Who is Linden Lab? oh yeh them guys :(

I've been so busy in New Babbage renovating old builds that i've been a bit oblivious of whats been going on with Linden Lab and the State of Second Life. It's been kind of good actually, being so engrained in my projects that i forgot who LL were for a while.

The latest Linden Lab drama is to do with XstreetSL, which they bought out a while ago. It's a successful web based Virtual product cataloging service that most prolific content creators started to use after Second Lifes built in search system became... well... crap.

It has worked fine for years cataloging items for free then taking a percentage of the sales. Linden Lab now want to change that by charging a monthly fee on each item. I'll admit that i hardly make any money from Xstreet, i do make enough to warrant having items on there though. I also use it as a way to promote my island. LL claim this is to weed out the crap products from the good products, a quality control me thinks, or simply just wanting to make more money from our work. Me being english i choose the cynical answer of LL wanting more money.

Many have rushed to remove their items from Xstreet and moving to free alternatives such as Slapt

What i will end up doing is probably having one item on Xstreet advertising everything in my INWORLD shop, Use Xstreet as an advert rather than sell items. I cant afford to list all my items in Xstreet, im too busy paying for my homestead tier.

I cant help but think SL is becoming a bit of a Class battleground, those who can afford the expensive hobby that is SL and those who cant.

Back in New Babbage

If any of you have been wondering where i've been the last week or so, well other than Burning Life 09, i have returned to the Steampunk Town of New Babbage. It's around this time that i hang up my SLC group clothes and don my steampunk hat to bring joy to the residents of New Babbage.

Last Sunday we had the Annual Burning Barrel Race. There was a bit of server Lag this year, but that did not stop the residents having fun as they tried to navigate their barrels through the town.



On Thursday i held a large Fireworks display which was visible from outside the Loki Absinthe cafe. I had just finished refurbishing the cafe after it had lain derelict for most of 2009.




Im planning on being in New Babbage right up until christmas, rebuilding old buildings, and building new ones as well as starting some Steampunk roleplays. This means i will not be at Goony Island much.

My fear is that because i wont be running events on Goony island that there will be no incentive to donate to its costly tier.

Burning Life 09 - The End

So Burning Life events Draws to a close for another year. It's been a mad week, but seems like months. The amount of fun we've packed into that week has exhausted me. We opened with a great show by M'n'K, Had a crazy bumble Bear race and lagged out 4 or 5 SIMs with our badly scripted Bikes.I lost an Airship somewhere (still out there not been returned!), got sandwiched by naked people, played in a ball pit and nearly ran over 2 people in my mini bus. We partied hard, burned a wicker Kid, watched a Temple burn to the ground and listened to some amazing live bands...... If only SL was always this packed full of fun.

The House of Pip's has had an amazing amount of comments. People really seemed to enjoy visiting it and felt compelled to tell me how much they were touched by the story.

I should thank you, Tis utterly charming and poigniant

Hi! I love your Burning Life build. It's so fun! Thanks for letting me be a tiny part of it.

This one stole my heart this year. When you start listening to the parcel music station, the full story of the build and it's characters unravels and come alive. Curl up in a donut, pop some popcorn and stay a while.

That is an amazing house!! ^_^

This was a very cute project and certainly one of my favorites in Burning Life 2009. Thanks for making me smile.

oh it's one of my fav of this years burning life 09,really fun and interactive place - woot!

Super cool, Lokiboy! Wonderful ... sweet, and fun, and so well executed. Just love it. ;=)

So i need not have worried about wether people were going to understand it or not. But as with every Burning life, it must come to an end and this year the ending was not just about burning the house down, but telling the end of a story. I wanted those who had come and become fond of the house and its characters to go away with a complete story to remember. From what i can tell people were moved by the final event and thankful to have been there to witness it. But for those who could not make it, you can watch the ending unfold in this final video..... Hope everyone had a great time at Burning Life ;-)

Burning Life 09 - Burning of the Man & Burning the Kid?

Saturday saw the official Burning of the Man. It was a really amazing atmosphere with drums and so many avatars. Everyone was in great spirit as the sun set. I had not seen so many avatars in one place since the protests about open Spaces.



