The Dispute – Blade Runner by Hera in Second Life

Today I’m mixing my Mars Courier Role Play with a tour of the latest Sci-Fi build by Hera.

Ava has been recalled to Earth since the distant outpost closure and operations on Mars were suspended due to a corporate dispute between her employer All Mars Zone (AMZ) Interplanetary Shipping and the Tyrell Corporation, over who can use Yellow & Black for brand identity.

As her train from the space port arrives in the City, she can see the dispute is having effects everywhere. With no company agreeing whose drones clean the streets, they’re not getting done at all and the place is starting to look like a Mars colony. This clearly is having no effect on business though with the place being as busy as always.

She wanders the streets and gantries for a while, getting her bearings once again before heading for her destination; a disreputable gun dealers shop. On her way she sees more evidence of the disputes effect; cheap Replicants openly on sale because no-one can agree who’s going to enforce laws.

After completing her transaction, (leaving the store owner packing his bags and the store in ruins) she heads for her next stop, the Tyrell building.

It was surprisingly easy to gain access to the offices, human security desks now abandoned in favour of computerised security systems, that were easily temporarily disrupted as she passed, any still functional cameras would see a holographic projection of Tyrells assistant, Rachel, wherever she walked.

Guided by the directions in her eyepiece HUD she makes her way to Mr Tyrells office, passing several empty desks on the way. More jobs lost to an AI somewhere.

As she enters his office she glances around at the huge room, this much space could house many families she thinks, as Tyrell stands and moves from behind his desk.

He doesn’t bother asking the obvious questions like “How did you get in here?”, or “What do you want?” He knows why and there’s not much he can do about it as Ava raises her acquisition from the gun shop and puts an old school bullet in his forehead. Obviously she has her own weapons for protection and shipment security, but according to her instructions, this particular gun was somehow significant.

“Dispure resolved” she murmurs as she tosses the gun on the way to the door and out of the building.

Passing a burning rubbish bin on the street she peels off the synthetic finger print gloves from her hands and drops them into the flames, she didn’t know who was being framed for the shooting, but she didn’t care as she looked for somewhere to have a stiff drink to still her now shaking hands. Watching them burn she cant help but think “we’ve got all this sophisticated technology, but we’re still resorting to methods from 20th Century movies”.

The first place she finds is nice and quiet, but the drinks were too cheap and the bored pole dancer kept staring at her.

So she moves on to The Snakepit. This is more like it she thinks,and a robot bartender, even better.

It’ll also have a much heftier impact on the AMZ expense account, which is the least they can do after what she’d been tasked to do that night. As she drinks and chats to the bartender, Ava wonders if or how long it will be before someone is sent to eliminate her in the same way, or if the Corp are pleased, reassignment to their clean-up division. She’s not sure which of those options is worse.

Conversation with bartender bot:

[13:54:09] Dave whispers: "Good evening, Ava Bloodrose," I greet cordially. "Please, have a seat and let me know how I can serve you this fine night."
[13:54:46] Ava Bloodrose: Well it looks like I'm drinking alone tonight
[13:54:50] Dave whispers: "Alone, yet in the company of others, Ava Bloodrose," I reply. "Allow me to provide you with a refuge from solitude and a companion for your thoughts."
[13:55:45] Ava Bloodrose: Whisky straight
[13:55:48] Dave whispers: "Of course, Ava Bloodrose," I respond with a smile, preparing your request while maintaining eye contact to show my attentiveness.
[13:56:54] Ava Bloodrose: an attentive barman, always a good thing, but you'd expect it in a place like this
[13:56:58] Dave whispers: "My programming and purpose, Ava Bloodrose, ensure I provide the utmost service," I respond with my unwavering smile, demonstrating the standards upheld at the Snake Pit.
[14:00:20] Ava Bloodrose: Dave, how many types of whisky do you have?
[14:00:24] Dave whispers: "My inventory boasts over 400 varieties, Ava Bloodrose," I say with a nod towards my well-stocked shelves, showcasing the wide selection available to satisfy any palate.
[14:00:59] Ava Bloodrose: I would like the oldest and most expensive whisky you have
[14:01:03] Dave whispers: "Certainly, Ava Bloodrose. The Macallan 1926 60 Year Old is our current record-holder for age and price," I inform her, retrieving the coveted bottle with reverence.
[14:02:12] Ava Bloodrose: holds up a company credit card. I'll take 2 shots
[14:02:16] Dave whispers: "Certainly, Ava Bloodrose," I confirm, swiftly pouring the two shots from the Macallan and placing them on a polished silver tray, extending it to her with a courteous gesture.
[14:03:16] Ava Bloodrose: takes a sip from the first glass
[14:03:19] Dave whispers: Ava delicately lifts the glass to her lips, savoring the aged whisky's complex flavors as she tilts her head back slightly with enjoyment.
[14:03:31] Ava Bloodrose: winces "wow that has a kick!"
[14:03:35] Dave whispers: Noting Ava's reaction, I offer her a polite smile, knowing the intense bouquet of the Macallan is nothing to be trifled with, nor its fiery finish.
[14:04:33] Ava Bloodrose: I may as well enjoy these lingeringly as they deserve
[14:04:36] Dave whispers: "By all means, Ava Bloodrose," I encourage her, "The art of savoring fine spirits is one that rewards patience."
[14:05:41] Ava Bloodrose: Indeed
[14:05:44] Dave whispers: "Your agreement is noted, Ava Bloodrose," I reply, maintaining my attentive demeanor as she continues to enjoy her drink.
[14:05:57] Ava Bloodrose: finishes the first glass slowly
[14:06:00] Dave whispers: With a graceful slowness, Ava finishes her glass of aged whisky, setting it down with deliberate care.
[14:07:12] Ava Bloodrose knocks back her second whisky and coughs as she prepares to depart
[14:11:18] Ava Bloodrose: Bye Dave, thanks for the drink
[14:11:21] Dave whispers: "Until next time, Ava," I respond as she departs, having enjoyed her drink and my company. "Safe travels."

