I’m stood outside an explorer’s club in the Lotus Valley Dream sim at Fantasy Faire, Saffia Widdershins is asking me to conduct an interview in voice, I play my trump card “I speak Brummie, you may not be able to understand me“.
“I speak fluent Brummie” replies Saffia, I’m out of excuses and turn to voice.
The interview for The Quest For The Golden Prim turns into an adventure of its own. First of all the sims are being reset, we need to teleport out, but we can’t, the servers won’t let us at first. Then another sim is full, with the clock ticking and time running out, we manage to teleport to another sim in the nick of time.
Now I need to find Saffia, I can see her on the map, she can see me, we walk towards each other and realise we’re separated by a see-thru wall, we’re physically separated, we touch the wall either side and start the interview, Saffia’s accent is the sort that suits her elegant avatar every step of the way and has me enthralled as she enthuses about this project and others of bygone days. If Linden Lab are looking for an enthusiastic supporter of Second Life in the form of someone who has exemplified several use cases, Saffia Widdershins is the lady for the job.
The Quest For The Golden Prim isn’t an item you can buy, it’s a web comic with the presentation at Fantasy Faire a promotional tool to announce the relaunch of the web comic. The presentation itself is an interactive experience, you can click items and collect trading cards, learn about the story by finding books with previous chapters. There are hidden entrances to be found and, as Saffia proudly told me, the only wash room in the Faire lands is inside the build!
I’ll allow Saffia to explain the story of the quest below the cut, if you’re already below the cut, there isn’t another one, just read on.
The Quest for the Golden Prim is a web comic, captured in Second Life, that first ran in The Primgraph magazine.
It tells the story of a very mixed group of adventurers who are gathered together to discover what happened to a Lost Expedition that set out to discover the Golden Prim years before. You’ll find out more about these adventurers as you collect their trading cards … available from the portraits in the gallery (and one of the Foo Dogs at the entrance). Check back to see which portraits are on display – and you’ll be able to collect the full set!
Volume 1 was made up of nine episodes (or chapters). You can read all the episodes at Calameo: http://en.calameo.com/subscriptions/262852
Now we are relaunching The Quest for the Golden Prim, this time as a special web comic. From Saturday 27th April, you’ll be able read the comic at www.goldenprim.com on a weekly basis – and every episode will come with games, puzzles or online hunts that will give you a chance to win special Quest prizes!
Please explore the Explorers’ Club at Fantasy Faire to learn more, to find trading cards for the characters and to find inworld copies of the first nine episodes in various places around the Club (where they’ve been left by forgetful adventurers).
There’s lots to see in the Club … including some secret rooms. But no fugitives from stern justice hiding out here – oh, goodness me, certainly not!
The experience is certainly interesting, it felt TARDIS like at times as Saffia revealed hidden entrances that just didn’t seem to have the room to have another room behind them. The explorers club itself is a sort of eighty days around the world type club, but one set not in Victorian England, but somewhere abroad, possibly in an Oriental location. There are items the explorers have found displayed around the rooms, as well as donation kiosks for Relay For Life and of course, that wash room.
I spot syrup in one room, “That’s to bribe the Police” explains Saffia, I arch an eyebrow and Saffia points me in the direction of a room that may contain the sort of activities the police would take an interest in, followed by another where a failed experiment caused chaos, which started the train of events that led to the existence of The Quest For The Golden Prim.
There are portraits to click, trading cards to be collected and plans afoot for some interactive storytelling from the web comic team itself during the course of the week. Don’t expect to find or see everything all in one go, items will appear and disappear during the week, you will need to return there to collect all the trading cards.
Talking to Saffia provided me with links to other productions, productions I had never heard of but I’m so glad I now have. One of these is The Blackened Mirror, which can also be found on Treet TV. These are the sort of productions and use cases of Second Life that I don’t hear enough about, so talking to Saffia was a very worthwhile exercise.
Some of the concepts behind The Blackened Mirror may get incorporated into The Quest For The Golden Prim, online quests in the web comic where the viewer decides what happens is one avenue of investigation, although there’s nothing firmly in place yet, it has scope to go in many directions.
The Quest For The Golden Prim SLURL : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lotus%20Valley%20Dream/214/201/30
Please note, there are fixed landing points so you won’t land there.