3 Sims That Will Make You Want To Return to Second Life!
by Alphaville Herald on 15/04/11 at 3:28 am
by Cayce Urriah, Mandalorian Reporter
Hoi Herald readers! It's been some time, but with the total concurancy of SL dropping, it's time for your favorite helmeted journalist to step in and show off some of the best sims in Second Life again.
Even as griefers pummel the grid, even as Redzone revivalists plot to gain your personal information, and yes, even as sims disappear from the grid... love can bloom in the shape of some amazing builds. Second Life doesn't have to be this dinosaur platform that never made it beyond the meteoric impact of bad PR. It can still be home.
Forgotten City
A realm far from our own, where men once prospered and lived in glory, where great steam powered automatons served their every need. The people, however, have long since gone, to places unknown. But their creations still care for their long empty halls, hearths, and havens.
I was introduced to this sim by a friend looking for an unaffiliated place to roleplay. From what I've gathered, it's mostly a residential sim. Those who rent and live in the beautiful structures of Forgotten City are expected to keep to the Steampunk theme, but it's not meant to be a roleplay sim. I've heard that the sim builder, Jenne Dibou, uses the sim as an example of her skills to show to clients who hire her to build their sims. I would greatly recommend her work.
If you're looking for a place to live, or are feeling like a tourist, Forgotten City has much to give. There are loads of things to see, and experience. The creator also has a skybox shop where some of the sim's accessories (standing lamps, fountains, etc) are for sale, including a working, scripted, poker table.
The Realm of Mystara
Mystara is an amazing roleplaying sim. Or rather, pair of sims, as it just added it's second sim in time for this article. And while roleplay in Second Life (or in general) tends to have a stigma attatched to it, Mystara overcomes much of that. With a decent, and definately caring, administration team, and rules that define what can be played, you will not see anything out of place here. And while some may cry foul because furred races are generally application only (with a strict avatar realism demanded), it does keep out a lot of the problems other sims have. Mystara has a definate canon, where werewolves are not just friendly furred people you'll find at a bar drinking with everyone else - they're terrifying beasts that come out of the hills on full moons to terrorize, murder, and leave chewed corpses.
Mystara's roleplayers are a varried lot, with dozens of pre-accepted races, and an application system for those who want to deviate, the sim is quite successful at creating a world of it's own, despite not relying on pre-existing medieval roleplay worlds. There are racial factions, such as the Elves, the Humans, the Greenskins, and even the Merfolk, who all vie for power in political arenas, or directly by attacking the others' lands. The roleplay transcends simple 'good versus bad' or 'this side hates that side'.
Anyone can come and visist Mystara. You're free to wander the sim without roleplaying as long as you wear an observer tag and don't interrupt roleplay. The sim is, as you can see, very beautiful, as are many of the avatars within it. Mystara has an expectation of quality very few sims uphold today. Good on you, Realm of Mystara, good on you.
Nar Shaddaa, Red Sector
In the cold depths of space, a single moon can draw only a gasp of both fear and excitement: Nar Shaddaa. Moon over the Hutt homeworld, it's a planet sized den of sin, vice, corruption, and death. Nar Shaddaa is to the Star Wars galaxy what Las Vegas is to America, but a hundred times such. The Hutts treat it like their own pocketbook, while the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.
The Red Sector is a Star Wars roleplay sim, a newer one that hasn't fully taken off yet from what I've seen. It's a great build, with a lot of room for new groups to step in and take part in it's ongoing story.
As always, if you're looking to join Star Wars Roleplay, your first step should be to check out http://www.SWRP.net, or search in places for SWRP.
It's been a pleasure writing for the Herald again, thank you for reading.
MattyK
Apr 15th, 2011
Well, finally an article truly worth reading, and just goes to show, that even in the deepest, darkest corners of the MMO Community, true quality and beauty can be found in it’s own right.
Georgianna Blackburn
Apr 15th, 2011
I stumbled across the Forgotten City while they were still under construction and feel in love with the look and feel. I visit frequently.
Scylla Rhiadra
Apr 15th, 2011
Thanks for this, Cayce. Nicely written, informative, and interesting. I’ll be visiting at least two of these places.
And welcome back to the Herald. Your presence can only help.
Nelson Jenkins
Apr 15th, 2011
What the author doesn’t tell you is that the sims are mostly empty and this is mainly an advertisement to get more people to go there.
Ajax Manatiso
Apr 15th, 2011
These are 3 roleplay sims and since I, like most residents, dont roleplay I won’t be going to any of them. Why not cover sims that aren’t for a very, very narrow fraction of SL users?
