Inworld

Are you ready for the best (and busiest) time of the year? Be sure to mark your calendars for some fun this holiday season at Winterfest 2010: Friday, December 10 through Saturday, December 18.

Hosted on the Global Online Hockey Association’s (GOHA) six wintry regions, and featuring activities and events put on by numerous communities from around Second Life, Winterfest offers plenty to do, see, and pummel with snowballs. Whether you like snowboarding, playing hockey, ski jumping, cross-country skiing, ice skating, scavenger hunts, winter carnival rides or simply listening to some live music, we think you’ll find just what you’re looking for to get you in the spirit of the season.

By popular demand, we’ll be bringing back the annual Lindens vs. Residents snowball fights. If you’ve ever had the desire to throw something at a Linden, this is the event for you. Bring it on, everyone. We’ll be ready!

Need a new pair of ski pants? Got some for sale? The Winterfest category on the Second Life Marketplace is a great spot to look for new items to help you get outfitted for the season. Merchants with winter-themed content are welcome to post their wares to the appropriate sub-category for gift-giving and retail therapy enjoyment. We’re offering 13 different sub-categories under Winterfest for easy searching:

• Apparel (clothing and accessories, avatars, tattoos, costumes)
• Decorations (tree decorations, candles, menorahs, kinaras, bells, party decorations, fireplace stockings, snowman building, etc.)
• Greenery (trees, garlands, flowers, plants)
• Textures (snow, ice, gift wrap, etc.)
• Gestures
• Food & Drink
• Cards & Invitations
• Music
• Sets (environments for land, parties, indoor scenes, etc.)
• Scripts (AOs, HUDs)
• Sports (skiing, sledding, ice skating, hockey, etc.)
• Other

Curious about what else is going on in Second Life to celebrate the season? Take a look at the Winter events channel on the Destination Guide. If you’ve got some ideas for more wintry fun to add to the channel, then take a look at our call for submissions blog post for winter activities.

We’ll be announcing the full schedule of Winterfest 2010 events very soon. So, until then, bundle up, lace up your skates, and get ready for a full-fledged winter extravaganza!

When we announced that we would be closing Teen Second Life and bringing our under-18 Residents to the Main Grid, we also made clear our intention not to compromise the experience that teens have access to. Today, I’m happy share our plan to create rich and enjoyable Second Life experiences for teens, while keeping in mind their security and safety when joining the Main Grid.

A Rich and Secure Experience for Teens

Our goal is to provide a safe, secure, and rewarding experience to all Second Life Residents, no matter their age. Accordingly, we are putting safeguards in place on the Main Grid specific to the following teen age groups:

For 13- to 15-year-olds:

• 13- to 15-year-old Residents will be restricted to the estates of a sponsoring institution.
• These Residents will not have access to inworld search, nor will they be able to purchase from our Web-based Marketplace.

For 16- and 17-year-olds:

• 16- and 17-year-old Residents will have access to all SL regions rated General (i.e., containing content appropriate for all ages), on the Mainland and private islands.
• These Residents will not be able to enter Moderate- nor Adult-rated regions, even if they have payment information on file and/or have used our Web-based identity verification system.
• These Residents will be able to communicate fully with and befriend all other users on the Main Grid. This includes local chat and IM.

With nearly 5,000 General-rated regions in Second Life, the area that will be accessible to our 16- and 17-year-old Residents will dwarf the 100 regions currently available on Teen Second Life, giving them far more space to create, explore, and experience their online environment and what they can do there.

Our 16- and 17-year-old account holders will also be able to communicate fully with all other users on the Main Grid (unless they have been muted or otherwise restricted). This was an important decision for us, and one we think will make Second Life richer for all Residents.

Welcoming Teens in the New Year

Bringing teens to the Main Grid is now less than two months away. We plan to shut down the Teen Grid and transfer accounts to the Main Grid in early January, once the holidays have passed. Here’s what to expect:

• When the teen grid closes, 13- to 15-year-olds will no longer be able to register for Second Life unless they are brought in through an affiliated organization. On the Main Grid, these younger Residents will not be able to travel outside the estates of their sponsoring organizations.
• 16- and 17-year-olds registering for Second Life will be directed to the Main Grid rather than to Teen Second Life.
• We will transfer all 16-17s remaining on Teen SL to the main SL grid, as well as those 13-15s that are affiliated with TSL Resident institutions. This includes all the inventory of those accounts. (The accounts of our other 13- to 15-year-old Residents will become inactive, but will be automatically restored when they turn 16.) All of the land on Teen Second Life will be transferred to the Main Grid. This includes teen mainland, teen private islands, and teen organizations’ estates.

At that point, Teen Second Life will be officially closed -- but the experience of teens in Second Life is only just beginning. We strongly believe that teens have as much to contribute to the Second Life community as their adult counterparts, and we do not want to restrict the flow of ideas and information between the two groups. We all have much to learn from each other.

As we continue to focus on making the Second Life experience faster, easier, and more fun for all Residents, we’ve also made a number of improvements to search to provide teens with additional security and control. We look forward to seeing the new kinds of creativity and community our teen Residents will bring to the Main Grid. Welcome, teens!

Thank you to everyone who participated in making over Philip's avatar. Philip reviewed all the avatars and is amazed at the creativity that went into the submissions.

The winner is Resident creator, Mars Absent. To find more of Mars' work, check out The Abyss inworld or the SL Marketplace. We invite you to check out the finalist entries on Flickr.com.

Philip is thrilled to have a new look.  Here is the result of his first photoshoot.

