Z&A Strap-On

As with a few of our products, this one started life some time ago as a hunt gift (past examples include the Shopping Bags, the Leather Hood and Catsuit, the Bunny Hood, the Staked-Out Picnic and one of our garden cells). Since that hunt it's been sitting on the workbench waiting for us to finally put it out for sale. Today's the day we do that.

You can find this at our main store and also on the Second Life market.

And, talking of hunts... don't forget that February sees the Z&A Second Birthday Mini-Hunt. If you've not put that in your diary yet, be sure to do so. There'll be a good number of gifts available.

Announcing: Raven Park

Z&A Productions are delighted to announce that, starting today (2012-01-24), the plot that was formally known as "Shackles Femdom" has now become Raven Park. Mostly, not a lot changes -- the main hangout and play areas remain as they were and we will continue to use the area to showcase some of our own builds while, at the same time, showing off items from other builders that we greatly admire.

There are three main changes of note:

1. Whereas Shackles Femdom was exclusively a Femdom hangout, Raven Park is a Femdom-themed hangout. This means that the rooms and toys available are aimed at Femdom role play, just as before. However, male dominance is no longer forbidden on the plot. This brings the location into line with Z&A Productions itself.
2. The plot itself is now group owned by Z&A Productions. If you have any issues while using the facilities provided by Raven Park please get in contact with either Antony Fairport or Zardia Avindar. This also means that the old "Shackled" group that was used to send out news and notices will no longer be used. Anyone wishing to keep up with news about Raven Park should follow this blog and/or join "Friends of Z&A" in-world.
3. The name. While the sim itself will still be called Shackles, the plot that was formally known as Shackles Femdom is now called Raven Park.

We imagine that more changes will happen over the next few months as our ideas for what Raven Park should be evolve.

Meanwhile, everyone's invited to come and make use of Raven Park. The landing point is still the same:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shackles/100/176/22

You'll find a group joiner and rules-given at the landing point.

And don't forget that this is happening next month:

New Punishment Picker: Scales

It's been a while since we last released a new Punishment Picker (if we don't count the special one we did for the Christmas period) but when Antony got hold of the sculpt pack for this one... it had to happen. So we're happy to announce the availability of the Scales:

As always, you'll find this Punishment Picker, and all the others, available in the main store as well as on the Second Life Marketplace.

For your diary: The Z&A Birthday Hunt

Come the 24th of next month it'll be 2 years since we opened our first shop. To celebrate this event, and to say thank you to all our customers and everyone who has encouraged us over the past couple of years, we've decided to do this:

Make a note in your diary. There will be Z&A goodies to be found. We're even working on some brand new builds for the hunt.

Keep an eye on this blog, or join our in-world group, to follow the development of the hunt.

RLV Relay Checking for All

Following on from our earlier post about adding some RLV relay checkers to the main store, we've now made the checker available in the main store, and on the marketplace, as a freebie.

All you need to do is rez one or more copies out in an area where people are likely to want to check their relay setup. To test, all they have to do is touch the checker. They will be checked to see if they are wearing an RLV relay that is responding to a version information request and, if that works, some of the most common reasons for the most common issues (the main being that a device doesn't catch them, if it supports catch) will be checked and, if found, they'll be told about them.

We imagine that, over time, we'll expand the checks so do keep an eye out for later versions as time goes on.

Z&A Sub-Focus, Anti-Cam and newer viewers

This post mostly only affects customers who use the Z&A Anti-Cam and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Z&A Sub-Focus.

It's been brought to our attention that there is a bug with the latest SL viewers (those based on v2.x and later code) that causes the blurring of the screen to work incorrectly. The mechanism used, with older viewers, would simply blur the screen (the intended effect). With newer viewers (we've personally tested this with Firestorm 3.2.2 and Restrained Love Viewer 2.8.2.1), as well as blurring the screen, an unwanted "zoom" is also applied.

With both of the affected products the intended underlying behaviour remains the same -- a visual penalty is applied for letting your camera wander too far. From this point of view the products themselves still work in the intended fashion. But if you switch from an older viewer to a newer one you will notice that the penalty looks very different. This is the reason why.

Mo Noel of MoDesign has created a JIRA reporting this problem. If you are affected by this issue we strongly suggest that you visit, vote and "watch" this issue.

Please note that Phoenix 1.6 appears to be unaffected.

RLV Relay Checking

Now and again we'll have someone contact us to say that a device they've purchased isn't working. Generally the thing that isn't working is that when they use the capture option the intended victim hasn't been captured, or if the victim has sat on the device on their own the lock option isn't stopping them from getting up.

The cause of these problems is always something that's wrong with the victim's setup. Often it's simply that they don't have an active RLV relay. Sometimes it's that they don't even have an RLV-enabled viewer installed (or they do but RLV itself is turned off).

This problem shows up pre-sales too. We've had people trying devices in the main store and getting frustrated that they don't appear to work.

This is all quite understandable -- RLV can be a little tricky to get to grips with at first and we're always happy to help.

To help you test your RLV setup we've now put some devices around the store (see the image to the right) that, when touched, will see if the avatar who touched it has a relay that is responding. Further to that, if they do, it'll go on to check if any restrictions are in place that would stop a capture happening (for example: some collars, when leashed, will deny some forms of sitting, and this in turn stops the capture onto one of our devices from working).

If you ever suspect that one of our products isn't working for you, or you're concerned that your RLV/relay setup isn't working correctly, do please feel free to pop down to the main store and give these tools a try.

And, of course, please don't ever hesitate to drop us a line. We're always more than happy to help out if we can.