PlaneShift releases patch 0.5.9 originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Choose My Adventure: I fell into a burning ring of Ryzom

Choose My Adventure: I fell into a burning ring of Ryzom originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Myst Online goes open source (again) originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ryzom gets ported to Linux as a native application originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ryzom patch adds new boss, occupations originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 19 May 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Daily Grind: What game would you like to see go open source? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 08 May 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ryzom is now open source originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 06 May 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last week, the promised update of Linden Lab's Third-Party Viewer (TPV) policies crept out onto the Second Life Web-site with little fanfare. After the fuss caused by the tangle of legal incompatibilities, muddled terminology and ambiguous phrasing in the first version, the Lab said it would go back and address the problems, and get the policy document fixed.

So, you'd think they'd have gotten it right this time around, right? We certainly did. We were wrong.

Continue reading Second Life third-party viewer policies get an update but still fail to do the job

Second Life third-party viewer policies get an update but still fail to do the job originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This week, in The Virtual Whirl, we're having our monthly roundup of news items. Things that got missed, things that didn't make the cut, things that got buried, and things that really should have gotten your attention anyway.

Continue reading The Virtual Whirl: News of the Whirl

The Virtual Whirl: News of the Whirl originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Fallen Earth gets a Mac client originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence project has released version 1.3(beta 1) of their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is one of our favorite after-market Second Life viewers, and the only third-party viewer that we're certain complies with all of the source and asset licensing.

This edition merges all things Imprudence with the codebase for 1.23, providing one of the fastest and smoothest viewers currently available that we're aware of, along with the usual featureful experience.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.3.0(beta 1) released

Imprudence 1.3.0(beta 1) released originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The hallmark of a good license is that it is clear, easy to understand and unambiguous. The gold-standard for a good contract is that it is all of the above and provides all parties with equal amounts of protection. There are bonus points for not conflicting with rights guaranteed by law, or with other prerequisite licenses or agreements.

Linden Lab's Third Party Viewer (TPV) policies, as published on Tuesday, regrettably reflect none of these ideals. We'd go so far as to say that it's the worst day's work that we've seen come out of the Lab to-date. So much so that almost immediately after publishing them the Lab has sent them back to legal for both clarification and rewriting.

Continue reading Second Life third-party viewer policies not well received

Second Life third-party viewer policies not well received originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Over about the last 60-90 minutes, Tom Hale's been delivering a keynote at the SL Pro! conference held in Second Life. There are multiple hefty announcements from Linden Lab involved, and some of that should be reaching the official Second Life blogs as you read this.

Golly, what do we have among all of this? We've got the Second Life 2.0 viewer public beta, which should be available right now. We've got the new third-party viewer registry and third-party policies being announced today; We've got changes in the names of content-ratings. We've got the official release of open source viewer Snowglobe and the announcement of Snowglobe 2; and all capped off with a slew of supporting FAQs, guides, video tutorials, wiki pages and what-have-you!

Continue reading A red-letter day for Second Life, Second Life 2.0 viewer and more

A red-letter day for Second Life, Second Life 2.0 viewer and more originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Myst Online is alive... again... for the, um, we lost count how many times it died originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence project has released version 1.2 of their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is one of our favorite after-market Second Life viewers, and after some months in beta (and a couple of false starts), the latest release version of this viewer is available.

There are some user-interface changes this time around, the ability to backup and restore your own intellectual property, an improved radar/minimap, improved third-party simulator support, RLVa support, optional vertical IM tabs, double-click go-to and teleports, more world map data and a host of other tweaks and features.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.2 viewer for Second Life

Imprudence 1.2 viewer for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab's CEO, has been a bit of a mystery figure since his appointment about a year and a half ago. While he has not been uncommunicative, it's been hard to get a very good sense of the man at the helm of Linden Lab, his passions, interests and direction.

