Kitely Mentors Group Meeting, 13 March 2013: summary
Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 8:58 am
Attending the meeting:
Anna Adamant
Bladyblue Bommerang
Brian Roberts
Dennis Albion
Ilan Tochner
Marstol Nitely
mat mahogany
Minethere Always
Villain Baroque
Virtualbelfast Ireland (Stiofan)
Ilan started the meeting by talking about the recent roll out of the transfer stations along with some other changes to make the login process easier. They included almost everything originally planned, except the customization, which would have taken too long to implement and caused an unnecessarily long delay in the marketplace development. He wanted to know if anyone at the meeting had any feedback about using the transfer stations. There were no negative reactions and general consensus was that they were working well and doing what they were designed to do.
Ilan reminded people that unless they were entering a world that took a long time to load, they would not spend much time in a transfer station. They exist to simplify the login process and to allow login to offline Kitely worlds directly from the viewer. In a few months they will also be used to enable Kitely to add support for Hypergrid access to offline Kitely worlds. Transfer stations are only used when logging into Kitely and only if the world being entered is offline. The time in the transfer stations is free and does not count toward plan minutes.
Ilan wanted to know if anyone had brought new people in after the changes. He said, “I'd be happy to get feedback from people who had previously encountered problems logging in. If you know of such people please ask them to give Kitely another try and see if they can now login.” He suggested that those who hadn’t seen the blog post about the changes, read it at http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-new ... -stations/
If people are having difficulty logging in, they should go to the Settings page where they will find a link to all the information they will need along with a link to download a compatible viewer. When logging in via the viewer, the login begins immediately to the desired world if it is online, or to a transfer station if the world is offline. When logging in via the website, the viewer will be started immediately after the Enter World button is pressed. The desired destination will either already be running, or will start while the viewer loads. If it isn’t ready by the time the grid login process is completed, a transfer station will be used to enable the user’s avatar to remain inworld until the world completes its startup process and the avatar can be transported to it.
There was a short discussion about using Firestorm with both Kitely and Second Life and if there were tutorials explaining how to use the viewer in both grids.
The Kitely Plaza is now opened to the public, but not officially. The Plaza is a 4-region Advanced Megaregion that is always on and free to access. It is a community build. The Kitely Plaza world page is located here: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Ila ... tely-Plaza. After arriving at the Plaza look for the box containing the Kitely Plaza HUD (which was designed by Dennis Albion). It works well as a roadmap and transport to all the areas at Kitely Plaza. It will also teleport you back to the plaza if you use it in another world. The welcome dialog points new users to the plaza when they create an account. “We expect people will quickly congregate there so it'll be easier for an in-world community to grow,” said Ilan. He encourages everyone to visit the plaza. It is under construction, but has come a long way.
There is a new Kitely Volunteer group that coordinates Kitely Plaza mentors, greeters and instructors. Bladyblue Bommerang wanted to share the following information concerning the volunteer program, “I just want to add that the mentor/greeter/instructor volunteer program that Anna Adamant and I have volunteered to put together is centered around the activities at Kitely Plaza”.
Sentual built us two headquarters and classrooms that will be run by the mentors and the greeters as a collective. Anyone can put themselves on the instructor list to teach beginner to advanced classes in the two buildings at the plaza.
By next week there should be a schedule available at each building so Kitely Residents can volunteer the time(s) they are available.
“One thing we wish to start focusing on is getting people in-world to help form a community that can help spread the word about Kitely,” said Ilan. Kitely Plaza is a free, always on location that people can hang out in even if they are on the free plan. So it should help when bringing people in-world to see what Kitely is about.
Villian Baroque was curious about Kitely’s statistical data. Specifically user base, average number of in-world users, number of sims… Ilan said that Kitely sends monthly stats to Maria Korolov and they appear in Hypergrid Business: http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/statistics/.
“We aim to do a lot more than what we're currently doing,” said Ilan. Minethere Always said that many are watching closely for when the Hypergrid will be enabled. She wondered if there was a timeline. While Ilan said that the transfer stations would help implementation of Hypergrid, he was reluctant to give a date. He did indicate it would probably be much less than six months. Depending on what things will preempt the current Kitely schedule.
For instance, Kitely was working on the transfer stations when they switched to the marketplace, believing it was a higher priority. However after working on the marketplace for awhile, user feedback prompted them to decide to switch back to working on a less ambitious version of the transfer stations. This was done because the old login process was causing login problems for some new users and handling that was higher priority than the marketplace. However, due to the marketplace remaining a higher priority than the complete transfer stations plan, only a limited version of the transfer stations was implemented in order to minimize the delay to the marketplace schedule.
Having rolled out transfer stations, the Kitely team has now turned their attention back to the marketplace merchant control panel. They are considering adding a few more flexibility options, but it is too soon to say. They have the components working and are adding the fine details to provide a well-polished service.
Hypergrid will not be worked on until after the marketplace rollout. The transfer stations were a prerequisite to Hypergrid being enabled. The stations will allow those using Hypergrid to visit a Kitely world that is offline to enter the Kitely grid while that world is loading. Using Hypergrid to access grids outside of Kitely will not require use of a transfer station. Customized transfer stations will be delayed until further notice.
