It Isn't Easy Being Blue!

So I finally went to see James Cameron's Avatar last weekend, and while it was beautiful and a nice story, I didn't become an avid fan like so many these days. In my opinion, it was a little too much like Dances With Wolves, except with blue Native Americans. However, I couldn't help but think about SL while the gorgeous CGI in 3D was drawing me into this new neon world. I knew SL residents would be hard at work trying to re-create the landscape and avatars, but I wasn't prepared for the work they have accomplished in such a short time!

Upon hearing the first rumors of actual blue Avatars roaming around the grid, I knew Pandora would be there as well. Due to the well known adage "when in Rome", I couldn't possibly visit a Pandora without first transforming into a Na'vi - the blue natives that inhabit Pandora (this is important to know if you want to explore these newly created worlds). Shopping was the first step, and as I searched for Avatar or Pandora or Na'vi in the classified section, I was blown away by the multiple listings. As I perused the various offerings, I was reminded of the fact that transforming one's avatar from human into a different being is not cheap and rather involved. Yes, there are a few free Na'vi shapes and skins out there, but once I got to Pandora, I was glad I spent a few extra Lindens to get a higher quality shape and skin. But don't forget the hair, and the clothes and any accessories, such as a weapon - yes, a weapon is something of a necessity as I found out. One silver lining - no shoes necessary!! My total bill for shape, skin, hair, clothes, feather earrings, bow and arrow set was around L$3000.

Once I looked presentable, I went in search of a Pandora to visit. This 'Pandora' search term in the 'places' category turned up several results. There are multiple Pandoras across the grid and most are role-playing sims. This is why looking your best and being prepared with props (such as a weapon) are important before exploring these beautiful sims. I should note that this is my very first encounter with a role-play sim in SL. I knew they existed, and I had some experience volunteering in a history conference on Renaissance Island which required a script and a speech in character, but I knew that true role-playing sims meant business. The dedication necessary to truly enjoy a role-play sim is evident upon arriving at any of the Pandora welcome centers. The notecards are chock full of background character information. In some cases, Na'Vi language specifics are also included. Each Pandora has an option to enter as a visitor complete with tag to remind the permanent residents not to shoot you and be patient with your awkward skills. In the end, becoming a permanent resident requires a mutli-level commitment: character appearance (Na'Vi or human with air mask), character substance (what role or tribe - scientist, soldier, warrior, healer), knowledge of the social dynamic, complex weaponry with life level monitors wore at all times (DCS2), and patience to learn the ropes.

Unfortunately, patience is not something I had in abundance. I looked the part and explored several Pandoras with my visitor tag held high, but in the end, I knew I didn't have the dedication necessary to enjoy these new places to the fullest. The richness of the new sims are worth the effort to get in as a visitor. Sometimes part of the fun was just figuring out which parts of the landscape were based on the movie and which were completely new creations meant to enhance the idea of Pandora. If you are a true fan, you will love the idea of becoming immersed in Pandora, and you will not be disappointed with such examples as the Spirit Tree and those nifty spiral plants that disappear into the ground the minute you get close to them. Some of the lush neon forests are amazing, and in one Pandora that was a little less forest and a little more open landscape, they surprised me with the lovely detail of each step lighting up as I walked across a limb. This proves that even the lesser traveled Pandoras are worth a visit to compare the differing attributes and disseminate which would be the best fit for you (one of the most visited Pandora regions is produced by a German group with mostly all dialogue in German as you hang around - something to consider when trying to become part of the tribe).

No matter what you do with your time in Pandora, the visit is worth it, and it may help relieve your post Avatar depression. One other thing to consider, who knows how long these sims will be up and running before Cameron really digs into the money making structure behind such largely popular sims....or until Linden gets worried about copyright. Which is a shame because the residents have put so much work and creativity into creating these marvelous destinations and props, although I don't think that will be taken into account when they shut them down someday. Due to this possibly transient nature of the places I visited, I am choosing not to include any Slurls in this post. You were given the search terms I used above to locate the Pandoras that still exist throughout the grid.

Until next time and a more normal color,
Sif

Update 2/9/10: Even though I have not been back to any of the Pandoras since the writing of this post, Pandora Magic recently ejected me from their group (I promise I wasn't in there making any trouble!). This leads me to warn you that this particular sim might have an activity minimum to stay a part of their group.....or they didn't like my blog post :-)

Wrapping Up the Summer in SL New England

So I finally ended my house search by settling for a small cottage in New England. I chose this little place due to the theme purity of this sim complex. As a group of sims dedicated to the New England style, the fully furnished beach houses nestled on little island coves, complete with your own sail boat and pier are refreshing sights to behold. The complex is connected by wonderfully detailed New England villages that encourage wandering about and shopping in the unique little establishments. As a huge fan of theme specific residential areas, the theme intended here is hit spot on with the atmosphere created in New England, Mystic and Nantucket.