We were very pleased, therefore, when he took the time to sit down with us and answer a whole grab-bag of questions, about himself, about Linden Lab, and - of course - about Second Life. Bear with us, because we've got a lot of ground to cover.

Continue reading Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon

Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Snowglobe, Linden Lab's community-developed after-market Second Life viewer has hit another milestone with a 1.1 release.

This version mostly focuses on bug-fixes, but has a few additional enhancements. A nasty race condition in texture-fetching has (hopefully) been resolved, reducing viewer crash-rates, bump-mapping has been corrected, the minimap has gotten some tweaking and tuning, and more. Read on for the complete list.

Continue reading Snowglobe viewer 1.1 released for Second Life

Snowglobe viewer 1.1 released for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A while back, Linden Lab's Philip Rosedale announced a new Second Life viewer development project. That project ultimately grew along lines similar to that of third-party viewer project, Imprudence, breaking down many barriers to user contributions, and adopting a more agile methodology. After only a couple of release-candidates, the result is already available.

One of the biggest developments you might see in the Snowglobe viewer is that the map is now an order of magnitude faster to load, rather than taking several fractions of forever, as is traditional. This is the start of a new texture-transfer pipeline, which we can reasonably expect to become standard in future viewers, and to encompass more kinds of textures, however there's a new caching architecture which should benefit all textures.

Continue reading Linden Lab releases Snowglobe 1.0 for Second Life

Linden Lab releases Snowglobe 1.0 for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence project has reached the end of the second release cycle for their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is now in official release. Imprudence is one of our favorite Second Life viewers.

Context (pie) menus have been reorganized again, there's improved support for sound and streaming media through gstreamer, some backported fixes from the official 1.22 viewer, and confirmation popups have been added for a number of operations. There's also a Mac version, which last year's 1.0 release lacked due to hardware and development constraints (though only for Intel-based Macs, unless there's significant demand for a universal binary.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.1.0 for Second Life

Imprudence 1.1.0 for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Catching up with Linden Lab and Second Life founder and chairman, Philip Rosedale isn't an easy task. We've certainly been trying for years. Having crossed-off most of the plans that didn't involve some sort of indictable body-tackle outside of the Lab's offices in San Francisco, we were beginning to despair somewhat.

However, despite a very full calendar and a busy work-schedule, we unexpectedly wound up with an opportunity to put a few questions to Rosedale, arguably one of the most notable figures in the virtual environments industry, this decade.

Often referred to affectionately as the "Old Man" of Second Life, Rosedale is a hip and handsome fellow, calling to mind a younger Richard Garriott back in the day, and considerably younger than many of Second Life's most-active users.

Continue reading Massively talks with upbeat Second Life founder, Philip Rosedale

Massively talks with upbeat Second Life founder, Philip Rosedale originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab founder and chairman, Philip Rosedale, yesterday announced changes to the open-source Second Life viewer program that would enable the fast-tracking of user-contributions to the code-base. The viewer source-code was originally released just a little over two years ago on 8 January 2007, and spurred an immediate surge of development, spurring developments of a variety of software including third-party server opensim.

The procedure for actually submitting patches to the codebase however was clunky, and some contributors abandoned their development efforts after contributed code (some which corrected egregious problems) was left to languish for many months without approval. The new scheme seems set to fast-track user-contributions and eliminate that particular problem.

Continue reading Linden Lab ramps up open source viewer program

Linden Lab ramps up open source viewer program originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This summer is shaping up to be a big release for the Multiverse platform, as two independent developers are gearing up to remove the final bugs from their games built on the open-source engine. However, their choice in development platform is the only thing these two games have in common, as both have taken radically different approaches to their gameplay.

Telos International's City of Sinners and Saints will be setting up a closed beta for April in preparations of opening their doors to the public in June. The game is focusing on creating a social networking experience within a three dimensional space, combining Facebook-esque concepts with game environment mechanics. Quests and games will be available, but most of the focus centers on creating an avatar and just meeting other people in a very over-the-top environment.

