tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32080095694114564952024-03-13T22:08:01.173-07:00Procyon GamesThe best games in Second LifeRifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.comBlogger175125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-84393529450165483632015-07-01T17:50:00.001-07:002015-07-01T17:52:36.252-07:00Account disabledLinden Labs has disabled my account for some reason. I am working with them to try to resolve the issue. In the meantime this probably means my games aren't working. It also means I can't read any messages. If you need to communicate with me I can be reached at my email (for my email address, click to the main Procyon Games web site, then click the Contact Me link in the lower right)Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-49458528854887649102014-03-26T19:57:00.001-07:002014-03-29T18:59:53.969-07:00New En Garde Name Display SystemRecently a lot of players have had problems getting their names to display when playing En Garde, or on the leader boards. This was due to the system I had breaking down. The names are displayed with custom textures, which are auto-generated and uploaded to Second Life. The robot I used for this would frequently stop working.<br />
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Also, the process I used to make the name textures wasn't compatible with some third-party Second Life clients. The names would look all speckly and weird. There wasn't anything I could do about that, since it worked with the standard client and I can't control the code in the third-party clients.<br />
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But now I have a new system which should fix both of those problems. Now, everyone can make their own custom textures to display their names.<br />
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I'm sending out Name Display prims to all En Garde owners. To set your display name, you can make your own texture and drop it on any prim. Your custom name will be set in the system and will display on any En Garde piste you play. If you change your display name in Second Life, you can re-upload a new texture for En Garde. You can do this as many times as you want.<br />
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When you touch the Name Display prim it will give you a notecard detailing the process, and also some suggestions for the best way to format your texture. If you have problems, the owner of the piste should be able to help you. If you need to know how to upload a texture to Second Life, there's plenty of <a href="http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Uploading-assets/ta-p/700165">tutorials</a> on that.<br />
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I hope I don't have to stress that everyone should keep their custom name display within the bounds of good taste.<br />
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This problem with the name display has been one of the most frequently requested fixes/improvements for En Garde, and I'm glad I finally got something up and running. Thanks to the owners who helped me debug the new system, and all the players for their patience.Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-30307580465640419762014-03-17T18:13:00.001-07:002014-03-17T18:13:14.612-07:00New En Garde display names are comingFor all the players whose names don't show up on the display .... I have a new system that I'm testing right now. Hopefully soon everyone can see their names when they play!Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-53837685674436401502013-12-10T19:34:00.003-08:002013-12-10T19:34:35.014-08:00En Garde Team rankings are backI fixed the glitch that prevented the team rankings page from showing. You can <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/engarde/team_rankings">see your team rankings</a> nowRifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-55296133788099833432013-12-08T11:41:00.003-08:002013-12-08T11:41:32.153-08:00New Danger Zone v1.08Danger Zone is the very first game I ever made in Second Life. Linden Lab used to have an annual games contest, and I entered Danger Zone in the last such contest they had, way back in 2008 I believe. It was one of the winning games, and it launched my career as a games designer in Second Life.<br />
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The code is old and creaky, and if I were to do it again there's a lot of things I'd do differently. One of the biggest problems is that I went overboard with the prims. It rezzes prims during the game, and with a full eight players you could see 4 or 500 prims in use. Yikes.<br />
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But people do still play it, and one thing I was able to fix was some spammy messages it sends to the game owner, even when it's not in use. So there's a new version you can grab, if you currently have a copy.<br />
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And if you don't have a copy, I've listed it on the <a href="https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Danger-Zone/5569970">Marketplace</a>.<br />
<br />Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-80243175415515259182013-10-14T17:03:00.003-07:002013-10-14T17:03:53.421-07:00Randomness and GamesI like having a little bit of randomness in my games. I view luck as the lubricant of game play. You need just enough to keep a game from getting stale, but not so much that it falls apart.<br />
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En Garde is, at its heart, a card game. Before each round, the cards are shuffled and dealt to each player. Whenever a new card is drawn, it comes from the top of the "deck."<br />