Special thank you to Mars Absent!  Your designs are amazing!

As we mentioned in our last blog post,  the Customer Support team continues to drive a series of changes to the  way in which Linden Lab delivers support to our Resident community.  We  are examining our support offering from top to bottom, using the data  from our new support system, your survey data, blog feedback, and  industry standard practices to help shape our approach.

Some  of our changes will be apparent to you, like the look and feel of the  new case and live chat systems and our coming self-service tools. Others  will be structural and won't be immediately apparent, like our internal  support tools, but their benefits will reveal themselves over time as  they enable us to address your issues more quickly.

As we approach these changes, we have a number of high-level goals in mind:

• Leverage industry best practices, and our own hard-earned lessons, to create a comprehensive customer service offering.
• Respond to high-urgency, business-critical requests more quickly.
• Better address product and service issues before they become a support interaction.
• Provide all Residents with better self-service tools to help solve issues immediately.

Changes to Support for Basic Residents

As  part of these changes, we are examining the types of support we offer  Residents of all levels, in an effort to provide better, more responsive  service to the most business-critical issues.  Starting on Wednesday,  October 13th, we will simplify and reduce the types of cases that Basic  Residents can file and direct them to our self-service tools on your account page, or search the Knowledge Base or Second Life Answers for solutions.  As a Basic Resident, you can still file cases about  most account issues, billing issues, marketplace issues, and some  technical issues.

Improving Support for Premium and Concierge Residents

As  we increasingly direct Basic Residents to self-service tools, we are  exploring ways that we can better service and support our Premium and  Concierge Residents.  These Residents –who are often landowners,  merchants, and inworld business owners– will continue to be able to file  the full range of cases, have access support via live chat, and in the  case of Concierge Residents, have access to phone support.  As we begin  to see the impact of the changes we have underway, we expect our  response times across all of these channels to improve.

This  announcement is one of many to come soon as we work hard to provide  faster, more effective customer service. We look forward to hearing your  feedback as these changes roll out.

We are thrilled to announce that the SL Marketplace is the new destination for online shopping for all things Second Life. We invite Second Life Residents to visit the redesigned site, check out all the new features and start loading your shopping carts with the amazing things only our creative community can deliver. The purchasing functionality on XStreetSL is being disabled as of today. So, if you’re shopping for avatar skins and fashion, home and furnishing needs, scripts and objects for getting your groove on, or almost anything else  you can think of....you’ll find it on the SL Marketplace.

We’re just getting started
When we set out to reinvent XStreetSL, we looked to emulate the experience of other online shopping sites that provide a smooth and enjoyable  experience for the customer. Looking at XStreetSL, we realized we needed to revamp it completely and create a brand new site as well as develop a new process for building cool, new features in a more rapid way moving  forward. We are committed to giving both merchants and shoppers the  tools and functionality necessary to have a great experience on the new  site and we’ll be adding new features weekly. Today’s launch is just the  starting point; the new SL Marketplace is poised to become a more integral part of the overall Second Life experience for everyone.

Notable features and what’s ahead
New features we love include the modern, clean look and feel, which makes the flow of the shopping experience better than it’s ever been before.  Also, customized online merchant stores allow shoppers to easily find  all the creations of their favorite designers. And the new shopping  cart! XStreetSL had limited capability when it came to loading up the shopping cart full of goodies, which is now totally streamlined. Over the next few weeks we will add the Favorites feature and we will migrate over the Favorites list from XStreetSL. We will also be adding an easy way for shoppers to find the purchases they have not reviewed.

SL Merchants... the key to our success
Our commerce team has worked very hard to make the SL Marketplace a professional and modern hub for Second Life sales, but the merchants who participated in the beta truly made this effort come together. While we were working hard evenings and weekends, the beta merchants were there to help test and provide feedback. We look forward to continuing this partnership as the SL Marketplace becomes more and more central to the Second Life experience.

What will happen to XStreetSL?
The XStreetSL Exchange will continue to operate independently of the new SL Marketplace through the end of November. This means merchants can continue to access history, sell L$ and cash out as they do now. The XStreetSL website will remain up for several months beyond the closure of the Exchange, and all non sales and exchange features (including history) will remain available during this time as well as the ability to redeliver items. When we close the XStreetSL Exchange, L$ and USD balances will be moved over to users’ Second Life accounts.

We hope you enjoy using the new SL Marketplace and look forward to hearing what you think!

Sincerely,
Grant and the Commerce Team

Quick Links:
SL Marketplace Help Pages
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DG: Your trilogy of NEMO areas has been among the most acclaimed and popular spots in SL. What inspired you to undertake this ambitious project?

For the rest of the sim, each build inspired another one...and then another one. I don't plan anything. I just build with instinct. Once a build is done, I don't know what I will make next until another idea comes. I am lucky...I have a lot of ideas!

SS: My definition of the steampunk style is "a romantic kind of old timer science-fiction" and I think that it's what people like: the romantic side with that old-fashioned architecture -- the mystery of science and the imaginary part of science fiction.

Christy Mansbridge, bestmomo Lagan, Lancelot Joubert, Tigerfly Wardark and Elenia Boucher has developed some specific and complex scripts for me and they were always by my side to bring me advice and support.

DG: What other designers and developers have inspired you in SL?

DG: What was the most challenging part of the building the trilogy?

DG: Many people have been commenting, in particular, on the "reflection" effect found in Alnitak's House of Mirrors. Can you shed any light on how that came about?

DG: What's next for you and SXS Design in SL?

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