stay in his "current role," Oz commented, "I have no plans to change, I love my current role." He stated he wasn't much of a job hopper, but also, "this one's the most fun I've had in a long time."
Following that were some questions from the audience. These included the new Grid, "We'll see if in the end they manage to outdo everything we have in Second Life." Issues with Windows, such as support for XP discontinued after Microsoft no longer would, and testing Windows 10 for eventually support for that later, as the official viewer was "not officially supporting it just yet." When asked if the official viewer would soon have a 64 bit option,
Oz answered "at some point, I will try to carve out some resources. He did have one bit of advice for residents. He commented better memory for graphics would be better for the Second Life experience than a graphics card. It was at this point Oz crashed again, "You jinxed him Jess."
After Oz came back, he was asked if Linden Lab was working on it's own streaming version of Second Life with SL Go discontinued. Oz answered, "actually when SL go was shutting now, we had some discussions about whether we could pick up a streaming interface." But as one or two more companies seemed to be "making a go at it," they decided to wait and see. It was his observation that although this was intended for tablets, those who used SL Go to improve the performance on older computers, "that was the real loyal audience."
It was soon after that it was time for the discussion to end. "Thank you Oz for joining us," Saffia told him. Oz answered, "It was a lot of fun."
Chakat Northspring of Team Firestorm would later upload a video of the event. As of the writing of this article, no transcript was available.
Saffia Widdershins sent out a call for a meeting to discuss how to
keep the One Billion Rising event on February 14 in SL to continue and not just
be a one time 24 hour recognition of violence against women in the world. The
event itself was a way to recognize the real life event taking place all over
the world. There were demonstrations in many counties from one side of the world
to the other .http://onebillionrising.org/ some were marches, some were
singings, some were sudden dances. In my own state in the USA there was a hearing
going on at the state capital and a group showed up there and broke into the
song and dance.
The way it was done here, in SL, in this little
part of the universe, was to have magnificent art builds dedicated to the
issue, surrounding a party stage where people gathered from midnight
to midnight at this place in a universe that is open to people all over the
world, men, women and children as avatars and they came! Every minute of the
day there were four sims full of avatars who came to recognize, affirm that
there is a problem against girl children teens and adult women in this
21st century in the world.
The discussion led by Saffia at the meetings
Friday March 1 and Saturday March 2, were held at the Virtual Ability sim and were well
attended by those who had some contribution to the original event in some way
during or before the OBR in SL. There were numerous suggestions and ideas
presentedduring the meeting that went on for well over an hour . It is the first
of many such meetings I think.
Education in SL is a wonderful idea, but that education is not always
sitting in a classroom listening to lectures. How well does that go over in SL?
(although I do it in philosophy, lol) It can be as easy as being invited
by a friend to participate in a party, where you say “what is this about“ and
are suddenly educated to an issue you had no idea existed and become a student
of it or more, a part of it all. This IS education. This is to the
betterment of life here and outside of SL for you.
As a Customer Relations
Officer at the SL event I saw wonderful discussion going on around me during the
“party” and at the art pieces and at the greeting points. If you attended
and liked it all you may be interested in getting more involved . If so contact
Saffia ... with a notecard with your ideas or suggestions how to continue this
in SL. This is a universal issue and an easy way to get involved. Thanks to
Gentle Heron, a “volunteer” as she calls herself, the heart of
Virtual Ability, took notes and allowed us to use the site for a meeting.
