It’s been a very busy and productive 2023 for Second Life and our team is hard at work to make Second Life even better. The past year has seen several significant new features and improvements and we have quite a few more in the works (such as the PBR viewer, avatar customization ease including inventory thumbnails, a new mesh starter avatar, new LSL functions that improve the quality of life for scripters, and - yes! - a world and avatar-centered mobile-first Viewer). 

One of our goals is to make virtual land ever more accessible to empower our Residents to create and build amazing virtual communities and experiences. That’s why over the past five years, we’ve lowered land costs several times, slashed setup fees, and introduced initiatives to further help reduce land costs (such as introducing Plus, lowering price of Mainland for easier entry into Mainland ownership and making a Homestead available for purchase with no restrictions for Premium Plus members).

In recognition of our upcoming 20th anniversary, we are making additional changes to land ownership to enable Second Life communities - great and small:

• Dropping the monthly price of Full Regions by $20 for our 20th anniversary – effective immediately, Full Regions are now $209/mo.  
• Accepting Linden Dollars for land payments - a convenient new option for Premium Plus members. If you are a creator earning L$ inworld, you now won’t have to sell on the LindeX to pay for your region! 

Pictured: This chart shows Full Region price reductions over the past 5 years including today’s new pricing in USD. Upgrade to 30K Land Impact is available for all Full Regions for an additional $30 USD monthly. 

This latest land price reduction, increased development of Second Life features, improvements, and an unfortunate combination of world-wide economic factors including inflation, all bring additional costs to our operations. We’ve spent time considering ways to manage these costs to minimize the overall burden on our Residents. We decided to absorb many of the costs and distribute some by making a change to Linden Dollar buy and sell fees. Effective today, we are changing LindeX fees as follows:

• Increasing the buy fee to 10% with a minimum fee of $1.49 and a maximum fee of $14.99USD per transaction
• Increasing the sell fee to 5%

We know that many community members may have questions about these changes, so please see the FAQ below for more information and context. For further questions, please join the conversation in our community forums. We’ll also be discussing these changes and sharing more from our 2023 roadmap on a special edition of “Lab Gab” this Friday. Stay tuned for a “first look” preview of the work we’ve been doing on Mobile in the next few days, too.

FEE CHANGES FAQ

Q: Which types of land does the new pricing apply to?
A: Full regions now cost $209. Full regions with 30K upgrade cost $239. EDU prices are still 50% off.

Q: What about Buydown / Grandfather pricing? Homesteads? Open spaces? Mainland?
A: All other land pricing is unchanged. However, we did just recently roll out a Homestead benefit for Premium Plus and a Mainland discount. 

Q: How much land can I pay for in L$? How do I pay for Land in L$?
A:  You can pay for up to one private region (some restrictions apply) in L$ as long as you maintain a Premium Plus subscription. See this article for details.

Q: How will the fee changes impact the cost of my Linden Dollar purchases and sales?
A: It depends on the size of your Linden Dollar purchase in each transaction.

For example, smaller Linden Dollar purchases (roughly equivalent to about $15 USD or less*) will see no change in cost as the $1.49 minimum charge is equivalent to the cost of the existing flat fee. 

For larger Linden Dollar purchases (approximately $149 or higher*), the 10% fee will cap out at $14.99 maximum in a single transaction.

Sell fees will always be at 5% per transaction regardless of the size of the transaction. 

Q: How will I know the exact transaction fee that I’m charged before I make the purchase?
A: The transaction fee will be clearly visible at the point of sale on the Buy L$ page on the Secondlife.com website. The image below shows you an example of where to see the transaction fee before the purchase transaction is completed:

You will see the 10% transaction fee auto-calculate as you increase or decrease the amount of Linden Dollars you wish to purchase.

Q: Will the fee show up clearly on my transaction log or invoice?
A: Yes! You will see a dedicated line on both your invoice and transaction log for your “LindeX Buy/Sell Fee.”

Here is how it will look on your transaction log:

Here is how it will look on your invoice:

Q: When does the new fee rate take effect?
A: The new fee rate is effective today March 6, 2023.

Q: If I placed an order to buy or sell L$ before the March 6 change, but it has not yet been filled, will I be charged the old fee or the new fee? 
A: Buy Orders placed before the change will be charged at the old rate. Sell orders will be charged at the rate effective at time of L$ sell order fulfillment.

* Disclaimer: The actual dollar value may vary depending on the LindeX exchange rate, which automatically matches your order with the market rate at the time of the transaction. These estimates are accurate at the time of this blog post but are subject to change.

Our Support Team stands ready to answer any questions you may have about these changes.  Please log into your dashboard at https://support.secondlife.com to contact us. 

Happy spring! Thank you for all the suggestions sent in for future last names through our Last Name Suggestion Form. 

Today we are doing another big last name refresh by removing some of the older last name options and adding the following new ones from your suggestions:
Firehart
Ravenwood
Zennor
Whisperwind
Starforge
Xochitl
Finchfield
Azalea
Seabrink
Pawprint
Morehead
Osbourne

The following is a screenshot of the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also continue to suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, all new names are chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

New Android and iOS Alpha builds were published Wednesday, April 3rd.

We’ve been working hard for the last two months and are excited to share some major steps forward for the mobile client -- correctly displaying avatars and teleport improvements have been at the top of the list.

If your avatar depends on an avatar shape deformer, you should immediately notice the changes to avatar rendering! Avatars that didn’t render at all before, or didn’t look the way you intended, now render correctly.

Teleports are also greatly improved – no more getting stuck on a loading screen! If you’re on a parcel with streaming audio, you’ll now be able to use standard audio controls to stop/start and change the volume (tap main menu > tap the audio metadata at the bottom of the screen). 

