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.

Are you a Second Life blogger that is looking to expand your reach to a wider audience? If so, then you’ll want to consider opting in to join the new Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN). 

This new community initiative aims to promote high-quality, independent blog content to the Second Life community via high-visibility channels including the Second Life Community pages, social media channels and eventually the Official Second Life Viewer login page. Examples of the type of content we wish to promote include how-to tutorials, fashion makeovers and/or looks, community and event news and destination walk-throughs.

The Second Life Blogger Network aims to drive traffic directly to your own blog via summaries of and links to curated posts selected from participating bloggers including the use of a brief text intro using the opening sentences of your post and usually one related image from the post. Readers will be directed to click through a link that directs them to your site to read the entire article or blog post.

This is your opportunity to reach a wider audience for your own Second Life blog! Participation in this new promotional program is non-exclusive and free. We encourage bloggers to continue to also work with other community blogger networks (such as BVN*) and inworld groups for the promotion and distribution of their original editorial content.

Interested? Here’s how to participate:

1. Review the SLBN Terms & Conditions and Content Guidelines. This initiative does not aim to influence the editorial content of your independent blog, but we do have standards for the text and image content of those posts that we will promote. For example, images with nudity and/or copyright-violating content will not be considered for promotion. (Please note that there has been an update to the Terms & Conditions on September 28, 2021, under #2 Conditions.)    

2. If you want to participate, fill out the submission form and consider adding the optional Second Life Blogger Network badge to your website. You can grab the badge and learn about guidelines for placement here.

3. Once you have opted-in, you are eligible to participate! We will then watch your blog for consideration for potential inclusion in our curated Community News thread and social media channels. 

4. Linden Lab staffers will frequently review posts from participating bloggers. While not all of your new posts will be selected each day, we do aim to promote several entries during the week from the pool of participating bloggers.

5. Want to opt-out and no longer participate? Simply let us know by selecting the opt-out notification on the submission form and we’ll stop monitoring your blog for our curated news thread.  

6. Opting in does not guarantee that you will be featured. If you have further questions about SLBN, you can email editor@lindenlab.com. 

That’s it! Ready to get started? Check out the Community News blog to see examples of the types of independent blog content that we’re already promoting. We’re thrilled to already welcome bloggers Inara Pey (Modemworld.me), Sasy Scarborough (sasyscarborough.com) and Kess Crystal (theglamoursauce.com). Will you be next? 

We also spoke to Kess about her group, BVN and announced out Official SLBN on our live-streaming show Lab Gab with Xiola and Strawberry - you can catch the replay below.

* Note: The Second Life Blogger Network is not officially affiliated with the Blogger & Vlogger Network (BVN) of Second Life, but we encourage our community to check them out at bvnsl.com!

Due to a changing regulatory climate, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to sunset a very popular sales mechanism for content in Second Life.  It’s widely known as "gacha", and is defined by a chance-based outcome as a result of a payment.  

We know that creators plan their content releases far in advance and will need to re-tool their products, so to mitigate the impact to those affected, we are giving a 30-day grace period, until midnight SLT on August 31.  After that time, selling content via gacha machines will no longer be permitted in Second Life.  Enforcement won’t start until September 1; after that date an Abuse Report for “Gaming Policy Violation” will be the preferred method of reporting this content to Linden Lab.  

We will continue to allow any sales where a payment is given for a known item, which means that items that had been purchased as “gacha” will be allowed to be re-sold as long as the buyer knows in advance the item and quantity they will receive. We will, of course, still allow fatpacks, and any other currently-allowed distribution mechanisms. 

We did not make this decision lightly and we understand that it will impact creators as well as event organizers and certainly the shoppers! We look forward to fun creative ways of engagement that will come instead.  

We realize that this announcement may leave the community with questions.  This forum thread is going to be monitored and we will answer any related questions in there. 

We have developed an FAQ to assist with answering some of the most common questions we are being asked.  This list is not exhaustive, and we will continue working to get answers and add them here.

Q:  Is it possible to extend the policy deadline?

A:  We are sorry that we are not able to further extend the policy deadline.  However, we have been able to extend the enforcement of the policy change an additional 30 days.  To be clear, starting on September 1 we expect gacha as a sales mechanism to cease. However we will start with warnings, and any enforcement of the policy as it would be applied on an account will not begin until after September 30.

Q:  How are breedables impacted by this policy change?

A:  This current policy change and deadline does not apply to breedables or other life simulation products.  At the present we are working with external counsel on the subject of breedables.  If any action is required we will make a separate announcement and have a separate timeline associated with it. 

Q:  Will popular games like 7seas be impacted by this policy change?

A:  No, because the purchase of bait to go “fishing” is a purchase being made of a known item, and also the fish you catch while playing the game are non-transferable.  To be clear, if they are not currently, they must be going forward.

Q: How are subscription boxes affected?

A: Subscription boxes are not affected as long as all subscribers are getting the same content box. Different items being sent to different subscribers on a chance basis is not allowed. 

Q:  How are Linden Homes affected?

A: Linden Homes are not impacted by this policy change.  Linden Lab owns the homes and they are not transferable.  

There are still several great questions which we are working to answer with our legal team.  We will update with additional information as soon as possible.
 

Additional FAQ’s for August 5, 2021:

Q:  Should any newly developed sales mechanism or newly created items be called “gacha” going forward?

A:  No, as we would like to eliminate any confusion with the usage of the term going forward.

Q:  Is a game that requires skill to win the prize you want permitted going forward?  For example, you throw a dart and you must hit a certain number to get the prize corresponding to that number.

A:  This would need to go through the Skilled Game review process and be presented in a Skilled Gaming region, if approved.

