Release Me!
Today we get to see if the stylin' new group tools work as well as promised. It'd be a nice change if everything worked perfectly right out of the box. Raising the limit to the number of groups one person can join is nice, and the opportunity to create multiple ranks (instead of just Founder, Officer and Member) each with different abilities is fabulous. I suspect it'll work well for places like the Shelter, where there's currently half a dozen or so groups in place each with different managerial permissions. I don't remember what all the abilities you can grant are - I vaguely recall being told that "allow user to set home to here" wasn't one of them, which is goofy, but what do I know?
I was going to go check out the release notes while I was waiting for gridliness to return, but apparently the current grid status dominates all - can't visit any other secondlife.com site, like say... the page where you can download the preview. :P Poop. Happily, I found an older link directly to the release notes. Alas, although lots of info is given on the group roles - you're allowed 10 different ones... well, okay, 8 plus "owner" and "everyone"... they don't actually tell you what roles there are to choose from. Gar. I knew I should have spent more time on the preview grid.
It looks like in addition to the enhanced group stuff (thank god, no more vote proposals!), there are a number of other handy things that might sneak under the radar - the change to the interface when you're selling land, for example. To prevent people who don't read the help info from having their land swiped (hey, do you actually read those EULAs you accept? All of them?), the process now actually involves you specifically indicating you'll sell to "Anyone" when you set your land for sale. That's cool.
One new feature that I'm particularly enchanted with is "Selection effect particles can now be disabled independently (Tools->Show Selection Beam)". This means (if I understand correctly) those particles that go whooshing from my hand to the thing I'm editing can be turned off. A real bonus for someone who makes smaller objects. Like, for example, things that spin around your head?
We'll be seeing a lot fewer box heads soon - the new default attachment point is the right hand (somewhere lefties are banding together to protest). Any bets on how long until the first newbie complains that their hair is attached to their hand? :D
"Fixed a bug causing region crossing performance to degrade in 1.11" - wait. You mean I can actually walk up the ramp to Wingo without winding up outside of the building? That's just crazy talk!
"Group creation failure no longer charges you for creating group" - I hadn't noticed that they weren't going to charge anymore. That's cool. So now I'll want more than 25 groups, right?
I don't have any really appropriate picture to go here, so here's a gratuitous artsy landscape shot. I know I've said it before, but terrain water is sexy.
Comments
D'oh, how about I read what I copy and paste? Group creation still costs, unless you're unable to create the group. Duh. And I did get onto the preview grid, and it looks like setting home is an ability you can grant group members. So what the hell am I whining about now?
Posted by: Coal Nelson | August 23, 2006 02:10 PM