Telling: Like it Is

As I mentioned last time, Brown (upper right in the above photo) and Green began as duplicates of, respectively, Boardman and De Haro.  Green was a "camp" sim, but the only remaining resemblance to De Haro is the central pond and the "creeks", and a solitary freebie supply kiosk at its eastern edge.  There is also a copy of the original cabin still on the sim, but when you consider that the same cabin is still in your Inventory Library (and everyone else's) eight years later, that doesn't account for much.

I haven't found a record of when the camp theme for Green was officially discarded, but it must've been right before Groundhog Day (February 2) 2004, because at least four parcels were all claimed that same day and are still held by their original "owners" .

One of those is the site of the Clock Tower, built in April 2004 by its owner, Foenix Pendragon:


Another participant in the Groundhog Day land rush (if it was such) was Chandrah Twilight, who named her parcel "Luna's Landing", put up this tree-like build and covered it with birch bark:


On the opposite side of that mountain is land belonging to yet another Feb 2 '04 alumnus, Alex Valentino, who started building in March of that year, stopped some time in April without finishing... and apparently hasn't been back in six and a half years, but left Build enabled, so his parcel is cluttered with abandoned prims and miscellaneous junk of all ages.


Around half of Green is owned by Olympia Rebus, who has a lot of whimsical and imaginative builds scattered about her various parcels... as well as some raw prims (cubes and spheres, mostly) which she appears to have rezzed and then forgot they were there.  Among the oldest of her fancies (July 2004) is the Aquagon, a sort of walk-in aquarium:


The SL Wikia entry for Green includes a mention of a group called "Kentucky Fried Engineering", who reportedly had, at one time, a parody of a famous bucket o' chicken spinning above their parcel.  Sadly, there's no archived photo... but KFE still owns the land (look for the giant bathtub), and it happens to contain the second oldest object in Green:


For the Oldest, we have to visit that cabin near the base of the Clock Tower. It belongs to Steve Romulus, the last of the 2/2/04 land rushers to be featured here.  Among the few items inside is this:


Funny how that creator's name keeps popping up.  It's enough to make you think that, at some time in the past, he was actually engaged in the world he created...

---

More photos to be found in my online album, and a lot more at Snapzilla.

.

Wow.

Just... wow.

As I wrote the other day, the sudden appearance of two excellent short-short stories on the blogs of their respective authors (links in that previous post) put the idea in my head about an anthology of those and others in the sub-sub-genre of Avatarian fiction. The response was amazingly immediate and amazingly positive -- so much so, that I thought I'd better get a firmer grip on just what I mean, so that prospective submitters have an idea of what I expect, and prospective readers of what they can expect as a publication.

Disclaimer: All of the following is predicated on receipt of sufficient quality work to inaugurate the publication. No guarantee of publication is stated or implied, either of individual submitted works or of the webzine itself.

Format:

The easiest way for me to bring this off as a "one-man-band" will be to use a free blog service. Even though this blog is hosted on Blogger for now, I will undoubtedly put the 'zine on WordPress (and probably move this blog to that service, too). Individual works will, therefore, appear as if they were blog posts.

Frequency:

I feel like trying something different, based partially on the fact that the 'zine will appear on a blog service:  There will be no scheduled issues as such, and no deadlines for either submission or publication.  Accepted works will be posted as they attain their final form, whenever that happens to be.  They may be submitted whenever their authors/producer-directors -- that is, you -- feel they are ready. I will deal with them as they come.

However -- To begin with a splash, I intend to wait until there are at least a half-dozen works to inaugurate the thing.  In any event, I do not anticipate its premiere before January 2011.

Content:

All of the following types of work are sought:

•  short fiction up to 10,000 words (requests to read longer works will be entertained... but you have to ask nicely first)
•  poetry
•  graphic story (a.k.a. "comics")
•  still photography
•  machinima

Nuts and Bolts:

With limited exceptions, submissions must be sent as attachments with a cover email to lalo[dot]telling[at]gmail[dot]com -- if (when?) that gets too busy, I'll create a new Gmail account for the 'zine itself, and let everyone know.

