Among the things to do at the Fantasy Faire to do is The Fairelands Quest. Part story, part game, one gets prizes for completing parts as one progresses, and gets a large amount at the end. The theme is year is "The Pilgrim's Forest."
The Bard Queen has good news. Possibly great news. A cache of soul-seeds has been found.
The ancient seeds could be the key to
creating a powerful force against the Unweaver. But who can know if
they’ve held their magic after so many years? That can only be
discovered if Fairelanders – as many as possible – are willing to take
on a pilgrimage to bless the seed, prepare it for planting, and solve
the riddle of the ritual that will awaken a hallowed forest.
And so the Bard Queen asks, “Will you take a seed and try?”
To play the quest you need the HUD. You get it at one of the various HUD vendors across the Fairelands sims. The ones at Fairelands Junction is at (148/161/19). If the sim is busy, try one of the others such as Moonfleet Bay (133/154/76). The vendor with the Basic Hud needs 250 Linden dollars. If you want the Deluxe HUD, which also has an outfit you can do the quest in, that takes 350 Lindens.
Once you have the HUD giver, you find it in your inventory, click on it and select "add." It, in the form of the Faire symbol, will appear in your hand. Click on it, and a folder will appear with the contents in your inventory.
The Deluxe HUD package has Fantasy-themed outfits for men and women, and human/furry and tinies,
After "click and add" on the HUD and "Hero," your companion in this quest, you visit the Bard Queen in Fairelands Junction to start it. If you have trouble finding her, head to 209 108 95
You then head to Willowton Cuthbert to see the first shrine. Once you do, you get a message from Hero, asking for you to meet up with her.
You then head to Kalliaaya to meet up with Hero.
You then visit the shrines across the Fairelands. After that comes the next step.
The Fantasy Faire is known for many things. Among of which is the Fairelands Quest. This year, the theme is "The Seven Layers of Joy." You'll find vendors for the Quest HUDs at the TP entrance of Fairelands Junction, and most of the other sims of the Fairelands. There's a basic HUD for the quest alone, and a Deluxe HUD for both the quest and an outfit. They cost 250 L and 350 L respectively.
Once you make the donation, you click on your inventory and add the item, which appears on your hand as a double-F. Click on that, and the contents will appear in your inventory. This year, there are separate outfits not just for men and women, but human/furry avatars and smaller ones for tinies. The human one comes in Anatomy, Belleza Jake, CZ Slim, Legacy, Maitreya, Signature Davis, and Signature Gianni.
Putting on the outfit is optional (it took a while to figure out where the pants were). Once you put the HUD on, you get some backstory to the Quest. It's been seven years since the Bard Queen fell ill to a fever, one that was treated by the Quest that year. But the doctors weren't sure it was an outright cure, and told her she had to wait seven years to make sure it held. It has, and she should be happy. She is overall, but something is worrying her. Your first part of the Quest is to find her somewhere in Fairelands Junction and talk to her.
Your next step is to find Theo, your snow leopard companion for the quest. Unlike companions from previous years, he doesn't sit or over above your shoulder, but walks beside you. He directs you to your next spot, where you find his friends, the companions of the seven previous quests. They explain what they plan to do, and they need a little help. So it's combing sixteen sims for pieces of what you need, at least for the first part of the quest.
The release date for the second part of the quest has not yet been announced, at least as of the writing of this article.
If you rent a place in Second Life through someone rather than getting it directly from Linden Lab, then chances are you know of Caspertech. Their rentboxes are a fairly common sight in numerous places here, including at the Sunweaver Estates where the Newser office makes it's home. Since 2018 with the closing of Hippo Technologies, they've clearly been the top seller of rental vendors. Things seem to have run smoothly with them. So it was a big surprise yesterday when Linden Lab announced they were acquiring them.
CasperTech has provided various business related services within Second
Life for 13 years. Over that time, CaperTech has proudly provided
continuous service for tens of thousands of Second Life businesses, and
it has remained steadfast in its commitment to the merchants who have
depended on those services.
This acquisition will ensure that all of the existing CasperTech
services in Second Life will continue to operate without interruption
into the foreseeable future, but it also opens up brand new
opportunities to vastly improve the experience for our users as our next
step in the CasperTech and Second Life journey.
You can expect to see the same great services that you know and love
continue on, with all of the same functionality you enjoy today, but
with closer integration into the Second Life ecosystem – and as such, an
even more reliable and convenient experience.
The news sparked more than a few questions and some fears among some residents, both those on the forum thread to discuss the matter, as well as conversations with people I had that day. A few were expecting Linden Lab to gouge them to the point they'd have to give up some of their land.
Shortly afterwards, there was a special episode of Lab Gab to help explain things. In short, Caspervend is not in trouble, but the owner had other reasons to sell.
Caspertech is owned by Casper Warden, and he and Patch Linden were interviewed by Strawberry Linden. Casper stated he came to Second Life in 2006, was asked to by people in his real-life job to take a look at it. Worked on promotional material for the company at first. But was soon making his own items. Caspertech as a Second Life company has been around for 13 years. Casper originally created the vendor system in 2009 for his own personal use as he didn't like some of the ways what was on the market worked, "they were script-heavy, and I didn't like the way that the vendors scrolled through the products." But he soon realized people were more interested in his vendors than what he was selling, "In hindsight, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised by that." So he soon launched version one to the public. While he didn't do an ad campaign for it, word spread by word of mouth and started becoming popular, "and we just continued to expand to meet customer needs." Casper does make other items, such as a security orb and a product update system, though his vendors continue to be his "bread and butter."
