There always had to be a Gold Coast in SL

This evening I stumbled across the Whitsundays, Great Barrier Reef, Noosa Heads and Gold Coast:

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We’ve contacted the owner for a chat about the latest virtual part of Australia so watch this space. I’m guessing there’ll be no Jupiters Casino though.

Thursday’s Fictions

A fascinating Australian collaboration is about to make its SL debut. ‘Thursday’s Fictions’ is described as a surreal dance fantasy and it’s screening on ABC TV this Sunday, 29th July at 3pm AEST. Directly afterwards at 4pm at the ABC Ampitheatre on ABC Island there’ll be a Q&A session with Dr Richard James Allen, Dr Karen Pearlman, Gary Hayes and Story Consultant Jacqueline Turnure.

A standalone SL presence based on Thursday’s Fictions is close to completion. Gary Hayes was kind enough to point us to the build for Thursday’s Fictions for a preview and it looks like being an interesting and interactive presence. It’s likely a landmark for it will be provided at the Q&A session on Sunday.

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Check the ABC website for more details on the screening or the LAMP blog for more detail on the SL build by Gary Hayes.

We asked Gary for his thoughts on the build:

“It was particularly exciting recreating what I had read and seen of the film and making it relevant to Second Life – so I was careful not to just clone the sets or be too real world in translations of the metaphors of spirituality – but try to imagine given unlimited pallette what the choices around reincarnation could be”.

Gary also gave a brief synopsis of the film and the SL build’s relationship to it:

“It is the story of a lady called Thursday who tries to cheat reincarnation in that she takes the wrong things with her into each new life. So the Second Life experience is to get you, to think about what qualities you would carry with you into a new existence. I have built a small user journey through this and the idea is to go into further development to build all the story elements – the days representing new lives. Richard Allen and Karen Perlman have been great in allowing me to work with them to be very SL specific with this”.

Update: Check out Thursday’s Fictions in-world”>

Greenies are good enough

The Greenies House is one of those builds that comes from nowhere and just astounds you with its originality, attention to detail and pure whimsy. We don’t want to take too much away from experiencing it yourself, but the pictures say it all:

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Builds like this define the opportunities virtual worlds provide. Thanks to SL Insider for the heads-up

Check it out in-world

Garden for the Missing

The Garden for the Missing is a simple but powerful presence on the mainland Remora sim. Motivated by the tragic end of a missing persons case in her neighbourhood, owner Ronnie Rhode set up her presence. She states she’s been passionate about the missing persons issue since 2002 but only recently joined Second Life.

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The pictures of missing persons are sourced from a range of US-based organisations including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, BeyondMissing and Project Jason. Ronnie is hoping to move to a larger location and has a donation wishing well to help her achieve that aim. While we were there another SL resident was donating assorted flowers etc to help decorate the area.

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As Ronnie herself said when we had a brief chat, the more people that see the faces of the missing the more likely they are to be found. It doesn’t get much more worthwhile than that.

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Thanks to Aussie SL’er Rails Bailey for suggesting the story.

Check it out in-world

The PIER opens

Owned by Sydney-based Carys Dahlstrom (and virtual dog Wullie!), the PIER is becoming one of the more popular social venues. Although its been around quite a while (I remember spending some time there months ago), it’s had a facelift and a move to a new sim. The (re)opening was held last weekend:

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In Carys Dahlstrom’s own words: “I guess I just want a ‘safe’ place for people to hang out. I had this place before on another sim and had to move it as the sim couldn’t cope with the traffic. Somewhere to go without the ‘gambling and sex’ pressure. Good music, good fun and good people”.

Idlers also get to walk the plank and buy the t-shirt afterwards.

Thanks to Simon Kline for the opening pics!

Check it out in-world.

Transformers – more than meets the virtual eye

A prefect bridge between the two parts of the SLCN TV interview series would have to be a quick look at the new Transformers presence. It’s been sheperded by the SLCN crew and ‘atmospheric’ would be the best description of the whole shebang.

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I’ve not had a lot of Transformers exposure so not sure how true to the original the build is, but it did remind me very much of Half-Life. Similar in look but also similar in navigation – this is not a simple walk around effort.

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Check it out in-world.

A.N.Z.A.C build – an update

Following up from our recent story, we managed to catch up with Australian owner Ashley Dowding for a quick Q&A on his ANZAC-inspired build:

Lowell: So what are you hoping to achieve with this build?

Ashley: Well, basically, I wanted this place to be somewhere people could come and learn what it’s like to be an A.N.Z.A.C. or for ex-servicemen like myself whose time was cut short for them. We roleplay Australian army soldiers mainly, but there are a few Kiwis as well.

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Lowell: So is it a commercial venture?

Ashley: No, i pay for everything out of my own pocket, or from donations people make to us. in the future, we may look at opening ourselves up to doing security type work, but we will not do nightclub style stuff….purely patrolling and such.

Lowell: And with the sketches on the walls – where do they come from?

Ashley: I actually downloaded these from another internet site a while back, they’re from a book written not long after the Second World War by T.A. Miles….havent quite finished everything yet, but I will be putting up info on the author of the book. The site i sourced them from was http://www.firstaif.info/anzac-story/.

Lowell: Ok – so will you be promoting activites etc you’ll be running?

Ashley: Yes, we will be running activities, doing lectures and such… I hope that there will be places around SL that will also let us do parades and such. Would you like a tour of the base?

Lowell: That’d be great!

Ashley: Ok, please follow

Ashley: Obviously this will be the public area. this is free for anyone to enter any time they wish. We will conduct free history lessons here too.