Reader
Apr 15th, 2011
Empty
Empty
&
Empty
Decent builds but still empty. Period
Persephone Bolero
Apr 15th, 2011
This is one of the main problems with SL. There are a lot of great places to go, but you have to enjoy being alone to visit most of them. Too much land, too few people.
This is why I say, bring back the noobs. Until the population of SL increases, there’s very little point in building anything new. Efforts toward anything else are pointless and futile.
Hamlet Au
Apr 15th, 2011
I was right about to blog this when I suddenly realized there were no SLurls in the post. Can you add these?
Nelson Jenkins
Apr 15th, 2011
Clarification on the empty thing:
Forgotten City: 2 avatars.
The Realm of Mystara: 0 in first sim, 16 in second
Nar Shaddaa, Red Sector: 3 avatars
For comparison, my city sims have 7 and 4 avatars in each sim respectively. Beat 2, I suppose. Then again, Realm of Mystara doesn’t allow my type, so whatever. (Not to mention it’s the kind of place I just have no interest in.)
Senban Babii
Apr 15th, 2011
@Nelson
“Then again, Realm of Mystara doesn’t allow my type, so whatever.”
See that’s what I don’t understand. Sims are desperately in need of traffic yet they turn round and say that whole sections of the SL population aren’t welcome.
Times are hard people. Relax your dumb rules because there’s not enough traffic to keep the revenues flowing otherwise.
Otherwise Omelet will be writing a piece about how yet another sim has closed down – yours.
Persephone Bolero
Apr 15th, 2011
@Senban “Sims are desperately in need of traffic yet they turn round and say that whole sections of the SL population aren’t welcome.”
Yes, because there’s nothing like a giant walking bunny with a light saber showing up in the middle of your medieval roleplay, saying, “Howdy pardner.” How much should one compromise realism to be inclusive?
Reader
Apr 15th, 2011
“Clarification on the empty thing:
Forgotten City: 2 avatars.
The Realm of Mystara: 0 in first sim, 16 in second
Nar Shaddaa, Red Sector: 3 avatars”
Yes, but how many of those detections were simply ppl from here going there, checking shuff out?
Numbers like that might as well be zero’s.
Just sayin…
Senban Babii
Apr 15th, 2011
@Persephone
“Yes, because there’s nothing like a giant walking bunny with a light saber showing up in the middle of your medieval roleplay, saying, “Howdy pardner.” How much should one compromise realism to be inclusive?”
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m perfectly aware that say a certain type of RP environment might not logically include say furries. But this is SL we’re talking about. Why couldn’t you have a furry enrolled at Hogwarts just as an hypothetical example?
No one is making demands on the RP population to open up their roleplay to every mad creation that happens to walk by but if you run an RP sim and you’re getting two visits a day and struggling to pay tier and want to save your sim, a review of any sim rules that are unreasonably precluding people from becoming involved is in order.
But hey, it’s not my sims that are being shut down regularly
Oh noes
Apr 15th, 2011
I used to RP a lot in Ironmoor, I’ll check out Mystara whenever I decide to start playing for a bit. Can’t do the star wars cuz I have no money to put into it, also Ironmoor has a weapon drop system so you don’t have to buy your weapons if you don’t want to which I think is awesome. Does Mystara have this kind of stuff? Like realistic weapon damage and you have to repair it and things like that?
Nelson Jenkins
Apr 15th, 2011
@ Reader
Those numbers are pretty much the same as of this comment.
@ Senban Babii
Sadly, furries seem to be excluded in nearly everything. I have never seen a “furry RP” sim (not including furry-themed sims, which aren’t really roleplay) partly because furries do not have any specific style of roleplay. They fit in perfectly fine in most roleplay environments – their character is only different in terms of appearance, not ability.
In contrast, if you take a look at wizards, vampires, etc. you’ll notice that they have a very specific form of roleplay that warrants having sims exclusively for such nonsense.
I’ll never know why furries are excluded from all of these RP environments when they are quite capable of tweaking their avatars to fit in with the accepted dress code and physical attributes, as do humans. It should not be mandatory to allow furries but it sure makes you look like a moronic twat when you say no.
Oh well, it’s their business, and while furries do take up a disproportionate percentage of Second Life, they have a right to keep their land private.
@ Oh noes
Nobody has that kind of dedication anymore.
Cayce Urriah
Apr 15th, 2011
@Reader
Forgotten City could use more traffic, yes.
Mystara has upwards of 30 people from around 3pm-7pm, and more on weekends.
Persephone Bolero
Apr 16th, 2011
@Nelson “It should not be mandatory to allow furries but it sure makes you look like a moronic twat when you say no.”