Not only are the houses reasonably priced, unique in individual style (no cookie cutter houses here) and quite realistic, but the community on these sims is extremely active in the areas of arts, entertainment, commerce and cultural events. Of all the places I have resided, this is by far the most active and close knit community I have encountered. However, the heavy event activity that takes place is also refreshing in the fact that the event locations (village squares) are very separated from the residential areas. Which means the events are close and part of your community, yet far enough away to still allow habitation in a fair amount of peace and quiet.

I could gush a little more about this series of sims, but it would be better to let you read about some of the unique features and events from the sims' own blog: http://www.slne.net/

Enjoy!

Sif

Mourning Michael Jackson in SL

Heading into SL last night, Michael Jackson was actually the last person on my mind. In fact, it was nice to get away from all of the media coverage and begin my search for a new home. However, as I entered "home rent" in the classified search box, the very first entry was a Michael Jackson In Memoriam sim. No, it was not for rent, which is odd that it popped up in this search, but it was at the top based on the number of people visiting this new sim. By last night, over 36,000 avatars had visited this memorial. Upon further searching it was later discovered that this sim is for sale with no neighbors for the bargain price of L$9900.

I will admit I was a bit shocked to see this Michael Jackson devoted sim.....but maybe only for a few seconds....because I quickly remembered that what happens in the world is mirrored in SL. This is a cultural extension of what we are experiencing in RL. As a result, my curiosity was piqued. A second search in the "All" category brought up a pretty decent showing for Michael Jackson related sims, products and music events. It was amazing to see how many music venues had switched their music over to all Michael Jackson and in Terra Bordeaux a "3D" concert was being held - well almost. Upon visiting said concert, I was unsure whether to categorize this as a sick joke or a legitimate caricature. The 3D Michael Jackson was one you could buy for yourself for a little over L$600, but the actual form of this avatar was so skeletal that is looked as if Michael had been dead for several weeks already. The addition of giant angel wings on the back did not help matters.....it really creeped me out and I was not surprised that there was no one else around to enjoy the "show". Besides, the caricature MJ was silent as the grave and the sim music was general pop with no MJ music around.
Ironically, there were some really nice memorials that allowed people to light candles or leave flowers and balloons. What was extremely interesting was the variety of international representation. Each memorial was inundated with mourners or curiosity seekers from around the world. I loved the little memorial outside of the Old Stone Church at Some Enchanted Evening. Visitors could read allowed their favorite quotes from the singer, or a devotional segment that comforted them. The only weird element I noticed here was a camping kiosk at a rate of L$2 per 10 minutes....not exactly memorial worthy.

One note as you travel around viewing the memorials.....many are as eccentric as MJ was in RL. Case in point: The memorial on the PassPort sim. The church-like setting with roses, candles, free t-shirts and loads of MJ pictures is great as you wander around listening to his music......but yes, that is a bald MJ in a glass coffin, just like Snow White, in front of the cross in the chapel. And be sure to watch as you walk around....try not to step on the dismembered bodies strewn around. You gotta love these fans.....memorializing him in a way only possible in SL!












Now back to house hunting!
Sif

The Danger of Sudden Homelessness in SL

For the past 9 months, I have been the proud renter of a lovely little island set in a sim designed to be a replica of Tuscany. The sim was very well designed early on, but soon changed piece by piece until my island was the only piece of the sim that remotely resembled Tuscany.

My rental agreement was well priced for a 4096 sqm island ($L2200 per week), with 937 prims. However, the rental restrictions were a bit odd, with no changes allowed in the areas of sim music choice, land elevations or visitor restriction. The limited rental permissions were due to the sim owner's desire to gain "purchase" along with rental. For $L7600, plus the same weekly rental, permissions were more liberal. I opted to try out the place for a few months, but music was not important to me and the shape of the island was what I liked about the place anyway, so I searched thoroughly for an Italian style home to plop on my island and continued to rent all these months without paying the purchase price since that was not a requirement.

I loved my place but was getting frustrated with the ever changing environment around me. My Tuscan sim soon changed into a mess of varied, chaotic neighbors who could switch to a tropical theme or build a giant house of cards next door without any land design restrictions imposed. Despite these horrid changes around me, I still loved my place.

Some of these changes increased after my landlord informed me that he was no longer the manager of the sim. I think he gave me the name of the new owner/manager, but my rental box was still paying the same manager, so life went on without much incident.

Due to some RL changes, my recent SL use has been very limited and the thought of letting my villa slip away was very tempting. My rental box had notified me that I had 2 days left before running out of rent. So the next day I attempted to enter the sim to pay for one more week to get some pictures and remove my stuff before letting the rent run out for the last time.

That's when it happened.....I attempted to go to my sim to pay the rental box, but the transport failed with an error that said the sim was down or no longer existed!! I waited a few more hours for another try and then tried again the next day, but all subsequent attempts failed to find my beloved, yet crazy sim.