I got myself a really nice spot and watched as the circle of flames surrounded us then... well.... just watch the video and you'll see. All the sound is how it sounded there, i did not replace the soundtrack!



Later that day at the house of Pips I DJ'd for an hour then we went outside and set fire to a smaller wicker man fondly called THE KID. So the whole day was full of great SL moments.

Burning Life 09 - The Great SLC Bumble Bear Race!

Last Year we did a pogo Stick race so i wondered what would be a good idea to race this time. With the help of my Friend Will, i came up with BUMBLE BEARS. They were most amusing to watch bumble around the track. This year Miss Breezy Carver from new babbage accepted the honer of starting the race.



Much fun was had by all that took part. So much so that they had an extra race just for fun XD! Have no idea what i'm going to do for next years race!

Burning Life 09 - The Goonies Bike Ride

So on tuesday the goonies gathered at the house of Pips to set forth on a small adventure across burning life. The Idea was to head first to Marri's Inner Child Camp then off to the Centre Camp. Half way to Inner Child Camp we got told by some rangers that our bikes were laggy, So from Inner Child we decided to go by Airship. Once at the Centre Camp we danced around and listened to some live music. Was a Spiffing adventure for all :)

Burning Life 09 OPEN!!!!!

Well yesterday the greatest event in SL opened to the public. I watched as people piled into the Burning Life Grid. The Milk and Kookies show was kind enough to do their show from my and Marris builds which packed both sims to full.

Events will be going on all week at the House of Pips thanx to some brilliant volenteer DJ's. Check out the Event list below. This years SLC race will be on Bumble Bears, and dont forget to come to the exciting conclusion to the Waiting for Pippin story next sunday for the end of Burning Life 09. Until then their is plenty to explore and the Goonies will be having another bike ride on tuesday.

here is the event list



And here is the Waiting For Pippin video to show your friends.



Visit the House of Pis NOW http://slurl.com/secondlife/Burning%20Life-Pyramid/10/186/26

Building at Burning Life

Getting stuck into building at Burning Life. The biggest challenge is building a 700 prim build in 300 prims. Using the sculptie-O-Matic by Contagious Republic (try the tool here) The tool allows me to creat complex group of prims and then convert them to ONE sculpty prim. The tool is limited in which distorted prims it can convert, but if used properly it can make detailing objects amazing. For my House on an Elephant build i wanted to create detailed 3D exterior. Sculptie-o-matic allowed me to do a detailed 17th century wall with just two prims instead of 30. A staircase that was 40 prims, now only 2 prims. So hopefully i will be able to pull off a 300 prim build that looks like a 700 prim build :)

Chapter 4 - Invasion of the Search Droids!

After The Goonies Hid the Narcadon, Glorb sends a message to the Grand Master. Annoyed the Grand master sends out Small Search Droids to try and relocate the Narcadon. These Droids follow people around but are easy to destroy. If you see one on Goony island, my advise is to SHOOT IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!!



So far the Grand Master does not yet realise that it was US GOONIES that moved the Narcadon Skull. Good job he dont have an internet connection!

GOT A PLOT!!

The Goonies tried real hard and eventually a plot was grabbed!!. Now i can set to work on building the house of Pip, so don't expect to see me for a while :-p Thanks to all those early morning Euro Goonies and Late night US goonies for the support! :)



I am still in the process of sketching things out and am hoping that my idea is not too ambitious. The Plot i got is only 350 prims, so im gonna have to use all of my prim saving skills to create the House of Pip.

The Burning Life Concept

Well here i show one of the concept artwork for m Burning Life Build, which is under threat of not happening. It would appear i totally missed the theme camp submissions and on top of that Grabbing land is proving difficult.

The Build is Called 'Waiting for Pippin' and involves a house on the back of an Elephant that is roaming the desert landscape in search of Pippin. Inside lives all manner of creatures waiting for the eventual return of Pippin, the Boy who imagined them up.



My first attempt to grab land ended before anything rezzed. As you can imagine 100 people rezzing to click boxes caused massive lag, slow down in rezzing and the inability to move. There is Land Grabbing every night until sunday, although im away on friday and saturday leaving me with just 2 more attempts to get land with a suitable amount of prims to do the project.

Wish me luck dudes!