Salem Halloween Event and SL's Top Haunted Places Tour and Hunt

By Gemma Cleanslate

Creepy crawly time.... the Halloween craze time in Second Life is here! Already the ghouls are beginning to appear. I will be looking for fun places to visit but at this time am looking at places where one can get decor or outfits or anything to help you enjoy the holiday at your home or club.

My first visit was to check out Salem, and event that will run right up to October 31 so you can get your fill of last minute things  you need. There is a decoration contest going on in the communties of the new continent, Bellisseria, so everyone has been talking about Salem 2019  put on by  Prism Events.  “Designed to evoke the tenor of the 1692 witch trials, Salem hits the grid with over 100 vendors and two ways to shop! Dive into Salem's Macabre Market or if you dare, try your luck in the Gacha Gallows. Salem runs 9/28 - 10/31 and promises to bewitch you!” is the land writeup .

When I arrived there were parts of avatars adding to the macabre by floating all over the place.. be prepared for lag.  The market is huge. Many of the outfits are can be used for daily use as well as Halloween parties. Some of the makeup will be great for those special events that will be held at clubs.

For those building haunted houses you will find some eerie creatures and skeletons  as well as old furniture to fill the rooms.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Prism%20Events/128/112/21

My next stop was at “"SL's TOP HAUNTED PLACES TOUR and HUNT"  in Quincentival . Oct. 1 - 31st.

“The 10th year for SL'S TOP HAUNTED PLACES TOUR and HUNT! There are many creative Haunts and Hunts you can visit and enjoy grid wide and if you like you can also do some Halloween shopping at some of SL'S best stores. “  Pick up your card and get information on the Hunt and grab your first gift next to the sign. Then walk and visit all the wonderful decor and houses filled with wispy ghostly creatures.

Here I am watching a football game with some friends in one of the houses. 
 This whole place is a creation of Carolyn Avro of Favorite Things.

Before you leave stop into the Candy Cauldron and pick up some wonderful treats!!
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Quincentival/101/165/600

And stop off at Carolyn’s Halloween shop where you will find pumpkins and trees and other decor for your yard for sale.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Quincentival/48/210/73

Gemma Cleanslate

SL11B Press Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Saturday June 21st, I headed to a press tour of some of the Second Life Eleventh Birthday (SL11B) sims. Our meeting location was at part of a stage that vaugely resembled a pink brain, part of "The Empires of the Future Are the Empires of the Mind" theme I assumed.

Saffia Widdershins was the one leading the tour group. Among the others there was Daniel Voyager, in the SL11B robot avatar. We were offered a few freebies, such as a stack of hats.

Saffia was communicating with the group through both chat and voice, "Everyone at SL11B is a volunteer - and there are more than 120 of them! That's in addition to the 243 exhibitor spaces - any of which may have up to three builders involved. So you can see that the Birthday is a huge event!"

"I will say - on the Tour we will focus on public builds - but you will see the residents' builds all around - and I REALLY hope that you will explore them as they are AMAZING!!!"

"...we'll take a swift look at another SLB tradition - the time capsule. ... This is where the design for the winning SL11B time capsule will be placed. You can find details about how to enter the contest to design the capsule on the SL11B blog. http://slcommunitycelebration.com/ "

Nearby were reminders of Second Life Birthday events past, "All around us you will see on these platforms the time capsules from earlier years. Each contains the objects that people believed in 2007, 0r 2005 or 20102 would symbolize Second Life. And this year, people can add what they think defines Second Life in 2014. These are a little history of Second Life in themselves and are well worth exploring!"

Next stop was the Cake Stage, "So, welcome to the outside of the Cake Stage and, if you can, it would be worth making sure that you have the Advanced Lighting Model on so that you can see the amazing things that Loki Eliot, the designer, has done on the outer walls with projected lighting. There are also little platforms high above this build with secrets to discover - but we will say no more!"

The stage itself was pretty small. The rest of the area was for the audience, "the Main Cake Stage where a mixture of live and DJ events will be held. Loki Eliot is a well-known designer - many of you may remember his dinosaur from last year, and his fantastic recreation of Linden Lab for SL9B. Do look up and see the fantastic ceiling Loki has created here. There are actually dancing platforms high above the ground so - if you want - let's fly up and take a look!"

Lots of flashy lights were around.

After the Cake Stage, the tour continued.

Heading to the "Live Stage."

Definitely some big hands.

Next was the DJ stage.