And that’s why people don’t like furries.
geo
Apr 16th, 2011
Not New
Not Exciting
Not Unique
Those sims have NO Colors, You guys really want to play around that kind of dark sims?
Thats why Im not interested in them at all.
Oh noes
Apr 16th, 2011
@Nelson a lot of RP sims allow you to be a furry if your avatar doesn’t look retarded. Unfortunately, and no stereotype intended, a lot of furries seem to be hot pink with bows and ribbons tied on their tails with tons of jewelry and tattoos. I’ve been to tons of sims where regular colored furries were allowed, all you had to was make up a backstory as to why your character is like that.
Annie Ibanez
Apr 16th, 2011
I guess I’ll just throw in my .02 since I am the owner and creator of Mystara
A lot of people lately think that our traffic has lowered because we expanded into a second sim, where people have been crowding. We maintain traffic regularly in the 50,000′s and generally have mostly a US time zone crowd. In terms of traffic alone, Mystara has the highest traffic in the Medieval/Fantasy category and has maintained that for over 6 months.
As for anthros, we actually do permit them but they must be “realistic” and go through the custom character application process. We have bastets, bipedal dragons, and other anthro creatures. What we would ideally like to avoid are the hot pink avatars with gigantic eyes, as we feel it doesn’t fit the theme of the sim.
Lastly, I only found out about this blog entry today so I can assure you it’s not a ploy to garner traffic, however we always welcome observers.
Cheers! ~Annie Ibanez
Yep
Apr 16th, 2011
If RP is all about pretend and story writing, why would it matter if someone’s avatar was a furry, vampire, or a simple prim block?
I suppose humping a prim block that is sitting on a pose ball is not all that appealing to most SL roleplayers.
Nelson Jenkins
Apr 16th, 2011
@ Persephone Bolero
Oh, so it’s the same reason people hate blacks, asians, homosexuals, transvestites, jews, atheists, and arabs, right? Because we’re not FORCED to let them in our private property, but we look like racist, moronic douchebags when we put a sign up that says “no niggers allowed”?
Fuck me, I was hoping to get some logical arguments, and I just have to put up with shit I can disprove with a simple analogy.
@ Oh noes
I actually have never been to a sim where “normal” furries were allowed but flamboyant ones were not.
@ Yep
My expertise is not in gorean/sex-based roleplay so I wouldn’t know how the SL-is-an-adult-environment fuckjobs handle furries.
Senban Babii
Apr 16th, 2011
I remember coming across an urban RP sim once a while back and I thought I’d give it a try. They had a great big sign saying “no neko no furries”. Sure I could have simply worn a hat to hide my ears and tucked my tail down some baggy pants (i.e. taken them off) but instead I just walked away. I mean hell, if neko of all things aren’t welcome in a gritty urban sim, the world has gone wrong
But then consider this too. A while back now I was invited to try some Star Wars RP by Overbrain Unplugged. I was seriously impressed by how much effort Overbrain and the others put into finding ways to be inclusive of people who wanted to join in, finding ways to map people’s avatars to races from the Star Wars universe.
I’m more involved in traditional pen and paper roleplay myself and in the groups I play with, if someone turns round and says they want to try playing a race that is non-traditional or non-canon to the game universe, we always let them do it so long as they can create a valid backstory and don’t simply use it to gain some kind of advantage.
Bunjie
Apr 16th, 2011
These articles, discussions and luzy comments tend to always devolve into furry/baby fur hate, perhaps this site should clearly state it’s beliefs, hates and opinion’s about that in the about and or disclaimer page sections.
As the way I see it, if your that obsessive about a minority of people engaging with a fandom, then it should show in the sections that explain what this site is about.
And if it don’t? well it just makes it all look like this site is geared towards trolling furrys/baby furs in a capacity that you don’t have the balls to clearly state that things of this nature might appear on this site in some capacity, no pun intended.
And or that it’s so called intellectual professors have a complex that is reliant on devolving an experience another human seeks to engage in on this planet into hate, when clearly your not even making money off it it, it makes me wonder what your true motives are for this site and I’m sure anyone else would think the same other than blindly trust what’s pumped out on this site.
And don’t get me wrong I like this site and hope it continues but in a way that’s less hate based and more factual and exposing of group’s who toe the line, this is my general opinion on this site after using it for entertainment for quite some time.
Perhaps before it no longer becomes lulzy and people who decide it’s not worth tolerating anymore would pay into a pot to make sure your opinion’s have a legal basis, if you get my drift.