Q:  I am selling an item that is known, paid for and delivered to a purchaser, and for each purchaser they are entered into a prize drawing where randomly selected people who bought the item may receive a rare item as a result of the drawing, is this permitted?

A:  You must also provide a free, concise and easy way for anyone to enter into the random drawing with an equal chance to win.

Q:  Can I sell an item, and also then include an unknown random item attached as a bonus? For example, Like a buy one, get one free (BOGO), but the free item is the random/unknown item.

A:  No

Q:  Could a “conveyor belt” system work?  

Example:  The vendor board selects an item at random and displays it for purchase.  That item remains on display and available for purchase until a buyer touches the vendor which locks it to them for purchase.  This allowed the buyer to purchase the item and deliver it.  The vendor unlocks and then selects another item at random and displays it for purchase and the cycle repeats.

Example image here and credit to Nadi Vemo for the approved vendor design.

A:  Yes, as long as the item currently being purchased is known. Note however that you should discontinue the use of the “gacha” term for these sales. 

Q:  But what about breedables (again)?

A:  If you buy a brown cat, and a blue cat (as examples), as long as you knew you were getting a brown cat and a blue cat at the time of sale, this is acceptable at the present including the various unknown traits they may come with or develop.  Secondarily, when those cats make little kittens with unknown outcomes, this is also acceptable.  Lastly, the resale of any breedables will require at the time of purchase that the purchaser knows what they are purchasing at the root level (for example, it is a blue cat).  

Q:  What about my specific idea, you didn’t cover it here?

A:  We wish we could cover all the great ideas we’ve seen proposed to date. Sadly we can’t address them all and if there are any questions or proposed ideas that would suggest any other permutations on the policy, we recommend a simple and thoughtful approach to stay within the boundaries of the policy.  Failing that, please feel free to contact customer support.

If we see more areas that we need to cover, we will look at doing another FAQ update next week.
 

We are so excited to be officially launching our Second Life Premium Plus offerings today! The Premium Plus membership level is designed for the most dedicated Second Life Residents with more weekly stipends, more groups, more mainland, and even more of all the things you love!  There’s only one thing there’s less of - fees. Premium Plus subscribers get free uploads for sounds, textures, and animations, free recurring events, lower group fees, and did we mention - $15 Name Changes?!

The all-new Premium Plus is available for $29.99 per month and $249 per year with a special limited time promotional price of $24.99 per month. Not ready for Premium Plus? You can still continue to enjoy our existing Premium offering, which is available for $11.99 per month and $99 per year. 

Our Premium membership has been a fantastic value for many years, and we’ll continue to grow the benefits for both Premium and Premium Plus. Check the comparison chart below to see which membership level suits you best, sign up today, and get that signup bonus!

UPDATE: Please read the Premium Plus FAQ for more information.

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.

As the end of 2023 approaches, Second Life is entering an exciting and pivotal moment in its development and evolution. The past year has seen the release of several new features and breakthroughs highlighted by the Private Alpha release of our Mobile Viewer.  

Imagine experiencing Second Life anywhere, anytime through your mobile device. For the first time, you’ll be able to stay connected to your friends and communities - no matter where you are.  

We believe that Second Life Mobile has the potential to transform the way people experience and engage with our virtual world forever. We are grateful for our early Alpha testers’ feedback and impressions - they are helping us move forward already …and we can’t wait for the entire Second Life community to check it out in the coming year as it enters into wider release. 

2024 Roadmap

So, what else can you expect in the coming year?

More About Mobile

In 2024, everyone will be able to experience the magic of Second Life in the palm of their hands. While the early Private Alpha release includes some popular and much-requested features, we expect that mobile will quickly evolve to more closely align with the desktop functionality as the year progresses. Eventually, you’ll see innovative mobile-specific features that take full advantage of the flexibility and, well, mobility of being freely untethered from your desktop.

AI & Other Innovations

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (virtual or otherwise), you’ve probably heard a thing or two about the rise of AI over the past year. For Second Life to remain relevant as a progressive platform that serves, empowers, and entertains our communities and creators, we know that we must find the right balance in embracing some aspects of AI while also preserving and protecting what we all know and love about Second Life. 

In the coming year, we plan to carefully explore some cutting-edge use of AI in Second Life including experimental use of smart AI-driven chatbots to help greet, educate, and mentor newcomers. We know that there are additional opportunities to integrate AI across all aspects of Second Life, but we also know that AI can be a polarizing topic and there are many sensitivities on how (and if) we should explore AI integration at all. We've already established internal policies governing the selection and use of AI tools with user privacy as the foremost consideration. Our goal is to find the right balance to bring some AI advancements and innovations into the virtual world – but only in a way that respects the rights of content creators, while also advancing the overall Second Life creator ecosystem and quality of the overall community experience.

After the much anticipated release of PBR Materials, we are looking forward to Third-Party Viewers integrating the functionality so that everyone in Second Life can enjoy the new shiny. The early experiments from our community have been so fun! In the meantime, the graphics team is working on the next set of updates including PBR materials support for terrain, true mirrors (planar reflections), and the long term goal of supporting GLTF Mesh Import & Hierarchy. 

That’s not the only excitement awaiting creators in the coming year - we are also focusing on improvements and extensions to our scripting capabilities, taking a look at tools for creating complex and compelling combat systems, poking at the animation import pipeline … because we know that every time we make things better for our creator communities, they make things better for everyone!

Something Spicy

Second Life turns 21 in 2024…and, to celebrate, we are turning attention to the spicier side of Second Life with some bold and innovative new adult-friendly initiatives. Something wickedly wonderful is coming soon…

We’ll be taking the sheets off this mystery initiative and sharing more bedroom secrets soon…so stay tuned!