We also found and fixed some issues with the order of group chat messages.

There are definitely some known issues (h/t flexiprims!), but overall we’re sure you’re going to love the changes we’ve made in this release.

Interested in checking out the Second Life mobile client? All Premium Plus subscribers are invited to participate - learn more about how to apply here.

If you’re already participating in the Private Alpha, we appreciate your time, participation and feedback! Please continue to report issues in our feedback portal and from the app (main menu > Give feedback or file a bug).

We’ve heard you, and know that there are lots of people waiting for wider access to mobile.  We are working hard to expand access - and we will keep you updated with details and timelines as soon as we can!

This is the first installment of a series of posts on moving Second Life issues from Jira to a new community engagement portal, feedback.secondlife.com as well as Github Issues.

jira.secondlife.com is Second Life's venerable bug reporting repository, development tracker and feature request system. It is used by thousands of users and the entire SL development team to envision, fix and build the future of Second Life.

Unfortunately, Jira Server, the software and license agreement we use to host Second Life's jira.secondlife.com site, is being discontinued and its official replacement cannot handle the number of users (over 300,000) that Second Life needs. Long story short: we need to move off of Jira before support ends in early February, 2024.

As part of this migration effort, we're excited to announce that we are opening up a new community feedback portal for early preview: feedback.secondlife.com. This site will host feature requests, bug reports and ultimately replace the public BUG project on jira.secondlife.com.

Support issues should still be reported to support.secondlife.com. We will keep using Freshdesk for all personal and content-sensitive tickets.

Where are my issues going?!

Your issues will be preserved and will not be deleted. Second Life has a 20 year history, and Jira represents one of its best sources for documentation. Jira will remain in operation until we migrate all issues to a new home on Github. We will share more information about working with the issue archive in a future blog post.

Feedback Portal

Second Life has a long history of collaboration with its residents. Rather than be bummed out by needing to leave Jira, we wanted to take this opportunity to select a community site that offers a better experience to both users and staff.

You can check out the new engagement portal at feedback.secondlife.com. This new site uses canny.io, a platform designed for receiving and responding to community feedback. We believe it will be a demonstrably better experience for residents due to features such as:

A public roadmap

We will be providing a public roadmap of user-suggested features which have been accepted and will be implemented. This will provide greater transparency into the future of Second Life and drive accountability for us, so that we deliver what we say we would. 😜

Multiple boards

The new feedback portal provides boards for different areas of Second Life: general feature requests and bugs, website bugs and features, scripting, etc. This will allow users to easily read up on bugs and feature requests pertaining to their area of interest, and allows triagers on our side to more easily figure out who should review new information.

Board features

• Markdown - Text can be formatted using a simplified version of Markdown
• Issue merging - Staff can merge issues instead of marking them as duplicate
• Trending Posts - Boards may be sorted by trending posts, which combines freshness and popularity

Better Process

We have come to realize that the effects of some of our Jira workflows were, intentionally or otherwise, rather adversarial to engagement (read: unfriendly.) We are fixing this by acknowledging the following problems and resolving them with different behavior on the new feedback site:

Conversations remain open
One of the most detrimental features of our public Jira workflow was how it locked conversations (comments, etc.) after tickets were marked as accepted. This is not the default behavior in the new portal: comments will be allowed throughout the entire lifecycle of the request!

Know when your idea ships
The "clone issue" process on Jira resulted in a large portion of user-submitted issues never being marked as completed when their respective issues were shipped. This will be much less of an issue on feedback.secondlife.com because issues will be directly tied to their internal development tickets and automatically closed when the change ships.

Voting is Encouraged!
Vote to your heart's content. We want to hear from you which issues are most important.

Behind the Scenes

Part of the rationale for moving to Canny, the software behind feedback.secondlife.com, as opposed to alternative issue tracking solutions is that it is a very focused product that is tailor made for responding to user feedback and prioritizing ideas. In addition, the platform fit the bill by providing the following necessary requirements:

• Single sign-on (SSO) - Users can log in using their Second Life account
• Github Integration - Posts can be linked to Github Issues, the platform we are adopting for software development, and automatically marked as completed when the Github issue is finished.
• Triage Tools - Canny provides a fast, unified view for triaging issues, prioritizing work, and getting it onto a roadmap.

Public issues are not the only thing moving off of Jira --internal tickets will be migrating to Github Issues. Canny provides easy ways to create and link issues on Github, providing a better workflow than the previous "Clone" system we used on Jira.

Open Source Collaboration

On the topic of Github, we will be making it easier for open source contributors to engage with Second Life project maintainers and our OSS projects through Github and Github Issues. Canny provides convenient integration with Github Issues, and we will be exploring ways of opening up Second Life development to open source contributors by more directly working in the open.

😖 Differences from Jira

Not everything is perfect. Both staff and residents have developed a lot of well established mental wiring, process and infrastructure around Jira. Canny is also not a Jira replacement: it's a community engagement tool which may require changes to behavior:

• Limited attachment support - Canny only supports image attachments. All other media types will need to be linked to.
• No private posts - If your report contains sensitive information then please redact/censor private information. If this is not possible, because it is material to the issue being filed, then please file a support ticket if it is personal in nature or security report if it represents a vulnerability.

Timeline and migration details

Jira access will end in early February. In the time leading up to that date we will be performing backups, migrating existing issues to their new home on Github, and allowing residents to use and provide feedback on the new engagement portal.

Details about the issue migration process, such as how to find Jira issues post jira.secondlife.com shutdown will be talked about in a future post. Until then, we are excited to see new feature requests and reports over at feedback.secondlife.com.