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Ashley: These are the barracks. i house all my men for free during the first little while they are here. The rooms arent very big, but they’re home.

Lowell: When you say they are ‘here’ – what sort of timeframes are you talking?

Ashley: Well, I haven’t even filled one room yet, so that will be determined later on. i think a month is fair before they must find accomodation…that will also depend on whether we get more land. I have set it up so it’s 1 section per room plus 1 officer- 15 beds per room. Not very spacious, but this helps them bond together as a team.

Lowell: So why would an avatar ‘sleep’ here or is it more a close-quarter bonding opportunity

Ashley: More a close quarter bonding opportunity….this is where they do all their prep before going out on missions. Out here will be a dorm area, we will have a lounge with streaming music and TV, I’m going to try to set up a free to air TV here… I dont know if that’s possible or not, but I’ll try.

Lowell: How long have you been building?

Ashley: About a week here, we were in another location, but I found this place had cheaper rates and were more flexible with what we could do. We have 2 platoons, with 3 sections in each, with 15 men per section…..so I can fit around 90 men here.

Lowell: How many do you have on board at the moment?

Ashley: LOL, about ten, but we’re getting there.

Lowell: Ten is a good start!

Ashley: Yes, well we have only been active for about 3 weeks, so that’s not bad.

(We then go to the third floor which is a shell)

Ashley: As you can see, we are still building. However, this room won’t look much diffrent. This will be the kill house, where my men can learn close quarter combat. This is the only base that I know of in Second Life that can boast that.

Lowell: So what will they be killing?

Ashley: Target dummies only here. Later on I may create a squad to play bad guys. We have these little walls so that they can get a better feel of the layout of the kill rooms. It allows the instrustor to see exactly where all his men are at any time.

Lowell: What sort of men are joining up – what are they hoping to get out of this?

Ashley: Well, at the moment, it’s a bit of a mixed bunch – men and women. Some want to play a purely combat role, others want to just study. Some even more…we will be teaching officers as well.

Lowell: Can you give me some idea on what areas you’ll be teaching?

Ashley: Military tactics, communications, leadership, drill, engineering, and diplomacy.

Lowell: And do you think those skills will be used by participants in their real lives?

Ashley: Well, they could, but I will greatly limit what i do teach – there are some things for example with communications, that I will not teach.

Lowell: That was what I was wondering – in the RL military there’s psychological screening prior to knowledge being imparted in some areas.

Ashley: Yeah, I have pondered that problem, but the stuff I’m teaching will be limited to stuff they can find themselves by reading or watching movies….in essence, its pretty basic stuff really. Besides, i speak to each person who enters and there is a screening process.

Lowell: So you do some screening?

Ashley: I do, there is an application that must be filled out, asking what they want to do here, whether they have any former experience, and so on. I would also like to say for the record, that there is a huge diffrence between this and the real thing….playing vidoe games does not enhance your ability to use a weapon in RL. Unless the game you’re playing is on the wtss system…you heard of it?

Lowell: I haven’t actually – what is it?

Ashley: Weapons training simulation system- don’t worry, anyone who does a tour of Duntroon gets to see it. It’s basically a badass version of duckhunt….you ever played that?

Lowell: I haven’t actually sorry 😉

Ashley: LOL well, basically it’s a huge screen that you shoot at with a converted weapon. the weapon uses lasers instead of bullets, and has recoil by use of air pressure. Any weapon used by the defense force can be trained with there, and all the weapons can suffer the same issues as their RL counterparts – stoppages, empty mags, you name it. The only downside is that the recoil is slighty weaker than the RL weapons. That is the only videogame I have played that has improved my ability to shoot. I should add, we are in no way affiliated or endorsed by the real army, and that it is an unofficial ANZAC group.

We had to do it…

Pretty much every SL-focused website has run a story on the Playboy opening (The SL Herald covers the island features). There’s no particular Australian context although there no doubt continues to be a dedicated Australian readership of Playboy.

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The real interest for us is what Playboy had decided to do to make their island a place people would visit more than once. On a fifteen minute tour, my answer to that question is: not a great deal. Sure, there are videos to view, clubs to dance and multiple private areas to get personal with someone else, but there’s nothing that you won’t find at a hundred other clubs or malls – the Playboy brand is really the only differentiator. After fifteen minutes I was very much feeling ‘been there, done that’.

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It’ll be interesting to see what sort of traffic the island receives in the longer term – a regular entertainment schedule will be a must-have just to match a number of successful SL-native options.

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Armory Island

If weapons are your thing, then Armory island may be worth adding to your landmark list. It’s owned by Australian Apollo Case. Apollo describes his island thus:

“Armory Island is Second Life’s largest virtual arms area with almost fifty independent exhibitors. There is a broad range of weapons, shields, clothing and gadgets for every avatar”.

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An example of what’s on offer can be seen here:

Armory Island even has a motto: “Come for the guns, stay for the fun”

Check it out in-world

Free conference space available

If you’re an educational institution, non-government organisation or charity, we’re pleased to make available SLOz HQ for free. Think of it like the local CWA or Town Hall.

There are three main areas available for small conferences, meetings or social gatherings:

1. Main conference room: this will comfortably seat 40 people and another ten or so standing – which given that SLOz HQ is on a mainland sim is about the limit anyway. There’s a video screen and lectern as well.

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2. Meeting room / offices: there are two offices and a meeting room for smaller meetings.

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3.Social area: This is a regularly used area – lots of open space.

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There’s also an outdoor BBQ area if needed.

To use the facilities just IM Lowell Cremorne in-world or contact us. For-profit entities are also welcome to utilise the facilities at a cost of $2000L per full day.

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