Improving the New User Experience

Improving the first-time experience for newcomers continues to be a top priority - and in 2024 you’ll see us continuing to tweak and innovate on this early introduction to Second Life. For example, we recently began testing an all-new Community Hub complete with human greeters and mentors that are eager and available to help educate and enlighten newcomers on all aspects of Second Life. We’ll continue to iterate and improve the Hub, too. We’re at work on a Community Exhibition expansion to the Hub that will more easily and quickly connect our newest Residents to the many communities and experiences across Second Life.

New Residents are also benefiting from the recent debut of Senra starter avatars, making easier work of avatar customization at the very beginning of their Second Life journey. We’ve got updates to the customization experience and fun new wardrobe choices coming - and we’re looking forward to the community-created Senra content too!

2023 Highlights

There’s a lot of promise and potential for the coming year, but we also want to reflect on some of the key accomplishments and improvements from 2023.

Improved Performance & Viewer Enhancements

In addition to the introduction of PBR Materials mentioned earlier, there were improvements to Group Chat History and the debut of Inventory Item Preview and Single Folder View which helps Residents more easily manage and find items in their inventory.  In the background, we’ve been doing work to improve performance during teleport. 

Additionally, we unveiled more improvements to help community members seek and find items and places in Second Life. For example, Updates to Marketplace Search and improvements to the Destination Guide also help our community find the items and places that matter most to them.

We also took steps to make Second Life more secure with various security improvements including enforcement of Viewer Login MFA.

Improving the Land & Home Experience

Buying and managing land got a lot easier over the past year, as we debuted the all-new Linden Home Store to make selecting your new home simpler. Several new Linden Homes themes also debuted in 2023, including Ranch, and Fantasy Treehouses. We also ended the year with drop of the new Mediterranean Premium Plus homes! With all these Linden Homes choices, it is now easier than ever for people to explore all the new and classic themes inworld via an all-new centralized Linden Homes demo region in the BelliHub!

We’ve also made additional improvements to Estate Options and added Scripted Agent Estate Access to improve the land owning experience in Second Life.

Simplified Avatar Customization

It’s no secret that newer Second Life Residents often struggle to customize their avatars. While seasoned Second Life community members appreciate the complex and diverse range of avatar customization options, we recognize how important it is to simplify things for those who are just learning the basics. Enter the all-new Senra Avatars, which entered beta in August with a subsequent formal 1.0 release unveiled earlier this month. The Senra team is already hard at work on the next phase of the Senra project, which features an expanded content library with additional customizations and options.

Community Highlights - Celebrating 20 Years

Second Life’s 20th birthday celebrations set several new records for all-time community engagement in 2023. Our SL20B event was visited 647,952 times and included three weeks of parties, live music, deejay performances, special events, exhibits, gifts, and shopping!

Our big milestone didn’t go unnoticed by the mainstream media, either. Major media and tech outlets noted and praised our longevity and loyal communities throughout the year including some great media coverage in The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Bloomberg.

Eagle-eyed viewers of the popular Apple+ program “The Morning Show” may also have noticed a certain Linden executive cameo during a pivotal scene that prominently featured Second Life in the season finale. 

Second Life also scored some prominent coverage in the acclaimed music trade publication Billboard, which had the exclusive reveal for our partnership with legendary music label Motown.

The official Motown presence in Second Life accompanied the debut of the first experimental version of our New User Community Hub, which aims to more quickly and easily help newcomers connect with the relevant people, places, and communities that matter to them. The new Hub also hosts the return of many passionate Second Life Mentors who seek to lend a helping hand.

What Was Hot in 2023?

Finally, we thought it would be fun to assemble a few year-end charts to show what was hot in 2023. Let’s take a look at what the community was up to last year…

Top Linden Home Themes 

1. Houseboat
2. Log Home
3. Traditional
4. Victorian
5. Stilt over Land

Top Last Names released in 2023

1. Blossom
2. Nightingale
3. Spicy
4. Waifu
5. Shadow

Most Visited Regions 

1. LeLutka
2. Firestorm Orientation
3. Rapture
4. VELOUR
5. Adventure Island

Top Destination Guide Categories 

1. Photogenic Spots
2. Fashion
3. Role-playing Communities
4. Shopping Events
5. Winter Attractions 

Most Watched YouTube Videos

1. Second Life Mobile - First Look
2. Second Life Mobile - June 2023 - SL20B Update
3. Second Life University - How to Create PBR Materials
4. Second Life University - How to Create Your Starter Avatar
5. Made in Second Life: The Movie

Most Popular Facebook Posts

1. Inventory Item Preview and Single Folder View
2. Second Life Pic of the Day by Mac McGregor
3. The SL20B Official Guide & Magazine
4. Introducing the new Linden Home Store
5. Friday the 13th Haunted Destinations

Happy Holidays from Second Life

On behalf of the entire Second Life team, we would like to wish you and your loved ones a happy new year! We are thankful to be part of your virtual family and send you blessings from both the virtual (and physical) worlds!

The Second Life team

The Second Life app brings the richness of the Second Life virtual world to your Android or iOS mobile device...and Second Life Premium Plus members are among the first to get access.

With the new Second Life Mobile, you can experience a new level of convenience and engagement in your Second Life adventures, whether you’re at home or on the go. In this initial Private Alpha release, you can:

* See your avatar & edit appearance by changing outfits 
* Explore the world via the Destination Guide, mobile showcase, own favorites (teleport, deep links, TP offers)
* Interact with the world through a limited set of movements (walk, run, fly, sit, stand) and object interactions (touch, sit) - or park your avatar and explore via flycam.
* Socialize and stay connected (nearby chat, group chat, IM, group notices, find contacts, inspect profiles)
* Create and log in with a new account

…and there’s more to come in future releases!