Conclusion

Making a significant change like this is no small task. Staff and residents alike have grown deeply familiar with jira.secondlife.com through countless hours spent using the site. We hope you will have patience as we migrate data, build documentation, develop new muscle memory and smooth out wrinkles in tools and processes. These updates, along with changes like moving our engineering organization to Github and Github Actions, are part of a larger initiative to modernize Second Life development. The future is exciting, and we hope you can bear with us as we drive down the path to get there.

We’re always working to improve Second Life, so we wanted to share with you a more detailed look at the additions and improvements we’ve been making recently. In this first edition, we’re sharing several updates from the last few months. We think there’s something for everyone, whether you are a creator, landowner, or you just use Second Life for your second life!

🎛️ User Interface

New Translations

With Version 6.6.12.57998, say Hola or Bonjour or Hallo or Ciao or Olá or Kon'nichiwa to updated UI translations for the following languages:

• 🇪🇸 Español (Spanish)
• 🇫🇷 Français (French)
• 🇩🇪 Deutsch (German)
• 🇮🇹 Italiano (Italian)
• 🇵🇹 Português (Portuguese)
• 🇯🇵 日本語 (Japanese)

Transparency Bug Fixes

We made the following transparency-related bug fixes in Version 6.6.13.580918:

The ‘Highlight Transparent’ function (accessed via Advanced->Highlighting and Visibility), was making highlighting textures opaque. We have fixed this problem.

Transparent objects were hiding when turning on highlights in the Beacons window. This is no longer the case so playing ‘transparent-object hide and seek’ will now be much easier.

Improvements to Estates Options

In Version 6.6.14.581101, we made improvements to the Estate options:

We increased the number of Estate Managers to 20 and Ban list entries to 750. That’s a big increase, and we hope these new limits will give you all the capacity you need.

We added a new option ‘Show Ban Lines On Collision’ so you can see your neighbor’s ban lines but only when you get very close to the parcel boundary.

👩‍💻 Scripting

A handful of new scripting enhancements are available on RC regions and will be rolled out to the entire grid in the coming weeks.

Coming soon: easier experience KVP data use

Experience KVP functions (llCreateKeyValue, llDeleteKeyValue, et al.) allow scripts associated with an Experience to store and retrieve arbitrary string key/value pairs. In the past, scripts using these functions needed to run on parcels or regions that had opted into the same Experience. Soon, scripts will be able to use KVP data regardless of whether or not the land they are on has enabled the Experience they are compiled with.

Coming soon: Prim click action can be set by llSetLinkPrimitiveParams

Users who wish to control click actions using llSetPrimitiveParams family of functions can now do so using the PRIM_CLICK_ACTION parameter.

🖥️ Miscellaneous

Simulator channel name is coming back

The channel name your region belongs to has been added back to the About Second Life window. This will make it easier to understand what features your region has as we release new functionality. 

Here you can see that the simulator channel name is ‘Second Life RC BlueSteel’.

🧪 Project viewer news

GLTF PBR Materials Viewer

Expanding material support with the ability to import and edit GLTF Physically Based Rendering (PBR) Materials will be a big step in the next wave of content creation in Second Life. The GLTF PBR Materials viewer is now available as a Release Candidate, offered to a small group of Residents, but anyone may install it. Visit Version 7.0.0.581684.html

At this time PBR Materials has limited availability on our Main grid (Agni) as a Beta Project and may be previewed on specific regions:

• Rumpus Room (and Rumpus Room 2, 3, 4 and 5)
• Preflight0 through 8 (Limited access)

Inventory Item Preview

Also available in RC is a Viewer with Inventory Item Previews. You will now be able to add preview images to your inventory items to help you find your favorite items more quickly. The option menu for inventory items, including folders, now has the option “Image.”  The image window offers a number of ways for choosing an image to attach to an inventory item of your choice. Best of all, there is no L$ charge for uploading an image as an item preview.

Merchants and creators can add previews to their delivery folders and items, and you will see those previews in your inventory with no extra effort on your part.
For textures and snapshots, you do not need to add previews yourself -- the Viewer will show previews automatically. You’ll see your texture packs and photo albums as you’ve never seen them before!

Single Folder View

The other new feature is what we call Single Folder View. This allows you to see the contents of a single inventory folder in its own window. 

Let’s say you want to put all of your shoes in a new folder “All Shoes” and another new folder “All Boots.”  You can create those folders, open a single-folder view on each of them, and drag items from your main inventory into those folders. No more scrolling and carefully aiming your cursor to drag into the intended folder!

Single folder view works well alongside the traditional scrolling view. You can use either of the views, or switch between them on a window-by-window basis. Single folder view is entirely optional for the traditionalists among you.

Single folder view also makes it easy to see item previews. By default, the single folder view will show you any previews attached to items inside that folder. 

😀 Emoji Viewer

This viewer is also in RC and is based on a contribution by Kitty Barnett, and adds the ability to insert emojis in text chat.

📱 Mobile Update

We are making great progress on Second Life on mobile -- our latest round of work includes some major improvements to avatar movement -- walking and running are so smooth now!  Stay tuned for our plans for a private beta! In the meantime, enjoy these screenshots:

🏡A Whole New Game of Homes

Coming very soon, the new Linden Home Store will make selecting your new home much easier. With this upgrade, we're putting the power of choice and control right at your fingertips.

The new Linden Home Store looks and works great on your mobile device’s browser. Whether you're on your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can now view and select from all Linden Homes.

By popular demand, you can browse all the Linden Homes even if you already own one, you are not logged in, you do not yet have a Premium subscription, or the Linden Home model you want is not currently available.

Follow our Featured News Blog and connect with us on Social Media for future Second Life News!

