In The Hole

 

 

 Remember the video of the Alcatraz sim we showed a few days ago? Well, I decided to give the location a visit to see if it was still around. While the sim was still there, it was under a new owner. And TPing over sent me to a small corner, with ban lines keeping me from going elsewhere, plummeting down into a small hole. With flight disabled, the only way out was to tp away. So this exploring had come to a dead end. 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Picture of The Day: Welcome Lines

 

From "IQ" on Discord.  One thing practically every Second Life resident is familiar with are those annoying yellow ban lines. While some residents need them to deal with stalkers, yours truly can't help but wonder how many who use them truly need them. With this in mind, this picture from IQ was a welcome contrast: parcel lines welcoming people in.

"Check the best property lines ever! I have the coolest neighbor ... She, the creator/owner of those, put them up against a parcel that has ban lines. I love that!"
 

New Linden Homes Continent Opens

The sims with the new Linden Homes are now open. On Monday April 15, Linden Lab announced on the official Second Life blog that the homes were now ready for residents to move in.

Let’s be honest - those Linden Homes from 2010 were long overdue for some updates and improvements. It was clear a fresh coat of paint and some new landscaping were just not going to make the amount of curb appeal we were shooting for. In fact, it was time to return to the drawing board and start a better-built Linden Home experience, from the ground up - literally.
The first of several planned Linden Home updates launches today - with the introduction of New Linden Homes - exclusive to Premium members. Your new home may be in the mountains, along the shore, or in a rolling landscape of low hills and river valleys, but you’ll also be part of a large community experience, with navigable waterways, a network of roads, and community areas to socialize and have fun.    
There are two new themed styles in this release - Traditional and Houseboats - and some are twice as big as previous Linden Home offerings.

While only Premium residents can claim a home, the land is open to all. People appeared on the new land, named Bellisseria by the Lab. Many quickly claimed some of the new homes. But not everyone was there for a new house, or houseboat. Some were just there to explore around. And the new land has much to see from rocky hill areas, to beaches and islands, trees, sandy areas with little grass, roads, including angles roads for people to drive uphill or down, bridges to cross, lighthouses, traffic circles, piers, and more.

Thanks to a string of water sims connecting it to the landmass to the south, known as Jeogeot, as well as the water sims that connect it to the one to the north, Sansara, It's now possible to travel from Glade of Sorrows in the south west end of Jeogeot to the Fillip sim on the north edge of Heterocera without teleporting. So there's been lots of people walking, flying, and boating around.

Someone did tell me they came across one new homeowner putting up a security orb, giving those flying about only a few seconds to leave or be teleported out. Fortunately for those who love to explore, this will soon be a thing of the past. In an announcement in the forums by Constantine Linden  yesterday, ban lines are not allowed here, and while security orbs are permitted for now, it's only for a few days.

... at 6am SLT on Wed April 17th, we are going to uncheck the box on the Linden Homes estate that allows parcel owners access restrictions to be more restrictive than the estate. Meaning: no ban lines. It's our belief that with a sense of community being a main goal of Linden Homes, ban lines send the wrong message. Parcel owners can still ban troublesome individuals by name on their parcel but they will not be able to put their land in virtual lock down by restricting access to group only.
 
... We want to allow Residents to fly, walk, drive, sail and explore freely across Bellisseria without compromising Residents privacy and security on their own parcels. To that end we are allowing the use of security orbs. However, since many orbs can be set in ways that preclude even the most innocent of straying across a parcel boundary or being sent home even though you are 500m in the sky we are forced to come up with a compromise. 

You may use your personal security orbs or devices in Linden Homes for now, but early next week: we are going to provide you with an approved device via the Linden Homes Content Packs. It will work just as aggressively in protecting your homes from unwanted intrusion, but still reasonably allow Residents to explore without fear of being ejected or teleported home without warning. Once those are added to the Linden Homes Content Packs, the use of other scripted security devices will not be allowed and this will be noted in an update to the Linden Homes covenant.

So finally a piece of Mainland free of those cursed ban lines and those security orbs that boot you out with little to no warning. Though with the "Good Neighbor Obelisks" being seen around, hopefully that will be less of a problem there too.

On a final note, between the opening of the new land and the reaction to the fire at Notre Dame, a few stories we planned to write about got put on the back burner. We'll get to those soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

"Good Neighbor Commandments" Obelisks on Mainland

The Mainland gets something of a bad rap among Second Life residents, and not without reason. The land is cheap and there's lots of sims to explore. But there are the ban lines that put your casually going about to a halt. And there are the security orbs that give you just a few seconds before teleporting you back to your home location.

So it got my attention when Lia (Female Winslet) told me about some obelisks she found by the road on the Mainland. Dropping by one at Route 10 at Tangna (65/53/77), ir was marked "Good Neighbor Commandments for Second Life Mainland" on the bottom. On each of the four sides, there were suggestions for better Second Life living, written in the style of the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not set thy security orb to teleport people without at least a one minute warning, lest thou beest a jerk.

Thou shalt not block roads or sea lanes with thy objects, nor shall ye set ban lines, for they are the suck.

Thou shall allow build and run scripts on thy land and use autoreturn to keep it neat and tidy, for it is thy friend.

Thou shall beget privacy walls, screens, and shrubbery around thy land which please the eye of thy neighbor as they do thyself.

The obelisks were made by Abnor Mole. Besides the one at Route 10, I saw a few more at Marybank (55/211/51), Hae An (165/120/50), and Lippert (104/214/179). Lia told me of a few other locations I hadn't checked. So will these black stones get more people to clean up their acts, or rather their land, a bit? Hopefully they will, and we can go about Mainland a little longer before running into another yellow barrier.

Bixyl Shuftan

The First Sims: Stanford

DrFran Babcock's travels across the first sims of Second Life takes her to number four: Stanford. There, she comes across an annoyance she hadn't encountered in the previous three: ban lines. But she also comes across some unique places that exist thanks to the ingenuity of the early builders and features later sims lack.

Read DrFran's article in Places.