Voice and Sculpties Coming May 23?

Well, the lid is about to be opened on a new can of worms in Second Life.

It's officially been announced on the Linden Blog that with tomorrow's update, there will be a required download of a new viewer which has several residents proclaiming that voice chat and sculpties are going to be released after a pretty short development cycle.

On the other hand, Which Linden has apparently said that voice will not be part of tomorrow's update, but sculpties are...a definite maybe.

Sculpties for the most part will allow modellers to work on models in a way that is a little closer to the method that is common to the 3D industry, allowing tools like 3DMax or Maya to be used to create shapes before importing them to Second Life. Sculpties are generally favored as an add-on to Second Life although there is a concern by some that this will distance the professionals from the hobbyists.

Voice on the other hand, while exciting some residents, is a concern for those role playing the opposite sex, such as transgenders and transsexuals who believe that it would "out" their true identities along with age verification.

One thing is true, no matter what improvements or additions Linden Labs makes to Second Life, it is now populated by such a wide variety of people that they will have to take the griping in stride as no addition will please everyone.

Hopefully Linden Labs will confirm one way or another later today on the Official Linden Blog which bugs will be addressed and which additions will make it into tomorrow's update.

UPDATE : It's official, no voice yet but sculpties are in as are some bug fixes.