October 2011 – Page 2

October 24, 2011October 24, 2011

Metaverse Shakespeare Company Brings The Curtain Down

Ina Centaur has announced both inworld via notecards and on Ina’s blog, that The Shakespeare, Primtings, sLiterary and Skin City sims will be axed on or around October 29th. This comes as no surprise to anyone who has been part of these groups inworld, Ina has appeared to be disgruntled for some time.

If we rewind to May, Ina blogged a farewell here. I think it’s fair to say that Ina had became increasingly disillusioned with the financial aspects in running Second Life sims and that the loss of not for profit tier discounts has bitten hard. The story is a tale of woe, Ina was involved with an art aspect with regards to Primtings and the Metaverse Shakespeare Company, I’m more familiar with the latter.

The thing is, it’s not as if Ina didn’t try to raise revenue, the Metaverse Shakespeare Company offered a whole load of ways for people to sponsor their efforts or donate to keeping stage productions alive in Second Life, there were also tickets for opening night and season ticket deals. However, as many have mentioned before getting people to pay in Second Life for an attraction is problematic, because so few do pay for entry, although plenty of folk do tip.

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October 22, 2011

Hallow Dee’N Festival Closing Dance

Today we will see the end of our week long Hallow Dee’N festival with Demon DJ Jo Heartsdale, hopefully leading us in a two hour dance extravaganza of celtic and bawdy tunes!

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October 22, 2011October 22, 2011

Reverend Upshaw No Longer Around?

This is an odd one that has slipped under my radar. I received an instant message today from a tenant who rents land from me and then sublets some skyboxes. I sometimes get group invite requests from her tenants, as it’s my land but usually what happens is that a bot invites them, we set this up via Reverend Upshaw’s excellent serive and his plugin for Hippo-Technologies rental boxes.

The im informed me that she couldn’t find the store to renew her rental agreement for the bot service, so I went to have a look and the store is gone, the odd thing here being that according to Reverend Upshaw’s profile, he was shutting down his services back in July due in part to being bored with Second Life.

Now this means that either plenty of people don’t complain when they don’t get a group invite and just let their rental expire without complaining, which would be odd, or my tenant has been getting the service for longer than she should have, which may have happened.

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October 21, 2011October 21, 2011

The Marketplace Elephant Looms Larger In The Room

The potentially funky new beta viewer can be downloaded from the downloads section of the Second Life website. I’m not going to review it, I don’t generally have the patience to do reviews, however if you do want to read a review of it than I suggest you read the review by Inara Pey, who is an excellent and patient reviewer (patience is not one of my virtues) or/and the review by the wonderfully positive Daniel Voyager.

I’m here tonight to talk about the big Elephant in the room, well actually I’m contemplating whether The Villa will beat The Baggies in tomorrow’s big local derby match, it has been a long time since The Baggies won at Villa Park and I’m seriously hoping that continues but I’m suffering from pre-match tension … where was I? Oh yes, The Marketplace Elephant in the room, in the new beta viewer, it has started to loom even larger and I’m quite bemused as to where this is all heading. The top bar in the beta viewer has a shop link, which takes you to The Marketplace.

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October 21, 2011October 21, 2011

USD$295 For An Estate Sim – This Weekend Only

Linden Lab have engaged in a weekend sale whereby you can pick up a shiny new estate region for a record low price of just USD$295.00 (excluding VAT). The USD$295.00 fee will be due upon delivery, which pays tier for the first month, this is how private region tier works, you pay tier in advance. The fee for the first month is usually included in the setup fee, which runs at USD$1,000 (excluding VAT) so you can make a saving of around USD$705.00 on this deal.

Homesteads are also available on this deal, although you need to own a full region to purchase a homestead, the fee is usually USD$375.00 (excluding VAT), with this deal it will be USD$125.00 (excluding VAT). Personally I don’t feel Homesteads offer good value at that price, but for those who want to add a Homestead to their portfolio, this is a good time to do that, I don’t see many Homesteads being sold second hand. the best use for second hand Homesteads is, I imagine, combining three and turning them into a full region.

For those whom were considering a private region but were put off by the whopping setup fee, this is a great deal, although it should be noted that there is a second hand sim market in Second Life, one which Linden Lab support very well and have over the years improved greatly to make much more secure, Linden Lab charge a transfer fee of USD$100.00 in these cases, so they make money on the deal but they also help facilitate it too. Inworld groups such as For Sale By Owner are quite active in this market, the problem is the transfer time eats into the value of the sale price as the next tier date moves closer. Having said that, sims can be purchased there for a lot less than USD$1,000 and even a lot less than USD$705.oo, so there is better value to be had for those who seek it.

However, in terms of this weekend’s sale, I have never seen a better deal than this, if you’re fortunate enough to want a sim this weekend, this is a wonderful deal.

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