Anna Adamant
Bladyblue Bommerang
Brian Roberts
Dennis Albion
Ilan Tochner
Marstol Nitely
mat mahogany
Minethere Always
Villain Baroque
Virtualbelfast Ireland (Stiofan)
Ilan started the meeting by talking about the recent roll out of the transfer stations along with some other changes to make the login process easier. They included almost everything originally planned, except the customization, which would have taken too long to implement and caused an unnecessarily long delay in the marketplace development. He wanted to know if anyone at the meeting had any feedback about using the transfer stations. There were no negative reactions and general consensus was that they were working well and doing what they were designed to do.
Ilan reminded people that unless they were entering a world that took a long time to load, they would not spend much time in a transfer station. They exist to simplify the login process and to allow login to offline Kitely worlds directly from the viewer. In a few months they will also be used to enable Kitely to add support for Hypergrid access to offline Kitely worlds. Transfer stations are only used when logging into Kitely and only if the world being entered is offline. The time in the transfer stations is free and does not count toward plan minutes.
Ilan wanted to know if anyone had brought new people in after the changes. He said, “I'd be happy to get feedback from people who had previously encountered problems logging in. If you know of such people please ask them to give Kitely another try and see if they can now login.” He suggested that those who hadn’t seen the blog post about the changes, read it at http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-new ... -stations/
If people are having difficulty logging in, they should go to the Settings page where they will find a link to all the information they will need along with a link to download a compatible viewer. When logging in via the viewer, the login begins immediately to the desired world if it is online, or to a transfer station if the world is offline. When logging in via the website, the viewer will be started immediately after the Enter World button is pressed. The desired destination will either already be running, or will start while the viewer loads. If it isn’t ready by the time the grid login process is completed, a transfer station will be used to enable the user’s avatar to remain inworld until the world completes its startup process and the avatar can be transported to it.
There was a short discussion about using Firestorm with both Kitely and Second Life and if there were tutorials explaining how to use the viewer in both grids.
The Kitely Plaza is now opened to the public, but not officially. The Plaza is a 4-region Advanced Megaregion that is always on and free to access. It is a community build. The Kitely Plaza world page is located here: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Ila ... tely-Plaza. After arriving at the Plaza look for the box containing the Kitely Plaza HUD (which was designed by Dennis Albion). It works well as a roadmap and transport to all the areas at Kitely Plaza. It will also teleport you back to the plaza if you use it in another world. The welcome dialog points new users to the plaza when they create an account. “We expect people will quickly congregate there so it'll be easier for an in-world community to grow,” said Ilan. He encourages everyone to visit the plaza. It is under construction, but has come a long way.
There is a new Kitely Volunteer group that coordinates Kitely Plaza mentors, greeters and instructors. Bladyblue Bommerang wanted to share the following information concerning the volunteer program, “I just want to add that the mentor/greeter/instructor volunteer program that Anna Adamant and I have volunteered to put together is centered around the activities at Kitely Plaza”.
Sentual built us two headquarters and classrooms that will be run by the mentors and the greeters as a collective. Anyone can put themselves on the instructor list to teach beginner to advanced classes in the two buildings at the plaza.
By next week there should be a schedule available at each building so Kitely Residents can volunteer the time(s) they are available.
“One thing we wish to start focusing on is getting people in-world to help form a community that can help spread the word about Kitely,” said Ilan. Kitely Plaza is a free, always on location that people can hang out in even if they are on the free plan. So it should help when bringing people in-world to see what Kitely is about.
Villian Baroque was curious about Kitely’s statistical data. Specifically user base, average number of in-world users, number of sims… Ilan said that Kitely sends monthly stats to Maria Korolov and they appear in Hypergrid Business: http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/statistics/.
“We aim to do a lot more than what we're currently doing,” said Ilan. Minethere Always said that many are watching closely for when the Hypergrid will be enabled. She wondered if there was a timeline. While Ilan said that the transfer stations would help implementation of Hypergrid, he was reluctant to give a date. He did indicate it would probably be much less than six months. Depending on what things will preempt the current Kitely schedule.
For instance, Kitely was working on the transfer stations when they switched to the marketplace, believing it was a higher priority. However after working on the marketplace for awhile, user feedback prompted them to decide to switch back to working on a less ambitious version of the transfer stations. This was done because the old login process was causing login problems for some new users and handling that was higher priority than the marketplace. However, due to the marketplace remaining a higher priority than the complete transfer stations plan, only a limited version of the transfer stations was implemented in order to minimize the delay to the marketplace schedule.
Having rolled out transfer stations, the Kitely team has now turned their attention back to the marketplace merchant control panel. They are considering adding a few more flexibility options, but it is too soon to say. They have the components working and are adding the fine details to provide a well-polished service.
Hypergrid will not be worked on until after the marketplace rollout. The transfer stations were a prerequisite to Hypergrid being enabled. The stations will allow those using Hypergrid to visit a Kitely world that is offline to enter the Kitely grid while that world is loading. Using Hypergrid to access grids outside of Kitely will not require use of a transfer station. Customized transfer stations will be delayed until further notice.