Sneaking Into Fantasy Faire 2013

So I managed to sneak into a cave and find the secret entrance that took me to the entrance to Fantasy Faire 2013, but in my path I saw two Giants guarding the way, I tried to hide but they saw me and crossed their arms, frowining at me. Then one of them roared:

Fee-fi-fo-fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he live, or be he dead

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

I stood there, frozen, too afraid to move when one of the giants started laughing “I’ve always wanted to say that!” he roared.

The other giant replied “I’m waiting for the chance to say ‘Unleash The Kraken’

Ooh that’s a good one!” said the first Giant “Ok in you go, Sonya Marmurek said you’d be coming, come on move along quickly…. and remember, no SLURL’s allowed in previews.” I hurriedly moved through the entrance but couldn’t help overhear their conversation.

Do you think it will rain?

No idea, I hope not, I want to hang my washing out.

Washing, blah, that means ironing.

Oh I hate ironing, but it has to be done, I’ve got some new fabric conditioner.

Oh really, which brand?

Thankfully I was now out of range to hear the rest of the conversation, but I wasn’t quite there yet, barring my path was a witch, pointing her finger at me, “You!” she exclaimed “It was foretold in the prophecies that you would arrive!

I looked behind me to see if anyone else was there, then looked questioningly at the witch “Did Sonya Marmurek mention my name?

Ah, you know the prophecies too!” exclaimed the witch.

I groaned and moved on and finally, I found myself at sneak peek Fantasy Faire 2013. I had to choose a portal:

Portals

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Fantasy Faire 2013 Starts Tomorrow

FF2013 Poster [Fairies]

Fantasy Faire 2013 will officially open its doors tomorrow, although I may know a route through a secret passageway hidden in a mountain to get early access. This blog is going to go deep into Fantasy Faire and to get the ball rolling, Draxtor Despres has a special edition of The Drax files highlighting Fantasy Faire, Relay For Life and a discussion with Fantasy Faire organiser Zandar Greene.

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High Fidelity Hi

High Fidelity, the book by Nick Hornsby, then turned into a movie starring John Cusack and now a new virtual world by Philip Rosedale. In the new virtual world Philip, ably abetted by Jeska Dzwigalski, goes back to his former places of employment to figure out what went wrong and learns how to build a new stronger virtual world, with molecular cubes and a soundtrack featuring songs such as “I can’t Stand The Rain“, “Walking On Sunshine“, “We Are The Champions” and “Baby I Love Your Way“.

Philip and Jeska work at a store called Championship Voxels where they help other people who come through the doors of the store to reach their goals and dreams. Jeska educates people regarding the key differences between Whisky and Whiskey and in which cases it’s worth worrying about it or not and In the end we all applaud and live happily ever after! Hurrah!

Ok ok the virtual world isn’t anything to do with the Nick Hornsby book, but if they will pick a name like that! No it’s nothing to do with the book, but it is an interesting looking venture and it does feature Voxels….. I don’t know what they are and I’m not googling it either.

So what is Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity? Well it is intended to be a virtual world and the blurb does look interesting, although at this stage we’re in vague city. The blurb tells us:

We’re building a new virtual world enabling rich avatar interactions driven by sensor-equipped hardware, simulated and served by devices (phones, tablets and laptops/desktops) contributed by end-users.

There’s a blog post today announcing the formation of the new company, which you can read here.

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Region Transfers Are Much Too Efficient!

So I decided to sell a sim and a homestead as part of my tiering down exercise. This went better than expected, for a start I hadn’t been paying attention and didn’t realise Homesteads sold on the second hand market considering Linden Lab’s USD$100 transfer fee put a big dent in the resale value, I didn’t think that would sell, but I noticed some past group notices and tried my luck and yes there is a market for second hand Homesteads.

However, Linden Lab are extremely efficient when it comes to sim transfers these days it seems, well efficient to the extent that they ruined all my plans by being so damn efficient! Things started well, three minutes after I went to the pub someone asked me if I was selling a sim, unfortunately this meant I was in the pub and didn’t see the message and by the time I got back to them, they’d bought a sim. However a new opportunity was spotted and someone came to look at my sim:

Mystery Avatar: How much? Quick! It’s for the wife.

Me : Twenty shekels.

Mystery Avatar Wife:  Wait, transfer time, minus delay, minus Linden Lab having lunch, we’ll give you fifteen shekels.

Me: Done!

Mystery Avatar: What? What are you doing, We’re supposed to haggle.

Me: No no, it’s ok I’ve got to…

Mystery Avatar: What do you mean, ‘no’?

Me: I haven’t time — I’ve got to sell a Homestead.

Mystery Avatar Calls Wife.

Mystery Avatar Wife: What is it?

Mystery Avatar: This bloke won’t haggle!

Me: Ok ok, seventeen Shekels.

Mystery Avatar Wife: Are you telling me it’s not worth twenty shekels? You asked for twenty shekels!

Me: But you said no!

Mystery Avatar: Of course we said no, we’re haggling, you’re supposed to haggle! Tut tut. Now try again, we’ll give you fifteen.

Me: …….Fifteen? Did I hear you right? Fifteen?? This cost me an arm and a leg — do you want to ruin me?

Mystery Avatar Wife: That’s better!

Me: Nineteen and I’m giving it away.

Mystery Avatar Wife: Eighteen.

Me: Seventeen.

Mystery Avatar Wife: Sold.

Me: …….. Hold on, damn they’ve gone!

So we exchanged ticket numbers and went about our business and the bloody thing transferred in twenty six hours, that’s right, twenty six hours, not five to ten days!

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Tier Is Still Too Damn High

I haven’t sold land in Second Life for quite a while. I purchased land many moons ago, when you could pay 15,000 Linden Dollars for a bog standard 1024m parcel. Those days are long gone and I knew that the land market had crashed.

So this week I looked at my bills, looked at the return I’m getting from Second Life and decided it mght be time to tier down. I’m exasperated that Linden Lab seem to have made no obvious attempts to address the tier issue, which remains too damn high. I know I know, cutting tier would be economic suicide right now, it’s better to slowly lose income than cut income too quickly and risk everything, yadda yadda yadda, but Linden Lab need to realise that their pricing model is outdated, that their options, are outdated. There aren’t enough payment options.

By the same token, my inworld business models are outdated, I haven’t moved enough with the times, the fact that my business models are no longer working is my fault, not Linden Lab’s. I mean sure, it’s easy to say they should lower tier, but they haven’t, so it’s up to me to do something about that in terms of moving on to a new business or pulling out. I’m currently in the middle mode of deciding it’s time to cut back. My decision to cut back is long overdue, especially as Linden Lab won’t budge on the tier issue, but ultimately, it’s my fault that my Second Life business isn’t doing as well as it once was.

So anyway, I decided to cut some parcels and test the water with selling some, rather than flat out abandoning, as I have tier capacity to hold parcels, it seems silly to abandon without trying t0 sell. However, I didn’t realise how flat the land market currently is. One parcel I cut, is admittedly rubbish, so I decided to sell this 512m parcel for L$120, it isn’t selling! Goodness knows what price the land bots kick in, although I will have time to test this.

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