We previously announced a grace period following the release of multi-factor authentication support in the Viewer so that third-party viewers had time to implement it. Well, the "near future" we mentioned has arrived! We rolled out a login change today that requires MFA Capable viewers for accounts that have MFA enabled in their preferences. If a viewer is not MFA Capable yet, then those accounts will no longer be able to log into Second Life using that viewer.

If you haven't done so already, please see the wiki for details on the new login parameters needed to make your viewer MFA Capable.

If you haven’t turned on MFA for your own account, visit the knowledgebase article for instructions on how to do so. MFA provides additional protection in the event of a phishing incident or other password compromise. When you speak for your third-party viewer project, the authenticity of your voice in Second Life really counts!

UPDATE: Please note that MFA is opt-in and this only affects those Residents that have enabled MFA on their accounts. We recommend all Residents take advantage of this extra security feature!

We are pleased to announce two new inventory features today. We think you will find both of them very useful!

Inventory Item Preview

Many of us have very large inventories. You can now add preview images to your inventory items to help you find your favorite items more quickly. Looking for exactly the right shoes out of your huge collection? Adding previews to these items will make it much faster to find them. Then you can buy even more shoes -- or whatever it is you like to collect in SL!
Finding this new feature is easy. The option menu for inventory items, including folders, now has the option “Image.”  There is no L$ charge for uploading an image as an item preview.
Merchants and creators can add previews to their delivery folders and items, and you will see them in your inventory with no extra effort on your part.
For textures and snapshots, you do not need to add previews yourself. The Viewer will show previews automatically. You’ll see your texture packs and photo album as you’ve never seen them before!

Single Folder View

The other new feature is what we call Single Folder View. This allows you to see the contents of a single inventory folder in its own window. 
Reorganizing your inventory?  Let’s say you want to put all of your shoes in a new folder “All Shoes” and another new folder “All Boots.”  You can create those folders, open a single-folder view on each of them, and drag items from your main inventory into those folders. No more scrolling and carefully aiming your cursor to drag into the intended folder!
Single folder view works well alongside the traditional scrolling view you know and (maybe) love. You can use either view, or switch between them on a window-by-window basis. Single folder view is entirely optional for the traditionalists among you.
Single folder view also makes it easy to see item previews. By default, the single folder view will show you any previews attached to items inside that folder. Items without previews will appear in the usual way as lines of text. There are two other views -- all previews, or all text. It’s up to you, but our favorite is the combination view.

Project Viewer

To use these new features, you will need a viewer that supports them. Currently you can download the project Viewer from the Alternate Viewers page.

Examples of these features in action

Adding a preview to an inventory item:

Taking snapshots to add as previews for several inventory items:

Combination view in a single folder window showing a combination of items with and without preview images:

You can also use a texture already in your inventory to attach to an inventory item!

Saving a preview for Sky settings:

If you find issues or unexpected behavior, file a Jira issue! 

Mini FAQ

1. Is there a size limit on preview images? 
   Yes, a maximum of 256x256
2. What is the cost to upload preview images?
   It’s free!
3. Which items can preview images be applied to?
   • Clothing
   • Body parts
   • Gestures
   • Environment settings
   • Calling cards
   • Landmarks
   • Notecards
   • Scripts
   • Objects
   • Folders
4. What about no-mod items?
   You can add preview images to no-mod items as well.
5. Will inventory item preview persist?
   Yes, items with previews attached to them will persist when rezzed in world and taken back into inventory. Previews will also persist if an object is added to inventory and then taken back out.

The legendary music label Motown has officially opened its doors with an all-new presence in Second Life – and we are ready to celebrate!

Please join us inworld at Motown today between noon-3 pm PT to meet and interact with Lindens, Moles, and other members of the Second Life community in this soulful music experience, launched in partnership with Capitol Music Group and STYNGR.

This is your chance to hear some great music, hang out, and dance during the opening day at Motown, which features multi-station radio streams of classic and contemporary Motown songs, animated gestures, and much more! You can learn more about Motown in Second Life at second.life/motown.

Hope to see you there!

Motown

Experience classic and current Motown hits in an entirely new way! Meet new friends and dance in a music-filled virtual world that features multi-station radio streams of classic and contemporary Motown songs, animated gestures, and much more!

More Info Teleport

Motown and Second Life Featured on:

• Billboard
• Blockster
• Music Business Worldwide
• Yahoo Finance

To coincide with our 20th Birthday celebrations, we are excited to announce the introduction of a new generation of Second Life Mentors.

Second Life Mentors will be the first ripple in the pond of “Paying It Forward”. 

Paying it forward is an ancient concept but we are bringing it right up to date and beyond in our amazing Second Life Community and “Our Fantastic Future”!

There will be two teams of volunteer Mentors.
 
-The Second Life Mentors, welcoming and guiding New Residents arriving at the Welcome areas and helping with ongoing assistance. 

-The Bellisseria Mentors, introducing people to the many themes and choices of Linden Homes and assisting people to settle into their Community across the Bellisseria Continent.

We will welcome Mentors with all levels of knowledge and experience. The most important qualities will be patience, warmth, positivity, fun, and a focus on inclusion. Mentors will learn and develop new skills and information within our teams with ongoing skill-sharing, training, and Community development ideas to take forward and share with our wonderful fellow Residents.

SECOND LIFE
“OUR LIFE”

O - Orienteering 
U - Universal 
R - Residents 

L - Learning with 
I -  Inspiration 
F - Fun and 
E - Enthusiasm 

There will be many benefits for Mentors; new friends, social events, and gifts but most of all succeeding in the challenge of developing meaningful connections, inspiring a positive Community, and dedicating ourselves to happy, healthy fun. 

