The Second Links Traveler

In my first blog post covering my fascinating interview with TrueGolf creator Poppy Williams, we discussed the history of TrueGolf and how it came to be. I hope you all checked it out! In this post, I tried to dig deep into B-Wind and to get Poppy’s take on the controversy stirring in the SL golf community.

I’ve got a giveaway going on! Be sure to read all of the first part of this interview and enter to win a Steelhead gift card!

Keyli Daltrey: There’s been a lot of talk about B-Wind recently. I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about B-Wind – can you explain it to me in kind of layman’s terms?

Poppy Williams: Yes, I can. Legacy golf systems play with SL wind, which is the standard wind. The problem with SL wind is that it’s unpredictable. One time you play in a breeze, and the other time you play in a tropical gale.

So we thought about how to solve that, and the idea was pretty simple: make your own wind and let the golf hud listen to/react on it.

B-wind servers are actually artificial wind servers, managed by the course owner. You can program a wind force, a direction, or varying directions, and the TG HUDs that land on a sim will listen to it and use it in the game. In that way, everybody has the same wind (dis)advantage during a tourney, for instance, so tournaments would be more fair.

KD: So Lexy could say ‘today the wind is out of the southwest at 8-12 knots’ and that’s how it would be for all of Rainbow Valley until she changes it. Do I have it right?

PW: That’s exactly how it works. Or she can say ‘windforce is 6mps and the direction is varying’, yet the force is the same.

KD: I wanted to clarify one thing (and it’s very possible I am misunderstanding it). From what was said in the Discord, I got the impression that if Lexy were to set the wind here (at Rainbow Valley), that would change the wind at every course that used B-wind.

PW: No, that is wrong. B-Wind servers only work in the sim they’re installed in. So, for instance, here at Rainbow we have two wind servers as Rainbow is two sims.

KD: I’m having a hard time understanding why there’s this blowback over TrueGolf version 1.6. I’ve played a few rounds with it and it seemed fine. Is there an exploit or is someone seeing something that just really isn’t there?

PW: I can tell you that. Sit back, because I’m going to type a lot.

KD: *refills her glass of wine* Ready!

PW: The blowback on 1.6 isn’t about the version 1.6 HUD. It’s about the revised B-wind server we created to go with the v1.6 golf HUD.

Half a year ago we got some signals of a course owner that panicked in some Discord post. He said B-Wind can be hacked. People can play with zero wind and have an unfair advantage over other players.

He didn’t tell us, but we asked around (to figure out) what happened. It wasn’t a hack. The course owner took his B-Wind server, added it as a HUD, went to another course and said, “Look! I can play with zero wind!”

He…started a (false concern) around course owners. As other course owners started to panic, they went to some script kiddie and asked him how they can avoid an exploit like this. They…took a lot of time and effort and found the channel and the command line of the B-wind server. So the exploit became a hack, but by the same people that started this charade in the first place.

At that time, we learned by accident that this script kiddie sold his hack on the SL Marketplace. So not only course owners can manipulate B-Wind, others can too.

We did two things in a very short time. Version 1.6 was already about to be released, but we needed to secure the B-Wind server, so we changed both the 1.6 HUD and the B-Wind server.

…those same course owners are angry because they do not know how to detect the new B-Wind server, so they panic all over again.

KD: So with 1.6, there’s a new way for course owners to communicate with their course’s B-Wind server that is both secure and exploit-proof. Why are some people upset? That sounds like a great fix.

PW: They are upset because they never asked us what we did, how it works, or what to pay attention to. I’ve never seen any evidence or any calls for help about a possible exploit on the first B-Wind servers.

What’s more, we decided to issue the new B-Wind servers only to course owners that we trust. You can understand that (after the experience with the exploit) we do not trust everybody anymore, so many of the panicking course owners have not received a new B-Wind server.

That does them no harm. v1.6 does not work with the old B-Wind server, and you can use it it perfectly with SL wind.

KD: It sounds like if there was just better communication this might not be an issue at all?

PW: Not only that, but listening to reason. That seems to be a bit harder. We’ve gone to great lengths to make our score system compatible with Elite. We don’t want that (to service our competitors), but we are committed to service Elite as a golf system.

KD: I hate to see a schism forming in the community. I really hope cooler heads prevail and everyone’s able to communicate and work together to get that sorted out for golfers all over the grid.

KD: On to more fun stuff! Is there anything you can tell me about that’s on the drawing board for TrueGolf?

PW: Oh yes! In December, we will release our Tour Pro HUD, which will be a blast.

KD: Can you tell me anything about it?

PW: You’ll get two more clubs, 3 iron and 4 iron. The HUD will be able to draw and fade. And there is a special surprise embedded. So much to look out for! 🙂

KD: Okay…I don’t know a lot about RL golf. I played as a teenager until my dad realized it just wasn’t clicking with me. Can you tell me what draw and fade means?

PW: Draw and fade is a way you can add a spin to your ball so the trajectory is curved. I wonder if people will use it much, but, hey, with the new HUD you can.

KD: Okay…last one. This was actually something I thought of last night while putting on my TG visor. Have you ever thought of a TrueGolf fashion line?

PW: Oh my god, don’t ask me…I’m bits and bytes. I’m not creative in fashion. We have lots of ideas, and the team to realize them.

I want to say thank you to Poppy for being so patient with me and generous with her time to sit down and educate me on some of the mysteries about how TrueGolf, and golf in general, work in SL.