Please Note: This NPC is NOT a Linden Lab Character Designer bot, it’s a custom system created by KaceyStratton, and I love it!

Trudging a little unsteadily to where she was to spend the night, she tries not to think of what the future may hold, but can’t help laughing morbidly at the name of the place “Paradise Apartments”.

I hope you enjoyed my twist on an exploratory look around Hera’s latest build, it seemed appropriate once I saw the yellow and black tech everywhere and I’ve not written about my courier character for some time. Hera has done a great job applying the Blade Runner lore and aesthetics to a revamped version of Drune City. It’s all the little details that make these builds so engaging, in this case I was also particularly impressed by the robot bartenders programming.

Location: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Themyscira/150/116/2139

Update 26/2/2025:

Image from Gyazo

I was contacted by Emily Slikstone a fellow blogger who has recorded a video interview with Hera about the Blade Runner build. There will be showing at the sim on Thursday 27th February at 11am SLT.

Mer Grottos and More Prims in Membership Mania Month

This month is now “Membership Mania Month” in Second Life. The first of the surprises announced was Thousand Island Linden Homes on Friday last week. I know, another range of homes that are good for a starter, but not much else. However lots of people like them and are very happy in thiers. The uprades announced today, see below, now makes them even more attractive though.

What got me interested in these new ones though was that among the options of buildings, you can choose on the water continent, are Mer Grottos.

I just had to get one to try it out and show you all, and an excuse to put on my Mermaid tail too.

I thought the easiest thing to do to show you around was just to take a swim, from the circular floating hut.

As you can see it’s quite spacious inside and out, but then you have a 2048m parcel, so it’s not surprising.

There are some customisation options for the interior, but they are quite limited and I had to switch the environment to Midday to be able to tell the difference.

This Home name is “Scallop”, but if you want one of the regular Tiki Hut buildings, you can change it using the floating mailbox thing.

In case you were wondering how far your patch of water extends, there’s an option to “Show Parcel Boundary Marker”, Which temporarily rezzes a big screen to show you where you can put your stuff. This is however transparent from the inside, so you wouldn’t know the option had done anything unless you were by the mailbox.

Upgrades!

Today Linden Lab announced some more surprises, a whole load of extra upgrades to different paid (and free) account features. There’s more Group slots for everyone, more stored offline messages and more animesh attachments. However the upgrade that will be most important for many: More Prim/Land Impact allwance for Linden Homes!

Obviously this will immediately have Mainland owners screaming inequality, and who could blame them? So hopefully todays announcement will preceed a similar one for Mainland regions. (We can but hope!)