Qualifying Premium Plus members can apply now for the Private Alpha. If you are Premium Plus, you can learn more at: Premium Plus - Second Life Mobile Private Alpha Sign-Up

Please note that while all Premium Plus subscribers are eligible to participate in the Private Alpha, we’ll be adding users in small groups over time. There is a server registration limit and we’ll be adding participants on a first come first served basis.Your patience is appreciated! We know you’re excited (and so are we!) but we’ll need time to process applications, add test accounts via TestFlight and Google Play and then, most importantly, process your feedback.

And please remember, this is still early Alpha! That means it’s buggy, and it’s missing functionality. It also means we’re looking for your help in making it better. 

Once we are through the alpha and beta testing phases, Second Life Mobile will be accessible to all users.

Not Premium Plus? Upgrade today at https://secondlife.com/premium 

A Year of Transition

2021 was a year of transition for the Second Life team. While there were many accomplishments worth celebrating that helped to improve our collective Second Life experiences, we want to start by acknowledging the many contributions of and pay our respects to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, who passed away earlier this year. 

Ebbe embraced all aspects of Second Life, learning about its many nuances to understand the impacts of decisions we make.  He put tremendous effort into understanding the community, and many of us who are deeply embedded in Second Life. Ebbe’s goals for Second Life included promoting Second Life as the world’s best virtual world, community and platform. Ebbe would be very proud of our accomplishments today. There is no doubt in our minds that he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

We miss Ebbe but his spirit lives on through many of the initiatives and features he championed during his many years leading Second Life.

More Changes
The year 2021 had several hellos and goodbyes among the Second Life leadership team. Former VP of engineering Oz Linden retired mid-year. Oz was an instrumental force in driving key decisions and implementations of Second Life’s development for over a decade. Oz left on a high note, having successfully completed the tremendous effort of migrating Second Life into the Cloud. We have felt his absence, celebrated his tenure, cast him in bronze, and used extensively his blanket permission to blame him for everything that goes wrong.

We have been thrilled to welcome Oz’s replacement Andrew Kertesz (better known as Mojo Linden) in August. Mojo has a wealth of experience building teams and launching PC, mobile, and console game products – and we are already seeing him work his magic on new initiatives for the coming year. Spoiler alert: Keep reading for a peek at our 2022 roadmap!

We also welcomed new ownership this year as Oberwolf Linden (a.k.a. Brad Oberwager) stepped in as Executive Chairman following the successful acquisition of Linden Lab by an investment group he leads with Randy Waterfield. Earlier this year, Oberwolf made his debut on “Lab Gab” – if you missed it, we recommend you check it out to hear directly from him about his vision and enthusiasm for Second Life.

Since that appearance, Oberwolf has not wasted any time in allocating new resources to Linden Lab, including the addition of several new engineers and developers, as well as other key leaders to help us further improve and grow faster. Among the newest hires are several established industry veterans including a new Chief Marketing Officer, Chief of Staff, Chief People Officer, and Chief Information Security Officer. 

So many changes…but that leads us to some exciting plans for 2022!

2022 Roadmap

We are already hard at work on several new features and improvements for the coming year. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s underway:

• Avatar “expressiveness” that brings camera-based gestures and movement to your avatar for a whole new level of interaction and connectedness
• Premium Plus - a new upgrade option with added features and extras
• A new mobile viewer to enhance and improve your Second Life experience
• Improved group chat reliability
• Viewer and script performance improvements 
• New user avatar customization and improvements
• Updated mesh optimizer
• Search engine improvements
• Improved materials and terrain
• Adding web marketplace variants
• …and much more!

We can’t wait to unveil more details on these and other improvements in 2022. We’ll be sharing more specifics on a future episode of our streaming video show “Lab Gab” and our blog soon.

2021 Highlights

As we prepare for the coming year, we also want to reflect on key accomplishments for 2021. 

Migration to the Cloud
The year started strong with our successful migration to the Cloud, which was completed in January after many years of careful preparation to minimize disruption to the Second Life community. We can’t emphasize enough how complex and delicate this transition was, but we were all happy to breathe a sigh of relief upon its successful completion. We have spent a good part of this year optimizing our infrastructure in the Cloud to better take advantage of the new possibilities. 
 
Performance Improvements
We’re proud of the many Second Life performance enhancements that launched in the past year including investments in our infrastructure to further improve speed and cadence of updates, overhauling the onboarding experience for the newest Residents, various UI and search cleanup improvements, and backend work to ensure compliance with multiple regulatory requirements. As an example, we’ve seen some of our lowest viewer crash rates ever – a 35% decrease in crashes from a couple of years ago! 

Over the last few months we have been busy optimizing our viewer and simulator, too. We have already made good gains that we are eager to share with the community as we deploy in the new year. An area of emphasis and success for us has been improved avatar rendering; initial test results show an increase from 25fps to 55fps with our new viewer with 20 avatars in the scene. 

We have also seen great script performance improvements with our last set of server upgrades and move to AMD hardware. There is yet another significant server upgrade in RC now and rolling out to the full grid in January. 

New Features
Are you in a lot of groups and getting too many offline messages in your email, but still want to see offline IMs? No problem. Receiving group notices to your email while you are offline is a new preference that you control separately from your offline instant message preferences. You are now able to choose between getting only IMs, only Group notices, both, or neither through email while offline.

