Diary: 22nd January, 2010

Blue Mars Extends the MyPage Functionality
Both the developer and user MyPages have been recently updated.

The Developer MyPage now has the following additional features:

• Properties > City > Leased Cities > [Add Block] command: Instead of manually entering Block Name, uses the Current attribute in level_editor.xml as Block name to be added to database.
  
• Properties > City > Blocks > [Re-Upload .BLD file] command added: Allows re-uploading of .BLD file for selected Block, as long as it is NOT leased out or being used by yourself.
  
• If you don't have any leased Blocks, the Properties > Block tab will not be active.
  
• Home > Account Info now shows "Company Code" under "Name". If you bought a City, it will show your company code (up to 6 letters). 
• Administer > Company Members > [Add New Member]: Address, Phone, OS, Graphic Card, and CG Tool fields have been deleted from the [Add New Member] dialogue.
  
• Administer > Company Members > [Add New Member]: Displays an error message if you try to register an email address that is already registered as a Blue Mars Developer.
  
• Administer > Billing History: Displays various financial activity information.

The main improvements to the User Mypage  are the functioning Friends tab, and the Inventory tab.

The Friends tab now shows which of your friends are currently online or offline. The Command button has yet to be implemented, but is likely to allow Instant Messaging and various other commands.

OSGrid Concurrency

The low concurrency on the OSGrid has me worried.

As I speak the number of avatars inworld is a paltry 74, spread over 4,023 regions. There were 14 in Lbsa Plaza, five more regions with just two avatars in them, and all the rest were a single avatar in a single region. Check the current distribution here.

This is not a particularly bad snapshot either, the daily published statistics show that the numbers of users online over the last 24 hours was between 40 and 85, i.e. between at worst 1 user per 100 regions, to at best 1 user per 47 regions, and I have seen this consistently over the last couple of weeks now.

That is sparse by any yardstick.

Rock