Imperium's Web Stuff

Imperium was built from the ground up around the notion of allowing for web access to Imperium's stuff from within SL. So for everything from the content bundles to MacrObey and MicrObey, if you use Imperium's stuff, you're going to have a corresponding account within the Imperium system. The only thing I use is your id to keep you mapped to your stuff in the system. I do look up your avatar image, as well, just for nicety's sake. 

So if you open a content bundle you got from a lucky chair? You have an account. Why? So that your content can be used for things like the MacrObey and MicrObey. That's the way the system works. 

So what's that all mean? Nothing directly to you. My only interest is in keeping things happening for you.

That said, I'll happily delete a user (it's kind of a pain to do, but I'll do it). That includes anything you've purchased or gotten from the lucky chairs. I'm going to note here that deleting you also means that I'm going to block you at the source. You'll no longer have access to any Imperium product. Anywhere. You are banned at all points from using any Imperium product. It'll manifest as errors, likely, since you are banned and the system is refusing to let you in. I'm sorry about that, and I hope that you reconsider. Plus, I'll really miss you.

In the end I hope you're cool with that. I'm not using any "sensitive" information. Heck, I don't even have access to any of that. SL does a really good job of protecting you, and I try to, as well. I just need to be able to look you up in-world. That's it.

Coming Soon (Hopefully) In December, 2023

Or, rather, "How I'm planning on blowing a whole lot of crap up over Christmas 2023"

Since the summer of 2023, I've been tinkering here and there with some ideas. Back in June, I took away some functionality in the "hypnosis and meditation" session stuff that I wanted to bring back in a way that makes more sense. Some other design objectives got time, as well. Some of those design objectives have resulted in a chicken and egg problem that will cause some layover and weird integrations of features. I'm not going to shoot for backward compatibility like I have in the past. Time for some cleanup.

The end result? There will be a major update to the portal and the api behind the scenes (for the nerds, including updates to .NET8 ... Rock on). This will cause some things to break (though not too bad, just color setup and so on) while I coordinate an update to MicrObey that will pave the way for 2024 and beyond. I'm not at all sure how long that layover will take.

In the end, there have been a lot of behind the scenes changes that will allow me to do other cool things. A lot of that won't be mentioned here, but it's really worth mentioning that across the entire system, not a single file has gone untouched in some way.

Hypnosis

Behind the scenes there has been a lot of work done to kick off a hypnosis/meditation session. Bringing all of that information together is fun, but it's also pretty intense. I've hopefully made it a lot more efficient.

Introducing "advanced view", "individual spirals", and "individual themes" ... So back in June of 2023, there were a lot of people getting a little overwhelmed and mentioning it to me. I was at the same time dealing with some infrastructure problems of my own. A lot of stuff had to go and be rethought. This wasn't a popular move, but it was necessary. 

A large problem with the spirals and the themes are that there's just too many of them. Yeesh. I tried to simplify that. Come to find out that some people DO want to wade through that list for their favorites. It's been a long time coming, but now you can again.

The "advanced view"? That brings back the "pre/post" injection stuff, along with some other stuff. You're welcome.

The "preview" should give you a hint of what things are about now without giving away the entire thing, and is now randomized. Concerns were brought to me about exposing too much, and I agree.

Now the biggest thing (well, not really, but perhaps the most obvious) is the ability to set the visual aspects of the session. As of right now, you will also be able to update the visual aspects while the session is running.

Yes, you can now run up to SIX trainings, looping each up to SIX times. If you do that, let me know how your brain is when it's all said and done. 😁

This was done prior to a very nice discussion with some of the actual users (you may have guessed that the ability to run longer more intense sessions primarily come from users of the Owner's HUD) that led to trying to allow for SHORTER sessions.

Subliminals

I've always had a weird disconnect with the subsystems on MicrObey. This is because these things are always running no matter what, but they don't give that appearance. It's not a "you" problem, but it's more in the way I designed things way back when. Because of the very asynchronous and definitely not-synchronized nature of API to SL communications, it was a way of simplifying things, but I tried to keep that facade up. The devotions is where this just breaks my damn brain, and I'll be tackling that one soon. I figured I'd start with subliminals. It's used a lot and it's comparatively not as complex. Here's a sneak look:

What's new here? A lot behind the scenes, but the biggest is that I've moved setup for subliminals into the session, with some new stuff like random colors and alphas. 

Multiple subliminals can be run at once now. Not going to do a screenshot, but the update will also allow you to kick off subliminals for available subjects who've been active recently, as well.

All in all, a significant overhaul.

The Quick Hypnosis Session

On one day just after Thanksgiving, 2023, I ventured into a group chat with some of the excellent people who actually USE MicrObey and walked away with some ideas. This whole chat made me sad that I don't get the opportunity to be in SL and mingle as much as I'd like. You guys have GREAT ideas, and I really enjoy getting to hear them on your terms. 

One of the immediate outcomes of that was the notion of the "Quick Hypnosis Session". For some, a generic MicrObey session can be loooooooooooooooooong! Here's a hint:

These things can run over TWO HOURS LONG!!!! And they can get longer. Now for some people, this is great, immersive, and makes for excellent long running roleplay opportunities. But a lot of people just want to get to it. This became evident while discussing the run times with people. I'm really glad they mentioned it. So the immediate answer (with more coming down the pipe in the future)? Quick Hypnosis Sessions.

Like Meditations, this can only be done when the subject is actually online and wearing their MicrObey HUD (meaning no saved sessions, startup sessions, and so on).