Based on popular demand, we unveiled several new limited-edition “Last Name” options over the past year including some specialty-themed and holiday offerings. UwU or OwO, anyone? (We counted the paws. It’s UwU. Some of us knew that all along.)

Another popular request from our community has been support for multi-factor authentication, and other additional account security improvements to help protect our Residents. There’s also the new 360 Snapshot Tool that enables more immersive 360-degree snapshots to be taken within Second Life and shared externally. Many people in the community are already testing out the new feature – check out these images taken by our own Alexa Linden on Flickr.

Improving the New User Experience
We recognize the importance of first impressions to Second Life, so we’ve invested in enhancements to the new user experience including an all-new Welcome Island and related New User Guidebook. We continue to iterate on different approaches to onboarding. 

Improvements to Search have also started to roll out. We recently gave Search a visual refresh this year, and that’s being followed up next year with an investment to improve the quality of Second Life search results.

Let’s not forget the many improvements to the Marketplace! In 2021, we shipped over 140 Marketplace updates and fixes. Highlights include tying Marketplace into the overall single sign-on (SSO) system, adding a “Save For Later” feature in the shopping cart, adding bulk redelivery for merchants, as well as fixing several issues and improving speed and stability. There is still a lot more in the works for the Marketplace in the coming year. 

Linden Homes

2021 saw the release of of two different Linden Homes themes and the introduction of a third.  In March the Chalet type Linden Home was launched, and in August the Fantasy type Linden Homes were launched. 

The newest theme, Newbrooke will be joining the available new Linden Homes very soon. 

Marketing the “Metaverse”
So, perhaps you have heard of this new thing called the metaverse?  Unless you’ve been living under a rock (virtual or otherwise), you probably already know that Facebook recently changed its corporate name to Meta as they work on their own vision and version of a “metaverse.” While we appreciate that this development has super-charged interest in virtual worlds, we also know that there is genuine concern about Facebook’s plans in this space given its spotty reputation on many issues including consumer data privacy and protections.

At Second Life, we’re proud that we don’t monetize, sell, or share consumer data - and we’ve been heartened to see the mainstream media reevaluate our own virtual world amidst the heightened interest in all-things-metaverse including a renewed recognition and celebration of our pioneering contributions to the concepts of virtual economies, cultures, and communities.

As a result, we had one of our strongest years ever in mainstream and specialized media coverage - with over 15,000 articles and broadcast outlets referencing Second Life in 2021 according to PR tracking service Cision. Mainstream media highlights for the past year include prominent coverage across the globe including BBC News, TIME Magazine, The Telegraph, VentureBeat, Business Insider, Right This Minute TV, France TV, and many, many more.

2021 was also a “year of experiments” for Second Life marketing including a few “out of the box” ideas to draw attention to Second Life through new partnerships and content initiatives.

We recently tested a limited roll out of our first mainstream commercial “Children of Creation,” which won both top prize at the 2021 Telly Awards and a top 2021 Clio Award (the advertising industry’s equivalent of the Oscars). Elements of the commercial can be seen on our newly-revamped homepage, but you can also check it out on YouTube.

Over the past year, we’ve aligned with several community content creators and external partners to collaborate on new cross-promotion opportunities that aim to broaden the appeal and awareness of Second Life. Partnerships span a broad range of communities including fans of indie comic books (Zenescope), indie films (Film Threat), sports (NFL Alumni Association), and animation (Titmouse). 

So, what’s next? In the coming year, we’re allocating even more resources to help us better proactively capture new PR and media opportunities. We’re also gearing up for several exciting new community promotions and social media content initiatives. 

Happy Holidays from Second Life

We’re sincerely grateful for the support and loyalty of the entire Second Life community - and we will continue to work hard to improve your virtual lives in the coming year and beyond.

Have a great holiday,

The Second Life team

P.S. We just posted on our socials a new year-end video that spotlights several of our community members as they share what Second Life means to them this holiday season. Check it out!

As promised in our PBR Materials announcement last year -- as of this morning’s Second Life server grid roll, we have increased the allowance of Land Impact by lowering mesh Download Weight by 15% for all of Second Life! Since much of Second Life today consists of mesh content, anyone who owns or rents land will see more land impact available on their parcels. 

How can I check if my objects have been affected? Right-click on the object you want to inspect, then click Edit, then click the More info link to see the current Download weight.

We’d like to take this opportunity to remind residents that this allowance is being given for no charge and is intended to help offset any additional Land Impact spent on manually rezzed reflection probes and lights, and of course in anticipation of the upcoming Mirrors release.

Land Impact is a finite resource, please rez responsibly!

Updated: Frequently Asked Questions.

Q.  My private region can hold 20,000 prims (Land Impact). How many prims will I have after this 15% Download weight reduction?

1. The region will still only be able to hold its original 20,000 prims, as the same for any parcel, or 30k private region. With this update mesh object's download weight has been reduced, requiring less land impact for objects where download weight is higher than physics and server cost, and letting your prims go further. Imagine a box that can only carry 20 pounds. With this update, the box is still the same, but the objects inside are lighter!
   
   To learn more about how weight is factored into an object’s land impact visit: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/calculating-land-impact-r273

Q.  What types of items are NOT affected by the update?

1. Animesh, primitives, and sculpties are not affected. The update will only affect static mesh objects that are rezzed onto your land.

Q.  How can I see what my meshes download weight used to be?

1. At this time you will only be able to compare it by rezzing an object on the Beta Grid (Aditi) running older server code, which will be for a limited time as we are constantly moving forward. Any Beta Grid regions running server build 2024-02-21.7995320426 should report the old Download Weight.

