Go check out the new Second Age blog over at http://www.greydawning.net/tsa ! It’s a new host, which means that I now have full control over the blog, so it will (in theory) be a lot better! Right. Yeah. >.>

It’s no secret to anyone in Second Life that the Teen Grid exists- it crops up on the forums weekly if not daily, and references can be heard- ‘You’re such a teen’ is often said as a complaint about someones maturity level. Some, maybe many, think that the Teen Grid should never have been created in the first place; “Too much of a liability!” or “They’ll ruin the game!” are used as excuses for blatant agism. But one inescapable fact of life is that people get older, and as the teens who play Second Life get older, they will eventually transfer from their small, hidden, safe grid into the wide open world that is the Main Grid of Second Life.

A week and a half ago, I watched eagerly as my 19 year old sister, home on vacation from college, finally agreed to create a Second Life account. She downloaded the client onto her aging white laptop, connected to the wireless access point at our home, and double clicked on the green hand icon that is so familiar to me, and yet completely new to her. I helped her change the basic settings, and then sat back to observe her progress, ready to offer help if she asked for it. I also wanted to see first hand what I’d be joining in a little under three quarters of a year.

As soon as the screen cleared to show what seemed to be identical to my distant memories of the Orientation Island, I let out a sigh of relief- at least some things stay the same, no matter what else changes. There were more people, sure, but this was just as the wave of new signups from unlimited registrations hit. (The lack of identification was what finally allowed me to convince my sister to play, in fact.)

I wasn’t too concerned as my sister travelled through the island, comandeering one of my spare mice to finish her appearance and some of the tests. (You all remember placing the beach ball on the table, I assume?) My first real indication that this was nothing like what I knew was when she came to the temple, and was faced by a choice- to go to the mainland of Second Life or to stay on Help Island. She turned to me, and asked where she should go. Puzzled that a choice was even there, I shrugged and said “May as well go the Help Island, you might learn some more there.” In fact, she had caught on extremely quickly, and probably didn’t need to go at all, but I was curious as to what this strange place was. As soon as she linked in, she was confronted by a greeter, and welcomed. The adult, so different from my experiences, took her on a short tour, introducing her to the Sandbox and giving her a basic Multigadget. At the sandbox, my sister was in for a bit of a surprise- midway in building a bracelet with my help, a large sign finished rezzing, displaying a half-naked avatar with ‘CENSORED’ signs over its private regions, and a large ‘NO!’ above it. My sister, shy by nature, blushed furiously and looked at me. “Hey, I’ve watched you play, I thought they didn’t allow that sort of stuff?” she asked in an accusing tone of voice- obviously, this was all my fault. I explained that this was the adult grid, and as such had ‘Mature’ regions. She roleld her eyes and continued on.

While she was discovering that Second Life had a darker side (albeit in a much lessened form than she might experience elsewhere) I was examining the people, the architecture, the communications. Some of it left me unsurprised- I realized that I’d seen a lot of this before in screenshots. Some of it- what people were saying, left me, in a way, speechless. I’d always assumed that when adults talked down about the teen grid, it was because they’d observed the way most teens act on the internet, and that it was different from the way adults acted. Wow, was I ever wrong. It looked like my theory about whether teens or adults were more mature was holding water, even as the Teen Grid sinks deeper in its standards of morality and communication. I saw everything I’ve come to hate about the internet, from people wearing genitalia to the worst forms of netspeak- and this was a PG region with Mentors and Lindens all around!

Soon enough my sister had explored the island, and headed back to one of the temples in order to link into the mainland. By happy chance her home point was set in a PG sim near Lordfly’s Art Museum, and I directed her over to it in excitement.

