Former Admiral to pursue other interests, spend more time with family

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Mr. Mahfouz studies his civilian options in an elaborate heads up display

As word spread of the ejection of former Admiral Nanao Mahfouz from the Alliance Navy last weekend, the big questions in the Second Life militia community went un-answered. What will Mr. Mahfouz do next? Is the Alliance navy’s base in Dorien sim in danger of Mr. Mahfouz selling the land? What caused the disagreement?

Seeking answers, I made a visit to the AN base and managed to take one picture of Mr. Mahfouz before I was killed - but learned that Mr. Mahfouz was turfed out of the navy due to long standing disagreements on leadership direction.

Pixeleen Mistral: Was there some sort of change in AN command?


Nanao Mahfouz: And what about them? You’ve come groveling back here hoping for another story you can twist into some sensationalist scandal to attract more avid readers?


Dexhen Helios: holster

Pixeleen Mistral: well - I’m a reporter, and there are these rumors that you are out of the AN command Nanao - but the sources are all outside the AN


Nanao Mahfouz: No, I know who you are, reporter wouldn’t be the appropriate title.

Pixeleen Mistral: so I do the reporter thing, and ask questions


Hades Juran: Nanao is no longer a member of the AN at all. Leave now Pixeleen, you are not welcome here


Nanao Mahfouz: Yes, I’m out of the AN. Here’s your cookie for sharp, top-notch investigative journalism.

Pixeleen Mistral: but you own Dorien, what will happen to the sim?


Nanao Mahfouz: Nothing will happen to the sim. It’s staying here, just like it is, as I promised I’d maintain it.


Pixeleen Mistral: that is good for the AN


You died and have been teleported to your home location


Teleport completed from http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dorien/141/17/21

It was unclear if I was killed due to an accidental weapon discharge by one of the Alliance navy troops as I stood at the spawn point for the Dorien base or if this was due to enemy action. In any case, it seemed wise to continue the interview at a distance, via IM.

Pixeleen Mistral: so Nanao - why did you leave the AN? I’d like to be able to tell your side in the story I’m writing but I guess I can always go with “Nanao refused to reply” - and let the speculation run wild in the comments section - but it seems like it would be better if you had your say


Nanao Mahfouz: Like you asked for my side of the story last time?

Pixeleen Mistral: I’m asking this time


Nanao Mahfouz: What makes this time different, miss hot shot investigative reporter?


Nanao Mahfouz: Here, how’s this for you then, since you’re asking. I didn’t leave, I was ejected.

Pixeleen Mistral: so this was not your choice — but you will still support the Dorien sim?


Nanao Mahfouz: Yes.

Pixeleen Mistral: there is already a lot of speculation going on - do you have any idea why you were ejected? was there any advance notice - or was it a surprise ejection?


Nanao Mahfouz: No, there was plenty of advance notice. I was kicked because I no longer agree with the directives and motives of high command, their leadership, or their intent on masking themselves behind their own failures to adhere to the doctrine and standards which they establish.


Nanao Mahfouz: This group is left to suffer because of the actions - or rather the inactions - of a few.

Pixeleen Mistral: it sounds like there was a fundamental disagreement about leadership - those are always tough. So you will now be pursuing other interests and spending more time with your family?


Nanao Mahfouz: I’ll be spending more time doing what I do. Combat, and building. The AN is no longer a fun experience, and the only reason I stuck around - obligation - no longer exists.


Nanao Mahfouz: So yeah. I’m gonna pursue other interests, relax a lot more, build for myself and all that feel good metaverse bullshit.

We’ll conduct grid wide maintenance on the voice servers on Monday morning, 14 July 2008, between 2:00 AM PDT and 5:00 AM PDT. Each voice-enabled region will experience a brief downtime (under five minutes) as the individual media server supporting voice for that region is restarted.

A handful of individual regions may experience audio interruptions lasting five to ten seconds for a period of a few hours following this maintenance period, as audio load is balanced across the voice grid.