Helping others feeds the soul!

If you would like to get involved in mentoring please click the link of your choice below to apply.

Application to be a Second Life Mentor
Application to be a Bellisseria Mentor

Hello, Second Life creators and shoppers! In our constant efforts to enhance your shopping experience, we will be doing some infrastructure updates. While this is undoubtedly a positive step towards a more robust platform, it means there will be a brief period of downtime. We understand the inconvenience this may cause, and hope to minimize it!

Scheduled Downtime:

On Wednesday, May 31st, we will conduct a scheduled maintenance update that requires approximately one hour of downtime. During this period, the Second Life Marketplace will be temporarily inaccessible. Please note that during this downtime all shopping carts will be reset. This means that any items currently in your shopping cart will not be saved. 
We don’t want you to lose any items you had been keeping in your cart to purchase later, so please consider taking these steps below to keep track of them.  

Preparing for the Update:

To mitigate any inconvenience caused by the shopping cart reset, we recommend taking the following steps:

1. Finalize Your Purchases: Before the scheduled maintenance, we advise completing any pending transactions in your shopping cart. This will ensure that you don't miss out on any items you intended to purchase.

2. Make a List: Consider keeping the items you aren’t ready to purchase in either your favorites or your wishlist (you could even share your wishlist with your friends if you’d like!). This way, you can come back to them whenever you’re ready. 

We know it’s disruptive and we appreciate your patience while we work to upgrade the marketplace. If you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

Stay tuned for more updates and happy shopping!

We have been very pleased to see the response and feedback for last names. Thank you for all the suggestions sent in for future last names through our Last Name Suggestion Form. 

Today we are celebrating our mermaid community during MerMay with the release of the following mermaid-themed names, only available for a limited time:
Mermaid
Merrow
Seafarer
Fishtail

The following is a screenshot of the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also continue to suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, all new names are chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

One day you are in Second Life, minding your own business while you walk through your favorite store when all of the sudden you get a private message from someone with a link to an item on the marketplace. Without thinking about it, and curious what the item might be, you give it a click. The page loads up looking just like the marketplace, except you need to log in so you happily enter your username and password. Next thing you know, your linden dollar balance is suddenly gone, and you can no longer access your account. You just fell victim to a popular scam known as Phishing.

Phishing scams are a common form of online fraud that targets unsuspecting individuals by tricking them into revealing their sensitive information. The goal of these scams is to steal your passwords, credit card information, or other personal details. Phishing scams often take the form of emails, or in the case of our example, websites that look identical to the site you are used to browsing. To help protect yourself from these scams, it is important to know how to recognize and avoid them.

Fear not though, we have some tips to share on how to keep your online accounts safe from phishing scams:

1. Be wary of unsolicited messages or emails. If you receive a message from an unknown sender, or really even a friend (you never know if their account was compromised), be cautious before clicking on any links. It’s always best to err on the side of caution.
2. Check the website’s URL. Before logging into the website, make sure you’re on a legitimate site. A phishing website will often have a similar looking URL, but with slight variations. Check for spelling errors, or subtle changes in the website’s address.
3. Look for security indicators. Legitimate websites will often have security indicators, such as a padlock icon or “https” in the URL, this indicates that your information is being transmitted securely. If you are not sure if a URL is legitimate, you can always send in a support ticket and ask for clarification.
4. Use strong passwords. A strong password is one that is at least 8 characters long and contains a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. You should also use a different password for each of your online accounts to reduce the risk of multiple accounts being compromised if one password is stolen.
5. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). This will add an extra layer of security to your account by requiring a second form of identification in order to access your account to make account changes.

The important thing to remember is to be vigilant. Phishing scams are constantly evolving, so always remember to take a moment, think about what you are going to be clicking on and do not let a sense or urgency rush you to do something until you are certain it is safe to do so.

By following these tips, you can reduce your risk of falling victim to a phishing scam and protect your account, and your linden dollars.

We are pleased to announce a new feature to enable Estate-level access management of scripted agents. As of Wednesday’s deploy, a new flag to prevent identified scripted agent accounts from entering a region has been added to all regions.

What is this feature exactly?

• deny_bots is a new estate-level flag for denying identified bot accounts access to a region.
• When deny_bots is ON, all scripted agents that are not explicitly listed in the estate’s Allowed Access list will be denied access to all of the regions within the Estate.
• Scripted agents that have Estate Manager privileges for an estate will also be able to access regions inside the estate. regardless of the estate's deny_bots setting.
• When deny_bots is OFF, scripted agents are treated the same as any other avatar with regard to estate access.

Details on using this new setting can be found here. You will need to download the latest version of the official Second Life Viewer to manage access on your estate through the Region/Estate floater - or you can use the Region Debug Console (available on the Develop menu) on any viewer. 

We've also updated our scripted agents policy, which can be found here.

We hope this new capability to manage the privacy and comfort of your Second Life gives many of you an extra measure of peace of mind!

Have thoughts? Join the discussion here.

Second Life Premium Plus members already get many benefits that help them get the most out of Second Life…and now we’re partnering with SpeedLight to add even more value!

The Speedlight mobile app is already popular with many of our community members since it enables Residents to stay connected with Second Life while on the go, and now Premium Plus subscribers get access to additional Speedlight benefits: no online time limitations along with prioritised online support. Now you can enjoy Second Life on your mobile devices (or in a web browser) with the freedom to stay connected as long as you like! To get these benefits, all you need to do is access Second Life using SpeedLight with your Premium Plus account.