An email (or a comment to this blog) containing nothing more than a link to your work is not a submission -- except for photography and machinima, as follows.

Please, only one submission in the pipeline at a time -- that is, don't submit a new one until you've heard my decision about the previous. 

Poets and photographers, you may submit up to three works at once.  Please make each poem a separate file.

An alternative form of submission for photographers only: Send me a link to your online gallery.  I'll peruse it, and inquire about particular images that will work as illustrations for the written pieces.

Machinima -- obviously, the work will have to be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, or similar hosting service (which you'd do anyway, right?), and a link provided for [a] my review; [b] embedding, if accepted.

Attachment formats:  I use a Win7-64 PC with the most recent version of OpenOffice and Gimp; if it can't read your submission, I'll let you know.

A biographical addendum isn't necessary unless/until the work is accepted, but if you want to send it up front, that's fine.  As this is a collection of Avatarian works, my first thought is that it be published under your avatar name. Frankly, I'd rather not know what your "real" name is -- but the choice is yours.

"Sim-subs" and Reprints:

If you've never submitted to a literary 'zine before, "sim-sub" is short for simultaneous submission: sending a manuscript to more than one publication at the same time.  Some 'zines hate it; some don't care.  I've worked both ways, and my policy will be: If you sub to someone else besides me, and they take it before I can get to it, it is up to you to [a] tell me right away, and [b] abide by whatever contractual agreement you have with the original publisher regarding reprints.

If you are submitting a work which has already been published elsewhere, you need to tell me in your cover email, and provide the pertinent information so that the original publisher can be properly attributed if I accept the work (and see [b] in the above paragraph).  That means standard bibliographical citation if it was in print on paper, or the bare minimum of a live link if it was online... including your own blog or website, naturally, if that's where it first saw the light of electrons.

Copyright/IP:

If your work is accepted, the acceptance email will include a request to grant permission to reproduce it one time only (but to remain available on the Internet "in perpetuity"), in a condition to which we mutually agree prior to publication.  This blog is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license -- I will use the same for the 'zine. You will retain all control over subsequent reproduction of your work; i.e., copyright.

You will not be paid for publication. Neither will I. The sole purpose of the webzine is to promote Avatarian literature and art -- and its creators -- by exposure to (hopefully) a wider public. As a matter of principal, I do not "monetize." No commercial advertising will appear in the 'zine.

One more legalistic note:  Avoid using the trademarked names of actual virtual worlds. This will be a publication of fiction; the standard conventions apply.


And now... the really difficult part:

What I mean by "Avatarian":

Stories -- no matter in what form they're presented -- are about people and their personalities, whether those people have flesh or pixels for skin.  For this endeavor, I'm leaning toward pixels, but not exclusively so. The work must, however, contain elements of life that can only be found in Virtuality -- a.k.a. virtual worlds, augmented reality, MMOs, etc. -- as it exists now, or as you imagine it to exist in a future (or past!) of your own devise.  It is not limited to that, but it must include that. At the same time, keep in mind that Virtuality should be the setting, not the main character.

There will be times, I have no doubt, when the work is brilliant but "not Avatarian enough".  I won't know until I read or view it... so don't let that discourage you from sending it.

What I don't mean:

This is not the 1920s, and I am not Hugo Gernsbach: I will not entertain the sort of "gee whiz, ain't these gadgets great?" story upon which science fiction was founded, but from which it matured as early as the 1940s.

Strange Horizons, a science-fiction webzine which has published weekly for 10 years, has a page called "Stories We've Seen Too Often". I recommend it all to you, but particularly these entries:

4. Weird things happen, but it turns out they're not real.
a. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
b. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.

8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.

15. Story is based in whole or part on a D&D game or world.
a. A party of D&D characters (usually including a fighter, a magic-user, and a thief, one of whom is a half-elf and one a dwarf) enters a dungeon (or the wilderness, or a town, or a tavern) and fights monsters (usually including orcs).
b. Story is the origin story of a D&D character, culminating in their hooking up with a party of adventurers.
c. A group of real-world humans who like roleplaying find themselves transported to D&D world.

