Magellan Needs Help But Where On Earth Is Salazar Jack?

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Jun 182013

Magellan’s Grid Scavenger Hunt

Welcome, brave explorers and adventurers! Magellan Linden uncovered an evil scheme by the mad Doctor Talpa to build mind-controlling machines and take over the world. While Magellan builds a machine to counter this scheme, you are needed to gather materials and components — and to destroy every one of Talpa’s machines you find. Magellan has established workshops, a laboratory (even a bar) on the Isles of Ice; travel there to learn more, get equipped and start the hunt!

Visit in Second Life

Magellan Linden needs you! Well if you’re a Premium member he does anyway. Why does he need Premium members? I have no idea, but you can’t help if you’re not a Premium member, maybe Magellan is partying with basic accounts and hitting on girls, he has a reputation for booze and bawdiness. Wait a minute that would mean us Premium members doing all the work!

In the past Magellan used to write chronicles, but they ended around 2005. Magellan hasn’t been doing much since October 2008 when the infamous Nautilus City Investigation took place, you’ll find lots of links about the legend of Magellan Linden there. There you will also get some insight into the nature of Magellan Linden, as exemplified by one of the last known chat logs of the intrepid explorer:

Resident: Excuse me, but could I ask you please to move?

Resident: I mean, with that huge suit you’re wearing, it’s hard for people to walk around you in here.

Resident: Please?

Magellan: Hush, woman! I’m in three different IMs and they’re all more important than you.

Resident: But this is my art gallery. People are here for the opening party.

Magellan: Just tow it out to Weiland or Shenning. I’ll board it there, head south.

Resident: What?

Magellan: Damn it!

Resident: What did I do? Tow what?

Magellan: No, some arty-farty cow is making noise and confusing me.

Magellan: Damn it again!

Resident: Hey, wait, are you talking about me?

They gave Magellan a Mole Tank! I mean, letting Magellan loose in something like that!

SL10B – The Shatoetry Project

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

Jun 172013

You know how it goes, there’s a big event, you ramp up your graphics card settings, get ready for snapshots and watch in horror as you run out of texture memory, or the viewer crashes whilst playing about with windlight settings and then you forget all about the windlight setting you like. This is when you remind yourself that you’re living in denial about the capabilities of your graphics card and settle on looking at the parcel itself, which is what I did as I found myself at Crap Mariner’s SL10BCC Shatoetry Project.

The notecard informs us:

The Second Life SL10BCC Shatoetry Project

by Crap Mariner

(UPDATED June 9, 2013)

Shatoetry is a smartphone app that lets you create magnetic poetry with William Shatner’s voice.

”Second” and “Life” are available in the word packs, and that inspired this project.

I created a bunch of Shatisms about Second Life which explore the past, present, future, and quirks of this virtual world. Then, I embedded the sounds in this build.

When you arrive on the parcel you can listen to the Shatisms Crap has created, as well as user contributed ones. Details on how to add your own Shatism to the build are included in the notecard on the parcel, I’m not going to provide all the details here as that would not be fair on the exhibit, if this sounds interesting to you, go and visit the parcel:

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/SL10B%20Electrify/31/104/21

The build itself is nicely done and the Shatisms are very amusing as you hear William Shatner style speech with phrases associated with Second Life and virtual worlds.

St Vitus Day Festival In Progress Now

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Jun 152013

Isle Of Dee St Vitus Festival

My chief Elf poked me asking me why I hadn’t blogged about the festival on my sim where she’s the admin……. erm I was playing Diablo III and forgot isn’t a good excuse, so I tried to perform magic on her but she just glared and handed me some notes. Now first thing, this is on a roleplaying sim and medieval or mythical attire is required for this event, it’s not required for all events but it is for this one, however if you fancy popping along free avatars are provided. Now for some blurb.

Hear ye Hear ye!

Traditionally, the Isle of Dee Citizens celebrate St Vitus Day with a Festival of games, shows, competitions, wondrous wonders, surprising surprises!