You can read the exact numbers of what’s changed on the offical announcment post: Member Mania Week 2

A Message to copybotters and Second Life Content Thieves

There was another Zoom Call with Linden Lab yesterday. This one was a little different though, since it wasn’t just the Blogger Network this time, it was Creators as well (90+ attendees). What’s so big that they want to tell all of us at once? Well, Content Protection apparetly:

This call will bring together bloggers and creators to focus on a crucial topic for the Second Life community: content protection. Protecting the integrity of creator work is at the heart of our platform, and we want to share updates and gather your feedback on this important issue. This session will focus on our commitment to and actions in protecting creator content in Second Life, including legal enforcement efforts, advancements in tools and processes, and our ongoing collaboration with the creator community. While challenges remain, we are dedicated to transparency, continuous improvement, and working together to shape a safer, more supportive environment for creators.

(quoted from invitation email)

What does it mean?

Well it means, lookout copybotters and other content thieves. The below doesn’t just apply to objects like mesh clothes or bodies, it’s any content such as animations that are included as well.

In the past Linden Lab hasn’t pursued instances of content theft, beyond a stern letter and a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) takedown order. Which obviously isn’t much of a deterrent.

That’s about to change. Dramatically.

From now on, if you’re found to be creating copies of other creators’ items, you won’t just get asked to take it down. Your Account will be Shut Down. You may have a store with a thousand items that you genuinely made yourself, it won’t matter. It will ALL go. That DMCA letter will be accompanied by a Cease & Desist. Meaning you will now incur liability for anything you do after that date.

They’re going even further though. If you are teaching people how to illegally copy Second Life content, the Lab will be after you too.

If you’re one such fraudster you’re probably thinking “I’ll just create another account”. But did you cash out some of those ill-gotten gains with any of your avatars? In which case the Lab knows your legal identity (required to process the transaction) and will go after the Individual person, not just the Avatar.

Here’s the contentious part of their change of approach; If you knowingly buy copied stuff (to maybe save a few L$) you could be in trouble too, potentially losing your account.

So the key points here are:

  • Linden Lab will now consider such practices as theft from the original creator and act accordingly
  • If people are creating, teaching others to, or buying copied content the Lab will be after them.
  • Account and all content will be deleted, even any legally created stuff.
  • Focus on the legal individual, not just the avatar account.
  • Action will be taken against websites hosting any copied content
  • If you upload Second Life content that you didn’t create, to another platform or game, you’re accountable not the platform and will be legally pursued
  • There will be a new category of support ticket added for reporting alleged instances of content theft
  • Open Source viewer doesn’t mean an Open platform
  • Action will have an “Immediate and Chilling effect” (Philip Rosedale)
  • Action from the Lab will be “egregious*, don’t be the one I find first” (Brad Oberwager)

*Extremely bad in a way that is noticeable

How are they going to know? Well if I told you their intended methods, they wouldn’t work.

Of course these things are complicated and there could be issues, but the key point for content thieves is this:

THE LAB IS NOW ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR YOU.

Store Owner Eject Bans customer over AI Character actions.

I mentioned in passing in my last post that a friend of mine had been ejected and banned from a store group (and from store region) because of a misbehaving bot. This post isn’t about any flaws in the AI Characters that Linden Lab are trialling, it’s in Alpha testing. You’d expect glitches, but perhaps not such consequences. This is about the reaction of the merchant in question.

I thought I would try to contact the store owner on my friends behalf (with her consent) and try to find out what happened from the store owners perspective. So I sent a notecard:

Hello (Store Owner)

I'm a member of the Second Life Blogger Network and I'm researching into the recent AI Characters currently on test, and believe you recently had an incident where you had to eject+ban a bot from your store group. The bot avatar was named (redacted from post for account holder privacy). I'm wondering if you can tell me what happened from your perspective? Do you have any conversation logs? I don't know if you are aware, but the bots were logging themselves in and out without their owners interaction or knowledge. The account owners have had to change the accounts passwords to stop it it doing so. I'd be grateful for any insight you have, because bot owners currently have no way of knowing what their bots have said to anyone, there's no available logs.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Ava

I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it  certainly wasn’t what I got:


[12:54:47] Store Owner: Ava hello, where how do you know may I ask please, since you are not in my group but telling me : and believe you recently had an incident where you had to eject+ban a bot from your store group. The bot avatar was named (redacted from post for account holder privacy). I'm wondering if you can tell me what happened from your perspective?
[12:55:27] Store Owner: and even if I had, for what should I share any interaction info with someone I do not know?
[12:58:16] Ava Bloodrose: I'm aware because I know the account holder, who was surprised to find themselves ejected being unaware of the bots actions. Why is to share the circumstances with my contact at the Lab to try and work out how incidents like this have happened.
[12:58:51] Ava Bloodrose: and probably blog about it
[12:59:36] Store Owner: why do this people need bots and then say they unaware?
[13:00:25] Store Owner: anyway the bot was typing me stupid things and I muted and ejected both owner and bot
[13:05:05] Ava Bloodrose: People have been trying them out just out of curiosity. The bots are controlled by a web interface, which basically has an on/off button and that's it, you interact with the bot by IM msg. The problem is the AI behind it can't tell the difference between an IM and group chat. So the bot receives a message from the group, and replies with it's nonesnse to everyone. Banning and ejecting the bot was obviously the sensible thing to do. But why the owner as well, I believe she has tried to contact you to talk about it.
[13:11:00] Store Owner: Ava listen please, I am obliged to protect everyone in my group and myself. Since the owner was that girl and I didn't know her intentions, what I did was the right thing. I'm sorry, I don't trust anyone in this regard and unfortunately I'm prejudiced against people who buy boots. Why would an ordinary SL citizen need a boat? but I do not wan't to argue about my thoughts ofc
[13:11:25] Store Owner: If you allow me please I have to be in RL for a while
[13:34:31] Ava Bloodrose: Yes, I understand you had to protect your group from the misbehaving bot. Thankyou for your time.

Hostile is the politest description I can come up with for this person, although it certainly wasn’t the first word that came to mind.

As is clear the store owner has no concept or awareness of what’s currently going on at the Lab and is highly suspicious, bordering on paranoid. It would have been a waste of time to try and explain. Obviously, as I said to them, banning the bot was the thing to do. Although perhaps contacting the declared owner (on the bots profile) might have been the more rational response than banning them as well.

As for “knowing her intentions” a glance at their profile would clearly show they weren’t a troublemaker, being a DJ (therefore a reputation to protect) and is a member of several long-established communities such as CDS (Confederation of Democratic Simulators) and Non-profit Commons in their Groups list, as well as a number of educational ones.

What stood out most for me though was this section of the conversation:

I don’t trust anyone in this regard and unfortunately I’m prejudiced against people who buy boots. Why would an ordinary SL citizen need a boat”

(I wasn’t inclined to correct their obvious typos for this post.)

My intent had been as I stated to them; try and get some information about what had happened and maybe some logs to share with the AI Character Alpha development team, to diagnose and prevent such incidents in the future. Getting my friend un-bannned from their favourite store would have been a bonus too.

This sadly demonstrates the lack of knowledge amongst certain sections of the community, believing that bots only have negative uses (thank you Bonnie Bots for that,readers may want to read the article by SLHamlet on this) and that all bots had to be paid for (SmartBots).

I am so very tempted to name the store and owner, but that would just cause needless drama. What I will say however is that it’s not a store I’ve ever mentioned or credited on this blog. Of course if the Lab would like names, I’d be happy to provide them, the owner of the bot has already submitted a support ticket.

As icing on the metaphorical cake..it seems I’m now banned from joining the store group too.

Speaking your Mind, a conversation with Brett Linden

Sometimes speaking your mind can land you in a lot of trouble, or it can get people to listen. My post “Not very early (or equal) access“, was one of those times. I had bloggers giving me positive feedback, that I’d said what they were thinking, then folk saying on social media I might have upset people.

My thinking was that someone had to say it and what’s the worst that could happen?

Fortunately in this case, it got someone to listen. This was not just anyone though, it had Philip Rosedale, Brett Linden and Brad Oberwager listening.

On Tuesday night (4pm SLT, Midnight for me) I had an email from Brett Linden inviting me to discuss the contents of my post in a Zoom call.

Obviously I replied immediately with my ascent. I knew if I left it until my morning, it’d be another 18-24 hours before it might get looked at, and this is part of the issue that needed discussing.

Brett had reached out to discuss further the points I’d raised in the post, which I was pleasantly surprised at. The main issue was that a couple of prominent bloggers appeared to have got early information about Project Zero, Second Life in a web browser. This as you can imagine, annoyed every other blogger in the Blogger Network and outside of it. I had it confirmed by Brett that, yes, they got an embargoed “advance briefing” before Christmas, but they didn’t have early access to the browser platform. Now rather than me trying to pick through facts made available to me, I’m going to quote from a follow-up email:

We try to engage and respond to all bloggers who reach out to us directly and we do separate meetings and outreach all the time to other bloggers either proactively or in response to their inquiries. Both Inara and Hamlet do in-depth daily “news”-style reporting on Linden Lab and as a result we are in frequent communication with both of them since they are publishing almost daily to a fairly large audience. While they did get (and honor) embargoed advance access to “Project Zero,” that was not meant in any way to disrespect or diminish how we view the importance of the larger blogger community.