Substitute MMO for "D&D" in that last one, and you get the idea.

The rest is up to you. Show me your stuff.

---

PS: Some of you may be wondering -- rightly -- "Who is this Lalo guy, and what makes him think he knows what he's doing?"

Beginning in 2004 (under the name Lalo Fox), I was managing editor of two literary e-zines: Literary Potpourri (later titled InkPot), and The Hiss Quarterly. Sad to say, neither of those publications are still "in print", though they probably can be found with your favorite search engine. I was also the "submissions wrangler" for both of them, handling the receipt of new material, soliciting more, and writing the acceptance and rejection letters.

After that (and under this name, Lalo Telling), I joined the staff of TQR: Total Quality Reading, where I review submissions that have passed the "first read". I still do that, and have no intention of leaving.

.

As Plum and Lime were clones of Ahern and Morris, so Brown and Green began as clones of Boardman and De Haro.  With the exception of Linden-made artifacts copied from one to the other, the similarity ends there.  Whereas Boardman at least looks like a mid-20th-Century suburban village, albeit an abandoned one, Brown more closely resembles a late-20th-Century exurb: a collection of residences with no town center (though it had one in 2006).

Every square meter of Brown that is not protected "Linden land" is now privately owned, including every stall in the Market.


Two groups own the majority of the land between them -- Ravenglass Rentals, and these folks, who are very fond of ban lines:


Yes, you're seeing correctly -- they've banned entrance to their market stall.  The object being "protected" is a transferrable freebie female avatar kit (shape, skin, hair, eyes) made in 2006 and intended to be handed out to noobs.  What it's being protected from defies all logic.  Yes, owning land does grant you the right to ban people from it -- it apparently also grants you the right to be utter idiots about where and when.

As long as we're in the Market, I just had to share the irony of this (you'll probably have to click-to-enlarge):


All right, enough editorializing.  On to the artifacts!


More clones from Boardman, with the addition of a Linden freebie box "sample home" (Bill Linden, May 2003) actually rezzed -- on Linden land, so it has remained undisturbed since it first came out of the box.  Can you find the builder's mistake?


That double-long version isn't actually still there (the photo was taken during my first visit, in late May; someone else is renting the parcel now).  I've never found where to get one, not even at Park's Fireworks in Taber... and I've only seen one other rezzed, in Shipley (well-modded by ramon Kothari).

Although there's a few more goodies to be seen in my online album, I'll leave you with this bit of poignancy:


The land belongs to Charter Member Shelley Schlegel (join date: February 20, 2003), and those three items are all that occupy it.  The wheelchair is by Alberto Linden (March 29-30, 2003).  Shelley made the couch (March 27, 2003) and the phone (April 17, 2003).

.

[letting the Avatarian webzine idea simmer for a few days... meanwhile, back on track]

---

Anyone in Second Life who's done anything with particles (besides curse their use by amateur griefers still trying to crash sims with them) has Jopsy Pendragon to thank.  Perhaps they've even made the pilgrimage to Teal and the Particle Laboratory to learn from the master -- more likely, his notecards and full-perm scripts.  I have...

But the Particle Lab is way up in the air above what you see in that photo, and it's also regularly updated and rebuilt, so... as worthwhile a place as it is to visit and learn in, and for as long as it's been there in one form or another, it's not directly "historical" in the sense Seconderth has been trying to capture.  However, other places in the sim are, and they don't all belong to Jopsy.

This does -- Bag End:



A comfy yet colorful hobbit hole, built up against Teal's western border with Rose in August of 2004.  Some of the interior appointments are older, going back to March of that year.

Next door, to the south, is one of three parcels in the sim not held by Jopsy's "Tealink" group. Since January 2004, it has belonged to Nergal Fallinbridge (who made the "High Flight" sculpture at Kazenojin).  There's not much on the land, but this is:


"Torii - water", created in August 2003.  I wish I knew where the other three elemental torii are (or were).