Q.  This is confusing.  Why didn’t you raise the region's prim (Land Impact) limits?

1. Download Weight effectively controls the scene triangle budget.  While the limit was appropriate when Download Weight was first introduced, it’s too restrictive by modern standards.  By adjusting Download Weight independently of other resource limits, we can avoid overloading other systems (such as physics and script time) that are already using appropriate limits.  Essentially, the weights were out of balance, with download weight carrying too much emphasis compared to other weights, and this change moves towards a better balance.

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

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.

Linden Lab strives to make positive change in the world by helping people connect, discover themselves, and grow both personally and financially. Ultimately, we build and support communities. Therefore, it is especially shocking to see the actions in Ukraine, to see the unwarranted attacks on people – on communities. We are heartbroken and horrified by the situation in Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis it has perpetuated. We are a proudly diverse team, and many of us have ties to these events - historically, emotionally, professionally, and socially. Our products reach worldwide, and many of our partners and customers are directly affected by this crisis. 

As a leadership team, this crisis has challenged us to better define and embrace what we believe to be the core principles at Linden Lab – our TAO so to speak.

Specifically, our TAO says:

MAKE CHANGE ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Our work brings people together, builds communities. Our work helps people understand who they are, helps them be better. Our work brings empathy, helps people see the world through others’ eyes. Settle for nothing less than changing the world for the better.

We intend to live up to this principle, and while there is much work to be done, we are starting with: 

• Providing financial support for humanitarian crisis aid through a donation to the Red Cross Ukraine and HIAS
• Supporting independent journalism in Ukraine through a donation to Keep Ukraine’s Media Going
• Supporting free speech in Russia through a donation to Meduza and OVD-INFO 

Effective Monday, we will be further supporting our eligible Ukrainian-based community members by granting them a temporary 30-day moratorium on recurring account fees such as Premium Membership and Land Maintenance fees.  We will review this again after 30 days and assess what we can do as next steps where necessary. We invite any of our Ukraine-based community members to contact support with any specific questions they may have.

Finally, we encourage our community to look at ways that they can help show their support. It is heartening to see the Second Life community come together to support each other with numerous inworld events and helpful initiatives that bring us together as a force for good in both the physical and virtual worlds.

Today we’re introducing an additional way for you to protect your account!

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is now available to all residents on their accounts. MFA is an additional step to prove your identity before gaining access to sensitive information or actions on your account. It provides an extra layer of security to supplement your username and password. Widely adopted by many products, MFA is an industry standard.

How does it work? You can learn more about MFA, find out what you’ll need to do, and activate it in the knowledge base article!

You will need to take action in order to activate MFA. It is entirely opt-in. Go to accounts.secondlife.com/mfa/status and get started!

Note: MFA adds protection only to your accounts.secondlife.com login. MFA does not affect how you log in to the SL Viewer. If you activate MFA, you should continue to change your password regularly and choose strong passwords.

In future releases we plan to extend MFA’s protections to additional pages on secondlife.com, the marketplace, and the viewer. We are also exploring an email-based implementation.

Hello, Community of Second Life

Second Life found new highs in 2020 between a worldwide pandemic taking grip, through the times of a tumultuous leadership change in the United States, and during movements of civil changes that will forever live in history books.  Second Life provides many with the comfort of a normal that continues to exist for all of us, where many use it to escape real life pressures, stressors and day to day challenges.  In Second Life we can be our ideal, our best, celebrate all that is good across the world together.  Sadly we have also seen some people go, and they will never be forgotten as they touched us, gave us their best from their hearts, minds and souls - this thing called real life sometimes knocks on our door and makes a call.   

This is one of those calls.

Ebbe Altberg started with Linden Lab as our CEO on February 5th, 2014.  He took the helm of the company and immediately went to work on reinvigorating our spirit and culture.  Ebbe brought a profound openness, and transparency in his operation which was key and that had many effects on all of us internally, and externally.  Lindens were encouraged to be part of the vibrant community in Second Life, to participate in and to cherish it as part of our daily duties.  Ebbe also worked internally on embracing all aspects of Second Life, learning about its many nuances to understand impacts of decisions we make; while being sensitive to those and utilizing all of our resources, which firstly included you, the community, and many of us who are deeply embedded in Second Life.  Ebbe’s goals for Second Life included promoting Second Life as the world’s best virtual world, community and platform.  He also sought new adventures in building next generation products.

As I am here before you today, it is with profound sadness that I share with you Ebbe passed away yesterday evening restfully and surrounded by the love of his family. 

I commit to all of you to carry forward with our mission of making Second Life the biggest, best, most vibrant virtual world that there ever can be.  Together, myself, Grumpity, and Brett, along with Oberwolf at the helm and the entire team, our mission is clear.  To grow Second Life and to ensure the Residents in Second Life continue to be respected and happy.

Rest in peace Ebbe, our fearless, kind, loving, gentle leader, and friend.

Patch Linden and The Linden Lab Team
 

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. 

Today some of the older last name options were removed and the following new ones were added from your suggestions:
Foxpaws
Captain
Starchild
Blep
Grumpypants
Jackman
Kiko
Norbert
Ayashi
Corvinus
McGregor
Marques
Rizzo

Here is 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!

Today is the official release of the literal new shiny in Second Life, PBR Materials! With our weekly grid update, all of Second Life will now be capable of using PBR Materials in the Second Life viewer.

The goals behind the PBR Materials project are increased visual realism, keeping with industry standards, and bringing GLTF content into Second Life with expected results. One method of enhancing realism is to create scenes with real reflections which mimic how our eyes have learned to identify that a surface is metal, plastic, or some other material. Whether you create objects in Second Life or simply enjoy seeing and wearing them, PBR Materials will provide a big step up in the appearance of the Second Life world.

