The Alphaville Herald

Interview with Ex-Linden Cubey Terra

by Pixeleen Mistral on 10/02/07 at 7:03 pm

Cubey drops his Stephen and Coffee Linden alts – happy to be a regular resident again

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Persistent rumors have been circulating about Coffee and Stephen Linden’s disappearance from the Lab staff – and after a bit of detective work the Herald has turned up a very rare breed – an ex-Linden who is willing to talk about working at the lab and returning to civilian non-game-god life.

It is no secret that Linden lab hires from the metaverse resident community. However, resident Lindens are generally reluctant to acknowledge a connection between their resident Second Life accounts and Linden accounts – possibly due to the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. However, Cubey Terra – a well known vehicle maker – broke with tradition and acknowledged his Linden tour of duty here, saying “For a little over a year, I worked part-time as a “Linden liaison” — a kind of helper/cop/troubleshooter in Second Life.”

I contacted Mr. Terra earlier today to talk about his former life, the troubles with vehicles in the metaverse, and what – if anything – he misses about his former lab staffer life.

Pixeleen Mistral: I was looking at your web site and it says you used to be a Linden Liaison for a while
Cubey Terra: that’s right
Cubey Terra: for about 13 months
Pixeleen Mistral: I’m curious about why you quit
Cubey Terra: Nothing I’d go into in detail, but I left on good terms to do other things.
Pixeleen Mistral: so you have some other RL job now?
Cubey Terra: I do occasional writing jobs. But for the most part my SL business is my focus.

Problems with SL vehicles

Cubey Terra’s web site include several pages discussing the problem with vehicles in Second Life that those interested in planes or boats can certainly sympathize with – including degraded performance over the last year – due in part to design decisions made by Linden Lab. The “Buggier than a VW factory” post is a classic. One can sense a certain level of frustration as Mr. Terra writes about grounding his blimps in another post saying, “I just want us to fly across SL the way we used to. I want to log into SL without an avalanche of error messages that caps my IMs. I want aircraft in SL to be fun and reliable everywhere again — not just in private sims. Things have to improve soon, or there won’t be much left to do in SL but stand around and chat about how laggy things are”.

Will things get better?

Pixeleen Mistral: what do you think the chances of the vehicle problems getting fixed are?
Pixeleen Mistral: I’m a sailor so the things your web site talks about are issues for me
Cubey Terra: I think the chances are good, but bug-fixes take time.
Cubey Terra: Also… it’s important for us to provide as much info about the bugs. The reason for that is that we, as aircraft users, know the problems in intimate detail. We’re the experts on how it should behave, so we’re best suited to direct their efforts.
Cubey Terra: I think the only reason the issues haven’t been solved is a shortage of developer time.
Pixeleen Mistral: I’m sure of that
Pixeleen Mistral: the Linden developers I know complain all the time
Pixeleen Mistral: too much to do
Cubey Terra: Yup… SL is a vastly complex environment.

Linden liaison third life vs. regular resident second life

Pixeleen Mistral: what is the best part of being a regular resident again?
Cubey Terra: Hm.
Cubey Terra: I have more time as Cubey. While I was a liaison, I had to split my time. For that entire year, I made very little.
Cubey Terra: I mean few new products.
Cubey Terra: So I’m enjoying some concentrated creative time now.
Pixeleen Mistral: what was the best part of being a Linden? what was it like?
Cubey Terra: It’s a difficult and demanding job, but the best part was being in a position to really help residents with problems that live help or other volunteers can’t.
Pixeleen Mistral: that sounds cool
Cubey Terra: There’s a real sense of teamwork among the liaisons that I’ll miss.
Pixeleen Mistral: I can imagine – it must be like being the embattled police force or something
Pixeleen Mistral: so many residents – so few liaisons
Cubey Terra: We were never supposed to be “police” exactly for the very reason that there are too many residents to police.
Cubey Terra: With 30,000 concurrent users, it’s simply not possible to have enough liaisons to patrol the entire grid.
Cubey Terra: That’s why I support the trend towards giving more powers to landowners.
Pixeleen Mistral: makes sense
Pixeleen Mistral: do you know of any other ex-Lindens that might talk to me?
Cubey Terra: Most Lindens keep their private account secret, so that they can keep a clear separation between work and recreation. I don’t know any others who are open about having been a Linden.
Pixeleen Mistral: there are persistent rumors about which Linden accounts you were running
Pixeleen Mistral: the goons in Baku talk about it for instance
Cubey Terra: I was Coffee Linden at first, then Stephen Linden.
Pixeleen Mistral: yeah, that is what they say
Cubey Terra:
Pixeleen Mistral: anything else you want to add? I’m probably going to do a story in the Herald about this stuff
Pixeleen Mistral: part of my missing lindens series
Cubey Terra: hm
Cubey Terra: Missing Lindens… meaning Linden accounts that no longer appear to be in use?
Pixeleen Mistral: or are no longer there at all
Cubey Terra: Ah I see.
Pixeleen Mistral: like Thrax Linden
Cubey Terra: As far as I know, some Linden staff operate more than one account, or have a name change for whatever reasons. That may explain any “missing” Lindens.
Cubey Terra: Most anyway.
Cubey Terra: I can’t think of anything else to add, except that I’m happy to be just a regular resident again. I don’t have to worry about grid attacks, for example.