Tucked into the northeast corner of Teal (behind the castle in the overview photo), is an unnamed parcel belonging to Charter Member Aphrodite Stephanopolous, who joined SL six days before the public Opening, and claimed the land a month later.  The only thing on it, beside some "Linden trees" and flowers out of the Library, is this gazebo:


Built by Gekiganger Kobayashi, mostly on July 24, 2003 (with some later modifications, or perhaps replacements for prim evaporation), and to the best I can determine, the oldest build in Teal.

In the opposite (southwest) corner, just south of Nergal's torii, is Neal Nomad's Zen Center:


Neal also is one of Second Life's original boat-builders, including a freebie from October 2003 that was my first virtual sailing experience.  Up until earlier this month, he still had them for sale at a dock by that waterfall... they're gone now.

There was an amphitheater on the Teal/Slate border when the Color Sims first rezzed -- long gone, of course -- where, in those more enlightened days, Philip and other high-end Lindens used to stage Town Hall meetings.  Remarkably, transcripts are preserved; the SL Wikia has them.

Snapzilla has a ton of photos taken in Teal, from 2005 and up, mostly of Jopsy's particle fireworks displays... and there are more photos by me in my online collection, of other old curiosities to be found (or no longer found).

.

[thanks to The Who for the title]

First, a little bragging:

Amsterdam, in the InWorldz region called -- what else? -- Nederland.  Almost all of the buildings are from Koshari Mahana's Four Winds, and the big sculpty trees (such as the willows you can see in that photo) are from Julia's Hathor's Creative Fantasy...

And then, there's these: in the foreground, Alisa's "Crate Cabin" and the furniture she created for it, behind which stands my "Weathered Lighthouse".


I'm always curious about what people do with our builds, and the lighthouse is my personal favorite of my own work.  Transaction history on the InWorldz website gave me a name, and the buyer was kind enough to reply to my IM and give me a landmark.  So... thank you, Clodia Starship and the other folks involved with Amsterdam  :)  Best of luck!

Speaking of Julia Hathor, and while I'm in brag mode:



Home sweet home - autumnal simscape by Alisa, using lots of Julia's gorgeous trees.  And yes, of course, our soror Nishi collection floating above it.

Map Coordinates (slURLs):
Nederland
Four Winds
Creative Fantasy


Call for Submissions

[That's got nothing to do with d/s, by the way... ;) ]

Two excellent pieces of short fiction set in virtual worlds of the near future have surfaced this week.  The first is "The Oldbie" by Cubey Terra, which I called "Bradburyesque" while reTweeting its existence, though in its mood it's also reminiscent of Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.  Inspired by Cubey, Pathfinder John Lester wrote a vignette, "Jetpack", which echoes the same optimistic vision you'll find in writers like Vernor Vinge and David Brin.

Reading them, I had my own flash of inspiration.  I have a few years of experience in the editing of online lit and managing what used to be called "webzines"... and I'm thinking "Path's and Cubey's stories can't be the only ones out there -- and if they are, they shouldn't be." (I'm also thinking about what my next project should be when Seconderth is done...)

So, here's my idea:  An online anthology of short fiction told from the Avatarian point of view.  The time period doesn't matter, but they must include aspects of virtual existence which are (as the phrase goes) "NPIRL".  Keep it under 10,000 words, please -- and email to lalo[dot]telling[at]gmail[dot]com.  Poetry is welcome, too.

If I get a few good ones -- and if Cubey and Path give me reprint permission for theirs -- the first edition might go live in January 2011.  I'll keep y'all posted.

.

Eight sims remain to complete the Seconderth deep map.  I've been averaging two per week, which puts me on track to finish before my RL-imposed deadline of December 1.  But I'm fighting against more than mere Time...  I'm fighting what feels like a lag spike does in-world, and its name is "Why bother?"

Before I go on, be clear about this: I'm not fishing for encouragement.  I've got plenty of that, from readers of past Seconderth installments.  Besides, I'm determined that this is not going to be another unfinished project like the many which litter the trail behind me.

