Bellisseria Trick or Treat

 

 It's October and the spooky season is upon us. And that means what's become a Halloween tradition in the Linden Home continent is back: the Bellisseria Trick or Treat. Homeowners can give out candy, and anyone can go get some pieces of it. 

 

To pass out the candy, you need to own a Linden Home in Bellisseria. If you do, head to Millbank at (217/41/23). There, you'll find the giver for the candy buckets, and the HUD for get treats (picture above). Touch it, and you'll see an option to get either just the bucket, or both the bucket and treat HUD. Pick either (pick both, and they come in a folder makerd "Halloween Candy Bucket Challenge 2026 Game Supplies"), and head to your Linden Home. Rezz it from your Inventory to a place at your home accessible to people, such as the front porch or next to the sidewalk. If there's particle effects that look a little like a blurred neon green bat swirling around the pumpkin, you should be all set. It is not recommended placing the pumpkin inside the house without a sign inviting people in. These buckets are not meant for use outside Bellisseria and will de-rezz if it's attempted. 

 

To collect the candy, you're going to need the game HUD. It's at the same place as the candy buckets. Once you have it in your inventory, Add it to your avatar and it should appear on the upper left of your screen. If it does, you're ready to go. You go around Bellissaria looking for candy buckets you haven't taken from yet. If you see one, touch it. If you haven't touched it before, there should be an animation showing a small explosion of candy, and the number in the hud should go up by one. Touching a bucket you already have will do nothing. If you yourself have set up a candy bucket, the number will go up by a bonus five a day. 

 

While the candy collecting in itself is fun, what makes it better are the prizes.  Getting one candy gets you the participation prize: the "spooky speaker." One hundred candies gets you a playable bobbing for apples game. 250 candies gets you a spellbook, which can either be held or household decor. Four hundred candies gets you the top prize, a "Grim & Gloom Boopie," which you can "add" the animesh version to follow you, or use the other as decoration. For the first time, people get prizes for having a candy bucket at their Linden Home. If your bucket has had a hundred people reach into it, you can get a magical sweeping broom. All prizes must be collected from next to where you got the candy bucket and HUD. 

 

While you could just run or fly about Bellisseria to find new candy buckets, there's a way to find them faster.  A list was made on Google docs where one can find them. To get on the list, you need to fill out a few spaces on this form. 

 Linden Lab would make a video for this year's Trick or Treat. 

 

When the Trick or Treat Event first went live on Thursday October 1, there was quite a bit of chatter about it on Bellisseria chat. People were showing one another the links to the list, as well as SURLs of their Linden Homes they had just set up their candy buckets. Some of whom had put a few decorations up. 

 

Once again, the location for the candy bucket, HUD, and prizes is at:  

 

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Millbank/217/41/23 

 

The location of the list of Linden Homes with buckets is at : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1idADi1lvhuXOYiTY0dAU2J25Hd660aqCnE2hRsdOXNA/edit?gid=696322386#gid=696322386

 

Trick or treat,

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

The SL23B Swaginator Hunt

 

 

Besides seeing the exhibits at the Second Life Birthday, there's the Golden Ticket Giveaway, and the Shining Stars Hunt. But there's one more, an SL Birthday classic: The Swaginator Hunt. 

 

Join the fun and follow the hints to each SL23B Swaginator kiosk to collect a series of awesome SL23B themed gifts. The SL23B Swaginator kiosks are hidden throughout the Second Life Birthday Event, so grab a bottle of water and let's start hunting! 

 

To start, head to the Red Carpet Welcome in SLB Incredible and head to the Swaginator HUD giver at (151/106/21). Clicking on it, you'll get the HUD. Go to your inventory and click and "add" it to your avatar. It should appear on your viewer on the upper right. 

 

Seconds after putting it on, you should get your first clue. Clicking on Teleport, you'll end up somewhere in the vicinity of where the clue is, but you'll still need to search around for it.

 It may take some looking around for a while. But eventually, you'll find it.

 

 And the first prize is, something fun for watching a movie or sports event. So what are the next four? That's something you'll have to find out for yourself.

 

Happy Hunting,

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Shining Stars Hunt

 

 Besides seeing the exhibits, and the "Golden Ticket Giveaway," there are other things to do at the Second Life Birthday sims. One is the "Shinning Stars Hunt."

 

To do the hunt, you're going to need the HUD. You get it at SLB Incredible (149/231/21) (not far from the Red Carpet Welcome). There are two givers, one for the HUD and one for the prizes. Click on the one on the left to get the HUD, and then "add" it to your avie. It should appear on your viewer on the upper left. Once it does, you're ready to start looking for the shining stars. 