As a reminder, Premium Plus membership also gives you the following benefits:
- L$3,000 signup bonus
- L$650 weekly stipend
- up to 2,048 zero-fee mainland, 140 groups
- free assets upload
- concierge phone support
- other benefits (check https://accounts.secondlife.com/change_membership/ for the full list)

Additionally, Premium Plus members who use SpeedLight now get these benefits:
- unlimited online time at SpeedLight
- advanced 3D World view
- prioritised support (tickets and live chat)

Login to SecondLife with your Premium Plus account at SpeedLight, check for the "Premium Plus" badge and enjoy your Second Life! Not a Premium Plus member yet? Now is the perfect time to upgrade so you can take advantage of this all-new benefit!

*Please note that avatars in images are not from Speedlight and Speedlight is a third-party viewer listed in our third-party directory.

We have been very pleased to see the response and feedback for last names. Thank you for all the suggestions sent in for future last names through our Last Name Suggestion Form. 

Today we are doing our biggest last name refresh by removing some of the older last name options and adding the following new ones from your suggestions:
Jeon
Foxtail
Varela
Kealoha
Primdashian
Spicy
Costanza
Gupta
Softpaw
Vandervoort
Tordenskjold
Peabody
Whiskers
Quack
Pixelbottom
Blossom
Bork
Nightingale
Sausage
Fibble

The following is a screenshot of the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also continue to suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, all new names are chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

We know there has been quite a bit of discussion about Scripted Agents/NPCs lately.  Linden Lab is committed to continuing its excellent track record of keeping your personally identifiable information safe and secure.  We understand that there is a certain amount of information a “bot” service has been collecting and displaying on their third party website that is causing unease in our community, and we’re working on the best way to address these concerns.

Linden Lab is having conversations with the parties involved, however this should not be taken as an endorsement of any sort. We have spoken several times in an attempt to get a full picture of the situation. These discussions have been mutually beneficial, and will help us as we look to update our policy on Scripted Agent/NPC operation in Second Life.

We recognize the need for improvements in specific areas, so in the near future we will be making adjustments to policies where needed.  We have seen many requests from the community with a wide array of suggestions, and we appreciate all earnest and civil engagement. Internal discussions will continue beyond the Scripted Agent/NPC Policy, and any programmatic changes will be communicated as those roll out.

Thank you to everyone who engaged in this topic and added your voice.  While we have had to shut down several discussions that became unproductive, we have welcomed feedback through support contacts and have been using this feedback to inform our decision-making. We are listening, and are working to make sure that Second Life is a welcoming and engaging world for all our Residents (and their automata). 

A Return to Our Roots…and a New Vision for the Future

As 2022 comes to a close, it is time for our annual look back at some of the year’s most notable developments and accomplishments in Second Life. The year 2022 began with a bang as original founder Philip Rosedale returned to Second Life as a strategic advisor. Philip’s pioneering vision for the now-mainstream concepts of virtual economies, cultures, and communities played a crucial role in the launch and subsequent success of Second Life since its inception almost two decades ago - and we are excited to work closely with him once again to shape our future direction.

One of the newest Second Life initiatives championed by Philip has been the long-awaited Preview Grid availability of "Puppetry", which adds avatar “expressiveness” either via camera-based movement or connecting the viewer to motion-based capture hardware for a whole new level of interaction and connectedness. Our announcement of this work was among the most-shared posts on our social channels for the year, and we’ve opened up the development of this feature to community contributions.

The introduction of Event Regions makes it easier to hold large-scale events with expanded capacity for more concurrent visitors - owners and renters of Event Regions can host up to 175 avatars and get a 20% script performance boost along with other benefits. 

Second Life membership got a power-up too, with the introduction of Premium Plus, which rolled out to a steaming hot reception this summer. The introduction of the Plus membership tier later in the year has allowed residents to dip their toes into the waters of SL membership and mainland ownership. Everyone can find a level that fits their Second Life needs at the moment, and we hope the expanded offerings will continue to serve you well. 

This year, Residents spent nearly 320 million hours inworld, and we hope that you were having a blast the whole time!

2023 Roadmap

Want a sneak peek at the shape of things to come in 2023?  Here’s a look at what’s already in the works for the new year and beyond:

In 2022 we started working on a number of graphical improvements including physical based rendering (PBR), GLTF adoption, and reflection probes - with the intent of shipping our first iteration of these features early in the coming year.

Creators will be able to use tools like Substance Painter to generate GLTF materials to import into Second Life. PBR will leverage the new material types and sample from reflection probes for environment reflections and lighting. Second Life is about to get a lot more shiny.

All the reflection probes work set us up nicely for a much requested feature. Yes, Planar mirrors are also on our roadmap for 2023!

Also in the works for 2023:

• Avatar customization improvements to simplify creating your virtual identity, including inventory thumbnails to give a preview of what’s sitting in those boxes
• New user experience upgrades to better fuel retention, engagement, and growth across key parts of the new user journey
• New centralized "hubs" to better connect residents to the communities that match their passions and interests
• First peek at a world and avatar centered mobile-first Second Life experience
• New LSL functions that improve the quality of life for scripters
• Even more performance improvements to increase the quality and visual fidelity of the Second Life experience
• …and much more!

2022 Highlights

In addition to the Second Life innovations noted above, there were several other key accomplishments in 2022 worth spotlighting.

Bringing Second Life Back into the Conversation

In 2022, the renewed general interest in the Metaverse translated into significant media opportunities for Second Life. Over 21,000 articles and other stories included Second Life in 2022 –  nearly 5 times greater than the amount of media coverage we received in 2021.  We are especially proud of the range and scale of the media coverage – everything from community forums to more specialized technology press as well as some of the world’s largest media properties including the BBC, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. The four part Wall Street Journal podcast, How to Build a Metaverse, was particularly excellent coverage.