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That shuffling is as random as I could make it. I'm at the mercy of the LSL scripting language. In particular, I make a call to <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">llListRandomize()</span> to do the shuffle. I hope that that particular API call is truly random. It's not hard to make a good shuffle routine, but then again, it's not hard to screw it up, either. One of my favorite stories is about an online Poker site which screwed up their random shuffle routine, and when some players figured it out, they were able to predict who had what cards and make a bunch of money off the exploit.<br />
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I can tell you, though, that there is no <i>intentional</i> bias in any of the card shuffling. There is nothing in the code that gives an advantage to Player 1 or Player 2 (other than the fact that Player 1 has a very slight advantage because he plays first in the first round). So if you think that one side or the other is getting good cards all the time, it's just your mind finding patterns in the random numbers that aren't really there.<br />
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Sometimes you get a good hand, and sometimes you don't. The skill in the game comes from making the best of when you have a bad hand.Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-52390421754950121422013-01-13T12:46:00.001-08:002013-01-13T12:46:10.067-08:00Back to NormalI think I have all the bugs fixed.<br />
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For anyone who's wondering, this was all caused by a forced upgrade. I don't upgrade the site often, so it's usually running on older versions of the software. But there was a <a href="https://community.rapid7.com/community/metasploit/blog/2013/01/10/exploiting-ruby-on-rails-with-metasploit-cve-2013-0156">big scary exploit</a> that had been published, so I was forced to upgrade to Rails 2.3.15.<br />
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With that upgrade came a bunch of other changes, and it introduced some incompatibilities in pre-existing code. The last one involved the player game history. Probably none of the Second Life players care about this (except that it's been fixed), but I'll document it here for the benefit of any Rails coders confused as to why their named scopes are no longer working.<br />
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To generate the player history, I have a named scope which looks something like this:<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">named_scope :played_by, lambda { |*avs| { </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> :select => "games.*", </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> :joins => [:plays => [:avatar] ], </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> :conditions => {:plays => { :avatars => {:id => avs} } }</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">}</span><br />
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So I could pull up games played by two player like <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Games.played_by(mark, john)</span>. And that worked fine under Rails 2.3.5. But when I updated to Rails 2.3.15, the same code was giving me ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid.<br />
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I didn't get an error message more explicit than that, though. So I had to browse through the Rails code to find out more. It looks like sometime between 2.3.5 and 2.3.15 they changed sanitize_sql_hash so that it no longer accepts nested hases. I don't know why they changed that; it was working fine before. But I had to change my named scope to flatten out the nested hash, like this:<br />
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<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">named_scope :played_by, lambda { |*avs| { </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> :select => "games.*", </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> :joins => [:plays => [:avatar] ], </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> :conditions => ["avatars.id in (?)", avs] }</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">}</span><br />
<br />
And now it works again.<br />
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<br />Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-38725357438810564552013-01-12T15:44:00.004-08:002013-01-12T19:26:27.308-08:00Customer pageIt looks like something on the customer page didn't survive the upgrade. I'm looking into it -- please be patient, it's just me and I don't have a lot of time to fix things like this.<br />
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EDIT: 7:23PM SLT The Customer page is mostly back up. If you get an error when trying to connect, clear your cookies (or just your procyon games cookie). The versus listing is still not working -- you can't get a list of all games you've played against someone recently. Hope to have that working tomorrow.<br />
<br />Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-63477193742324126172013-01-10T19:11:00.000-08:002013-01-10T19:11:38.027-08:00Server issuesI attempted to upgrade the server this morning, but something went wrong and I can't roll it back. I'm working on getting it back up, until then all server-related functionality is down. No ETA yet on when it will be working again, sorry.<br />
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EDIT: I think it's back up now. If you notice problems let me know.Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-18444160289280920912012-08-23T11:13:00.001-07:002012-08-23T11:13:21.831-07:00Emergency downtimeOur website was down for an hour due to emergency maintenance. Everything is back up and running now. If you tried to purchase something during that hour and it failed to deliver, please contact me in-world.Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-3189577284851442512012-07-31T20:00:00.003-07:002012-07-31T20:01:36.479-07:00New Follow Me v2.2I've released a new version of my Follow Me HUD. It's free to all current owners.<br />