“Hey, see? Not everything is bad, this stuff is all pretty cool!”
She pointed at one of the objects on screen, a gray geometric plane that had been twisted, made of straight primitives set at slightly different angles. “Yeah, that one’s pretty cool,” she said “I wonder who made it?” I showed her how with a grin- she might be catching on fast, but there were still some things that I could teach her. We fired off an IM to the offline creator, and I asked her to run a search for ‘Hamlet’. One result, great, that meant I didn’t have to remember his last name. She IMed him, and, him being online, he responded in kind. She talked with him for a bit about the apparent ageism of the MG, and, with my urging, allowed me to type a few sentences to him. “Hey Aesop, look away before Philip catches you!” he ended with a laugh, directing my sister to the A.Life sim,

I left her there, so that she could explore on her own, while I logged in on my own computer and wandered around Teen SL, looking at the greats and the embarrassments, and spending a lot of time in the reserved sim of Behemoth, a great place for quiet introspection. Whenever I need to think deep thoughts, I always ask ‘Mana’, a imaginary person that shares my thoughtspace when I need him to.
Mana: “So, what did you see, Aesop?”
Aesop: “I saw beauty, and I saw the worst of it.”
Mana: “And what do you see here?”
Aesop: “I see emptiness, and I see potential, and I see beauty and sadness and darkness.”

Our conversation continued on for some time, as I looked over the public SL forums at sluniverse.com, and asked Refugees ‘What was different?’. I fired off a couple of emails to Lindens and Mentors from both grids, and I watched my sister, asking her what she thought. She’s watched me a number of times, so she was able to point some things out that I hadn’t noticed myself.

One thought, however, remained clear in my head the whole way through. “We’re not that different, on the whole.” We have 10,000 residents to the Main Grid’s 300,000. Our concurrent connectivity is less than 500 at peak hours, while the MG recently peaked at nearly 8,000. Our content creators, however, are just as skilled, from professional architects like Aesop Thatch, Amou Debs, Dolus Naumova and Paulie Cinquetti, to furniture guru Brooke Barmy and scripters Ryan Dayton and Alpha Zaius, to land baron Mercury Metropolitan. The clothing designers Spunky Pinkdot and Cursed Designs’ Wicked Loudon. Our core group might be smaller, but they certainly exist despite that. And they’re just as good as anything the MG has to offer.

In the next series of articles, I’ll be talking about the major players in Teen Second Life, starting with the Islanders and finishing up with the Architects. Stay tuned to secondage.blogsome.com for updates.

I’m not very good with keeping commitments. Ok, now that that’s been established, let’s see if I can’t make a commitment to this blog and try and keep the ten or so of you that care entertained. Hey, it’s a better reading population than my private blog gets.

Things that Aesop currently has to do: (In no particular order)

• Write an article for Hamlet’s NWN on the TG.
• Organize the TG Sail Races on Saturday
• Update Bino Arbuckle on new sims. Try and figure out when the hell they came out
• Attempt to get involved more with maingrid TSL (Note: Above is neither worth it nor rewarding.)

Ok, now that I’ve made a list, I can try and get on it.

I haven’t been on the Sandbox islands since December or January. I explored the islands until I saw how cluttered it was on the Sandbox islands. The sandbox islands are cluttered not with tons of prims and freebies for sale, but with warning signs about no shooting or no selling. The sandbox rules are getting enforced so much that even the floors have words that say “No Shooting” or “No Selling.” This was kind of shocking that the Lindens have gone this far to try to stop this. The most that would be expected is a Linden telling a person not to break the sandbox rules. This is great that they are enforcing this rule and they seem serious about this.
Even though they’re enforcing this, people are still breaking the rules. I’ve seen some freebie cars being sold off for $30. I was also shot by someone with a popgun That isn’t as bad as getting shot with an RPG. While people are selling freebies and trapping other fellow TSL residents, the sandboxes are bombarded with these things:
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I was able to talk to one of Teen Second Life’s residents, Owl Patel. Here’s the interview:

TSA: How do you feel about this recent change to the sandbox?
Owl Patel: Well, its certainly laggier. Can’t do much about that. As more people join SL, the sandboxes are naturally going to swell.
TSA: Do you think it was right for the Lindens to do this?
Owl Patel: Yeah, I do. The Lindens have had problems regulating this in the past. Whatever works, you know?
TSA: Do you think this change was due to the rise of people who aren’t aware of the rules or what to do?
Owl Patel: Well, yes and no. You’ve got new people who don’t know what to do, but you’ve also got long term griefers.. the people who log in to SL, and immediately whip out a gun to make people miserable. The bigger problem is going to be newer people, but if they use SL like that, they usually filter out on their own.
TSA: Do you think the Tutorial Islands affect how people work or use the sandbox?
Owl Patel: Yeah, I do. The tutorial island deffinately needs updating.. it basically says: “Build wherever you want, do whatever you want! Your world, your imagination!” And this easily reflects on the sandbox, as I can see it being one of the first places to go.
TSA: Do you think a Linden should monitor the sandbox to make sure no one is breaking the rules?
Owl Patel: Well, this would have a very parental feel to it, and I don’t think that’s what TSL residents want. What the Lindens need to do is overdo it on pushing using the report feature, and of course, plastering the rules on the ground helps.
TSA: Alright thanks for accepting this interview.
Owl Patel: You’re quite welcome.

I stayed on the sandbox for about 30 minutes until I left. Overall, the amount of people selling and shooting have decreased since around November. Last year, I had to deal with people coming up to me every 10 minutes and asking me if I wanted to buy something. The only problem with the sandbox now is that it’s very laggy and there is a ton of bad builds. Then again, the people on the sandbox are just trying to learn how to build better.

By: Trent Davis

Rumors have been flying for weeks, but only three days ago was the presence of a teen-owned Island confirmed, when it suddenly appeared on the map, divided up into rentable parcels, with a few prebuilt shops and a mall already in place.

The island, located just South-West of Earnhardt, is named Mecca, and it certainly seems to be true- all of the ‘Popular Places’ spots for the past two days were claimed by parcels on the island. The island is completely flat, with roads and paths dividing the large (4096+) rent-a-parcels. Only about half of them are developed now, but more are being bought and development is continuing as time goes on.

We had a chat with Mecca owner, Tin Bling:

The Second Age: Good morning, Mr Bling;

Tin Bling: Good morning.

TSA: So, what made you decide to purchase the Teen Grid’s first Island? It’s quite an invenstment, isn’t it?

TB: I guess I have been thinking about one for some time. Just recently I have made enough via the TG to pay for such an item. And, I really wanted a ‘get-away’ you can say.

TSA: Mm-hmm. You mean through the Cascade Mall, correct?

TB: Yes

TSA: Who did you hand ownership of the mall off to? Or did it just die?

TB: Well, I didn’t really want to see it up for sale the next day. So I did some researching and found an interested buyer, Alex Harbinger, Owner of Mega-Mall. He was looking to expand, and was interested in my old land on Cascade.

TSA: Back to your island. It’s the first ever on the grid, although others (Brooke Barmy and Malarthi Behemoth, to name two) have considered buying one. What sort of impact do you think this will have on the grid?

TB: I am always interested in seeing what other teen residents would do with their island. I wanted a more professional environment, but yet space for teens to do what they wanted with it.

TSA: And what are you planning to do with Mecca? Right now, it’s sort of half renting, a quarter mall and a quarter just development. Any plans for further expansion or moving it into a theme? You said that you’re looking for a ‘professional’ environment, can you explain that a bit more?

TB: I do plan to change some of the themes every so offer, to keep it active. New ideas and expansion ideas are always being tossed around. By professional, I wanted a resident own[ed] place that multiple people build and showed the TG population what is possible in SecondLife.

TSA: Do you think that any other teen Islands are coming up? Or do you think that the $1250 USD + $200/month will scare most potential buyers away for now?

TB: I do know of one for sure. And a few friends of mine are interested in buying one also. Hopefully Mecca will be the center of a new large island of the TG world.

TSA: A larger island? So this other island may be attached to Mecca?

TB: That is the plan.

TSA: Hmm, interesting. How do you plan to make Mecca sustainable? Pulling in $200/month from Second Life, even through land rentals, is quite a feet.

TB: After some hard thinking and all goes well, the simple land maintenance fees should be easy. Everything was well planned out in advanced.

TSA: Aesop Thatch nods…. “Ok then, any other thoughts that you’d like to get out to the community, Mr Bling?”