New Options, New Opportunities

In response to community feedback for more Premium account options, we debuted two all-new membership opportunities (Plus and Premium Plus) - each with added features and extras to match any budget. Check out our Premium overview page for a comparison of all benefits.  In addition to land, groups, stipends, priority entry and multitude others, we’ve also partnered with a third party viewer - Speedlight - to give Premium Plus members unlimited online time and priority support access on "Speedlight" - a mobile and browser- based viewer which allows you to stay connected to Second Life while on the go. 

Premium Plus members are now also able to purchase a Homestead region with their membership with no additional requirements for a full region. We’ve seen a lot of interest here, and are happy to be able to offer this valuable benefit.

By far, the most popular perks of both the Premium and Premium Plus membership are Linden Homes, which give Residents the opportunity to move into a ready-made home crafted in a variety of styles - including the new-for-2022 Newbrooke and Sakura themes. Could another new theme be around the corner? Saddle up and stay tuned…and expect even more new extras and enhancements to the various Premium offerings in the coming year.

Additionally, we continued to rotate in new “Last Name” options for community members seeking to better craft their identity and personas, including limited-time availability of several in-demand and specialized last names. Demonpaws, anyone?

Improved Performance & Viewer Enhancements

Our engineering team continues to make general performance updates to increase the quality of the Second Life experience. For example, there was improved support for complex scripting capabilities, often doubling the number of scripts that can run in regions! We also migrated our code to GitHub to help improve and modernize our tooling and better support the open source community.

There were also several backend improvements made to logins, including a fix to new device email notifications for newly created accounts, performance improvements for the viewer login handshake, and improvements to metrics and diagnostics for our internal tools. We also added the long-requested Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to help community members better protect their accounts. 

Other modifications to the Official Viewer were made based on community feedback, including improvements to Viewer profiles for a more responsive experience (including streamlined availability to Groups, which is now more accessible on the main Viewer profile tab).

Linkset Structured Data

In November, we introduced Linkset Structured Data (LSD), a new way for LSL to store data. The feature has been covered by external blogposts, and has been touted as a game changer for scripters who need persistent storage of data.

New Partnerships & Possibilities

One of the biggest community developments of 2022 was Second Life’s acquisition of several SL-related assets of CasperTech, which will help ensure that its popular merchant and vendor services will continue to operate smoothly with even more enhancements in the future.

Our parent company Linden Lab also announced that Tilia LLC,  the all-in-one payments platform that powers the Second Life economy. secured a strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments. The investment will help enhance its current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanded pay-out currencies and support services.

There were several exciting entertainment and media industry partnerships in Second Life over the past year, too. The year started strong with the Metaverse Fashion Week event, held inworld in February. The event, which was covered in major outlets including Vogue and Glamour, included an elaborate inworld runway show that debuted an all-new virtual fashion collection from designer Jonathan Simkhai (who debuted the physical collection of the same fashions the next day in NYC).

Acclaimed DJ and musician Eli Brown launched a unique interactive music experience and nightclub in Second Life in partnership with London Records.

Our partnership with Film Threat also continued with several virtual cinema screenings, including the premieres of Draxtor Despres’ documentary “Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times” and Huckleberry Hax’s full-length shot-in-SL machinima “WAARHEID.”

Community Celebrations, Marketing Milestones

All of the media attention throughout the first half of the year helped to heighten interest in our SL19B Celebration, which was the most successful birthday event ever with an all-time record for attendance and participation! The 24-region event housed 225 community exhibits and the related music events featured a total of 346 performers! We also saw record engagement at the SL19B Shop & Hop 20-region shopping event, which racked up all-time record sales for the 400 participating merchants. So, who is ready for SL20B?!!

In 2022, we opened the all-new Second Life University to help better educate both new and existing community members on how to get the most out of our virtual world. This initiative includes a series of both live and produced community videos educating participants on a variety of topics including Viewer Basics, dressing your avatar, and much more.

In addition, the community team debuted a new weekly email newsletter for those who want to stay connected with regular updates on the latest news and events each week.

Happy Holidays from Second Life

Thank you to the entire Second City community for your ongoing loyalty and support. While we will continue to work hard at Linden Lab to improve Second Life, we know that it is the Residents and your many creative contributions that form the heart and soul of our shared virtual world. Our Metaverse, if we may. 

Have a great holiday,

The Second Life team

Happy December! To celebrate the winter holiday season, we are releasing new last names today! ❄️

The following winter-themed names are only available for a limited time:  
Tinseltail
Elf
Mistletoe
Gingerbread
Noelle
Claus
Blitzen

These names for winter are seasonal and may come back around this time next year, for a limited time.

The following is a screenshot of the full list of current last names available:

We will continue to make additional updates to the available last name pool, so if these options aren’t for you, stay tuned for future updates. You can also suggest your favorite name on our suggestion form, the new names were chosen from there! 

For more information about the costs and how-tos involved in name changes, read the Changing your username FAQ. Click to change your name now!

To kick off the holiday season, where the days are short and the air is cold, we’ve got something to keep you warm: a special offer for Premium and Premium Plus subscribers!

Premium and Premium Plus subscribers will pay no setup fees for any new regions purchased during the month of December. Only pay the first month’s maintenance fee and move right in.  

Here’s how to take advantage of this offer:

• Have a Premium or Premium Plus account
• Order a region between December 1 and December 31, 2022 by filing a support ticket with your order request using the Land and Region -> Order Private Region ticket type
• Region delivery will occur within 2 business days once all details have been verified. For quickest delivery:
  • Please note that region names must adhere to our naming guidelines
  • If you need assistance finding grid coordinates for your region, please review the Choosing a location for your Private Region help article
• You will be billed for the first month’s maintenance fee at the time of delivery

For more information about Private Regions, please review the Private Regions knowledge base article and Private Region Pricing.