We’ll update the status page as work progresses.

In the wake of the recent first avatar teleport between Second Life and an OpenSim region, Linden VP Joe Miller, better known to Second Life residents as “Zero Linden,” spoke to Reuters about Linden Lab’s long-term strategy.

Linden aggressively pushed to develop a set of working protocols to allow interoperability across divergent virtual worlds. “Standards groups in general take forever to reach agreement,” Miller said. By working with partner IBM, Linden wanted to take a leadership role in getting OpenSim regions and Linden Lab’s Second Life talking to each other.

Challenged by competitors on all sides, including the recent entry of Internet giant Google into the virtual worlds space, Linden is banking on OpenSim to bolster its strong position in the virtual worlds industry.

“We want to broaden the market for virtual worlds as rapidly as possible,” Miller said. “The sheer size of the market needs to be several orders of magnitude larger than it is today.”

OPENSIM: SAVIOR OR COMPETITOR?

At first glance, OpenSim seems to directly undermine Linden Lab’s revenue model. While Linden earns token sums from fees on its LindeX virtual currency exchange and other activities, the company’s core business model remains managing “land.”

All virtual land in Second Life (except for a few regions hosted by IBM) runs on computer servers managed by Linden. Avatars who purchase land — essentially dedicated CPU time on Linden’s computers — pay a monthly land use fee known as “tier.” Despite stalling new avatar enrollments, technical glitches, and a shrinking paid customer base, Linden’s revenue-generating land supply continues to grow at 44% quarter-to-quarter.

The challenge for Linden Lab is that its monopoly is about to end.

Linden Lab put Second Life’s viewer software into the open source domain in January of last year. But to date, the company has kept its server-side code — which does things like manage inventory, handle logins, and run revenue-generating land — under tight wraps.

But with the viewer code public, eager programmers were able to make best-guess approximations of how Linden’s server-side computers run Second Life’s infrastructure. The OpenSimulator project, better known as OpenSim, has grown rapidly to provide many of the features offered by Second Life, but without any code running on Linden’s computers or money flowing into the company’s coffers. Already, a combination of pioneers and outcasts have begun migrating to OpenSim worlds.

LINDEN LAB’S NEW REVENUE MODEL

So if Linden Lab makes its money from land, and OpenSim can provide land to avatars cheaper than Linden can afford to offer, how will Linden survive as OpenSim approaches the feature set and reliability found today on the Second Life Grid? And why is Linden working so aggressively to empower easy traveling from Second Life and into OpenSim?

Linden’s plan, Miller said, is to identify “value-added services” it can offer to a potentially chaotic mix of thousands of disparate OpenSim grids. He declined to comment on the company’s exact strategy, beyond insisting that Linden has “some very specific plans.”

But in extended questioning Miller offered some insight on how Linden’s hopes to prosper in an OpenSim-dominated world.

“I could see Linden offering economic services, trading services, search services,” Miller said. Some OpenSim worlds may respect Second Life’s intellectual property protections and commerce functions. The Linden Dollar, with a years-long reputation of solid financial backing, may be positioned to become the gold standard of virtual currencies.

Miller also referenced the role VeriSign plays in the administration of the Internet by managing top-level “.com” and “.net” network addresses. Linden may one day play an active role in not only teleports between OpenSim worlds and the Second Life Grid, but between two otherwise unconnected OpenSim worlds.

THE SHORT TERM

The evolution from a company that sells virtual land to the infrastructure backbone of a diverse array of OpenSim worlds will be a slow one, Miller emphasized. And in a Wednesday statement on Linden’s blog, company CEO Mark Kingdon identified “platform stability, viewer performance, lag, inventory management” as priorities in the short term.

But Linden executives believe the day of OpenSim is coming, and pledge not only to help make it happen, but also to keep improving their own service. “We look forward to the day when the value of entering the Second Life Grid will be clear over the value of entering an OpenSim grid,” Miller said.