OK so if you embiggen that, you'll see that the normal inductions, awakenings, multiple trainings, and all the fluff are gone. All you get is the one training. You do, of course, still select the spiral and theme and so on. And the new visual theme stuff is available. It's a first step, but I really hope this helps people's enjoyment of MicrObey.

The Portal

I'm in the process of working on generic libraries to make the entire portal look and feel a little more consistent. It's come a long way over several years and caught me in different moods and different approaches. I never really worried about it, since in my mind it's all a hobby thing. Heck, I decided on a generic library when I was trying to sift through some code trying to find something. Blah. 🤣

Misc Stuff

Yikes been so much and so many changes and so many little things. I have hopes of reviving the peer connectivity for social stuff, more coherent triggers, an improved tasking mechanism, and so much more. Little things like breaking out setup into individual sections (what I've done with the subliminals and hypnosis is just the start), bringing system granular access into one place, trying to improve on the ability to make bundles "private". There are lots of small things. A lot of it is in preparation for even more bigger things.

The Future

Up next I may take a break from MicrObey and return to what I'm calling a re-envisioning of the Owner HUD. The MacrObey devices are definitely in for a complete rewrite, and I hope to tackle them both very soon. I think you guys'll like what I have in mind for the Owner HUD.

OK I'm done enough for one rambling.

IR

Question Time: How do I get to my authored content?

If you have the Imperium Author Contributor system and it's been a while, you may not remember how to get to your stuff. Here's how:

Step 1: Find the Contributor HUD

Step 2: Add the HUD

Step 3: Touch the HUD. You'll get a popup that wants to send you off to the web.

Step 4: Touch that "Go To Page" button to go straight to your stuff:

Step 5: Click on the category you're after. I'll do trainings for an example:

Step 6: What do you want to do?

I'll focus on "edit" and explain the rest somewhere else. Don't worry about the "Bundle" column to the right. On the left hand side, you have two options: 

That trash can lets you delete your content. The pen and paper icon lets you edit. You want to click on that pen and paper icon:

You can edit and change your content here. But also, you can retrieve your content using generic select-all-then-copy commands that's been there since time immemorial. But quick hint? Click into the text box with your content, use [CTRL-A] to select all, [CTRL-C] to copy that content. Then in a notecard or whatever, use [CTRL-V] to paste your content. You can do the same in reverse, too.

Here's my chance to remind everyone that they SHOULD be doing this. SHOULD be backing up their stuff. Please please please please PLEASE do this.

Question Time: I see on my RLV restrictions, an open lock saying I CAN change these. How can someone lock me out?

 Questions rock, and this is a good one ...

I see on my RLV restrictions, an open lock saying I CAN change these. How can someone lock me out?

OK so in almost all of the system functional of MicrObey, there's going to be this little lock. Here's a screen shot!

Well cool! What the *&#@_()!@# does that mean? Basically, within the MicrObey ecosystem, an owner can come along and set up your RLV restrictions (in this context, but it applies for things like subliminals, devotions, and so on, as well). So let me show what this looks like from an owner's perspective:

So if they set your RLV restrictions, and check that little box ... You're not going to be able to update your RLV settings yourself. You'll see a little lock saying you can't. Sorry, not up to staging that right now, but that's the short end of the stick there.

I hope that helps demystify things a little!

Question Time: Can I set things up so my whole screen is taken up during a session (like XXX does)

 I love questions! Here's a good one ...

Can I set things up so my whole screen is taken up during a session (like XXX does)

The short answer? Not right now, no.

The longer answer, if you're so inclined ...

When I originally started prototyping MicrObey, I actually DID go for a full screen view of the spirals and themes, but someone (I can't remember who) talked me out of it, and I went with the "border panels". Why? Wide screen monitors is one reason why. The aspect ratio is already a serious quirk. The ultra-wide monitors and ratios just make that more awkward.

Now that things have settled, I'm not at all married to the way things are. I can change this, or even make it configurable, maybe, or some other mixture. I'm adding this to the official list of things to consider. I'd love to hear other and more thoughts on the display presentation of sessions in MicrObey.

Upcoming major system updates

So for the nerd in me ... I'm in the process of updating all of the Imperium server-side stuff to Net5. This is a pretty major update that also involves a language update to C# 9 and introducing system-wide nullables, which changes a LOT of the game when it comes to API and MVC stuff. Consequentially, there's a lot of stuff going on under the hood in the next server-side release of the management system and the API.

While I'm in this process, I'm also considering a lift and shift to a VPS style of system so I can begin to integrate things like Mongo into Imperium. This would be GREAT, since a whole lot of Imperium is more document-based than it is relational-based, but yet doesn't really fit into a Dynamo kind of single-key model (and I'm too cheap to pay for indexes ... I mean have you seen the prices for indexes?!) 

What does this mean for you guys? I really REALLY hope you won't even notice. I'm not that naïve to think I'm that awesome, though. I'll miss something that'll make it all the way out into the wild. If you see something, please let me know in-world. My hope is that this'll all be awesome and open up some doors for even more neat shit in the background. 

Redeliveries? Something not get delivered?

There's a few ways to try to recover from a failed delivery. At the store, there's a redelivery terminal. I include a redelivery HUD in most boxed products (not the content stuff, to keep those easy to use). If you purchased through Marketplace, I allow for redeliveries from there, too. Try that stuff first before you message me. Sometimes it may be a while before I even see that, and if you can recover a delivery, I'd really love to have that happen.

Now sometimes SL just fucks things up. It takes money but some glitch somewhere makes bad things happen and the vendors never deliver. If that's the case please please please go to your transaction history and message me as soon as possible with the transaction ID so I can collaborate it. I'll get you taken care of as soon as I can, even if it may be a wait.