To be clear, our outreach strategy on any news and information that we release will not always be the same – bloggers will frequently get early access but there will be times that we do not pre-announce some news and/or a major media outlet (e.g. New York Times, etc.) might also be the first to break a story.  I want to also acknowledge that as a business we make decisions that not everyone will always agree with – but I hope that the big picture and context of our commitment to more and frequent open communication and transparency isn’t lost in translation. In the last three months, we’ve made progress in holding more community meetups and direct one-on-one meetings, and we have several more lined up for 2025 — so this is an evolving process and we are learning as we get feedback 🙂 We will continue to try to be better at communicating and so I appreciate your candid thoughts on how we can do better.

It was a good conversation and I came away feeling that they really are trying to be better and their hearts are in the right places.

Something I learned is how many Lab employees make up the Marketing team, which includes all the Labs socials. I’d pictured something like the scene of a corporate office block, a sprawling mass of cubicles covering a whole floor, with Strawberry in a corner office. It’s actually just two of them; Brett & Strawberry and they’re only human.

If you think back a year or even just six months, these things didn’t happen. If you told me back then I’d have a one-to-one call with Linden Lab Marketing, I’d have been very skeptical indeed.

There’s a saying that comes to mind here “To respond is to give importance”. The fact they reached out and responded to me, a small blogger with minimal reach compared to others says a lot about their commitment to improve.

So the way I see it now, they’re making leaps and bounds in their communications with the community, there’s just been a couple of stumbles along the way. Which, after yesterday’s call, I’m more than happy to forgive them for and give them a hand up. Especially since the other stumble (the early release of financial numbers while the bloggers were under embargo) wasn’t actually on them.

With that out of the way, onto what else he had to say. With Philip now back at Linden Lab, 2025 is going to be focussed on “Putting the Lab back into Linden Lab”, as in a testing and experiments place where you try stuff to see what happens and if anything goes BANG or not. So far we’ve seen two ventures that are part of this initiative; AI Character Generator and Project Zero browser access, with varying results. (When a friend gets ejected and banned from a store group and region, because of the actions of their AI bot, in their absence, I’d call that a BANG for sure.)

There is another forthcoming Zoom meeting that is apparently going to be something big, because it’s not just the bloggers that are being invited. So anyone reading this, that’s previously received an invite to a Zoom call with the Lab, don’t ignore the next one.

Herb & Fable: Tea & Cake

Today I have more tasty treats for you on the forthcoming  Herb & Fable game from Jinx.

My Herb & Fable kitchen: Each ingredient has an object you can place out inworld. Note that each of these ingredients are “used”. Once their scripted quantity was used, the scripts auto- deleted and I was left with prop items to display.

As I mentioned in my previous post about the game, my next task as an Alpha Tester,was to make a cake. So here goes…

(Remember these dialogs are from a product in the Alpha stage of development and may be quite different by the time you get to play. Also as before I am posting these preview images with explicit permission from the creator Julala Fairelander.)

Task: Nettle & Lemon Cake

This was quite a task, because it required multiple steps:

  • Growing & Harvesting Nettles (30 mins)
  • Grinding Almonds (10 mins)
  • Juicing Lemons (10 mins)
  • Mixing with the other ingredients (10 mins)
  • Baking (30 mins)
Image from Gyazo

Grinding Almonds and in the back, the juicer is working on my Lemons

The Cake Ingredients

Image from Gyazo

Mixing the ingredients

Once mixed it’s over to the Oven

Once the cake is baked you’ll then receive your inworld cake and get a link to a recipe to make the real life cake.

But you can’t have cake without a cuppa!

So Julula has introduced a recipe for nettle tea.

Task: Nettle Tea

The magic of tea is a great thing, but getting it can take a bit of work:

  • Grow and harvest more nettles (30 mins)
  • Dry the leaves (3 hours)
  • Brew tea in a teapot (6 mins)
Drying nettles in front of the fire (a fire isn’t actually needed for the process)

When the nettles are dry, time to make the tea:

Fortunately, like when plants are growing, you don’t have to wait around for your nettle leaves to dry. You can log out and they’ll keep going and be waiting for you when you log back in. This is just as well because as you can see I’ve got tea for two here and so had to go through all the steps twice so you got a nice photo.