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For those who haven't seen it, Follow Me lets you teleport around the grid with your friends. Simply have everyone wear the HUD, and when one person teleports, the others will teleport with them. You don't have to send everyone a TP, it's all automatic.<br />
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It used to work by sending everyone a TP link which they could click in their chat history. It still does that, but now you can enable Auto Teleport mode, which uses the just-released <a href="http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/First-Set-of-Advanced-Creator-Tools-Launched-Today/ba-p/1618627">TeleportAgent capability</a> to teleport you automatically! No clicks or map popups needed.<br />
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There are a couple of caveats. It doesn't yet work with all third-party viewers. And some regions are are different "channels" (eg, Magnum) which don't yet have a working copy of the llTeleportAgent command. But I'm sure all the third-party viewers will soon release updates to take advantage of this capability, and the sims will soon have current software.<br />
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So give it a try, and let me know if you can think of any improvements.Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-75644186636750916802012-07-21T14:25:00.000-07:002012-07-21T14:25:21.429-07:00New En Garde v1.16I've released version 1.16 of En Garde. This is mainly a bug-fix release. All owners are invited to upgrade free of charge.<br />
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You can upgrade by deleting your current game, and delivering a new updated copy to yourself, which you can then rez. To get a new copy, you can either<br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">Use your En Garde Remote. Wear the Remote and say "/8 deliver game"</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">Visit my <a href="http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Malrif/147/128/29">in-world store</a>, and touch the En Garde vendor</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">Visit the Customer section of the </span><a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/customer" style="background-color: white;">Procyon Games</a><span style="background-color: white;"> website, find your En Garde license, and click the Redeliver link</span></li>
</ul>
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This game comes with a new version of the game HUD. Your players must use the new HUD when playing on the new game (it won't let you play with an old HUD). Everyone can get a copy of the new HUD by clicking on the game and then the Get HUD button.<br />
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Release Notes:<br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">Fixed a bug that allowed the HUD and main game to get out of sync, resulting in "Invalid card played" errors.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">Fixed a bug that would not allow payment to be enabled for some Commercial licenses</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">The game no longer says "times's up" when the deck runs out at the end of a point.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">The HUD no longer offers a player the option to Parry an Advance-Lunge, if the player doesn't have any of the appropriate cards</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">When doing a Last Second Attack, the </span><span style="background-color: white;">appropriate</span><span style="background-color: white;"> cards are hilited in orange.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">The game gives players a link to click in chat, to see their ranking on the Procyon website</span></li>
</ul>
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<br />Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-56374157201568045622012-06-30T22:10:00.000-07:002012-06-30T22:10:27.484-07:00Looking for Play TestersI'm looking for people to help me test the next version of En Garde.<br />
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Testing mostly involves you standing around for long periods of time while I curse at Second Life. But you have to be ready at any time to jump back in and play, until the game crashes again.<br />
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If this sounds like fun to you, and you have a free group slot, then IM me and I'll send you a group invite.Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-29299130754785980122011-05-19T19:27:00.000-07:002011-05-19T19:29:04.065-07:00Website transfer fixedThere was a bug in the transfer code; it wasn't working if the person you were transferring to wasn't already a customer. It now works even if the avatar you're transferring to has never bought anything at Procyon; however, they still have to be in the Procyon database (which means they have to have played at least one complete game of anything).Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-89222826699017522692011-05-15T16:03:00.001-07:002011-05-15T22:09:22.902-07:00Website TransferYou can now transfer your Procyon game licenses yourself, on the web.<div><br /></div><div>I've always claimed that my licensing system gives you "the best of copy-ok and transfer-ok." It's not possible with the current permission system to sell an item that is actually copy- and transfer-ok, because people would just make their own copies and sell them. But it's nice to have a copy-ok object, just in case it ever breaks or doesn't rez properly. And it's also nice to have a transfer-ok object, so you can give it to someone else. Second Life merchants generally have to choose which way to go.