TB: Start small, you aren’t successful over night. Always have a positive attitude, and be a entrepreneur.

TSA: No problem Aesop, and thank you

This is likely just the beginning of a new era of TSL builds and expansion. Several new Linden-held simss have recently been built, and more are on the way. At least two other resident-owned Islands are confirmed, and there may be more than that. For a long time, Resident Islands were not even available on the Teen Grid, but starting in November they became available for purchase. These islands are likely to become the focal point of Teen Grid commerce and innovation, thanks to the hard efforts and work of valued TG residents such as Tin Bling.

Clubs on the main grid are known to be great places to meet other people and party. Most of them carry pornography. Thankfully, the teen grid isn’t like that. Our lifestyle is very similar to the main grid. On the main grid, clubs rule the land, but on the teen grid, these so called “malls” are almost like the backbone of the teen grid lifestyle.

Malls started out way back when the teen grid was in beta. We used to call these things “towers.” There were only two main towers: Spectrum Tower and Trent Towers. They both attracted many people (Many people in one place wasn’t much). Yes, a lot of people in one place would be about five back in the day. Sadly, both of these towers died. Then some people tried making look alikes, but none of them had a huge success. The towers fad then died out.

The first REAL mall began right around the time Trent Towers opened. A teenager by the name of Tin Bling began his mall and called it Cascade. It wasn’t a huge success until he bought land in the sim coincidently named Cascade. Right around that time, the mall fad began growing. Malls in the snow sims became hits like Mega Mall Snow and Cascade. Even though there were only two malls in the snow sims, they were seen as the only place to go when you have to shop.

As the malls in the snow sims got started, it was under fire by heavy criticism. People began talking about how and why they were able to build their malls very quickly. One person, who should not be named, brought this issue up in a forum thread. The Lindens acknowledged that the teens were starting to realize what had happened and they responded. Blue Linden had announced that certain people were given land in the snow sims before they became public. Linden Labs had to find a way to make money and they had thought that by selling land to people who had huge tiers before the sim became public could bring in money. The Lindens apologized for this and in about a month or two, it was forgotten.

Now, malls are quickly popping up from one place to another. We are also seeing some “changes.” One change, for example, is the new Highland Mall. Originally, Highland Mall was known to have a very generic design. Highland Mall changed its looks so that it can look like an actual mall. Sasha Solzhenitsyn, the founder of Highland Mall, wasn’t available for an interview because he was offline. So, instead the interview was held with Aniam Ingmann, the co-owner of Highland Mall. Here’s the interview:

The Second Age: Alright, why did you guys decide to change the look of Highland Mall?
Aniam Ingmann: Well, we’ve remodeled 7 times ( yes it’s alot) and we’ve always done it if we move land, buy more land or think up a new idea. This last time, we made an expansive indoor mall instead of an outdoor one.
TSA: How do you feel about your competitors and what are you trying to do to attract more people?
AI: Well, us at Highland feel that our compeditors are usually not worthy of their status; as they use cheap ways to attract people such as money chairs. We try to always think up new ideas to attract people and we also hold events.
TSA: How are you guys trying to cope with the changes that are happening in SL (the increase in malls, the increase of citizens, etc.)?
AI: Well we just brainstorm for new ideas. You could call me and Sasha the “idea guys”; me and him are constantly thinking of new, original things to set up at our mall. he actually is a good friend in RL so we have time totalk at school.
TSA: Do you have any future plans?
AI: well, we are currently wanting to set up a movie theater, annd possibly another attraction such as our old sewer safari (that was one idea that was a large success)
AI: Okay, thanks for the interview
TSA: no thank you

Another example is Tin Bling’s departure of the mall business. It was very surprising to say the least. Although he had sold off his mall to Mega Mall’s owner Alex Harbinger, there’s have a feeling that he will return. Tin’s decision to sell it and Alex’s decision to buy Cascade didn’t have a major effect on TSL. A huge change on how people controlled malls was expected. Even though Alex is controlling two major malls at the same time, he is still doing an outstanding job mantaining them both.