Golan Eilde, the stage lead, happened to be there.

We explored around a little. The place has some secret passages, including supposedly a device that allows one to "take over the world." Sounds like someone's been watching a bit much "Pinky and the Brain."

Exiting the DJ stage area, and back at the exhibits.

Lastly, we went to one of the travel pod places, where rezz the little vehicles that allow one to tour about the place without walking. At some places though, they'll turn into balloons or boars.

"From 29 June until 6 July 2014 the sims remain open only without performances on the stages and in the auditorium - it's a chance for people to explore the builds and do the Hunt!"

And so ended the Press Day tour. Since Daniel was there, you can get his impression, and pictures, by reading his blog entry (here).

Enjoy SL11B.

Bixyl Shuftan

A Dragon's Tale: Making a Cross-Continental Journey

By Joshua Xavier

When my sister, Becky "Sha" Shamen, began her reporting career at the SL Newser, her first article was about the continents in SL. While researching for the article, her scouting missions discovered two narrow water passages, between Nautilus and Corsica, and one from Corsica to Gaeta. Since the Blake Sea joined Nautilus and Satori, she claimed that the longest possible, one way journey, in SL, without using a teleport, would span the continents of Satori, Nautilus, Corsica and Gaeta. Rather than attempt the journey herself, she challenged her readers to become the first explorers, inworld, to take this epic adventure themselves.

Now, more than seven months later, Joshua Xavier decides to take up the challenge. Knowing that this journey, at ground level, could not be done with a single means of transportation, because of rough terrain, water crossings and hundreds of sim crossings, he decides on air travel as the most efficient means of travel. Alas, planes and zeppelins are subject to destruction at sim crossings and could often get auto-returned, should he stop to explore sims along the way.

Luckily, Josh had just acquired a new SP Dragon Guardian avatar, named Katzu Kwattle. Unhampered by an external vehicle, Katzu would have an easier time crossing sims and making landings to rest or explore. His only challenges would come from dragon hunters and laggy sims. Like birds and planes, dragons tend to travel in straight lines. With this in mind, Josh gets a map of the four continents, gets out his straight edge and red pencil and lays out a course for Katzu to go by. The journey would start at the Southern tip of Satori, head NE to the Blake Sea, up the Eastern side of Nautilus, cross the Eastern water passage to Corsica, then East to Gaeta. The actual path and the time it took would not matter, as long as the beginning to end were travelled in an unbroken line. Zooming in on a single sim, on the map, Josh found it to measure 4 pixels square. From this he determined the length of one and five miles. From this, it was calculated that the planned journey would be about 25 miles.

Katzu began his journey on an abandoned isle in Yeeowler, at the southern tip of Satori. Little did he know, there would be countless more abandoned parcels and sims along the way. He begins by flying north, to get in from the coast, before turning NE to follow the flight plan. Soon, in the Bagheera sim, He spots Hwy. 8. Checking the map, he sees it follows the planned route, so uses it to guide his path. It seems like following the highways might be a good way to tour continents via land vehicle, until he comes to a large lake where the road stops at a "bridge out" sign. Following the highway works for several more sims, until it passes through a parcel which bans entry to those not on it's list. He finds his way around the area and back to the highway, but the problem keeps happening and it is often hard to find the highway again. He begins to get the impression that mainland inhabitants are not very friendly and welcoming to outsiders. Needing a better way to stay on course, he opens the world map and clicks on a spot, in the distance, which makes a red circle on the map which also shows on the radar and as a red arrow in the air as he flys. Now, each time he has to go around a parcel, the red arrow gets him back on course.

Katzu likes to fly at an altitude below 100m, so that he can enjoy the view and discover points of interest, but quickly discovers this generates it's own set of problems. As he flys, the changing scenery takes time to rez and if he flys too fast can be hit by things that are not seen yet. In one place, he found his progress halted as a building rezzed around him. Flying at higher altitudes, the same problems happened with bumping into skyboxes. Several times, security orbs returned him home, before he even saw what he had run into. Waiting for things to rez and flying around private areas added so much time to the trip that it had to be broken up into three sessions on line. We have shown where each of these sessions end on the map. Each session began by returning to the last location. The final session ended about a mile and a half short of the planned end destination, the East end of Gaeta, when a security orb sent Katzu back home. With that, Katzu decided there was no need to go any farther. He had proved Sha's theory, that such a trip could be made and was likely the first avatar, or at least the first dragon, to have done so.

Joshua Xavier