Second Life Growing Pains And Voice Plans

After yesterday's Second Life update, Linden Lab discovered that there was a problem with group voting, which was shut down until the problem could be solved.

Today, while I was logging on to join 57 Miles from Metaversed on his "Things To Do" group outing at the Weather Channel's sim (look for an entry and pics tomorrow right here) I noticed that login was painfully slow, and that once I was finally in, part of my body was female while the Second Life client reassured me that I was the only one seeing this embarrassment.

Earlier this evening, Linden Lab confirmed that there are indeed widespread "slow logins, slow or failed group chat and teleports, and presence issues" (friends list to the rest of us). Their techs are looking into the situation, but expect slowdowns and other assorted weirdness until it's fixed.

They've also released an explanation as to why they waited to release voice chat, and gave a rundown of their plans for it, which involves a releasing the First Look viewer, which is basically a "test" viewer to be used on the Live Grid in the next couple of weeks. It will be optional to use this viewer, and if used they stress that anything you do with it "is for real". You can just imagine somebody thinking that the "test viewer" is running on the "test grid", spending all their $L on poseballs, and then using voice chat itself to complain. What a headache.

If you just can't wait to try voice chat in Second Life, check out these instructions on how to get on the Beta Grid where voice is live right now. You'll need a set of headphones with a microphone.

For the rest of the folks who aren't comfortable with a "beta" viewer, and aren't in a hurry, just keep using the viewer you've got and when voice is ready for good, it will be released in the main viewer at that time.