Please note that in order to purchase a Homestead Region, you must either be a Premium Plus subscriber (additional information here) or own at least one Full Region.

We can’t wait to see what you’ll do with the place!

As we approach the holidays, we’re excited to roll out several shiny new updates to our offerings. 

From now on, our European residents will no longer need to pay VAT charges on any of our membership plans.

Continuing the theme of giving you more for less: We’re reducing the price of owning your piece of Second Life. We want to put Mainland ownership within reach of many more residents, because we think having land of your own is one of the key parts of Second Life. In addition to the free allotment that comes with each membership level, we’re lowering the price at 1/8 region (8,192 m2) and higher by over 5%. As of today, the new pricing looks like this:

And how about that new membership plan? We’re calling it Plus! We already have Premium Plus, but this is Plus for the rest of us! For just $5.50/month (annual billing), you can take advantage of these newly reduced mainland prices without having to shell out for all of the other Premium features. 

Plus lets you dip your toe in the water -- get yourself a plot of mainland, a few more groups to play around in, and enjoy a weekly stipend -- all for the price of a pumpkin spice latte. Unlike the latte, the joy will last you all month!

So what are you waiting for? Give Plus a try and enhance your Second Life.

For more information about Plus, read the Plus Membership FAQ. For more information about all of our membership plans, check the Knowledge Base.

Are you looking for a way to stay informed about all the latest destinations and events happening on the grid? Do you want Second Life breaking news delivered directly to your inbox? Signup for our Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter! 

For a while now we’ve been sending a weekly email to a small group of our most active Residents and the clicks show that many of you enjoy receiving these exclusive updates directly in your inbox. If you have not been receiving these weekly emails from us, now is your chance to sign up for them! You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link at the bottom of any email.

Our newsletters usually include some of our latest videos of the week along with links to different events or destinations and an image from one of our Residents that is selected as the Fresh Look of the week!

For a chance to have your Destination featured, submit it to the Second Life Destination Guide.

For a chance to be featured in Fresh Looks, submit your image to the Official Second Life Flickr Group! Did you know we just hit ONE MILLION IMAGES AND VIDEOS in the group? All submitted by our wonderfully creative Residents!

Email isn’t the only way you can stay on top of all of our latest news. You can also follow us on various social networks along with keeping an eye on our community blogs.

As featured in the October 21 edition of Lab Gab - we’re excited to announce a new Premium Plus benefit available beginning today, November 1, 2022.  Premium Plus members are now eligible to purchase up to one Homestead on their account, without the requirement of a full private island region.  

Premium Plus members who wish to take advantage of this new benefit will need to maintain their Premium Plus account status, in good standing, for the duration of ownership of the Homestead region on their account. In the case of a downgrade to a lower subscription level, it will be necessary to cancel or transfer the Homestead to another Resident eligible for owning Homestead regions.

To place an order for your new Homestead, please go to support.secondlife.com and submit a Support Ticket under the following category:

Land & Region > Order Private Region

Fill out that form including the unique name you prefer and location on the grid for placement.  A support agent will be in contact with you soon to discuss your request.  Region names must adhere to our naming guidelines.  For more information about Private Regions, please review the Private Regions knowledge base article and Private Region Pricing.

There is no change to Homestead ownership for all other accounts: everyone is still able to own Homestead regions as long as there is at least one Full private region owned on that account as well. 

As a reminder, Homesteads cost US$149 for the first month with setup and US$109 per month thereafter, plus applicable VAT and taxes.

And, of course, if you have any questions, please reach out to our Support Team and they will be happy to assist.

From time to time, we make changes to Second Life’s Terms and Conditions in order to improve the documents, update and/or clarify policies, and keep the Terms current - all of which assist in governing your relationship with Linden Lab. Our next update will take place automatically on October 31, 2022.

Here’s what’s new in this update:

• We clarified certain functions associated with the LindeX as well as the terms applicable to orders placed on the LindeX.
• We added a section describing the terms applicable to your use of Stored Value Accounts, including your relationship with Tilia LLC. 

By continuing to use our services after the changes take effect, you agree to be bound by those changes. No further action is needed from you to accept such changes. However, if you would prefer to decline them, then you will need to close your Second Life account prior to October 31, 2022.

We’re excited to share with the Second Life community some news about Tilia LLC, the all-in-one payments platform that powers the metaverse. Tilia  was originally built and continues to support the Second Life economy.

Tilia today announced that it has secured a new strategic investment from J.P. Morgan Payments. In addition to the investment, Tilia is also working with J.P. Morgan Payments to further enhance Tilia’s current capabilities throughout its processing platform including providing increased payment and payout methods, expanding pay-out currencies and support services.
Read the full announcement at Tilia.io

Over the past few weeks, The Wall Street Journal has released a four-part podcast series exploring Second Life’s pioneering origins and rich 19-year history. It includes in-depth interviews with Philip Rosedale (founder of Second Life) and employees and Residents that have made a powerful impact on Second Life’s growth and history. 

Today marks the release of the fourth and final episode so you can now listen to the full podcast series with complete transcripts also available at each link: 

How to Build a Metaverse, Part 1: Genesis 

How to Build a Metaverse, Part 2: Avatars Behaving Badly 

How to Build a Metaverse, Part 3: Prime Time

How to Build a Metaverse, Part 4: Why Build a World?

Whether you are a long-time Resident or new to Second Life, we encourage our community members to take a listen and learn more about our past and future in this in-depth podcast series. If you like what you hear, please share it with your friends on social media and (as always) tell your friends about Second Life, too!