On the flip side, Neojac Entertainment's Islands of War has announced that they wish to start their open beta today, the 25th of March, and they have requested testers via their website. This fantasy themed MMORPG has been created more in the vein of the traditional MMO, a la World of Warcraft. While the game will be incorporating features that the casual player will enjoy, the setup seems to be more traditional than the approach of Sinners and Saints.

GDC09: Multiverse travels to the City of Sinners and Saints and the Islands of War originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Over the last few months, there's been an increasing amount of talk about the modified Second Life viewer being used with Open Life Grid (a third-party virtual environment based on reverse-engineered and open-source systems and protocols). Most of the talk centers around copyright infringement -- or license violations, if you prefer.

It's claimed that the operators of Open Life Grid are failing to comply with the source-code licenses (the GPL with FLOSS exceptions) under which the Second Life source code has been made available. Now, while the issue has been reported to Linden Lab's license-infringement hotline, the issue is actually a bit trickier for the Lab than it would first appear.

You see, the viewer code contains contributions from a number of third-party contributors, each of which retains their copyright, intellectual property and rights to their contributions under the terms of the contribution agreement. All of whom have the right to commence their own actions.

Continue reading Linden Lab's collective copyright conundrum

Linden Lab's collective copyright conundrum originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence Project has a release new candidate viewer for Second Life available. Imprudence 1.1 RC2 (unlike Linden Lab, the Imprudence Project counts starting from one, not from zero) features a number of improvements and fixes over RC1.

This release candidate has a new storage allocator for Windows which improves frame-rates, reduces memory-usage and is all-around more efficient. Several crash-bugs have been fixed, and support has been improved for Linux systems that use the PulseAudio sound server. A few UI tweaks and inconveniences have also been tidied up. Unfortunately there is still no version for the Mac as the Imprudence Project is starving for a Mac developer to handle that side of the code. Full release notes are after the jump.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.1.0 RC2 available

Imprudence 1.1.0 RC2 available originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the last several months, we've had numerous tips from readers that one or another of the available third-party Second Life viewers that are in distribution are in breach of the license agreements under which Linden Lab makes the source-code available. As the sole copyright holder (contributor's copyrights are assigned to Linden Lab via a contribution agreement), Linden Lab is the only party that can do more than apply limited verbal or social pressure for compliance [as it turns out, contributors remain full copyright holders - thanks for clearing that up, Gigs]. We've gotten quite a few readers asking how to report license violations, and if Linden Lab would seriously investigate those reports.

"We take copyright matters seriously," a Linden Lab spokesperson told us yesterday, "and people are welcome to report what they believe to be violations of the GPL terms under which we've made the viewer source code available."

Continue reading Linden Lab invites reports of viewer license violations

Linden Lab invites reports of viewer license violations originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence Project has a release new candidate viewer for Second Life available. Imprudence 1.1 RC1 (unlike Linden Lab, the Imprudence Project counts starting from one, not from zero) features a number of substantial improvements over 1.0, including openAL and Gstreamer support for general sound, as well as audio and video streaming.

This release candidate also features updates to the user-interface, arithmetic expressions in the build floater's texture and object tabs, quick-filtering for the inventory and more. Unfortunately there is no version for the Mac as the Imprudence Project is starving for a Mac developer to handle that side of the code. Due to licensing issues, Imprudence cannot ship with voice components, but you can add them yourself very easily. Full release notes are after the jump.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.1.0 RC1 available

Imprudence 1.1.0 RC1 available originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In development discussions surrounding the Second Life viewer's Web-support and internal Web-browser, WebKit has been a frequent discussion item. WebKit was originally derived (by Apple) from the Konqueror browser's KHTML software library and now functions as the core of Apple's Safari Web-browser. A number of companies have extended and adapted WebKit over time. A primary sticking point with adoption into the Second Life viewer, however, involved the terms of WebKit's software license.