Patch called himself "a bit of a fan" about Casper's products, and had been using them not just for himself, but Linden Lab work, calling it "an awesome system." He would say the talks about Linden Lab getting Caspertech started, "a little while back now," with he and Casper talking on various subjects, and eventually came to the idea of the Lab taking the system and intigrating it with Second Life. This way, Patch stated, this would mean the long-term stability of the vendor system while under the Lab there would be more resources available to improve on it. So Patch asked him about the idea, "and well, here we are." Patch went on to say Caspertech's technology, "will bring a lot of capabilities ... in the future."
Strawberry asked what residents can expect. Casper answered that customer services will continue, "It's really critical to us that our customers don't get disrupted." He went on to say that he was still basically in charge of Caspertech's day to day operations, saying the big difference was that they now had, "the support and resources of Linden Lab behind us," reminding that other companies offering rental vendors had closed down over the years, "now our customers can be assured that their Caspertech services aren't just going to suddenly disappear." Of the future, he stated that he saw "plenty of exciting opportunities" to improve the vendor system, saying residents can expect "significant" improvements. Patch stated that in the deal, the Lab "would not interrupt or change what you know and love about the Casper products today. They will continue for the foreseeable future just as they are now. ... the goal is to ... give Second Life residents the tools they need to be successful in what they do."
Casper described himself as mainly a software engineer, and stated that as his business expended, "I found increasingly less and less time on my hands to really spend on the code," and that "many requested features have kind of sat on the back burner. ... this move give me an opportunity to really get back to what I love and what I'm good at," developing his rental vendors and other products of his. He would go on to say he'll still be online, and around in group chat, "monitoring and helping to keep everything running," and thanked his support staff, "who have already kept the show running all these years."
Patch stated they would soon start working with Casper to "transition the service" to the Lab, saying the goal was to make it smooth to the point it wouldn't be noticed by anyone. And after that, Casper would presumable have more time to work on the system's new features.
In the forums, someone would ask Casper if he was in some kind of financial trouble, and he would answer, "No! We've been profitable since the day we launched. But the amount that one guy (me) can handle is limited, and as CT grew I found myself with a massive challenge and not enough time to improve the service. Now I can! *yay*" There were numerous other comments. Some were cautious, some were optimistic, some were a little of both, feeling the Lab wasn't out to gouge them but weren't so sure about the promised improvements. There were a few comparisons to Linden Lab's acquisition of Xstreet, which would eventually become Second Life's Marketplace. One would say this was no surprise as she felt Caspervend had gotten "too big to fail" for Second Life.
While a major development, for now it appears little will change as far as daily life in Second Life goes. Hopefully Casper will soon come up with the improvements he says he was requested to make, but hadn't the time to develop them. For now, we can only wait and see.
The Gacha Guild is once again taking place in Second Life. This twice a year event offers numerous gacha items for sale. This event's theme is "Sailpunk: Steampunk and Sky Pirates." The setting was on a sky platform with a huge steel dragon curled around it. There were also some islands in the sky one could explore by flying over or walking over via a gangplank.
To those not familiar with what a gacha is, several items are up for sale in a vendor. When someone makes a purchase, they get one of the items at random. Some of the items may be uncommon or rare. The items can be given to others, though some such as avatars can only be before they're unpacked, and there are groups in which people offer to trade the items, including the Gacha Guild's own.
The side area is fairly detailed, and offers some places to explore and see. One area is off-limits though, at least for now. Presumably it will open on Saturday March 13 when the Halftime Hunt begins.
The event takes place on an Adult-rated sim, so child avatars are asked not to come. Despite the sim rating, no frisky behavior is permitted.
In real life, many of us check ATM machines for "skimmers" before using them. To those of you who don't know, these are false fronts attached over an ATM's card slot by hackers, which scan the cards as they're going in and read account and PIN numbers. With this in mind, it was probably inevitable someone would find a way to scam Second Life shoppers. Yesterday, this was posted in one group I'm in, and saw something similar in the Second Life Friends Facebook group.
I have read in some groups that scammers are now going to events and stores. They place large invisible prims over the vendors, so when you pay the vendor for an item you want to purchase, you are actually paying money to the scammer and you will not receive the item you payed for. ALWAYS check and double check that you are paying the correct person.
One trick would be to 'Highlight Transparent' to see if there is anything transparent over the vendor. If you use Firestorm, go to the 'Advanced' menu ---> Highlighting and Visibility ---> Highlight Transparent (or 'Ctrl + Alt + T' on your keyboard). If you see a red semi-transparent prim hanging over the vendor you might want to cam in behind it to the actual vendor or not buy it until the prim has been removed.
You may also want to alert the real vendor.
So if anything seems amiss with the vendors while shopping, check them over.
Sunnies: I have added two new vendors to the Sunweaver Mall, on Space. One is filled with some really nice military vehicles and aircraft. The second one is filled with enough firearms to make any NRA member smile and blush with glee. Be sure to check them out. The stuff is from Blue Works Studio and bunny gets a cut if you buy from the vendors. *hint * hint
Today at the Happy Vixen, there will be a couple things different at the club. One is the addition of Brandi Streusel's latest line of clothes up for sale, the proceeds going to help out RECoyote. The other is the special tipjar, the money given to that also going to REC. Nydia Tungsten told the Newser that she plans to give out some of the clothes to donors. The event starts at 4PM, and ends at 8PM, with two DJs, Geerkil and Tantari.
A "Tail Sale" is also being planned to help out REC. So far, several people have stepped up. Today is the last day people can step up to take part in it. People can made bids on the volunteers from February 1 to 9, with the winners tallied near the end of the day. Those interested in volunteering IM Nydia Tungsten.