</div><div><br /></div><div>But with licensing, you can have both. You can redeliver your game to yourself at any time, and keep multiple copies in your inventory, so you don't have to worry about rez errors, like a copy-ok object. And you can transfer your license to an alt, or give it as a gift, like a transfer-ok object. So you get the best of both worlds.</div><div><br /></div><div>Except, in order to transfer your license, you had to send me a message and ask me to do it. I have to register the change in the Procyon Games database. People don't transfer their licenses very often, so it wasn't a huge deal.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I've now implemented self-service transfers. Any Procyon game owner can visit the <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/customer">Customer section</a> of the web site, click the Transfer link, and send their license to anyone else. You don't have to wait for me; it happens instantly. It will even deliver a new copy of the game to the recipient.</div><div><br /></div><div>Be careful! Transferring your license is permanent. The other person becomes the new owner of the game. Your own games will stop working, and if you regret your transfer the only way to get it back is if the new owner decides to transfer it back to you.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you own multiple licenses, you can transfer some or all of them to the new owner.</div><div><br /></div><div>Give it a try, let me know what you think.</div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-49983125100910868042011-05-13T19:22:00.000-07:002011-05-13T19:59:15.130-07:00Names are back onlineSome people may have noticed blank spaces where the names usually go on the scoreboards.<div><br /></div><div>If you don't know, I have a texture-based system for name display. Everyone who plays gets their own texture. It's automatically generated on my website and uploaded to Second Life. The benefits of this are, it uses fewer prims (just one prim for a name!) and it looks a lot nicer, too.</div><div><br /></div><div>The downside is, I have to pay for every new texture I upload. So I took the system down a couple days ago and reconfigured it. It is now a little more selective in who it generates names for. If you just play one game and never return, it won't make a name for you.</div><div><br /></div><div>For anyone else who wants to see their name, just keep playing. It may take a day or two for your name to get through the system.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you've been playing for a couple days and you still don't see your name on the scoreboard, send me a message and I'll look into it.</div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-55311745940983601622010-10-31T14:47:00.001-07:002010-10-31T14:50:03.558-07:00Website RedeliveryI've added a redelivery option to the Procyon Games website. If you are a Procyon game owner, you can get a new copy of the game redelivered to you any time from the website. You don't even have to be logged in to Second Life.<div><br /></div><div>All the previous methods of redelivery are still there. You can get a new copy of the game by touching any vendor in-world, or by using the remote control that came with your game ("/8 deliver game"). The website function is just another convenience.</div><div><br /></div><div>To access it, go to the main <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/customer/">Customer page</a>. In your License section you should see Redeliver links for each game license you own. If you don't see the links, hover your mouse over the game you want to redeliver.</div><div><br /></div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-70041466675088628712010-10-27T19:31:00.001-07:002010-10-27T19:37:21.008-07:00Display Names and YouLinden Lab is rolling out its <a href="http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Display_names_FAQ">Display Names</a> feature, which, if you haven't heard by now, allows anyone to change the name that appears in their tag and chat.<div><br /></div><div>The scoreboards I use for my games display players' names as textures, and it's too expensive to change them to match people's Display Names. Plus, it would make tracking high scores difficult. So here is how it's going to work.</div><div><br /></div><div>The scoreboards will track your Full Name, not your Display Name. For existing players ("oldbies"), your Full Name is the same Avatar name you're used to. For new accounts, their Full Name is their account name, plus "Resident." However, the scoreboards won't show the "Resident" surname, so they will effectively show the Account Name.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, if you are an existing player, nothing will change. Your name as it is displayed on scoreboards will not change.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you are a new resident, then the scoreboards will show your Account name.</div><div><br /></div><div>For all avatars, if you change your Display Name, it will have no effect on the name that is displayed on the scoreboards. That might be a little confusing, if your name shows as one thing in chat and another on the score display. So a little heads-up for everyone.</div><div><br /></div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-86347784672037230012010-10-22T19:32:00.000-07:002010-10-22T19:34:52.710-07:00See who's playing your gamesGame owners can now view a list of recent (past 2 weeks) games played on the games they have rezzed in-world. Click on the "Local Games" link in the <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/customer/">Customer</a> section of the web site.<div><br /></div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-70226219292770848902010-10-18T19:26:00.000-07:002010-10-18T19:29:15.818-07:00Take it Easy Head-to-Head v2.14I've posted an update to the Take it Easy Head-to-Head edition.