Now that the licensing barrier has been overcome, work on integrating QtWebKit into the viewer is proceeding apace, as Linden Lab works in conjunction with Torch Mobile (makers of the Iris Browser) to finalize the integration, and sort out a few lingering issues.

Continue reading Linden Lab and Torch Mobile: Replacing the Second Life Web-browser

Linden Lab and Torch Mobile: Replacing the Second Life Web-browser originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence project has reached the end of the first release cycle for their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is now in official release, and will soon show the first of their 1.1 series of viewers, sporting sound and more extensive modifications.

As is proper, there's very little difference between the release version and the release candidate. Pretty much just a couple fixes for memory leaks, and some minor tweaking. OpenJPEG 1.3 removes issues with transparent skirts.

Aside from the temporary lack of audio, this seems to be the smoothest and most reliable viewer presently available based from the 1.21 code-base.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.0 released for Second Life

Imprudence 1.0 released for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Daily Grind: Open source MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As many know, Myst Online: URU Live has had an incredibly rocky road throughout its history. First sunsetted by Ubisoft, then by GameTap, URU's fans agreed to trying MORE (Myst Online Restoration Experiment) after Cyan Worlds got their IP back. Most recently in October, Cyan posted word that due to financial difficulties, URU and the entire MORE project would be placed on indefinite hold. Since then, nothing - until now.

In a startling move, Cyan Worlds has decided to release all of URU Live's assets to the public as open source. This includes the client and server architecture. Amazingly, they aren't simply releasing it into the wild and leaving it alone; Cyan has decided to hold one Myst Online server shard open for players to have a centralized world, despite the fact that others can now freely put up their own Myst Online servers.

It's a bold and daring move to open source a project of this scale. We applaud Cyan Worlds' dedication to their fans and love of their game to take a brave step like this, and wish all the URU users the best as they develop their worlds as they see fit. It's going to be really interesting to see how this develops.

Myst Online goes fully open-source originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence project now has its second release candidate viewer for Second Life available. Building on the feedback from RC1, Jacek Antonelli, McCabe Maxsted and team have churned out a whole slew of bug-fixes for the already tasty RC1.

Crashes when clicking on some hyperlinks have been fixed (the problem was traced to the Linden build system pulling in the wrong library), the debug console window has been hidden away (as it should be), the search interface no longer clears results between invocations, a prospective fix for issues with palletized textures (which could be related to a lot of minor issues) and more. The transparent skirt issue will be fixed in the next (and likely final) release, but you can fix it yourself now with a fresh library. Full release notes after the jump.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.0.0 RC2 available

Imprudence 1.0.0 RC2 available originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 06 Dec 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Imprudence project now has its first release candidate viewer for Second Life available, and far sooner than we expected. It's impressive work for a first release candidate as well. We've not had such a fast and smooth viewer experience since Nicholaz "The Mad Patcher" Beresford's series of Second Life viewers. Indeed, many of Beresford's patches are also a part of the Imprudence project.

Imprudence necessarily replaces proprietary fonts with Liberation Sans and Bitstream Vera Mono, which look a little peculiar the first couple of times out, but score high on improved readability. There's no audio either, yet, as the proprietary FMOD audio system has yet to be replaced with OpenAL, but that is coming soon, we understand. As for the change from Kakadu/KDU to OpenJPEG -- this is supposed to be fractionally slower, but honestly, the whole experience was so smooth we never noticed.

Continue reading Imprudence 1.0.0 RC1 available

Imprudence 1.0.0 RC1 available originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Second Life users are already calling it Second Life's second revolution. Outside of Linden Lab's in-world Land Team offices, capacity crowds of users have been gathered through much of the day, though there's been nary a Linden Lab staffer in sight. People are cursing, newcomers are asking for protest signs, and there's angry chatter in over a dozen languages. There are a lot of Europeans here, which is not unexpected. They have to pay VAT on top of any additional costs.