In the remainder of this post, we have included some more technical points for creators. We can’t wait to see what you all create!

PBR Material Features

• Move from sRGB color space to Linear for all lighting and blending
• HDR Environments
  • Auto exposure and tonemapping - If you look at a dark space it will brighten, and a bright space will darken.
  • The default environment of Second Life has always been a sunny day with blue skies and this will be more apparent now.
  • A new default Midday setting
• Continued support for existing materials (Diffuse, Normal, and Specular) 
  • Yes, you may use old materials and PBR materials on the same object
• Reflection probes - Automatic and Manual (content creators see additional links below for more information)
• LSL may only use llSetPrimitiveParams and llSetRenderMaterial to change PBR material values
• Materials system folder (empty by default so try creating a new PBR material to fill it.)

PBR viewer at Midday 

Image and scene created by Zanibar Darkstone (located on Rumpus Room 3)

Prior release viewers at Midday 

Scene created by Zanibar Darkstone (located on Rumpus Room 3)

The New Normal

• Transparency is done in linear space, so some objects will be slightly more transparent and others will be slightly more opaque
• Fullbright will now be affected by atmospheric lighting
• Auto exposure and tonemapping will be based on the contrast of the scene in front of your camera
• Content creators and builders - Interior spaces that utilize manual reflection probes will require light sources
• Transparent water is actually transparent water rather than blue texture
• Reflections of projections have imperfections
• On Windows, graphics quality set to ‘High’ or greater now receives shadows from Sun and Moon. It required higher settings previously.
• Mac HiDPI now defaults to off

Additional Resources

• If this is the first you have heard of PBR materials, check out What are PBR Materials?
• Second Life Wiki  
• HDRI equivalent of new default midday (for use in third party tools): https://polyhaven.com/a/cloud_layers
• Second Life University video How to Create PBR Materials 

Future Features

• Now that Second Life needs lights to illuminate rooms and interior spaces that use manual reflection probes, we’re going to reduce the download cost of objects by 15%, across the board, without any additional charges, which will create more available Land Impact for everyone.
• Point lights will soon be affected by dense fog and haze
• Mirrors!
• PBR Materials on Terrain!

Scene created by Sere Vene (serevenaen) (located on Rumpus Room 3)

Ever since Second Life’s inception two decades ago we have seen many local, state and federal governments impose new ways to collect tax revenue from internet-based businesses. The Wayfair Sales Tax case decision by the Supreme Court was when prior rules about sales tax really changed.  Since then, we have done our best to shield our residents from these taxes as long as possible, but we are no longer able to absorb them.

As of March 31, 2022 we will begin charging sales tax in the U.S. For the time being we will charge taxes only on recurring billings, such as premium subscriptions and land fees. The amount of tax charged will be communicated clearly in the receipt or invoice.

We will continue to absorb the taxes at point-of-sale purchases such as one-time L$ buys, first-time premium subscriptions, and name changes. At some point in the future we will need to begin passing those taxes on to you. We will make another announcement when those charges are phased in.

Your individual charges will be determined by your local jurisdictions. There are more than 13,000 sales and use tax jurisdictions in the United States, with great variation in their rules and tax rates. Tax amounts are also affected by other factors such as the type of goods or services being purchased. To determine the charges, we will be relying on an automated third-party system which closely tracks local tax laws, so the tax amounts are always up to date.

This is news we don’t enjoy sharing, but for the health of the business and of Second Life, we can no longer continue absorbing these tax burdens.

Thank you for your understanding and your continued support of Second Life.
 

We have been very pleased to see the response to our limited edition last names. We hope to do a lot more of them in the future. 

Today some of the older last name options were removed and the following new ones were added:
Vanlager
Wainwright
Tater
Skydancer
Primless
Vermilion
Morningstar

Here is the full list of current last names available until mid-October:

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, some of the new names were chosen from there! 

Look out for Halloween-themed limited edition last names in mid-October!

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!
 

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 new year! 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:
Eton
Harmony
Serenade
Ethereal
Celestia
Sable
Astral
Starling
Saccharin
Rizzler
Enthusiast
Pratchett
Elara
Cerulean
Onyx
Peridot
Winchester
Fluffington
Mainlander
Wicken

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’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!

Happy Spring! It’s time to catch you all up on recent product developments! Continue reading for mobile updates, scripting news, new feedback portal (and end-of-life for JIRA), and Viewer releases.

📱 Mobile Private Alpha Update

Big and small updates! This is a reminder that Premium Plus members can apply to participate in our Mobile Private Alpha. If you are a Premium Plus subscriber, and you’re ready to try the app and help us make it better, find out more.

We recently updated the Second Life Mobile Alpha to support streaming audio! You can enjoy music in Second Life on your mobile device while hanging out with friends inworld. Streaming audio is off by default. To turn it on, go to Settings > Developer tools > Enable Streaming Audio.

We have brought you a couple of new Chat UI features:

• Start a new chat from any chat screen
• On the Nearby Chat screen, see how many people are nearby.

Next up - teleport and avatar display improvements. We think we’ve got avatar shapes figured out…and the real challenge - skeleton deformers - are also in the works!

🐛 JIRA end-of-life

Yes, the king is dead, long live the king! While we have said goodbye to Jira as the platform for collaboration with our residents as well as for internal issue tracking, we believe this has allowed us to improve visibility and collaboration. 

The new Second Life Feedback Portal is a great place for any new bug reports or feature requests, while the public Second Life Viewer project on GitHub is where we continue our open-source work. 