Consider, however, the Long View: I've been compiling an illustrated narrative about a subject that eventually will no longer exist.  It doesn't "exist" now, independently of the specialized hardware and software needed to see and hear it... but, metaphysics aside, there will come a time when Second Life cannot be logged into any more, and it will not matter if the terabtyes which describe it are stored somewhere.  There are many potential causes to choose from: it could continue its current slow decline -- or the decline could accelerate -- until the bills can't be paid; it could be purchased "for parts" and shut down; its investors could cut their losses and pull out; the management du jour could arbitrarily pull the plug for any reason, or no reason at all, and they're not obliged to tell us...  The best scenario I can come up with is obsolescence: the next technological generation of virtuality will supersede this one, and we'll all go there. 

Regardless of how it goes, or how soon, Second Life will pass away.  From electrons were we made, and to electrons we shall return; pixels to pixels, dust to dust.

It's said that the Internet is forever... or sometimes, "Google never forgets".  The websites, blogs, and photo collections about Second Life will undoubtedly last far longer than the virtual world itself, let alone the company that owns it.  The Library of Congress has already guaranteed that the Twitter record will survive...  to what end?

I do not flatter myself with the term "historian"; even "chronicler" sounds too presumptuous.  "Virtual archaeologist" is meant for the irony alone: Second Life is not exactly Troy, nor am I Heinrich Schliemann.  And that is my point: in the blink of a historical eye, no one will care what the oldest prim in Second Life was, or who made it, or any of the other things I (and many others!) have pulled out of the pixel-thin ground of the Grid.

39 down, 8 to go... and I will get it done.  Every writer, no matter what they write, throws a dart at immortality and hopes it sticks.  Precious few of them learn the result; I don't expect to be any different.

.

"... by any other name," Rose might resemble its cousins among the Original 16, sims like Hawthorne or Stanford: unable to avoid the workings of time and change, a great deal of it empty, yet holding in it a relic or two of its earliest year on the Grid.  In Rose, that would be the parcel in its southeast corner called "Champion Square" (lower right in the photo), owned since Christmas Eve 2003 by Realtime Rogers:


Realtime is also a Retired Admiral of Kazenojin in Gray.  This is his personal holding, which he shares with a friend or two; their stuff is newer, but the real gem in Rose's rough is this underground lair.  It's also underwater, of course, but hey... who needs to breathe in SL?




With a few minors repairs excepted, it was all built right around the time he claimed the land: December 2003.  There's a note of sadness, too -- see the round plywood shapes in the upper right background of the photo of Realtime's profile?  They're a sort of "back way" in and out of the lair that he added later.  They were rezzed in January 2008, and I guess he hasn't been back since to texture them.

I always visit every sim I'm covering here at least twice... and, as always, there are changes.  The extreme southeast and northeast corners of Rose belong to Neal Nomad, one of SL's original boat builders, and are part of his Zen Center (the rest is in Teal, which will be the next installment).  The ridge on the north side held a monastery in Tibetan style, which I did not have the foresight to photograph.  The southern end was once the site of this stupa:


Nestled between Neal's Zen corners is Vincent Fate's "Geekland 2.0", which is set up as an outdoor conference center.  It includes this; from its texture I've decided to call it a "mapestry":


It records the subdivision of Rose as of June, 2004.  Surprisingly, most of the original parcels are the same.

You may have noticed in the overhead shot: Rose is also infested by an outcropping of Gordon's, the major contributor to the blight of Sage.  This particular eyesore is a "casino" -- I'm left to assume that the games found there slip under the bar of Linden-defined legality.  This one (which was there in May but is gone now), probably didn't, owing to its age... but click-to-enlarge and look who made it:


I rest my case, your honor.

.

The story of Blue's beginning is the story of another community project no longer there.  Unlike Little Tokyo (Sage), Venice (Bonifacio) or "Native American Village" (never even appeared on the map of Oak Grove), all vanished with almost no trace... also unlike Yamato in Dore, where the buildings remain but few know why... Americana is remembered.   Memorialized is more appropriate.