There is talk about switching the signs and banners for flaming torches and pitchforks, because, if nothing else Second Life users find value in tradition. There are even discussions about picketing Linden Lab's Battery Street office in San Francisco.

All of this started yesterday at 6PM SLT (US Pacific time) when Jack Linden, head of Linden Lab's land team, announced a price-rise to void simulators (known to Linden Lab as Openspace sims). The reaction since then has been ... robust.

Continue reading The spirit of 1776: Second Life's second revolution?

The spirit of 1776: Second Life's second revolution? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Second Life user Jacek Antonelli has announced a new, user-interface oriented project called Imprudence as a major fork of the Second Life viewer. Citing difficulties and delays within Linden Lab's own development and quality assurance pathways, Antonelli and McCabe Maxsted have created the basis for a community effort to rework the viewer's user-interface.

'The Second Life Viewer suffers from a stifling atmosphere of non-change. This atmosphere emanates from Linden Lab, whose attitudes and policies discourage all but the smallest and most superficial improvements. This is the result of the nature of Linden Lab as a corporation,' they write, listing lack of resources, burdensome QA that punishes change, and a paying customer-base that actively resists alterations.

Antonelli and Maxsted believe that a community project can overcome all of these obstacles -- and that if users do not choose to attempt it, the status will continue to remain pretty much quo for the foreseeable future.

	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Continue reading Imprudence for Second Life

Imprudence for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Open sourcing your MMO originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The second annual 'Hippo' (aka Linden Lab Innovation Awards) are open for nominations. Candidates are contributors who have had the most impact on Second Life open source development in the last 12 months.

Got a favorite contributor, documenter, or beneficial influence whose contribution you feel was exemplary between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008? Nominate them for an award!

Continue reading 2008 Hippo award nominations are open

2008 Hippo award nominations are open originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The RealXtend team has released the latest version of their extended, viewer and opensim-based system code. This brings realXtend up to version 0.3.

The viewer sports new basic avatars (three), attachments direct to the avatar (rather than to a bone-based attachment point), prim sizes increased to 128 metres in any dimension, fixed assorted crash bugs and more.

The server code handles the support for these features, along with a bunch of bug-fixes, Skype support, inverse kinematics and variable avatar walk-speeds.

Continue reading RealXtend 0.3 released

RealXtend 0.3 released originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Avatar puppeteering has unexpectedly turned up as a source-code branch in the Second Life viewer source repository. This is still a largely abandoned feature, but the code is being put in front of open-source developers to see if they can actually do anything with it.

It is important to stress that the code is far from complete or fully-tested. There is a simulator on the Aditi (preview) grid which has some matching code written for it (the simulator is called Puppeteering - and may only be accessible by logging directly into the sim). The simulator code is also unfinished, insufficiently tested, and likely not stable. If none of that dissuades you, and you'd like to play with this code, then good luck!

Learn more about Avatar Puppeteering.

Avatar puppeteering code has strings attached originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Jacek Antonelli has released a new version of her Blender animation exporter that allows use of Blender's sophisticated (and free) animation suite to create animations for Second Life.

This release focuses primarily on the user-interface, improving the layout to make things a whole lot easier for those who are not already Jedi-masters of the Blender package; and a mighty good change it is, too, as you can see above.

Continue reading New release: Blender animation exporter

New release: Blender animation exporter originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab is tinkering with a set of Second Life graphical improvements for high-end graphics hardware. Dave Parks, software engineer at Linden Lab has been working on a set of features tailored to the Geforce 8 set of GPUs. Users without the required hardware would not suffer any performance reductions as a result of the new features.

The featureset (which is available as an experimental branch called shadow-draft in the viewer source repository, for the curious), includes hard Sun-shadows, per-pixel lighting, support for an uncapped number of point-lights, and lighting costs based on screen coverage.

Continue reading High-end graphics features planned for Second Life

High-end graphics features planned for Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 29 May 2008 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.