As malls are starting to pop up everywhere, people are trying to cash into this. Some people are seeing this mall fad as uncreative and an idiotic way to use your land. Most malls are generic and ugly, but the creators of these malls will eventually find out the secret of making a great mall. As long as a mall don’t have freebie selling and people shooting up other people, then that mall is fine. Let’s just see what will happen to the future of malls and what changes it will make to TSL.

By: Trent Davis

((Editors note: This is the first of many articles that will hopefully be coming from our new staff of writers for TSA. Please post comments!))

The Second Age will be hiring writers on a commision basis. If you would like to join, please IM Aesop Thatch In-world, or leave a post on the forums.

All applicants MUST have a story before they apply. If you are accepted, you wll get paid your commision and will be asked to continue writing stories.

Today, at 2pm Linden Standard Time (Pacific), Blue will make a special announcement concerning the date that Teen Second Life will go 24/7.

Meet us in Rainier at 2pm SL time for the most anticipated announcement in TG history. We have secured a date and at 2pm we will officially announce the day TG opens 24/7. You’ve been dying to know when. Come by tomorrow and we’ll tell you. Then, after we do, we will pelt you with snowballs.

That’s right, you heard right we are sending the word out to any and all Lindens who ever wanted to chuck snowballs at teens. It’s the Linden vs. Teen grudge match of the century! All snow sims become the battlefield for Winter Smackdown 2005. BE THERE, but don’t eat the yellow snow!

There’s not a lot more I can say.
We’ve been waiting for this for over six months now…

What are we going to do now that it is finally here? Most people feel that the grid will become less connected, more spread out. Certainly time differences will become significantly more pronounced as the Brit’s get a chance to log at decent hours.

Something that I’ve avoided reporting on in this blog is the builds in TSL- for one, I am a rather highly recognized builder on the grid, and any critique or praise I give (in my opinion) could be either detrimental to a group or builder or give them too much hope- just because I like it doesn’t mean that they’re going to sell a lot of builds.

Thankfully, someone else has taken over that for me, the fine folks of Demos’tados have started their blog here: http://dsanctuary.blogspot.com/.

The Digital Sanctuary is coming along nicely- I liked the review of Kaira’s home, and it’s one of my personal fave builds on the grids. The describe it in enough detail that I can see what they’re talking about, however, I’d love to see pictures of these! The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words- when you’re talkin about architecture, that goes tenfold.

Go on over and take a look, I think you’ll enjoy whether your a teen or an adult.

Four days ago, Cinnamin Spice posted the following message on the TG forums:

I’ll repeat the title of this thread for emphasis…
I sure hope that I am wrong here.

I thought about this for a while before posting. But it’s something I feel really strongly about. So, here it is.

I logged on the day that land in the snow sims was released for sale - at 2:03 game time. Now, I consider that to be pretty quick.. not necessarily first.. but… whatever.

By the time I hit the snow sims, no more than 30 secs at most, land had already been sold and a huge amount of one particular plot was already covered with prims by the new owner. I thought it was a bit fast, but initially wrote this off as “man, how lucky for that person”, and “wow, he/she’s good to be able to have both bought all that land and to have so accurately ‘built’ that flat land cover in no more than 3.5 minutes”. Seriously, I chalked it up as “luck of the draw”.

The more I thought about it and the more I have thought about comments made by other residents both before the land sale and afterwards, the less comfortable I am with my initial assessment.

I have reached the conclusion that at least one teen was given preferential treatment by LL in this land purchase process in the snow sims. The extent of this preferential treatment includes prior knowledge of the exact timing of the land release and posting of it as public — and POSSIBLY allowing that person (and possibly even a cohort or two) to log on before normal log on time to get the land before anyone else could.

Because a fair bit of the information I used to reach this conclusion came from private conversations, overheard comments noted in passing as I flew by, and at least one IM that I was privy to offline, I won’t post the individual pieces of information that caused me to reach this conclusion here. Sorry. I would rather be considered an alarmist or a conspiracy theorist than openly and wrongly accuse any specific individual of something like this.