It feels, in retrospect, that my travels through the oldest square of the Grid have been leading me to Blue.  Many of the names I first met elsewhere were part of Americana: Garth and Pituca FairChang (Taber); ramon Kothari and Sinatra Cartier (Shipley); Joan and Harald Nomad (Kissling)... most of all, Sinclair Valen, whose land in Lusk is yet another memorial to Americana, complete with souvenirs you can still buy.

Besides the Gateway Arch, which Sinclair moved to Lusk, and the pieces parked on the plateau, all that's left of Americana is this empty car showroom, built by Bonecrusher Slate and preserved on land owned by ramon (a Charter Member):


Inside, the vehicles are gone, but you can still get a notecard at the reception desk about the 2004 models; it's dated November 16, 2003.

Research leads me to think Americana was not without its detractors.  For instance, if you search the SL Wikia for it, you get this:

Americana refers to physical culture associated with the of the United States, and in particular the popular history and folklore resultant from its colonial, agrarian and manifest destiny periods. Examples include county fairs, American Gothic Architecture, the "Old West" and artifacts associated with the American Revolution.

In the Context of Second Life, Old West roleplaying and items, including horses and costumes, as well as full simulators devoted to Western roleplaying are common.

... which makes no mention at all of the community project. However, the Wikia's entry at Blue is more revealing:

During the days of Beta, the land of Blue sim was purchased by a group dedicated to the theme of "Americana". Founded by George Busch, this group produced an assortment of builds modeled after American pop culture, travel destinations, and national monuments. The group was often fraught with discord, but their creations brought visitors from all over SL.

The Americana group briefly made news inside and outside of SL as they staged an in-world "tax revolt" to protest land and primitive building/support costs. Though the protest was mostly tongue-in-cheek, at times the rhetoric was fairly intense and some other SL residents did not appreciate the approach taken by Americana members.

The former Hamlet Linden covered the situation in New World Notes, in three articles (August - September 2003) now consolidated into one:

In late July, a cadre of outraged Lifers began agitating against the Linden tax system, which they see as unjustly penalizing ambitious builders, who contribute so much value to the world. By August 2nd, their cause had broken out into open protest. The first blow was leveled on Americana, the user-driven project to recreate famous US icons in a city space. Dissent appropriately took a very American form: the project's Washington monument had been replaced by a giant tower of tea crates; the baseball stadium rendered unusable by similar stacks; the Route 66 gas station set ablaze...

Photo credit: Joan or Harald Nomad; image is displayed at Joan's Marina in Kissling

Crates and signs were festooned everywhere -- there, and throughout the world. Contacted by New World Notes, Fleabite Beach -- the iconoclastic kitty who leads this revolt -- here pleads their case to the general public:

The thoughtful consideration and realization of a means by which all Loyal Subjects can work toward the greater goods of community, god and country without the abdication of their moral relevance. We cast our voices upwards, as we think is right, but we should not be vitally concerned that right should come of it, only that our voices are heard and respected. Without true Representation there is nothing in SL but pixels that labor to arrange other pixels for the glory and prosperity of Kings.

-- excerpted from Hamlet's article; emphasis added

Seven years later... sound familiar?

In an obscure museum in a sim nobody's heard of (I-World Island), which also houses Second Life's Oldest Object, this communication to Philip is preserved:

Created by Fleabite Beach on August 28, 2003 -- two days after the NWN article was first published.  That's a tea crate in the background.  It is my firm opinion that the Americana tax revolt of 2003 was much more in the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party than the current movement with the audacity to usurp the name.

Thing is... from the perspective of anyone who joined Second Life after December 2003, the system Americana and others were protesting is completely incomprehensible*.  That was when Version 1.2 of what we now think of as 'the viewer' was released, and the land ownership** system -- with its prim allocation per parcel -- that we've lived with ever since was first introduced.  Too late for Americana, though.  The Wikia entry for Blue ends like this:

The sim continued to exist as a coherent theme until the release of SL 1.1, after which the revised tax systems made it impossible for the group's members to continue holding the entire sim. [...]

