LL “Fixes” Nerfed Clothing Controls?

by Pixeleen Mistral on 14/10/06 at 7:14 pm

Second Life feature removal show garners glowing reviews
Big Rip jeans still frayed

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

After a 5 hour complete Second Life metaverse shutdown Saturday, Doug Linden unlocked the doors to the Linden Lab theater for a special very limited-engagement screening of everyone’s favorite show – “Grid is Up!”. A crowd of disembodied avatars which had been waiting in netherworld outside the virtual world theater stormed the login server and despite the crowd size only minor injuries were reported with a few avatar’s prim hair being knocked askew. Metaverse citizens gave the delayed show and “fix” more than two thumbs up – I counted at least 4:

“Best bugfix ever” – Baba

“…it’s so worth the wait!” – Adsero

“I could almost believe it’s Wednesday” – Lewis Nerd

“Great fix …” – Jenny Carlos

“…upgrade your client now!” – Unverified Linden

The delayed screening of “Grid is Up!” was due to a clothing permissions bug – this may be a concern to in-world clothing merchants. Rather than keep anxious customers waiting however, the Linden owners of the virtual 3D showplace decided to turn off some troublesome features in their software: “make outfit” and “appearance – save as”.

Plucky avatars can find a way to have fun even if they are missing their textures – so limiting outfit and appearance saving may not pose much of a hardship. Boss Meelnitz agreed and said, “let’s just keep disabling things until all people can do is login, spin around a few times, teleport to Governor Linden’s mansion and then log out. We’ll charge ten bucks a month for that…seems fair.”

Some believe that this clothing permissions problem may have been present since at least wednesday because the “fix” was replacing the Second Life software issued wednesday. The precise nature of the permissions bug is unclear, but if this is another case of objects being set to copy/modify/transfer, the in-world rag trade may be left in tatters – it appears that the Lindens are unable to retrieve wayward copies of clothes.

Big Rip still not completely sewn up

In related clothing permissions news, Colt Spearmann’s “Big Rip” jeans have been removed from the library, but are still present in full copy/modify/transfer form for those who wore them – including Herald intern Denise Levertov. Apparently Linden Lab is unable to remove the clothing it gave away – and still has yet to compensate Mr. Spearmann.

With the exact extended of this weekend’s clothing permissions fiasco still unclear, some might wonder if others share Mr. Spearmann’s plight as free clothes leak across the metaverse. For now, Second Life clothiers can comfort themselves that while their creations may have slipped free of the bonds of DRM, at least nobody is saving a complete outfit. Meanwhile the “Grid is Up!” show is playing to rave reviews. See it while you can!