WITH:

SILENT THE MENTALIST – GYPSIE FORTUNE TELLING – CALI SINGS SILENT SONGS – FERRIS WHEEL – TUG OF WAR – PLAY GAMES – WIN PRIZES – SHOOTING – FENCING – FISHING – ISLE OF DEE MARATHON – FOOD- DRINKS – MUSIC – WONDERS

So one of the surprises could be me forgetting to blog about it? Umm The Elf just shakes her head and tells me that’s no surprise. Ok so time to blog about what is happening. but first here’s what happened yesterday:

FRIDAY, 14th June, Opening Day

All the day: Games Carnivale Circus

All day on request – Madame Can Gypsy fortune telling

10 AM slt – Circus Tent Stage – The Mentalist

And here’s what you’ve missed so far today:

SATURDAY , 15th June

9 AM slt – 3 PM slt – Bath House Opening Party

11 AM slt – Silent Poems

However all is not lost, because there’s still stuff to come! Which I’ll list below the cut.

Under The Sea Expo

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Jun 132013

Under The Sea Expo

Whereas SL10B will grab a lot of the headlines over the next few weeks, the whole of Second Life doesn’t stand still and next week, between June 20th and 26th, The Under The Sea Expo will be taking place. What on earth is The Under The Sea Expo? Well it’s an expo for those who love the Second Life oceans, from the blurb I was handed:

The Under the Sea Expo brings you the ruins of Atlantis, reborn and transformed into a thriving market to be shopped and explored! The Lost City has been found and you are invited to join us for this very special event, Thursday June 20- Wednesday June 26!

There’s also a hunt during the expo, but this will be a guided hunt from my understanding. Each Vendor has agreed to donate one free item to the Treasure Hunt Event and visitors to the Expo will be taken on a guided hunt to each vendor location at the Expo to collect these prizes. One gift per avatar, per Vendor!

A Brief Look Back To 2005

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Jun 112013

The theme of SL10B is looking back and looking forward, it’s far easier to look back because the information is there, some hidden, but it’s there, I could write a book with this, actually I’m surprised someone hasn’t, or that the Lab haven’t released a commemorative screenshots magazine inworld with old pics, there are some in Governor Linden’s mansion. I’m going to take a very brief look back to 2005 here, but first, let’s look forward.

The Second Life blog has recently reminded us that there’s more to SL10B than bear avatars, they’re also giving away T-Shirts, baseball caps as well as competitions. However the bears are cool, admit it. Now ten years is a long time for an online experience, especially these days.

Personally I feel they should do a Doctor Who type special event where three version of the CEO all meet in the same space, causing potential mayhem with the laws of physics, so we’d have Rod Humble, Mark Kingdon and Philip Rosedale on stage at the same time, all wary that something may explode if they get too close, actually Philip may be there twice as we’ve had two versions of Philip as CEO.

Now looking back at Second Life is more fun that looking forward, largely because you have depth to the backwards glance. I’ve taken a very quick and random look back to 2005, a year when people were complaining about not being able to login, Linden Lab were announcing plans for a teen grid, people were asking what exactly Second Life is, Magellan Linden was exploring new land and there were eBay auctions for billboard space in welcome areas, Catherine Linden was asking for people to let her know what they used Second Life for so she could post it on the website and a nifty new way of posting snapshots from Second Life to a blog were being plugged. Let’s start with an old classic, Problems logging in anyone?

Usagi Musashi posted in that thread, and it’s as confusing a post as I recall Usagi posting, I wasn’t here in 2005, but I remember Usagi posts on the forum. I was going to do a tongue in cheek list of ten years of problems logging in forum posts, but I figured that might sound too negative, even by my standards, although it is actually fun reading them, honest!

Follow The Bear

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Jun 082013

So you’ve got your new free SL10B avatar from Shopkeeper Linden on The SL Marketplace and now you want to record the magic of being a bear in Second Life. There are ways to share the love, one way is to post pics in blogs, especially when it’s a Strawberry Singh bear on a moped! I wonder if that would get more feedback if it was Strawberry Singh bare on a moped, but I like the bear!

However there are other places to share photos of the bear and one place is Flickr, yes I said Flickr. I know that some people are watching twirling balls and singing along to the Three Degrees singing “When Will I See You Again” as they try and battle with the new “More Awesome” Flickr but groups are still the same as they ever were and Crap Mariner has created Second Life SL10B Bear Avatar Photos group where you can share the love of all things SL10B bear related.

SL10B Bear Takes A Hazardous Journey

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Jun 072013

I was looking for a place for my SL10B Bear Avatar to visit, so I decided to visit The Destination Guide and check out the Photgenic spots. There are some really nice looking places to explore but I wanted a place out in the open and then I spotted it, a hazardous looking location:

So off I went in search of adventure and found a place that is beautifully presented but has a creepy feeling that something or someone may reach out and grab you if you don’t pay attention. Therefore I was glad to be in my Bear avatar, someone or something is far less likely to attack a bear, but this may not be the right place for child avi’s, there’s a chance you’ll be sold to The Circus!

