I figured display names would be screwed over

And guess what? LL did what they do best, as always.

I’m a bit out of the loop with SL things lately, I do admit.

Time to bitch about the Grid Merge

If you follow me on Plurk you’ve probably noticed that I go batshit on pretty much any post about the upcoming Grid Merge.

Why?

Viewer 2 – Second Impressions, Part 1

Remember when Viewer 2 first came out? Remember all the hype? I figured I should see what all the fuss was about, and… well, my first experience with Viewer 2 didn’t go very well.

Custom avatars are expensive. Of course.

I’m sorry. Just, honestly, my mind’s been blown.

Avatars United

Yes, I know this is a bit late, and it’s gonna be quite short.

Avatars United is going down. I personally never used it, but honestly, I remember it getting insanely popular a few months ago. To my knowledge, it’s pretty much a social network for avatars.

Just, why is it everything LL acquires winds up biting the dust? XStreet, Avatars United… I’m sure there are a few others I’m forgetting, but… it’s just like LL acquires these things, experiments, and makes their own (i.e. Marketplace) just before dumping the original. Just a bit annoying, in my eyes.

What the hell, LL?

I’m sorry, but banning Emerald just seems like quite the dick move, guys.

Am I missing anything? Is the viewer itself malicious? I know there are a few data leaks in it, but isn’t that to be expected?

To my knowledge, some stuff went down in the Dev team, yes, but other than that, what’s the viewer done to deserve being banned? Explain this to me, guys.

Quick Avatar Review – Curious Felis

The Felis is a free anthro domestic cat, provided by Uchi Desmoulins / Curious, Inc. For a free avatar, it’s very nicely done. It’s freely available in the main vendor area on the sim “Curious”.

This review will not include pictures, as I’ve found something a fair deal better – a video.

So how small is the Teen Grid?

I’m sorry, the whole thing with adults not getting how tiny the Teen Grid actually is really bothers me. Honestly, it’s not as if there’s a whole ‘nother Main Grid being merged into the current one.

So, a quick cap of some metrics for the two grids, courtesy of Daniel Voyager’s Blog* and Second Life Grid Survey.

A TG Memory: Edu-Sims

Teen Grid is quite small. When I left, there were about five or so Resident-owned sims, and they were mostly all either rental plots or army bases. Aside from these, all that was really there was the Mainland and the plethora of sims to the south of that, which most teens really didn’t bother with.

Truth be told, these were my favorite islands. While most of them were closed to the general population, save for those who were part of the school district or program that the island was made for, there were a few that were open to the public, and they often had the most interesting places on the entire grid.

Display Names

For those of you who don’t know yet, it’s been announced that, by September, there will be a new feature on SL that will allow you to set a display name that overrides your given name, similar to what you can do on most instant messengers. Here’s the official blog about it.

While I do like the idea – I’m not really one for permanent display names, especially over long periods of time – I do see a lot of potential for abuse.