 

The stars appear randomly at various stretches of pathways, both the red carpet and the sidewalk. You either click on them, or walk over them. Doing either means the star vanishes with a sparkle, and there's a brief noise of triumph as the number on your HUD goes up by one. 

After about twenty stars, you can get your first prize. Return to the two givers, and this time click on the one on the right. If you've collected enough stars, you get a small prize. There are at least two more to get as you get more stars. Word has it there's a special prize available once you've collected a hundred.

 

So what is it? Not telling you yet. Get it yourself or wait until after The Birthday is over for me to show you.  

Once again, the Shinning Star Hunt givers are at : https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLB%20Incredible/149/231/21

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Bellisseria Gaming Club

 

Bellisseria offers much to it's residents. But what about a place to play games? In the Zwischen sim, I came across one, the Bellisseria Gaming Club. It's actually a Linden Home repurposed into a social center with lots of games from traditional ones like chess to SL favorites like Greedy and "Cheesy." So how many does it have? 
 
Read more in Places.
 

Flickr Users Cannot Use Free Accounts to Promote Second Life Business

According to an article in New World Notes, those whom use screenshots stored on Flickr to promote their Second Life business will have to upgrade their accounts to "Pro" if they haven't already. When Hayden Pierce asked if using pictures from the virtual world applied to it's rules concerning commercial activity and free accounts, he got the following answer.

For free accounts, linking to a store in Second Life is considered commercial activity. Linking to a blog that links to a store is also considered commercial activity.

If you were to link to a separate place in the blog, it would need to be clear it has nothing to do with purchasing poses, accessories, clothes, etc.

Why is Flickr forcing free users whom use their service to help advertise their wares to get Pro accounts? It seems they've been having some financial difficulties. In December, they were pleading for more users to upgrade their accounts. "We cannot continue to operate it at a loss as we’ve been doing." So it appears the move is to get more cash from it's Second Life users.

The responses to Hamlet Au's article were mostly accepting or supportive of Flickr's move. One commented, "it is only a clarification to all the folks who ignored Flickr's rules on commercial activity. It has been forbidden a while by now and many SL users ignored it. Can't say I am surprised they decided to take action." Another thought clever Second Life business owners might write it off on their taxes as an "advertising expense."

So it seems for Second Life business owners who use Flickr, it's go Pro or go home.

Source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Sansar Video: "HoverDerby: World Premiere"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

By Draxtor Despres  on April 1, "Big premiere of HoverDerby [the fastest game in Sansar ] = create, play + win = hang with us @ https://atlas.sansar.com/experiences/..." This video shows some of the progress Sansar has had in the past several months. People are able to hold things, have a variety of avatar appearances, and play competitive games.

Note, not all of the video was viewed before posting, so there's a small chance of some profanity.

SL Video: "There's Nothing To Do In Second Life"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From Luca, who also did a "Just how big is Second Life" video, in Nov 2015, "Spoiler: The video's title is a lie.

"There's nothing to do in SL? It's dead and is like a ghost town? Suuuuree. What were shown in the video is not even close to a fraction of the amount of things that you can do in Second Life. Whoever goes into SL, spends some time in abandoned sims, then write about how SL is dead, is like going out, spends some time in abandoned or empty places, then write about how the Earth's dead. Do anything you want, be anything you want, create whatever you want, and join the fun :) No, like, seriously, create whatever you want, use the built-in object creation tools, import your 3D objects that you made on some 3rd party software, script it, whatever, you can do whatever, seriously. Use them, share them, sell them."

Halloween Candy Hunt in the Pony Sims

Pony fans have a chance for some Halloween fun with an Equestrian bent.  DC the Cyberpony (death.berger) described it as "a huge multisim candy hunt. You run around the sims and click on candy, then you can use the points to get prizes." The sims involved are, "Derpyland, Trotsdale, Ponytown and Ponyvale." The event is not just for the residents of the community, but to all, "everyone is welcome."

 According to the rules, while candy can be in RP areas, it will never be on someone's private property. Each sim has a total of 420 points worth of candy on it. It ranges from 5 point lolypops, peppermint sticks are worth 10 points, hard candy is 15 points, candy corn is 20 points, and pumpkin candy is a whopping 50 points. Some sims are described as having "exclusive prizes."

Anyone with questions can contact Dash (Shurikenangel Resident).

Note, visitors heading to the pony sims may need to go to a hub area first, where one will need to pick up a HUD to be able to use a teleporter to the sims.

Ask DrFran: Lonely; Not Alone

In her column today, DrFran get's a letter from a reader with a problem. He and his girl were busy doing things together on the Grid. Now with her having gotten a job inworld, he's feeling a bit alone and unsure what to do when she's not around. What to do? DrFran has a few answers.

Read DrFran's column in People.