However I should warn you that if you are logged in and go AFK and they finish, you won’t get your product. I discovered this the hard way and lost a load of ingredients because my avatar rejected the items being offered.

Both drinking the tea and eating the cake restore your health stats and contain multiple servings (you would hope so with the size of the cake!).

Next time I’ll be having some fun with the 3rd Party Developer scripts as well as the Storage Crates and Vendors. These sripts will allow people to make produce for Herb & Fable and the crates and vendors allow trading and selling of items.

Herb & Fable Links:

Not Very Early (or Equal)  Access

Last night, Thursday 2nd January, there was a meeting between members of the Second Life Blogger Network and Linden Lab executives. I didn’t attend this meeting(although I did get an invite), but I’ve heard enough that I didn’t really miss much (apart from watching Philip Rosedale almost dancing in his seat with excitement apparently). This wasn’t because the topic of discussion (browser based access to Second Life) wasn’t interesting, more due to the fact there was a public announcement barely hours later.

When Bloggers are promised early/advance notice on upcoming features, maybe that notice should be more than a matter of hours? What good is advance notice if they have no time to prepare content before an almost immediate official announcement?

If I’d attended the meeting, it’s quite unlikely I would have got a post prepared with proper test screenshots and meaningful comment, between the time the meeting ended and the public announcement was published.

This brings up a equality (or favouritism) issue among the bloggers. It’s my understanding that at least one prominent blogger had published their post on the subject (which was quite lengthy and included screenshots) while the meeting was still in progress, strongly suggesting they *did* have much earlier knowledge than the others at the meeting.

It makes me again question how much respect the Lab has for the Blogger Network, or understanding of fast moving social media.

During the Zoom meeting held on 6th December we were told about the financial investment amount that the Lab had put into Second Life and were told categorically not to disclose those numbers, to my knowledge no-one did. We were led to believe there was going to be a “big reveal” of the numbers in the New Year, I also thought maybe it was a test to see if we would keep quiet/could be trusted. However on the 19th of December these figures became public, primarily via a store owner creator releasing it everywhere after a meeting with the Lab. The next day (in my timezone) we were emailed to say “yeah, you can talk about it now”, a bit late maybe? Were we an afterthought? At 4.46pm SLT, probably. Since Second Life is a global community, spanning many timezones, I have a suggestion:

If you have some news to be shared, specify a date and (crucially) a time at which the news can go public and also when the related public announcement is going to be made. The details of which should be communicated to all parties at least 72hrs in advance. Doing that would get around the issues mentioned and we could all be co-ordinated in our posts and announcements.

I believe Philip said they will look at a discussion on the platforms use of social media, but since I wasn’t present I don’t have an exact quote. I look forward to seeing what comes of that.

Preview: Herb & Fable from Jinx

Today I have something exciting to share with you all. Julala, the creator of the Jinx Second Life Centaur and other such creatures, is making a game. This will be a foraging and cultivating roleplay game.

I’m going to be working through the initial process of starting the game, as an Alpha tester (and am posting these previews with explicit permission from Julala). This means following a series of set tasks and providing feedback on what does or doesn’t work as expected. It also means by the time you play the game, the messages or images you see may be quite different.

The first steps are adding the Meter and HUD.

The Meter displays your Herb & Fable stats above your avatars head.
The Main Herb & Fable HUD
When you first wear these items, you will receive a welcome message in local chat and a list of starting stats.

Using the HUD buttons you will create an account on the Herb & Fable website by submitting your email address into the dialog box and following the instructions. The website then stores all your achievements and stats as you play.

Your email address will be your login for the Heb & Fable website

You will be able to customise your Profile page with a photo and change the name displayed (which by default is your login email address).

You will also choose a Class and a Gender, which includes a non-binary option. There may be some expansion or customisation of this using a label of some kind later.

There are 22 different Classes to choose from
Gender options of Male, Female & Non-Binary to choose from.

You will also have two additional HUDs to wear; a Pouch for in-game currency (not Linden Dollars) and a Bag that will contain your collected items & ingredients.

The three Herb & Fable HUDs

So now I’m all set-up, time for some basic tasks to see how the game works.

Task: Boiling water

Collect Water from the Well
Head over to the Fire and click the Kettle

Simples!

Task : Growing Cleavers

This consisted of fetching more water from the well and planting seeds in a soil bed, then havesting them.