Speaking of the Second Life Feedback Portal, it has already received 672 posts, 2635 comments, and 6426 votes! We thank you for your enthusiastic participation. We have made many updates since we first introduced it in January including a whole new UI and dark mode (based on your system settings). We will continue to improve the feedback portal and, most importantly, review all the incoming reports and requests!

Although Jira is dead, the archive remains. As mentioned in our Pt. 2 blog post, the Jira archive of the Second Life BUG project on GitHub is now available. You can find the public BUG archive at https://github.com/secondlife/jira-archive/issues. The archive currently contains most of the previously public Jira tickets from the original BUG project. However, there are a few that we are still moving over. It does NOT include tickets that previously had restricted access.

👩‍💻 Scripting changes

Out now: Increased sensor result limit

We've increased the maximum number of results returned by llSensor and llSensorRepeat from 16 to 32. This will reduce the need for workarounds such as repeatedly scanning small slices of space.

Coming soon: llSetLinkSitFlags, llGetLinkSitFlags, SIT_FLAG_NO_COLLIDE

In an upcoming server release we will be allowing scripts to set and get the sit flags of linkset sit targets via llSetLinkSitFlags and llGetLinkSitFlags. In addition, scripts will be able to set the SIT_FLAG_NO_COLLIDE flag to disable the avatar's collision volume when they are seated. This will be useful for clown cars and other creations.

Scripting roadmap

Status of these upcoming changes and more are visible on Second Life's new public roadmap at feedback.secondlife.com. If you have ideas or feedback on the scripting system check out the Scripting Features and Scripting Bugs boards.

🪀 Creator news

Coming soon: 15% reduction to mesh download impact

Download weight is one parameter used as part of calculating an object’s Land Impact (LI).  We will be reducing this by 15%, decreasing the land impact of many mesh assets.

LI for mesh-based objects is either download weight, physics or server cost, whichever is greatest. This change will not impact animesh or mesh upload fees.

Coming soon: Scheduling automatic daily region restarts

This feature has been on people's wish lists for many years. Estate managers will soon be able to schedule automatic region restarts via the region console:

> help region_schedule
region_schedule
    Display or modify scheduled region events.
    An empty parameter list will display the current schedule.
    unset <event>:  Removes the scheduled event.
    set <event> daily HH::MM::SS will set the event to occur daily at the scheduled time.
    set <event> weekly days HH::MM::SS will set the event to occur on the indicated days at the scheduled time.
       S=Sun, M=Mon, T=Tue, W=Wed, R=Thurs, F=Fri, A=Sat
    Note: Times are in GMT

While most regions do not need to be restarted more frequently than weekly, which is automatically scheduled, some regions with high traffic may benefit from more frequent restarts. When you restart a region, keep in mind that everyone on the region will be kicked out.

💻 Viewers

Maintenance Viewer

GLTF PBR Maint 2 contains another round of fixes and refinements to PBR rendering, including a preview of Materials from Inventory while editing objects. Download version 7.1.3.7821226606 and check out the release notes.

Default Viewer

😀 Emoji

This viewer was finally promoted to default release and is based on a contribution by Kitty Barnett, adding emoji support to text chat.

Featurettes sneak peek!

Our Post Materials Featurette Package is sharing early access to:

• Mirrors
• PBR Terrain
• 2k textures

Initially this will only be available on our Beta Grid (Aditi). Please keep your eye on our blog as we will post more details in the coming days.

Catch more Second Life news on Thursday, March 14th at 12pm PT at the VWBPE Above the Book interview with Grumpity, Signal, and Kali Linden! 

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

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!

Hello, and Happy Wednesday!

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve updated our Name Change service in a major way. We’ve told you that we were going to keep working on adding new features to the Premium and Premium Plus offerings, and we’re delivering on that once again today. From here on, Premium and Premium Plus subscribers will benefit from a reduced price for the Name Change service. 

But that’s not all! Not only are we discounting the service across the board, but we’ve decided to democratize the service to everyone.

That’s right, as of today, everyone can change their avatar name regardless of their subscription level. Not just the Premium subscribers that have always been able to do so, but all of our Basic accounts as well! This is something we’ve been trying to offer for a long time, and something that we get requests for on a consistent basis, so we couldn’t be more pleased to finally be able to announce it.

As an exciting new option for Basic accounts, here’s what it looks like today. Not only do you have the option to change your avatar’s first name to anything you can imagine, but we also offer a rotating list of last names to give your avatar (even if you don’t already have one) that are updated on a regular basis. We will continue to make 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, 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!

Greetings Second Lifers!

Today is a really big day for all of us together and we are excited to share that the Second Life portion of CasperTech is being acquired by Linden Research, Inc.

CasperTech has provided various business related services within Second Life for 13 years. Over that time, CaperTech has proudly provided continuous service for tens of thousands of Second Life businesses, and it has remained steadfast in its commitment to the merchants who have depended on those services.

This acquisition will ensure that all of the existing CasperTech services in Second Life will continue to operate without interruption into the foreseeable future, but it also opens up brand new opportunities to vastly improve the experience for our users as our next step in the CasperTech and Second Life journey.  

You can expect to see the same great services that you know and love continue on, with all of the same functionality you enjoy today, but with closer integration into the Second Life ecosystem – and as such, an even more reliable and convenient experience.

We wouldn’t have gone forward with this move if we weren’t absolutely confident that it will be a positive change for all Residents and CasperTech customers.

We hope that you are as excited about this change as we are, and we thank you for your continued support as we all step boldly into the future together!

We have started a forum discussion here for anyone interested in participating with questions.

You can also watch Casper and I on a special pre-recorded Lab Gab today at 10:30am SLT!

The Second Life Team
and Casper Warden, CasperTech LTD