Linden Lab is preparing to release a lightweight version of Second Life as a beta from in February, Joe Miller, VP of platform and technology development at Linden Lab, told Information Week. The lightweight client doesn't sound like it will actually have access to the graphical aspect of the virtual world, allowing only text chat, instant messaging, and voice communication. [via Information Week]
In a recent Linden Lab podcast, Miller also discussed plans for increasing stability, updating Havok, and optimizing the Linden Scripting Language with Mono.
While Miller says that "people have gotten very good at living within the boundsaries of LSL, but we're at a stage now where we want to provide a much more efficient scripting engine."
Mono shifts away from interpreting LSL in real time and into compiling them ahead of time. Miller says it will reduce memory limitations that currently force users to split scripts up and create workarounds. It should also "run much faster."
It won't significantly change the way people see the world, but it will improve the experience, says Miller.
"The net effect on our residents will not be so much new features, but the performance of simulators when many scripts are being executed, should be much more predictable."
He also discussed what sounds like a purely aesthetic update. Codenamed Dazzle, to be released soon, the update will revamp the look and feel of many aspects of the viewer.
It will be very interesting to see if they will provide special hooks in the server to accommodate the lightweight clients.
Currently there are quite a few non graphical ways to log into Second Life but in all cases an avatar is created in the Second Life world and consumes the same resources on the server as a standard client login.
This situation is currently being exploited to game the 'popularity' of locations in hopes of improving search results. Also there have been reports of variations of denial of service attacks executed by filling a location with 'zombie' users thus preventing customers from entering.
Linden Labs will need to address these issues as lightweight clients become more widely known.
Posted by: Ric Mollor | January 28, 2008 at 09:27 AM