Merczateer operatives unmask and attack the EAF weapons
smugglers, but Vanguard comes in to back up their new allies – resulting in the
latest battle between two old foes.

By Caine Constantine, Herald War Correspondent

A sting operation conducted just a few days ago caught the
leader of the Elite Armed Forces – a marvelously named group allied with the Merczateers up to
this point – personally selling leaked and copybotted weapons designed and
belonging to the Merczateers to an undercover agent from that same military.

Shown here, Commander Br1an Razor, leader of the EAF, was
caught in the act of selling Merczateers equipment to a black market buyer by
Proteus Hand, the Merczateers Light Operative who first uncovered information
leading to the suspicion that the EAF was selling their ally’s equipment.

During the sting, Proteus, dressed in a suit and sporting
the title of someone working as an “1337 Weapz. Employer,” made contact with
Commander Razor while posing as someone not affiliated with the Merczateers, and
managed to purchase multiple weapons, like the Mac-10, the G36, and the Silhouette
.357 – all illustrated below – for L$500.

Proteus gave me a chatlog of the event. Commander Razor does not dispute its
accuracy, though he feels it was taken out of context. Here is the entirety of it, with minor
changes and omissions in order in the interests of clarity and conciseness.

Proteus Hand: but, they’d be nice to have concepts for.
Proteus Hand: like, if I were to get my own guns built
Proteus Hand: if I had something to work off of.

Br1an Razor: I see that simply that there built up already
and need scripts then thats half the battle and people in sl dont give 2 shits
about armies go out to some getto and they buy them just to look cool

Proteus Hand: yeah.
Br1an Razor: so are we on the same page
Proteus Hand: mmhm.

Br1an Razor: after all mercz and vanguard both fuck each
other over and neither one is really acknologed by the mafia groups or gangs in
sl
Br1an Razor: so i dont see why you would not want to sell
leaked stuff

Proteus Hand: good point.
Proteus Hand: so, how much you want for them?

Br1an Razor: after all i seen people sell freebee whare house
shit in shops
Br1an Razor: ill give you all of them for 500

Proteus Hand: okay

Br1an Razor: you will have to script them
Br1an Razor: unless you want the ones we did
Br1an Razor: let me get them

Proteus Hand: and these are leaked?
Br1an Razor: alot are
Br1an Razor: let me dig them up
Br1an Razor: i want to make sure there full perm
Br1an Razor: ill fix the settings

Proteus Hand: okay
Proteus Hand: that’s good for business, actually.
Proteus Hand: now that I think about it.

Br1an Razor: check them out
Br1an Razor: make sure there full perm

Proteus Hand: congratulations.
Br1an Razor: np
Proteus Hand: Sting operation, complete.
Proteus Hand: check my tag.

Br1an Razor: i had a feeling
Br1an Razor: i see it
Br1an Razor: and i realised
Br1an Razor: that you know
Br1an Razor: that most of sl has these
Br1an Razor: leaked guns are all over

Proteus Hand: unfortunately, you SOLD them to me.
Proteus Hand: which is a violation of ToS, and is a bannable
offense
Proteus Hand: not to mention, you just broke the Mercz EAF
alliance.
Proteus Hand: Kommissariat will be pleased.
Proteus Hand: one step closer to killing the leaking ring.

And with that, Proteus left. He told me that there was no violence and the Commander Razor was rather
ambivalent about the whole thing. Being
caught selling leaked weapons by his most powerful ally in a sting operation
sure to engender military retaliation didn’t phase the Commander – was there
something else to the story?

I went to Appledore, the new Merczateers sim where the group
was training and defending as their main sims,

Salamis

and Badnarik, underwent extensive remodeling, to talk to the Merczateers about
the EAF incident.

Merczateers Màrshal Anthony Lehane told me about how the
alliance between the Merczateers and the EAF began – and how it ended.

Caine Constantine: So what happened with the EAF incident, Màrshal
Lehane?

