Bring Back Ursula!

The new Zindra adult gateway is in the process of being built, the gateway, for which the freedom continent won the right to run will be on sims with the Zindra name, as part of the deal. The bizarre part of this is that these sims aren’t on the Zindra continent, they aren’t next to the Zindra continent either, this isn’t like the United Sailing Sims deal with the Blake sea, this is a completely different arrangement.

I must admit that the misuse of the continent name in this fashion is a bit of a disappointment, although names and Zindra have often been a strange combination, there was until recently a sim on Zindra called Zindra, that didn’t get used for a fat lot. The sim is no more. However, as Zindra is no longer Zindra, they should rename the continent, back to the originally touted name of Ursula, which I always found much palatable anyway.

Of course the more important thing is how well this gateway helps promote adult content, so I took a quick look at that.

First of all these sims are attached to The Freedom Continent, I assume it’s the Freedom Continent attached to the north of Zindra North anyway. There are five sims with Zindra in the name, Zindra North, Zindra South, Zindra East, Zindra West and Zindra Prime A look at the map reveals something some people don’t like about using tiles, but gives a good overview of what’s in the gateway.:

Some find that sort of thing tacky, I’ve always had mixed feelings about it, it does give a good overview in this case. I can recall once opening the map to see a picture of Spock on a Linden sandbox, which was rather amusing, even if it was wrong that someone had done it.

The sims are currently a work in progress, Zindra North is the BDSM hub and has advertising boards and vendors starting to setup shop or advertise their wares, which is part of the purpose of this exercise.

Zindra North SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zindra%20North/110/144/31/

Zindra Prime is going to be an Adult Hub, there’s not much content there, a fountain for sale, although the general build and landscaping is well under way.

Zindra Prime SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zindra%20Prime/148/138/55/

Zindra West is The Sex Hub, advertising boards are appearing here, so there will be the opportunity for merchants and I imagine, the self employed, to promote their wares, there’s also a bar area with an area for dancing by the looks of it.

Zindra West SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zindra%20West/164/199/30/

Zindra East is the CARP Hub … I really don’t know what CARP is and sometimes it’s best not to find out I find, this sim has more of a city feel to it with vehicles around such as trams and parked cars, it’s all a bit Grand Theft Auto.

Zindra East SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zindra%20East/128/145/23/

Zindra South is The Gorean Hub. This is more of a market town by the looks of it, there are rentals available when you arrive:

There are also signs that the market is downstairs:

I usually like Gorean builds, the roleplay has never appealed to me but I generally like the builds as it’s often more medieval in style, although so far this isn’t, there are some nice huts around.

Zindra South SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zindra%20South/119/115/27/

This project is in its early stages, indeed you’ll find traditional plain textures around, it’s far from complete. As I said at the start, I’m not a fan of how the Zindra name has been taken away from Zindra, at least one of these sims, probably the Adult one, should have been on the Zindra continent, moving the name of the continent away from the continent itself is something I find irritating, although far from fatal, it just would have been nice to see some link to the actual continent. In Second Life of course, teleportation means that a contiguous land mass isn’t as important as it would be otherwise. However it should be pointed out that the freedom continent are paying tier on these sims, it’s not a freebie for them, so they have done well to negotiate terms that suit them.

The more important point however is how well these hubs help promote adult content in Second Life, it’s an area that has been lacking although there have been improvements recently with the adult section of the destination guide and the adult forums, even if they have to abide by PG rules. There’s much to be admired about this project although at this early stage it’s impossible to tell if this will be a success or not, I’ll say this, the rental prices are optimistic in the current climate but if they deliver the goods adult merchants won’t be complaining.

For further reading, Inara Pey has a post where she talks to some of the participants of this project.

I do like the idea of a more inclusive adult gateway, when I used to go to the adult user group meetings I would at times complain they were too Zindra centric, so having a gateway for all adult communities is a good move. I still prefer the name Ursula though!