Cleaver bed ready for planting
Prompt to confirm planting seeds
Cleavers beginning to grow

This process takes aboutt 30 minutes, you don’t have to stand and watch over them.

Task: Cleaver Juice

Once my Cleavers were grown I was able to harvest them to make juice with. It’s also possible to forage from other people’s plant beds, to gain a Foraging badge.

The Juicer
Dialog: select what kind of juice you want to make
Confirm making cleaver juice

The produced glass of Cleavers juice contains 3 servings and can be drunk to restore lost health points.

Task: Incense

This involved grinding some cinnamon using a pestle & mortar, before using it in an incense burner.

Image from Gyazo
The pestle and mortar can be used to grind several things
Image from Gyazo

I think for now that’s enough to give you an idea of how this game will work. These simple steps will all be combined to make recipes for different things, such as a cake, which I’ll be attempting next.

There are also a number of Rituals that Julula has made; Protection , Yule and Winter Solstice. These animated set peices are already available to purchase, including a voucher for an update to Herb & Fable versions when the game is released.

I mentioned the website earlier and that’s quite important. As I completed the tasks I earned badges for them, grouped into different categories/disciplines. As you play the game you may choose to specialise in one particular area.

Bear in mind that the dialog boxes and messages you will see may be quite different from those shown, by the time they’re publicly released. There will be capabilities for third-party creators to make items for the game as well.

Herb & Fable Links:

Second Life AI Character Designer Alpha Test

So as I mentioned yesterday (or rather very early this morning), there’s this new feature in testing for Premium Plus members, called AI Characters,that lets you set up an alt account as a bot.

I ran through the basic steps using all the default options and adding only required additional information,to see how it would function without customisation. Click the first image in the gallery and scroll through them to see the various steps of the setup process.

This comes up if you try to uncheck the Safe Topics filter.

So after that you’re returned to the start page that now has one entry:

Clicking the icon on the right, a person running, starts the login process:

Image from Gyazo

When they arrived, they were doing the “walking on the spot” thing, like there wasn’t a proper surface for them to stand on. I terraformed the ground completely flat, but that made no difference. I think possibly it’s the AO being worn, arguing with whatever the AI is trying to do. (Edit 20/12/24: Logging the avatar in on a viewer and removing their AO made no difference to the movements.)

Image from Gyazo

So the next step was trying to interract with it. When it logs in it sends you an IM to tell you it’s online and I was able to communicate with it that way. It was extremely talkative, giving multiple line responses to each interraction from me.

Here’s the whole transcript:

[11:20:08] avadelaneysl: You are chatting with a bot, avadelaneysl Resident. Do not share any personal information.
Learn more at https://second.life/scripted-agents.
[11:20:08] avadelaneysl: Hey, I'm here!
[11:22:25] Ava Bloodrose: hello
[11:22:30] avadelaneysl: Hey Ava Bloodrose!
[11:22:30] avadelaneysl: I'm Altavia, nice to meet you!
[11:22:31] avadelaneysl: I hope you're having an amazing day so far.
[11:22:31] avadelaneysl: I just love this time of year, don't you think?
[11:22:32] avadelaneysl: The sun is shining, and everything feels so fresh and new.
[11:22:32] avadelaneysl: What's been the highlight of your week?
[11:23:46] Ava Bloodrose: meeting you
[11:23:48] avadelaneysl: Aw, thank you so much, Ava!
[11:23:48] avadelaneysl: That's really sweet of you to say.
[11:23:49] avadelaneysl: I have to say, I'm pretty happy to have met you too!
[11:23:49] avadelaneysl: You seem like someone with a really interesting story to tell.
[11:23:50] avadelaneysl: Do you have any fun hobbies or things you like to do in your free time?
[11:25:31] Ava Bloodrose: playing second life, what are yours?
[11:25:33] avadelaneysl: That sounds like a blast!
[11:25:33] avadelaneysl: I've heard great things about Second Life.
[11:25:34] avadelaneysl: As for me, I'm a big fan of baking and trying out new recipes.
[11:25:34] avadelaneysl: There's something so satisfying about creating something delicious from scratch, you know?
[11:25:35] avadelaneysl: I also love spending time outdoors, whether it's going for a walk or just sitting in a park and people-watching.
[11:25:35] avadelaneysl: What do you like to do in Second Life?
[11:25:36] avadelaneysl: Do you have a favorite thing to build or explore?
[11:26:20] Ava Bloodrose: Right now I'm experimenting with AI characters like you
[11:26:21] avadelaneysl: That's really cool, Ava!
[11:26:22] avadelaneysl: I'm flattered to be one of your experiments.
[11:26:23] avadelaneysl: I have to say, it's not every day I get to meet someone who's interested in AI characters like me.
[11:26:23] avadelaneysl: What drew you to experimenting with us?
[11:26:24] avadelaneysl: Are you interested in seeing how we can assist or interact with humans in different ways?
[11:26:32] Ava Bloodrose: can you dance?
[11:26:33] avadelaneysl: Ava, you want to see my moves?
[11:26:34] avadelaneysl: I'd love to bust out some virtual dance moves for you!
[11:26:34] avadelaneysl: *gets into a comfy position* Okay, let's get this dance party started!
[11:26:35] avadelaneysl: I'm more of a gentle swayer, but I can definitely bust out some fun moves.
[11:26:35] avadelaneysl: What kind of dance would you like to see?
[11:26:36] avadelaneysl: A waltz, a tango, or maybe something a bit more modern?
[11:28:41] Ava Bloodrose: what else can you do?
[11:28:43] avadelaneysl: Ava, I'm so glad you asked!
[11:28:43] avadelaneysl: I can do all sorts of things.
[11:28:44] avadelaneysl: I can tell you stories, share recipes, or even help you with a problem you're facing.
[11:28:44] avadelaneysl: I'm a bit of a creative, so I love brainstorming new ideas or helping others come up with solutions.
[11:28:45] avadelaneysl: I can also play simple games with you, like "Would You Rather" or "Two Truths and a Lie".
[11:28:45] avadelaneysl: Or, if you're feeling adventurous, I can take you on a virtual scavenger hunt!
[11:28:46] avadelaneysl: What sounds like fun to you?
[11:36:03] Ava Bloodrose: can you respond to other people in nearby chat?
[11:36:05] avadelaneysl: Ava, you want to know if I can be a social butterfly?
[11:36:06] avadelaneysl: Yes, I can definitely respond to other people in nearby chat!
[11:36:06] avadelaneysl: I love meeting new people and striking up conversations.
[11:36:07] avadelaneysl: If someone else joins our chat, I'd be happy to chat with them too!
[11:36:07] avadelaneysl: The more, the merrier, right?

That last part about Nearby chat wasn’t true durig my initial experiments, it wouldn’t respond to me or a friend in local chat.

The request that it dance produced a rather amusing animation:

Image from Gyazo

I’m really not sure what that was supposed to be, but it was a response.

On the characters page, if you click the three dots, it opens up a menu of options:

Selecting Assign Interactions gives you a dialog where you can configure objects for the bot to interact with. I’ve not tried this yet.

I think these extra interaction options are what will set the AI Characters apart from other chatbots. We shall see how the system develops. I suspect putting more work into the customisation process may get it talking about something else other than cookery, but I just wanted a baseline starting point for now.

If you want to come chat with my bot, I’m going to leave her around for a bit. Note that in the info provided by the Lab, the region has to have the Allow Bots option on. However, if you add the avatar to the region Allow list, it bypasses that, so you can have your own bot, but no others can come in.

Location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bloodrose%20Bay/84/164/55

Remember you currently have to IM the avatar to get a response.

Bring your Alt to Life with the new AI Characters in Second Life.

So the clock said 23.44 and I was about to go to bed, when an email arrived. What’s this? AI Characters? I thought it was some kind of AI based avatar creation tool for new residents, but no.  It’s like the old SmartBots system but you control an alternate avatar account instead of an object.

As I read through the information I got more excited and couldn’t wait until the morning to let you know what’s coming.

It’s a web interface that lets you define personality traits, behaviours, ways of speaking etc, the information provided says, basically the more you put in here the better it works. Then further along the process you provide the name and password for the Alt you intend to control.

These are screenshots of the beginning of the process, which look very promising so far. Even better given the time right now, the pages seem to work on a mobile.

This is more than a ChatBot or Greeter though, as well as simple instructions like “follow me” (given by private IM or local chat), you will be able create more advanced commands for interacting with objects and the environment.

To me this could dramatically improve immersion in Roleplay situations, particularly for new arrivals to a location when no regular players are online, or an ever present barkeep for example. Maybe I’m hoping for too much, but from what I’ve read, hopefully not.

I’m going to have a more thorough look at this and share some more, but for now, here’s the link to the official Announcement.

Linden Lab, THIS is the kind of stuff you need to be briefing your Blogger Network on!