Anthony Lehane: Alright. So I believe around the time EAF
was formed their leadership requested an alliance with the Mercz, and a spot in
the Iron Symphony. So naturally, they
seemed a reasonable force at the time and we agreed.

Anthony Lehane: Now, along our alliance we helped the EAF -

ALOT

-.
They would call us for backup when like, one guy was attacking their sim. Everytime, we’d send a small squad or some AD
to clean it up.

Anthony Lehane: That’s how things have been going for the
entire alliance. But recently, one of my
men heard a rumour that their leader, Br1an Razor, was selling and distributing
leaked/copybotted Mercz gear.

Anthony Lehane: Now, we don’t usually just sit around and do
nothing when we hear about that, so I turned to the Merczateer Light Ops squad
(Which is our combat, intel and foreign policy special forces) and set up a
sting operation on Br1an.

Màrshal Lehane reviewed the chatlog with me and explained
again how the operation had worked, saying that Commander Razor had left the
alliance after he was exposed, and that attacking forces from the Merczateers
were immediately inbound for retaliation.

Anthony Lehane: With that, and the log, Br1an silently
resigned from the Iron Symphony, and our alliance.

Anthony Lehane: The very same day we issued a large scale
attack on EAF. It was to the point where Br1an was av-flying around trying to
take out our swarm, but AD easily picked him off.

Anthony Lehane: Later that day, they attacked the Militant
Collective, which we provided support, and immediately tore them to pieces.
When they left, we then joint-op’d them with MC and crushed them once again.

Anthony Lehane: At that attack, however, Christoph and VG
were backing them up.

And so as quickly as he left the side of the Merczateers,
Commander Br1an Razor immediately found new and willing allies in the Vanguard
Armed Forces – who showed up to defend him in force. The Merczateers eventually claimed victory
nonetheless.

Anthony Lehane: Nevertheless we still had a very successful
assault - the EAF alliance was one our officers urged us to end, anyways, as it
was causing problems.

In fact, for most of the duration of the ill-fated alliance,
both officers and rank-and-file soldiers in the Merczateers were tiring of what
they called their “noob ally.” The
Merczateers seemed happy to be rid of the Elite Armed Forces – but was EAF
feeling the same way? I decided to go to
Southwest Seaport, their home, to find out.

The base had a destroyed city fraught with a nexus of sewers
and ruined buildings, which seemed doubly fitting considering it had so
recently been subject to a massive attack from their vengeful former
allies. It was still under attack by
other forces when I arrived on the scene, but the battle had died down to the
point where I made it into the base and received an audience with Commander
Br1an Razor.

I wanted to start by getting some information on the EAF for
readers who may not know much about the group, as it is fairly new to the
Second Life military community.

Caine Constantine: What is the EAF all about?
Br1an Razor: well we are allied with Vanguard and TFM we
like to keep allies down to have plenty to fight we are a group of friends that
formed a army group so we are all good friends

Caine Constantine: So how old is your group?
Br1an Razor: we are about 3 months old

Caine Constantine: And how many members do you have?
Br1an Razor: last time I checked it was I believe 70

Caine Constantine: So what is the EAF working on currently -
any projects or plans for the future?
Br1an Razor: yes aircraft and weapons we are looking to work
on the divisions as well

Caine Constantine: How so?
Br1an Razor: I have unlike many other groups allowed my
group to be more active in the decisions I dont want to be a person who says do
this and that I would rather have the team bring Ideas to the table

Caine Constantine: You are trying to create a more
democratic group?
Br1an Razor: I want the people to feel its there army not
mine I would rather provide and let them run with it and look back at what they
built not just me

Caine Constantine: So how successful have you been in combat
so far?
Br1an Razor: well we have made a name for our selfs pretty
quick for the short time we have been a group, mainly because we all enjoy
hitting one location to the next but keeping a respectful out look tword our
foes

While I was tempted to ask him if a respectful outlook
included selling the other group’s leaked weaponry, I chose not to in favor of
keeping a peaceful air to the interview. He was quick to condemn the Merczateers as a social club, and denied
being at fault for any of the problems with the leaked weapons.