<div><ul><li>Tile textures are pre-loaded, so you won't have to wait for textures to rez in the middle of a game.</li><li>The selection ring which marked the current tile is gone. Instead, the current tile will blink and pulse.</li><li>The game is mod-ok</li></ul>To upgrade, <a href="http://slurl.com/secondlife/Malrif/146/131/29">visit my store</a> and touch the Take it Easy vendor. It will give you a new copy of the game.</div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-84097860611209680622010-10-02T13:20:00.000-07:002010-10-02T13:23:24.218-07:00Team Captains ListingThe Team Captain names are now listed in the team rankings for <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/engarde/team_rankings">En Garde</a> and <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/cantstop/team_rankings">Can't Stop</a>.<div><br /></div><div>Remember, if you are a team Captain and you don't want your name listed, you can set yourself anonymous in the customer <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/customer/">Account Settings</a> page.</div><div><br /></div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-45670433941436891312010-09-28T20:48:00.000-07:002010-09-28T20:50:37.355-07:00Customers can now set AnonymousIn preparation for the Team Leader display, I have added an Anonymous setting for Procyon game owner accounts. If you own a game, you can go to the Customer section and tick the check box for "Anonymous Leader". If you don't do that, then your name will appear as Team Captain in the Team Ranking listings.<div><br /></div><div>Nobody's name is appearing yet. I haven't enabled the Team Captain display. I'll give everyone a few days to set themselves anonymous if they want before doing so.</div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-50552023382994043602010-09-25T11:27:00.000-07:002010-09-25T11:32:58.564-07:00Team Captains and PrivacyThere have been some requests to add the Team Captain names on the Team Rank display page. Next to each team, you would see the name of the person who owns that team, the team captain.<div><br /></div><div>Obviously, some people would not want their names displayed there. So I'll need to add another privacy option, one that would let you remain anonymous.</div><div><br /></div><div>The question is, should the name display be opt-out or opt-in?</div><div><br /></div><div>If it's opt-out, then all team captains' names would be displayed by default. You would have to check the box in your account options to enable privacy.</div><div><br /></div><div>If it's opt-in, then nobody's name would show up by default. You would have to uncheck the "anonymous" option in your account settings.</div><div><br /></div><div>What do you think should be the default? Post a comment to this blog entry to let me know (or email me).</div><div><br /></div><div>Personally, I would prefer to make it opt-out. I'm afraid if it's opt-in then most people won't enable it. There's a lot of owners who don't even know this website exists. So the names would all be blank, and it wouldn't be much different from not having the name display at all.</div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-47738988262271099242010-09-11T12:40:00.000-07:002010-09-11T12:58:19.321-07:00Linden Dollar Strengthening<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8047Qrk9zxo/TIveX6NLcyI/AAAAAAAAAIE/XaJ1VISEICM/s1600/chart.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 160px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8047Qrk9zxo/TIveX6NLcyI/AAAAAAAAAIE/XaJ1VISEICM/s320/chart.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515746670988194594" /></a><br /><div><br /></div>For the first time in over three months, the Linden Dollar showed signs of strength, as the current offer price for sell orders ticked down one notch, from 266 to 265. This is the first real good news I've seen on the Second Life economy.<div><br /></div><div>Ram Linden has posted an "<a href="http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/09/10/economic-spotlight-l-exchange-rate-in-q2-2010">Economic Spotlight</a>" on June's Lindex meltdown. The official explanation is that when they merged people's XStreet and Second Life accounts, the extra Linden Dollars swamped the economy. Nobody seems to be especially convinced by that. I have my own suspicions, which I hope to be able to write up soon.</div><div><br /></div><div>One other thing I'd like to comment on. In his blog post, Ram writes: "...we are committed to allowing the economy to fluctuate based on its own market forces." I'm sorry, but that's an outright lie. For almost four years, Linden Lab kept the price of the Linden Dollar artificially low, by selling massive quantities of their own currency on the Lindex through the Supply Linden account. The value never increased beyond L$259/US$. If the economy had truly been allowed to "fluctuate based on its own market forces," the L$ would be worth much more today, and content creators would have been compensated much more for their efforts. Instead, by artificially clamping down on the Second Life economy, Linden Lab was able to pad their income by millions of dollars a month.</div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208009569411456495.post-81988877191230736582010-09-08T20:07:00.001-07:002010-09-08T20:09:17.869-07:00License InfoThe <a href="http://playprocyon.com/sl/customer">Customer Support</a> page now lists all the licenses you own.<div><br /></div><div>Every Premiere Line game is licensed to your avatar. This allows you to redeliver new copies any time you want, and makes upgrades easier. Occasionally people forget how many licenses they have. If you click on a vendor, it will tell you, but now you can also see all your licenses in one place.</div><div><br /></div>Rifkin Habsburghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09056591970642361189noreply@blogger.com0