The Evolution of Olexandrovich, pt 1

It became clear to me early on that I needed a homebase of some sort. The original game plan was to have both a home, a party place, and a sandbox platform all on one property at different levels.

A friend from Cybertown, who worked there for me on various neighborhood projects when his neighborhood had been raized (as mentioned in my first blog), had since settled in Second Life. At the time I came in, he owned two islands, one a rental with two malls, and one for role play. In those years he mastered LSL and with his friends developed a working Stargate system among other things.

Evacuating for a sim reboot. We emerged in the mall on Eternal Calm

The 1024 plot was a big deal at first. I got a chance to experiment with building techniques for homes, then. Creating 3D objects was clearly a whole new ballgame now, and I certainly had some catching up to do...

Test Toontown house and a sculpted megaprim of Jupiter Station.

Unlike VRML communities, where limitations are set on the filesize of objects, Second Life cleverly places them on the nodes, or prims as they call their equivalent. I realized pretty quickly that if I were to show off my art and builds, they would have to be in separate places.

After much deliberation, I felt it was time to go premium. Once I would find a small plot of land, there would be no maintenance fees to worry about. Also, the weekly stipend would contribute to rental costs.

First, I had to learn about what Mainland was. Till then I had only been on it for a visit to Flo's place. With Flo's help, I learned there were actually continents. I could not discern them on the map at first, but if one zooms out halfway, they form clusters of money icons in shapes which resemble those on the large maps at NCI beach. I searched for land. I flew. Most of what I saw resembled a sleazy dump. To this day most of Mainland makes me think of New Jersey.

One evening a search resulted in impossibly reasonable prices for flat land. I teleported to a field which the map suggested was in Gaeta. A large expanse of flat land divided up into properties offered by Sarah Nerd. Needless to say I was suspicious. Till then all I'd seen were cliffs and irregular shapes near ad farms or spouting particles, spinning signs... On the next day, Flo - who has been very patient with my newb questions - explained who Sarah Nerd was and that the offers were certainly on the level. Except the field was now rebought by what Flo called "Wannabe Land Barons." Indeed I spotted one a couple of weeks later hovering over a Sarah Nerd property, dressed so overkill in sparkling bling that he was the farthest thing from classy. She sure called it!

After some more flying, I found a chunk of a sim with plots of flat land. It wasn't as reasonable as Sarah's offerings, but Sarah had no tier sized land available since that night, and seemed to be focusing on larger chunks of a new and as yet unnamed continent to the northwest. Not far from the patch was a carnival. In my simming days, one of the EMH's I portrayed had a fascination with carousels, so this sort of bridged a gap to something lost with time. I made the move to upgrade and stake my claim in Olexandrovich.