Caine Constantine: I heard you used to be allied with the
Merczateers.

Br1an Razor: We were with the Iron Symphony but felt that
doing that did not allow us to have many to attack so we broke alliances to
only have a few
Br1an Razor: there a good group but not that active there
more of a social group where we like to attack more

Caine Constantine: I see. I talked to Màrshal Lehane, who
told me you left the Iron Symphony because of your allegedly selling leaking
Merczateers equipment.

Br1an Razor: This is not true, yes like many other groups on
here I was given open source Mercz gear which there own people with in there
group had leaked and given to Christoph the leader of Vangaurd, bad blood
between those to groups caused the leak of all there weapons

It would do well to explain a clear a fact Br1an pointed
out, one that every party to this incident – EAF, Merczateers, and Vanguard –
freely acknowledges. These weapons have
a bitter history behind them.

Tangent Eponym, a former Merczateer General, resigned from
the group in frustration and gave a multitude of its latest weapons designs to
Vanguard Führer Christoph Naumova. Führer
Naumova then gave the weapons out freely to anyone he felt like giving them to,
dispensing them into groups and to individuals who would do well to have
them. He openly admits to it too as a
matter of normal conduct in response to Merczateer provocation – a topic that
will be discussed in more depth in the future.

Christoph Naumova: I seriously gave them to people I knew
would leak them all over.

Eventually, these weapons reached Commander Razor, who sold
them back to their creators and sparked a new war. But as he continued on with the interview, just
then, an invading visitor broke into the compound.

Aryte Vesperia: Hi Caine!

And just then, in a stream of lead and a puff of smoke,
Commander Razor was dead.  Seemingly on
his own, Ordo Imperator Aryte Vesperia had taken control of the base. He was quick to ask the EAF back into the
battle after gunning a few more down.

Aryte Vesperia shouts: That’s fifteen.
Aryte Vesperia shouts: Who’s next?

Eventually after another wave of EAF troops broke into the
underground area where I had been conducting an interview and was now watching
a lone gunman hold his own in hostile territory, Ordo Imperator Vesperia was
shot and out of the area. Or was he?

In fact, he had been ejected from the land and had never
actually been killed. This is a picture
of him stranded at the edge of the sim, at which time he sent me the copy of
the phrase he received ejecting him from the land. It was a rather unorthodox way for EAF to win
the battle against the lone invader – using land powers to do so and all – but
it was effective.

The interview now continued, with Br1an talking to me now
about his new alliance with Vanguard, and his complaints about his old one with
the Merczateers.

Caine Consantine: So you’re now allies with Vanguard - who
approached who for the alliance?
Br1an Razor: Christoph - he tped the Task Force Marines and
the Elite Armed Forces for a meeting

Caine Constantine: So he came to you with the alliance idea?
Br1an Razor: yes, a few weeks back, but we took him up on
his offer 3 days ago

Caine Constantine: So he originally wanted you to split with
the Merczateers and the Iron Symphony?
Br1an Razor: yes he explained how they break STABLE
Br1an Razor: Im here to fight not talk
Br1an Razor: The mercz said to me that they were not in SL
to fight, that they were a Social group. this made me leave them
Br1an Razor: we never got any back up from them while in the
IS

Caine Constantine: Really? Never?
Br1an Razor: they treated us and meny other allies in a
distant way
Br1an Razor: out of the whole time with us they helped us 2
times

Commander Razor was quick to account for how fast he could "call on" Vanguard troops to save him from any trouble he might encounter.

Br1an Razor: I can call on Vanguard and they will help at
the drop of a dime
Br1an Razor: thats what I call Alliances

Caine Constantine: So then you think they’re better allies?
Br1an Razor: I feel Mercz gives Vangaurd a bad name out of
jealousy

Caine Constantine: Really? How so?
Br1an Razor: well its all in numbers Caine
Br1an Razor: more of a fight for power
Br1an Razor: pluse Chris did leak there guns lol

These claims flew in the face of those made by Commander
Razor’s former ally Màrshal Lehane, who – in addition to many other Merczateers
- was emphatic about the amount of assistance the group had given to the
fledgling EAF before the ending of the alliance.

