First – some cynicism on what is otherwise a noteworthy announcement. It’s hard to imagine that it’s spontaneity that led to a fairly significant viewer upgrade a day after laying off 30% of its staff. It’s a move that will be seen through by a lot of Second Life residents for what it is: a carefully planned PR exercise to take the focus off the cutbacks whilst emphasising it’s ‘business as usual’.
On to the detail: aside from a bunch of bug fixes, the flagship for 2.1 beta, is the availability of voice morphing. For an extra fee of L$750 per month you can buy a pack of five voice morphs, with five different packs available. It’s a feature that will go down a treat with a lot of Second Life users and a lot will pay for the privilege – though the Lab obviously forecasted the revenue wouldn’t be enough to cover their wages and salaries bill as it existed a week ago.
You can download the alpha version now. Of course, I’m not sure how you have a 2.1 betaalpha before a 2.01 release version is on the horizon, but maybe that’s just me. I did try checking out Voice Island but was just given an error – either because it’s full or because I tried accessing it from an older Viewer version.
“Of course, I’m not sure how you have a 2.1 beta before a 2.0 release version, but maybe that’s just me. “
Better check your facts. Version 2.0 has been out since 3/31.
Facts were indeed checked – as shown here, 2.0.1 is a beta still. There is of course the chance it becomes the release version before 2.1. hits beta.
Oh and I would have logged into the SL forums to reply to a thread there on this issue – but am caught in the endless login loop and can’t actually reply to a thread.
Having both a 2.1 alpha and a 2.0.1 release is normal. The former is about getting new features out into the world and letting people try them out and find the problems; the latter is about fixing bugs and improving stability.
Those of us who have been using the Snowglobe test builds are effectively the beta testers for 2.0.1; it seems to be stable now and gives me better frame rates than the 2.0 release viewer does.
Why pay L$750 a month when this is free? – http://www.screamingbee.com/product/MorphVOXJun…
Yes, you do need Viewer 2.1 to morph your voice using the new voice fonts.