And that’s not hard to think or to foresee when you have the middle east growing in it’s capacity to be a dominant force in the world and online, you’ll find more of these people joining the fandom, bawwwing! about what you post and deciding to do something more about it, these people aren’t tolerant of being ripped on like we’re used to in the west.
Because no matter how much you hate it, it’s a growing fandom and with that comes the issue that certain individuals who join it won’t have the tolerance that I and others have gifted to your comments and articles, which we know is a natural part of being a netizen.
So on that basis shut the fuck up about furrys in general, stay on topic and stop devolving every fucking article into your hate because perhaps that’s why your loosing readers, not just because second life became useless to the majority of the western world, but because you keep pushing the same ideas through the articles and the comment sections that we’re tired of hearing.
And if you some how think furrys don’t have a general style of role playing like wizards(Pathfinder Linden) and douche bag vampires(Insert Name) well WTF? we’re animals how the fuck did that slip past your brain? is it too hard to comprehend that fact? that we base our role play on engaging in animal activity’s, but include words to describe what we’re doing up to and including humping your leg?
Skye Donardson
Apr 16th, 2011
@ Ajax – So what if you don’t roleplay? You can still visit. I go to these places all the time. Like Nelson said, most of them are empty-ish, and if there are some folks there, it’s generally easy to avoid them.
Most sims that are heavy on the roleplay will encourage visitors, they just ask that you wear an “Out of character” tag so that others will know you’re not actively participating. (And most will provide one for you, if you don’t have one.)
Don’t let the fact that they’re RP sims keep you away. Go explore!
Persephone Bolero
Apr 16th, 2011
@Bunjie
Good lord. Furries really need to get over themselves already.
Phillipa Madrigal
Apr 16th, 2011
Yes, most roleplay sims welcome visitors and offer them Visitor tags to wear. As the pictures show, some are worth visiting just for the scenery.
I participate in a roleplay Sim, Barbary Coast (18th century historical romance). It has no fantasy elements of the magic/anime kind, so we don’t allow furries, or indeed elves, dragons and smurfs. Nor can avatars play wearing modern clothes or spkng in txt. Them’s the Rules, as set by general concensus.
My main lives in a gothic steampunk Sim. That means nothing post 19th century – no modern buildings, no electricity (except for mad science purposes). On the other hand, it has vampires, wizards, fairies, even furries.
Both of these Sims have enough enthusiastic players to survive, and the ‘my avatar is a 50 foot giant Mecha and if you don’t let me play you’re all narrow minded twits’ types won’t be welcome in either.
lolol
Apr 16th, 2011
Nothing there worth writing home about.
had enough
Apr 16th, 2011
No furfags allowed? Good who needs them?
Nelson Jenkins
Apr 16th, 2011
@ had enough
;-;
Yep
Apr 16th, 2011
Go getem Tiger
Oh noes
Apr 17th, 2011
@ Bunjie
Reading a book on effective essay writing would help you a lot. tl;dr is my point, but by the last paragraph I can tell your butthurt about furries being hated on. So you wasted your time writing all of that when you could have conveyed it in one paragraph.
Goth
Apr 17th, 2011
These simulators are really nice, and I would not doubt the hard work that content creators have put into creating content, and simulators in Second Life, however.
Skills Hak is still in Second Life, and he as well as Zyngo, and Gothicatz as well as many other content creators from the CCA Content Creators Assoication are violating users privacy, and data mining residents without express consent.
While I support many members of the CCA, I do not appricate their involvement with this person, nor Emerald, or any of the other people who are affilates with Skills Hak in data mining residents.
The plot goes really far, and very long but lets just say that Skills Hak has many friends, and his system needs to go from our grid.
As far as people returning to Second Life, I honestly do not understand why many people would return to this grid until Linden Lab removes such systems, and possibly the residents who are violating users privacy, as they removed Zfire Xue.
There are better grids, and better games coming to newer developed engines anyways, Second Life maybe a 3d world chatroom, or place where you can RP in private, but a big RP Community, or such I really just can’t see when people like this are ruining our grid and community as a whole.
Senban Babii
Apr 17th, 2011
@Nelson
“Sadly, furries seem to be excluded in nearly everything. I have never seen a “furry RP” sim (not including furry-themed sims, which aren’t really roleplay) partly because furries do not have any specific style of roleplay. They fit in perfectly fine in most roleplay environments – their character is only different in terms of appearance, not ability.”