The interview by this point had mostly been finished, but
someone else was going to end it for me. Commander Razor had me under heavy guard to prevent future attacks from
taking out either party of the interview.

But Imperator Vesperia returned in a jet, landed above
Commander Razor’s compound, and killed all of his guards. He stood facing the entrance to the
underground bunker, again killing anyone who tried retaking the position.

Meanwhile, EAF soldiers were busy guarding the interior of
the base – still held by the Imperator – from other invaders.

Eventually, Imperator Vesperia left, and with Commander
Razor finished, I went on to talk to the third party in this incident. In this later interview with Führer Naumova,
he denied that there was any sort of orchestrated plan to lure the EAF out of
the alliance with the Merczateers.

Caine Constantine: Br1an Razor told me that you had been
talking with him for a few weeks prior to the alliance, trying to get him to
switch sides. Was there any previous contact?

Christoph Naumova: Naw, more like three days
Christoph Naumova: Random IM like a week ago
Christoph Naumova: He just randomly IM’d me and asked about
an alliance

Caine Constantine: To your knowledge, was this before the
incident that ended the alliance?

Christoph Naumova: Pretty much, it came down to the
Merczateers never helping them
Christoph Naumova: Or doing anything like allies should
Christoph Naumova: It’s just sad Vanguard helped more in one
day then the Merczateers did in an entire month.

Caine Constantine: So what did you tell him at the time?

Christoph Naumova: Well, he and bennyboy (TFM leader) asked
about joining the Sovereign Regime
Christoph Naumova: And, honestly, there was no global
conspiracy or anything
Christoph Naumova: I was truly just like "Sure, what
the hell, I’ll give it a chance’

Caine Constantine: Yes, I wanted to ask because people
claimed that it was an attempt by you to pry them away from the Merczateers.

Christoph Naumova: I’d never even talked to the guy before
that.

So then the question was simple - who was telling the
truth? Commander Razor’s own statements
were directly against those of both of his benefactors, past and present. He presented a picture of Vanguard
encouraging him to break the alliance with the Merczateers.

But why would Vanguard – unquestionably, a very capable and
powerful military force, once very proud of the fact that it had no allies –
worry about a group like the EAF? Merczateers
Màrshal Lehane had some ideas as to why this could be the case.

Anthony Lehane: First, I’m sure Christoph would love an
outlet to have his men shoot at Mercz, because right now we’re in a combat
blockade with them. We don’t go to Supox, they don’t come to our…3 sims.

Anthony Lehane: For Br1an, he needs another big group to
mooch off of when things get tough for him. That’s why he gave Christoph land
rights to his sim.

Anthony Lehane: So he was doing all the banning while Br1an
av-flew around screaming.

Caine Constantine: Wait - how extensive are these land
rights?

Anthony Lehane: I’m not sure, but Christoph DID ban people,
so. I’m guessing Christoph requested full control.

Caine Constantine: So he’s looking for a fight, but you guys
are still blockading him.

Anthony Lehane: Yeah. We’re not gonna let VG presence during
our assaults stop us, however. We plowed through them.

Caine Constantine: Do you think there are any other motives?

Anthony Lehane: I think Christoph just needs to get his
troops killing stuff. A lot are leaving right now due to either boredom,
racism, or excess lulz and stupidity. Looking at his documents and charters I
can see he’s starting to really try to crack down on those problems.

Führer Naumova saw things quite differently in a follow-up
response to the Merczateer claims about the state of Vanguard.

Christoph Naumova: The whole reason I allied with EAF and
TFM is because they came and asked me. Although now that I think about it, it
does give me a chance to further limit the people they have to attack, causing
boredom and drama on their part.