The Drax Files Episode 7 – Rod Humble

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

Jun 032013

The Drax Files contuinue to impress me and as usual I’ll embed the video at the end of the post, in this edition Draxtor talks to Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab and someone who appears to have been missing in action for a while, although I swear I saw that thief style avatar when I was wandering around Fantasy Faire. The only disappointing aspect of this interview is that Rod doesn’t wear an Aston Villa shirt to work, or even a Villa tie!

The interview opens with Rod Humble saying “Most People at Silicon Valley have no idea that Second Life still exists.” The interview is fascinating with Rod making some extremely encouraging comments (for me anyway) in terms of privacy. Unlike those who think we should all be using our real names everywhere we go, Rod sees the value of people having their own space in different environments.

Rod also talks of how he travels around with alts and that this gives him the chance to engage in different ways, ways that he wouldn’t be able to do if people knew he was Rod Humble. This relates to the previous point about privacy and it’s encouraging to see that Rod seems to get the importance of this.

We see Rod in walking into the Linden Lab offices and some of the staff in pose mode, some pondering, others in catalogue style poses, some typing away and pretending the camera isn’t there whilst keeping one eye on it, as you do! There’s talk of performance improvements, with Server Side Baking making an appearance and talk of improvements that will be rolled out this quarter that apparently we will really like.

We see footage of The Dwarfins cave, hurrah! Rod talks of how Second Life is a great platform for creativity and how the content is user created, which we all know of course but as hopefully people who aren’t yet Second Life users will see this, it’s important that the CEO of Linden Lab makes this point.

A Humble Mystery Unfolds

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

May 312013

Sighted inworld less often than Magellan Linden in the past twelve months, there have been concerns about the well being of Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble. Had he been kidnapped? Had he been turned into a High Fidelity Voxel? Did he have clowns to the left of him, jokers to the right and was stuck in the middle with you? The search for Rod Humble has been well and truly on.

When you need to find out some information about goings on in Second Life, sometimes you have to go to dark corners, corners filled with fog, hansom carriages, dens of iniquity, places where you have to wave a purse full of gold coins around to get information and being a fearless fighter for truth and justice I have done all of this to try and uncover more about the mystery of the hidden Humble …. and then I turned to Twitter! (dramatic music plays). I’m scarred by it all but I have heard some whispers!

I’m reliably informed that an avatar in an Aston Villa shirt who isn’t Prad Prathivi or me has been known to be roaming inworld. The word on the streets of Bay City is that he has been spotted in Bay City!

Thanks to Daniel Voyager for the snapshot.

There’s also talk that he has time travelled to 1920′s Berlin and allegedly been interviewed by a Barbarian … I mean Bavarian called Drax. However the details of the interview are sketchy, it has been leaked by Frau Yardley that Rod Humble uses alts …. wait, so do I! However this begs the question, who are Rod Humble’s alts?

Dwarfins Go Gardening

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

May 302013

Another development whilst I was on my travels, was the introduction of gardening for Dwarfins. This is more than just an interactive item for your Dwarfins, although Dwarfins will interact with your garden, it’s a way of growing your own food too and can work out cheaper than buying ham and anyway, who wants their Dwarfins eating ham all the time, that’s not a balanced diet at all!

In order to engage with gardening you will need to buy some items from the Dwarfins store, you will need at minimum:

Garden Plot: Required to plant seeds.
Seeds: A variety of seeds are available to plant and grow.
Water Bucket: You can pick up a free bucket of water once every 3 days. One bucket of water is enough to water a 6 plot garden.

There are a couple of other items you can buy to aid your gardening, these include:

Interactive Neverending Well: A rustic well that your Dwarfins will interact with, as well as providing an endless supply of water for your gardens.
Instagrow: An Elixir that can be used on your plants so that they mature instantly.

Now there are a few things to note, plants will take three days to grow, that is as long as the garden has enough water, if a garden doesn’t have enough water a plant will wither, although this can be rectified it will slow your gardening down. Once a plant is fully grown you have a choice of harvesting it for food, or sending it to your online pantry, where you’ll be able to create recipes.

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