IF IT IS TRUE in ANY sense, shame on LL. How can we residents trust you or any of your employees now? ((I know LL is not a single individual. However, employees of the corporation act AS the corporation and, as such, their actions or inactions reflect directly on the credibility of the corporation as a single entity and on the individuals who work as part of that organization.))

I don’t expect much of an “official” response here - in fact, I expect this thread will be deleted fairly quickly, not just closed. However, if it is true in ANY sense, LL should own up to its actions, publicly ackknowledge them AND explain this to the rest of us.

If this is not true in any sense or any of the particulars, then I apologize for seeing things and publicly commenting on what I think I see.

As I said, I sure hope that I am wrong.

Needless to say, there was a lot of outcry at this- it felt to many residents that Cinn was back up to her tricks of accusing LL of wrongdoing without anything to back it up, sort of the TG equivilant of Profoky Neva.

Guess what? It turns out she was right.

Not only was she right, but Blue Linden proved she was right less than a day later with this post:

As you probably realize, the Teen Grid is not profitable…it would be nice if Linden Lab was a charity, but it’s a business. Because Second Life is free, the only way we make a profit is to sell land. As it happens, land sales on the teen grid are very low. So whenever there is a board meeting and the investors are in the building I get nervous and wonder what we could possibly do to encourage people to buy more land. This is not the fun part of the job, obviously.

We try to make it as easy as possible for residents to own a whole sim, but realize that it’s prohibitively expensive for teens to do so. I thought I should at least attempt to make it easier for teens to buy large plots of land, and in doing so receive the same concierge support that private estate owners receive. I looked up the top land owners and offered some of them the opportunity to reserve some land while we were setting up new regions. If we were able to sell enough land it would make sense to add new regions specifically for large landholders. People could get as much land as they wanted, receive the same treatment, in a scaled way, that MG estate owners receive, and the TG would grow faster. Everyone gets more right? Good idea?

Bottom line? It wasn’t a good idea.

It didn’t result in the sale of one entire sim, and people have been more upset than I’m willing to accept as “growing pains”. We won’t be doing that again. I’m sorry if it came across as favoritism and not a hard look at the numbers of the teen grid. I’m VERY sorry if anyone felt personally neglected in the way the choices were made. I’m MORE than happy to talk to anyone 1 on 1 about it or have a community meeting regarding the way we add regions to the teen grid. We’d like the grid to be something that every resident, parent, Lindens and investor agrees is worth every penny.

No I won’t be closing this thread. Your opinions are very valuable. Please feel free to contact me personally if you’d rather not make your comments in a public forum.

I’m deeply insulted myself that this happened.
While it does make good business sense, as Blue stated, it does not make sense from either a social or moral standpoint, and it definetly is not going to contribute to TSL residents trusting LL in the future. In fact, it’s gone the opposite way- reports state that land is being bought slower and people are dropping teir on the TG. No one seems to trust LL at the moment, and many speculate that even though Blue claimed that it’s never going to happen again, we have no proof of that.

Really, only time will tell on that score, but it’s true the LL made a huge mistake on this one, and it’s going to take time for them to recover from it.

Meanwhile, teens are throwing around ideas previously mentioned by Miss Spice, once again bringing up the debate of ‘Amnesty Week’, where all teens remaining on the MG were allowed to come clean and get away with their stuff. While it’s obvious that this won’t happen again, was it right for LL to do this in the first place?

Personally, I believe that it was. In consideration, it brought over a lot of Teens that LL Customer Support didn’t even know about, and it didn’t create any hard feelings with refugees. It barely even created a ripple among the teen’s who started out there SL careers on this grid. (With the notable exception of Miss Spice) Those refugees brought over their talent and experience, and, in fact, is was five MG teens who started the ball rowling on the TG in the first place- without them, it still might not exist.

The topic hasn’t been closed yet, but it might be soon if it develops into a flame war. Here’s for hoping that sanity and respect prevail over anger and hate!

Update: The Second Life Herald ran this story approximately 4 hours ago, and I’m hoping that they have a contact inside TSL, not a reporter.