Christoph Naumova: As far as people leaving VG and my
documents goes?  Nope, we’ve still got
all the people I care about and we’ve gained 20 more in this week - So really,
it’s unfounded.

Christoph Naumova: Not to mention after handing Mercz’ asses
to them after having them caught on tape sithacking in Cheerful Rising during
an assault, I’m sure he’s just annoyed over that.

Christoph Naumova: Haner needs to grow a pair and stop
living in ignorance, and see the full light of things.

The Elite Armed Forces are in fact a group that, in its
short history, has already found itself wedged between two of the titans of
Second Life’s military scene. It is a
military whose leader at this point has thrown his lot completely in with that
of Vanguard – and has no qualms about admitting that they are perhaps his
biggest asset. I asked him about what he
thought of the Merczateer invasions of the EAF sim, Southwest Seaport.

Caine Constantine: So you won each battle?
Br1an Razor: we did not I feel the credit should go to
Vanguard and TFM they were a big help

Caine Constantine: Oh okay, that’s very fair of you.
Br1an Razor: well its the truth

Caine Constantine: So do you see yourself and the EAF
sticking with Vanguard into the future?
Br1an Razor: yes we would have it no other way

Caine Constantine: And do you feel like they treat you as
equal partners?
Br1an Razor: I feel they do unlike the Mercz did, the mercz
seemed condescending

Caine Constantine: Do you plan on any more allies then? Or are you sticking with the TFM and Vanguard
forever?
Br1an Razor: I want to keep it with just them I feel we need
no others we like to fight

Caine Constantine: So you stand with the Sovereign Regime
until the bitter end?
Br1an Razor: yes

Caine Constantine: Thank you for your time, Br1an.
Br1an Razor: thank you

This incident with a comparatively new military digs up an
old and continuing story – that of the war between the Merczateers and Vanguard
– of bitter foes, with a history, membership and even leadership that are tied
inextricably to one another.

The story behind the war between these two groups – on and
off the battlefield – and the personal vendettas among many in the groups is
the next part in this series about two of Second Life’s most powerful military
forces, and those caught in the crossfire between them.

Today we are releasing a new Release Candidate, 1.20 RC13. If you have already been using the Release Candidate (RC12), you will be required to update to RC13 with the latest bug fixes. But, the Release Candidate is always an optional series of viewers that you may choose not to use — or use side by side on your computer with the main viewer offered on our Downloads page (or get.secondlife.com).

This RC13 introduces… drum roll… the feature VWR-5059 which enables you to switch the look and feel of the User Interface between 2 options: the classic grey color or a lighter blue/silver theme. Go to Preferences>Skins. (Side note for SL historians keeping track: As you know, the multi-month project was code named “Project Dazzle”– but that’s really the name of the architecture juggernaut work that got us to refresh the UI. In the final presentation in 1.20 Viewer, we opted to call the resulting color option by a simpler name, ‘Silver’.)

EDIT 2008-07-10 11:30PST: To be clear, the feature VWR-5059 allows you to switch between the 2 pre-installed skins only, as requested by many Residents in this 1.20 viewer. This is not the complete Skinning architecture outlined in the Skinning project… which is a long term project and takes more time. Resident-created skins will still need to update their instructions to install them, if they are posted on the SL wiki.

IMPORTANT: Minor Known Issues with RC13:

• It is a Known Bug that HTML based windows (like Search>All) will still have a scroll bar with the lighter Silver look to them, even if you are using the Classic skin.
• It is a Known Bug that the art arrows on some dropdown combo boxes may appear clipped.

• When upgrading from RC12 to RC13, the new XML skins files are installed (under-the-hood) to a folder called \skins\default\xui\. Unfortunately this leaves behind legacy files from the previous Release Candidate in the old \skins\xui folder. This is completely harmless and will not affect RC13 at all. We mention this only to avoid confusion by advanced users who are interested in the Skinning architecture. The next iteration of the Release Candidate will resolve this problem.