Thinking in terms of traditional pen and paper RPGs, furry-type player character races have been present in many forms in many systems for decades. In D&D for example you can play as bugbears, minotaurs and shifters (basically neko). In Traveller you can play Vargr (wolves) and Aslan (big cats). In Runequest you can play Ducks. There are lots of other examples too and these examples have been part of roleplaying since the very beginning. These game systems date back to the very start of roleplaying too. Of course the sim owner and to a degree the community roleplaying on that sim will set the rules and that’s fine and proper. But limiting player choices goes against a very old tradition of roleplaying, that of imagination and creative storytelling. The vast majority of roleplay sims in SL that I ever visited weren’t actually roleplay at all but were just places to play dress-up. That’s cool too of course.
Senban Babii
Apr 17th, 2011
@Goth
“As far as people returning to Second Life, I honestly do not understand why many people would return to this grid until Linden Lab removes such systems, and possibly the residents who are violating users privacy, as they removed Zfire Xue.”
You can try complaining to LL and you can try to raise grassroots awareness of problems but ultimately there’s only one way to force the Lab to do something about the problem.
Vote with your feet.
Boycott the grid.
Tell people why you are doing so and encourage them to also boycott the grid.
Make sure you tell Linden Lab why you are boycotting the grid.
LL is a business and they will only act when something affects that business. Whining residents who still log in are not a problem. Residents who vote with their feet are.
kanomi
Apr 17th, 2011
Please consider including SLURLs in future articles, thanks! Forgotten City doesn’t even show up in search for me, I had to click on Jenn Dijou’s picks to find it.
Nelson Jenkins
Apr 17th, 2011
@ kanomi
That’s because it’s a sim name.
Ciaran Laval
Apr 17th, 2011
RP requires active participants, as pointed out here in the comments people are put off engaging when there is nobody else around.
Some sims prosper at different times, RP sims should also probably try and create websites for discussion and storylines, although having tried this myself, days just don’t have enough hours.
You really need a good group to maintain your sim, one person trying to do it alone is going to find it tough, especially if you introduce character applications.
Most sims welcome visitors but do like them to be set OOC, so go visit, take a look, take snapshots and just enjoy what’s out there.
Scylla Rhiadra
Apr 18th, 2011
Ciaran posting at the Herald?
Eeeeeeep!
Oh noes
Apr 18th, 2011
Off the subject of no one liking furries gaying up their sims. The only place that was as cool as its photgraphs was Mystara.
Oh noes
Apr 18th, 2011
Also, good job Cayce. You seem to always find good sims.
Dontspill McGinnis
Apr 18th, 2011
@ Goth
Thank you.
I always wondered what “Tenuous” meant.
XD
Peter Pedant
Apr 18th, 2011
Nice sims, deserving more visitors. So many sims, though, are dumb. Personal tips:
1. Don’t set a landing point in a mall. Stick the mall off to one side. Obviously there’s a compelling financial reason to make people land in a shop, but if the sim’s about e.g. RP then it’s invasive to throw product at them right away and they will TP straight out, on principle.
2. RP sims are so heavy on their Rules. If the first thing you get is a bunch of Rules that take more than one minute to read, people will not bother to read them and will TP straight out.
3. All that guff you get thrown at you when you land – landmark, notices, junk, adverts, whatever. Total waste of time and SL resources. Let people find things out for themselves.
4. Kill the bots. Nothing so alarming for a noob or an expert to be surrounded by avatars who aren’t really there.
5. Appeal to basic human instincts. Even if your sim is about 18th-century Art, include a section of Pictures of Gambling, or Fanny Hill maybe.
Make people welcome. Tickle their fancy. Exclude no-one. Basic customer service. Obvious really.
Ciaran Laval
Apr 18th, 2011
Fanny Hill and Scylla in the same thread, this has potential!
Skye Donardson
Apr 19th, 2011
@ Ciaran
*Waves hello to my landlord.*
MachineCode
Apr 19th, 2011
I don’t see why you can’t just swap out the fagsuit for a normal avatar appropriate to the theme. It is very much like furries to pointedly state that they are not guilty of anything you accuse them off, right? Well I say you can’t take one step outside your furry little box.
Prove me wrong.
Obvious Schism
Apr 19th, 2011
@ Yep
“I suppose humping a prim block that is sitting on a pose ball is not all that appealing to most SL roleplayers.”
Actually, I think you’d be suprised…
Ciaran Laval
Apr 19th, 2011
@Skye “Waves at his never any trouble at all tenant”
Oh noes
Apr 20th, 2011
New article pl0x
Dave Bell
Apr 22nd, 2011
I spend most of my time in SL as a furry AV.
I’m not much bothered by RP sims which say “No Furries”. It’s a design choice. It often makes sense. And the human/furry divide can be a big issue for some people.
But it’d be nice if people could be more polite, on both sides.