Blue later became home to an amusement park and a large mountain.

Version 1.1 had a release date of October 21, 2003. Two months...

Part three of Hamlet's article is an interview with Peter Linden, who said:

"Virtual economies are really hard to do right."

Seven years later, that sounds pretty damn familiar, too.

---

* -- If you want to find out just how incomprehensible that old tax system was, have a look at the Release Notes for Version 0.5.0 (open-beta, under which the Americanans joined) and Version 1.1.0 (which "clarified" it).

** -- "ownership"... /me laughs

And, as always, many more photos of both historical and contemporary Blue can be found in my online album companion to this series.

.

Alisa commented on the last one (see below): "I can hardly wait to get moved in."

So we didn't wait.  It took most of Wednesday to get the buildings located:

Then yesterday it was time for 'finishing' touches (Ha ha... we're builders; you know the tweaking will continue!).  Alisa rezzed up a bunch of trees from her collection, and I threw this light pole together, textured to match the color scheme of railings and platform edges on each level:


Alisa threw down sidewalks and began setting trees, while I followed along behind, playing "Johnny Lampseed".


And there it is: the new and improved Falconvale Fine Prefabs.  I wonder how long it'll take us to fill it up and need to add a fourth level...


Falconvale (111, 142, 551)

.

My partner Alisa and I are, frankly, obsessed with building. Though we have other aspects in common (age; musical tastes; we're both single and we're both smartasses), building is what really brought us together after first meeting at Industrial Dreamz in SL almost five months ago. The prospect of building without limits to either size or number of prims, added to a fledgling market in which our work might actually get noticed, is what brought us to InWorldz. Well, OK... U$D 75/month for a full island sim didn't hurt, either.

We've been there since the summer solstice. We began by putting a 100 x 100 meter platform in the sky and importing what she'd built in SL before meeting me, plus the Tudor-style series we'd built over there together. And started advertising...

...and kept building, of course. The 100-meter-square platform was quickly stretched to 150 x 150. We kept building. In August, we copied the first platform 100 meters farther up and added teleports between them.

Guess what? The second floor is almost full, too.

And we're still building; it's what we do, like the Doozers down in Fraggle Rock.  Oh yes, we sell one occasionally, too -- the Hallowe'en Hunt has been good for traffic -- but that doesn't reduce the need for display space.  We've also been putting things up on the sales floors as they're finished, with no thought to organizing by whether it's commercial, residential, or accessory.

We've been kicking around the idea of rearranging by category, but with the Hunt ongoing until November 1, it wasn't something we could get to right away... by which time, a third sales floor was going to be inevitable.  I put on my thinking cap, and decided that we wanted something more than a sign to inform our visitors that "there's more above you."

My background is in architectural engineering.  I've been using computers to draw since 1982.  I knew it would be a lot easier to show Alisa my idea than to try to explain it, so I whipped up some "sketches":


Before and After, at 1:100 scale, with the sim at bottom and the airspace projected upward. Alisa added the idea of a separate, smaller platform for a "reception" area, where the landmark will eventually bring you.  With her addition and approval, I went up to 750 meters and got to work.



Approximately fours hours later, tweaking and texturing done.   67,550 square meters of display space, not counting the connector ramps -- yes, we will have teleports, too! -- that's 2014 m² more than a sim, with plenty of capacity to add a fourth floor whenever needed.

Now here's the best part, what I call "NPISL":

[a] the floors are each a single prim, as are the guardrails along each edge, the ramps, their railings, etc.;
[b] consequently, there are only 70 prims in it;
[c] the volume occupied by the build is 256 x 256 x 150;
[d] it's a linkset!

Went together as easily as if the farthest pieces were 15 meters apart, not 150, even though the reception platform at the bottom is the root, for ease of placement when the time comes to move it down to 600.


Want one?  IM me in InWorldz.  You can have one for free: copy/mod, no transfer.

.