Please continue to report any new issues in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.20 Release Candidate”. Visit the Test Viewers download page (Note: use the links at bottom of page, under Test Viewers) to get started with the new Release Candidate!

Fixes in 1.20 RC13:

Changes:
* The viewer installs with a default classic grey color of the User Interface. This can be changed in Preferences > Skins (It requires a restart of the viewer to take effect.)

Fixes:
* Fixed: VWR-7893: create a Classic skin for the viewer
** Thank you to McCabe Maxsted for the Open Source contribution of the Classic art assets!
* Fixed: VWR-5059: add option to switch between a Classic and Silver theme from within Preferences
* Fixed: VWR-3529: WindLight: Saving snapshots to disk crashes viewer
* Fixed: Assign user agent strings with the name of skin in the internal Mozilla browser
* Fixed: The user-agent string in the browser is not HTTP 1.1 compliant
* Fixed: A new debug setting ‘SkinCurrent’ is used to persist the chosen skin, to avoid crashing older builds

]]> http://www.2lifeblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/now-available-optional-release-candidate-viewer-120-rc13-switch-between-skins/feed/ http://www.2lifeblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/now-available-optional-release-candidate-viewer-120-rc13-switch-between-skins/ http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/2lifeblogsecondLifeBlog/~3/388312381/ http://www.2lifeblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/new-torley-linden-documentary-features-mitch-kapor/#comments Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:36:25 +0000 admin tag:typepad.com,2003:post-52477404

An all too accurate picture of the state of SL

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Noted virtual filmmaker Torley Linden’s latest production is a documentary of the closing keynote address from the SL5B 5th “birthday” celebration. The largely nipple free PG celebration ended on a downbeat note monday, as mighty Mitch Kapor went out of his way to insult current metaverse residents by implying they are socially inept outsiders soon to be swept away in a flood of “pragmatic” business, education, and non-profit players — though impartial observers wonder how this will happen, given the dismal peak concurrent user growth rate, unstable platform, and general lack of professionalism on the part of Linden Lab.

opening credits - Torley is nearly as important as Mitch

Given the difficult subject matter Torley Linden chose for his latest epic, the film works surprisingly well, as Torley pulls out all the stops in a largely successful effort to provide a ironic counterpoint to a corporate message Torley clearly disagrees with.

We applaud this brave young filmmaker and hope to see more of his creative use of up-the-nose camera angles, over-modulated voice, hyperkinetic pans, and subtle use of un- rezed gray textures - all groundbreaking SL filmmaking techniques that point out the obvious limits of Second Life. Hopefully, as Torley continues to perfect his subversive artform he will be able to retain his position as lab mascot and court videographer for the Linden empire.

Torley points out LL’s corporate ambitions - no hawaiian shirts for Mitch today, this is serious business!

a subtle reminder that very few avatars can participate in this “event”

Torley shows how Mitch suddenly won’t rez - and his best Brooks Brothers suit is gone, gone, gone!
Another asset server problem or client crash?

Mitch is starting to rez, but Robin Linden’s hair has gone gray - so much for that trip to the Juut Salon Spa in Palo Alto last weekend

emergency visit from the Juut colorist

layering and working from the top down

now if the clothes will just rez…

Torley throws down a classic “look how busy SL is” shot…

…then undercuts the viewer’s assumptions by showing the visible avatars — subversive genius!

…blah blah blah…virtual worlds have pragmatic value especially in the business sector …blah blah blah value proposition being established… …blah blah blah…some things Linden lab has to do… …blah blah blah…I continue as a board member …blah blah blah… to advocate…strongly to allow …blah blah blah…the potential of the platform to unfold… improving robustnesss of the platform… decentralized in a …blah blah blah… kind of way… announcements in days and weeks and months to come…

LL is going to print 2.65M L$ spacebux ($10,000 USD) for our bestest friend evah — and it really doesn’t cost the Lab anything - residents could feel a bit of inflation but who cares? most of them are role players, furries, or robots</em