After a few more attempts, I looked at the old manager's profile, and suddenly, my sim, which had been one of his picks, was no longer listed as it had been a couple of days ago. That convinced me that something was horribly wrong and so I contacted the former manager to ask what was going on. He explained that he was no longer the manager again, but failed to tell me what had happened. I also noticed that NONE of my personal property had been returned to my lost and found!! I was not only homeless, but ALL of my belongings had been stolen in the process!

I tried further to get some information out of my former landlord, but he would only provide a partial name of the avatar that had taken over.....I was smelling something very rotten in Tuscany (Tuskany Sim). After some bugging and hostile verbal exchanges, he finally offered to give me a new parcel in his other sim for the same price and to reimburse me for the lost property. I estimated about $L8000 since my structure and boat were copyable, and this would cover my furniture/garden losses. He paid me the money without hesitation and then left without any word or explanation.

I know the former manager now has a huge Itland sim with residential and commercial complexes, but after this fiasco, I wouldn't take him up on that offer for any sweetened deal imaginable. The owner is actually a native Italian which I thought would help with maintaining a traditional Tuscan style sim.....I thought wrong.

So there really isn't any moral to this story except that if something like this happens to you, you could complain to Linden for fraudulent behavior if the owner/landlord did not reimburse you....and there are mediation/litigation groups in SL, but I'm not sure how much power they actually have. However, in all of my rental experiences I never imagined anything like this could actually happen without any warning. Can you protect yourself? I doubt it unless you restrict your home/furniture purchases to copyable items, but that's not possible for most of the really creative items out there.

And of course, no one can reimburse you for all of the shopping time you took to get your home looking just right.....farewell fond villa, it was my favorite place so far....on to the next place.....maybe I'll go with a well established sim that has been around for a very long time....maybe that will help guard my rental investment.....but there are no guarantees.

Your friendly neighborhood nomad,
Sif

Reflections on a Year Well Lived

Just over a month ago Sifriya celebrated her rez day....well, I should say forgot about the rez day until some magazine colleagues surprised her with a party. It is so hard to believe that it has been a full year since little Sifriya was born. I refer to her as little because she did appear very child-like when she first arrived on Help Island. Everything was so amazingly new and exciting! I think her favorite pastime was taking pictures of herself in new areas discovered.

A year later, she still loves taking pictures....too many in fact.....but things have definitely changed for Sifriya. For starters, the population of SL has changed quite a bit. When I first arrived in SL, the average population in-world on any given evening was about 46,000. These days, the evening population runs about 86,000. An interesting observation about these population increases is the fluid nature of the new residents. The places I visited in Sifriya's early days seemed popular and well attended. However, popularity shifts quickly with the wind in some cases. Too many beautiful places that were frequently inhabited are now empty, and in several instances, erased from the grid. Of course, some of the hot spots are still popular a year later, but the formula needed to maintain the popularity seems to be a combination of dedication,
friendly people, beautiful atmosphere enhanced with a huge dash of luck.




What ever happened to Timeless?




All of this does not discount the fact that true talent in SL still abounds and can earn a nice amount of Lindens if the artist is persistent. There are still moments and experiences that render me a bit stunned in awe. The artistic talent alone is enough to keep coming back as some individuals continue to surprise when their creativity collides with the pixelated world of SL.

As for the more personal reflections, the year has provided a wealth of new friends and colleagues. It has also proven to be a new way to connect with current RL co-workers....all while joining in the exploration of educational uses of SL. These efforts are growing and new results are being produced, but there is still a long road ahead to making SL a well respected educational tool available to everyone. Yes, SL is free, but schools are not always equipped with current video cards capable of running SL. Things look promising, and virtual worlds will be used in the classroom, but the jury is still out whether SL has the future locked up in this area.
Listening to Stephen Hawking at NASA!

On another personal note....shall we talk about the many different looks of Sifriya over the year? Looking back, the phases are quite comical....from the stiff hair poking through her hat, to the blue hair days, to the wing fetish, to the Cruella Deville look, to the current look which has proven to be comfortable and fairly normal looking. All were fun, but over time I have found the extreme experimentation with appearance was restricted to my newbie months. Once I splurged for a purchased body and skin, I no longer felt the need to go overboard with the appearance choices. Even my hair choices seem to have relegated themselves to auburn, cinnamon or brown...blackened or highlighted, but that is the extent of the diversity these days.

In short, SL continues to provide a wonderful creative outlet for this right-brained human behind the avatar. It has also sparked new ideas within my profession as well as brought new friends into my life who continue to be a positive influence in so many wonderful ways. This one little avatar has definitely added positives to the life of her human.

For more fun-filled pictures of Sif's first year in SL, scroll to the bottom of this Blog
Here's to another productive and inspiring year!
Sif